What Will We Celebrate? Making it to Disney! A Girls March Break TR! Part 3 added!

[Tinkerbell Teen]

After the most FAILED pre-trip report in the World, I decided to give our March trip my 3rd stab at a trip report. I, of course am one of those lovely procrastinators, so this fits in pretty well with my life.

“Shannon, don’t you have a test Friday?”
“Yeah, Mom, I’ll study tomorrow.”

“Shannon, weren’t you going to clean out your bookshelves?”
“Yeah, Mom, later.”

“Shannon, weren’t you talking about doing a Disney trip report?”
“Yeah, Mom, I’ll start it in just a few minutes!”

Ah, well. I’ll learn someday. I mean, I’m only 15. There’s tons of time, right?

Alrighty then, here’s some background and our cast.

Cast:​

Me: Howdy. My name’s Shannon, as you’ve already read, and I’m a 15-year-old high school student and Disney extraordinaire. I’m BFFs with Fawn the fairy, I love all things American Idol, and Minnie is my favourite mouse. I will be commandeering this trip report, so hold onto your hats, this is the WIIIILDEST RIDE IN THE WIIIIILDERNESS! Except for the small detail that it’s not in the wilderness.

Mom: We’ll call her Mom for the sake of simplicity in this report. She also goes by the DIS codename of plutopuppy, but she mostly lurks. Mom loves watching me experience the World, the castle, and Mickey is her favourite mouse. She also adores Chip and Dale. She is pretty much the coolest mom any teenager could ask for.

Dad: He makes a few appearances, so why not include him here! He’s Dad. He’s not a Disney fan, which saddens Mom and I greatly, but hey, what can ya do. He came on our first trip, and since then he’s decided that one was enough, and instead serves as our drives to and from the airport.

Jazzy: Our dog. He doesn’t really make any appearances, but he’s giving me the big brown puppy eyes, and I think he’s trying to tell me to include him.

Our History:​

Once upon a time, there was a little family living in Ontario, Canada. This family had a mom, a dad, a Jazzy, and a Shannon. This family made their first voyage to the Happiest Place On Earth in 2006, when Shannon (that’s me!) was 12. On the plane ride home, Shannon and her mom decided that they needed to go back, and her mom said she would even pay for it, as the Dad didn’t want to go. Shannon’s mom worked 3 part-time jobs, and sent the 2 crazy Disney girls back to the World in 2007, for a whirlwind 5-day trip. And even then, on the comfy Westjet seats, coming home from a wonderfully satisfying vacation, the adventurous duo knew they’d be back…

This Trip:​

Well, we knew we wanted to go back, but we knew it just wasn’t in the cards for 2008, as a family trip to Mexico had already been planned. In November 2008, Mom and I stumbled across the buy 4/get 3 free promotion that Disney was running. At that moment, our eyes lit up, and we talked to my dad, who gave it the okay (as Mom was working and could pay for the trip. She’s a SAHM, so she only gets the jobs for Disney). A few days later, I joyously watched as we confimed our vacation.

March 11th, 2009 – March 21st, 2009.
All-Star Music.

10 DAYS IN THE PARKS! 10 DAYS IN THE PARKS! 10 DAYS IN THE PARKS!

This was our longest trip ever, and what turned out to the the most fun ever. We booked over my March break, meaning I only missed 3 days of school for 10 days of fun! Of course, we then began to make plans, and change them, and make them again, until we had this schedule:

March 11th: Arrival Day! Fly into Orlando mid-afternoon. Go to Downtown Disney and kick back at the resort. Eat at the food courts!

March 12th: Magic Kingdom! Morning EMH. Eating at Crystal Palace for breakfast.

March 13th: Epcot day! Late EMH, and breakfast at Chef Mickey’s!

March 14th: Animal Kingdom! Breakfast at Tusker house.

March 15th: Magic Kingdom! Late EMH. Breakfast at Kona Café, Dinner at Crystal Palace.

March 16th: Disney’s Hollywood Studios! Late lunch at Sci-Fi.

March 17th: Epcot! Breakfast at Akershus.

March 18th: Magic Kingdom/Epcot! Dinner at Garden Grill.

March 19th: Magic Kingdom! Breakfast at O’hana.

March 20th: Magic Kingdom/Epcot! Dinner at Chef Mickey’s.

March 21st: Fly out of Orlando in the wee hours of the morning.

Alright, so this background post probably bored everyone.

Coming up next…

-We begin the journey!

Comments always rock They fuel my writing!​

 

[Tinkerbell Teen]

I suppose I'll post part 2, and hopefully attract some more readers.

The night before a Disney trip is always so exciting. The last Mickey head on the countdown calendar is waiting to be covered with a sticker, the suitcases are packed and decorated with ME tags, and we are ready and rarin’ to go!

The countdown!

The next morning, we woke up insanely early and drove off to Toronto to catch our flight to Orlando. The whole time, I just bounced around with my iPod, not even believing what was happening before my eyes! WE WERE GOING TO DISNEY BABY!

We checked in, zoomed through customs, and went to the gate to have muffins for breakfast. I was pretty much bouncing off the walls! We met another family headed to Disney and we shared tips about fastpasses, Soarin’ and EMH with them. We boarded the plane and our new friends sat right in front of us! Of course, I managed to get the only window seat on the plane without a window.

The plane lifted off and we were on our way to Disney! I watched HSM3 on my dvd player, and listened to music while looking at the UG. The flight zipped by, and instead of seeing gloomy, cold rain out the window, we saw sunshine and palm trees!

We hopped off the plane and over to the Magical Express line. Walking down the red carpet, surrounded by Hannah Montana doing the ‘hoedown throwdown’ is always fun. (which, by the way, I picked up the whole song while waiting for the bus. I can do the whole dance on command just because of that day!) We looked at the buses, we listened to the boom-de-clap-de-clap, the cheer moms chatting loudly…

Wait. Cheer moms? Oh, man. We gave each other the LOOK that said ‘HOW DID WE FORGET ABOUT THE CHEERLEADERS?!”

We were fairly warned before the trip by the DIS, but I guess as the day progressed, we forgot about them. Well, judging by the 6 year old wearing fake lashes in front of us, we’re going to be reminded, whether we liked it or not. Oh, well.

Finally our line was corralled into a bus, and we got some horrible seats behind 2 teenage boys, who decided to joke to themselves, with topics like “the Music resort was soo lame (sports people.), and who vacations with their mom anyways?” As Mom and I rolled their eyes and laughed to ourselves, knowing their moms were somewhere in this bus with us.

Your team, on ME!

We set off down the highway, headed for the place where dreams come true. We passed under the arch, listening to the Disney travel video play, and feeling every drop of magic.

Aah, Disney.

 

[Rebecuberduber]

Hey, great report! You hooked me. It's sure fun to write trip reports, but it's the dangdest thing to get posts, isn't it? I still haven't received any posts on mine. Oh well. It's just fun to write 'em. Anyway, you sound a lot like my little sister. I think this will be fun! I'll join the cheerleaders and give you a

 

[Disneymoon09]

i love it!

 

[Tinkerbell Teen]

Thank you!

I wrote part 3, and I'm working on part 4, so both of those will be up soon! I'm missing quite a few details on our park days, so I'll try and remember those. It's really hard writing a late TR, but it's fun too.

 

[Tinkerbell Teen]

Alright, here's part 3! Part 4 (First full day in the parks) still has some things to be fixed, so it'll be up tomorrow after school. Eek, school!


We drove through the arches and began to see all the Disney signs for the parks, attractions and hotels.

First Disney Bus!

As we passed the Wide World of Sports, Obnoxious Cheer Mom (OCM) (who we ran into the whole trip!) said loudly “LOOOK THERE HONEY, IT’S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS! THAT’S WHERE YOU’RE GONNA BE COMPETIN’.”

*crickets chirp*

We're here!

Anyways, we finally reached ASMu and hopped out. For the first time, we were greeted like stars! We jumped out and the red carpet was laid out, with the velvet ropes and everything. A CM stood to the side holding signs saying “I’m your biggest fan” and other self-esteem raising phrases. And a CM wearing the most amazing hat ever shouted out “WELCOME HOME!” as we walked down the red carpet into the lobby.

Single-handedly the BEST greeting I’ve ever had.

I bet OCM and the weird boys were eyeballin’ our star treatment. YEAH, WE’RE FAMOUS. OH YEAH.

We checked in and were given our arcade card and gift card. It’s like we’re really famous here! We walked through the rest of the lobby to our room, Calypso building on the first floor. Good, good location. On the walls were pictures of famous artists, and I had fun walking past them every morning. We grabbed our mugs in the food court and scooted to our room.

We really enjoyed the room at ASMu, except for the glitchy room-dividing curtain. We then had a decision to make- it was only around 2 or 3 o’clock, and we didn’t know if we wanted to spend 3or 4 hours in DTD.

Hey, wait, didn’t we get 10-day park hoppers? We only have 9 park days scheduled. We could always scoot over to a park! Maybe Epcot? Or the MK? We can always go shopping at DTD later…

That didn’t take long to decide, and before we knew it we were in line for a Magic Kingdom bus. I love spontanaeity! It was hard to believe that we left rain and melting snow for sunshine and Mickey Mouse, but it was true! Riding the deserted bus to the park, listening to Disney music play, just made the day even better. As we pulled into the MK, the fanfare played over the sound system, and Mom and I looked at each other with huge smiles! We’d made it!

We bounced off the bus and practically skipped through bag check and popped our tickets through the scanner before gallivanting off to see the castle. (See how many happy words I used there? ) As usual, we rounded the corner and stopped dead at the sight of the castle.

Aah, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

We stopped for a pic at the castle…

Before we scooted off to Fantasyland to start our trip off right- we went to Philharmagic! It’s the best 3D show in Disney, by a landslide. Even I try to catch everything flying off the screen. I always cup Tink in my hands, and Simba too. After laughing at Donald getting stuck in the wall, we walked to Toontown to meet our favourite mice!

We then decided to fight a little evil in our day and went to Tomorrowland to save the world from Zurg! As always, I spun the cart in awkward ways and Mom hollered at me to stop spinning. I do win, a lot. Ever since I made a new friend in the lineup in our 2007 trip, and we decided to ride together while she showed me all the good targets, I’ve been pretty unstoppable. After the ride, we laughed at the concentration on our faces in the picture and went to hang out on the TTA!

The castle from the TTA.

The TTA is one of our favourites. We probably ride it an average 15 times a trip, since it never has a line and it’s a great cool-down. After TTA, we saw Buzz Lightyear doing meet-and-greets, so we thought it would be appropriate to see him, seeing as we saved his universe and all. I approached him and he held out his arms for a hug. It was almost like hugging a large Tupperware container with arms and legs. I asked if we could do a superhero pose, and I guess ‘superhero’ means ‘disco king’ to Buzz.

The bridge from Tomorrowland.

Then we decided it was getting a little late, so we moseyed on down main street and found some familiar friends.

Exhausted and overwhelmed from our crazy day, we hopped on a bus and got some dinner. I think I got pizza. Or maybe chicken nuggets. Yes, my mom and I split a chicken nuggets meal. Mmm.

After our chicken nuggets, we scooted to the room and found our luggage happily awaiting! I turned on American Idol, and flopped in bed while watching the show. Luckily, Adam and Allison didn’t get eliminated, so my first day remained 110% happy.

Best Part: Arriving at the World and taking it all in. Meeting the mice on the first day!
Worst Part: Obnoxious Cheer Mom.

Up next: We head to the MK for a morning of deserted MK and breakfast with Pooh!

 

[SGMCO]

I lovin your report so far and looking forward to reading more!
--2 thumbs up!!!
Looks like your Guys had a wonderful trip--All Star Music looks like
a Fun Resort to stay at.

I love your Pink Maryjane Crocs--I just bought me a pair just
like those for my spring trip. I also got a Army Olive Green pair--
they were the only 2 colors left in the Buy one Get one Free special
on CROCS.com

You also gave me a great Idea for a count down calender (the colorful Mickey head paint chip cards) Thanks!!

 

[Rebecuberduber]

"It was like hugging a giant tupperware container with arms and legs" -->

Adam and Allison were my favorites, too. I also liked Danny Gokey for his personality, but not so much song style. Adam and Allison were by far the most talented, IMHO.

Don't you love it when it ends up in your card to do MK on your first day? That happened to us, too, and it totally made the trip for me. You just gotta have that quick MK fix on the first day.