Yeah and it Smells Like Hotdogs...A January 2017 TR *Completed 10/27*

Day 1: Part 3
He's Being Pushed by the Force

With our night suddenly freed up, we decide to see Woody and Buzz since there line wasn’t too long.




While waiting an army man got in line to entertain everyone.
















The boys were so excited for their first character meet of the trip.








They all bombarded Woody and left Buzz all alone.




Buzz walked over to the window were Joe and my dad were and started acting sad to them because no one cared about him. DS6 being the sweet boy he is went over to comfort Buzz.



Since the boys liked Woody and Buzz so much, I figured we might try to meet the Star Wars characters so my mom and dad could be there. The Launch Bay was very busy with the dessert party going on, but the character lines were super short, only a five minute wait for Chewie. The kids loved looking at all the Star Wars artifacts they had.




The boys had a good meet, with Chewie, this is one of DS2s favorite characters and he loves to make the wookie sound. He was too shy this time, but Joe did it for him and Chewie was not impressed.





Next we got in line for Klyo Ben as DS2 calls him.




And Connor got a red card


This meet was not as good. The CMs treated us very coldly. We were told to put our bags down and all stand with Kylo and then the boys could get pictures. We tried to explain that we didn’t need a picture with all of us and were snapped at to go stand next to Kylo.


Once we got out of the way, the boys stood to pose, there was zero interaction, he didn’t even move he just stood there like a statue.



After this picture, DS2 started trying to talk to Kylo and finally he reacted and DS2 tried to force push him and Kylo forced pushed DS2. DS2 flies across the room, because you know he was forced pushed, and the CM snapped at him again. He said that’s not the exit, so now I was annoyed. I said, he is being pushed by the force, but we were all basically over the rude CMs there and just left:mad:.


After our less than stellar meet, I had FPs for ToT, but we were trying to decide if we wanted to try and see the SW fireworks. My mom and I decided that we would rather ride ToT so we rushed off in that direction as our FP was expiring, and the boys went to find a spot for the fireworks.


My mom and I had a great trip to the Twighlight Zone, and made it out of the ride just as F! was letting out.


We were able to weave around the crowd, but before we were halfway up the street the fireworks started. We were actually able to grab a halfway decent viewing spot in the area in front of HBD and watch most of the show.










I thought the show was very good, but I definitely missed all the fireworks that the other shows had. The projections, lasers, and fire was a nice touch though. Once the show had ended, we realized we were standing right by the boys the whole time, which made for a really easy meet up in the crowds. We found a secluded spot and sat there while the crowds cleared out. My dad wanted to buy each of the boys a souvenir, so we went into Mickey’s of Hollywood to see what we could find. They all ended up with Star Wars toys, because what other kind of toys are there:confused3? And we made our way out of the park. One negative to waiting out the crowds in the park was dealing with them trying to leave the parking lot. I passed the time chatting to Joe’s parents and my grandma who had called to wish me a happy birthday. Once we got back to the hotel my dad and Joe went to get a drink while we got the boys ready for bed and unpacked. I had some things I needed to take care of so I met the guys at the Victoria Falls bar and got a drink, a Mai Tai if I recall. The guys had been chatting with a couple from Georgia and they were all not exactly sober at this point, well expect Joe. It was interesting talking to them because their son was a marketing guy for Disney and does a lot of the filming of things in the park. In fact, if anyone watched the Disney Parks Holiday specials, apparently he was the one who was responsible for the all the international park castle lightings and got to go to Asia to film those, pretty cool. I got a second cocktail, the Pimm’s Punch next.



After our drinks, we said goodbye to the couple from Georgia and went over to the store, Zawadi Marketplace. I don’t remember why we went there, but I ended up walking out with a brand new set of Minnie ears thanks to my dad. Next I had to go to the front desk to get my birthday button. Our last stop was to the QS, the Mara for some late night snacks and to purchase our refillable mugs, and thanks to the AP discount we saved some dough too. We talked to a couple and ended up talking about Chicago, where we’re from and ended up meeting two more people who were also from Chicago who were not together and didn’t know each other.Cue it's a small world :rotfl2:


I got the Mixed Tomato Flatbread with wine-ripened, tomatoes, roasted garlic, fresh herb ricotta, artichoke, and red peppers.


This was so good, and definitely not the last time I would have this. I also got zebra domes to share.



These were okay, I wasn’t a huge fan though, the consistency was weird to me. I only had one and the package never even got finished :blush:. After our late night snacks my parents left to go back to their hotel and we were all out within minutes.

 
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Cute pics with Buzz & Woody! Sounds like good interaction, unlike the one with Kylo Ren. That sounds awful!

That's great that you were able to ride ToT and still see the fireworks!

Getting drinks and snacks sounds like a good end to the evening!

Oh man I love zebra domes, sorry you weren't a fan.
 
That sounds like a really messed up meet with Kylo Ren.....I have heard that he isn't all that "interactive" but thought it was just the nature of his characters personality. We aren't a SW family at all so I don't know much, but I do know that meet sucked!
We watched the current SW fireworks, the higher ones, from WS in August and thought they were so pretty but I miss the first SW fireworks show they had which I thought was amazing. I agree, more fireworks and less projections would be better.
Your flatbread looks delicious!
 
Joining in and loving the report so far! We traveled with a 3 and 2 year old our first trip. We had some ups and downs too but it was worth it
 


Once we got out of the way, the boys stood to pose, there was zero interaction, he didn’t even move he just stood there like a statue.
When we were there, it was still Darth Vader, and he is still "mean" but I think a much better meet n greet. I haven't heard anyone that excited about meeting Kylo...

I got the Mixed Tomato Flatbread with wine-ripened, tomatoes, roasted garlic, fresh herb ricotta, artichoke, and red peppers.


This was so good, and definitely not the last time I would have this. I also got zebra domes to share.

Pizza looks great! Yet another reason I want to stay there! I am hoping Roaring Forks gets a slightly better menu when it reopens.

I don't like the Zebra Domes either.. they are just ok... Glad to hear someone else thinks the same. Seems everyone loves them.
 
Cute pics with Buzz & Woody! Sounds like good interaction, unlike the one with Kylo Ren. That sounds awful!

That's great that you were able to ride ToT and still see the fireworks!

Getting drinks and snacks sounds like a good end to the evening!

Oh man I love zebra domes, sorry you weren't a fan.
Yeah < i was bummed about not liking them, oh well I guess. It was a very good ending to the evening.

That sounds like a really messed up meet with Kylo Ren.....I have heard that he isn't all that "interactive" but thought it was just the nature of his characters personality. We aren't a SW family at all so I don't know much, but I do know that meet sucked!
We watched the current SW fireworks, the higher ones, from WS in August and thought they were so pretty but I miss the first SW fireworks show they had which I thought was amazing. I agree, more fireworks and less projections would be better.
Your flatbread looks delicious!
Yeah, it was pretty disappointing, luckily it didn't faze the boys. I'm glad someone else agrees with me about the firework, my family all loved them. Flatbread was amazing, highly recommend.

Joining in and loving the report so far! We traveled with a 3 and 2 year old our first trip. We had some ups and downs too but it was worth it
:welcome:Trips with little ones can be tough, but rewarding as well.

Looking forward to reading more...
:thanks:

When we were there, it was still Darth Vader, and he is still "mean" but I think a much better meet n greet. I haven't heard anyone that excited about meeting Kylo...
I would much rather have Darth Vader.


Pizza looks great! Yet another reason I want to stay there! I am hoping Roaring Forks gets a slightly better menu when it reopens.
There were a ton of good choices here, but this was my favorite.

I don't like the Zebra Domes either.. they are just ok... Glad to hear someone else thinks the same. Seems everyone loves them.
:rotfl2:welcome to the club
 


Day 2: Part 1
Happy Birthday to Me

I was up at 6am again, too excited for our first full day at Disney and my birthday. I got ready and Joe kindly went down to the Mara to get us coffee. We let the boys sleep as long as possible, but we were all out the door by 7:15.


We drove to MK, which we like to do if we are going to be there early.



The forecast for the day wasn’t looking too good, but for now it was just clouds.







We took the monorail over to MK, which was slightly disappointing for us. We like to take the ferry on our first ride over, because it really helps build the anticipation. The ferry wasn’t running due to the heavy fog.








Unfortunately, at the Grand Floridian, a CM came over the loudspeaker and announced that they would have to reboot the monorail. We ended up being stuck on the tracks for a good 15 minutes, with no lights and no air, and they had to reboot twice. There wasn’t even an alternative with the boats being down. Thankfully, the delay didn’t make us late for our first stop of the day and we arrived at the Magic Kingdom at five minutes to 8.


At a glance, you couldn't even tell the scrim was up



We finally got into the park and made our way toward the castle. The boys were so excited. Nicholas turned to me when he saw the castle for the first time and said with the utmost awe in his voice, “that’s the magic kingdom”. It was just too cute and I started tearing up immediately. We of course needed our picture in front of the caste right away. There was a little bit of a wait so I took pictures while we waited.









Did we get a nice family shot?





Well good enough for me.


Now of course with the new park opening procedure, everyone was let into the park, but we actually had a breakfast reservation to get to. Originally I had wanted to see the welcome show first thing on my birthday, but when I saw the train go down for a rehab months earlier, it was less important to me and I snagged a pre-rd reservation instead. Of course, we found out just a week or two before the trip that there would be this new welcome show at the castle and people would be let in early, basically defeating the reason I would do a breakfast in the first place. In the end though, I decided to keep the ADR, because Pooh is my favorite and I really do like this breakfast buffet. As you can see you can still get a nice empty main street picture now without an ADR, which is my main reason for booking the breakfasts, so that’s something I can save money on in the future. Any way, I checked us in and we took some more pictures while we waited.









Right about our ADR time, 8:15 we were called for our Friendship Day celebration breakfast.





We got our food, and all the boys seemed to be enjoying their breakfasts.




About 20 minutes in we saw Tigger.





Soon after Piglet.





And then no one for a long time. My mom was calling me asking me where we were and the park was getting ready to open. Pooh and Eyeore weren’t even close to getting to us and we had a decision to make. Miss the first 20 minutes of the park being open or skipping the meets? In the end, we decided to skip it, because I knew getting that far behind would throw off my whole day. They boys were fine since we had seen all these characters in September. We met up with my parents and set off for the crowd of people waiting to enter Adventureland.

 
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The boys were so excited. Nicholas turned to me when he saw the castle for the first time and said with the utmost awe in his voice, “that’s the magic kingdom”. It was just too cute and I started tearing up immediately.
Worth the trip right there!


Great Pic! All 3 boys are looking at the camera, I consider that a win! And I only have 2 girls. So 3 is probably even harder!

Breakfast sounded good minus the lack of some characters...
 
I didn't even notice the scrim until you mentioned it being there lo! But I'm blind......
That monrail, I seriously think it's more trouble than it's worth. We had a heck of a time getting to an ADR at Narcoossee's in Nov, b/c they were putting a monorail to bed in the garage and of course can't run any trains while they do that. No monrail for about 20-25 minutes and people were NOT happy.

Tough choice, park opening or characters! Luckily as you said you'd seen them in Sept. We missed 2 at GG once but they actually left the building without stopping at our table :rotfl2:Then last Nov. we almost had to choose between Dale and Soarin again at GG but luckily Dale made it over in the nick of time.
I'm interested to see how the new opening procedure goes, don't think we'll do it next week but we will in May.
 
Sorry I'm late, but just got all caught up. Glad you had a great trip overall, but definitely some interesting parts so far! AKL Savannah View is awesome and I'm glad you all enjoyed it. Looking forward to hearing more about your birthday!
 
I love those shirts. Is there anything on the backs. It reminds me of my youngest (who is now 22). We took him to Disneyland when it was about 8. This was the first time for him that he was of an age that it really was fun for him. I will never forget him hugging his dad and saying "This was the best day ever!"
 
Nice early morning pictures! Glad you enjoyed breakfast, even though it stinks that Pooh and Eeyore were too slow!
 
That scrim was up when we were there in Feb. I was kind of bummed, why would you take your pic there?!? I want to say there was a photopass photographer even stationed out there!
 
While waiting an army man got in line to entertain everyone.
Awesome! Nice to get a bonus character meet, and it makes the wait feel a little shorter.

The boys had a good meet, with Chewie, this is one of DS2s favorite characters and he loves to make the wookie sound. He was too shy this time, but Joe did it for him and Chewie was not impressed.
:rotfl2::rotfl::lmao:

This meet was not as good. The CMs treated us very coldly. We were told to put our bags down and all stand with Kylo and then the boys could get pictures. We tried to explain that we didn’t need a picture with all of us and were snapped at to go stand next to Kylo.
Well, you do realize these aren't Disney CMs, they're First Order CMs. They have to be a-holes.

After this picture, DS2 started trying to talk to Kylo and finally he reacted and DS2 tried to force push him and Kylo forced pushed DS2. DS2 flies across the room, because you know he was forced pushed, and the CM snapped at him again. He said that’s not the exit, so now I was annoyed. I said, he is being pushed by the force, but we were all basically over the rude CMs there and just left:mad:.
Ok, I'd have been too busy laughing at your DS having a good time with Kylo Renn to pay attention to random CM guy. Somebody needs to lighten up a little bit.

These were okay, I wasn’t a huge fan though, the consistency was weird to me. I only had one and the package never even got finished :blush:. After our late night snacks my parents left to go back to their hotel and we were all out within minutes.
I've still not tried Zebra Domes, but I often wonder if I'd even like them. It seems like when I try a lot of these things that are raved about on the boards that I usually just kind of think they're meh...

Unfortunately, at the Grand Floridian, a CM came over the loudspeaker and announced that they would have to reboot the monorail. We ended up being stuck on the tracks for a good 15 minutes, with no lights and no air, and they had to reboot twice. There wasn’t even an alternative with the boats being down. Thankfully, the delay didn’t make us late for our first stop of the day and we arrived at the Magic Kingdom at five minutes to 8.
:headache: Can't take the ferry. Monorail is having it's usual issues. Awesome. :faint:

At a glance, you couldn't even tell the scrim was up
That's actually pretty good! But I guess if you're going to be doing work on the first thing that people see when coming into your park... you'd probably better do something to make it look good!

Well good enough for me.
That's a great family picture!

And then no one for a long time. My mom was calling me asking me where we were and the park was getting ready to open. Pooh and Eyeore weren’t even close to getting to us and we had a decision to make. Miss the first 20 minutes of the park being open or skipping the meets? In the end, we decided to skip it, because I knew getting that far behind would throw off my whole day.
Probably the right call. That stinks that the characters didn't all come around in a more timely manner, but it isn't worth throwing off your plans and missing out on those most valuable 20 minutes of park time for a couple of characters.
 
I understand why Disney changed the opening procedure for the MK, but it does still stink that PPO breakfasts are kind of obsolete now. I know a lot of fans really loved capturing Main St. when it was empty.

I don't blame you for skipping those last few meets. That first hour of a park day is so important! You can get most of the stuff you want done if luck's on your side.
 
I love the shirts! I have a hard time sleeping in at Disney too! Excitement always gets me
Exactly, I need so much less sleep at Disney.

Worth the trip right there!
Totally, they were all so excited.

Great Pic! All 3 boys are looking at the camera, I consider that a win! And I only have 2 girls. So 3 is probably even harder!
It's pretty much impossible to get all three looking at the same time :rotfl2:

Breakfast sounded good minus the lack of some characters...
Yeah, that was a bummer, but it all worked out.

I didn't even notice the scrim until you mentioned it being there lo! But I'm blind......
That monrail, I seriously think it's more trouble than it's worth. We had a heck of a time getting to an ADR at Narcoossee's in Nov, b/c they were putting a monorail to bed in the garage and of course can't run any trains while they do that. No monrail for about 20-25 minutes and people were NOT happy.
I agree, the monorail can be a pain in the butt.

Tough choice, park opening or characters! Luckily as you said you'd seen them in Sept. We missed 2 at GG once but they actually left the building without stopping at our table :rotfl2:Then last Nov. we almost had to choose between Dale and Soarin again at GG but luckily Dale made it over in the nick of time.
I'm interested to see how the new opening procedure goes, don't think we'll do it next week but we will in May.
That stinks about GG, we had a similar experience there in Sept with Pluto.
 
Sorry I'm late, but just got all caught up. Glad you had a great trip overall, but definitely some interesting parts so far! AKL Savannah View is awesome and I'm glad you all enjoyed it. Looking forward to hearing more about your birthday!
Glad you're here. I'll give you a hint about m birthday, the shirts were prophetic :thumbsup2

I love those shirts. Is there anything on the backs. It reminds me of my youngest (who is now 22). We took him to Disneyland when it was about 8. This was the first time for him that he was of an age that it really was fun for him. I will never forget him hugging his dad and saying "This was the best day ever!"
Aw that's so cute. The shirts were blank on the back, but I did love them.

Nice early morning pictures! Glad you enjoyed breakfast, even though it stinks that Pooh and Eeyore were too slow!
Yeah, it wasn't ideal, but it all worked out.

That scrim was up when we were there in Feb. I was kind of bummed, why would you take your pic there?!? I want to say there was a photopass photographer even stationed out there!
We took a couple of pictures there, you could barely tell it was a scrim, I didn't mind. Just the week before it was literally like a brown paper bag over the station.
 

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