Yes, that was me throwing up on the AKL bus and mommy misses the magic moment!

[Sandite]

Up next was our Agent P Mission. L had seen this on TV so she just had to try it. I went up to the kiosk to get our phone and the people in front of me were taking forever. Asking the CM a ton of questions and then finally said "no that sounds like too much to do" . Weird. So I grabbed our phone and picked UK since that was closest.

L can't read yet, so it was really hard having to press the buttons, listen to what it wa saying myself while crouching down next to her. To make matters worse when we get to teh UK the band was playing making it IMPOSSIBLE to hear . We only did about 4 steps and L was done. This is a great idea for older kids who can read, but if you have younger ones even if they love Agent P I would skip it. Here are a few pics of her at least trying it out.

The hardest thing of the whole mission was finding where to return the darn thing! I was so worried about losing it that I put it in my pocket and checked that it was still there at least 100 times.

R really wanted to get good seats for the fireworks so she offered to go and save us some seats. L was really not in a good mood at this point. Explosion was near, so I said how about L and I go on our way around the world and we will just meet you back at fireworks time.

We headed off with a pin collection mission and pearl picking in mind. As we walked away from R and K, L looks up at me and says "those two are stressing me out". I said "I think you are stressing them out too".

So we head around the world. We stop at several pin traders and are finding a ton of the pins we were looking for (if you've been to Disney in recent months you will know where this is going). I was thinking we are rocking this!

We got to Japan and we did pick a pearl. I had gotten her a Mickey Head Pearl cage from ebay, so we went to get her pearl. The place was packed, but of course it was all just people watching. I finally figured out we had to go buy a ticket and wait. I got the ticket thinking it would be forever, but finally the main lady pushed the gawkers out of the way and it was our turn. There didn't seem to be very many to pick from, but we found the ugliest. One thing to know about L is that her favorite color is blue. Blue alone, no other color compares. She does not like pink as most other girls do. Well the lady opens the pearl and out comes a white pearl, but the lady is convinced it is pink...she just keeps going on and on about it being pink "Oh look princess you found a pink one, how luck for you". L looks at her and says "I don't like pink". The pearl is not pink anyways was what I was thinking. Oh well we got our pearl and headed out.

We got one of those yummy snow cone things in Japan and continued our pin trading mission. We found one at pretty much every person we came to..how lucky are we! I even started thinking to myself "I don't even know how many are in this set" and it didn't say on the back. By the end of our world trek we had found 8 of the pins. K and R were calling as it was starting to get crowded in their fireworks area. So we headed around the circle back towards them.

We had great seats for the fireworks. They were wonderful as always. K and R had been so nice to get us FPs for Soarin to use after the fireworks. They were going to mousegears while we rode. I told them to check on that pin collection to see how many there were.

We ran off and rode soarin'. It was great and we met up with K and R. They were laughing hysterically. I guess the pin collection I picked for her to collect was the promotional set that you can buy for $20 more when you buy $50 or something. So that is why they were so easy to find. Thankfully we had found all 8 and L felt we had really accomplished something. So note to those with little ones wanting to pin trade...pick the promotional set to try to find.

Here is a pic of her lanyard with her full collection of 8.

We had such a fun day at Epcot. L really enjoyed it a lot more than I thought. We didn't explore the countries all that much, but there was still plenty to do. Plus actually picking out a pin set to find makes it so much more fun. Like I said if you have a little one try to pick an easy set or even just a character to collect.

We caught the bus and were back to the room in no time. Tomorrow was swim day, TREX for lunch/dinner and HS at night.

 

[ShortStuff]

L is a little trooper!! She seems to be really excited with each thing she does!

It's too bad you were feeling so bad your first day. You were really smart to go back and rest that night! Congratulations to L on getting the entire set of ins!! That's hard to do even if they are promotional pin sets. It seems like there is always one that is harder than the rest to get! Looking forward to more adventures.

 

[Aussiesalad]

Sounds like a great trip!
I hope you start feeling better soon though, it's never fun to feel Like that!
Especially on holidays!!

 

[Sandite]

Welcome Aussiesalad! Thanks for joining. Yes, being sick is the worst on vacation, but thankfully this last full day I was 100%

Side note...I have added a ticker!!!! First off yay for me even figuring out how to do it Second yay we are going again! Right now using that farther away airline we can fly roundtrip for $130!!! Craziness right. Well this trip will be the whole gang, me, DD, DS, DH, R and K and add on the grandparents! Will start a PTR soon. Cannot wait to go again!

 

[Sandite]

So our last full entire day of the World was here. Good thing was our flight the next day didn't leave until dinner time, so we still had a few more hours of fun and adventure coming.

So today was swim day! L loves the water. She is becoming a great swimmer; however, me not so much. Hate to say it...I can't swim Oh well, we were on vacation it was a Disney pool had to be shallow right??

Biggest issue was R and K were headed to TL. I didn't want to pay the extra money to go nor did I want to have to act brave and go on any of those water rides, so K and R got up bright and early and left out before L even got up. Whew no questions asked.

L slowly got around and we headed down to the pool. As you can probably already tell my family and us are really close. This whole trip had been a lot of firsts for just me and L to do by ourselves. Well let me tell you two people at the pool alone is not the easiest. First, all the signs saying do not save spots on the bench...well no one else is with us what do you want us to do with our stuff? Anyways, we were bad and saved seats with our towels. We headed to the quick service and got some fresh pineapple for breakfast and then we were off to swim.

I have no pics, but our swim adventure stories are worth a 1000 pictures. First off L gets a life jacket because she knows she won't be strong enough to swim across that entire AKL pool!! It is huge!! So we go out and we start just walking around the pool...all of the sudden I can't touch the bottom....I scream out and grab onto L. All these people around me were cracking up. Guess Disney pools aren't all shallow

So once I get L away from the deep part we go over to the Simba slide. L really wanted to do it, but we had the issue of if I go up the stairs with you then I can't be at the bottom. Poor L was torn. I knew we couldn't go down together so it had to be one of the two. She was a trooper and went up by herself. Was really nice having the life guard so close...he was super nice and helped me watch for her. Down she came! She loved it. So she did the slide at least 15 times!!! There were hardly any kids there so was perfect timing.

We got out for potty breaks and snacks, but other than that were just having a great relaxing day until....we go to get back into the pool. There is a rather large family in the zero entry with little ones. No big deal. So we are sitting down there and one of the older girls in the family walks up by us, blows her nose into her hand and washes it in the water!!!!! Oh my gosh if thinking of all the pee in the pool wasn't enough add that on and we were done!

So we head up fully disgusted and run into K and R at the elevators. They both looked a bit flustered. I guess they had left TL nearly 1.5 hours ago and were just getting back! They said the buses were terrible and they got off at DTD to try to find a quicker way and that backfired. They were sad they didn't get to swim with L, but we had DTD to conquer and a early dinner at TREX, so we hurried and got all showered and ready to go.

Sorry no pics but swim days are hard to capture.

 

[PISCESANGEL]

Hello there, great TR! I followed you over from Queen's TR.
Your DD is adorable of course, but I'm so sorry you were so sick!
I think it is great that you are starting these memories with her now though. My DD is 20 and DS is 13, and they just love going to Disney now- in fact they insist on us going every year now!

Can't wait to hear the rest- thanks for sharing!
Carla

 

[Sandite]

Welcome PiscesAngel! I am so glad I have started her off young too. Even though they may not remember every detail they seem to always remember the magic!

 

[Sandite]

I had left off with us finishing our fun swim filled morning. This afternoon we were headed for a fun time at DTD including a late lunch/early dinner at TREX. Then off to DHS after that.

In the room before we left I asked L if she wanted to try to find another set of pins. She still had plenty to trade and could keep her last complete set. I knew I wanted to do something pretty easy so I said why don't we just pick one character and you can just find any pin with that character. She decided on Goofy...easy enough right???

We got cleaned up and headed out. We started near the end by Once Upon a Toy. We had a potato head box to fill! Baby Q loves his potato head and even though L was convinced it was for them to share, it was primarily for him.

The funniest vinylmation story occured here. We got to the register and asked to trade. The guy got it out and L picked the first number. It was one she already had so we asked to pick another number. The guy said oh no you can only do one...what? Thankfully the other CM at the counter said we could do one more. So she picks another one and this guy's eyes light up. "Oh my gosh you are going to love this one...I can't believe it is even in here!" he says. I am thinking a princess of some sort...he pulls out Luke Skywalker. L has never seen Star Wars so she just looks at him. It was quite hilarious. The guy went on and on about how he had never seen one in the trading box before and how she was so lucky. Thankfully we got her kind of excited about it because he had a removeable light saber.

I could tell L was hitting her limit. Every store was some kind of melt down over which animal she wanted or she was hungry or she was hot. I could tell the meltdown was coming, I just didn't know when. We stopped several CM's on the way to get Goofy pins...nobody had any!!! I mean seriously it was like Goofy was some random hard to find character. We weren't even looking for a specific set..just goofy! Out of all the CM's in DTD we only found 2 goofy pins. Insanity right!

It was still early for our reservation at TREX, but with L's mood getting worse we decided to try to get in early. Hopefully food would make her feel better We got up to the desk and they said we could get in right away. And at that point...L loses it. I mean all out crying, angry, tired, every emotion a 4 year old can have at this point. I had been so excited about this place and having her do build a dino and now this!!! I try to not be the parent who buys their kid something to calm them down, but at this point I would do anything. Once I finally got her semi okay I said let's go at least look at Build a Dino. So off we went with K and R waiting for our names to be called. We got back to Build a Dino and there was NO LINE! I couldn't believe it. So I was a bad person and let her do it right then. She picked out the purple and blue stegausarus. Sorry for her weird expression, but she was still semi upset.

I am weirdo, but I LOVE how their tails stick out the back Soon we were seated. I knew that L was just hungry, but she was being awful still. We were to the point of just don't say anything if you can't say anything nice. We even had to go have a quick bathroom chat. As soon as her food came and she got something in her tummy she was doing better. We of course got suckered into the giant TREX femur slushie drink. That will always help a grumpy mood!

Here are a few interior shots of the restaurant. We were directly by the giant octopus bar. The eyes on that thing would randomly move...pretty freaky.

After that we headed to lego. My sister wanted to build a mickey mouse head to put on her desk at school. We of course ended up wtih a build your own box of super random parts and some duplo blocks for DS. I will say professional builder K took FOREVER to get her Mickey head built , but it turned out super cute.

Next we were ready for DHS!! We start to head back and L sees the carousel. Of course we have to ride it. So we get in line. We are first in line for the next ride and two kids come up behind us. L spots that there is a tea cup type cart on the carousel and says "I want to get on that one!". The little boy responds to her "well I'm going to get on it first...so there!". I thought this was quite rude and was ready to run to the cart if it meant me running over L. So the lady lets us in and L and me make a dash for the cart. Now let me tell you, this is a much smaller cart than the teacups. So L and I get situated and here come the two kids...they open teh door to the cart and jam in next to us! I was like what is going on here??? It was so totally random I had no idea what to even say. Well let me tell you that ride started and these two kids had that cart going so fast I thought it would take off. About halfway through the kids' mom comes out and sees all of us together and gives me a look and starts screaming "WHY ARE YOU ALL IN ONE CART!!!". Then she proceeds to apologize profusely for her kids butting in onour ride. Thankfully she understood it wasn't us who crowded in. L had a great time with the kids, so I guess my head spinning off into space was worth it.

Next up was DHS bus time...but guess what there is no direct bus to DHS from the end of DTD we were in...oh what to do! Stay tuned!]

 

[Sandite]

I wanted to make this note about the TREX restaurant. First, it is awesome and worth it!

Most important though, I tried to make a reservation for it through Disney dining and they said it was full. I figured this would be true since this was a week before hand I was trying to reserve (K and L didn't have it on their list). I knew it had only recently been added to the dining plan and that is was still sort of seperate, so I went and found the actual phone number to TREX. I called and they said they had a ton of reservations still open!! So make sure if you want to eat here and Disney says they are full to call them. Also, their site sometimes has 99 cent kids meal specials. So take a look there before you go!

 

[bedillamouse]

Just started reading your TR...isn't it funny how food can so change a little one's mood! Amazing! My girls are like that...if their mood is off I always think ...hmm when did they eat last.

 

[Sandite]

I know I have a new lurker out there reading my TR, so I figured I better get on with it. It is sad getting to the end of my first TR.

I don't think I posted this earlier, but here is a pic in front of the lego store as we were headed out.

As I left you we were attempting to leave DTD to head to DHS. Problem was there is no bus directly to DHS from marketplace. So a CM standing near by said just grab the next bus to a resort then hop the DHS bus from there. Great idea sir!

The first bus to pull up was Art of Animation! We were pretty excited ot maybe at least get a glimpse of the new hotel. As we were driving I look over and see L sacked out in K's lap. I mean limp as a dish towel. Out like a light!

We pull up to AoA and can see....NOTHING! We almost went in and walked around at least, but with L asleep and a DHS bus pulling up off we went instead. Someday we will see it!

Next up was DHS! The only thing Lilli cared about was getting the silly Stitch picture made with PP. She really wanted to do the tinkerbelle, but we never found a person in MK for some reason. She was still out like a light though and with all our new DTD purchases our load was getting pretty heavy. As we walked into DHS I saw some fairly large lockers out near the ticket area. I said we should probably grab and put some of our stuff in it. It said $1 or $2 I don't remember, but none of us had any change or cash. We decide to head in and rent a locker inside. So we head inside and get ushered to where we are supposed to be able to rent a locker only to be told "that will be $15!". Ummm I don't think so. Especially when there were $2 lockers not 10 feet away. I decided we had hauled it this far, so we stuffed the animals underneath the stroller and way we went! Onward for a Stitch picture.

Here is the pre-Stich being added pic. As you can tell she is so happy!

She did actually get out of the stroller for the Stitch picture as well.

We knew as late as we were that TSM was out of the question. This was already the one park I was worried that L wouldn't really like anything. So we looked at the ride board, everything was pretty full. We decided to just start walking. First we happened up on the Great Movie Ride. The line was of course short, so we ran in and got in a car. L did not care for this as she had never seen any of the videos shown. She had seen maybe 1 or 2 of the ones shown in the last overhead sequence, but other than that it was a bit dull.

After that we headed over to Muppets 3D. I didn't remember this show at all, but with L loving Mickey's Feel My Magic so much we figured she would like this and she did! We grabbed DH an animal shirt from the dump shop (he is a drummer and loves all his animal drumming stuff we find). Here L decides to do another vinyl trade. We got really lucky and she got another one with a removeable item. It was chicken little and his glasses come on and off. Again, will post all her final vinyls at the end.

Our next stop was Star Tours. As from our earlier Luke Skywalker exchange L knew nothing about this, but it was fun none the less. L LOVED this ride! Proclaming it to be her favorite!

It was getting close to Fantasmic time and that was what we were waiting for!! Some crazy stroller stories are coming up! Sorry not too many pictures this post. I've got to remember to be better with pics next trip

 

[Sandite]

Okay I am determined to finish our last DHS night. When I left we had just finished the all time new favorite Star Tours. Fantasmic time was fast approaching. K and R said they would go and save us seats while L and I walked around a few of the shops. We went through the villans store and contemplated buying some sweets for the show, but with it being so hot chocolate just wasn't sounding that great. L had still not bought any souvies with her own money, so she picked out the rapunzel polly pocket set and we got Baby Q a new sippie cup.

K was then frantically texting me that they were trying to make them all move over and not save seats and that they were having a hard time keeping our spots. So off we hurry towards the theater.

As we are trekking up the mountain of the hill I keep hearing "if you have a stroller you must take everything with you, all items must be taken off the stroller". I am sitting here looking at this stroller full of STUFF!!!! I have no idea how I am going to get everything off much less carry it another walkway down to the seats. The announcement keeps going on and on about this. I get to stroller parking and see that a few other strollers have a few items on them, but not everything taken. Thankfully they had some big Disney bags around for use, so I pack every single purchase from DTD and DHS into two of the big duffle size bags and we try to navigate through the crowd. As K warned they tried to not let us down, but we finally got the lady to look and see K wave at us that we did indeed have seats.

We got settled in and R went off to the concession stand to get some snacks. L had been so good the whole trip and had not even asked for a light up toy, but she had seen the really cool bubble guns that light up. I told her she could get one if she shared with her brother. So we got one of those and played. The concept of the bubble gun is really good, but ours wasn't working quite right. L couldnt' get it to work at all and K and I had a hard time getting any to come out consistently. I went back down to the cart where of course the CM held it and bubbles were just streaming out. So back I go with the same bubble gun and hand to L and she still can't get it to work. Oh well, no use crying over bubble guns I guess.

Here are a few pics of us from Fantasmic. The group one is one of my favorites from the whole trip.

L with the infamous bubble gun

Fantasmic was awesome as usual! By far one of my favorite shows on Disney property. Weird story, K and R went back the following night and the show went about 10 minutes in then it went black and everyone had to exit. Weird.

As we were trying to get back to the stroller I overheard someone talking and you only had to fully unload your stroller if you had a DISNEY stroller. Well thanks a lot for that information now. The big bags did come in handy for packing though, there is always a bright side

So now we only had about 45 minutes left in the park. We asked L what she wanted to try to do and she said Star Tours. So off we go running. We made it and walked right onto the ride. This one was awesome! It was the one with Darth Vadar in it. Well let me tell you 3D normally doesn't make me jump or try to dodge things, but this one did! I about jumped at the end...I won't ruin the ending, but if you have been on that one you know what I am talking about. I was happy we got 2 different rides.

Next it was time to head out. Thinking back we should have tried to make TSMM instead of doing Star Tours again, but L didn't really know about it, so she didn't mind. Plus Star Tours is still reigning as favorite ride.

As we were leaving we decide to get a drink. The line is forever long and to make matters worse these 2 CMs (off hours they were not on stage) were flirting with the coke CM worker. It was beyond obnoxious and all the adults in line were about to have it. They were interupting paying customers to ask him what wait times were for rides, etc. They knew the park was pretty much closed. Ugh I think I'm getting old...foolish teenagerisms/college kidisms just kill me.

L had to take one last pic by the coke man and we were off!

It was a great day. I am much less scared of going to DHS with a little one now. Her cousin just got back from DL and rode ToT. Now L is convinced she is going to ride it when we go back next year, so more DHS is in our future! Not too much for the baby to do there, but oh well.

We got back to the room and I started to pack up a few things. Tomorrow would be a last character breakfast at Park Faire and then a few hours before time to head to the airport.

 

[Sandite]

Sorry meant to say hello to Bedillamouse! Thanks for reading along!

To my 2 known lurkers...I know you are out there! Thanks for reading along too!

 

[alyssaswish]

Great TR! Your little girl is precious!

 

[Sandite]

A personal and heartfelt welcome to Alyssaswish. I have to get a bit preachy here...if you have kids, if you know kids, if you know people go and read some of the MAW PTRs and TRs. The kids and the parents of these trips are so inspirational. So thank you again Alyssaswish for joining my TR and good vibes and happy wishes for Alyssa's upcoming wish trip.

 

[Sandite]

The dreaded day has come...last day at DisneyWorld. To add to my sob story my husband told me last night that he was going to plan a surprise trip for me this October for my big 3-0 birthday, but since we went on this one he decided not to. What was he thinking!? I would have loved to go again. The non-Disney lover in him coming through. Shame, shame.

So for our last morning we had gotten added on to R and K's reservations at Park Faire. We had eaten here last trip, so we knew it was pretty standard breakfast buffet.

Let me tell you L woke up in a state. I think we are all a bit grumpy our last day at Disney, but she just wasn't having it. Finally she was told that R and K were leaving and we would just have to stay. We finally got her dressed and in the car...but were running extremely late! Especially since we wanted to get everything packed in the car just in case L decided last minute to go to a park or something. She could have convinced me I'm sure

So off we go and make it very late, but all is well. She won't get in the picture and has her blanket wrapped around here like a cape. As we walk through Alice sees her (her favorite character ever) and says "well look at that Princess' cloak isn't that just beautiful". That sort of kicked her out of her moody blues.

Soon enough the characters were coming around. So here you have our character pictures.

L didn't want to see Mary Poppins.

Alice had remembered her as the cloak girl, so L got a kick out of that and they discussed cloaks at great length.

L did NOT like the mad hatter, but at least took a picture with him. She loved the mad hatter at DL, but not here. He was a bit off.

The craziest thing happened as we were getting ready to leave. First off character places seem to have the worst wait on getting your ticket and leaving times. There was a table of probably 6 women in the mid 30's at a table behind us. All of the sudden they just disappeared. We were trying to flag our waitress down to get our ticket and she is just running around frantically. I guess that table just left without paying! I felt very sorry for her and could not believe someone would do that. Hopefully it was just a misunderstanding on how the dining plan works. At least I tell myself that.

After that we hit up the gift shop in the GF. I got my needed Goofy silouhette pin. I love those things! (at teh end of the report I will take a picture of our spoils).

Stay tuned, we have 4 hours what will we do now??

 

[Sandite]

I have to start this posting with a pin trading update. Our last collection updates seem to have gotten lost. So you will remember we decide to collect Goofy. How hard can that be right?

The day before we were at DTD and DHS. The entire day we only found 2 Goofy pins! Can you believe it. Only 2!

Our last morning we found one more at Park Faire. We still had 6 to go.

So back to after breakfast I ask L what she wants to do. We have used all our park tickets, but I could have easily been swayed to buy another day. So what did L pick...swimming of course. So back we went. K got in this time with us and L went down the slide a million times again.

R and K were going to have a long day driving us back to the airport and then they were finishing up their last few days. So up we went to rest a bit. L was pretty hyper and just being loud, so I said how about we go finish up those pins - find some Goofy's.

So we head down to the AKL lobby. We picked up a last few souvenirs. We found one Goofy pin from the gift shop. No one else has any. We look down adn see the girls at Jiko desk have some out so we go down there, they were super nice and even went in the back to check other holders, but NO GOOFYS! They were even surprised.

There was no way we could get to another resort or park and we only had about an hour before we left. So I said how about we try to get to Kidani. We go outside and ask valet how to get there. The lady says there is a khaki van that will pull up, but that it only comes every 30 minutes. She says don't worry you will know when it is here.

So I look over and there is a lady doing free face painting. I figure that will be a great way to kill some time. So L is just sitting down to get her face painting and a non-marked khaki van pulls up. No hooplah occurs and several people get on with no announcement. This all seems odd, so as L is getting her face painting I ask one of the bell hops and he replies oh that was the van that just left...but they come about every 10 minutes.

Shesh, lesson learned. Plus L got a free face paint. After her face paint we boarded the van to Kidani.

r

Once in Kindani we head straight for the gift shop. No one has any Goofy's there either! Thankfully the lady could tell my desperation so she pulls out this giant book full of pins and lets us get as many as we want. They have 6, but L doesn't like one that only shows Goofy's feetprint. So we are down to only needing 1. The lady says go ask the DVC guy. We head over there and luck have it, he had one! So we got our full Goofy set too. So exciting!

So then it is back to AKL to grab K and L. We head off to the airport. Here is L's sad face in the airport as we head back.

Our flight back was uneventful and DH was there waiting. We were so ready to be home and see baby Q. Next post I will show all of our goodies, her Goofy collection, her vinyls and give a wrap up. Gotta get on our PTR for next year!

 

[Sandite]

Okay going to have 2 more posts. First, the stuff we bought, then a wrap up.

For some reason I love to see what people actually purchase at Disney! Call me crazy, but it's fun to see things you might want to buy too or be appaled at all the crazy things people purchase...either way it's good fun. So without further talk...our purchases (I swear we bought more than this, but L and I searched high and low around the house last night for pictures).

First and foremost when traveling with a 5 year old...the stuffed animals:

I just love the disney babies ...even though they are ridiculously expensive

Her goofy pin collection...I was super excited we got the one that has the AKL theme on it.

Our trusty misty mate...which will go on future trips so we don't have to ever purchase one of these again

Potato Head parts for her and Baby Q to share...

Random lego parts

The rapunzel polly pocket set. Does it freak anyone else out that on this on you can change her head!

And for Baby Q the cutest block set ever!

Lastly her vinylmations. She traded all, but three. The chicken little had removeable glasses and Luke skywalker had the lightsaber, so those were pretty cool to get.

We were actually pretty frugal this trip. Pin trading is a great way to keep little ones entertained and away from gift shops!

 

[Sandite]

Geez...I didn't think I would have this awful sadness in wrapping up my first TR, but alas the time has come.

First a list of our "firsts" on this trip

1. attempting to collect actual pin sets
2. coral reef for dinner
3. riding soarin' at WDW (had ridden at DL)
4. Chef Mickeys
5. Puking on public transit
6. Staying at a deluxe resort
7. Muppets 3D
8. Pirates league
9. Riding figment
10. The new perry adventure in EPCOT
11. Vinyl trading

Overall this was the greatest Disney trip ever. L is at the perfect age to really enjoy everything. Plus she can make it later into the night so I don't have to miss fireworks or fantasmic anymore

It was such a laid back trip and going at her pace made it so much more enjoyable. Taking rests during the day was a must!

Pin trading was awesome!!! I recommend this to anyone with kiddos probably over the age of 4. Pick a collection or a character to collect, it is a great way to pass time and keep them away from other goodies to buy. I know some people are against it, but if you are wanting to trade buy some of the cheapies on ebay. There are recommendations on here for valid sellers and the ones I use have been pretty consistent in not sending over scrappers. I can't imagine actually paying $7+ for a pin and trading it away.

Vinyl trading was just okay. They are super bulky to lug around and it seemed like there weren't many good ones in the cases. She did end up with some pretty cool ones, but overall it was just an okay experience. We might do like 2 or 3 next time, but for sure not 10 like we tried this time!

Pirates League was great! L really liked it, but she already wants to do BBB next trip. I'm so lucky that I have an in between girl...not too girly not too tomboy.

Staying at a deluxe resort made such a difference. We had always stayed value before and they are okay but the buses stink at value resorts. With renting DVC points, it wasn't that much more and the buses seemed faster and never as crowded. Plus seeing the animals every morning was pretty awesome too!

Only bad side was me being sick, but I know how much fun K, R and L had at MK by themselves. Next time though I will be there!

To those that have been to Disney so many times, relax and take time to just enjoy it! For those who haven't been, don't even think you can do it all in one trip..that is insanity!

I am so excited that we will be going again next year for MNSHP! Will start writing a PTR soon. We are really wanting to branch out and do new things and eat at new places, so will need some recommendations.

See 'ya real soon!

 

[carlaewalter]

Read through your trip report today. Sounds like a wonderful time (minus the stomach bug). We are heading down in November and I am so excited. Thanks for sharing your trip and L is a doll.