You can spit on Space Mountain from here! An April '13 TR UPDATED 10/19 p. 28

[DisneyKid4Life]

It's surprising but I only visited the Boardwalk area for the first time last October and just completely fell in love with it. I haven't stayed there, but it is for sure on my Disney must do list. It's like a little village.

Oh man I think I need another vacation. Every time you wrote "Sarah" I just kept thinking, why are you writing in the 3rd person all of a sudden? Oy. I need a facepalm smiley!

Are you telling us that you don't have a video of your kilt competition??? Darn!

 

[magichusky]

Just caught up! The Poly is also definitely my favorite WDW resort- thanks for posting all those fabulous photos- I love walking around there at night w/ all the torches glowing!

 

[Jennifer48]

I didn't know they changed up the WHW. DH & I always say we don't need to attend another when we've already been to one. Guess we should try this one out!

Don't you just love the Boardwalk area? I seriously wish we could buy there, its quickly become one of our favorites. Its beautiful!

 

[Cory's Gal]

The Boardwalk area is so pretty! Great pictures, it would be nice to stay in that area some day!! The Flower and Garden Festival flowers are so vibrant! Your dad looks like he was having fun!!

 

[RachelNinja]

Some of those games sounded like fun, but I would not want to actually participate either! But yay for the pin as a prize anyway!

 

[danceintherain]

I would love to stay at the Boardwalk one day, but I think DH would be pretty upset with the clown pool. I suppose we could just plan on spending time at the quiet pools for that trip (we don't usually do a lot of pool time anyways)...

 

[wdwgirl03]

Oh my gosh!!! That would have been a great photo op to see you and your dad at the WHW event. That sounds like it was so much fun!

You have such beautiful photos of the flowers at Epcot!!

I know, if I had been thinking I would've asked someone to take a picture. But then again my dad might not want photo evidence that that actually happened. haha!

Thank you!

I'm finally all caught up! It was raining pretty hard on my F&G day so seeing your pics with no rain is pretty nice!

Also, on your conservation donation button. April got one for rounding her change up to the nearest dollar donation at the POR gift shop. She was so excited about it! She loves that button.

Aww, that's a bummer! It was starting to get cloudy that afternoon so some of my pictures aren't as nice...but we went back on our last day when the sun was shining. The flowers look so much prettier with blue skies!

I love those buttons too. I think I have 2 now, one from DAK and one from Old Key West.

Love the pics!

Thanks!

WHW sounds like it was a lot of fun! Although, I am like you and I can't say I would have been too excited being chosen to get up in front of everyone and do something silly. But I'm sure once it was over, it made for a fun memory!

Yes, exactly. It made for a fun TR story atleast.

I wanted to tell you I thought of you at BLT!

Aww, thanks! Hope you guys enjoyed BLT! It is a great resort!

YAY, I'm all caught up! Welcome Home Wednesday sounds pretty fun.

Yay, welcome back. WHW was a good time.

It's surprising but I only visited the Boardwalk area for the first time last October and just completely fell in love with it. I haven't stayed there, but it is for sure on my Disney must do list. It's like a little village.

Oh man I think I need another vacation. Every time you wrote "Sarah" I just kept thinking, why are you writing in the 3rd person all of a sudden? Oy. I need a facepalm smiley!

Are you telling us that you don't have a video of your kilt competition??? Darn!

Oh really?! I can't remember when we visited the Boardwalk for the first time but we try to get over there every trip. I just love it there!

haha, nice.

No, no pictures or video. Boo!

Just caught up! The Poly is also definitely my favorite WDW resort- thanks for posting all those fabulous photos- I love walking around there at night w/ all the torches glowing!

You are welcome-glad you enjoyed the Polynesian pictures! I love the torches too. That is one thing I remember about staying there as a kid-coming back to the resort at night and seeing them lit!

I didn't know they changed up the WHW. DH & I always say we don't need to attend another when we've already been to one. Guess we should try this one out!

Don't you just love the Boardwalk area? I seriously wish we could buy there, its quickly become one of our favorites. Its beautiful!

Yeah, I am not sure when they changed the show but I think there might've been something in one of the Disney Files magazines about it. You should go next time!

YES! The Boardwalk area is awesome. Dad has looked into adding on there too since it is my mom's favorite resort. Don't think it'll happen though. Oh well.

The Boardwalk area is so pretty! Great pictures, it would be nice to stay in that area some day!! The Flower and Garden Festival flowers are so vibrant! Your dad looks like he was having fun!!

The whole area is just so much fun. I love the atmosphere there. haha yes, I think he was having fun!

I see you guys are going to Disneyland soon...so jealous! I'm going to go check out your PTR.

Some of those games sounded like fun, but I would not want to actually participate either! But yay for the pin as a prize anyway!

Yeah, I am just not that outgoing. In the end it did make for a funny memory of the trip!

I would love to stay at the Boardwalk one day, but I think DH would be pretty upset with the clown pool. I suppose we could just plan on spending time at the quiet pools for that trip (we don't usually do a lot of pool time anyways)...

Yeah, when we stayed there we actually only used the pool a couple of times, and we used the quiet pool. The main pool was always pretty crowded, but that might also have something to do with spring break.

 

[Angies1274]

Hi Angie! Glad you enjoyed the updates!

Ooh, yay! So do you have a trip in the works then???

We do!! But, we can't decide on the dates which is why I haven't added a ticker yet. It's either going to be April or November next year. We love going in April but we really wanted to try going around the holidays as well. Either way...I can't wait to go back!!

It sounds like you had some great meet and greets! We loved seeing Phineas and Ferb on our last trip! They were so much fun! Yay for meeting Wreck-it-Ralph!! Noah loves that movie! I wish they were going to be around next year.

Love the Flower and Garden pics! So pretty!!

 

[wdwgirl03]

We do!! But, we can't decide on the dates which is why I haven't added a ticker yet. It's either going to be April or November next year. We love going in April but we really wanted to try going around the holidays as well. Either way...I can't wait to go back!!

It sounds like you had some great meet and greets! We loved seeing Phineas and Ferb on our last trip! They were so much fun! Yay for meeting Wreck-it-Ralph!! Noah loves that movie! I wish they were going to be around next year.

Love the Flower and Garden pics! So pretty!!

Well if you've never been around the holidays I think you should go in November! F&GF is amazing but so are the Christmas decorations! Either time sounds great though.

The meet and greets were fun!

 

[wdwgirl03]

Hi everyone! So sorry it's been taking so long for me to update this TR. Part of me feels like I should just give up on it. But...I don't really want to do that and now that school is over hopefully it'll be a little easier to get this thing moving again. I have next week off before summer school starts. I am also considering going to visit Emma again (my parents just got back yesterday from visiting/helping her move) in August once summer school is over. Whether or not that actually happens is yet to be determined. All I know is I want to take some sort of vacation before the fall!

Now let's see...where did we last leave off?!

Wednesday, April 3, 2013 cont'd (part 4)

After exploring the Oz garden we headed over to Innoventions to get our usual (FREE!) Disney Visa picture! They had just expanded the hours you could go, making it a little easier to visit (it used to only be like a 3 hour window, which meant the line could get somewhat long). When we got there, there was only one other family ahead of us so we didn't have to wait long at all! Because Dad and I both have Disney Visas, we were able to get two picture vouchers. You can only do this if they are different account numbers. We went in and got to meet Mickey and Pluto! The photographer took a few photopass pictures and of course we got one taken with my camera as well.



Seriously, this is such a great deal for Disney Visa members. Those Disney pictures are so expensive-it's nice to get a free photo every trip now! Hopefully they keep that little perk around for a while.

From Innoventions we spent some more time admiring all of the Flower and Garden Festival displays. These Phineas and Ferb topiaries were up near Spaceship Earth.





One of the things I wanted to do was go to the Festival Welcome Center (in the old Wonders of Life pavilion). Why, you might ask? If you haven't been able to tell already from my various TRs, I am a big Vera Bradley junkie. So you can imagine I was quite excited when I found out that Disney and Vera Bradley teamed up to create a couple Disney-inspired patterns! It's kind of funny...the day that was announced Emma and a former co-worker (I may have worked for a retailer in the past...) posted on my facebook. When I saw the designs I pretty much geeked out. And when I read the article it said something about the Flower and Garden Festival-so I totally thought they were going to be selling them during the F&GF! Well, once I went back to reread I found out the designs were just going to be PREVIEWED at the event. So sad, because I would have definitely bought one (or two...) things! But I still wanted to see the patterns in person.

Mickey and Minnie near Wonders of Life!


Dad by Goofy!


These butterfly projections on the ceiling were cool.


We walked around the pavilion for a while before I saw the display case! WOW is all I can say. Could those patterns be any cuter?!







Honestly, when I first saw the designs I liked the black one but in person they are both so adorable. And the cool thing is, from the number of pieces they had on display it looks like they'll be selling quite a few styles. I cannot wait to purchase a bag or two. My only issue with them is once they're out, I feel like that's ALL you're going to see in Disney World. I mean, so many people already carry VB stuff there. But whatever, that's not going to stop me from buying it.

OK, I think that's enough about the Vera Bradley stuff...

While we were there Dad and I also checked out some of the other festival merchandise.

F&GF Duffy!


They also had these really cute garden statues. Last year we got Mom a Minnie one so we thought it would be cool to get the Mickey one as well. But they changed the designs so this year's Mickey wouldn't match her Minnie. I said we should just get them both and I'll take the old Minnie. Yeah, we didn't do that.



When we went back outside we admired more of the topiaries. I am kind of bummed that it was starting to get cloudy that afternoon. Don't get me wrong, everything was still pretty but the flowers just look so much more vibrant in the sunshine!

Buzz Lightyear was appropriately placed near Mission:Space.


There was also a cute Cars area. They've had Lightning McQueen and Mater topiaries before, but never a whole garden. I loved how everything was so perfectly cars-themed! There were hubcaps and traffic cones as decorations. So cute.





I caught the monorail gliding by!


From there we headed over to exchange our annual passes for the new plastic tickets.

Lion King!


The ticket exchange was in the Odyssey Center. There were a bunch of CMs ready to help. It didn't take too long to exchange the tickets. All we needed to do was show the CM our driver's licenses and give them our old paper tickets. I guess it did take Dad a little longer because he was actually able to get his new AP at that time too (since ours were going to be expiring in a few days...but he still had over a week left of vacation...still bitter about that, LOL). There were four different ticket designs you could choose from-Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy. Dad chose Donald for both of his, and I chose Minnie.



If only mine was a brand new one and not just good for 4 more days. Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to get a new AP soon!

There were also some TVs playing videos about the new Magic My Way stuff. Dad spent a lot of time talking to one of the CMs, asking him questions about how the new system is going to work. To be honest I don't really like the idea of the magic bands-I think it would be annoying to have to wear one of those around. But maybe that's just me-it seems like there are a lot of people excited about that stuff.

I don't remember much from that conversation (I think I got distracted by the Figment they had on display that looked like it was one of the audio animatronics from the ride!!!) so maybe Dad can chime in here and mention some of the stuff he learned.

On the way out of the Odyssey Center they had a couple of the new RFID turnstiles so we could check and see if our passes worked. I do have to say the new turnstiles are kind of cool with the Mickey head lights. Thankfully our passes worked and we were on our way!

up next: More Flower and Garden Festival and a DIS meet at BLT???

 

[peachmermaid]

Those bags are super cute! Love the minnie ap too, of course!

 

[FancyNancy]

Oh no don't give up on your report! Thank you so much for including a segment on the new Disney Vera Bradley designs. I love Vera bags as well and am excited to purchase one of the Midnight Mickey patters. I already have a pink bag that looks to similar to the DW pink design.

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

I so want a Disney Visa!!!! But being from Canada, I can't get one.

Ahhhh, I love Annual Passes!

And aren't those turnstiles cool? I love them. So much fun!

 

[marDgreen88]

I'm such a dummy, I didn't even think to look for the Vera Bradley's when I was just there! Sigh.

Ahhhhhh Flower and Garden. So awesome! The topiaries are just too perfect.

I heard that you aren't required to wear your My Magic band all the time. It's pretty exciting stuff!

 

[caralyn817]

Don't stop! I like reading your updates even if they aren't often. I just started my first trip report and hopefully I'll be able to continue writing them.

I love Vera Bradley as well. When I first saw the pictures, I really liked the black one, but now looking at your the pink is adorable too. Might just have to get one of each color.

We got the new cards when we were there for Memorial Day weekend. I got Minnie as well. I think it would be neat if they had a couple more girl options for the tickets, like Tinkerbell, Daisy, or a Princess. My mom and I both wanted Minnie, but she choose to get Mickey instead. I'm usually the one who holds onto the tickets once we get through the gates for fastpass purposes and the different characters make it easier to hand back when we're done.

Keep it up! Can't wait for more!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I still have yet to go and get the picture for having the Disney Visa. We definitely need to make time for it on our upcoming trip.

The VB stuff is pretty cute. It's not up my alley, but I have to admit that they would be a must have for anyone who is a lover of VB and Disney.

I'm pretty excited about AP's being plastic now! I'm so easily amused. I hated the fact that ours were paper for so long.

 

[Caretames1]

Hi Sarah! I'm ready to get caught back up here and I can't wait to see how your trip turned out! I'm hoping for a rainy day to justify some couch/computer time!

 

[khertz]

I love getting the Visa photos! I'm really excited about the extended hours now too, because the three hour window always fell during naptime when we'd be back at the resort. We'd have to hustle over there when we got to Epcot in the afternoon to get our picture before it was closed! We have quite a few of those prints from our trips.

Love all of the F&G stuff. Maybe one day I will get to visit at that time of year!

 

[Jennifer48]

Aww don't give up on your TR! You can do it!

I love the black VB pattern. Can't wait til they're out!

I actually like the idea of the MagicBands. I'd totally wear it (even at home )

Please continue!

 

[wdwgirl03]

Those bags are super cute! Love the minnie ap too, of course!

They are so cute! I wonder if they'll end up making any more patterns. Judging by how popular the Dooney and Bourke bags are you think they would! I would like a purple one with Tinkerbell...haha

Oh no don't give up on your report! Thank you so much for including a segment on the new Disney Vera Bradley designs. I love Vera bags as well and am excited to purchase one of the Midnight Mickey patters. I already have a pink bag that looks to similar to the DW pink design.

You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed my little VB part. I am a little obsessed with that stuff. I can't wait for them to come out!

I so want a Disney Visa!!!! But being from Canada, I can't get one.

Ahhhh, I love Annual Passes!

And aren't those turnstiles cool? I love them. So much fun!

Aww, boo to not being able to get a Disney Visa! It is a nice little perk.

ME TOO. Hopefully I'll be an AP holder again real soon...we'll see...

I'm such a dummy, I didn't even think to look for the Vera Bradley's when I was just there! Sigh.

Ahhhhhh Flower and Garden. So awesome! The topiaries are just too perfect.

I heard that you aren't required to wear your My Magic band all the time. It's pretty exciting stuff!

Was F&GF still going on when you went? They just had that little display showcasing them. I want to know when they'll actually be on sale! I'm either going to be stalking them online or having Emma get me something.

Yeah, and from what I understand you don't have to get the magic band? I really should be paying more attention to this stuff but part of me doesn't even care. LOL.

Don't stop! I like reading your updates even if they aren't often. I just started my first trip report and hopefully I'll be able to continue writing them.

I love Vera Bradley as well. When I first saw the pictures, I really liked the black one, but now looking at your the pink is adorable too. Might just have to get one of each color.

We got the new cards when we were there for Memorial Day weekend. I got Minnie as well. I think it would be neat if they had a couple more girl options for the tickets, like Tinkerbell, Daisy, or a Princess. My mom and I both wanted Minnie, but she choose to get Mickey instead. I'm usually the one who holds onto the tickets once we get through the gates for fastpass purposes and the different characters make it easier to hand back when we're done.

Keep it up! Can't wait for more!

Aww thanks. I probably am not going to stop-I just wish I was more efficient at updating at times.

haha, that's how I was too with the Vera stuff! I loved the black one! But I sort of like that pink backpack...decisions decisions.

Oh, that would be awesome if they had more designs! Maybe they'll do that eventually.

I still have yet to go and get the picture for having the Disney Visa. We definitely need to make time for it on our upcoming trip.

The VB stuff is pretty cute. It's not up my alley, but I have to admit that they would be a must have for anyone who is a lover of VB and Disney.

I'm pretty excited about AP's being plastic now! I'm so easily amused. I hated the fact that ours were paper for so long.

Yes, you should! It makes for a great souvenir.

haha yes, Disney+Vera Bradley=bad news for me. I love it.

Well then I am easily amused too. The plastic cards are SO much better!

Hi Sarah! I'm ready to get caught back up here and I can't wait to see how your trip turned out! I'm hoping for a rainy day to justify some couch/computer time!

Hi Carey! Glad to see you back on the DIS!

I love getting the Visa photos! I'm really excited about the extended hours now too, because the three hour window always fell during naptime when we'd be back at the resort. We'd have to hustle over there when we got to Epcot in the afternoon to get our picture before it was closed! We have quite a few of those prints from our trips.

Love all of the F&G stuff. Maybe one day I will get to visit at that time of year!

Oh, well that will be perfect for you guys then! Hope you get to take advantage of it next time.

I LOVE the Flower and Garden Festival! It ranks right up there with visiting around the holidays. It's going to be strange if there comes a year when I don't go in the spring because I've been there for the F&GF 4 years in a row now!

Aww don't give up on your TR! You can do it!

I love the black VB pattern. Can't wait til they're out!

I actually like the idea of the MagicBands. I'd totally wear it (even at home )

Please continue!

haha, thanks for the motivation. I seriously doubt I could REALLY give up. But maybe I'll be done before I go in December.

I can't wait either!