"You graduated college, now what are you going to do!?" IM GOING TO DISNEY!!! PICS!!

[Blueeyes101817]

The "characters"
-Me, (Jen), 22 years old, new college graduate, have been to Disney many times
-Kristen, 21 years old, new college graduate, went to Disney when she was younger, then we went 2 years ago too!


A bit of a background
Kristen and I met in the first semester of college-I didnt like the school and transferred, but Kristen and I have stayed in touch. Two years ago, we went to Disney in May and had a great time. Since then, we have been talking about when we could go again. In August of 2006, we started to think about going in May 2007 after our graduation. We were both student teaching and knew that we may need a break after that. In December, we got great airfare (113.00 round trip) so we decided to go for it.

We booked the airfare, decided to stay at POP Century and started to think about our trip!! Student teaching was a good, but stressful experience and it was great having this trip to look forward to throughout those months.

So we finally graduated and the trip is here!

Day 1-Thursday May 17
Kristen lives over 2 hours away from me and she was going to be getting dropped off atm y house the morning of our trip. The plan was she would call my cell phone when she was close and I would wake up. So my phone rang at 4:30am and I made myself get out of bed or she would be locked out! She got dropped off and we attempted to fall asleep, but were "too excited to sleep!" So we exchanged presents. We hadnt seen each other since July so we had to exchange birthday presents, christmas presents, and graduation presents. Then we just watched tv until it was time to leave.
Around 9:30, it was finally time to leave. It was about an hour trive to the airport and my grandparents were dropping us off since I didnt want to pay to leave my car there.

At the airport, the check in line was only about 5-10 minutes. There was a guy in front of us with a lollipop stuck to his shorts. I let him know and he thanked me and his wife said that she did it on purpose--they were such a nice family to be in line with! We got the emergency exit row since we like the extra room and then just waited for the flight to take off. Our flight was on time and we ended up landing in orlando around 3pm

FINALLY!! We are there!!! We checked in for Magical Express and only waited about 10 minutes. We are on the way

(Im on the left in this picture)

We got to POP and there was no line to check in-We ended up getting room 1247, 50's section, 2nd floor of the "lady" building. We had requested the 50's so this location was perfect for us! We decided to go buy our refillable mugs and split a late lunch/early dinner and headed right to the magic kingdom. I always love walking down main street and seeing the castle! We were really there!!

It started to rain a bit as we walked down Main Street, but that wasnt going to stop us! We decided to just start doing some rides. We heard alot about the Laugh Floor so that was our first stop. I thought it was cute and we headed to Buzz Lightyear ride--Now, this is always a huge competition between Kristen and I so I have to rub it in here and say I WON!!!!! But i have to admit (since kristen is a DISer and can read this and add stuff) that it was a close score...Here is Kristen's score

and then the WINNING score

We decided to go on Space since it was still raining, but of course everyone else had the same idea so we grabbed fastpasses and went to the teacups. On the way to the teacups, the rain stopped, which was nice. We always try to go as fast as possible on teacups so it was interesting trying to take a picture

The crowds were pretty low so we headed right to Snow White, Philharmagic(where we had to get our traditional 3D glasses picture)

. Next, we went to Its a Small World. This is Kristen's favorite ride and we would ride this many times throughout the trip. I hated this song by the end of the trip! We went to use our Space fastpasses and then went to the store to get our graduation hats. This was part of my graduation present from Kristen. This picture isnt f rom day one, but you can see the hats we got

We ended up staying on Main Street to get a spot for Spectro and of course, you have the people pushing in front of you during the whole parade. I always love to see SpectroMagic and then we headed down Main Street to get a spot for Wishes

Wishes is absolutely my favorite firework show in Disney so I took a few pictures

Not the best pictures, but i didnt think they came out too bad.
We headed back to POP and ate in Everything POP! We split a meal again, this time i think it was chicken fingers and french fries. We went to our room and found that our luggage had made it! Kristen was a bit worried so it was good that the luggage was there! We unpacked and just watched tv til about 12:30. I know I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. A bit later, we hear someone trying to open our door. I look through and its 2 people using their key on our room and then shaking the door so i told them they had the wrong room and they left..luckily i fell right back asleep but it was interesting!

 

[Blueeyes101817]

Day 2, Friday May 18
Since yesterday was such a long day, we ended up sleeping in til about 9 or 930 and got ready. We ate b reakfast in the room everyday since we brought poptarts and muffins with us. We refilled our mugs and headed back to the Magic Kingdom. We headed to the other side of the park and rode Pirates of the Caribbean first. This was only about a 20 minute wait but we had what we s tarted to call "the blue shirts' behind us. These were a few girls from a middle school group and they made the line feel a lot longer than it really was! After that, we headed to get Splash fastpasses and rode big thunder mountain railroad. None of the rides had too long of waits so it was nice to be able to get on alot of rides. We ended up riding on the train to wait until our fastpass time. When we got off the train, it was perfect timing for the fastpass. Splash stopped at least three times while we were on it-we get wet, but not soaked, so that was good! As we were walking around, we got serenaded by these guys

They were a riot and sang "Be Our Guest" to us..they had the crowd cheering for our graduation...it was too fun.. Now, we wore graduation buttons the whole week so that is how they knew it was our graduation trip. While we were listening to "Be Our Guest," Brer Bear and Brer Fox came so we got in line for pictures with them. We ended up interacting with them for about 5 minutes, it was too funny. First Brer Bear tried to walk aw ay with me and Fox hung his head

Then Fox distracted Bear so then we walked away..it was so funny and we got some great pictures.
Next was one of my favorites, Haunted Mansion--Another tradition we have is naming our ghost that follows us home..this time, we picked Arthur (i know, it doesnt make sense, gotta love tradition!) We decided to head to Toon Town and get some more character pictures and there we found chip, dale, goofy, and snow white.By this time, it was time for the 3:00 parade so we grabbed a seat on main street and a mickey bar while we waited.

There was a family next to us and the little girl was taking pictures and she would say "Say Cheese, Chuckie Cheese!" It was adorable and of course, we ended up saying that all week long! There were three bands marching, and one is about 20 minutes from me, which was pretty neat. Kristen declared the best band was the Bulldogs of Lakeview HS in Courland Ohio.
We wanted to go back to POP for a bit to relax and then head to Epcot. We waited about 30 minutes for a bus, which was our longest wait for a bus all week. We went right to Soarin, but they were out of fastpasses for the day so we went to the Electric Umbrella for lunch. Epcot was having extra magic hours that night so we figured we had plenty of time. We decided to stroll around the World Showcase. We took pictures, shopped, and just walked around taking in the sights.

We ended up running into Aladdin and Genie, so we hopped in line

I know its blurry, but i love this picture for some reason! In one of the countries, we were shopping and saw a little boy keep picking up the items...His mom said "put that down or you will go to jail"--just hearing that in passing was pretty funny
Right as we were getting near the end of World Showcase, it started to rain like c razy so we went shopping at Mousegear. After 20 minutes, we decided to throw the ponchos on and go! We rode Nemo with no wait since most people were still hiding from the rain--I thought that was a cute ride! We then did Soarin' which is one of my favorites! The castmember kept announcing that you could "leave belongings on the floor and the staff will be happy to stow them for you" The way she was talking, it kept sounding like she was saying they would steal our belongings..it was hysterical!While we were there, we did Living with the Land, since Kristen had never been on it. It was still raining so we headed to Journey into IMagination and then sent a ton of those postcards--always fun! The rain stopped so we headed to finish the night with Mission Space and Test Track before we left the park. Went back to POP, had some pizza and got a characature done for my brother's birthday present. He just got a job as a firefighter so i brought a picture of him and got it done as a firefighter. We went to bed around 1..long but fun day!!

 

[OhMari]

Congradulations girls on your graduation.

I enjoyed your pictures-even the fuzzy one's.

I tried getting into the room next to our's one nite. I was so tired I didn't look at the room number. Glad no one came to the door, while I figured out I was at the wrong door.

 

[Blueeyes101817]

Day 3-Saturday May 19
We decided to wake up early (7ish) so we could get to Animal Kingdom at opening. We never attempt to get to parks at opening so we were pushing ourselves to make it! We took the typical pictures as we headed into the park

and then headed to get fastpasses for Everest. We grabbed them and headed to Dinoland where we rode triceratops spin, the spinning ride (cant remember the name!) and Dinosaur. Then got some pictures with 2 dinosaurs that were walking around dinoland. By this time, we got to head to Everest and ride in the 2nd row--We both LOVED it! so we grabbed more fastpasses for later. We decided to head to Kali River Rapids and Kristen got SOAKED!!!

We did Its Tough to be a bug and then Everest again, this time in row 6. Again we loved it and grabbed fastpasses for a third ride. While we waited, we watched the Nemo Musical. I thought it was really cute! I head alot of things from people that liked it and people that didnt so wasnt sure what to expect but it was adorable. Then we rode in row 13 on Everest. We walked around for a bit and decided to have lunch at Pizzafari-_i had pizza and Kristen had the parm sandwich--both were pretty good. We were about to head out of the park and decided to go to camp minnie mickey to get pictures. We jumped in line for Donald and Goofy (kristen's favorite character is Donald!) On the way out of the park, we also ran into chip and dale, rafiki and stanley.
We went to POP because Kristen was STILL soaked. We waited 2 minutes for a bus and changed and went right toe MGM. our first stop was Indiana Jones. We had a "its a small world" moment while waiting for the show to start. One of the volunteers was my ex boyfriend's brother. I had no idea he was going to be in disney so it was pretty nice to see him--i also got pictures of him up there and sent them to his mom when i got home. After the show we got pictures with Indiana Jones himself--Of course theres a glare, but have to share this one

We decided to walk around until it was time for the Lights Motor Action Show at 5:30 and we got pictures with Sully, Mike, and Buzz. The LMA show was good--i had seen it before and Kristen hadnt. There were a few delays but i think its a good show.
After the show, we got some of the city pictures

and headed to Tower of Terror--a favorite for both of us!! 10 min wait for TOT so we got right on and then headed to RNRC--we grabbed a fastpass since there was a 50 min wait. While we waited for our fastpass time, we went to the Great Movie Ride, Voyage of the Little Mermaid and took an ice cream break. We decided to ride Tower of Terror again. We got to the front of the line and the ride broke so we waited since we were so close. There were 2 guys from NJ in line behind us and they were hysterical. We had a good time waiting in line. They had never been on the ride so it made it funny..We were glad to be on the elevator with them! The castmembers were r eally in character, which always makes it more fun.

We used our fastpasses for RNRC and headed to the store to begin
"The Great Hat HUnt"--Kristen's boyfriend wanted a hat and we could not find it so we decided it was the hat hunt as we searched EVERY store to find it! We didnt succeed here so we headed to the buses. THere was a family in front of us on their first trip--Their son, about 8 years old was adorable and said "Disney is so much fun, thanks for bringing us" and hugged his parents..it was so sweet!
The bus came and we continued our great hat hunt at everything pop, grabbed some food and went to bed

 

[Blueeyes101817]

Day 4, Sunday May 20
We slept til about 830 and got ready and relaxed til about 10. We wore tshirts that were designed for us for our graduation (thanks deb
We headed to downtown disne and just walked around and shopped for a few hours. Kristen got a great gift for herself-She got her name done with the disney characters so she can put it on her desk when shes teaching--its adorable!
We went to POP for lunch and got some pictures around the resorts with our graduation hats and shirts.

We decided to relax by the pool for a couple hours and read so that was nice and relaxing!
For Kristens birthday present, i decided to go to Chef Mickeys since she loves Donald and we knew he was there. We had 6pm reservations and our server was Judi-she was great! They brought out the celebration placemats for us and after we ate, they brought us cupcakes to celebrate our graduation

We had such a great time there!Magic Kingdom was having evening extra magic hours so we walked over there. We got on a lot of rides in a short time: Teacups, Winnie the pooh, Carousel of Progress (then the song was stuck in my head ALL night!), TTA, The carousel,

philharmagic, its a small world (AGAIN!) and then back to haunted mansion. As we were boarding our "doom buggies" we noticed one of the c ast members "Danny" was really in character and we commented on how freaky he was making his eyes look..We got in the doom buggy and then he slammed on the back of it and stuck his head in our doom buggy--it was hilarious and he was so in character! After this, Krsiten got a dole whip while we headed to Space Mountain. The line was out the door so we passed on that and headed to Dumbo since Kristen hasnt been on it since she was little. After this, we took our time heading out of the park and went back to the hotel to read for awhile and then fall asleep

 

[Blueeyes101817]

Day 5 Monday May 21
We slept til about 830 and were out of the room by 10:15. The plan for today was Epcot. We went right to get fastpass to Soarin and then played around in Innoventions. As a tradition, we played "Wheres the Fire?" My dad is a firefighter and i played that game with him when we went a couple years ago.
All of a sudden ,it seemed to get crowded so we grabbed a couple of ice creams and relaxed. We headed to Honey I shrunk the audience.

The preshow got me a bit choked up..They have the part about the boy that lost his dog Champ and then finds him at the end. A few weeks ago, we put down our dog and his name was Champ..so that just got to me a bit, but i still loved the preshow!
After this, we continued our Great Hat Hunt and we were unsuccessful, again! We used our Soarin fastpass and then walked around The Living Seas. We decided to eat at the Electric Umbrella again. We werent on the dining plan and were trying not to spend alot on food--Lets just say i am now sick of pizza, chicken, and fries! We finished up EPCOT for the day by riding spaceship earth..On the way out, we stopped for this picture

We had heard people saying tonight was extra evening hours for MGM so we wanted to go there, but decided to stop at the hotel first
Good thing we did, because it was there we realized there was not EMH at MGM that night--there went our plan!
So instead of relaxing at the hotel, we headed straight for MGM. We stopped to watch one of the street shows..have no idea what they were called but they were hysterical

Crowds were pretty low so we went and rode tower of terror three times, then headed to RNRC for a couple of rides. We went to the other side of the park for star tours, backlot tour, muppets 3d and the great movie ride. We got alot done in a short amount of time!
Before we left, we rode tower of terror another 2 times,,can you tell its a favorite?! There were 2 boys about 8 and 11 in front of us in line..They were adorable and asked what rides we had been on. We got on the elevator with them and right before we dropped they yelled "hands up!" Almost every person put their hands up..the picture came out great! As we were getting off the e levator, they were so polite and stopped to let us out-the one boy said "ladies first" it was too sweet!
We left MGM while Fantasmic was going on and went to POP for a late dinner. As we walked back to our room, Kristen stopped and looked in her bag and couldnt find her phone--she said she thought she dropped it in teh trash..So i went to the room and we went back to everything Pop...she came back and said she looked through the garbage, couldnt find the phone...and then checked another place in her bag and there it was! i thought it was so funny (sorry Kris! ) so i had to take this picture back in the room

We read and watched tv and fell asleep around 1 or so

 

[Blueeyes101817]

Day 6, Tuesday May 22
Well, it was our last park day! We talked about what park we wanted to go to and decided to go to all four parks to do our favorites. Then , i realized i needed to go to Downtown Disney so our plan for the day became all four parks, plus downtown disney.
Since we had alot to do, we were up early and on our way to Animal Kingdom for opening.

We got fastpasses to Everest right away and headed to the Safari-It said 40 min wait but it wasnt that long at all. There were 2 people on our safari that were sitting in the front row (we were in the 2nd). As we passed the giraffes, one of them commented that those animatronic animals almost looked real. The driver said they were and they didnt believe it at first. They kept making comments throughout the ride about the fake animals and how well disney did with making them look authentic and real.The driver was hilarious and kept his composure which made everything funnier.
Our next plan was hitting Dinosaur, but it was closed. As we walked to Everest, we saw DeVine

We then headed to Everest for our last ride! We got in the last row and it was great, as always! We grabbed drinks and were out of the park by 10:45.

Up next was MGM

We got fastpasses for Tower of Terror (of course) and then got in the standby line for RNRC--it was a 40 minute wait but it went quickly. Our fastpass time wasnt up yet, so we walked around and took some pictures until it was time,

then headed to Tower of Terror for our last ride there!
We stopped at a couple stores and were out of MGM by 1:15

Next, we stopped at POP for lunch and then headed to Downtown Disney. I needed to buy the new Maroon 5 cd that came out today and Kristen had some last minute shopping to do. We were only at DTD for about an hour and found everything we went there for. Next stop was park #3, the Magic Kingdom!

As we walked down Main Street, we noticed the Dapper Dans were singing so we stopped and watched their show for a bit then headed to the Laugh Floor again-I love watching the people's faces when they realize they are up on the screen! We went for one more spin on Buzz lightyear and i won again!!! Next, we got fast passes for Space Mountain and headed to Toontown to get pictures of minnie and mickey's houses.

After, we did teacups, Its a small world (AGAIN!), Haunted Mansion, Fastpasses for Splash Mountain since the wait was 80 minutes. Next was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Kristen got one more Dole whip. We ended up splitting dinner at Cosmic Rays and then used both our Space mountain and Splash mountain fastpasses. There was a great family in line with us at Splash mountain. the little boy kept making sure we werent scared and he let us know when the drops were coming--he was adorable!
We then took the train to main Street and said goodbye to Magic Kingdom

Our final stop was Epcot--We took the ferry and then the monorail. While on the monorail, we were standing near a guy with a firefighter shirt. Since my dad's a firefighter, i seem to always talk to firemen..So i asked where he was a firefighter and we were just chatting with his family. The kids had on the mickey ears that are given out as a part of the year of a million dreams. We commented on them being lucky and they said tehy won two times..Very lucky family! As we left the monorail, the dad gave us 2 of their hats--they had extra and i was "a "brother's" daughter"..very sweet family and we loved those hats--very nice!

Epcot was pretty crowded so we did pictures in character connections then just walked around. Soarin and test track had pretty long lines so we just headed back to POP for a snack and packing.
As we left Epcot, the castmember said "have a great night, come back to see us soon" Very sad hearing that knowing that we are leaving the next day!!

 

[Blueeyes101817]

Day 7 Wednesday May 23
Well our trip was over! We slept til about 9 and did some last minute packing. Magical express wasnt picking us up til 1245, so we just relaxed and watched tv til 11, when we had to check out. We took our luggage to bell services and did some last minute shopping and then ate lunch.
we got on the Magical Express bus and the movie began. At the end, the characters sing "M-I-C, see you real soon, K-E-Y, Why because we like you, M-O-U-S-E"..we definitely didnt want this trip to end!

We got to the airport early, went through the security line and just waited. The plane ride home was quick and my grandparents were there to take me home..it was a great trip!!

Here are some final thoughts from both Kristen and I:

Favorite Park- Mine was Magic Kingdom
-Kristen said MGM
Favorite Ride-Mine was Everest and Tower of Terro
-Kristen said Its a small world
Favorite snack-Mine is the Mickey bar
-Kristen said Dole Whip
Favorite part of trip-Mine was Chef Mickeys
-Kristen said Spectro Magic
Favorite Show-we both said Indiana Jones
Favorite Character Picture-Mine was Aladdin and the one with Indiana Jones
-Kristen said donald duck at Chef Mickeys
Favorite Disney song-I couldnt pick a favorite and Kristen's was Its a Small World

It was such a great trip, crowds werent too bad. The weather was nice--hot, but not unbearable.

It really was the best trip we could have taken to celebrate our graduation!

 

[ziggystardust]

Great report!! You really made me jealous since my friend and I have a trip in the very beginning stages planned but nothing is actually planned yet.

I'm glad to hear you had a great time! Good Luck with teaching!

 

[tinknme]

Wonderful TR Jen! I am so glad you had such a good time & I love your pictures. Makes me wish I were there now!

How sweet of the fireman to give you & your friend a YOAMD hat

Your trip was magical & you deserved it

 

[wdwgirl03]

Great report, great pictures! I love those graduation mouse ears...I wish I could have some (I just graduated too, and am student teaching in the fall)!! Sounds like a fun trip!

 

[Tammi67]

Great report Jen!!! I can't wait to go in October!!

 

[KMH1]

What a fun report Jen, and I really liked looking at all your pictures! Thanks for sharing with us! And congratulations again!!!

Amy

 

[PNO4TE]

Loved your TR, Jen! Looks like you and Kristen had a great time, and it was certainly well-deserved! Thanks for getting this posted so soon.

 

[yellowfish78]

Great TR Jen!!! Did you get any Wishes granted?? And that band you mentioned is about 20 minutes from my house! small world afterall...

PS: Congrats again on graduating!!!!

 

[PrincessLeighsDaddy]

Great TR Jen! Congratulations on graduating too! You two look like you had a fantastic time!

Now, I am definitely looking forward to our trip in the fall!

 

[wdw_girl_18]

congrats on graduating

I loved the trip report!

 

[tink2020]

Well, you just had to put me to shame, didn't you?! My trip report isn't even started yet!

I loved reading yours! You two took some very cute pictures, and it looks like you had a wonderful trip. Thanks for writing the report!

 

[kimwim8]

GREAT trip report, Jen!! You're so darn quick with posting!!! And such a good memory!!

And YOU sick of chicken, pizza and fries?? I don't believe it.

Thanks for sharing, and for posting so many pictures. Wonder who asked you to do that??

 

[tmfranlk]

Great report, Jen! It looks like an absolutely wonderful time. It reminded me of how much fun I had on my graduation trip. I went with my best friend and his girl friend. If I remember right, neither of them had ever been and we had the best time! I'll have to dig out some pictures and send them to Matt and Caroline.