"Your Phone is Orbiting Space Mountain Right Now!" - A September/October 2019 Trip Report - F&W, MNSSHPx3 Updated 10/28

[Wishfuiiy]

"Your Phone is Orbiting Space Mountain Right Now!"
- A September/October 2019 Trip Report -​

Well, HOWDY!

As I breathe in the Magical Candle Company's Pirate Life, I'm reminded of a distant past of our family vacation mere two weeks ago. Wait, it's only been like two weeks? Man, it feels like forever since I was eating dole whips and drinking weird Florida water.

I'm going to be really honest when I say I'm SUPER nervous about writing this report since it's my very first one! Also I'm a bit nervous because I'm definitely pooh-sized and I hope people don't get thrown off by that. I'm planning on losing weight for the next set of photos I post on this forum. Oh phooey, who cares? Let's talk DISNEY! I previously wrote a pre-trip report you can scope out here, but I'll warn ya some things on that pre-trip report DEFINITELY changed(and for the better)! We spent 11 nights/12 days in at the awesome Walt Disney World Resort and almost loved every moment of it. After a really rough August where my family went through two deaths of my beloved grandparents, we definitely needed a big break. It also was the first time I had traveled and took a break from work in over a year! We had birthdays to celebrate, and one GREAT cancer survivor party to throw.

Anyway, let's start at the very beginning because that's a very good place to start.

Initially, we were booked as a split stay as we had a very interesting situation going on with members of our party. The first part of the trip from September 20th - 25th was going to be spent with my sister, niece, grandma(aka Mimi), father, step-mother, step-brother, step-sil, etc. at Disney's Pop Century Resort but due to school schedules, my father and his family decided to forgo the trip. That leaves us with the main cast of characters such as my beautiful sister - Tiffany!

My adorable little niece - Bailey!

My kick-butt grandma - Mimi!

And later in the trip, the rest of the brood comes in like my sweet Mom and Pops - Charlotte and Allan!

My silly brother-in-law - Dwayne!

And my internet pal - Heather (and other friends who I don't have permission to post photos of)!

Oh yeah, and me - I'm the numpty in the back. I'm 33, and a full-time content creator on a little website called Twitch. I play video games for a living and I absolutely love it. I usually travel for conventions to meet with fans and other streamers, but this year I decided that in lieu of running myself ragged that I'd rather go to Florida with my family thus this big idea of the trip was born. What once started off as just a small little trip where I invited fans and other streamers down to visit with my family and I at my favorite place in the world ended up moving into nearly two weeks at Disney. Hey, I ain't complaining about that either! The only thing missing from my trip was my DH who had to stay home and hold down the fort, but he despises being hot and had to work on the musical Mamma Mia so he gave me his blessings to have the best trip too. I love my DH very much, but I also know how grumpy people can get at Disney and I would hate to make him do something he hates.

Anyway, I ramble! I had been planning this trip since last year, and we nailed down the final dates and began to pick the ADRs and Fastpasses. All that stuff? Listed in the pre-trip report, and it's actually funny looking back at how we changed all of it up. You gotta be flexible when you are travelling with so many goofballs. Anyway, hope you guys will enjoy our September/October trip!

 

[Wishfuiiy]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pre-Trip Report - WishCon aka the best BIRTHDAY ever Sept'19 PTR
Part 1. Meet the Goof Troop
Part 2. Travel Day! Magic Kingdom and MNSSHP?!

 

[buteraa]

Looking forward to hearing all about it!

 

[Raeven]

Following along!

 

[heaven2dc]

You're doing a great job with your first trip report! So sorry to hear about losing your grandparents A trip away to Disney has helped our family in the past with a loss of loved ones. Love your writing style! So fun - can't wait to follow along on the rest of your trip!

 

[Wishfuiiy]

Looking forward to hearing all about it!

And I plan on telling it in mass. Thank you so much for tuning in.

 

[Wishfuiiy]

Following along!

Hey! Thank you so much for stopping in and following along. You're pretty cool!

 

[Wishfuiiy]

You're doing a great job with your first trip report! So sorry to hear about losing your grandparents A trip away to Disney has helped our family in the past with a loss of loved ones. Love your writing style! So fun - can't wait to follow along on the rest of your trip!

I really want to thank you so much for this statement alone, as well as following along the report. My family was torn on actually cancelling the trip at one point due to my grandmother's health, but then she got really sick at the beginning of August and passed. My Mom then felt less guilty about going, and used it as a refreshing point. The death of my grandfather was pretty unexpected, but it was due to Alzheimer's so in a way, for the best because he didn't have the best quality of life at the point he was at.

I'm also really sorry to hear about your loss but glad that Disney helped ease the pain of thinking about those losses even just for a few days.

And once again, thank you so much! It will only get better from here, I hope.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

I play video games for a living and I absolutely love it.

What an AWESOME job!!!
Joining in and can't wait to hear more!!!

 

[Wishfuiiy]

Part 2: TRAVEL DAY, Magic Kingdom and MNSSHP?
​

Absolutely teeming with Disney energy, I didn't go to sleep until 12am the night before leaving. It was partially because I always wait until the last minute to pack my two full suitcases but also because I was spending time with my husband, who I would be leaving for almost two weeks. We've spent time apart before but it isn't ever easy, even if I'm going to my fabulously fun happy place.

Sadly, I only got a few hours of sleep and was back up at 3am to finish placing the luggage in the car, shower and pop a light bit of makeup on. In the car, my DH threw on a true crime podcast and we were on the road to the airport at 4am. Getting closer to the airport at 5:45am, I received a frantic phone call from my niece who was scared that I wasn't on the road yet and I was going to miss the flight. They went ahead through TSA because they had a special escort for my grandmother who has a port due to chemo, and various rods in her knees or back. We like to say she's bionic! I slowly crawled through TSA since I got there a bit later than them, but still I was sat down at the gate which was the first gate after the check point. Score!

As soon as I turned the corner though, Bailey ran across the airport and nearly knocked me over with a hug. She was so excited I had made it and we were FINALLY going to Disney. Mimi, who has never been on a commercial flight, was so excited and nervous. She kept asking if I was nervous though, which told me she was nervous. Flying for me is normal because of my job, so it was easy to read. We took a few photos though just enjoying each other's company.


Someone if photobombing us. Always a pest, sisters are, no matter how old you get.

I absolutely love this photo of Bailey and Mimi! Bailey is definitely a camera fiend so you'll be seeing her a lot.

Soon enough, we boarded the flight. I actually boarded after my grandmother because I always pay for priority or early bird so I don't have to fuss with where I'm sitting or when I'm getting on. I opted to sit next to my grandmother and my sister and niece sat near us. During the take off, Mimi kept saying, "Oh my Goodness" as she stared out the window. It was very powerful to watch her point at the clouds, when we didn't know if she was going to make it just a few months earlier.


She looks super content and whimsical.

We are used to taking 9 hour car rides down to Disney so it was a real treat that we had a smooth, easy and short flight. We landed at MCO a bit earlier than scheduled at 9:15am. I sat with Mimi while we waited for the plane to clear before I helped her up and out to the wheelchair that was waiting for her. Southwest had someone to assist pushing her all the way to the Magical Express. The lady who was walking us through was walking so fast that I was trailing behind. Finally, I did make it there and we boarded the bus for our first Magical Express.

Another downside of driving hours is you also have to haul all your luggage to your room from the car but it was so effortless with Magical Express. Just a few dollars to the man handling your bags and you seriously need not to worry about anything except when are you gonna get there. We also felt it didn't take that long with Magical Express to load or to get us to the resort. Speaking of, we had to get the shot.


Your vacation isn't officially started until you return home under these archways.

After a few more minutes of driving, my niece proudly announced to the bus that we were finally at "Pop Rocks" hotel. Everyone started clapping and we disembarked the bus. Once those big doors opened up, we all looked at one another and took a deep breath of sweetness in(I seriously need to order this scent!) and made our way over to the check in counter. Now, we know that you don't have to do this nowadays but we wanted to make sure that we had received the right handicap room for Mimi because we needed a roll-in shower or something with nothing for her to step over to get into the shower. We also needed to request that they bring in a shower chair or something. They reassured her we had a room with a roll-in shower and our room was ready now! We had never been so lucky to have our room ready that early, so we got Mimi's scooter from the luggage hold and went to check out the new digs.

We were very close to the entrance and was placed in the 70s building with the giant Mickey Phone with views of Bay Lake!


While the room was beautiful with the new remodel, it quickly found out that even though we were told the room was ADA Handicap accessible, it wasn't at all. We quickly made a call down to the front desk, and they told us they didn't have any rooms available for ADA and began to profusely apologize. They said they would check the next day to see if they would have more rooms available for us to move to though so we decided to just suck it up for the night. They did promptly bring us a shower chair for my grandmother though.

We tried to rest a little bit but the excitement of getting to the parks was eating us up! Or was it the hunger for lunch? It was the latter probably so we went down to grab our Disney Dining Plan refillable mugs and something to eat before we headed to the Magic Kingdom. They had the super cool Halloween mugs out, and after hearing about the fights over the Halloween ones last year, we thought we were being smart by getting them quickly. It seemed like they had them in stock the entire trip though so I think they learned about the appeal of special mugs!



I ended up getting the Chicken Parmesan with a breadstick. Instead of marinara sauce on the penne pasta though, I opted for alfredo. Once I got to the counter, the cast member urged me to go get a dessert because it was explained that with the new dining plan, you either get a drink/alcoholic beverage or you can sub a snack! Since we were on the quick service plan (for this part of the trip, anyway), we were using our mugs for the drinks so we could get a snack. I opted for the classic Mickey Rice Crispy treat!

Sorry it was half-eaten before I remembered to take a picture!

Ah, the classic.

With our bellies full, we decided to grab a bus and head to the Magic Kingdom early to activate our annual passes that my father gifted us and to ride a few rides before the party started. We ended up at the park at around 12pm. It was a quick activation of our annual passes before we headed into the park where we snapped our first photo of the trip.



It wasn't a crowded afternoon, though it was a bit warmer than we'd like. However, we don't complain about the heat because we're at Disney. It's better to be hot and melty than be at home! Quickly, we manage to snag fastpasses for Peter Pan's Flight, which was my grandmother's first time. You'll see me note this a lot this trip report because we forced my grandma to ride EVERYTHING we rode (minus ToT and RnR) because you only live once. They slowed the track slightly for her to get on, but generally it was effortless and she was glad. We love Peter Pan's Flight because we're fans of the classics. There is something about hearing Peter yell, "Here we goooo!" That makes me smile immensely, especially because when I was young, Peter Pan was my favorite. The only bummer? It is so short for such a long wait so we were really lucky to grab those passes.

Immediately, we pop over to "it's a small world" which happens to be another favorite of us, even with the song. What can I say? We're gluttons. We went down to the handicap boats and easily managed to get her into a boat before we took off on the happiest cruise that ever sailed. My niece waved to the cast member who in the look out over the boats and then waved frantically at the kids who were holding up signs in Pinocchio's Village Haus. The signs are super cute and say things like, "Clap!" or "Touch Your Nose!" and we had never seen them before, but really enjoyed doing them for the kids in the window who also seemed pretty stoked to have us do them.


Fun Boomerang I made!

Since we were still in Fantasyland, we headed to my niece's favorite ride someplace with a giant sea witch and awesome clamshells for cars. The wait for Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid was non-existent because it was during the heat of the day and a party day. I love going under the "water" and being in the cool air conditioner with the awesome songs. However, this ride kept stopping so I'm thinking they were slowing or stopping so people could get on or off.

After the ride, we wanted to go hit up MY favorite ride - The Haunted Mansion, but once we got Mimi's scooter parked away and into a wheelchair, 1000 people surged past us to go into the Haunted Mansion too. My sister looked defeated instantly and turned my grandmother around so we could pick back up the scooter and jog over to Pirates of the Caribbean since that is my second favorite ride and conveniently our next fastpass! There is something about the smell and the tripping down the dark corridor that always makes me smile. Before we knew it, we were sailing right through our favorite scenes. Now, the best part of this ride this go round was that Mimi was with us. She didn't know about the little drop that puts you out where they were shooting cannon balls, and got soaked for some reason. She couldn't stop laughing though. Bailey was bragging that she knew that the drops were coming, and didn't tell Mimi so she would get wet but I definitely heard a little squeal from her too.

It is getting closer and closer to 7pm, which is when the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party is about to start and we are starting to reach a weird time where we are all flagging from not getting enough sleep. However, Bailey immediately started to have a break down and worked herself to getting really sick. Poor thing! She had a fever, and was crying while clutching her stomach. We had party tickets though so we knew we were just going to be wasting money if we left. With heavy hearts, we made our way to the front of the park just as the ghost host was chiming his bell and a young woman outside of guest services at Town Hall saw our defeated faces. She welcomed us inside the lobby to try to help us since she saw us heading towards the exit with our fancy bracelets on. After chatting with a delightful young woman named Kaitlyn, she did some magic and asked us to come back to the party in two days so Bailey would feel better. As a special treat, she also gave us 3 magical fastpasses each to use within the next 5 days. We were being SHOWERED in pixie dust at that point. We thanked her profusely and headed out of the park to Pop Century.

After getting Bailey some medicine and into bed, we each showered and I popped down to the food court to get us a nightcap of Dole Whips before we all dipped down into the plush and cool bedding while watching Stacy do her thing. I know we were all in bed by 10pm according to my notes, because we have NEVER been in bed by 10pm at Disney.

Will Bailey feel better? Tell us more about those fastpasses! What's in store for the heroines? Tune in next time for what happens next.

 

[heaven2dc]

Enjoying your TR! I love your pics of Mimi and so glad she is enjoying her visit to WDW. You got a lot done your first day and happy you got some pixie dust. Fingers crossed Bailey feels better the next morning!

 

[Brittneyb91]

Following <3