You're never too old for a family trip! Trip Report! UPDATED! LAST CHAPTER!!

Finally it was time to utilize our first TGM tip of the trip! His “secret” entranceway into the park! Now all TGMers should know what entrance I’m talking about! (IF you don’t, sign up with TGM now! His tips are GREAT!) We walked over to the secret entrance, and hit the turnstiles. At about 8:45, we were let through and WOW! We were ahead of EVERYONE!!! TGM WAS RIGHT! We were brought over to the ropes where the morning ceremonies were to take place, and then the bus of characters came out, did their thing and we were off!

You mean he has extra special entrances too? WOW:cool2:

We went to Festival of the Lion King, and while waiting, the heat and exhaustion began to get to us. Dad mentioned something ridiculous like "lets go to Magic Kingdom when we're done with Dinner and than come back to EPCOT for Illuminations" Um WHAT!? :eek: I pleaded my case in an angry fashion that his idea was stupid and ridiculous, and he was stupid and ridiculous for mentioning it, and he yelled back that why do we have to follow your plans? Than mom interjected and said how wonderful the plans were so far because we hadn't waited, and then David yelled that we were yelling!

We took a moment of silence, and calmed down, and my father and I agreed we would stick with the plan because we were going to MK tomorrow.

YAAA MOM! Mom always come to the rescue in our house too!:)
 

I liked your account of AK can't wait to read about Coral Reef, I loved that place, the food was just O.K. but I still loved the whole atmosphere, I want everyone to love it. I can't wait to hear if CR did somthing special for the birthday boy and girl.
 
Not a real update of the trip, but I was messing around in Photoshop :surfweb: and decided to post my creation! I didn't want to make a main post about it (They're kind of amateur) But after I made one of these for Tim & Lesley, i received a couple of PMs asking about it. If you want me to do it to a special picture from your trip, of course I will! :goodvibes Just PM me, it doesn't take much to make one! Anway, heres my newest creation:

Heres the before:

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& Here's the after:

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Let me know what you think!!
 
WOW!
or should I say...
Supercalafragilisticexpealadocious (sp?)

I just may take you up on your generous offers.:yay:
 
LOVE IT! You do such nice work.. We're going to develop the one you did for us and hang it in our Mickey room (errr. I mean, family room :rotfl: )
Lesley
 
That seriously IS gorgeous!!!! I may ask you to make something for me as well, after my super special surprise trip to DL for my youngest daughters bday-just mom and daughter!!! Can't wait!!

Again, SOOOOOOOOO gorgeous!!!
 
Epcot Time! :woohoo:

When Michael was little he called it "Eftart Center" I thought i would add this in to embarass him. Also, when David was young, he called the Monorail "Commonarail Dammit!" Okay i'm done with the embarassing. Maybe.

So we got off the bus at Epcot around 3PM and we had ADRs at Coral Reef for 4:20. What to do? What to do? That was a pretty popular question that weekend as we found ourselves early for things, which is not necessarily bad!

We had to head over to Guest Relations to pick up our Dining Experience Card (Which gave us 20% off all meals) That only took about 10 minutes, heres a picture michael took of us just hanging out by the window (Michael became the official photographer for the weekend at this point as he hijacked my camera repeatedly lol and took photos i didn't even know about until i uploaded them. Like this one! lol)

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When we went through the turnstiles we noticed that Michael wasn't behind us. Turns out, his ticket got completely RUINED on Kali (serves him right for refusing to put his wallet in the center) and he had to go BACK to guest relations to get a new one while we waited. Surprisingly he was back within 5 minutes (citing there were no lines) and we began our journey!

Spaceship Earth didn't have a line, so we went on that first. When we were done, I saw Club Cool in the distance, something I really wanted to try because we never did in the past, so we went for it! We tried every soda (including Italy & Mexico! I braved the italian one lol) And Michael fell in LOVE with Germany :love: , which possibly comes back to haunt us later.

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It was around 3:30PM so we thought we'd grab FP for Soarin' to use after dinner. My mom handed Myself, Michael and David all 5 tickets to go run to the machines, but like all of you probably know, there was a sign that blocked our passage reading "All Fast Passes have been distributed for today" Boo! :sad1: We checked the wait time. 60 Minutes?? No way!

What to do? What to do? We turned around and glanced at the LED board that announced the wait times, and noticed Test Track had a 10minute line. Definitely do-able so we made our way over.
 
Scaredy-Cat (David) Had watched the youtube video of this ride, and even though he saw the grandmothers and 3 year olds boarding the line, frantically bit his fingernails and displayed random acts of nervousness. On the other side of me was Chicken #2 - Mom. Who's random acts of nervousness including anger and resentment to the 3 of us normal people (My father, my cousin and myself) for "forcing her" to go on this ride of death. :sad2: Oh lord, help me with these two.:rolleyes:

I had been on this ride with my dad, the others haven't. As we boarded our test vehicle, mom had the temporary fit that we all have after we get on a ride and cant find the seatbelt immediately (I can't find the seatbelt! I don't think this seat has a seatbelt! How did this ride pass safety inspection without a seatbelt in all the seats? Why do i have two ends?? How am i supposed to buckle with two ends?? Are we moving? I'm not strapped in! Get her attention, i cant find the seatbelt! I can't fin--ohh there it is.) Meanwhile, i'm in the front with David, who is holding on to the bar for dear life, and we haven't moved yet! I love you men, but you guys come up with the weirdest things. David is literally fixated on one part of the ride to display his nervousness. Of course he's not nervous about going fast. no sir-ee, here's what he says to me: "Hey Nicole, i remember the ride goes through hot and cold. Which comes first? The hot or the cold? Cuz i'm just saying, i'm a little hot, and maybe getting hot first ISN'T quite good for me right now" Dude are you KIDDING ME? and you want to go on space mountain? :rotfl: This ladies and gentlemen, is my family.

We finally take off, and David is laughing with joy as we make our way through the different tests. When we approach the finale, which he knows is coming, his laughter stops and his nervousness is back. Mom, meanwhile is just going "i don't like this, i don't like this"

When the ride is over, Mom and David are HYSTERICAL laughing with joy. They couldn't believe how nervous they were, and David wanted to go again! He says now that it's his favorite ride, and when we got off, his words were "I am SO ready for Space Mountain!" We'll see, David, we'll see.

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After TT, we headed back towards Coral Reef as our ADR was approaching, and we made a stop at the no-lined Nemo Ride.

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How cute it was!! David, Michael and myself were squished in a clamshell, So next time i know just to ride myself to be more comfortable, but what an awesome ride! My family knows i'm a huge Finding Nemo fan :love: , so I was waiting for this ride since we saw it being built last year. Michael was so curious about the "magic" of the ride (how they incorporated the animation into a real fish tank) And i just didn't have the heart to tell him (I work in the computer industry so i figured it out :teacher: ) so i shrugged and went "I don't know!" ;)

After we exited, we didn't have a chance to explore because it was now about 4:05, but i remembered I really wanted a Hidden Mickey book which they sold at this particular gift shop, so i quickly picked that up (using my room key card! so fun!) and we proceeded towards Coral Reef!
 
We checked in and had a seat and i went up to "get menus." Actually, i was really going up there to make sure it was cited on the reservation about the diver and the cake. And to get menus. While we waited we picked and chose what we wanted. I had already known I was just going to eat the Lobster Bisque and shrimp cocktail since World Showcase was after dinner and i knew i'd be noshing on stuff there.

We got seated about 10 minutes later, closer to around 4:30 (which was great! the later the better! than it would be closer to dinnertime) We had a seat on the level above the floor, with a clear view of the fishtank, perfect! So far so good. Our waiter came over and introduced himself after we were seated for about 10 minutes, and by the time he came over we were raring to go!

In the 20 minutes from sitting in the hall to the point of my order, what i wanted changed 4 times :laughing: But my mom and I decided to share the NY Strip and we each got an appetizer. She got the Lobster Bisque, and i got the shrimp cocktail. Michael ordered the Prime Rib, Dad also ordered the Prime Rib, and David ordered the chicken. Now, on top of being a scaredy-cat. David is also an extremely picky eater. I mean, up until he was about 12, he was peeling hot dogs, and now he doesn't even touch them. He mainly eats chicken and he lives off of Hamburger Helper (but without the hamburger, he just eats the pasta. :crazy2: I know, I know, but at least i've gotten passed it.) One day, he will be married, and his wife will go "eat it or starve." and he'll most likely eat it. Or he'll go make himself Ramen Noodles. (Which he also loves, so he's pretty much set for college) Anyway, in a surprising move, he ordered the chicken off the regular menu. And after a slight, typical "dining out with David" fight with my dad, he was upset. The argument was that David should never order off a main menu. (1) he never finishes it, and we were paying OOP here. and (2) 6 times out of 10 he doesn't like it. Or the meat is touching the potatoes. Or they put tomato on the bun of the hamburger. This is pretty ordinary. So here he is post argument:

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Which reminds me i have to get rid of the red-eye.

By the time our food came it was about 5:00PM. No worries though, we weren't in a rush, and we wanted to eat closer to dinner time. So guess what happened with David's food? Just guess?

I bet you guessed it. He wasn't happy. First of all, for $21.99 they really ought to be ashamed, and the new yorker is gonna come out of me for this one. It's not like i've never fined dined, i know what the price of a Disney meal should be. But the piece of chicken looked about the size of a quail, and it was a top a plethora of pasta. This was slight problem number one with my dad, the penny-saver. But i'm willing to say he would have by-passed it if David didn't turn into, well, David. He won't eat Chicken breast. He won't eat it even if someone digs out the meat for him. His idea of chicken is either on a bun or flatly breaded cutlet-style. So being cranky, exhausted, and immature, he threw his fork down and rightly proclaimed "I can't eat this." My father, celebrating in his head that he was right, sternly replied "I knew it!" and David (because a Teenager NEVER loses a battle, especially with a parent.) stated his case saying "Well if i knew it was like THIS!"

Meanwhile, over on the normal side of the table. My mom and I were dancing in our seats over how delicious the NY strip was! Not an ounce of fat on this lean-cut beautiful piece of meat. And although i was glad I didn't order the lobster bisque (Apparently, you can adore lobster, and not like the soup - go figure.) I was enjoying my chilled shrimp cocktail, and a few spoons of the lobster bisque. My mom LOVED The bisque. It was the bisque to end all bisques, she said, so i guess if you're into it: order it. As for the shrimp cocktail? I'm a shrimp nut, but i've had better. (my mom called me a shrimp connoisseur lol) Michael loved his prime rib, (which he's never had before) and the right side of the table was doing mighty fine, doing good. Havin a party. :woohoo:

My dad got the attention of our passing waiter, and it was nice that he didn't make a face when my father explained the case of the nutty child to his left. David ordered the chicken off the kids menu (which he should have done from the start. But of course a 15 year old can't do that!) and all was right with the world when 10 minutes later, he recieved his mickey mouse plate! Damn, i really wanted that plate. My plate was so white and normal, i want the mouse plate!

Halfway into our meals, it was around 5:20PM and i looked up and noticed the diver. "Look everyone!" I said to my table. "A diver! I wonder what he wants??" (I'd like to thank the academy) Now, Mom was at the edge so it was easy for her to get out, but i practically pushed her and said "Lets go see what the sign says! Come on David!" David was in the inner part of the booth, but he managed to get out, because my Dad was in on it, and kind of pushed him while was like "What? So? I want to finish eating" The three of us ran down to the tank, ignoring the nearby eaters as we abruptly went against the glass. When they saw the sign, they were SO EXCITED! It was awesome! The diver waved, and they waved back, and he motioned for David to jump up on the lip to get a closer look, and I snapped this picture:

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Again, red-eye. Man, i got lots of work to do!

They were definitely very excited and had no idea I was behind it. Mom kind of figured it out, so i let her in. David had no idea though.

Still, there was more to come from the Coral Reef! We finished our food, and the waiter came back and wished them a Happy Birthday. He asked if anyone wanted desserts, and he was like "Are you sure the birthday people don't want desserts?" (Stupid idiot: Look at the table notes! There's already a cake!) I'm not sure if he knew we had the cake at this point or not, but it sure didn't seem like he did. They said no, but he said he'd go "whip something up" and h e came back with the cake I had ordered, saying that "Someone at the table wanted you to feel very special." The cake was awesome! I only paid $10 (because of the DDE card discount) and it looked great! They really did a fantastic job! The waiter went "I'm not much of a singer, but you guys can sing if you'd like." Thanks, Moron. So like fools, we proceeded to sing as David and Mom blew out the candles.

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The diver never came to give Mom and David the sign, but he could have been in an excursion because we saw a bunch of divers in the tank. Coral Reef's atmosphere was really nice, we loved going "look at the shark! look at the GIANT turtle!" The food was good (at least mine was) But the service was sort of lacking. But mom and david enjoyed their special night, and thats what matters!

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After dinner it was around 6:15, and we had a long time until Illuminations so we decided to wait the 45 minutes Soarin' had posted. (Our first wait of the trip!) While waiting, my dad and i competed in Cell Phone Tetris. (He won :sad1: ) And while the hidden mickey book didn't say anything about hidden mickeys in the queue, we did notice SOMETHING on the wall. Can you find it?

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No? How about now: :rolleyes1

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How about now? :cutie:

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We were very proud. And so was the CM in the first pic!

So the Soarin' line only took more like 30 minutes. It was awesome as usual, and first time flyer Michael really enjoyed it. We walked towards the escalators, and noticed Livin' with the Land had a walk-on wait time, so we decided to go on it. I may have been on this as a little kid, but i don't remember it. It was a nice peaceful boat ride to take a nice relaxing break.

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When we were done there it was around 7:50 so we started heading towards World Showcase for our illuminations spot. We stopped for a few photo ops:

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Michael looks really unhappy in this picture, but he was smiling, he just had bad timing lol
 
We also stopped at Mouse Gears and mom and i found our traditional matching t-shirts, which you will see me wearing in the next few segments. That was going to be our item to be sent to the room, but when we found out it would take at least 24hrs, and it would be at the gift shop, not the actual room we passed because we wanted to start wearing them tomorrow. Little did I know, i'd be living in it because of the weather!

Finally, we made our trek towards the spot that TGM mentions on his website. We stopped and got our EMH bracelets (we were so excited!) and continued on our way about 8:30. Now, we were at a loss. TGM mentions a specific area (between 2 specific buildings) But we couldn't find what he was talking about! If anyone knows what i'm referring to, please PM me, because it drove us crazy!! Since we couldn't find his specific favorite spot, we followed his general advice about what country to go to and where. We found a nice spot, right behind the water, with an unobstructed view.

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While we waited, my mission was to find out whether the bakery in France was going to be open for EMH. We forgot to grab a schedule when we got our bracelets, and this was next to impossible to find out as i asked several CM who simply didn't know. Eventually, at 8:50, i found out that it WOULDN'T be open, so my Dad and i raced over their to get our pastries. See, this has been a tradition in my family since our first visit in 1991. We always get pastries in France, and the idea that we wouldn't be able to, threw us all in a tailspin, i don't know why. My dad and I raced over there in time to see the gigantic more than 5 minute line in front of us. I walked in, went straight to a CM and simply asked them if they would be open for EMH. She said yes, and I felt like a fool, so we walked back right on time for Illuminations! I love Illuminations. This was the only firework show I've seen at Disney, because in the 90s it was the only one (I think) that existed, and last year we only had the timing down for it. This time though it was so peaceful to be by the water surrounded by just ourselves and a few other people.

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EMH Time! Now i know TGM warns against any and all EMH, but we were never frightened by crowds before, and we wanted to give it a try. Our first stop, was France for our traiditional pastries and coffee! I was hungry from my light dinner so i got a croissant and an elephant ear. SO GOOD! I only eat elephant ears at this particular place, i normally don't like them.

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How exhausted do I look in this picture?? :rotfl: I was about ready to :faint:

Next, we went to Japan. Michael has hopes of one day going to real japan, so he loved WS Japan a lot!

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Then we found this snack that listed all the flavors on the back, and one of the flavors was Robot??

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We made our way over to Norway so we could ride Maelstrom (We had no energy to go through the WS properly so we made plans for a return trip) and on the way, we were halted for about 20 minutes while the Illuminations crew lifted the walkway (which apparently is actually a drawbridge) to bring in the globe and firework floats.

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Finally we made it over to Maelstrom, which was empty! Actually, in terms of crowds, EMH seemed to weed out most of the people that were there! I even heard a glimpse of worry in Michael as our boat headed up a hill. Remember his panic after Everest? Turns out he really didn't want to do anything extreme! After the "drop" I was like "theres your extreme ride right there." and he laughed. We went to the gift shop to play:

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fter that we started heading to the exit. We had enough for the day and we knew we would be coming back. We were all so exhausted. Our thoughts of a return trip on Test Track diminished because by the time we got over there we just weren't in the mood. We dragged our feet to the buses and went back to the room.

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We met a really nice family on the bus ride back, and mom made it her personal agenda to tell everyone she came in contact with about the diver. :rotfl:

We finally made it back and were greeted by this:

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Up Next: Chef Mickey's, Our day at MK, and a surprise dinner!

Sorry i had to split into 4 parts, too many pics!
 
LOVE IT Nicole!
I love the Coral Reef report, we're going there for my b-day so I'll pass this along to Tim :rolleyes1 I loved the comment "I'd like to thank the academy" :thumbsup2
The part with the seatbelts on Testtrack was hysterical :rotfl: I was laughing out loud, sounds like something Luke would do (or HAS done several times on rides)
O.K., so I've never done EMH before BASED on what TGM says, but we are going to try it this year, how does the bracelet thing work? When do you go get them and were? We will probably do MK EMH evening.
Thanks,loving the report can't wait for more!popcorn::
Lesley
 
So you enjoyed Coral Reef...? I changed the ressie after reading so many bad things here...goes to show, you just never know! :confused3

I loved the Photoshop job...so cool! :love:

We totally missed the cool station this trip...How, is beyond me! Bummer, since last time we were there is was being refurb'd, this time I forgot! I really love drinking the sodas! They used to have the good Fanta...yummy!

So how did you like EMH? We do them always...at certain parks...

I have my own method to my madness...but I just may need to check this TGM thing out...you just may be making me do that...

may be ...:)
 
LOVE IT Nicole!
I love the Coral Reef report, we're going there for my b-day so I'll pass this along to Tim :rolleyes1 I loved the comment "I'd like to thank the academy" :thumbsup2
The part with the seatbelts on Testtrack was hysterical :rotfl: I was laughing out loud, sounds like something Luke would do (or HAS done several times on rides)
O.K., so I've never done EMH before BASED on what TGM says, but we are going to try it this year, how does the bracelet thing work? When do you go get them and were? We will probably do MK EMH evening.
Thanks,loving the report can't wait for more!popcorn::
Lesley

In Epcot the bracelets were at like, every 4th country. I didn't see it in future world but we didn't look.

In magic kingdom, we got our bracelets (yes we braved EMH at MK too! lol) Right after the turnstiles in main street. We didn't get very far though because wishes was in progress so i didn't notice anywhere else. When you go, you can just ask a CM where to go. We did that in epcot at the seas gift shop when i bought my hidden mickey book, and i stood there for like 5 minutes straight as the CM told me every.single.location.
 
I guess posting too much at one time is not well liked here on the DIS :confused3 I came home to find this buried on Page 2. Ah well, lesson learned I guess. But anyway, i was messing in photoshop again! Here's what i came up with:

Original:
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Photoshop:
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I guess posting too much at one time is not well liked here on the DIS :confused3 I came home to find this buried on Page 2. Ah well, lesson learned I guess. But anyway, i was messing in photoshop again! Here's what i came up with:

Original:
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Photoshop:
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Again, some cool pic's!
 












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