Zip-ah-de-doo-da, Zip-ah-dee-EH! Two Canadians Visit WDW for the 1st Time - COMPLETE!

[fallonkendra]

So, this is my first trip report on these boards, so I hope you will all join me as I relive our trip to WDW this past January! I spent hours reading other trip reports on these boards before leaving for our trip, so I wanted to write one of my own in the hopes that it might help another first timer in their preparations.

First of all, who are we?! Here's a picture!

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I'm Fallon, the red-head. I'm 28 (although I was 27 in that picture - I celebrated my birthday in Florida!). I work as a welding inspector in the oil and gas industry. That guy with me is Luke, my boyfriend of almost three years. He turned 34 shortly after returning from our trip. He's a creative writer for a group of radio stations (I know, he's the professional writer, but I'm the one writing the trip report - hopefully I can do it justice!)

We live in Alberta, Canada, although neither of us were born in this province. We bought our first house together in early 2015 where we live with our little zoo - 2 cats, 2 dogs and 7 degus!

 

[fallonkendra]

Table of Contents:

Backstory

January 5, 2016
Day One - Part One - Airports! (page 1)
Day One - Part Two - We've Arrived! (page 1)

January 6, 2016
Day Two - Part One - RaceExpo (page 1)
Day Two - Part Two - We Step into a Park! (page 2)
Day Two - Part Three (page 2)
Day Two - Part Four (page 2)
Day Two - Part Five - Be Our Guest! (page 2)

January 7, 2016
Day Three - Part One - Animal Kingdom (page 3)
Day Three - Part Two - Tusker House (page 4)
Day Three - Part Three - Hotel Time (page 4)

January 8, 2016
Day Four - Part One - An Early Morning! (page 5)
Day Four - Part Two - 10km Race (page 6)
Day Four - Part Three - Hollywood Studios (page 6)
Day Four - Part Four - HS (page 7)
Day Four - Part Five (page 7)
Day Four - Part Six - Sci-Fi, Symphony in the Sky & Fantasmic (page 8)

January 9, 2016
Day Five - Part One - Facing my fears (page 8)
Day Five - Part Two - A Boat Ride and Disney Springs (page 8)
Day Five - Part Three - Disney Springs and Hoop-dee-doo (page 8)

January 10, 2016
Day 6 - Part One - A New To Us Park! (page 9)
Day 6 - Part Two - An Afternoon in Epcot (page 9)
Day 6 - Part Three - World Showcase/Garden Grill (page 9)
Day 6 - Part Four - More World Showcase/Illuminations (page 9)

January 11, 2016
Day Seven - Part One - A PPO Breakfast! (page 10)
Day Seven - Part Two - So Many Rides! (page 10)
Day Seven - Part Three - A Lunch ADR...at BOG (page 10)
Day Seven - Part Four (page 11)
Day Seven - Part Five - MSEP (page 11)

January 12, 2016
Day Eight - Part One - Goodbye To Our Room (page 11)
Day Eight - Part Two - Animal Kingdom (page 12)
Day Eight - Part Three - More Animal Kingdom (page 12)
Day Eight - Part Four - Goodbye Disney, Hello New Hotel (page 13)

January 13, 2016
Day Nine - Universal is NOT my Favourite (page 13)

January 14, 2016
Day Ten - The Laziest Vacation Day Ever (page 13)

January 15, 2016
Day Eleven - Universal Again (page 13)

That's A Wrap! (page 13)

 

[fallonkendra]

First of all - a little backstory on how this trip was decided on. I'll apologize now, this post will be word heavy, but I promise there will be lots of pictures in later posts! I was never a kid who wanted to go to WDW (I know, I'm weird). I can remember telling my parents I wanted them to take me to the West Edmonton Mall (growing up in the Maritimes, this was on the other side of the country, so it was a big deal). Whenever asked why, my reasoning was that it contained a waterpark, an amusement park, a skating rink and it was one of the largest shopping malls in the world. Eventually, I grew up and moved across the country to Edmonton and worked at the mall for awhile. I now live about half an hour away from it, and go there maybe once or twice per year haha.

Luke and I had talked about one day visiting one of the Disney parks, but it was something we figured we would do once we had children of our own. Then last year we ended up going to Disneyland and fell in love. We didn't actually plan a trip to Disney, we just happened to be in Anaheim. We're Canadian, and can be pretty stereotypical at times - we traveled to Anaheim for NHL playoff hockey. Luke is a big Winnipeg Jets fan, and once they made the playoffs we started looking at going to Winnipeg to catch a playoff game. The price for tickets was insane - like $500/ticket/game. So for the two of us to go to two games, we were looking at $2000 just for tickets - we still had to get there. Jokingly, Luke suggested how it would probably be cheaper to just go to Anaheim to watch the two games there...so we looked it up and were able to get tickets for both games for the two of us for $200 - a tenth of the price. I have a friend who is a travel agent, so I approached her that same day (it was a Monday afternoon) and asked her to book us flights and hotel in Anaheim for that Thursday. Last minute flights and hotel = $1400, plus the $200 for tickets - it was still cheaper than going to Winnipeg, and we were getting a chance to go to California! The hockey games were Thursday and Saturday nights, so we decided since we were there we might as well check out Disneyland on Friday and Sunday - and we fell in love! I wrote a bit more detail about that trip on my own blog, and this isn't a trip report for that vacation... Once we got back to Edmonton, we started talking about going to Florida, and Luke mentioned wanting to try a runDisney event. He's been running for years, and just in the time we've been dating he has completed a half marathon, 5 10km races and numerous 5kms. So, as luck would have it, registration for Marathon weekend opened up just two weeks after we got back from California, so he registered himself for the 10km event on January 8th, 2016. WE WERE GOING TO WALT DISNEY WORLD!!

 

[dglilbit]

Great start! I'm here following along! My first real trip is next year so I'm in the researching and reading stage.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Following along! I love to see fellow Canadians on the boards.

 

[fallonkendra]

Day 1 - January 5th, 2016 - Travel Day Part One!

The day before we left, we woke up extra early to drop our dogs off at the kennel before going to work for the day. We take them to one that is about a half hour drive away, and they are only open during certain hours, so we knew there wouldn't be time after work while we were trying to finish packing, and our flight left early the next morning so no time then either. I'm always sad saying goodbye to them, but I was just so excited that I was going to be in Disney by the next day!

On our travel day, our alarm went at 4am. I am NOT a morning person, but that morning I had no problem getting out of bed - we were going to WDW! We had most of our packing complete the night before, so we were on the road by 5, and had a very quick and easy drive to the airport. Traveling can sometimes be a bit of a risk in January, but lucky for us there were no storms in the forecast! We checked our car in at our preferred parking lot by 5:30, and waited less than two minutes before a shuttle bus to the terminal had pulled up. We had decided to splurge and reserve valet parking, so it's the last stop and the bus was full by the time we got on, so we had to stand. We were the only ones on the bus going to the US Terminal of the airport, so we were the last ones off the bus. Luke had checked us in online, so we used the kiosk to print off our baggage tags, went to the desk to get our boarding passes, and off to customs! Security was really quiet, we were the only people in our line. Once we got to customs there was only one other person using the electronic kiosks, so we walked right up to one. Once it printed off our receipt, we took it up to an extremely friendly customs agent who made a few jokes with me about my hair colour, and then we were through! While we were looking around the duty free store, I remembered that I had forgot my headphones at home, boo! So I had to go to the tech store and spend my first $20 of the trip. Oh well, such is life.

We decided to grab some Quiznos for breakfast - turkey, swiss and ranch on white bread for me and a honey chicken club on whole wheat for Luke. Sorry, no pictures of that meal. By the time we finished eating it was still only 6:30 - our flight didn't leave until 8. We were expecting security and customs to take a bit longer...but better to be early than risk missing the flight. While we were waiting, Luke went to Starbucks with a gift card we had found on the weekend to get himself a coffee and a Very Berry Hibiscus for me.

Our flight to Minneapolis/St.Paul left on time, even with de-icing. The flight offered free Wi-Fi and had a decent selection of free movies to watch, so we watched the original Jurassic Park (which I had never seen...).

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We ended up landing early in Minneapolis, so we had plenty of time to get to our next gate (we were originally worried we might be cutting it close). Our next flight was to Detroit, and it was packed. It left a few minutes late, but made up the time in the air and ended up landing early as well. We had trouble getting the Wi-Fi to work on this plane, so we just played games on Luke's iPad. I was really impressed by the Delta Terminal at the Detroit airport, I thought it was really nice! I was way too entertained by watching the mini-monorail thing inside the terminal...

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Our flight from there to Orlando was close to full, but not 100%. There were actually less children on it then I thought there would be. The flight left on time, and arrived in Orlando on time. We spent our time on that flight getting into the Disney mood by watching Brave (we're big Pixar fans).

After our quick ride on the fake monorail, we saw our first sign of Disney - the Disney Store in the airport!

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[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Sounds like your flight check-in/Security experience was smooth and easy. You must have been flying Westjet and not Air Canada!

 

[fallonkendra]

Sounds like your flight check-in/Security experience was smooth and easy. You must have been flying Westjet and not Air Canada!

Haha, actually Delta! But don't worry, if we're flying domestically, we only use WestJet haha!

 

[SarahDisney]

Following along! I'm looking forward to reading about your first WDW experience and seeing how Luke enjoyed the race!

 

[ariane37]

Following! I love hearing about first trips! DH and I took a quick kid-free trip in Jan., also.
Love your hair color by the way I'm a redhead, too (for the last couple years at least lol) but a bit darker than yours, although if I were younger I'd totally go for your shade!

 

[fallonkendra]

After snapping a picture of the airport Disney store, we set off to check in with Magical Express. We didn't have our Magic Bands yet, as they won't ship them to Canada, but I had my booklet from Disney with all of our confirmation information. It went very smoothly, and we joined the line for the All-Star Resorts. While standing in line, I remembered that I had forgotten to do online check-in, so that's when I did it. We stood in line for less than 10 minutes before we were directed onto a bus! We ended up sitting on the Magical Express bus for about 15 minutes waiting for more passengers before we started driving to Disney. We used this time to take our first selfie on our Disney trip

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We were staying at the All-Star Music Resort, so we were the third stop out of four (Coronado Springs guests were also on our bus). We had used the yellow luggage tags and I had checked in online from the airport, so after walking off the bus we were at the counter getting our Magic Bands and room number within 2 minutes. After receiving a map of the hotel with the location of our room, we decided to stop at the Intermission Food Court. We hadn't ate much all day as I really try to limit myself to what I eat on travel days (I have Crohn's Disease, so flare-ups on an airplane are not fun for anyone). It was late by this point, so the menu was limited but we didn't care. We activated our refillable mugs - I chose blue and Luke grabbed a green one for himself. Luke ordered the chicken nuggets with salad and I had the make-your-own pasta with penne, a chicken breast and marinara sauce with a breadstick and salad on the side.

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For this meal, we paid out of pocket as we didn't want dessert that late at night, and we didn't even think about saving it for the morning. Total cost was $20.10. We were both pleasantly surprised at the quality of the meal, especially for the cost. It was nothing fancy, but it really hit the spot after a day of travelling!

After eating, we set off to find our room. It really surprised us how large All-Star Music was! We were in the 7th building, Broadway themed. We found our room and tested both of our Magic Bands to make sure they worked. No issues there, so we settled in to wait for our luggage to arrive. It ended up being a pretty late night, our bags didn't arrive in our room until 12:20, but we were asleep within 20 minutes of it arriving.

I also forgot to take pictures of our room when I first got there, and didn't actually take these pictures until the morning we were checking out...oh well! Here's our room!

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Next up: Race Expo and our first day in the parks!

 

[automaticsoap]

Following along! Sounds like a great beginning to your trip!

 

[Foxes Den]

I am looking forward to your TR. My DD also has Crohns, so I am interested in what you ate. (BTW she would have also gone for the pasta and salad, but no sauce for her)

 

[Lauren1027]

Aww you and your BF are so cute! And yay for a fellow Canadian! I actually live in Orlando now, but grew up in Montreal

 

[fallonkendra]

Following along! Sounds like a great beginning to your trip!

Thanks!

I am looking forward to your TR. My DD also has Crohns, so I am interested in what you ate. (BTW she would have also gone for the pasta and salad, but no sauce for her)

I'm actually lucky, and there are only a few foods that really trigger my Crohn's, but I did end up having a pretty bad flare-up one day of our trip

Aww you and your BF are so cute! And yay for a fellow Canadian! I actually live in Orlando now, but grew up in Montreal

I grew up in New Brunswick, so we were practically neighbours haha!

 

[fallonkendra]

I'm going to try and get the next day of our trip posted this weekend, but my Photopass pictures are going to start expiring tomorrow, so I need to sit down and make sure I have all of them downloaded. Also - my boyfriend won a hockey trip (complete with flights and accommodations) and we're now scrambling to plan a much sooner than expected Disneyland trip! We'll be spending next weekend in Anaheim! He won tickets to see our beloved Edmonton Oilers play against the Anaheim Ducks next Friday, and we have Saturday free so we're planning a 16+ hour day to cover as much as possible in the two Disneyland parks before flying back to Edmonton on Sunday! He booked us in for breakfast at the Plaza Inn and lunch at the Blue Bayou (something we had on our MUST DO list for our next time back to DL - which we were planning on happening next January haha).

 

[fallonkendra]

Day Two - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 (Part One)

We woke up on our first day at Disney around 8am. I know from reading a lot of trip reports that this is "sleeping in", but I am not a morning person, and we had a late night the night before with our luggage not showing up to our room until after midnight. We got ready and headed to Intermission Food Court at our hotel (All-Star Music). I'm not much of a breakfast person (I never eat breakfast before leaving for work, and I've been known to snack on chocolate bars and bags of chips at my desk in the mornings...) so I just used a snack credit and picked up some banana bread.

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Luke on the other hand, eats breakfast every morning (he does start work an hour and a half later than me), so he picked up the breakfast platter with eggs, hashbrowns, sausage, bacon, a biscuit and a Mickey waffle, and he also picked up a banana. We also paid out of pocket for this meal, it came to $11.97.

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After eating, we stopped to take this picture:

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and then we headed outside to catch a bus to the race Expo. It opened at 10am that morning, and we wanted to be there as close to that time as possible. We walked outside the hotel to a coach bus sitting there waiting, so we walked on and were off to the race Expo! This was our first Disney transportation (excluding Magical Express) and our wait time is currently zero minutes - I was so worried we were going to waste so much time waiting for busses...

Before long the bus dropped us off, we had a short walk and then we were seeing this:

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I apologize, I didn't write notes or pay attention to the buildings we went into here. The entire thing was quite overwhelming, and unlike anything I've ever experienced. It also started raining shortly after we arrived, so I left my camera in my bookbag to keep it dry, and any pictures I did take here were with my phone (and I didn't take very many).

Luke went and picked up his race pack in one building, and then we had to go into another building to pick up his race shirt. He also bought himself a Disney marathon weekend tshirt, and we looked around at some of the expo vendors. I loved the Ariel NewBalance shoes, but I couldn't justify the cost when it's not the brand of sneaker I wear (I love my Asics). I did end up buying Luke a Disney themed medal display, as it was something I had looked at ordering online, but the shipping cost to Canada was a little ridiculous. So when I saw the exact one I was going to order there, and I could take it home with me that day, I was sold! I don't have a picture of it, but it's this one in sparkly black: http://www.heavymedalz.com/Product/10OnceUponBlack.php Now to fill it I guess we'll just have to plan on more RunDisney events (which are already in our plans...).

We didn't spend too much time at the Expo, we had FastPasses to get to! We did see what we wanted to, and Luke had more than enough time to look at the official RunDisney merch, so we decided to head back to our hotel to drop off our purchases. But first, I made Luke pose for this picture:

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We walked over to the bus pickup spot, and there was a bus sitting there waiting! Two for two today! We went back to All Star Music, dropped off our race Expo purchases and then headed back out to catch our first bus to one of the WDW parks! I might have been a little bit excited at this point...

 

[SarahDisney]

I think the race expo is very overwhelming the first time you go. At least that was the case for me. But it gets a little less overwhelming the second time. As you continue to do runDisney events, it'll start to seem a little less overwhelming.

And I agree about the Ariel shoes - they were adorable, but way too expensive (unless you happen to really like New Balance shoes, which I don't).

 

[fallonkendra]

I think the race expo is very overwhelming the first time you go. At least that was the case for me. But it gets a little less overwhelming the second time. As you continue to do runDisney events, it'll start to seem a little less overwhelming.

And I agree about the Ariel shoes - they were adorable, but way too expensive (unless you happen to really like New Balance shoes, which I don't).

Right now, Luke is talking about running something at Disneyland in 2017 (either Star Wars or Tinkerbell) and then back to WDW in January 2018 for marathon weekend - so runDisney events are in our future plans!

I don't run, but Luke was very adamant about me having proper sneakers for our trip to Florida (I usually just wear Toms or Birkenstocks). I really didn't like the feel of New Balance shoes, and ended up buying two pairs of Asics (the exact same model, just in different colours because they felt so good!). So, as much as I loved the Ariel shoes, I knew they would see very little use...

 

[fallonkendra]

We are now back from our whirlwind weekend trip to Anaheim (which included a 15 hour day at Disneyland), so I promise to get back to updating our January trip to Florida! I'm hoping to have the next part of our trip posted tomorrow!