Trip Report BLAKE SHELTON!And Spring Break in my happy place.

Hello people! I am sooooo happy to be writing a trip report once again! My last trip report was in November 2013, so clearly it has been too long. This trip all began when Knoxville,TN (where I live) had the cloudiest, gloomiest, grossest winter ever.
* I have no scientific proof to back this statement, it is only how I feel *

In desperate need of the sun, I started pricing a Disney vacation! (Duh!:p) At first I thought June, right after school (I'm a teacher assistant) but I just couldn't wait that long! So I booked it! Spring Break, only about 46 days out. Reserved my fastpasses and an ADR at Kona for some Tonga Toast!

About a week before I left my Aunt asked if I would mind if she came along. So now it was a two person trip! LUCKILY I was able to add her to all my fastpasses except 7 Dwarves Mine Train! Pretty good considering those included Soarin' and Toy Story.

When: March 16-19
Where: Disney's POP Century Resort- 80's section
3 day park hopper

So, my Aunt arrived Friday evening from Virginia. We had Saturday to get each other on the same page and gather whatever else we needed and Sunday afternoon we were off! Headed to Lake City, GA for the night so we could spend most of Monday at DISNEY!!

We were stopped in traffic in Atlanta, but it allowed me to take a picture of the city!
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Made it to the hotel, had dinner, and hopped into bed! I had a big day tomorrow!!
 

KappleB2

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Festival of Faan-taa-ssyyyy!!

I cannot tell you how excited I was to see this parade! I watched it on youtube the day it came out and have seen so many beautiful pictures on this forum. With the excitement at its highest level, the music starts! Our spot was in Frontierland, so it was right at the beginning. Our nice, shady!, spot was next to some cute kids. I did my best to keep from getting antsy by telling them about the dragon!!

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You can imagine how many pictures I took, as excited as I was :happy:. These are a the better ones. I tried to spare you from seeing the same thing you see in everyone's report.:)
 

KappleB2

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
HERE SHE COMES!!
:D:eek::D:eek:
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I kept snapping just knowing that fire was going to come! No such luck :(
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There's always *next* time :)
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And the main man (and woman) themselves!) :cool:
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The parade is beautiful! And we really enjoyed it. Next time I would like to scout out a spot on Main Street to have the Castle in the background. And HOPEFULLY see some fire come out of that dragon!

From there it was time for a snack and potty break. On the way over to the restroom I was SO happy to discover that Golden Oak Outpost was open! Woohoo! :DBBQ Pulled pork and coleslaw waffle fries!
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Ooooh baby those things were delicious! The fries were nice and crispy underneath the hot, tangy BBQ pork and cool coleslaw. Even though it was a warm afternoon, this was a great snack to share. To be honest, Disney's pork is really good and I have yet to find something involving it that I have not liked. My only regret was not having more time to try the others! :hilarious:

From there we moved on to a nice cool ride in Pirates of the Caribbean. I was pleasantly surprised to see the mist effect in the beginning working and the boats did not get backed up AT ALL! Pirates and Small World have always been backed up at the end, and they were both wonderfully timed this trip. :happy: Oh! And we did not get wet OR smashed into a row with a bunch or other people!
 

KappleB2

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I forgot that right before our time on Pirates of the Caribbean, the pirate show started! I thought it was funny but I'm sure some of that depends on the participants.
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Post Pirates we headed back towards Frontierland and the Country Bear Jamboree. I don't know how long its been since I saw that show, but it was a nice change of pace.
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From there we headed on to Tomorrowland. Our mission, the Peoplemover! I LOVE that ride! I really couldn't tell you exactly why, I just do.:)

We enjoyed our ride around Tomorrowland and hoped into line for Buzz Lightyear. I think the line was posted at 40 minutes but we only waited about 15min! It was around dinner time and things seemed to be thinning out a little.
I am TERRIBLE at this ride! I can't seem to point my laser in the direction of any targets! Karen, on the other hand, did great! Especially for her first time!
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By this time, in a very long day, Karen was pretty much done. But there was no way I was going back to the room so early! It was only about 7pm! So we went on over to Cosmic Ray's for some dinner before I walked her out. Dinner was pretty good. I always feel Cosmic Ray's is kind of hit or miss in quality. On the way out we stopped at Starbucks to get our Magic Kingdom mugs :).

I headed back towards the Haunted Mansion, with a little Castle photoshoot on the way. The BEST time to take pics of Cinderella Castle is during sunset!
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And my favorite of the bunch :)
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Then I took this one of the Riverboat while in line for HM.
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When you are in big groups like the line for HM, you hear all kinds of crazy stories! I also discovered that, by myself, I could move through the line much easier. No one knows what group you "belong" with, so it made it easy to tag along with certain groups and maneuver through :D.

Once through the stretching room and ALMOST on the doombuggy, the ride stopped. And people just kept coming out of the stretching room, squeezing into that fairly small space! Thank goodness it restarted when it did, because it was starting to get pretty warm and people were getting restless! But what's a ride on HM WITHOUT it stopping? I think it does every time I go.

From there I got another fastpass for Jungle Cruise by Mickey's Philharmagic (which had a much shorter line than by the Jungle Cruise) and hopped on Journey Under the Sea with the Little Mermaid. On the way in to the line I physically JUMPED when I came across two itty bitty mice! :eek:I've seen big moths and lizards at Disney before, but never mice! It startled me! :p
 

KappleB2

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Nighttime in Magic Kingdom

I started this day off by calling it the longest day...which (in my report) was over a week ago! So finally, I will finish this marathon day.:)

I ended the last post enjoying another jaunt through The Little Mermaid and that was followed by the Jungle Cruise! Everyone knows this attraction is better at night! No exception here! I wish I wrote down our driver's name but he did a FANTASTIC job! Had some great, original jokes and when his microphone quit working mid-cruise, he just yelled at the top of his lungs to do the very best he could. And it is pretty hard steering a boat and trying to yell over your shoulder at the same time!

Exhausted from my cruise on major rivers of the world, ;) I wandered through the Emporium.
My mission: a great spot for Wishes and the 10pm parade!
But first, I NEEDED a chocolate covered rice krispy treat. Preferably with M&Ms. No luck on the M&Ms, but I did score a treat and a great spot for the fireworks.

The projection show before Wishes is fantastic! And it was so cool to hear the roar of Let It Go come down Main Street. It just got louder and louder! I think EVERYONE knows the words to that song, whether they want to or not! :D

Wishes was wonderful, as usual, and made me cry, as usual.:cry: :p
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Post fireworks I sat back down as the masses exited. A Mom and her young daughter sat down next to me and complimented them on their beautiful crowns. As I spoke to them some more, I learned the woman's husband had recently left her and her family and she was on her dream trip with her kids and her Mom. Tonight, the girls were on a Mommy Daughter date. I agreed to save their spot when they went to get a balloon and to my surprise, they returned with a balloon for me! I've always secretly wanted one of those light up balloons, but couldn't justify buying one. It made my night! We talked some more about their day and I came to find out the little girl was in first grade! Which is the grade I work with at school! It was a fun connection to make, and if I had still been with my aunt I may not have made it. We enjoyed the parade and I headed "home". Goodnight MK!
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If you made it through all those words! BRAVO! And thanks! I just needed to tell about those cool experiences.

Next up, some time at Hollywood Studios and EPCOT.
 

KappleB2

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The Last Day :(

We woke up this morning pretty darn tired from the long day before, but I was not going to let that stop me! We were off to Hollywood Studios! But first, a trip to the dining hall at POP!

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My Aunt LOVES foosball! She was pretty excited to see this!
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We made it to Hollywood Studios just after rope drop and I was trying to be ok with that :p. We were only like 20 minutes off *my* schedule. ;)

NO HAT!!
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Our fastpass for Toy Story went until 10:10, so we headed to the Art of Animation building first! I really wanted to do animation class and while we waited we visited Minnie! With no line!!

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After Minnie we headed into a packed animation class where we learned to draw Dopey!
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Not too bad if I say so myself!
We headed on over to Toy Story where the fast pass line was out of the building! But then it moved VERY quickly, maybe 10 minutes. This is such a fun ride! Hopefully another track will relieve some of its congestion.
That's me with the high score! Karen didn't do too bad for her first time.
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There was still some time before our Tower of Terror fast pass so we headed on down the Streets of America. Stopped and looked at Cinderella's carriage from the live action movie (which I had the privilege of seeing the day before I left!). It's so shiny!
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I really didn't want to wait in line to take a picture with the carriage, so this is kind of a weird angle.
While over there we made a stop to see the Muppets. The line there was also out the door! I don't think I have EVER had to wait outside the staging room for that! But it was nice and cool in there, so I didn't mind the wait.

After the silly muppet movie, it was TIME. TIME for the best ride in world! :D Time for Tower of Terror!! :joyfull: :D
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When I arrived (my Aunt doesn't ride this one), I found a 120 minute wait :jawdrop:. And the fast pass line was out of the queue! Turns out, one side was broken, so all lines had to use 1 set of elevators. They cut off the standby line, but didn't change the time so it only looked to be that long. I ended up riding twice in just 20 minutes! It was FANTASTIC! If only there were more time....

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From there it was time for lunch, which would be in EPCOT. We hoped on the boat to EPCOT and enjoyed the little break on the way over.
 

KappleB2

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Around the World-

Well...its been a while since an update. Real life gets in the way. :cyclops:

Let's see...my Auntie Karen and I were leaving Hollywood Studios. We were headed for EPCOT via the boat! I really enjoy this boat ride and will now try to do it every trip!

Our first mission was lunch! We decided France was a good spot so we headed back to the bakery. We shared a DELICIOUS ham and cheese sandwich with garlic aioli. We also had a chocolate eclair. Both were FANTASTIC!! I will certainly be visiting there again.
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We moved around the World Showcase, enjoying some music in Morocco and spending lots of time in the big store in Japan. Sadly, we never bought anything from any of the Flower and Garden Festival booths. There was nothing we were really interested in.
Except the BBQ in America. If I wasn't so full, I would have totally gone for that!

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It was very hot today, so we decided to take a cool break over at Ellen's Energy Adventure. I do enjoy this show and the cool air on a hot day.

This little guy was hanging out by me while we waited.
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We had dinner in Mexico and headed back towards the International Gateway. The plan was to end our night with the 2nd showing of Fantasmic.
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KappleB2

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The End of the Trip :(

We stopped in Canada on the way out to watch the movie and enjoy the garden.

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These flowers were beautiful and HUMONGOUS!!!!!!!

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On arriving back at Hollywood Studios, we wandered on back to see the last Frozen sing along show of the day. I have to say, I really enjoyed that! And the narrators were hilarious! It is a people eater and very well done. There something uniting about everyone singing along together to a kid's movie :p:D

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That was about it. The first Fantasmic was finishing up and we didn't want to wait in line for anything else so we just sat and waited for Fantasmic. It had been a while since I'd see the show, so I was looking forward to it! With the breeze it was kind of a cool evening, but nice after that hot day. The show was not even close to full which was nice.

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We walked around the resort a bit then hit the sack :arghh:
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The next morning we slept in a little since we would be going through Atlanta traffic no matter what (unless we left at like 5am). I took my balloon (that was gifted to me) and found a little boy to give it to. It was fun to pass on that special gift!
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Enjoyed some POP waffles and were on the road :bawling:. These trips are always too short!

I LOVED POP and I think I would stay there again. Next time I want to save up some more and stay in a Moderate resort since I've never done that.

At a rest stop on the way home we found this sign.... I considered just staying in the car until the next one!
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NO THANK YOU!!

A few weeks ago I received this fun print as a thank you! Its fun to get one more piece of Mickey mail after you're home.
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And that's it! Spring Break 2K15. While exhausted, it was rest for my soul. I am already in planning for next spring, when about 8 ladies in my family from California will be down in the world. I won;t be able to take time off for the entire trip, but I hope to enjoy a few days with them.

Thanks for reading!!!
 

blreinsel

Well-Known Member
Great report!! I've ALWAYS wanted to get a Mickey balloon, however haven't been able to talk myself into spending the money only to leave it behind to board the plane home. But your idea of giving it to a child is perfect! I will officially be purchasing one to float in our room during our next trip, and will then gift it on departure day. Thanks for the idea!! :)
 

briannarebelo

New Member
I loved reading this trip report! It seemed like such a sweet trip, and you definitely seemed to have made the most out of your stay using the park hopper (which I've never used before. I know... crazy), so it's giving me plenty of ideas for my potential spring break trip next March!

Also, I'm in the same boat on the Mickey balloons! I've always wanted one since I was little but could never justify buying one for such a short time! But your idea is fantastic, passing it along to someone else at the end of your stay! Definitely stealing that idea as an excuse to buy one on my next trip!

Glad you enjoyed your trip! I sure enjoyed reading about it! :happy:
 

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