Trip Report COMPLETED: "What is Mickey hiding from anyway?" ACE GANG REUNION

mrdrift · May 4, 2015

Love the addition of Magic Kingdom to the report. My family loves to play on the Island and we will spend at least a couple hours exploring and playing. I can't believe that you were trying to shoot a car for BTMR, really

. Following along.

abzoo · May 4, 2015

mrdrift said:
Love the addition of Magic Kingdom to the report. My family loves to play on the Island and we will spend at least a couple hours exploring and playing. I can't believe that you were trying to shoot a car for BTMR, really . Following along.

I promise we weren't aiming for the passengers!! haha.

abzoo · May 4, 2015

ValVal said:
CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ! CBJ!
LOVEEEEE ITTTTTT hahaha!!

JAMBOREEEE FOREVER! So relevant to our lives.

abzoo · May 4, 2015

Then we went to ride 7DMT for the first time in daylight.

Val accidentally left her slow sync flash on and this photo resulted...

a little creepy.

So then we went back over to Tomorrowland-- Val had yet to experience Carousel of Progress and I wasn't about to let her leave without a full appreciation of "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow," seeing as that song is part of the musical loop in Disneyland Tomorrowland too.

The CM made no announcement about putting away cameras so Val took some photos of the show.

Next we had a decision to make. We had a FP+ for Space Mountain and dinner reservations for BOG. Riding Space Mountain meant that we would be cutting it close for our ADR... really it was poor planning on my part but oh well. Val let me decide and I, of course, can never turn down Space. @ValVal , however, took this opportunity to let me know that she thinks that both the WDW and Disneyland versions of Space Mountain are way overrated (although she prefers Dland). Our ride photo shows what I think about Val's opinion...

How dare you hate on Space Mountain haha. I love both versions of the ride but definitely prefer the original over the Disneyland version.

And it looks like the boy behind us kept the same disinterested slouch throughout the entire ride. Impressive!

abzoo · May 4, 2015

So we hurried back over to get to Be Our Guest and were a few minutes past our reservation time but they were running behind anyway. This ADR was the only one for Be Our Guest that I was able to get when I was trying to book a table for all 5 of us at the 180 day mark. When I was able to get a reservation for 5 earlier in the week, I figured that Val and I could decide later whether to keep this one or not. Our decision was to keep it and not have a full meal this time around so we could get in and out quickly. However, that's not really how it worked out. There was lots of waiting involved.

Val got to carry in Lumiere!

We were seated in the ballroom and told our waiter that we were trying to have a quick meal of just appetizers and desserts-- Val ordered soup and I ordered the same garden salad I enjoyed before. So you'd think that he'd try to get us out of there quickly... but that's not what happened. He payed so much attention to the table next to us and wouldn't even glance our way when Val was trying to get his attention to ask for another roll since she was eating that together with her soup. Then it took a while after that to get him to bring out the desserts. :bored:

So it wasn't the great experience we had there last time but it's still great to be in BOG, I suppose.

We figured that we should go to see the Master again since we obviously needed more Memory Maker photos. However, we got there right in the middle of his break and had to wait a couple minutes. The photographer was waiting around too so I asked if he might be able to take our photo in the ballroom with his camera and he obliged. Lots of flash but good pics.

Thanks for dinner, Beastie.

ValVal · May 5, 2015

... really it was poor planning on my part but oh well. Val let me decide and I, of course, can never turn down Space. @ValVal , however, took this opportunity to let me know that she thinks that both the WDW and Disneyland versions of Space Mountain are way overrated (although she prefers Dland). Our ride photo shows what I think about Val's opinion...

View attachment 91758

OBVIOUSLY the kid behind me agreed with me haha i just really hate the ride vehicles cuz they remind soooo much of y i hate the new matterhorn ride vehicles, & yes, yes i do prefer dland's SM but it's still not my fav ride

abzoo · May 5, 2015

Next came a couple meet and greets. We had a FP+ to meet Anna and Elsa and had pretty entertaining interactions with the characters. Elsa talked to us about Olaf losing his nose on Space Mountain and Anna talked to us about ice skating and chocolate fountains?

Then for the second day in a row, I went to Ariel's Grotto. Once again, there was almost no wait. Nice!

Gotta love the awkward pics that the PhotoPass CMs get when you're walking over to the characters. Such gems show up on Memory Maker:

This Ariel was also a good one. She asked us if we had found any thingamabobs and Val said we had 20. Ariel shouted "I have twenty too! Well, not 22-- but 20 just like you." It was cute.

ValVal · May 6, 2015

anna indeed talked to us about chocolate fountains, ariel has gadgets & gizmos a plenty...gotta love memory maker borders haha

abzoo · May 6, 2015

After meeting so many princesses, we went to see Wishes for the last time and since we had only seen parts of Celebrate the Magic, we made sure to get to the hub early so we could watch that too. There were some obnoxious teenagers around us during Wishes. boo.

We went over to Tomorrowland afterwards to hit some of the attractions we hadn't yet crossed off our list. First, Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor (entertaining) and Stitch (awful). I can't remember too well the order of what happened next that night but I know we rode Thunder Mountain before park closing. And played SotMK. And rode the magic carpets.

Val was leaning towards calling it a night since we were coming back to MK the next morning. But there were Extra Magic Hours from 12-2 and I convinced her that we should stay. And yes, I know that it makes no sense for me to be the one to want to stay out when we were exhausted since I can go to WDW whenever I want. I guess I was squeezing all possible fun out of the end of this awesome trip. We went to Cosmic Ray's since Val needed food and we watched Sonny Eclipse. And I almost forgot about this but @ValVal made a huge mess spilling chocolate milk-- the CMs there were so sweet about it and got her a new one.

Then we went to Storybook Circus since we hadn't ridden Dumbo yet...

abzoo · May 6, 2015

We rode the Barnstormer, Teacups, Tomorrowland Speedway, and we also went to Philharmagic.

They were running one lane for the speedway so it took much longer to get on this ride than it should have. Plus these cars are sooo difficult to drive and the gasoline smell is so intense. Val was not impressed.

tired faces like woah.

Our last ride of the night was the carrousel...

And of course we had a couple PhotoPass shoots throughout EMH. Val and I were walking around sharing my scarf since it had gotten pretty chilly.

So that was it for our last night in Magic Kingdom. We trudged out of the park and onto Val's least favorite method of transportation (the ferry) to get back to the TTC and my car. We still had to check into our cheap offsite hotel and we showed up there at a truly unreasonable hour only to get up in a few short hours to start our final day :cry:

.

mrdrift · May 7, 2015

Great interaction with Anna and Elsa and Ariel, I would have to say that was a wonderful night at Magic Kingdom. You two seem to be having a blast. Following along.

LizC · May 7, 2015

What a fun trip!! I just read the whole thing in one sitting! Following along for the last day.

abzoo · May 7, 2015

Soooo I really don't want to end this trip report since writing about the end of the Ace Gang WDW reunion really bums me out. However, I'll be back at Disney in ONE WEEK-- my parents will be in FL so I'm forcing them to do some park hopping with me. That means I must finish this TR.

Here it goes...

Sunday, October 26

Val and I got up and got ready then headed down for some free breakfast at the hotel. Then we drove to the TTC and parked and found out that the monorail wasn't running yet. So again we had to ride the ferry. Which didn't help with our plans of finally trying to make it to the Welcome Show. I told Val to run ahead to catch the show as I went in the bag check line with our stuff. Didn't miss too much but with the train refurb that was happening at that time, the show wasn't up to its normal standard anyway.

Got our last PhotoPass pic in front of the train station and it was an especially great one because Mickey's still out waving to people. Love it.

Once we got into the park, we weren’t in too much of a hurry since we did so much last night. We stopped and finished a round of our SOTMK game at the train station and then made our way up Main Street for the last time.

We were on a mission to get a Pascal magic shot, since we heard an off-duty photopass CM talking about it when we were waiting for the parade the day before. We talked to a bunch of the photographers and didn’t have any luck. We were incredibly unamused at the thought of another Tinker Bell shot at this point. hahaha.

Go away, Tinker Bell.

We headed through Adventureland and did the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse quickly. I'm not sure that I've ever done this attraction before but the views are lovely.

Actually, although I may not have gone through the treehouse before, I know my dad has-- I found this photo in an album when I was home over Christmas from when my dad went to Magic Kingdom during spring break 1981. Throwback Thursday for real:

Next was Thunder Mountain, the first time we had ridden it in the daytime.

abzoo · May 7, 2015

LizC said:
What a fun trip!! I just read the whole thing in one sitting! Following along for the last day.

Welcome! Thanks for reading!!

ValVal · May 8, 2015

Kelsey's SCARF BLANKET was fabulous & very much needed haha WOAHHH great tbt hehe ALSO y must i always make that face?! u actually have 2 pics in a row of me making the SAME FACE haha i feel like it's my go-to next to my famous val face/smurk/side smile haha OMGGG the end is near *tearsssss*

mrdrift · May 8, 2015

Wonderful start to the day at Magic Kingdom. I really like the photo side by side comparison from 1981 to 2015 from the tree house, really cool. Have to ask, what is up with Val and her tongue? Have you started a pre trip for next weeks visit? Following along for the finally.

abzoo · May 8, 2015

mrdrift said:
Wonderful start to the day at Magic Kingdom. I really like the photo side by side comparison from 1981 to 2015 from the tree house, really cool. Have to ask, what is up with Val and her tongue? Have you started a pre trip for next weeks visit? Following along for the finally.

There's no real story with the tongue-out pics. We take a lot of photos with silly faces and it was a coincidence that I ended up posting 2 in a row with the same face.

I don't think I'm going to make a pre trip report but I'll very likely make a TR. I'll only be there with my parents for 2 nights and 1 park day but then they leave and my sister is coming the next week for the 24 hour event + a few more days at Universal and WDW. So it'll be a trip report that lumps those both together. Thanks for following along!

abzoo · May 8, 2015

Putting off finishing this thing even more but this needs to be said...

DISCLAIMER TO MEMBERS OF THE ACE GANG:

Hi there! I know you were sort of warned about this but I see that Val has sent out the link to the trip report to all of you. I figured that I should take the opportunity to thank you all for being awesome and contributing to one of my favorite experiences ever. Even though the days were long and exhausting, we survived with next to no drama… that is-- besides the squabbling among you children about who got to be Mom and Dad’s favorite.

I should also take this opportunity to maybe apologize for any of the unflattering photos, etc. that I posted on here. hahah. And I know it’s a little strange, for example, to have had so many strangers concerned about Kelsey’s well-being as I posted about her sickness. Sorry for keeping most of you out of the loop about my fanatical postings on a WDW forum. As you all know, I’m a freak.

So thank you again for making this trip magical. Thanks for going along with all the decisions Val Val and I made. Thanks for waking up early and staying out late. Thanks for saving up for this trip. Thanks for taking so many photos to document every minute of this journey. Thanks for dressing up in the MOST AWESOME HALLOWEEN COSTUMES EVER.

And thank you for being the best besties ever. I am beyond thrilled that we were able to pull off such an amazing reunion like this. I hope we can all do another Disney trip someday but I’ll settle for a reunion anywhere.

SAPPY POST OVER.

LOVE,
dad

ValVal · May 9, 2015

ALSO MAINLY FOR THE ACE GANG:
LEGIT CRIED! :cry:

I hope everyone can appreciate this forum for what it is-a reminder of a wonderful time & how special our friendships (& Disney) will always be. I LOVE my ace gang & wouldn't trade any of them for the world! <3 This trip was my dream come true & I want to thank everyone for being a part of my childhood dream becoming a reality & Abby for helping me plan this cuz let's be honest I'm type A/plan CRaZy so she helped keep me sane & excited for 2 YEARS. Having each & every single one of you there made this trip even more magical than I imagined it would be. DAD really perfectly explained how appreciative we are to have you guys in our lives & what troopers you were for putting up with our obsessive Disney selves haha & Finally Thanks Chelsea(Cheese)Doodle for helping us realize our Ace Gang Friendship that came to last years beyond watching a movie on Youtube in our DiscoSafari dorm room Freshman year. (&Cassie-even though u were a lil late to the party u r very much apart of the coolest group of friends u may ever meet

)
Love,
Mom

abzoo · May 9, 2015

ValVal said:
ALSO MAINLY FOR THE ACE GANG:
LEGIT CRIED! I hope everyone can appreciate this forum for what it is-a reminder of a wonderful time & how special our friendships (& Disney) will always be. I LOVE my ace gang & wouldn't trade any of them for the world! <3 This trip was my dream come true & I want to thank everyone for being a part of my childhood dream becoming a reality & Abby for helping me plan this cuz let's be honest I'm type A/plan CRaZy so she helped keep me sane & excited for 2 YEARS. Having each & every single one of you there made this trip even more magical than I imagined it would be. DAD really perfectly explained how appreciative we are to have you guys in our lives & what troopers you were for putting up with our obsessive Disney selves haha & Finally Thanks Chelsea(Cheese)Doodle for helping us realize our Ace Gang Friendship that came to last years beyond watching a movie on Youtube in our DiscoSafari dorm room Freshman year. (&Cassie-even though u were a lil late to the party u r very much apart of the coolest group of friends u may ever meet )
Love,
Mom

Now you're making me cry. We've turned this trip report into a sappy mess haha. & everything you said is so true-- we owe it all to chelseadoodle :hilarious:

.