"I am Women, I am Strong!" A June 2012 Trip Report!

Well we are back from a lovely trip to the world. During this trip we battled heat, Tropical Storm Deb, lots of rain, and the stomach bug, but more on all of those later.
Warning now, This trip report will have TONS of photos. I also documented our trip so at the end I will post a link to the videos (the videos are also very long).
So who are we?
Well I'm Emily, 20, college student, I auditioned for Disney back in March, made it to the end of my audition but was unfortunately cut, But what are you gonna do? All you can do is Keep Moving Forward! This is my 12th trip to the World.

Then there are my sisters Sam, 15 and Haley, 12. Both love Disney. Haley knows everything about Walt Disney himself. No lie.

And then the parentals, Their first trip to Disney was when they had me and we have been going ever since then.

All of us...I was laughing during this picture.
The Departure
Since mom has a fear of flying, we were driving to Florida. We left our home in Massachusetts around 2:30 am on June 16th for a long day of driving ahead. The day was pretty uneventful (Thank goodness!) We got half way through South Carolina and decided to stop for the night. We stayed at the Comfort Inn Suites which was a very nice hotel. The next morning we got up, ate breakfast at the hotel and then we were back on the road by 9am. We made it to Florida around 2pm, got some orange juice, and then continued to drive for another 4 hours until we made it to my grandparents house. The next day we would be going to DHS and checking in at Art of Animation!

 

[WDW_Emily]

As we left the safari we saw this guy trying to get some shade from the Florida sun.

We had about 45 minutes before Festival of the Lion king so we decided to go to Rafiki's planet watch. The only reason we did this was to go meet Rafiki. And we did just that.

We had about 10 minutes left to make it over to FOTLK when the train was pulling back in. Instead of rushing to the show, we chose to meet the characters in Camp Minnie Mickey and go to the following showing instead.

 

[Steve-B]

Ha! I took a picture of the Mickey birdhouse on our last trip in 2008! My wife loves that thing! Still!

 

[DizneyPryncess]

Great trip report! I love all the pictures, your family is adorable! It looks like you guys had a blast.
I especially love the Beauty & the Beast picture - I never thought to take that picture w/the cool background. I'm going to have to steal that photo spot!

Love the kids waffles too! Your TR makes me want to stay at AoA!

 

[PRNCSAurora]

Great trip report! I'm trying to convince my family to stay at AoA on our next trip.

I hope you audition again. I did it twice when I was in college. The first time I got cut early (poor technique) and the last time I made it to the finals.

 

[SarahBella82]

Great trip report so far. And I love to see sisters enjoying each other; my sister and I are very close, and it's a such a special relationship!

 

[WDW_Emily]

Ha! I took a picture of the Mickey birdhouse on our last trip in 2008! My wife loves that thing! Still!

I love taking pictures of little details at Disney! I have a friend who takes pictures of all the trashcans at the Disney parks lol

Great trip report! I love all the pictures, your family is adorable! It looks like you guys had a blast.
I especially love the Beauty & the Beast picture - I never thought to take that picture w/the cool background. I'm going to have to steal that photo spot!

Love the kids waffles too! Your TR makes me want to stay at AoA!

AoA was a great place to stay we all loved it!
We never thought to take a picture there either! We saw a family before us do it and me and my mom had the idea to do the exact same thing lol.

Great trip report! I'm trying to convince my family to stay at AoA on our next trip.

I hope you audition again. I did it twice when I was in college. The first time I got cut early (poor technique) and the last time I made it to the finals.

I will do it again! My goal now is to live in Fl for a year after I graduate college and work for disney then
I'm currently trying to convince my friend to stay in the Little Mermaid rooms when we go in October.

Great trip report so far. And I love to see sisters enjoying each other; my sister and I are very close, and it's a such a special relationship!

Me and my sisters fight but we are still very close! Even when I'm at school I get texts from the two of them almost everyday.

 

[WDW_Emily]

After we met Minnie who was our last character in Camp Minnie Mickey, we went over to the festival of the Lion King. We got there right when the show was starting so Haley, my dad, and I sat in one row while my mom and Sam sat a few rows down. The show was good overall however the singers didn't seem as strong as they normally are.

As we were leaving we saw these two from the briar patch! The line was extremely long though so we skipped them.

By this time it was around 1:30 and we were all ready for some lunch. I made the suggestion of trying Yak and Yeti since we wanted to go over near that area anyways to get fastpasses for Kali (The line for Kali was maintaining an hour+ that day). We ended up splitting two meals. Haley and I split the Honey Chicken while my mom and Sam had the Sweet and Sour chicken. My dad isn't into Asian cuisine so he had a kids Hamburger.

We sampled each others and everyone liked everything! It was the perfect size for us. The only thing we would have done differently is split drinks too. The drinks were HUGE!! and they didn't have lids so walking around with them in a crowd wasn't the easiest task.
After lunch and grabbing some fastpasses, we went over to seek a spot for the parade. This is one of my families favorite parade (I think it's the music in it). So we make sure we see it every trip. So we were confused on where to sit because everything was roped off but people couldn't sit in every location. We decided to ask the CM working what spots were available to sit at. The CM looked at us and said "where do you think you should sit" and we said we don't know because you told people not to sit there or there (pointing to the locations were people were told not to sit) are we allowed to stay at this spot and watch the parade. The CM replied with "what do you think". So I responded with yes? and she walked away. About 10 minutes pass and she comes back over and says "you guys aren't allowed to sit here you need to move down past this stand." OOOKKKK. So we moved and everything was better. It would have just been helpful if the CM could have answered our question.
Parade time!

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Great trip report so far! Looks like you and your family are having a blast. That's pretty annoying w/that CM and the parade...even if she didn't feel like answering the ?, it hardly sounds like a very Disney response. I also a gree that you should try and audition again. Can't wait to read more of the TR!

 

[PRNCSAurora]

I've never seen the parade at AK, but I think it is something that I will have to check out.

 

[WDW_Emily]

After the parade we had a game plan, Find a bathroom, go to Finding Nemo the Musical, ride Everest, ride Kali, and end the day with It's tough to be a bug.
We found a bathroom and got some ice cream. Sam, Haley and my dad fell in love with the chocolate covered banana while my mom and I stuck with the premium bar. Off to Finding Nemo we go! When we arrived, they were already letting people in. We were about 45 minutes early for the show and ended up sitting in the front row on the top section of seats. It was a good spot, especially for when the actors came out into the audience. Great show. Personally my favorite on property.

Then it was time to conquer the Yeti!

Not too long of a wait for June.

See that chic with the green shirt near the back on the ride? That would be me and my sister was to the right.

Unfortunately, the yeti has been in "hiding" for the past couple years. While on this ride, I was wearing a strapless top. After looking at our ride picture, I learned strapless tops are not made to conquer the yeti.
Continuing on our list of to do's, It was time to use our fastpasses for Kali! My mom wasn't feeling well, so it was only me, Haley, Sam and my dad who went on.

Everyone got wet on this ride but no one was as wet as Haley and I were. We had puddles on our laps halfway through the ride!
It was around 6pm by now and on our way to do It's tough to be a bug, we ran into these guys,

Doug was dancing to the music the whole time.
It's tough to be a bug was walk on! Walking through the queue took the most time.

Time to put on our bug glasses!

The theater was only half full; if that. we sat near the back though. When the spiders came down one was right over my mom's head! I love this show but I hate the spiders part, even if they are fake.
Up Next; leaving AK and heading to DTD!

 

[corey154]

So we were confused on where to sit because everything was roped off but people couldn't sit in every location. We decided to ask the CM working what spots were available to sit at. The CM looked at us and said "where do you think you should sit" and we said we don't know because you told people not to sit there or there (pointing to the locations were people were told not to sit) are we allowed to stay at this spot and watch the parade. The CM replied with "what do you think". So I responded with yes? and she walked away. About 10 minutes pass and she comes back over and says "you guys aren't allowed to sit here you need to move down past this stand." OOOKKKK. So we moved and everything was better. It would have just been helpful if the CM could have answered our question.
Parade time!

I try to go out of my way to be nice to people, but I would have been so hot at that CM, who knows what good spots you could have had if she told you to move to begin with. And I hate someone answering me with a question...yes or no would have been a better answer. Parade spots always cause my blood pressure to rise anyways...lol.

 

[LizC]

How wonderful that you still go with your family on their Disney trips. I went on what I thought would be my last "family trip" to Disney when I was about your age, and I fell in love with Disney. Since then my whole family has gone numerous times and in October were taking my 1yr. old twins for their first trip!

Great trip report so far, looking forward to the rest! Looks like you all had a great time. Art of Animation seems like a great resort, did you like feel that you had enough space in the room with 5 teens/adults?

 

[Alison1975]

All of us...I was laughing during this picture.
The Departure
Since mom has a fear of flying, we were driving to Florida. We left our home in Massachusetts around 2:30 am on June 16th for a long day of driving ahead. The day was pretty uneventful (Thank goodness!) We got half way through South Carolina and decided to stop for the night. We stayed at the Comfort Inn Suites which was a very nice hotel. The next morning we got up, ate breakfast at the hotel and then we were back on the road by 9am. We made it to Florida around 2pm, got some orange juice, and then continued to drive for another 4 hours until we made it to my grandparents house. The next day we would be going to DHS and checking in at Art of Animation!

I'm in..and Hello from a fellow Massachusetts Disney lover!!

 

[hollywoodj]

Great report so far!

As for the audition, please go again. It took me two auditions to get in Their needs are constantly changing, so it is almost luck of the draw. And remember the dance they taught you; it usually stays the same for every audition.

 

[WDW_Emily]

I try to go out of my way to be nice to people, but I would have been so hot at that CM, who knows what good spots you could have had if she told you to move to begin with. And I hate someone answering me with a question...yes or no would have been a better answer. Parade spots always cause my blood pressure to rise anyways...lol.

I know! Luckily, it was our only encounter with a CM who was not very happy in the happiest place on earth. (We will get to other guest when I get to our Magic Kingdom day).

How wonderful that you still go with your family on their Disney trips. I went on what I thought would be my last "family trip" to Disney when I was about your age, and I fell in love with Disney. Since then my whole family has gone numerous times and in October were taking my 1yr. old twins for their first trip!

Great trip report so far, looking forward to the rest! Looks like you all had a great time. Art of Animation seems like a great resort, did you like feel that you had enough space in the room with 5 teens/adults?

That's so exciting! I'm planning on going with my friend for a weekend for the Halloween party! I hope you have an awesome time! This is our last trip probably for 3 years. We are making it a tradition though to go whenever we graduate from High School. My sister Sam graduates in 3 years and she is already talking about going on a cruise or she wants to eat at California Grill if we just do WDW.
It was the perfect size for us! Now if we added one more teenage or adult body, it might have been a little tight. It was great because my parents got their own bedroom/ bathroom where they could put their stuff then my sister and I got two pull outs and our own bathroom and we rotated who got to sleep alone for the night. Also, the dressers were HUGE we actually could have put more stuff in them if we wanted too.

I'm in..and Hello from a fellow Massachusetts Disney lover!!

Welcome! Glad you could join for the ride!

Great report so far!

As for the audition, please go again. It took me two auditions to get in Their needs are constantly changing, so it is almost luck of the draw. And remember the dance they taught you; it usually stays the same for every audition.

Thats what they said when we got to the audition. The people who were kept til the end were mostly really short people or really tall. I being 5'2" am on the shorter side but still pretty normal height. You have no idea how many times a week I still do that dance lol. I'll definitely be going again.

I've never seen the parade at AK, but I think it is something that I will have to check out.

It's awesome! (IMO) I love the characters in it and the music.

Great trip report so far! Looks like you and your family are having a blast. That's pretty annoying w/that CM and the parade...even if she didn't feel like answering the ?, it hardly sounds like a very Disney response. I also a gree that you should try and audition again. Can't wait to read more of the TR!

It was not what we expected at all for a response! My sister wanted to report her but we just let it roll off our shoulders. She might have just been having a bad day

 

[WDW_Emily]

When we got out of it's tough to be a bug, it was around 6:30pm. For the past two days, Haley had been asking everywhere that sold hats where she could find Kermit the Frog ears (she saw them on a man when we were checking in). Everyone kept saying Downtown Disney is your best bet. So after some pictures in front of the tree of life, we said goodbye to Animal Kingdom and boarded the bus for Downtown Disney!

I wanted to buy this whole store.

After asking about 5 different CMs at World of Disney, they informed us that they don't have any kermit ears
Haley ended up getting Mickey Mouse hair clips, and a muppets comic book. I got a tiara (don't judge), a wdw sweatshirt (I needed a new one, my old one was from 2005), mickey mouse earrings, and a bracelet. Sam got Mickey Mouse earrings. Here's some pictures of our loot.

Haley's comic book.

It was around 10pm when we were about to leave Dtd. As we were walking out, we saw the Art of Animation bus pass. We were all very hungry by now and decided to turn around and eat at Earl of Sandwich! We will definitely be going there again when we are in Dtd. The food was awesome and decently priced too!

 

[chrissyw14]

I got a tiara (don't judge), a wdw sweatshirt (I needed a new one, my old one was from 2005), mickey mouse earrings, and a bracelet. Sam got Mickey Mouse earrings. Here's some pictures of our loot.

That's the bracelet I wanted! its really cute and I love that you got a tiara! I wear one on my birthday but its not Disney, I'm debating on getting sequins minnie ears!

 

[ExtinctJenn]

Awesome report so far! Can't wait to see more pics of AoA! Love the waffles!

 

[WDW_Emily]

That's the bracelet I wanted! its really cute and I love that you got a tiara! I wear one on my birthday but its not Disney, I'm debating on getting sequins minnie ears!

I have wanted that bracelet for about a year now and It was $6 at Dtd! I was so happy I found it there! I was tempted to get the sequin minnie ears when I was there but went crown instead. I literally was going back and forth between the two in the store.

Awesome report so far! Can't wait to see more pics of AoA! Love the waffles!

There are tons more of AoA pictures to come!!

 

[WDW_Emily]

Day 3,

We had a pretty early start to our day because we had reservations for before Magic Kingdom opened at Crystal Palace! We made it to the bus stop for 7:30.

By 8:15, we were at the turnstiles! Our reservations were for 8:40 so we went through the crowd and walked onto a pretty empty Main St. USA

We made it to crystal palace around 8:25ish. We gave the CM our name and we were seated within 5 minutes.

Our server (Mike) was awesome! He checked in on us every 10 minutes, told us how much longer before each character so we knew when to get food, and our drinks were never less than half full. When we sat down, he informed us that Pooh would be stopping at our table in about 8-10 minutes so if we wanted to get a plate of food before he came we could.
Sam's First Plate- Pooh's Breakfast Lasagna, Breakfast potatoes, Potato and cheese mix thing, Strawberries, Bacon

My First Plate- Watermelon, Strawberries, Breakfast Potatoes, Some potato with cheese thing (which was delicious), Puffed French Toast, and Bacon

Haley's First plate- Pancake, Mickey Waffle, grapes, scrambled eggs, Breakfast potatoes, Sausage

Mom's egg white Omelet

First up was Pooh!

Then Eeyore

Piglet

And Last but not least Tigger!

Classy Ladies

Overall thoughts on Crystal Palace, it was good but not amazing. We loved being in the park so early and the food was good however the character interaction was just there. Tigger was awesome but the others were just eh. My family is new to doing ARDs and we have only tried a few places so far but our favorite has been Tusker House. We loved Jungle Juice, the character were great and spent a lot of time at each table.