"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!

 

[chrissyw14]

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.

I will have to look for it when I go! Minnie ears or crown is such a hard decision! lol do you remember how much the sequin ears were?

I'm glad you did the Crystal Palace character breakfast, we are doing that in August so I'm glad I read yours, how early was your ADR for? ours is for 8:55 but I would like to get there earlier if thats allowed.

 

[hollywoodj]

I will have to look for it when I go! Minnie ears or crown is such a hard decision! lol do you remember how much the sequin ears were?

I'm glad you did the Crystal Palace character breakfast, we are doing that in August so I'm glad I read yours, how early was your ADR for? ours is for 8:55 but I would like to get there earlier if thats allowed.

Since your reservation is before the park opens, (granted this isn't an EMH morning) you should be allowed in around 15 minutes before, if you so desire. It's worthwhile to get there early to see main street so empty, and of course great shots of the castle! Enjoy!

 

[WDW_Emily]

I will have to look for it when I go! Minnie ears or crown is such a hard decision! lol do you remember how much the sequin ears were?

I'm glad you did the Crystal Palace character breakfast, we are doing that in August so I'm glad I read yours, how early was your ADR for? ours is for 8:55 but I would like to get there earlier if thats allowed.

I believe they were around $15. My crown was $10 and some change.

Our ADR was fro 8:40, When we got to MK at 8:15 they were letting people into to park who had 9am reservations or earlier. We ended up getting seated 10 minutes earlier too.

 

[WDW_Emily]

We left Crystal Palace before 10am and the park was pretty empty. Our plan for the day was Frontierland, then check the wait time for HM depending on how long it is either go on or wait and do it last, Fantasyland, Adventureland, and then Tomorrowland. Weird way to do the park huh? Well after traveling multiple times together as a family, we have learned what sections of the park are "must do's", "would like to do", and "we can skip it". BTMRR and SM were at the top of our Must do's for this trip and we knew the lines would pile up as the day went on so we headed straight for them!
As I was leading the pack to Frontierland, I saw a princess ahead of us. Out of excitement, I screamed "TIANA! TIANA IS OVER HERE! RUN! (I swear sometimes I am like a 5 year old at the world). When we reached Tiana she had absolutely no line! She spent at least 10 minutes talking with my family about frogs, and cooking. Haley and her chatted it up a bit because Haley was wearing all green like Tiana and is also the baker in our family.

We said our goodbyes to Princess Tiana and kept on going towards Frontierland. It was packed! There were people everywhere. We checked the wait time for BTMRR, 20 minutes. We decided to wait it because for June, that didn't seem too bad. We hopped in line and within 10 minutes, were on the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness!

When we got off the ride, it looked like the line had grown quite a bit!

Next up was Splash Mountain. Again, the wait time was posted at 20 minutes so we got in line. It ended up being more like 30 minutes but I guess the two balanced each other out.

We did 2 mountains in 40 minutes, not too bad! Now it was about 10 minutes to 11am. So we headed over to HM. The wait time was posted at 35 minutes. Crowds were beginning to pick up and our fear was we would come back later and the wait would be even longer. We entered the queue. After about 5 minutes, we got to the section of the queue where you can pick either to go left or right, one way was the interactive queue and the other was straight to the stretching room. We chose to skip the interactive queue and go straight to the stretching room. We were on the ride within 10 minutes!!

It was now 11:15ish and we were ready to tackled the ever popular fantasyland. I checked my phone app, Peter Pan was already at a 65 minute wait, Winnie the Pooh was at 70 minutes, It's a Small World was at 30 minutes.
We fastpassed Peter Pan and got a return time of 2:15-3:15. Works for us! We'll do all of Fantasyland and then use our fastpass. Time to board It's a Small World!

Then we went to Phillarmagic; A favorite of all of ours! In line we met a very nice woman and he daughter who were raving about how good this show is. We also starting talking about Fantasyland Expansion and how we can't wait for Beast Castle! Beauty and the Beast was her and her daughters favorite movie as well as me and Haley. I snapped this picture of Beast Castle at some point (not sure when) when we were in Fantasyland.

We were some of the last people pulled in for the showing of Phillarmagic which means, last to pick seats. We ended up sitting in the second row. Still an awesome show but much better for a further back seat....Especially for the lion king section.

 

[Tinkerbella16]

Did you film video during your trip also?? Before my upcoming trips, not only do I love reading TR's, but I love watching youtube videos of WDW vacations. I swear, just by looking at your pics that I also came across your videos on youtube of your trip!!! Haha too funny!! The vids were great!!

 

[WDW_Emily]

Did you film video during your trip also?? Before my upcoming trips, not only do I love reading TR's, but I love watching youtube videos of WDW vacations. I swear, just by looking at your pics that I also came across your videos on youtube of your trip!!! Haha too funny!! The vids were great!!

HAHAHA YES I DID! I actually haven't finished uploading all of them yet! They take forever to upload. I was wondering if someone would find them before I linked them on my TR!

 

[WDW_Emily]

Since we still had about an hour before our fastpasses we went to ride Dumbo! Normally Dumbo isn't a huge must do but we all really wanted to see the expansion so far and check out the queuing area and such. The wait time for Dumbo was posted at 30 minutes however, the CM working informed us at the beginning of the line that the second Dumbo was going to start running in about 10 minutes. Awesome! Well 10 minutes passed, then 20, then 30...Still no second Dumbo running. As we were inside the queue, the intercom came on. "Due to severe weather in the area, this ride may have to close unexpectedly." At this point we were in the indoor section of the queue and couldn't see outside. We had already waited 30 minutes and were about 10 more minutes from the ride. So we stayed in line. No Rain when we got on! But the skies were starting to turn mighty gray. we knew the rain was coming soon.

The play area wasn't open....So I just snuck a picture in....

By the time we got off Dumbo, went to bathroom, and ran through Casey Jr. (skies might have been gray; but it was still hot), it was about 2pm. We started to walk over to Peter Pan to use our fastpasses.

Time for a Side Story:
The way we split for this ride was My dad, Sam, and Haley together and then me and my mom together. This was the first ride my mom and I went on together in the park, 20 years ago, when I was just 8 months old and it was both mine and my mom's first time in the park. We both couldn't remember the last time we rode Peter Pan by ourselves, just the two of us. We both came to the conclusion it must have been around when I was 6 or 7. As we boarder our flight over neverland, my mom pointed out things just like she did when I was little and we would ride, the cars on the city streets, one of the mermaids being "Ariel". It was a nice ride for both of us.

After Peter Pan, we decided if we had time, we would come back and do the Barnstormer, and Winnie the Pooh. Haley wanted to try to get the sword out of the stone first though.

And what Monkey sees, Monkey does,

We started to go over to Adventureland to ride Pirates. I checked my phone app and it said pirates was down. Oh well. We decided to still go over to Adventureland because we all (besides Haley) wanted to try a Dole Whip! On our way over, The rain began to come down. At first it was just a sprinkle, and we just kept moving forward, and then DOWNPOUR. And then we bought the ponchos..... Some members of our family refused to wear the poncho but after about 5 minutes back in the rain, they put them on. By the time we got to Adventureland the rain was stopping. Time for Dole Whips! Haley got a coke float (The kid is as skinny as can be but hates all types of fruits and fruit flavoring).

I checked my phone app again. Pirates was running! 10 minute wait! We headed straight to Pirates while finishing our dole whips.

Someone must have talked about George on the ride because we got stuck for about 5-10 minutes on the ride. Not too big of a deal though.

 

[WDW_Emily]

it was around 3pm and we were on our way to tomorrowland, however a parade caught our eye and we decided to hang around.

And this is when it started to POUR. We brought out the ponchos and headed over to Monsters Ink Laugh floor.

This had to be the funniest Laugh Floor we had ever seen. Sam got put on the screen and got asked questions by the monsters. We were all cracking up in there.
While lots of guest were just waiting inside shops for the rain to clear, we decided to keep going. Next up was Buzz! half of the queue was outside, the other inside. the outside part had mostly nothing covering you. By the time you got inside the mixture of rain and ac made you freezing! Haley planned ahead though (smart little one) and bought a sweatshirt. Buzz was a long wait, at least 45 minutes. But hey it got us out of the rain for a little bit.
It was around 4:15pm and we were almost ready for another meal. I begged. and I mean really begged to go on the people mover. There was no line we hopped right on. Turns out the crew liked this ride.

By the time we got off we really needed some food. We made it over to cosmic rays. And what did we order you might ask, Well Haley and Dad got chicken noodle soup and me, my mom, and Sam got Hot chocolate with our meals. Because that is what you eat in WDW in June, Hot chocolate and Soup.
I also had the grilled chicken sandwich which was pretty tasty.

We took some quick shots of the castle in front of cosmic rays and then made our way back to the front of the park to try to meet either Merida or Rapunzel!

Unfortunately, Merida's line was closed when we got to her But no worries we will see her next time. Off to meet Rapunzel.

 

[tiaragirl]

Emily! Looks like you had such a great trip!

It's always so fun to see people my (ish) age with their families because it makes me feel better about being a 5 year old when I'm there, too!

Also, how IMPOSSIBLE is it to get a picture with Tiana that isn't totally awkward - her dress is HUGE! It's like trying to get in close to a cupcake without smooshing it everywhere! She's always such a babe though, legit.

Cute bracelet, cute pictures, keep it coming!
(XOXO Kenzie)

 

[WDW_Emily]

Emily! Looks like you had such a great trip!

It's always so fun to see people my (ish) age with their families because it makes me feel better about being a 5 year old when I'm there, too!

Also, how IMPOSSIBLE is it to get a picture with Tiana that isn't totally awkward - her dress is HUGE! It's like trying to get in close to a cupcake without smooshing it everywhere! She's always such a babe though, legit.

Cute bracelet, cute pictures, keep it coming!
(XOXO Kenzie)

IT'S SO AWKWARD! She is like one of the coolest characters to meet but her dress is huge!

 

[WDW_Emily]

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. I've been working a ton of hours and my laptop charger lit on fire earlier this week. No damages or anything I just unplugged it and threw the charger across the room (okay not the smartest decision, but it worked) I just was without a laptop for a few days until I could make it over to the apple store.

Now where were we? Cosmic Rays, No go on Merida, Time to meet Rapunzel!

Her line was only a 20 minutes wait and she was awesome. Haley asked her where her frying pan was and she said security is really tight here at the magic kingdom.
It was around 6:30pm now and the pouring rain was turing more into a drizzle. We had some time left before MSEP so we decided to take the train back to Fantasyland and try to ride the barnstormer (the most intense coaster my mom will do), Winnie the Pooh, and The Speedway. We knew this was a lot to do during this short amount of time but we were still going to try! But first a picture with the castle and our friends,

So there are zero pictures of this next section because we were on a mission. I had my video camera out recording stuff but we were moving too fast for me to whip of the camera as well. I will post links to the videos at the end of this TR.

We got off the train and the rain had stopped! Everything was really wet around us and it was cold! (funny thing is, on the day we were in the MK, back home is Mass was over 95 degrees). The barnstormer was walk on so we went over to that first. The whole theming of this area I like better then Mickey's Toontown fair. Not much more to say about the ride.

I checked my wait times app, 60 minutes for Winnie the Pooh. Earlier in the day, Sam really wanted to ride Space Mountain but the wait time was 85 minutes and we didn't want to leave my mom and Haley in the rain alone for that long. So we decided we would skip it, on one condition, Sam wanted to ride the speedway. We all promised her that we would ride the speedway before we left. The kid already gave up one ride, we didn't want to have her give up two! We were about to go to the speedway when Haley said she wanted to still ride Winnie the pooh. Now Haley doesn't go on many rides because she gets motion sickness so a decent amount of her days in the parks is eating ice cream, waiting for me and sam to get off rides so we try to make sure we go on the rides she really wants to do. My dad made the suggestion of splitting up, He would take Sam to the Speedway, my mom would take Haley to Pooh and I could pick whichever one I wanted. Both my sisters looked at all of us and then Sam said, we could skip the speedway and just do pooh, Haley responded by saying no we don't have to do pooh. Neither one of them wanted to split up with the crew. After talking for 10 minutes and checking my app, I told them if we don't mind getting not so good seats to the parade, we could do both, the speedway only has a 10 minute wait. We all agreed to take whatever spot we could get for the parade and ride both attractions. First up was winnie the pooh. The interactive queueing line was pretty cool. The wait time ended up being 20 minutes ! It was our lucky day! When we got off we power walked over to the speedway. In line, Haley said maybe she would be tall enough to ride alone this time. Last time we went, the little one was 10 and didn't even make it to my shoulders (I'm 5'2") and this year she was as tall as me! of course she could ride alone! She did a pretty good job driving. My mom however, was creating a traffic jam on the course....

We were off to scope out a spot for the parade. We found a spot behind about 3 rows of "sitting" people right in front of the castle. We took it, and put all our stuff down. My mom and I had to go to the bathroom so we left and Dad, Sam, and Haley were left to man the spot. While we were gone, a family that had 5 children all under the age of 5 or 6, came to the left of us. The parents had zero control of there children. The kids went in front of us, were stepping on our things, etc. The parents were oblivious. By now, my mom and I were back. We didn't do/say anything just picked up our stuff and held it. The children then started kicking the men who were sitting in front of us. Parents still didn't do anything. So the men decided it was time to stand. Now mind you, my family is pretty short, these men were all over 6 feet tall. We could only see in between their bodies. It ended up being okay because the MSEP floats are pretty big.

 

[sam_disney]

just joined your TR! looking forward to reading more x

 

[flipadeeflop]

Love it so far! Can't wait to see the videos once you post the link!

 

[maryszhi]

I will have to look for it when I go! Minnie ears or crown is such a hard decision! lol do you remember how much the sequin ears were?

I'm glad you did the Crystal Palace character breakfast, we are doing that in August so I'm glad I read yours, how early was your ADR for? ours is for 8:55 but I would like to get there earlier if thats allowed.

they were about 21 dollars with tax also they have them online at the disneystore site with the exact prices. just look under theme park merch and click "ears"

 

[maryszhi]

i also loved your pix of the new dumdo, although i miss the original. I miss the view that it use to have, especially during fireworks

 

[wiigirl]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[ppodangel]

Really enjoying your report! Looking forward to seeing more AOA photos

 

[WDW_Emily]

i also loved your pix of the new dumdo, although i miss the original. I miss the view that it use to have, especially during fireworks

I must say the view was not as good in the new location. I have faith though that once FLE is done, it will have a great view of that area but I did miss the lovely view of the castle and all of Fantasyland.

 

[maryszhi]

i agree i hope so . i will be disappointed if its not.

I must say the view was not as good in the new location. I have faith though that once FLE is done, it will have a great view of that area but I did miss the lovely view of the castle and all of Fantasyland.

 

[WDW_Emily]

When MSEP ended, all we had to do was turn around and take a seat for The Magic, The Memories, and You! By now it was getting really cold out, the wind was picking up, and it was beginning to rain again. We debated leaving the park because after all we had been there since 8am. But we decided to stay due to our great spot and our love for wishes.

The Magic, The Memories, and You was amazing. We were all very happy we stayed after watching it. No pictures though. I will post the complete video of it later on.

Next was Wishes. About 5 minutes before it started, the rain started to really come down. The ponchos were out once again and we were huddling together. From the start we questioned if Tink would make her flight (which she ended up not making). Wishes was kinda a disappointment, no ones fault though, weather happens . If we were in Fantasyland, we might of had a better view. All the fireworks were really low and behind the castle. Toward the end though as the rain lightened up, they got bigger.
This is what most of them looked like:

Then it got a little better:

Cold, and wet, our tired feet were ready to head back to our resort. When we reached the AoA bug stop, we were about 2 busses back in the line. After watching for our bus for about 10 minutes, a bus came to pick us up! But not a Disney transportation bus, a king ward/ peter pan bus type. At first my mom, along with other in line, was skeptical of getting on (clearly we missed the memo that disney does this sometimes). But then CMs came out and were talking to the bus driver so we knew it was okay. The bus ride was great! It fit a ton more people, and everyone had a seat. When we got back to AoA we made a quick stop at the food court for some late night snacks and hot beverages!

Up next, A trip to the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow!