NASCAR in WDW? It Can’t Get Any Better Than This-A February 2012 Trip Report

NASCAR in WDW? It Can’t Get Any Better Than This-A February 2012 Unexpected Trip…Report!

Intro:
Welcome everyone to this unexpected trip report!!! As you may have read in my pre-trip report, this trip was made 11 days prior to leaving due to me getting an interview for a job down in Walt Disney World!!! It was for a part-time attraction job, but I’ll get into more details when we get to that part of the trip.

So here are the details:

The cast:
Me and my mum Diane (LuvsTheMouse). This is a picture from our Sept/Oct 2011 Trip

We are both Disney lovers and our 14th trip together! And Mom’s 15th she went once when she was a kid.

The dates: January 31-February 4, 2012

The resort: Port Orleans French Quarter

Let the memories begin!

 

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Tuesday January 31, 2012-Arrival Day

Our day started with a ride to the airport for our trip to Disney World!!! Yay for Dunkin to get me through!

Our plane was scheduled to leave right on time at 2pm, except there was a flight at our gate that was already delayed by two hours and scheduled to leave at 1:30, but they were having some sort of problem with the plane and had to change our gate. We left a little after two, and I think the other plane left at the same time..glad I wasn’t on that one!

On the plane

I could see Daytona International Speedway from the airplane!!! It is a dream of mine to go there someday to see the Daytona 500, I’m a huge NASCAR fan, and this was a sign of things to come with NASCAR on this trip! (Daytona is the ovalish track at the bottomish of the picture)

We arrived at MCO ahead of schedule with no problems! It was off to Disney’s Magical Express!!!

We’re actually staying at Port Orleans French Quarter (POFQ)! It was exciting! Our first time here!

On DME!

We took off right away with a packed bus and found out POFQ was the first stop! SCORE!

First though, we headed through the best sign in the whole wide world!

I love how there was another DME bus in front of us in the picture, sort of adds to the excitement of the picture you know?

A sad attempt of getting this beauty:

We are actually at POFQ!!! It was a dream of ours to stay here and it is now one of my favorite resorts!

 

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And here is where my mom and I started snapping away at many details around the lobby area!

I LOOOOVED the New Orleans/Mardi Gras theme at this resort.

After checking in, we found out we were in building 2, which was really close to everything!!!! Our view was amazing (we found out towards the end of the trip that we got upgraded to a garden view room). Those pictures will come a little in the future, it was such a beautiful view!!!

We went in and checked out our room. You could tell it was much bigger than the value rooms. Loved the double vanity, the fridge, and also the coffee maker!!!! It was so nice to make coffee in the morning and take it down to breakfast. I also loved the purple and yellow colors throughout. The only downside was the super small bathroom!!! It looked much smaller than the one in a value resort, but you don’t spend long in there, so I prefer the double vanity and small bathroom to a larger bathroom and small vanity.

 

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Hidden Mickey on the separator curtain!

Mirror shot!! Shoutout to Holly! (who just may appear in this report!)

We decided to head back on down to the lobby to grab some dinner at the food court because we were hungry!!!

On the way down, the CM at the front door chatted with us for a while telling us about the resort and just talking to us, he was really great, and I’m sorry I forgot his name! (It might have been Ryan?) Thank you for making our night magical!!!

He was the one who magically made this

Off to the Sassagoula Food Court!! The food court was pretty small, but it was never crowded in here during our stay.

Penguins!

 

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For dinner I had the Chicken Quesadilla and mum had a pizza and a salad. Both were pretty good!

We headed back out into the lobby and through the gift shop back to our room because I wanted to watch the Michael Jackson episode of Glee on that night!

Minnie Mouse

 

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After Glee, we decided to take a walk down to good ol’ Riverside!

We walked back and strolled around French Quarter at night.

Don’t eat me!

Bunnies!

After a nice nighttime stroll, we decided to hit the sack at around 11:30 because tomorrow would be our only day in the parks!!! Bring it on!!!

 

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Wednesday February 1-Park Day

The plan for today was to start off at Hollywood Studios and end up at the Magic Kingdom, which happened but with a slight detour in-between

I had found out on twitter that there would be a few NASCAR teams out testing at the WDW Speedway and you would be able to hear the cars in the Magic Kingdom. A Disney cast member tweeted about it and then soon after Brad Keselowski (a NASCAR driver) tweeted he was there getting ready for a day of testing. I wanted to see who else would be there, so I figured I would give it a shot and tweet him, well he tweeted me back with an answer! I was so excited. My first celebrity that tweeted me!!!!!

So enough of that, we wanted to be at the Studios by 8:30 since I heard sometimes they did an earlier opening procedure to ease the stampeded to Toy Story Mania. We were up at 6:45 and this was the view outside our window:

We got ready, made some coffee (so great!) and headed down to breakfast.

Beignets were on the menu this morning for breakfast, and they did not disappoint!!!

This guy was out front

Off we went to the bus stop!

 

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We got to the bus stop right before 8 am, but the bus didn’t come for another 20/25 minutes! We must have just missed one.

Finally, a bus came and we arrived at DHS a little after 8:30! Home sweet home!

Luckily, they hadn’t opened yet so I chatted on my cell…most likely to Courtney (enchanted_belle) or I was posting on Twitter haha

There were a lot of birds around. These were just chillin with Mickey

The park ended up opening 10 minutes before 9 and it was a much better and safer procedure then having the stampede at rope drop, everyone was scattered this way and there was no long line for fastpasses!!! It was amazing!

On our way to Toy Story Mania

We grabbed fastpasses with a return time of only 10:05 and hopped into stand-by

Hey that’s where we live!

 

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We were ushered up the right hand side of the staircase since we were a party of 2, it was great by passing that other line. Muahaha. And as usual I was the one who triumphed with 189,000.

Back out in Pixar Place

I loved this movie so much!!!

I see it! I see it!

Taking some pictures of where we would be eating later

I had one thing on my mind…..The Tower of Terror!!! If I could marry a ride, this would definitely be the one Be prepared for the many pictures that will ensue. Words cannot do it justice.

 

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Hurry up Mom, let me go! Sheesh

In the boiler room was where the line was long, I waited at least 20 minutes there, I’ve never seen a wait like that just in the boiler room. Oh well I was able to get pictures for once!

The hat that I should have bought

 

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I started taking pictures of restroom signs, but after we left Hollywood Studios I think I forgot. This is the first of a few

A limo ride to see Aerosmith was on the agenda next!

Hey you!

Single rider!

 

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I was in the third to last row, so excited because the back is the best! I sang along to “Love in an Elevator” and “Walk This Way” (my favorite combo) and didn’t have a care in the world!

At the end of the ride, I attempted to get this picture that I have seen countless times done by others, but it just wasn’t as good, at all.

See ya later Aerosmith!

I stopped to grab two fastpasses for the ToT since the wait had jumped to 30 minutes and it was time to use our fastpasses for TSM, so we headed that way.

Hmmm, only the words of one of the greatest TV shows out there….

We got distracted by a red carpet show these guys were putting on, but unfortunately we caught the end of it.

I <3 Beau Wrangler

I have a question for you guys. Anyone know what happened to Officer Les Manly??? I haven’t seen him since January 2011 when he gave me a ticket. Is he still performing? I really liked him.

 

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Back at TSM where I kicked butt, again!

We look cool

Tiles in front of where Woody and Buzz meet…

We headed on towards the Streets of America where I spotted this beautiful Billboard with my man Rumplestiltskin on it

And it was off to Muppet Studios! (Well it should be Muppet Studios…) but we didn’t go in to see Muppets 3D just walked around and took pictures this time

How come this was the first time I noticed this???? WDW always amazes me…it definitely pays to look up

Walter!

 

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I miss when you used to be able to meet Kermit and Miss Piggy over in this area

Next up was a trip on Star Tours!!!

I made an effort to actually try to think of the places that I went to, and see if they were different from when I went on Star Tours in September, and it was all different! And I actually knew where we went and who we saw! It was Darth Vader, the Wookie Planet (I thought this was the coolest part!) and the great Yoda!

After Star Tours we headed on along Commissary Lane where I saw this great billboard that changed the closer you walked to it, first it showed the Evil Queen, then it turned to Rumple the closer you walked to it! I thought it was awesome!

Love these security guard booths!

Haha another restroom sign..this one over by American Idol

We were making our way back over to the Tower of Terror so I could use my fastpasses when we were stopped by another Citizens of Hollywood Show! Ben Appetit was definitely showing up Beau Wrangler!

 

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Onwards to the 5th dimension!

And caught these guys again on the way back! This time playing the matchmaker game! Bachelor Number 2 was the winner! Can I have him instead? Haha

Before our ADR, we browsed around at the shops along Sunset and Hollywood Blvds. I love all the stores in Hollywood Studios.

Mirror Shot!

My only hat shot..the stage looked hideous in front it, ruining my Hollywood Studios..how dare you!

Hollywood Brown Derby time!!!

 

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The bread and sea salt butter was yummy

For drinks I had a white wine Sangria (I love me a sangria! But I don’t like straight up wine..weird I know)

Mom had the Brown Derby Magarita, she loved it.

For lunch we both had the Cobb Salad, which definitely lived up to the hype it was really good! I loved the fact that they mixed it at the table right there in front of you.

Before

After

I had been wanting to try the grapefruit cake because I had heard so many good things about it! But unfortunately, I thought it was pretty gross. And I loooove grapefruit..it was just weird, wasn’t what I expected. It looked pretty though!

 

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Hey it’s another bathroom! This one was in the Derby

At around 2:00, it was time to leave Hollywood Studios and make our way over to the Magic Kingdom!

Officer Peabody "undercover"

Bye Hollywood Studios! I will see you in September!!! (I cannot wait to run in the Tower of Terror 10-miler, running in my favorite park in a race named after my favorite ride EVER? Definitely can’t pass that one up!)

We took a bus headed towards the TTC, and once we got there we could hear the race cars testing!!!! We saw the Exotic Driving van over at its stop, so we decided to see if we were able to go and watch testing. Dave, our driver, was super nice talking to us about NASCAR and asking how we found out, and if we were enjoying our stay. Definitely one of the nicest CMs we have ever run into.

Anyways, he we are!!!!!

We were able to go over to the small bleachers they had over by the Richard Petty driving school tent. There was nobody there except an older couple and one other lady who I think worked on the team of one of the drivers.

I tweeted Brad Keselowski again to see if I could get a chance to meet him, but of course he was busy working. The other drivers who were testing while we were there were: Juan Pablo Montoya, Austin Dillon, AJ Allmendinger, and Jamie McMurray.

Brad Keselowski’s Cup car

Jamie McMurray on the track

Car Haulers

Dave came over, and said the last van back to the TTC was at 4 pm, so he would come back and get us then. When it was time, testing was still going on but we were definitely coming back tomorrow! So I tweeted Brad again saying I had to go but hopefully I could meet him tomorrow! He probably thought I was some crazy stalker fan, but hey at least I would be remembered for something right?

We made it back to the TTC it was only 5 minutes away, not even, from the speedway. Decided to hop on the monorail to the Magic Kingdom!!!!

 

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Space Mountain!

We’re here!!!

It was so surreal being back in the Magic Kingdom, and amazingly, I didn’t take any traditional castle shots because well the stupid crane was there until it got dark every single time we have gone recently it’s been there. And I have to admit, I understand that the winter is the slow time, but seriously, all those scrims on Main Street really disappointed me I’ve never seen so many at one time. When I walked up Main Street a fourth of the castle was blocked by the Bakery scrims and it didn’t look pretty, but they gotta do what they gotta do. I still love my castle.

I have to say I was very upset that they weren’t looking for any Sorcerer’s this day to play Sorcerer’s of the Magic Kingdom, because I was really looking forward to this! I’ve heard such great things about it. I guess it will just have to wait until next time!

The Main Street Philharmonic Band!

Our first order of business was Fantasyland! I wanted to get pictures of the expansion area before it got dark. Of course, since these were taken in the beginning of February, they have made a lot of progress, but here it was as of February 1.

 

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Prince Eric’s castle!!!!!

While we were in Fantasyland, we grabbed a fastpass for Peter Pan and made our way over to Frontierland for the grand circle tour of the Magic Kingdom!

Remember how I tweeted Brad Keselowski earlier?? Well guess what, while walking over to catch the train he tweeted me back saying “I’ll be here, come inside!” I was so excited that I was hopefully going to meet Brad Keselowski on Thursday!

“I’ve been working on the railroad all the live long day, I’ve been working on the railroad just to pass the time away…”

Beast’s castle in between the trees

 

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The Great Goofini!

We hopped off at the Main Street Station because we had a date with none other than Mrs. Hollybelle at the Haunted Mansion! We chatted for a little while, which I think was almost an hour? It’s crazy how time flies, because before we knew it, it was time to part ways. It was so great seeing Holly again and getting to talk to her more. She is so sweet! Love you Holly!

Next we made our way over to Adventureland because we wanted to take a walk through the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House since it was closed in September when we wanted to go. There are some amazing views from up there!