Trip Report Our (mostly) Dream-y June 2014 Vacation

Hi all! We returned from our trip 5 days ago, and I'm ready to relive it through this report!

First, let me introduce myself and my family in case you aren't familiar (here is my PTR if you are interested: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/my-dream-vacation-a-june-2014-ptr.865397/)
Here we are on the last day of this trip:

Me (Amy), my 6 year old, Owen, my 11 year old, Logan, and my 9 year old, Lily. Also on this trip were my parents (Nanny and Papaw to the kids), my brother, Scott, my SIL, Beth, and my twin 4 year old nieces, Macy and Allison.

Unfortunately, my husband wasn't able to take this trip with us. I am greatly disappointed by this, as he ended up not starting the fire academy like he was supposed to! Long story short, the city of Columbus sucks! They told him that one of the 40 spots was being held for him as long as he passed all of the testing. Well, he did pass all the tests, but they said his labwork took too long getting back and they already gave all the spots to other guys. They guaranteed him a spot in the December class, but he also had to be available the first three weeks of the June academy, "just in case" someone didn't show up or dropped out. Of course, that didn't happen, so he missed the whole vacation and still won't start until December!:( The only good thing to come of this, is that my mom had me schedule a cruise in October for just me and Brian!

Ok, back to the actual trip! Let me just say that I will not be going on any more family vacations with my SIL and nieces. I will say that their time management (or lack thereof) is much different than mine, and not say anything else about it! We had a great time despite our differences!

We had a 6am flight on Wed. morning, so we drove from Dayton to Columbus Tues. night and stayed in a hotel. Here are the kids getting ready to leave our house:

We made sure to leave early enough so we could visit a few stores for the kids once we got to Columbus.


We grabbed dinner at Max and Erma's. It was about this time that my stomach started bothering me. I just assumed it was nerves (I was really nervous about making sure 9 other people had a good time on this vacation!) and being upset that Brian wasn't going with us. Well, it was more than that, and I was up sick all night!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster





I made it back before they were even on the ride!





Logan had asked that they please not spin the cup too fast. Obviously, they didn't listen!

Then they couldn't understand why I was upset. "We didn't know he was serious!" Really!?!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Amy.
I am loving your report, been reading it for days, you have a beautiful family and are making great memories.
Can I ask about the photos with disney logos on them.
Is this the memory maker or photo pass or is their a difference,
Going for the first time and as you can see I am confused about lots of things.
Do you find the photos worth the price and do you have to go out of your way or wait long for them to come take your photos.
Thanks
Thank you! I did order the Memory Maker! It is the same thing as the PhotoPass! It was definitely money well spent. We got the photos from all of our meals and all of the ride pics were included. We definitely did not have to go out of our way to find photographers. Waits were minimal to have them taken. It kind of depends on the location and the time of day you want them done. We just didn't stop if the line was too long. We knew there would be another opportunity later! Be sure to ask for magic shots! (That's what our Darth Vader, Tinkerbell, etc. pics are!)
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Then it was time to redeem our most coveted FP+.






wd062wdw201417791035876_7005820071_18.jpeg





 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The kids wanted to ride Splash Mountain again, so we headed that way. We saw these guys going in:

I wish we had caught them in time for pics!

Owen decided he actually did want this picture:

The wait was at about an hour at Splash. They decided they still wanted to do it, so I sent them on their way. I had no desire to get wet again! I went and got a frozen lemonade and relaxed BY MYSELF for awhile!! It was so nice. I surfed the web for awhile, called and talked to Brian for a few minutes, then took a few pics.







I was at the bottom of the hill when they went down, but I wasn't able to capture it! I got them as they went by though!

 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Then we had some drama because Allison wanted to ride again and did not want to move on to our next FP+! We headed back to Fantasyland to drop off my mom, Lily, Owen, Macy, and Allison at:

Allison really did not want to ride and was refusing to scan her MagicBand. My mom didn't give her a choice and just lifted her arm up and scanned it herself! Go Nanny!! She ended up loving the ride!
The rest of us headed to Tomorrowland to ride:



Despite her fears that she couldn't, my mom made her way over and met us outside of Space Mountain! We then made our way over to check in for our FP+ for the parade.

They let us in at about 2:30. We were the second group in, so we ended up directly across from the area where they enter the hub from Liberty Square. It was the perfect spot!! I went and got water and ice cream for everyone! After eating my own Mickey bar, I had a little time to get a few pics.





These two borrowed some shade from the girls!

That was the only problem with the FP+ viewing, there was absolutely no shade and it was close to unbearable sitting there in the sun!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster








Fantastic parade!! But we were all more than ready for a rest! We walked through the stores as we followed the parade down Main Street, and then caught a bus back to Pop Century.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Once back at Pop, my brother headed off to DTD, my parents napped, the kids and I went for a swim, and Beth and the girls napped before trying to swim. After swimming, I packed up as much as I possibly could, then we got cleaned up and walked with my parents to get dinner at Everything Pop! It started thundering and raining, so the girls didn't get to swim and we got a little damp on the way to dinner! It felt good, so no one complained!


I got the pepperoni pizza bread. It was okay. We enjoyed sharing my dessert though!

Apparently, we didn't get enough rest that afternoon!


It was still raining, so we just kind of hung out until Scott got there and we could check in for the Dessert Party.

I think thees are my favorite PhotoPass pics we got.


Then we were taken to our table.


The banana cream puff was my favorite!! The chocolate covered strawberry that I didn't take a picture of was my second favorite!
 
Last edited:

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We really enjoyed our view!


It wasn't the greatest view for Celebrate the Magic, but we weren't crowded and we weren't standing in the rain, so it was perfect!:D





Tink didn't fly because of the weather, but Wishes was still spectacular!












 

joan237

New Member
Thanks Amy for your reply about photos.
I am in awe of all your photos. You are a great photographer.
Back to photo pass, one more question if I can
Is their a limit to how many photos allowed on cd
We are only there 2 days but still I am wondering.
Are there any photographers at the resorts?
Thanks
You seem to go often to wdw, by your photos I can see why.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster

My kids were begging to ride SDMT again, so I told them I would wait in line, however long it was, with them. Everyone else headed for the bus. We had to make a quick stop at the bathroom, so we were behind a lot of the post Wishes crowd. Wait time was listed at 70 minutes and it started to rain harder. Logan and Lily wanted to go back to the room, but Owen really wanted to ride! They negotiated with each other and we ended up leaving the line. I was so proud of Owen! He shed a few tears, but he got over it quickly when I promised him we would ride it multiple times on our next WDW trip! We made our way back to the bus stop and hopped right on a waiting bus!

Somehow we managed to beat the others back! Everyone was quickly asleep!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thanks Amy for your reply about photos.
I am in awe of all your photos. You are a great photographer.
Back to photo pass, one more question if I can
Is their a limit to how many photos allowed on cd
We are only there 2 days but still I am wondering.
Are there any photographers at the resorts?
Thanks
You seem to go often to wdw, by your photos I can see why.
Thank you! Ask as many questions as you like! There is no limit to the number of pictures. You do have to pay extra to get an actual CD now. The original purchase is for the downloads. They broke mine up into 8 sections of 75 pics each, and we took a lot less pics this time that we normally would have! There are not generally photographers at the resorts. We were there Christmas 2012 and there was one in the lobby of the Grand Floridian next to their Christmas tree, but that is the only time I remember seeing one at a resort!
 

PRNCSAurora

Active Member
Great report. We are heading down in a weeks and the photos make me want to leave now. We have already started planning our next trip which will be a land and sea. The cruise looks amazing!
 

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