We arrived home late last night and as usual, we are all in Disney depression mode. Seriously, the return to reality is so hard!
It was an AWESOME trip. However not without a few hiccups. Let’s just say that the name of my Trip Report could easily have been, “I Almost Killed My Husband In The Happiest Place On Earth” or… “”Did The Ride Just Stop?” or… “Bathrooms Around The World”
Needless to say that Disney Magic outshines small issues – even my husband’s behavior that almost landed him in Cinderella’s moat more than once.
Warning: I have some commitments over the next few weeks, so I’m not sure how much updating I will be able to do. But I wanted to start writing before my memory and notes start to fade away. Besides, I’m so sad – it helps to re-live it! Lol
For those of you who don’t know us – our cast of characters:
Me – Mary
Ross – My hubby who drove me INSANE throughout our trip.
Julia (14)
Hope (7 with Autism & Sensory issues)
What I didn’t mention in my Pre-Trip Report is that we were celebrating the fact that Julia is starting 9th grade this year. As homeschoolers, we have never acknowledged graduations or moving up ceremonies. So since my sweet girl is starting high school, I figured she deserved a Disney Celebration, so I had that put on our reservation.
Since Ross agreed to family shirts, I had my friend make them for us. Julia was surprised and really happy!
So if you are ready to join in the fun & craziness… welcome aboard!!
We had a morning breakfast with the princesses. I do this breakfast for Hope as I could live without it. One day I would love to have her eat in the castle.
I don't understand why this restaurant can't do the GF Mickey waffles!
A friend of ours was getting married in the fall and she is a Disney nut like us - so Julia and I had all the characters sign a card for her.
Our royal friends were awesome, but the service & food – not that great. However, a lackluster breakfast didn’t get us down because we were super excited for our trip to Arendale!! We had FP for right after breakfast so we walked over.
(Excuse my thumb.)
So… I do miss the Vikings but I wasn’t as devastated as some. I think my biggest pet peeve is that they closed that little opening above the waterfall. Lol
There wasn’t a wait in the FP line and soon we were on our boat and sailing off!! We made it!!
Our boat headed into the land of Frozen and there was Olaf and Sven right there to welcome us!
Hope was so excited!! I was almost in tears because she was looking forward to this for a while and I could really feel her excitement.
As we passed Olaf, and approached the “mountains” and waterfall, it was obvious how visually amazing this ride would be. While I missed those dear Vikings, this was cool. (No pun intended.)
Our boat rounded the corner but before we got any farther we paused for a moment, then a minute. A Norwegian voice came over the speakers saying our journey was momentarily paused. A few more minutes passed the same message played again a couple of times. Then we heard a human voice. “Resetting.” Hmmm…. Well that didn’t sound so promising. Julia asked if we were going to have to get off the ride but I didn’t even have the chance to answer her before another voice said, “Go to manual mode immediately.” Then a few minutes later another voice spoke to us that said to remain seated we be “evacuated” soon. The lights came on...
the music went off and we waited. Soon, we saw this...
This is when we had another moment of “Hope amazement” when she realized our journey would not be going any farther, she got sad. She started to cry a little - something that really doesn’t happen with her.
We all took a sad face photo... (Well except Ross - he must have missed the memo.)
So I figured this was our silver lining moment. I told her we would be getting another FP and we would ride as soon as they fixed everything. We waited some more and then another voice would announce, “Shutting off the water… complete power shutdown.” Soon we saw this…
And of course we were instructed to put away all cameras and phones. We walked off – the last boat to be evacuated. A CM met us at the end and gave us FP to return. We asked what happened and I figured we would get the usual “I don’t know”, but we were shocked when the CM told us what happened. “A medical emergency” she answered. Ross and I looked at each other and felt a little sad. We asked what happened. Again, we were shocked that the CM told us. Apparently, a woman who was boarding the boat right after ours slipped as she was getting in and got her foot stuck between the boat and the loading area. They couldn’t get her foot out so they had to shut down the water, evacuate the ride and lift the boat up and out of the water.
Ross and I looked at each other again. We thanked the CM and headed into the gift shop area with our new FP and looked around. I was waiting for Ross to comment – and it didn’t take him long. “I’m just letting you know, if she was in our boat, I would have got her foot out!”
I have been off the boards for over a year as it made me miss WDW too much but now I am back with a trip planned for January. I love reading your trip reports, you have such fun packed days! I agree with Ross that free is good and I wouldn't mind taking a DVD tour just for the food and gift card.
I have been off the boards for over a year as it made me miss WDW too much but now I am back with a trip planned for January. I love reading your trip reports, you have such fun packed days! I agree with Ross that free is good and I wouldn't mind taking a DVD tour just for the food and gift card.
So after our Frozen Fiasco we thought we would stay close in case the ride would be operational soon. So we headed over to Mexico and sailed away with Donald and Company.
I checked the APP but it showed FEA as Temporarily Closed and since we had a FP for Soarin, we decided to head over. Hope was still concerned we wouldn’t get to ride FEA – and to be honest, I started wondering too. But there was no sense in hanging around WS. So, off to the Land we went. We still had a little time before our FP so we went on LWTL, which had no wait.
Then we went over to Soarin. I was again hoping that we would get to ride in the new theater, but nope – foiled again!
When our feet were back on the ground, I checked the APP an it showed FEA was back up with a 2 hour standby. We figured we shouldn’t take any chances and booked it back over to Norway. We got on the FP line and it was a line! Don’t get me wrong, it was nothing like the standby, but I guess all the people like us who were given paper FP while it was down definitely affected it.
I think we all held our breath while passing by Olaf & Sven, however this time, no one got their foot stuck and we made it all the way through! It was very cute. I don’t think I would ever stand 2 hours to ride, but it was a sweet ride and everything seemed to be working.
However can we talk about the ride photo? It’s the worst!!
I'm so glad that you are back and updating again!! I love your trip reports - I feel like we have all seen Hope and Julia grow up. Thank you for sharing your trips with us.
I'm so glad that you are back and updating again!! I love your trip reports - I feel like we have all seen Hope and Julia grow up. Thank you for sharing your trips with us.
I think we all felt more relaxed after riding FEA. We headed back over to FW. Once again, it was HOT! We stopped off at Club Cool to get a drink.
As we walked through the building this time, we realized the EPCOT timeline was back up! So of course, we took our time while Julia checked it out. It also gave me a chance to book another FP to Mission Space. Somehow Mission Space & TT became favorites for Hope!
When we exited, Ross got a return time for TT and then Julia wanted to see the festival center one more time.
I was hoping we would escape without paying a visit to the UoE. However, Julia heard the rumors that it may be going away soon, so of course, she wasn’t taking any chances.
Another 45 minutes of my life I will never get back.
By the time we returned from the dinosaurs, it was time to speed things up.
Again, we didn’t race right out and instead played some of the interactive games. I again took advantage to go on the MDE APP and book a FP for Turtle Talk. I have to say, this is the first year when the APP worked pretty ok for me. My biggest complaint is that it constantly logged me off and it was frustrating to have to keep putting in my password over and over again. Other than that, it was nice to make additional FP with my phone instead of the kiosks.
Since we were a little early for Crush we visited Nemo first. The only wait was the walk on.
We still had a little time before Crush, so we walked around. I loved that Hope was interested in the fish this year. She has never paid any attention to them.
I must also say, we saw some really misbehaved children while waiting. One family had 2 brothers that were fighting and yelling and pushing each other. I couldn’t believe the mom was just ignoring it. One little boy actually climbed up the tank area near Mr. Ray’s Lagoon – I thought the kid was going to jump/fall in!
I was happy when it was our time to go in to the theater.
My camera was dead so I plopped it on the charger during the show. Hope didn’t want to sit in the floor - which was fine with me. I always get worried that she will “bolt” up to the screen or should I say “tank” and try to get to Crush. That might top the kid diving into Mr. Ray’s Lagoon!
By the way, did the board change the way you post pictures again? It's taking a long time to pull up my files!! Serves me right though, taking so long to finish!
After we left Crush, we walked over to The Land for one of our favorite dinner ADR’s.
I think the character interactions the BEST here. I don’t know if the restaurant is smaller compared to others – but all of our friends visited as least 2 times each! We also love the food – and there was a ton of it!
Before we ate, Ross ran downstairs and got a return time for Soarin, so when we were finished eating we waddled that way. I was determined to ride that in the new theater – Ross thought I was out of my mind! He didn’t quite get the desire for it. Julia did though. Unfortunately, we were not so lucky – Concourse A here we come.
From there we zig-zaged around FW a bit. We didn’t want to go back to WS because Ross was stuffed and he didn’t want to be tempted to eat from the F&W booths.
We decided to skip Illuminations, but we couldn’t resist visiting our Figment again.
EPCOT had EMH and would be open until 11:00pm and of course, we planned on closing it down. So after Figment we walked over to try to see Joy & Sadness or Baymax. Both Julia and Hope wanted to try to meet them but their lines were always so long. Tonight was no different – the line for Joy & Sadness was over an hour but Baymax was only around 30 minutes, so we opted for the latter.
We hadn’t seen the movie yet, so I was confused when the CM asked us to be sure we didn’t have any pens or pins near him. When we went up for the picture, I finally got it and laughed.
I thought he was adorable and made us want to see the movie even more.
A little bit earlier, it has rained so I think it cleared out a lot of people. So we decided to take one more spin on Test Track
and then Spaceship Earth.
We were sad to see that the cartoon ending still wasn't working correctly. We played a few games at the end.
We were about ready to leave when Julia asked to goon Soarin one more time. She remembered last year we were among the last to ride one night. Since none of us were asleep yet, we said okay. Before we rode, we stopped for Julia to have a snack.
We weren’t the very last to ride, but close to it. And no… we did not ride in the new theater.
We made our way to the buses. The line was HUGE! Ross and I were fighting about something on the bus so I wasn’t in the best mood. It was a packed bus. We had waited so we could have seats but people were all packed in like sardines. As we were driving along, there was a family close to us standing when all of a sudden I hear the mom say to one of the kids, “Are you going to be sick?”
No way! I thought to myself, actually I think I said it out loud.
Suddenly, a woman across from me started to talk to me. I didn’t hear her at first, but then I realized it was someone from the boards! They were even staying at POR! I was so excited. Of course, I didn't take a picture AND I forgot her name!! I typed it into my notes – but I was speaking and didn’t check to see that auto-correct changed it. Complete FAIL on my part. We said goodnight and went to get some well needed sleep.
