10 days of Magic, Mickey, and Memories

Hi all!

And so it has come to an end. All the months of planning and preparing resulted in the best 10 days for my husband and I! Here are the basics:

Who: My DH and I
What: 10 days of Memories and Magic at Walt Disney World
Where: Port Orleans Riverside
When: September 13 to the 22
Why: A trip for resting and relaxing after a very long and hard year and in preparation of starting another personal journey.

Some background: My DH and I have traveled to Disney every year since we were married. So this marked our 8th trip in a row. Now the last two trips, I went solo. I went to Disneyland in 2010 and went for a girls getaway with my mom in May 2011. Since we started going to WDW together, a lot has happened. We moved twice, went through some very hard times, and have struggled with infertility. So this trip was focused on reconnecting and putting all of that "stuff" behind us. In the past, we have stayed either offsite (in 2005 and 2006) and then onsite at Deluxe Resorts. Since 2007, we have been able to drive to WDW since we lived only 4 1/2 hours away from the World. Okay, we are pretty much up to speed so now, on with the show! Or as Peter Pan would say...Here we go!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was the first time we stayed at POR as well as using DME. I will say to both, I would definitely recommend and stay/use again. We left very early on Thursday, September 13 and flew AirTran. It was a great flight and we got exceptional prices! We will definitely fly with AirTran again! The flight was smooth and on time so we arrived around 10 am at MCO and DME was ready and waiting for us! We did not have the fancy blue and cream DME bus which I was a tad disappointed about as I had never ridden on one! But we had a Mears bus and we were just ready to get to WDW!

Excited to get to WDW!

Super happy!

We arrived!

Arriving at POR!

We went ahead and did the online check in which didn't seem to make a difference. It was not busy, we still had questions, and we still talked to an agent. I will do it again, but didn't really notice that it made that much of a difference. We had called and requested a corner room on a higher floor and paid for garden view Royal Room. We got everything we asked for, except, our corner room faced a parking lot and was as far from everything as possible. So immediately called the front desk and I explained that I paid for garden view and would like garden view. We were moved to another room, that was near the pool, and a good location. It was not a corner room. The reason for the request for the corner is that I understand that the rooms can be quite dark so a corner room would let in more natural light. It would have been nice for that corner room but it didn't really bother us much at all.

View from the room

We first ate lunch since we were starved! We headed down to Riverside Mill. The DH tried to the pasta bar with cheese cake and I the burger and red velvet cake! All were delicious!!!!

The Royal Rooms were so nice! We really liked them a lot! They were beautiful!!

Yep, that's Stacy! The Must-Do's! Unt Beer???

 

[disneygirl76]

Also - can verify that at least in the Royal Rooms, you get a separate shampoo and conditioner and a bath soap and facial soap. Orange Blossom scent.

Coffee Pot - Cuisinart 2 cup brew, individual pods

Fireworks going off:

So the idea is that something is left behind from each princess. We figured out most of them.

Snow White: Picture Frame
Belle: the foot stool that was the dog
Cinderella: the carriage style hooks on the wall
Jasmine: the sink spout and the magic carpet rug on the floor
Aurora: Crown over tv stand
Ariel: shower curtain
Raponzel: ?
Tiana: of course, its her room with a T over the bed

After we waited for our last bag from DME:

We got ready to go to Epcot! Our traditional first meal at Rose and Crown!

Our first bus experience was great! Waited only about 5 minutes!

We got to Epcot around 4:30 and had dinner reservations at Rose and Crown at 7:15 pm.

We were able to get right on Soarin'! Only a 10 minute wait! This has never happened before!

Then we rode Figment and Spaceship Earth, no waits! And then off to the countries! Since we knew we had one really long day planned at Epcot, and several other evenings, we just strolled through the countries!

Rode Maelstrom - a favorite!!!

Sparkly Balloon!

 

[disneygirl76]

Then ... we reached the UK! Our favorite!!

Pretty!

Its Mary! I love Mary! We followed her down the path!!!

There's a ball on my head!

I'm relaxing, at peace...i'm at home!

Again, Rose and Crown hooked us up! 6 years running! A perfect table on the water!

(double pretty!)

Sadly...no potato leek soup. I asked, I begged, I cried, I threatened (ok, I didn't threaten!) but nope...no potato leek soup!!

We skipped the apps and went right to the entree. I don't know what happened (of course I do - I had pints in the UK) but I don't have pics from dinner entrees. I had the Cottage Pie and my DH had Beef Sirloin Steak. I loved mine! Back when it was not on the dinner menu and only on the lunch menu, I would always ask if they had any left from lunch and would have it for dinner. But now that it is on the dinner menu, i'm one happy girl! My DH was not impressed with his meal. The steak was not up to par. He normally got fish and chips but decided to try something new. He said that he should have stayed with the fish and chips.

He did enjoy this though!

The Whiskey Flight!

Illuminations was of course lovely! Those who remember the pre millennium version - we prefer that Illuminations.

I got the sticky toffy pudding for dessert

And my DH got the cheesecake to go. He ate it later and said it was a-maze-ing!!!

For our long run at Rose and Crown, we were crowned!!!

And we had the best server! Daniel was amazing! Love him!

And Silly Faces!

We did something we never did before after Illuminations. Instead of running out and catch the bus, we took a long leisurely stroll through the countries and just enjoyed the music and the weather and finally being back to WDW!

 

[Gojira ゴジラ]

Hi all!

And so it has come to an end. All the months of planning and preparing resulted in the best 10 days for my husband and I! Here are the basics:

Hate when a vacation is over but it's awesome to hear you had a great time there with your husband Nothing beat a solid quality time with people you love! at the happiest place on earth! after all the troubles you went through.. totally deserve it!

Awesome report too

 

[OswaldTheRabbit]

I love the TR so far! The pics are adorable! Can't wait to see the rest!

 

[Mukta]

I can't wait to read the rest! Looks great.

 

[PUSH]

Sounds like you had a wonderful trip! We always stay at POR (standard mansion rooms) and when I saw the pictures of it I was so jealous! Looking forward to the rest of the TR!

 

[Raven66]

Loving it so far!! Can't wait to see more pictures and read some more about your trip.

 

[disneygirl76]

Day two! MK all day! Like 16 hours all day!

So the idea was that we would take a break, head back to the resort and 2 pm and then come back for MNSSHP. However...this is when the dreaded MK bus situation of 2012 began. We wanted to make the opening ceremony so we got to the bus stop at 7:30 am. I figured an hour and a half should give us enough time. I thought for sure, we would get there early. However, after 40 mins, we FINALLY got a bus! Now here is the thing, I thought perhaps it was an issue with buses coming before the parks open, maybe only coming an hour before. That wasn't the case. We saw 3 AK buses, 2 epcot and 2 DHS buses. No MK. Luckily, we did make it in time. However, we cut it close. At 8:35, we arrived at the park. We did catch the opening ceremony. When I figure out how to upload video, I will do that! The ending is worth seeing!

New bow ring from UK! Love this! I felt this was something Minnie would appreciate!

I loved seeing MK all decked out for fall and Halloween! It is our favorite time of year celebrated the official first day of fall while we were there. So it was a great way to go from summer to fall ( even if the weather didn't feel that way!)

Before the opening and before the tears! I always start sobbing like a baby before entering the park!

The flags were still lowered, i'm assuming but not sure that it was due to Sept 11th as this was the 14th. It was haunting to see them lowered though.

The Mayor!

The arrival!

MK was amazing! So beautiful! Every where you looked there was something more beautiful and breathtaking! The park really looked great and all the decor was just awesome!! We were there for Halloween in 2007. I had forgotten just how beautiful it was for Halloween!

We first popped in to see Mickey. I was so disappointed b/c I was ready to use my photopass + and there was no photographer and no one seemed to have a reason why. I didn't let it spoil anything, but I was disappointed that we didn't get the pics with the photopass photographer. The cast member did a pretty okay job though.

Then off to the bakery where we had...drum roll please....the cinnamon roll! Now, this sucker was huge! And good! But ... dry! Yep! Dry! They needed more frosting and of course, I forgot to ask.

We also had the yogurt parfait and the blueberry muffin. The yogurt parfait was just okay. It has bananas in it. I do like bananas but you know how sometimes the banana flavor takes everything over? That is what happened here. It tasted like banana yogurt.

After breakfast, we headed to the left which is how we navigate the parks. So we started in Adventure Land.

First stop, Jungle Cruise! The cruise director was pretty good. Not the best, but he did an okay job. We walked right on. As we could tell from this point, the crowds were pretty light.

We then hopped on Pirates, again no wait and had the boat almost to ourselves! Then headed to Splash Mountain! Again, no wait - you can see from the log not filed! Ahh, and the magic of photopass +... here we are!!

After Big Thunder Mountain - hopping right on, we headed to Haunted Mansion! My DH had not seen the new entrance yet so he had a lot of fun!

We then pulled a fast pass for Peter Pan. Because you know, if there only a 100 people in the park, the wait for PP would still be over 50 mins!!! hee hee Then did Mickey's Philharmagic and then checked out the new parts of Fantasy Land we could see!

 

[disneygirl76]

My DH and I are saving two rides until we have kids. These rides we have not been on since we were kids at WDW and wanted to save something special for our kids...someday. Those rides are Dumbo and the carousal. So we skipped on over to Tomorrow Land. We rode space mountain which my DH had not been on since they updated it. He was super excited to see that the chocolate chip cookie still flew through the sky at the beginning of the ride!

Then off to Buzz. So in the past, I usually smoked my DH but I don't know what happened. I lost my Lightyear Mojo!

(scary no face Buzz)

Really...we were having fun!

We headed to lunch at Tortuga - a favorite of ours!!

Taco Salad was amazing! DH had the burrito and he said it was very good too!

We decided at this point (it was about 1 pm) that the crowd levels were light and we were having a great time and did we really want to loose 2 hours just going back and forth to the resort. This is the big lesson we learned this trip. We planned it as if we were staying like we had always stayed. However, we weren't. We were not at a Deluxe resort with either boat or monorail forms of transportation and we found from our earlier bus experience that getting back and forth to the resort was a time sucking experience. So we decided that we would stay on at the MK and that we would not head back to the resort to change for the Halloween party. This was a good idea in theory, however, not what we were used to. We have been used to taking breaks and relaxing mid day. So by around 3 pm, we were dragging. And decided to head to the Grand Floridian. We wanted to visit our usual "home" and also, we get the Mickey bath bombs from Basin White. We grabbed a cup of coffee and walked around a bit, and then headed back to the MK at about 4:30 for the MNSSHP.

Next up - Dole Whip! First snack credit used! Yes Please!

And Tiki Room!

We had not seen the "updated" Tiki Room.

We did Pirates and Haunted Mansion again and then headed to FL and rode Carousal of Progress and the Tomorrow Land Transit.

Then Space Mountain again!

We found that after this, the amount of people in the park had almost doubled. We were a bit surprised at how packed it got compared to earlier that day. Lesson number 2 - Don't attend the MNSSHP on a Friday if it can be avoided. We could have avoided this and I don't know what I was thinking - I just wasn't.

It was now 7 pm - official beginning of the party so we hopped in line to see the 7 dwarfs. I am glad we did it - but it was almost an hour for this process. I always a bit surprised that the lines still get as long as they do. I'm doubtful that anything can be done to help this. And yes, it was worth it, but it was such a long time.

One of the trick or treating trails was also at this location in Frontier Land so we hopped in line and went through the trail. The trail for candy was never long. It actually went really fast and really well. And we did get loads of candy!

 

[disneygirl76]

After Frontier Land, we headed to Haunted Mansion for the photo of and meet and greet.

Madame was hilarious!! She was out of this world! (get it...spooky, dead...out of this world)

We then headed to Main Street to watch Hallowishes and DH got dinner from Casey's. It was insane! So many people everywhere!!!!! No pics of dinner here - sorry guys! We were eating on a fence so no way to take pics. But...I have never been to Casey's at WDW so I was excited to get that off the Disney Bucket List.

As always, Hallowishes was great!

 

[disneygirl76]

We did not like where we were standing for the parade so we headed to our new favorite spot! Right over the bridge at Liberty Square, there is a small taped off square by Sleepy Hallow. Seemed fitting to watch the parade there too!

Between the two trails and the parade, we got almost 2 full bags of candy! Now the quality of the candy could be a bit better but it was pretty good.

We then rode pirates and Haunted one more time, and then decided to head home. We were at MK for a total of 16 hours that day. And it was a lot. We were hot, it was SO flipping crowded and we just wanted to head home. The buses weren't terrible at this point but since there were so many people, it took us 2 buses before we could get on. So we waited in line for about an hour to get picked up. During this wait, we decided that we would rather come to Disney less often, but stay at the Deluxe Resorts. We know we are spoiled. But we really like hopping on the Monorail and being home in minutes. So even though we really liked the resort, for use, we are monorail folks. This will change how we plan our trips to WDW in the future.

For those who are on the fence about MNSSHP - if it is not a weekend night, then I say go for it! It is our favorite of the parties and we really did have a great time!!

Ok - turning in for the night. Then next 8 days will start tomorrow!

 

[Justin Doggett]

Looks like you all had a great time.

 

[DisneyDebNJ]

You look SO happy!!! Love this TR!! Oh yes, extra icing on the cinnamon roll is essential, however, I always seem to be wearing half of it on my face LOL Can't wait for updates!!!

 

[DisneyPrincess5]

Hi friend yay I'm so excited!!! I LOVE the princess room-the details are incredible and I absolutely love all the autumn decorations!! Can't wait to read more.

 

[minnielaw]

Yay! So excited to see your TR up!!! I am so glad that you had a wonderful trip and the opportunity to reconnect with your hubby.

Sorry your bus experience was not the greatest. We always drive to WDW and use our car. We have never used the buses...driving our own car may take just as long as the buses, but when you are moving and in control it doesn't seem as long!

We are leaving in 4 days and your TR is really getting me excited...as if I could get any more excited!! I will remember the tip on the extra frosting for the cinnamon roll...hate dry pastries!

 

[lostpro9het]

There is some epic seriousness going on in this picture

 

[disneygirl76]

Here is the link to the opening ceremony! (I figured out how to do this! YEAH!)

 

[disneygirl76]

There is some epic seriousness going on in this picture

Just wait - there is one to come which is hilarious! Even more serious!

 

[disneygirl76]

Some additions to the day 2 trip report:

I wore my sneakers - the ones I have worn for a year and half. I am not sure what happened but seriously - my tootsie toes were in pain! After 16 hours on your feet, nothing feels good on your feet but I ended up with blisters on my baby toes and that started the downward spiral of my tootsie toes. It got worse! Just when it would get better - it got worse. So my question - what shoes do you wear? Later, the rain and wet shoes made things impossible for my tootsies. So i'm curious on what everyone does in regards to this.