A Private Dance with Cinderella... Our Surprise Trip Jan 2011

A Private Dance with Cinderella... Our Surprise Trip Jan 2011 (Completed 7/18!)

Exhibit A: Your Letter Confirming Your Reservation At The Nuthouse

Dear Sir/Madam:

This letter confirms your willingness to enter the strange, yet enticing world of the ramblings of the amateur writer known in the Disney community as BigTex71. Please sign the guest log (by replying in this thread) and let it be known that you waive all your rights to a normal trip report. By acknowledging your willingness to continue down this dangerous path, I cannot be held responsible for any sudden outbursts of laughter or rashes on your scalp due to the head-scratching some of my keyboard-induced quirkiness may induce.

Consider yourself warned.

Possibly Sincerely,
BigTex71

 

[fractal]

Just caught up on this.

Great Trip Report and I love the tie-dye shirts!

 

[BigTex71]

I love this trip report!! I love your shirts!! My favorite is the tye died ones!! Where did you get those???? I want them!

I made those from some instructions on another online Disney forum. Not sure if I am allowed to post a link to another forum on here. I will just say it is a very popular DISney forum. :zipit:

Great update.
I would love to go in Jnauary, but I can't conince MY DH that it is a good time to go.

Have him read through the trip report. I would say it is one of the best times to go. Not sure how to rank these, but my opinion of the best time frames to go: Mid-January though first week of February; late-September through late-October (Food & Wine AND MNSSHP!); week after thanksgiving through mid-December (Holiday decorations and MVMCP.)

HI!! Fantastic trip report Your kids are too cute! I wanted to thank you for the early ADR tip. We're planning on the 8am ressie for both CRT & CP on our Nov trip. Have you done CRT 1st thing? Can you actually make it to rope drop, even with the whole picture with Cinderella process? I posted this question on the Dining forum, but no one had actually done the early CRT. Thanks so much, and I look forward to reading more

Thanks! I have never done early CRT, but I doubt you could get that whole experience done before rope drop.

Just caught up on this.

Great Trip Report and I love the tie-dye shirts!

Thanks!

 

[BigTex71]

I know this is taking REALLY long for me to finish. And I don't have a good excuse. So think up a really awesome excuse that could justify a long layoff before posting my next chapter and assume that is what happened. :ROFLOL:

Without further ado... I will post the next chapter. :sohappy:

 

[BigTex71]

Chapter 11: A Little Magic at Magic Kingdom

February 5, 2011 – Day 9 (MK Day)

This was our last full day in Orlando, so we had to visit MK one last time. I am starting to like Epcot the most, but if you have young children – there is no place on Earth like the Magic Kingdom when it comes to making kids smile. And this is all about the kiddos, so MK it is! We got up and got ready (we slept in a little again, since the crowds were not bad this time of year.) We arrived at the TTC parking lot around 9:30am and took the tram to the central TTC hub. Just before we got off the tram, DD’s stomach decided it wanted to send breakfast back where it came from. Unfortunately, DD’s stomach must not have realized that her shirt and shorts was not where breakfast originated. DW took her to the restrooms to try to clean her up a little. Not a good start so far.

Once we arrived at MK, we went straight to the Emporium to find DD some new threads.

DD and DW went to meet the fairies

while DS, DM, and I went to ride the TTA People Mover and then the Carousel of Progress.

I know that is an old attraction, but I still like it a lot. And once you ride it, you will have that song stuck in your head until your next visit to The World. “There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow…”.

We then met up with the girls at ToonTown. We rode Goofy’s Barnstormer several times to pay our respects – it is being converted to a slightly different ride for the new FantasyLand expansion – and it is one of DDs favorite rides. And since ToonTown will be gone with the new expansion, we were sure to walk around and enjoy this area for our final time. It was a little sad in a way.

Afterwards it was getting to be lunch time, so we headed over to Liberty Square for our early lunch ADR at Liberty Tree Tavern. We had dinner there the last trip and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to the lunch options (the dinner is a family-style fixed menu.) Lunch did not disappoint. I had the New England Pot Roast – yum! The wine and mushroom sauce was so rich and flavorful. DW had the Pilgrim’s Feast (pretty much the same thing we had for dinner here last time – I knew she liked it, but I guess she REALLY liked it.) We split the Oooey Gooey Toffee Cake for dessert. WOW – that was Good Eats. By the time I remembered to pull out my camera for a picture, this is what was left:

After lunch we rode Splash Mountain and then went to one of my favorite attractions:

Then we decided to see the Country Bear Jamboree – since we had never seen it before.

Pretty good entertainment for the kids, but I have to be honest here… I didn’t see all of it because I was nodding off. I think the 9 days of non-stop fun was starting to catch up with me. I just hope I didn’t scare any kids sitting around me with loud snorting and snoring. We then did another thing we never seemed to make time for before: the Liberty Belle riverboat. This is a nice, relaxing ride around the area and allows for some good photo ops you can’t get from the regular walking areas:

We then ventured over to TomorrowLand to ride Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. I recently found out how to max out your points on that ride, but it was after we returned from our trip. So I can’t wait until our next visit so I can whip up on DW like Ben Kenobi did to Darth Maul.

We then went to the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor. Even though I was not ‘That Guy’again, DD and I were a ‘two-headed monster’ and they actually spent quite a bit of time featuring us on the video screen and asking us questions. The family LOVED this. More Disney Magic – even if it was something as little as this. It was great memory making.

We rode the TTAPM one last time and then went through some shops before getting on the boat to Wilderness Lodge for dinner at Whispering Canyon Café.

I did not have an ADR for WCC, but I was hoping we could do a walk-up since the crowds are not bad this time of year. (Have I mentioned that the crowds are not bad this time of year yet?) I walked up to the hostess and asked if we could get a table for 5. She gave the standard reply, “Sure, but it may take about 45 minutes.” I told her that would be fine and we would wait for a table. Our beeper/flasher device went off within 5 minutes for our table. Dinner was great (as usual) and we went back to finally see the MSEP and the new Memories show on the castle before Wishes.

The new Memories show on the castle was GREAT! It is amazing how they get the castle to ‘transform’ with the projected images. We watched from a spot over by the Crystal Palace and here was one of the few decent pictures I got of Cinderella’s Castle during the show (I didn’t have a tripod.)

DD fell asleep in her stroller just before Wishes and we met a family from New Jersey standing next to us whose son was complaining about the possibility of the fireworks being too loud. We offered them some silicon ear ‘putty’ that we had not opened yet for DS (he has sensitive hearing), since we had two packages. They were very grateful and their son was able to enjoy the show without having to endure the loud noises. They had just arrived that day, so we gave them the rest of that package of unused silicon ear plugs for them to use the rest of the week. I love being able to help out a little like that spreading some of the Disney Magic.

We left after Wishes to get back to the TTC and then the condo. It made for a long day and late night, but it was our last full day and we were able to enjoy it fully. Too bad (looking back now) it is going to be a long time until we can return.



Up next: Goodbye Walt Disney World, hello Tampa (and goodbye Tampa.)

 

[jenseib]

It sounds like a wonderful day. How awesome to just walk up and get an ADR. I am going in Aug for an Agent Education Program and one place scheduled is WCC. I've eaten there once in the past and I am excited to eat there again.

 

[BigTex71]

It sounds like a wonderful day. How awesome to just walk up and get an ADR. I am going in Aug for an Agent Education Program and one place scheduled is WCC. I've eaten there once in the past and I am excited to eat there again.

I wanted to go to that event. One of these years I will try to make it to an agent on-site program.

 

[BigTex71]

Chapter 12: Song Long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Goodbye

After our great, long day at the Magic Kingdom, I climbed into bed feeling pretty exhausted. We had done most of our packing after returning from the park, so that made for 2 strikes against me – 1) going to bed very late, and 2) our last night of BigTex’s Excellent Adventure. Bogus! Heinous! I hate that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach knowing it is your last night on vacation. It is something that can only be remedied by a shot of that pink Pepto Bounce-back. Unfortunately, we had no bounce-back offer because we stayed off-site. Ugh. Somehow I still was able to easily fall asleep only seconds after me head hit the pillow.

Morning snuck up on us and it was time to get up before we knew what hit us. We proceeded to finish the last minute packing and did the triple-check of all drawers, floors, beds, etc. for anything we may have missed. Once we (meaning “I”) got the rental van loaded up with all of our stuff, it was off to Downtown Disney for breakfast at Earl of Sandwich. We are sure to eat at EoS every visit for lunch or dinner, but this was our first breakfast there. It was just as awesome as the lunch/dinner sandwiches. That bread is a vital part of the yum that is Earl of Sandwich. Our next trip I will try to make it over to EoS for breakfast at least once.

After breakfast we walked through some of the stores to do some last-minute shopping – getting shirts and souvenirs for extended family back home. Then it was time to drive to the Tampa/Clearwater area. We drove out there and found a nice looking place to eat lunch on the beach – a place recommended by an acquaintance of DW who lived around that area. I forgot the name of the place, but it was pretty good food and the views of the beach were great.

After we finished lunch and walked on the beach for a while, we drove to the Tampa airport. I dropped off the family at the departure area so I could drive the rental car back to the car return area. I met up with the family inside the airport and we went through security and off to our gate. The one great thing about flying out of Tampa is the security lines. Orlando airport has crazy long lines (as many of you are aware) and it can take quite a while to clear the security area. At the Tampa airport, there was no line at all. We just walked over to the security area and it was ‘walk-on’. Nice.

It was Super Bowl Sunday and it was weird not being plopped in front of the TV all day. And it was also weird knowing the Super Bowl was being held back home while we were in Florida. Luckily, our flight was due to land at DFW while the game was still going on – so we wouldn’t have to deal with the huge crowds of people coming in or leaving for the Big Game. And even though it has taken me over five months to finish this trip report, I still have not seen the game. I wasn’t overly motivated to watch it though, since I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. If I had my way, both teams would have lost that game. But I digress…

Wrapping up this trip report, I will say we had an awesome time. The only way it could have been better is if we had stayed on-site. The crowd levels were extremely low and the weather was perfect – in the 70s every day. So we learned a lesson on this trip: no matter how much bigger the living space is, staying at the resorts trumps staying off-site for my family. The kids loved the trip but mentioned that it didn’t feel like a true Disney trip because we didn’t get to ride the buses (or stay in the Disney ‘bubble’.) Inconceivable!

I highly recommend a late January/early February trip to The World!

 

[BigTex71]

Finally finished! I think I slowed down at the end because I didn't want to be done with that trip. Finishing the trip report kind of 'finalizes' it for me.

I hope you had fun reading my trip report.

Now I need to start a new PTR for my upcoming trip to POFQ!!!

 

[jenseib]

So glad you finished it up. I know that awful going home feeling.
We spent 3 days this past trip in Orlando and only 1 night onsite and I agree, I don't like staying offsite either. It was a different feeling for sure.
Thanks so much for sharing.

 

[TakeMeThere81]

Finally finished! I think I slowed down at the end because I didn't want to be done with that trip. Finishing the trip report kind of 'finalizes' it for me.

I hope you had fun reading my trip report.

Now I need to start a new PTR for my upcoming trip to POFQ!!!

I did have fun reading your TR!! Although, isn't your next trip for WL(siggy)?

It must be coming up quick!

 

[BigTex71]

I did have fun reading your TR!! Although, isn't your next trip for WL(siggy)?

It must be coming up quick!

There was a change of plans. We were going to do WL, but then we canceled. Later down the road we decided to go ahead with the trip, but at a moderate instead. We leave early Wednesday morning - the 27th! Woo Hoo!