A September 2011 Trip Report about a trip with lots of firsts!!!

Some of the firsts include:

-Traveling in September!- my family has always gone during summer break, it was amazing to see the difference in crowds and heat!

-Flying!- It was my first time flying! EEK!

-First time dining vegan and gluten-free- other times we have went to WDW I was vegetarian and still ate dairy and eggs, so cutting that out and realizing my intolerance to wheat, I knew this trip was going to be a whole new experience!

-First time with a signature dining experience!- well, technically when we went in 2009 we went to sci-fi, but I think Kevin and I just got grilled cheese and fries... haha

-First time not worrying about money!

-First time traveling alone with my boyfriend away on vacation!

-And last, but DEFINITELY not least, first time taking it easy at Disney!!

Ok, on with the trip!!!

We left bright and early on Sept 13th, 2011! 3:30am to be exact! Fed the pups, double checked our packing lists to make sure we had everything, did mah hairzz, and headed off to the airport in Buffalo! We got to the gate while it was boarding because I forgot my video camera in the car at first and had to go all the way back, probably not the best idea, but I needed my camera!

excited for Disney..

..apparently terrified for flying

Kevin likes flying though!

"When do we get to that!?"- (Kevin easing my nerves...) hahaha

Flying JetBlue was great! For some reason since it was such a small plane it made me less nervous. Maybe because it wasn't full of the stressed out people you see in the movies. And the airport itself was small, too. According to Kevin it was less hussle and bussle and also less confusing compared to Boston.

So, we landed early. The pilot said it was due to shortcuts. I'm pretty sure we were in the sky so I'm not sure what shortcuts you can take hahaha.

Around 10am we got on the Magical Express!! This was a first also!

Kevin was so excited that he tried snapping tons of pictures on the way to the resort.

"How come every time I try to take a picture of palm trees there's always a pole in it?"

And this sign always gets me everytime, but my eyes were closed and I almost missed it!

"YOU DIDN'T EVEN TELL ME WE WERE ABOUT TO GO THROUGH THE SIGN!!"

We got to All Star Music!!!!!! We chose the resort for a few reasons. We wanted our trip to be care-free and we decided we weren't going to worry about money while in WDW, so we decided to budget in other ways here and there. Our way of doing that was booking in March during the 20% offer at the cheapest resort! We booked a preferred room though, we ALWAYS go with the preferred rooms. Another reason is because we have stayed here before as well as the other 2 All-Stars, we liked this one the best. We didn't ever go for the free dining option because we knew it wouldn't even be worth it. We never did before, and knew we would't spend as much as we saved with the 20% off.

So our room was ready right away! Surprise! We got a couple snacks and headed to drop off a couple things in the room.

I got BBQ chips. The ingredients were animal product free (as long as you don't mind refined sugar) and it said "gluten free" on the package!

Kevin got NutterButters, despite the name they are accidentally vegan! (again if you don't count the refined sugar!) I don't have a picture of the package (even though I tried to photograph everything we ate for future reference, but I never thought to get a picture of these even though Kevin got a package everyday).

I guess this would be a good time to say this- Kevin and I do NOT eat like this at home! The last time I had potato chips before this trip was MONTHS ago. I even drank some soda while in Disney. I haven't had soda since probably the last time I went to Disney 2 years ago, and even then I don't think I had any. We eat mostly fruit and some veggies at home, so you can imagine that this food kind of brought us a down a few hours after eating it and we had to change our eating habits a bit because the mid-day naps were becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity! All that fat was taking a toll! Not to say we stopped eating like that, just cut back and added more and more fruit and salads each day..

So back to the hotel! I got really excited

"TAKE A PICTURE!!!!!"

We decided to go to the Magic Kingdom right away!!!! It's been a tradition to visit MK first. We like to sit in the seat they have on some buses that's directly behind the driver, and this bus had that seat so this ended up being our view:

Are we there yet!? Can you see the castle!?!?

 

[WDW_Princess24]

Awesome start to your TR, can't wait to read more!

 

[flipadeeflop]

Awesome start to your TR, can't wait to read more!

Thank you!! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed yours!!

 

[jhoff3405]

I'm in! You guys are such a cute couple and look like you have so much fun together!

 

[flipadeeflop]

I'm in! You guys are such a cute couple and look like you have so much fun together!

What a nice compliment! Thank you so much!!!

 

[flipadeeflop]

Let me interrupt my own trip report to bring up another first! Every time we've planned our itinerary it was based around Extra Magic Hours. This time was very different...

Kevin surprised me by buying me an app for the iphone with his allowance! (We give ourselves each $20 a week to buy whatever we want. It helps with the fact that he likes to buy video games and electronics as often as I like to buy clothes and accessories!! Before the allowance we were spending more than we realized!)

The app was only $10! It sounds like a lot, but once you realize what you get, it's WELL worth it! And that's coming from someone who worries a lot about money!

Lines

It comes with lots of stuff, but the 2 main things we used was the crowd level predictions and wait time estimates for rides.

We knew we wanted to go to MK for 3 days, including the first night, and HS for 2. That left AK and Epcot with one day each and an extra day for hotel hopping and DTD souvenir shopping! So we used Lines to plan it out!

The crowd level part is pretty easy. Each park gets a rating from 0-10. When we went in Aug 2009, the crowd level average was around 7, and this time they were MUCH less because we went in September. The app tells you the best and worst park to visit on any given day.

So the first night we went to MK the crowd level was 1.1!! That's why every ride was just a quick walk on! We decided to go to AK the second day according to the crowd level of the park compared to the others and also considering our plans on how many times we wanted to visit each park and being able to space it all out so we weren't visiting repeat parks too close together.

HS was the only toughy! It never got lower than a 4.0! We just knew we didn't want to go on the day that it reached higher than a 7!!

We did ultimately miss a lot of extra magic hours, but I think we actually got more ride and relaxation time considering we never waited more than 15min for ANY ride! The 3 extra hours at night made the parks so much busier that we probably would have spent those 3 hours waiting in lines throughout the day!

The wait times for attractions throughout the day also helped. We knew what the wait time for BTMRR was while we were deciding if it was worth it to walk over from Space Mountain. It was great!

If you want to check it out, it's over at touringplans.com! You don't have to buy the app to get some things, they have a free version as well, so you might want to check that out first before you decide to take it one step further and purchase it.

They also have a chat we used a lot. There are constantly users on asking and answering questions so it helped to ask quick questions. For example we asked what people recommended for wine at Jiko and got answers within a minute! Kevin also made a comment in the chat about how busy the parks were and how accurate the app was on each day!

 

[WDW_Princess24]

Thanks for the tip! I think I'm going to try it out next week when I'm there. I usually use the undercover tourist app but this one seems to be more detailed!

 

[Ariel484]

Lady GaGa is that you?!

I thought the same thing! Most definitely a compliment since I LOVE Gaga

Love your pics on the rides. You guys look thrilled!

 

[flipadeeflop]

Thanks for the tip! I think I'm going to try it out next week when I'm there. I usually use the undercover tourist app but this one seems to be more detailed!

I heard about that app before! How is it?

I thought the same thing! Most definitely a compliment since I LOVE Gaga

Love your pics on the rides. You guys look thrilled!

That's funny!! and thanks!! I never even knew what she looked like until about 5min after that woman said that. I knew she was blond, but that's it. Then Kevin looked it up and in all of her pictures she had sunglasses on like me so I was like, "oooohhh that must be it! plus the platinum blonde hair of course!"

 

[flipadeeflop]

Before it was time to use our fastpasses to ride EE again we decided we wanted to ride the Kilamajaro Safaris before it started to get too late.

On the way

The standby time was about 30min so we decided to get the fastpasses for it. The time for us to be able to get another fastpass was about 10min from that time so we shopped in the store across from the stand-by line then got our FPs!

We got hungry and remembered reading that Restaurantasauros had sweet potato fries so we went there!!!

we liked their lamps.

Oh Disney and your little special touches!

We decided to ride Dinosaur since we were in the area. While in line a woman tapped me on the shoulder and said "Lady Gaga!" Then her daughter persistently yelled, "LADY GAGA MUSICA LADY GAGA MUSICA!!!"

PAPARAZZI SHOT!

ok back to dinosaur... It scared me like always! "WARNING! Loud noises and scary dinosaurs!"

Then we realized we forgot to use our fastpasses for EE, but our safari ones were still good! So off to Africa!

 

[flipadeeflop]

These are both babies!!!

Then after the safari we got off and pulled to the right instead of leaving to get some water.

No one was over in this little side trail.

No one, but THIS GUY!!!

about 25 ft below there he was just relaxing in an area no one knew about!!!

 

[flipadeeflop]

off to Rafiki's Planet Watch! At home (upstate NY) we work at a sanctuary for farm animals called Farm Sanctuary. We were excited to go to RPW to get a little taste of home!

Kevin met Duncan

He was standing at first, then Kevin pet his chest and he immediately went down and fell asleep!!!!

Our sheep from home. This is Pamela and Francis, our lambs!

I met Bueller the goat at RPW

Made me think of our goats at home!

This is Clarabell from Farm Sanctuary chasing me!

We saw some cows, too, but didn't take any pictures for some reason. But here's a picture of Faith from home if you want to see a cow!

She's eating my shirt

There weren't any chickens, though, and we sure miss our chickens!

The Spice Girls

and no pigs, but here's Fiona from home

We met one of the animal caregivers there. His name was John. He was GREAT! He really made our experience a great one. It was nice to talk to him and learn about the animals he took care of and compare notes on how we do things compared to what they do. For example we have a little over 80 sheep at Farm Sanctuary and we trim their hooves and do general checks on them every couple months over the course of 2 days. At DAK they do one sheep a day over the course of many days. They also shear their sheep more often (it is obviously hotter there) and they do it themselves. We hire someone to come out and do it (someone we know and trust, and we pay him by the hour, not by the sheep so he goes slower. Normally most sheep shearers will just flip the sheep all over the place and do it as fast as possible because they get paid by the sheep. This leads to stress and lots of cuts) They also do training there to do demonstrations on stage! We don't do anything like that here. It was nice to hear about how much he cares about the animals! He knows all about Duncan's habits and mannerisms, just like we do at home about the animals we take care of! He also takes care of a cow named Kitty. I wish I got a picture of her! She was so tiny!

 

[WDW_Princess24]

I like the undercover app but it doesn't give you the exact wait times, they go in 5 minute intervals and instead of a number for crowd levels they have a colored dot next to each park. Green means go, yellow is caution and red is dont even bother LOL kinda like a traffic light!

I love the pictures of the baby giraffes!! I WANT ONE!!

 

[flipadeeflop]

I like the undercover app but it doesn't give you the exact wait times, they go in 5 minute intervals and instead of a number for crowd levels they have a colored dot next to each park. Green means go, yellow is caution and red is dont even bother LOL kinda like a traffic light!

I love the pictures of the baby giraffes!! I WANT ONE!!

I know I wish I could convince Farm Sanctuary to rescue some!! hahaha

 

[flipadeeflop]

I was pretty hungry after the train ride back from RPW. I wanted popcorn and was pretty set on that. I also saw earlier that somewhere had frozen lemonade (one of the stands right outside of Dinoland.)

So, on the way over we got some fastpasses for EE and the machine stole my card! Kevin was just chatting up the CM working at the FP machines joking around having a good time while I was just standing there, helpless, alone, staring at the machine to give me back my Key to the World! haha

They finally realized I was sad and came over and helped. We asked where there was popcorn, and he said over at C+H's there was a stand called Cornivore or something like that. CLEVER!

So we walked over there and got snacks. I forgot that they only had those straws with the AWFUL texture at AK so I drank my frozen drink very awkwardly! We remembered right outside of Dinosaur there's that little waiting area so we went over there to sit and relax with our popcorns. A squirrel joined us.

I always manage to eat 1/2 of my meal before I think to take a picture

I really wanted to catch Flights of Wonder this time. Since working at the farm, Kevin and I have developed a love of birds.

(this guy wasn't in the show, he's from RPW)

I feel like the look on his face is like, "Whyyyy did I come here???? I knew I should have stayed in bed"

so cool!

why so serious?

We really enjoyed the show. I wanted to get picked really badly, but they specified they wanted a kid every time except for when they asked for an adult with a dollar. I didn't have a dollar

But the birds were amazing!

Then it was time to use our EE fastpasses!!!

When I went on EE the first time in 2007, I was BLOWN away! My cousin and I couldn't stop talking about it.
"It looked like we were going to down, but we went RIGHT UP into the yeti!!!"
"I couldn't keep my arms up because I thought I would have touched the yeti!!!"
etc. etc.
I went again in 2009 and before we rode I TALKED IT UP to Kevin. We went on and the yeti was lit up by the strobe light. I was so confused! At the time I never read any Disney forums so I had no clue anything about this. I thought that I imagined my whole first experience on EE and started to question if he ever really even moved in the first place. Eventually we looked it up online (I think Wikipedia) and learned about B mode.
This time the Yeti was different. He was turned to the side and I almost didn't even see him!! I turned to Kevin and whispered, "Is he working on his computer?" It seriously looked like we interrupted him doing something else off to the side.

Oh well! Still a great coaster!

 

[flipadeeflop]

I like the undercover app but it doesn't give you the exact wait times, they go in 5 minute intervals and instead of a number for crowd levels they have a colored dot next to each park. Green means go, yellow is caution and red is dont even bother LOL kinda like a traffic light!

I love the pictures of the baby giraffes!! I WANT ONE!!

UGH just noticed your signature. You'll be there in 3 days! NOT FAIR!

(how are you going to keep up with my TR!?!?!??!?!)

 

[fbp]

This trip report freakin' rocks.

I'm always excited to read about other vegan adventures! I'm also jealous that your work at the farm sanctuary. I've always wanted to visit - it's only a few hours south of us.

 

[WDW_Princess24]

I know I know!! I have ants in my pants! Ryan and I were just out all day trying to finish up last minute things before we go! I will be keeping myself up to date until Tuesday night, than i'll have to catch up when I get back (

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

When we went in May, the Yeti was in Disco mode.. Seems like he changes what mode he's in every other day!!

My aunt and cousins rent a house on a farm in Rhode Island. They have lots of little lambs and sheeps, goats and chickens. I love going over and feeding them whenever I visit. The lambs are so cute, they're always bouncing and jumping around everywhere!

 

[flipadeeflop]

This trip report freakin' rocks.

I'm always excited to read about other vegan adventures! I'm also jealous that your work at the farm sanctuary. I've always wanted to visit - it's only a few hours south of us.

COME VISIT!!!! Pretty soon tour season will be over, so you'll want to get here before that and get a tour! Let me know if you're coming and maybe we can meet and chat about vegan disney!

I know I know!! I have ants in my pants! Ryan and I were just out all day trying to finish up last minute things before we go! I will be keeping myself up to date until Tuesday night, than i'll have to catch up when I get back (

Ok! I'll hold you to it! If you don't then you owe me a Disney trip!!!!

When we went in May, the Yeti was in Disco mode.. Seems like he changes what mode he's in every other day!!

My aunt and cousins rent a house on a farm in Rhode Island. They have lots of little lambs and sheeps, goats and chickens. I love going over and feeding them whenever I visit. The lambs are so cute, they're always bouncing and jumping around everywhere!

I know! They are so much bouncier than you expect! When we switch pastures, all of our sheep run over as fast as they can and the lambs always manage to make it from the back of the herd to the front in no time! Just hopping and b__________g along!!!

 

[blackthidot]

AWESOME pictures!!!

Sorry but I just scanned through it so far. I am Trip Report exhausted from working on mine all freaking day.

You guys look like you had a SUPER fun time doing anything you guys got a picture of. Look forward to seeing more....Miss Gaga sorry...I had too...but not just the makeup or clothes...you actually do look like her.