Trip Report Bring out the Tour Guide Flags.. I’M TAKING THE NEWBIES! A June TR

Goofnut1980 · Jul 26, 2013

LeCellier.Lover said:
Thank you! And thanks for reading, more coming up very soon (once Flickr starts working again.. lol)

Haha.. so many pictures, you must have broken Flickr!

disneypearl · Jul 26, 2013

Love the report! So exciting to just get there and have your trip all ahead of you!

Sandurz · Jul 27, 2013

Good stuff so far! And the Disney hasn't even started yet! Who knew car trips and timeshares could be so entertaining?

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 27, 2013

So continuing around the World of Disney store we saw the magic mirror that gave girls virtual dresses if they stood in front of it. We actually wanted to do it, but boy was it was crowded! Honestly made it a little annoying for people trying to look at the merchandise around it..

We love Brave so we had to take a picture with the brother bears! I ended up getting one of these cuties later on in the trip too because I just couldn’t resist!

So after awhile we had had enough of the VERY VERY crowded World of Disney store so I decided to show them what else DTD had to offer!

So glad we skipped Ghirardelli’s.. see that line out the door?!

Right outside of the World of Disney there’s a big stage and that night a dj was pumpin’ up the crowd! I explained to the girls that we were in Disney so it was VERY acceptable to just let loose and dance, so that is exactly what we did! Who doesn’t love dancin’ to some Hannah Montana on a perfect Sunday night in Disney?! We were having a blast!

I had never taken a picture with the "statues" that move, but we saw one and I asked the girls if they wanted a picture with him and they excitingly said “Yes!”. So we waited our turn and then they went for it and got right in front of him. While I was taking the picture the statue guy actually moved and put his finger in McKayla’s ear?! I saw Kayla’s face through my phone screen while I was taking the picture, but I couldn’t quite tell why she was freaking out until afterwards when she told me! Now looking at the picture her face says it all.. too funny!!

The Lego Store was too crowded to go in that night, but they enjoyed all of the huge lego statues outside!
So we shimmied our way back through the music to the stores on the other side of World of Disney.

We headed into Once Upon A Toy to say hi to the best monster students around!

Umm.. why does Marie have a large snack tail..?!

Goofy rock on!

These Plutos were on sale for like $6. I thought they were kind of cool because it was an action figure based on the actual costume rather than the animated character, but obviously no one else really thought that was that cool because there were a lot left on clearance!

I saw all of these cubes set up outside by Earl of Sandwich closing down for the day. People must’ve been able to play Wii in these setup living rooms, pretty neat!

At some point my uncle texted me saying “Hope you guys are having the time of your life.” to which I had McKayla respond and she said “We are dad! It really is a dream come true!”. I knew we were in for a great vacation seen as how they had not even seen a park yet and they were loving it SOO much!

We stopped inside the pin shop so I could explain the whole pin concept to them. I found a bunch of these cute Vinylmations that I wanted, but I knew I should spend $12 on something I needed like car antenna toppers.. But if anyone has any of these and would like to share I would love that! Haha!

After that we headed to look at some of the other outdoor vendors. We happened upon this Lefty Store which in the beginning I thought was an amazing store (since I’m a lefty and I know the pains of getting ink smear all over the side of you hand when you write in a notebook) but then I saw that the price of a “backwards notebook” was $13.. Alright I could just take a $2 notebook, flip it around and there ya go! Then came a blonde moment.. I saw some mugs that were all on the shelf with their handles on the left. So I picked one up and said “Hey it’s a lefty mug!” and seriously considered buying one.. Then Raven picked one up with her right hand and said “Hey look it can be a righty mug too!”. Then it hit me that mugs can be turned and picked up with any hand.. It was very funny though because the guy manning the store was very awkward (and kind of creepy..) and you could see him go to all the mugs and make sure that the handles were on the left hand side when we left! So for the rest of the trip that was a running joke.. Raven would always say "Hey Rachel look it's a lefty mug!"

After going in a couple of other stores we saw a rather good looking cast member at an outdoor booth creating fancy airbrushed pictures of people’s names in bubble letters with pictures in the background. So I had to go up to him and see what he was working on. The AAU volleyball tournament was going on that week so DTD was flooded with volleyball teams (made me wish I was with mine ). The young cast member was busy working on a girl’s name that he was airbrushing volleyballs in the background and so McKayla came over a said rather loudly “O Rachel you play volleyball too!” to which the CM replied “Oo really?? ” Yeah my cousin knows what’s up and when to help her cousin out Hahah ok girly rant over..

Next we went over to see the Rainforest Cafe and we got there right in time for the new volcano show! I didn’t even know it was new (I just thought we had never seen it before) until I told my mom and she said it had just been added a few days before! COOL! Even I was experiencing new things with my cousins!

Tried to get them in front of the alligator..

Then we went into the art store while my cousin’s were happily ranting about what great timing we had just had with the volcano show!

This was my favorite piece (I love my doggies ) along with the one of Dumbo flying over New Fantasyland.

After a quick look through the Christmas shop and almost making a purchase at a magnet stand, we got the text from my uncle saying “Alright girls. It’s time” NOOOOO! Well actually we were ok with it because we were getting tired and we were beyond ready to actually step into a park the next morning!

Up Next: We FINALLY start going to the parks! Are we going to do Magic Kingdom, or will the timeshare breakfast mess things up?

*Now I’m saying sorry in advance for possibly not updating until Sunday or Monday.. I have a sand volleyball tournament and a bridal shower tomorrow and then I’m going to a White Sox game on Sunday!*

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 27, 2013

Disneyfalcon said:
I'm glad you remembered too! I'll put it on the blog if that's okay!

Ah I would love that! Thank you so much!

Allie_Marie said:
If you really want that plate try disneystore.com !! They have a Disney Parks section that may have the plate, or even better ones!!

That was a great idea! Now I've found a million Rapunzel items, including a bedspread that I think would look fabulous in my room at school!
Thank you!

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 27, 2013

Goofnut1980 said:
Haha.. so many pictures, you must have broken Flickr!

Bahah I honestly think I may have.. I definitely love taking pictures

disneypearl said:
Love the report! So exciting to just get there and have your trip all ahead of you!

Thank you for reading!

Yes it was definitely a great feeling! Ahh I wish I could rewind time and go back and do it all over again, it was that much fun!

Sandurz said:
Good stuff so far! And the Disney hasn't even started yet! Who knew car trips and timeshares could be so entertaining?

I know! My very detailed storytelling has got the best of me again.. :banghead:

haha! So I guess that's what happens when a trip is fresh in my mind and when we do things differently than my usual Disney trips

Thanks for reading!

Sandurz · Jul 27, 2013

LeCellier.Lover said:
I know! My very detailed storytelling has got the best of me again.. haha! So I guess that's what happens when a trip is fresh in my mind and when we do things differently than my usual Disney trips Thanks for reading!

Lol what I actually meant to say was:

Sandurz said:
Good stuff so far! And the Disney hasn't even started yet! Who knew reading about car trips and timeshares could be so entertaining?

So to be clear I'm on board with the details. Don't stop the details!

Joshua&CalebDad · Jul 27, 2013

LeCellier.Lover said:
Birthday cake reeemiiiixxx!

Holy cow, another Birthday Cake Remix fan. Holla! In all the years I have been to Cold Stone (over ten) I have never had anything else.

To those who have never tried it that may sound sad, but as soon as you try it you will be hooked. Its like Ice Cream on Crack. What could be better than ice cream that tastes like cake batter, sprinkles, fudge drizzle, and a brownie all mixed together.

Ohhhh noooo, starting to twinge just thinking of it.

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 27, 2013

Ok I’m waiting for my jeans to dry before I go to a friends house tonight for easy access to the Sox game tomorrow so I can squeeze in some TR!

Day 3- Well we were gonna visit the Magic Kingdom, but some silly timeshare lady got in the way of that.. But hey who cares because MY BLACKHAWKS ARE STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS!

When we checked in my aunt and uncle opted to have a nice breakfast buffet at the Radisson across the street because we would get $100 for it! A free breakfast PLUS $100! That’s perfect, right?! WRONG! We had to go through a whole timeshare spiel to get all of this special stuff. My aunt had picked the first day because she told me “Magic Kingdom opens late that day right??” No auntie kathy they all open at 9am.. she just thought that was “late” because my mom said regular hours are *later* than EMH. That was alright I just figured I'd go with the flow because that's my motto!

So Sunday night when I asked what time the breakfast was the next day I knew we were in for an interesting morning.. The breakfast opened at 8:30am (I had planned on being at MK by 8:30! ), plus after the breakfast we would have to go through a bunch of different timeshare info things..

Alright so let’s see how this goes...

Tink was all ready for her first day at the parks!

Let’s get in that van and gooooo, but not before taking car mirror picczzzz!

We parked the van and then walked to try and find the entrance. We passed the pool which was decorated pretty!

So we got to the Radisson at about 8:15am. Perfect timing for the buffet right?! WRONG AGAIN! Once we got to the sign in podium we found out that we needed some voucher that was back at our hotel check-in area..

So the rest of the kids and I waited outside while my aunt and uncle walked back over to our resort.

Hey WAKEUP KYLE! WE’RE GOING TO DISNEY TODAY!

So we waited about 10 minutes for them to come back. They were the bearers of bad news.. Now they had to take the voucher over to that strip mall I talked about the other day because it had the travel agency where you met up with your timeshare briber and they would bring you back to the breakfast..

So Raven decided to go with my aunt and uncle, but Kyle, McKayla and I stayed put. It was starting to get hot out. I loved seeing this town name and background picture on my iPhone weather app though

A palm tree with no palms.. whaaaa?

So my uncle texted me to tell us to go sit in the hotel because they were still gonna be awhile.. At this point we had been waiting about 40 minutes.

Alright well my pants are dry so that’s all for now folks, I gotta run!

You’ll have to stayed tuned to see if we ever did make it to a park!

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 27, 2013

Sandurz said:
Lol what I actually meant to say was:

So to be clear I'm on board with the details. Don't stop the details!

Oo okk good! I'm glad I didn't bore you away!

Joshua&CalebDad said:
Holy cow, another Birthday Cake Remix fan. Holla! In all the years I have been to Cold Stone (over ten) I have never had anything else.

To those who have never tried it that may sound sad, but as soon as you try it you will be hooked. Its like Ice Cream on Crack. What could be better than ice cream that tastes like cake batter, sprinkles, fudge drizzle, and a brownie all mixed together.

Ohhhh noooo, starting to twinge just thinking of it.

OMG Birthday cake remix is my JAM! Oo soo yummy! Those brownie pieces in it are delicious along with the cake batter ice cream and everything else you mentioned! I may just jump in my car and go get some right now..

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 28, 2013

So after a good hour of waiting the rest of the family returned at about 9:15am. We went and had a nice sit down breakfast, but I didn’t eat too much because I didn’t want to stuff myself than get sick once I hit up some rides and the Florida heat. I did take a banana with me to go and hid it in my bag without our timeshare lady seeing. Hey since they were takin’ up our time I figured I could take a banana

So all throughout breakfast my aunt and uncle were completely honest with our “tour guide” and told her that they were just in this for the free breakfast. BUT we still had to follow her to the resort down the road that had sample rooms for us to look in..

Towel animals from the room..

After going to see the sample rooms and then driving to another spot to look at “all the other wonderful resorts available through the timeshare across the country!” we ended up back at our resort for my aunt and uncle to finish things up. We were all getting so annoyed with how long it was taking!

So at this point we had decided that we weren’t going to do Magic Kingdom that day. Back at 9:30 I was checking wait times and Space Mountain was already up to 90 minutes! By this point it was about 10:15am and we were all getting soooo antsy especially my cousins and I. My aunt and uncle were so apologetic and said that if they knew it was gonna take so long we never would’ve done it!

After reading all of this none Disney stuff you guys will be happy to hear that we decided on going to..... ANIMAL KINGDOM! Originally that park was not on our agenda for the day because it had morning EMH so we thought it would be the most crowded. But I figured why not let’s do it! My aunt suggested going to that park and believe it or not when I checked the wait times they were very low so it was a great idea!

Once we got back to our resort for the last leg of the timeshare thingie Raven and I went to go get all of the girls flip flops because I suggested wearing them on Kali instead of our gym shoes.

It was definitely a beautiful day out!

Raven and I went back to the lobby to wait with the rest of the gang..

As you can tell Kyle and I were going a little stir-crazy!

So my aunt and uncle finally came back. It was strange because they were telling us how when the lady and gentleman from the timeshare agency sat them down my aunt and uncle told them they were not interested and wanted to leave, but the travel agents would not let them because they said they were being watched by cameras and if their bosses did not see them at least trying to sell the timeshares then they could lose their jobs! Talk about big brother.. LET'S GET OUTTA HERE!

We all hopped in the van and had to head back to the travel agency one last time to get the $100 that came with the free breakfast. Luckily this didn’t take long and we were soon on our way to AK! My uncle suggested that I drive because I knew how to get to everything so I happily agreed! I love driving on Disney property, I know it like the back of my hand! I was the chauffeur for the week and I loved it!

By 11am WE HAD ARRIVED AT ANIMAL KINGDOM!

McKayla needed to check “hugging a palm tree” off her bucket list so we made sure that was the first thing we did! I knew her first hug couldn’t be with just any ordinary palm tree, so I made sure it was with a Disney palm tree of course!

Ahh it felt so good to be home!

First line of business was to go and get my annual pass! I went to Guest Relations which unfortunately had a line so I had to wait. I told the rest of the fam to wait off to the side in the shade. Once it was my turn I handed all my paper work over and everything else that the CM needed. Everything was going smoothly (she even asked me which character I wanted on my card!), but then as she was trying to swipe the new plastic card (which is AWESOME btw) she said “for some reason it’s not letting me complete a step so I’m going to go get help.” Ok no problem! She came back with an older lady and she said that the girl needed my old AP so I handed that over. It took them a good 5-6 minutes to figure out what was going on. The whole time I kept looking over at my poor family already sweating profusely.. They actually walked over twice to make sure everything was ok and I said yes they were just having some technical difficulties and I apologized a lot! They weren’t mad at me, but they just wanted to make sure that everything was working. So after what felt like an eternity of waiting the younger CM asked where I purchased the AP. I purchased it on their website at literally 11:30pm the night before the prices increased! I told them that and they said that wasn’t the problem because the issue was actually that the ticket price was ringing up cheaper in their system than what I had paid for the ticket originally. So there really was no problem, it was just strange that the AP prices were off.. But in the end I just got refunded a small price around $10. The lovely CM got my pass all scanned and we were ready to go hit the park! Before I said goodbye to the CM I asked if she could give me 5 “1st Visit” pins! I was planning on doing this, but I was so glad I remembered at that point so I was able to give them to my family as a “Sorry for making you wait!” type of gift! They all loved them and were so excited to wear them (even for the rest of the week!)

We were finally on our way inside AK! Nothing was stopping us now!

*Cue the angel hymns and rays of sun shining down*

Now I knew this trip we would be doing things kind of backwards, at times, from what my mom and I usually do. So instead of getting fastpasses for Everest and then heading to the safari, we went and got fastpasses for Kali River Rapids (because you could already tell that the humidity was sky rocketing). I knew that we would enjoy a good soaking later!

It was about 11:10 and the fastpasses were already for 4-5pm!

After obtaining our golden tickets we walked over to Everest. This was when I started feeling the heat and to make sure I stayed ahead of the game with my hydration I started chugging my water bottle!

The wait time was 65 minutes and I knew this is where things were going to feel different this trip. My mom and I usually don’t even wait 30 minutes for rides because our system just works out to where we don’t have to, but my family likes going to the Six Flags by us and they’re fine waiting 2 hours for rides! So seeing a 65 minute wait kind of freaked me out at first, but I knew that with good company to wait in line with 65 minutes was going to feel like nothing!

Luckily they had fans blowing in the outdoor queue part so that was very refreshing! We also filled up our water bottles along the way and used my little handheld fan that sprayed water.

Here’s a close-up of Raven sporting her 1st Visit pin!

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 29, 2013

The “before Everest” picture

Tink of course was along for the ride!

But Uncle Dan wanted to hold Tinkerbell on this ride for his sister!

The “after Everest” picture! Obviously everyone was all smiles! The girls I guess knew that the ride went backwards, but no one knew just how intense the backwards part was! Only some of them noticed the Yeti so I had to explain that whole ordeal to them. I also tried to point out the other parks to them as we ascended!

Believe it or not, they still say that this is their favorite ride at Disney!

Up next was Dinosaur

Silly father/son bonding.. haha!

The wait time was listed at 30 minutes which made everyone excited, but it was really only a 10 minute wait!

Now I felt bad because McKayla asked me beforehand if anything popped out at you, but my aunt didn’t want me giving anything away! How could I not tell her that something popping out at you was the biggest part of the ride?! So as you can tell by our picture Kayla wasn’t too big of a fan of this ride. She said the dinosaurs scared her a little bit more than she preferred haha! I covered Tink’s eyes

After we took a quick bathroom break and filled up our water bottles we headed over to pay Chester & Hester a visit!

Strike a pose!

HouCuseChickie · Jul 29, 2013

OK- those Vinylmations pics are making we want to run out an add to my collection. Funny how you had to swear them to secrecy about your drive on WDW property...still, sounds like it was the best course of action. That timeshare business would have driven me batty...also reminds me of some of the timeshare spiels my dad has us sit through as kids- OY! Loving the AK pics...can't wait to read more! :happy:

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 29, 2013

McKayla and I attempting to do a jumping picture. As you can tell we were confused as to when my aunt wanted us to jump.. Hahah

Kayla looks good! But me not so much.. haha! don’t worry though this would not be our last attempt at jumping pictures!

Next we went on Primeval Whirl (well all of us except for Kyle). The wait time was listed at 20 minutes (I think?), but we waited about 10 minutes if that. Luckily they had both sides open, we got the left. My poor aunt and uncle we squeezed in a car with 2 other adults while McKayla, Raven and I got a car to ourselves!

So another running joke of this vacation was that it wasn’t a good/completed day without Rachel tripping. Yes I do trip a lot.. And lucky for us that trip came as we were exiting down the ramps after PW. Those chunks in the wood always get me! So it was a good day

I also thought it was funny when we could see me aunt and uncle almost off the ramp below us and I yelled “Hey I know you guys!” and they didn’t look, but the people in front of them did.. Whoops..

We then wandered back towards Africa to see what the safari was looking like. After filling up our water bottles again (can you tell it was extremely hot?!) we saw this street entertainment. They were pretty cool! People on stilts, belly dancers, and guests dancing! I wanted to go out there so bad, but I was afraid that once I did get out there the music would’ve stopped and then I would’ve just been that awkward last minute joiner I was content with watching and dancing in the crowd! It was very upbeat and fun!

As we were passing the Tree of Life we got distracted by a 5 minute wait time from some bugs

My photography for that last picture at work

Now Raven was freaking out during our short trek to the theater entrance. She had asked her best friend about most of the rides since her friend frequents Disney as well. Her friend told Raven that her 15 year old sister had to leave the theater during the “scary part” (the spider part) because she got so scared! Ok now I know that part kind of freaks me out too, but not to where I would have to leave! I flat out told Raven that that girl was a sissy because it was not that scary and Raven was going to watch it with us! Haha!

We were able to walk right in which was perfect! I felt like a mom the whole movie because when the “scary” part did come I told Raven that everything was ok and that it would be over soon haha! I also warned her and McKayla that if they didn’t want things to “sting” their back than they needed to sit up away from the backrest during the spider part. Now I’ve always been too chicken to feel the things on my back and the things on your butt at the end. I asked Raven if she wanted to feel the things in her butt with me at the end, but we must’ve been sitting on a weird part of our bench because we couldn’t really feel anything?!

While everyone was going right at the exit I started going left and my family exclaimed “Rachel where are you going?!” then they caught on and joked “Oo this is a special Rachel exit” ;P I love the quiet, less crowded trail that gives you another different, gorgeous view of the tree AND it lets you out right at the entrance to Africa which is exactly where we wanted to go! They enjoyed seeing the macaws, porky pines, and storks!

LeCellier.Lover · Jul 29, 2013

HouCuseChickie said:
OK- those Vinylmations pics are making we want to run out an add to my collection. Funny how you had to swear them to secrecy about your drive on WDW property...still, sounds like it was the best course of action. That timeshare business would have driven me batty...also reminds me of some of the timeshare spiels my dad has us sit through as kids- OY! Loving the AK pics...can't wait to read more!

I have about 5 in my collection (1 volleyball Mickey I bought when they first came out and the rest my mom got for me at Goodwill), but these new ones are so adorable! Stinkin' price.. :bored:

They are very good about keeping secrets and I just felt like that was better than telling everyone we saw Disney fireworks without them haha!
The dreaded timeshares.. they always getcha! Our fault though we could've been spiel free if it wasn't for that yummy looking breakfast! Although I think it was all a blessing in disguise because even though it changed around our schedule, we got a great day at AK and were able to end the trip in MK instead of starting off there. So we got to end with a bang!
Thanks for reading!

Sandurz · Jul 29, 2013

Holy moly that timeshare story made me anxious...I try to have a "go with the flow"/stay generally positive mindset too but I would have gone crazy burning up so much park time on the first park day. I can only imagine how the first-timers felt too! Not fun...

From your signature it looks like this was your first offsite stay...what'd you think about that after so many on-property trips?

jkl2000 · Jul 29, 2013

Just want to say the timeshare stuff would have made me crazy too! :grumpy:

beautybutafunnygirl · Jul 29, 2013

I love your trip report so far! Your family seems so sweet

I can't wait to read more!

disneypearl · Jul 29, 2013

That timeshare part is the stuff of nightmares. So close yet so far. Great pictures of Animal Kingdom.

jkl2000 · Aug 1, 2013

looking forward to more... :cyclops: