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

LeCellier.Lover · Jan 3, 2014

I’m baackk! My deepest apologies for those of you that I left hanging.. Sophomore year of college and volleyball got in the way. With being away for so long now I’m yearning to go back to Disney so what better way to mend that “home” sickness than getting back to the boards?!

O yeah and while it looks like this at home I am definitely dreaming of sunny, warm Florida!

Soo where did I leave off?! Oo yes we were passing the Fountain of Nations and were on our way to cool off in Club Cool.

Raven trying her first drink..

I was SO mad because I was stoked to get them to try Beverly, but I checked every dispenser and all of them were out of it Oh well, I’ll get them next time

After we had our fair share of different flavored Coca-Colas we decided to follow this sign.

Of course we got distracted along the way by the old pay phone.. I’m pretty sure my uncle said something along the lines of “O my can you imagine how old and dirty this thing is! Should I lick it?!” Rest assured this is as close as he got to the thing..

Setting up that previous picture.. Haha

Tink wanted to make a phone call home to mommy to let her know how much fun she was having

So after our fun with the phone we finally made it to the meet and greet spot! I had never been in this area before so it was cool to use the (what I considered) “back entrance” because we arrived opposite of the main doors where the Cast Members stand and greet people getting into line. So we walked right around to the entrance and got in line. Within 5 minutes we were meeting the Main Mouse himself!

Everyone was so excited to be meeting Mickey for the first time!

Kyle and his Crocs.. Remember those things they’ll be important later on in the day!

I always find it so awkward when Photopass photographers snap selfies like this with no character in it.. I guess it’s worth it if a kid’s face is priceless, but other than that I don’t even know who Raven’s looking at?! Haha just always thought they were funny.

After our wonderful meet and greet it was finally time to wander into World Showcase!

I thought the kids would love to do Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure with me so we signed up for a mission!

Our mission was in England so we pulled off to the side to hear our “high-tech secret agent device”.

LeCellier.Lover · Jan 3, 2014

I took in the lovely view while they listened

I took some random pictures throughout our mission.

Being goofy in the store.. HAHA

The thing that I remember the most was the heat! HOLY COW WAS IT HOT OUT! After awhile my uncle sat down on a nearby bench.. then Kyle joined him.. then they left and came back with fish and chips.. then Raven, McKayla and my aunt saw them and wanted to have some bites. After getting a little bit of food in their tummies Raven and my aunt decided to stay sitting, but luckily McKayla was a trooper and wanted to finish our mission! So I helped her finish up and then we were off to find a nice cold drinking fountain! Everyone agreed (especially McKayla, I know she had a good time doing it) that it was fun, but it would’ve been a lot more enjoyable if it wasn’t sooo hot out!

Continuing on.. the French umbrellas were out!

Now I thought I had the perfect idea to get us into some air conditioning and give us a little break.. Impressions de France! I wish I could tell you guys that it was a good idea, but it was NOT! That I can remember there was not even air conditioning in the movie and for some reason it made me and Raven SUPER dizzy! I might’ve watched a total of 5 minutes of the 18 minute movie.. Most of the time I just stared at the seat in front of me I remember looking over at Raven with her head on my aunt’s shoulder and I thought she was sleeping, but my aunt mouthed that she was dizzy. I know my uncle, Kyle and Kayla slept thru it so I guess it was good for them! I think the problem was that 1. we all had low blood sugar from the heat and minimal food and 2. I was used to being on Soarin’ with a moving ride vehicle so when the screen was moving (like Soarin’) but we weren’t, it messed with my equilibrium.. weird I know, it's never happened to me before haha!

So after that dizzy fest moving on we made our way into Morocco!

I took this picture because since when (and I know I’ve been off the boards for awhile but..) do people use this grass as a picnic/napping area?!

Raven trying to play the little finger clappers (I have no clue what they’re called..).

Now I'm soo SO sorry, but you guys will have to be patient with me because I'm going back to school on Tuesday so I'm going to try and finish this as best as I can, but it may take some time because I'm going to try and spend these last few days at home with loved ones! But I am trying my best to get this TR done so that I finish it and do not have it hanging over my head before my next trip this summer!

disneypearl · Jan 3, 2014

Yahoo! You're back for an update! Oh, and I'll be patient and wait for another addition to your TP when you have the chance. (You have a fun family

)

LisaBelle · Jan 4, 2014

Glad you posted more of your TR. Looking forward to reading the rest.

LeCellier.Lover · Jan 4, 2014

disneypearl said:
Yahoo! You're back for an update! Oh, and I'll be patient and wait for another addition to your TP when you have the chance. (You have a fun family )

LisaBelle said:
Glad you posted more of your TR. Looking forward to reading the rest.

Aww thank you guys so much for sticking with me! I want to finish this TR even if it takes awhile because this trip (just like my others) was super super fun!

LeCellier.Lover · Jan 4, 2014

Moving along through World Showcase

Thanks for the helping hand Raven

My aunt catching me setting up that last picture

We spent some time in Japan because my uncle was stationed over there at one point so he thought it was pretty cool and reminded him of the past!

We flew right past America because my relatives were more interested in the other countries we don’t usually live in on an everyday basis

I always have to take a picture of the street sign by the little town in Germany because my grandpa was in the military when my dad was born so my dad was actually born in Wurzburg!

Since I skipped out on the fish and chips excitement I went into my favorite caramel shop!

I got my favorite Werther’s Chewy Caramel Bar

We ended up stopping in the Lotus Blossom Cafe to get dinner!
Tink was all ready to eat her sweet and sour chicken!

The chicken and rice were very good! Unfortunately I wasn't able to fully enjoy my dinner because it was so stinkin' hot (and the seating area was outside with no AC..) so I didn't have much of an appetite anymore.

LeCellier.Lover · Jan 5, 2014

Oo how I wish I was in Norway right now to see Elsa and Anna! My new favorite Disney movie hands down (well next to Tangled, they share the top spot )!

We went over to Maelstrom, but the wait time was 30 minutes, I knew we could do better! The FP return time (yes back when you were still able to get paper Fastpasses.. *sob* ) was only a half hour away so we picked them up and went over to see what the Gran Fiesta Tour was like.

This was a great break since the humidity was a little overwhelming..

Afterwards we played around and had some fun at the little stands in the middle of the pavilion!

My aunt and Kayla were trying on hats and I could not of been more proud of them! I always love trying on those silly hats in Disney and I could tell they were definitely in the goofy Disney mood!

Perfect photobomb by my aunt!

O and I forgot to mention that I changed into a tank top after we visited France. My tshirt (although I was upset I didn’t have my Stanley Cup Champions shirt on anymore) was starting to get sweaty so it felt very nice to put a light tank top on!

After we had a few good laughs in Mexico we headed back to Norway since our Fastpasses were good!

Do we look exhausted from the heat yet..?

Now this is why I love my family.. As we were approaching the FP entrance to Maelstrom my aunt, uncle, and Kyle saw the very good looking Norwegian man with Ray Bands on at the entrance taking the FP tickets. So my aunt snatched the tickets from my uncle and yelled “Here Rachel you take these!" I could not stop smiling and afterwards got a good harassment from my whole family about him.

I have no clue what my aunt is looking at, but I’m pretty sure she did that face on purpose to crack us up! Do I look like I’m on Cloud 9 from the encounter I just had or what?!

After Maelstrom (which everyone loved) they wanted to sit through the movie at the end, but I needed to make a break for the bathroom. We did very good at staying hydrated since we knew it was so important to so needless to say, we used the bathroom very often haha!

Afterwards I asked if I could run back to England for some honey stirrers my dad wanted (he loves tea and thinks those honey things are so convenient). I didn’t get them earlier in the day for fear that they would melt, but I knew I would regret it if I didn’t get them for him. So I told my family to just walk towards the “globe” and I would meet up with them shortly. On my power walk to England and back I called my mom. It was soo nice to talk to her and tell her how our day was going while walking through our favorite spots of EPCOT Once I got to Spaceship Earth I had the sudden urge to use the bathroom again (STUPID WATER.. I was honestly afraid something was wrong with me since I had just gone literally 10 minutes ago HA!)so I hung up with my mom, then afterwards called my uncle and was told that they had found the Art of Disney shop and enjoyed walking in there to look at the different stuff. It was cool to see them find something on their own and thoroughly enjoy it, but then again it’s Disney, they loved EVERYTHING!

I thought about having them ask a Photopass photographer to take a family picture of them and I really wish I would have now since my aunt ended up buying the CD.. but o well I was able to capture this for them.

And that was the end of our 12 hour day at EPCOT! Boy I never ever in my wildest dreams thought I would have been in that park for that long all at once! I would definitely spend that much time in there because I love that park, but usually we split up the days. But since we had one day for each park we fit as much in as we could! I was so hoping we could stay for Illuminations, but we were all beat.. I knew as long as we saw Wishes they would be satisfied! I drove back from every park since I knew the way by heart and would let my uncle just relax instead of having to worry about driving. I know I’m such a good niece We did have to use one of our iPhones though to find the closest Walmart. Remember those dreaded Crocs Kyle was wearing?! Yeah his feet were KILLING him at the end of the day as well as Raven’s so we stopped there to get them proper footwear and also gas along the way.

Phew sorry that was like a novel to read.. I’ll try to avoid that in the future! I just like being very thorough

Up Next: Let’s go to Universal! Or should we move Universal to Saturday and take tomorrow as a pool day....?

PartOfYourWorld · Jan 5, 2014

Glad you started this back up again! I know your busy with school so it's completely understandable. But glad you're going to finish it!!! Are you going back this year any time???

I'm glad you guys had fun at EPCOT! It has become one of my favorite parks in the recent years...I think as we get older we appreciate different things, like when I was younger EPCOT didn't appeal much to me, but you begin to appreciate the different cultures and the different foods, etc. So I'm glad you're beginning to enjoy it alot too.

haha I don't understand how people can walk around in crocs all day. They just don't look comfortable.

Good luck on your next semester!!!!

Disneygal1 · Jan 5, 2014

Yay Rachel, you are back! Can't wait to read more

LeCellier.Lover · Jan 6, 2014

PartOfYourWorld said:
Glad you started this back up again! I know your busy with school so it's completely understandable. But glad you're going to finish it!!! Are you going back this year any time???

I'm glad you guys had fun at EPCOT! It has become one of my favorite parks in the recent years...I think as we get older we appreciate different things, like when I was younger EPCOT didn't appeal much to me, but you begin to appreciate the different cultures and the different foods, etc. So I'm glad you're beginning to enjoy it alot too.

haha I don't understand how people can walk around in crocs all day. They just don't look comfortable.

Good luck on your next semester!!!!

Thank you for understanding Jess!

My mom and I are looking towards last week in May/first weekend in June (right after Memorial Day)! We wanted to go before MD to beat the crowds, but my mom got a new job with our school system so she has to work up until that last week in May. When are you going back next?!
Yes I really LOVE EPCOT! I think that has to do in part with the fond memories I have of my mom and I just getting to go in and out of the international walkway when we stayed at the Dolphin 3 years ago.
I know I wanted to slap Kyle.. lol at least he learned from his mistakes

Thanks! I'm excited to get back and tackle another semester, but I don't wanna leave home yet haha! Plus we're snowed in right now with the below zero temps and snow totals we've gotten recently..
Thanks for reading along!

Disneygal1 said:
Yay Rachel, you are back! Can't wait to read more

Thanks for reading girl!

PartOfYourWorld · Jan 6, 2014

LeCellier.Lover said:
Thank you for understanding Jess! My mom and I are looking towards last week in May/first weekend in June (right after Memorial Day)! We wanted to go before MD to beat the crowds, but my mom got a new job with our school system so she has to work up until that last week in May. When are you going back next?!
Yes I really LOVE EPCOT! I think that has to do in part with the fond memories I have of my mom and I just getting to go in and out of the international walkway when we stayed at the Dolphin 3 years ago.
I know I wanted to slap Kyle.. lol at least he learned from his mistakes
Thanks! I'm excited to get back and tackle another semester, but I don't wanna leave home yet haha! Plus we're snowed in right now with the below zero temps and snow totals we've gotten recently..
Thanks for reading along!

Thanks for reading girl!

Congrats to Mom on the new job! I will be going back in Feb for a short 4 day weekend to run the Glass Slipper Challenge during the Princess Half Weekend

I'm so stinkin excited that I honestly cannot stop thinking about it! It's all I want to talk about honestly lol. No parks for us though since I'll be running 2 of the 4 days and have to go to the EXPO. Then we'll be going back in May for our 1st anniversary but we're going the week before our actual day due to some friends getting married back at home that we need to be back for so we'll be there from the 10th-18th of May.

International Gateway is awesome, I love going in by there! It's the best

But I have to admit I do love the entrace music to EPCOT from Future World. lol.

Good luck with your next semester!!! Ugh we just had a snowstorm here in the Northeast on Thursday-friday that brought semi big snow totals and below freezing temps...stay warm!

FlaggNL · Feb 17, 2014

Like I said in an earlier reply, love the TR! So much fun and smiles on the pics!! Great to read and see!! Do we get an update from Universal in your TR??

RMichael21 · Feb 17, 2014

Excited to see the rest of your trip report! No rush to finish it though as I completely understand

LeCellier.Lover · Mar 31, 2014

FlaggNL said:
Like I said in an earlier reply, love the TR! So much fun and smiles on the pics!! Great to read and see!! Do we get an update from Universal in your TR??

Yes there will be some Universal pictures on here (although they're almost a year old now..

)

RMicheal21 said:
Excited to see the rest of your trip report! No rush to finish it though as I completely understand

Thank you so much for your understanding!

LeCellier.Lover · Mar 31, 2014

Day 5- June 26th

Alright I need to get this TR done because I’m going to have another one coming by summer time!

So Wednesday rolled around and our original plan was to go to IoA, but after being on the road and going non stop at AK and EPCOT we took a family vote and decided to just chill by the pool on this day and do IoA that Saturday.

This picture pretty much describes what our day consisted of

I sat poolside with my tanning spray on reading a good dose of my very favorite, Celebrations Magazine!

I started to sweat and Raven was getting pretty hot so we decided to go take a dip in the pool and then a quick break back in the AC.

Later on that night we decided to dress up fancy for a restaurant. Okay now I know Outback Steakhouse isn’t necessarily “fancy”, but with 6 people it can get pretty expensive so we decided to have fun with it and dress up for the night (except for Kyle..)!

Mhm mhm mhhmm!

Now funny little backstory behind this picture.. The whole ride down Kyle and I were joking and impersonating the YouTube video “Chocolate Sauce”, if you haven’t seen it go look it up it’s pretty funny! So the whole vacation Kyle and I kept saying “Chocolate sauce!” in different, funny voices. So when we saw big, bolded Chocolate Sauce on this dessert menu we just had to take a picture with it of course

(Don’t mind my hair I’m not too sure what it was doing in this picture..

)

We then of course had to purchase and try the said dessert, it did not disappoint!

We ended the night with a fun dose of shuffleboard while McKayla and Raven swam!

Raven’s new Stitch pillow pet had to get into a picture that night. Haha!

We ended the night playing a Disney Trivia game on the tv. We all know so much about Disney that towards the end it became more about who could answer the fastest instead of who actually knew the answer haha! It was a perfect relaxation day that we definitely needed to fuel us for the rest of our vacation!

LeCellier.Lover · Apr 1, 2014

Day 6- June 27th
Hooray for Hollywood day!

Today was a full day at Hollywood Studios and we were all soo excited, especially since my family is HUGE Star Wars fans!

We got to the gates around 8:20am for a 9am “rope drop”.

I was able to scope out a turnstile that had no one at it! Now my mom and I had run into this problem in the past. Last January we went and some young teenage boys accused us of “cutting” because we stepped up to an open turnstile that no one was smart enough to see/use.

So right as I saw that this turnstile was empty but had a green arrow (since yes this was still when the old turnstiles were being used) I bolted to it then made sure I confirmed with a CM that it was okay to use it and they assured me it was!

We did have to wait though because it wasn’t time for the park to open yet.

Although to our surprise they opened the park at 8:30 and just let us in with no opening show! I could not believe my eyes!

Hollywood Boulevard was practically empty!

Soo does anyone remember, back in the day, when there would be a FP line for TSMM all the way down to One Man’s Dream practically?! Even though I know these lines are no longer existent, at this time they could have been so I almost cried when I didn’t see a line! I was taking a ton of pictures to show my mom cause I knew she would be just as excited as I was haha!

I guess since it was only 8:45 in the morning and people didn’t think the park would actually open before 9??

My last experience with a FP line for TSMM was awesome, walked right up to one of the dispensers (I even got to take my pick instead of being told which one to go to!

).

Sent this picture to my mom showing off our easy to obtain Fastpasses! I haven’t gotten to try the MagicBands yet, but I am already saying that I’m going to miss these little paper guys!

I told my relatives to head towards the “big hotel looking tower” aka Tower of Terror

But somehow I ended up seeing them walking towards me at TSMM. I asked them where they were headed and they said “Tower of Terror!” and I laughed and said “Umm turn around!” and you could see ToT in the background..

Unfortunately, ToT was not running at that moment so we opted for the next best thing!

My uncle was all ready, calling for his limo!

The cousins

<3

What a beautiful sight!

lbrad · Apr 1, 2014

Enjoying your TR!!!
Looks like everyone is having a blast

Can't wait to read/see more.
Good luck with school ... semester is almost over ...phew

SarahBella82 · Apr 1, 2014

Yea! Glad you're back.

disneypearl · Apr 1, 2014

Yahoo, more trip reporting!

DisneyFreakEst1994 · Apr 1, 2014

Oh my gosh! I started reading this because the title, I am the same way whenever I go to WDW haha, the tour guide in me comes out the minute we leave! I didn't realize while reading this though, that we would be so much alike haha. I LOVE hockey, my team isn't the best in the NHL, but I still love 'em (Go Panthers). Your trip seemed so fun. I can't wait to read more!