Clear Skies, Full Bellies...Can't Lose! A September 2012 Trip Report

Well…since it’s now been 1 month since I’ve been in Disney and I have received my Disney Photopass – I don’t have any more excuses to not start this trip report. So…let’s get this show on the road.

For those of you who don’t know me…I’m Jess.

Here’s my stats:
Number of Trips – this is trip #8
Favorite Park – EPCOT
Favorite Ride – Spaceship Earth
Favorite Disney snack item – Mickeys Cookies n Cream Ice Cream Sandwich
Favorite Disney Character – Ursula the Sea Witch

And traveling with me is my fiancé, Bill.

His stats:
Number of Trips - this is his 6th
Favorite Park – Magic Kingdom
Favorite Ride – The Haunted Mansion
Favorite Disney snack item – Red velvet cream cheese cupcake from Starring Rolls
Favorite Disney Character – Winnie the Pooh

This is our 5th trip together – once a year since we started dating. And on our last trip in May 2011…THIS happened…

Well I guess it’s not really a surprise since I already called him my fiancé and wrote a whole trip report on it.Here’s the link if you want THAT whole story…

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...s-and-a-proposal-may-2011-trip-report.796403/

But to cut to the chase: He proposed at night by the fountain in front of Spaceship Earth.

I cried. It was absolutely perfect. And I’ve yet to read any other stories of people getting proposed to in front of SSE…which makes it even more magical. (And if you know of one – keep it to yourself. Hahaha!)

This trip was born not long after our trip in May. My fiancé is in med school and his school works with 11 months of rotations and 1 month off. Bill’s month off was September. So we decided to go then and too go for our longest trip ever (8 days!) and to bump up resort levels after staying at POP Century for 4 trips. So this trip we stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter. We chose it for the intimate size of the resort, the fact that it had a sister resort we could utilize and neither of us had stayed there before. Spoiler alert – we absolutely fell in love with the resort ! But we also bumped up an extra day because - this will be OUR (notice – not MY) last trip until 2014. We have a wedding date set for October 12, 2013…and we are NOT doing a Disneymoon.

I know…we’re crazy. But we’ve been there together so many times already and plan to go so many times after the wedding that we wanted a honeymoon that is unique and special. Plus – my Disney trips are anything but relaxing. And I want a honeymoon that is basically – sleeping, drinking, eating, and…other stuff that I wouldn’t talk about on a family site but you get my drift. Pure relaxation. And at Disney – I’m sun up to sun down kinda girl. Plus I’m going with my mom and sister in March 2013 and probably for a few days in September before or after my WDWMAGIC GIRLS CRUISE! Check out all the info on this awesome cruise happening with some fantastic ladies of wdwmagic!

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...agic-girls-cruise.816925/page-46#post-5173681

Ok. Enough with the explanations and shameless plugs for girl cruises (which again is September 8th – 12th 2013…plenty of girls still looking for roomies!) Let’s get on with the show!!!

September 11th, 2012

Work all day – blah. But at night…my sister, mom and I were going to see Jersey Boys in Pittsburgh. Every year on my sister and my birthdays…we buy each other tickets to see whatever musicals are playing in Pittsburgh. This year nothing great fell ON my birthday (October 15th) but Jersey Boys was playing mid September and I had never seen it.

I loved the show and was totally worth the 12:30AM bedtime that followed the show.

September 12th, 2012

Boy…2:45 AM comes really quickly when you pour yourself into bed at 12:30. We were up and moving (albeit quite slowly) finishing packing and such. Bill’s friend from med school came to pick us up and take us to the airport. We were flying out of the Pittsburgh airport but flying into the Latrobe airport because Latrobe is about 15 minutes from our house. But they had no outbound flights on this day. ANYWAY…we fly through security – grab a bagel & pumpkin spice latte to split and we’re on the plane at 6:05 AM. Touchdown in Orlando at 8:10am. Then I saw this and squealed like a school girl…

WOO HOO WE’RE HERE. Well almost. We head through DME and we were on a bus at 8:45 ready to head to our home for the next 8 days…

 

[ctosh]

Love the report so far.. can't wait for an update

 

[diddy_mouse]

I always sigh when I see pictures of POFQ. That's where I stayed on my honeymoon and I have yet to hit up that resort again. I liked the gators but that jester creeped me right-the-heck out! Also those big heads in the food court area....definitely creepy.

Love how you were able to walk on to a bunch of rides at EPCOT. Great way to spend the first night!

Look forward to reading more.

 

[plaz10]

Loving your TR so far! What a great tradition of going to see a musical on your birthdays, that's awesome. I'm glad to hear that you liked Garden Grill. I made an ADR for our next trip, but I was considering changing it. I love POFQ, too! And yay for Vinylmation trading - I'm addicted to them. Can't wait to read more!

I'd keep Garden Grill. The food wasn't outstanding...best food I've ever had...but it was very good. And with family style buffet you can have as much of one thing as you'd like (for me it was the fish - for Bill it was the beef). And the characters were great! I highly recommend asking for the bottom level because it feels more intimate and you get better views of Living with the Land. This was our first time Vinylmation trading...we didn't get any of the ones we were looking for but we did end up with 2 pretty great ones! Thanks for reading!

Love your pics!

Thank you! I'm no photo expert by any means...just carry around my point & shoot...but I still like 'em!

 

[plaz10]

Love the report so far.. can't wait for an update

Thank you! I'll have one up in a little...I'm home from the office today so maybe I can get some work done. House work? Heavens no I mean Trip Report work! Haha!

I always sigh when I see pictures of POFQ. That's where I stayed on my honeymoon and I have yet to hit up that resort again. I liked the gators but that jester creeped me right-the-heck out! Also those big heads in the food court area....definitely creepy.

Love how you were able to walk on to a bunch of rides at EPCOT. Great way to spend the first night!

Look forward to reading more.

THANK YOU! Yes the big heads in the food court are majorly creepy. I really love how small the resort was. I want to try Riverside but their bus system has me thinking otherwise. Who knows.

I could ride only EPCOT rides and be happy. I want to ride them over and over and over again. I don't get sick of them at all. Even stuff like Imagination and Living with the Land. I love me some EPCOT.

 

[plaz10]

September 13th

Alarm woke us up at 6:45 am. Holy shiz...Stitch is super loud when you're very tired. Up, showered and down to the bus stop. This morning we had another first dining experience - Akershus Royal Banquet Hall for breakfast! Since we were on the DDP we figured now was the time to take advantage of a 30 some dollar breakfast buffet because we'd NEVER pay that out of pocket. So we get to EPCOT - tell them our ressie number and we're in. I booked this ADR for 2 reasons - #1 never done it/good deal on DDP but #2 (and more importantly...) AN EMPTY EPCOT. It's an EPCOT lovers dream. Now it wasn't totally empty of course but still...pretty close. So here is just another one of the many Spaceship Earth photo shoots.

I mean...if you hate looking at Spaceship Earth...this is not the trip report for you!

Aw...SSE brings out the love in us!

This is probably one of my favorite pics of the trip

 

[plaz10]

Normally I never get a picture of the mural because I'm running into the ride and I'll be damned if someone will pass me in line! It's not like I can ride it 10 more times or anything...

There. We're passed Spaceship Earth.

Empty MouseGears (my favorite store in all of Disney)

OH WAIT...There she is. It's from another angle so...clearly I need more shots of her

Bill - "Lets do a cute one"
Me - "No we have to be apart so we can get SSE in the background" He loves me.

I really want this tattooed on my foot.

Because Phineas and Ferb are gonna do it allllll. Yes I watch P&F from time to time now that I babysit my 1 year old nephew on occasion. It's actually pretty good.

I LOVE EMPTY EPCOT.

 

[plaz10]

Just in case you guys were missing Spaceship Earth...

Making our way over to Norway...home of trolls, vikings and giant polar bears.

OK for me - the empty EPCOT was more than worth the $36 bucks for breakfast. But Bill was being very patient while I took pics but the hunger was getting to him. So in we went. And met this lady...

 

[Joshua&CalebDad]

Because Phineas and Ferb are gonna do it allllll. Yes I watch P&F from time to time now that I babysit my 1 year old nephew on occasion. It's actually pretty good.

As if anyone ever needed an excuse to watch P & F. You watch P & F and be proud. No one here is going to judge.

 

[plaz10]

TIME TO EAT. We didn't realize how hungry we were until we saw the food.

Cold buffet - bagels, pastries, fish, cheese, fruit, yogurt

As we were enjoying our cold selections...the Princesses began making their rounds. Well I'm the opposite of a princess kind of girl. I love the Villains! But I guess since we were there we should take some pics with the princesses. First up was Aurora.

Then next up was my favorite...the hot selection of food! Haha. It was eggs, potato casserole, bacon and sausage. It was quite yummy.

Then Cindy strolled in

Ariel. Who does not look like Ariel in my opinion. And I was tempted to bring up how awesome Ursula was but I didn't want to hassle a girl who has to get tackled by hundreds of little kids each day. I'm not a character poser as in I don't pose with characters. But Ariel really wanted me to make some fins so I obliged

 

[plaz10]

And last and absolutely least is Snow White.

I'm just not a fan of Snow White. Her voice is kind of annoying. But she is so pale it does make me look a little more tan. So I appreciate that. Hahaha.

The food was very good for a buffet...but I just wish I had the stomach capacity to eat as much as I wanted to. I wanted to try everything but my stomach said "NO. too full. Try again and I'll send some back up at you." Loud and clear tum tum. We're out!

It was just about 9 am at this point so we wandered over to The Land pavilion.

It's been like an hour since the last time I took a picture of you.

Good morning Monorail Yellow

I see you...

SOARIN. walk on again. WOO HOO. We walked on TWICE...again. So thats 4 Soarin' walk ons in the first 2 days. SCORE. So this is where we'd normally race to Test Track. OBVIOUSLY we didn't do that. So we decided to do something we've never done. EPCOT Character spot! 10 minute wait. We're in.

The fab 5 and some princesses in about 2 hours (plus breakfast and Soarin in there too)? That's a character record for us because we are NOT character people. We like them -yes. But waiting in long lines for them? Nope. Unless they're villains. Totally different story...

 

[plaz10]

Club Cool had just opened up so we decided to grab some free POP.

It was so early in the day - the floors weren't sticky yet! That was a first.

Then over to Innoventions. We normally NEVER take the time to actually go through Innoventions and check the stuff out.

It would appear we stopped in Mouse Gears before heading to Innoventions

I spy with my little eye...something that I am going to BUY...when I don't forget my Disney gift cards in my room

Oh THERE you are, Perry.

We then did some more Vinylmation Trading in Mouse Gears. We traded away Disney Cruise man for this guy

Not for Brazilian Tour Groups (which was a popular halloween costume at MNSSHP) but for Brazil's mens soccer team. They are one of my favorite teams to watch!

Then off to Innoventions

Hi gorgeous.

 

[plaz10]

Into Innoventions we go! And Bill stops to play football. He made it so that his alma mater and my favorite college football team (who are having a terrible season) PITT was playing his favorite team - IOWA Hawkeyes. Now the man has never been to Iowa or know anyone that goes there. But his roommate from college's girlfriend was a big Penn State fan. And the year Penn State was on their way to the National Title...she shoved it down our Pitt fan throats. UGH she was/is the worst. And then Iowa beat them and ruined their chances of winning the title. So that converted us into Iowa fans. So this weekend when they play PSU - you better believe we'll be in our Hawkeye black and gold!

We then played the Great Piggy Bank Adventure. We both just LOVE this little pig. We wanted to take him home with us.

Baby piggy? Even cuter!

Do we want stickers? HELL YEAH WE DO. Awesome.

We had some Soarin' FPs from the morning so we went to cash them in. While in The Land we decided to split a snack from Sunshine Seasons.

Key lime tart? Nope.

We decided on the Apple Caramel Crunch

Pretty tasty...

 

[plaz10]

Time to head towards the front of the park.

I wish I was there for this! Stupid med school!

And since we're heading out of the park...you know what that means...SSE PHOTO SHOOT!

This has Save the Date potential...

We rode Spaceship Earth before leaving of course (#3).
We hopped a bus back to POFQ. We both took a little nap. I vowed to my fiance that this trip would consist of more naps, more resort exploring and more relaxing. But I would not give up my Disney mornings. You get so much more accomplished in the mornings! So I suppose a nap wouldn't hurt.


UP next: Resort exploring and a surprise for Bill!

 

[plaz10]

As if anyone ever needed an excuse to watch P & F. You watch P & F and be proud. No one here is going to judge.

Good. Thank you! I do enjoy it...even when my nephew isn't around. And for my trip with my mom and sister - I bought her a Perry shirt for Christmas. And when I told her about agent P's adventure she was like "WE HAVE TO DO IT." So clearly her son is rubbing off on her...

 

[mamamouse]

How awesome are you???? Clearly you are as awesome as they come because you love SSE as much as me!!!!! I like the castle and other park Icons but give me SSe over any of those,and a girl can never have enough pics of it.So many options so little time!

 

[tiaragirl]

There are so many things I love in this TR already.

1. Jess
2. Your hilarious comment about the rhinos - "Rhino's are so fat. It makes them cuter." This struck me as hilarious and I had a solid chuckle to myself.
3. Picturing you being a blob on the rocks outside Everst
4. That you sad "Last and least Snow White". YOU SING IT GIRL. She is my LEAST favourite princess (as noted in each of my TRs since the beginning). I just don't like what she stands for. She is a blob kinda princess. SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME? Go find him, Ariel did.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Oh My DAROLYN"s grounded lol she never told me about this yummy treat

Please don't ground me!! I need to be able to use the laptop to catch up on all these trip reports!!!

Thanks! I hope I don't disappoint you! Oh Darolyn definitely steered me towards the right direction on that one. It's at the Kusafiri Bakery. Totally worth the stop!

Glad you liked it!! Ashley and I split on when we went. As much as I'd love to indulge in a whole one by myself, my thighs think otherwise. Plus it's really rich like you said. So good though. I LOVE that frosting!

Love the TR so far. I only read half of it so I'm sure I'll post another comment in a few minutes after I read the rest. Glad you liked Garden Grill. I don't know why but I love that you can see into that farmhouse that's part of the Land ride. Disney does it right, even detailing the little bedroom.

Those beignets look AMAZING!!! Definitely going to have to get over to POFQ to get me some!!

Aaaand I love how you are shamelessly plugging our ladies cruise here. I can't wait! We're going to have such a blast!!!

 

[Blueskyze]

Eek! I am loving all your pics of SSE! Especially with the almost-empty park!!! That is AWESOME!

 

[Blueskyze]

Okay, gotta post another comment because I almost forgot two very important things - one, I bought that same blue shirt last month - I can never have enough Epcot shirts! And two, your comments about the princesses cracked me up. I'm more of a villains girl, too - although I do like Belle a lot. Aurora is my "useless" princess.

 

[mousefreak]

This is a fun trip report. Can't wait for more. Congrats to you on the engagment!

I have a funny feeling there will be a few more picts of SSE (all you picts of SSE are awesome).