Trip Report **COMPLETE** 'Tried the grey stuff it's delicious... don't believe us ask the dishes!!!

Welcome to our first trip report! I've loved reading through lots of fantastic trip reports on here, the pictures and stories got me very excited for my recent trip to Orlando so I figured it would be the perfect opportunity for me to write my very own. First a little background information, I’m Karen (25) from Dublin in Ireland and had my first trip to Orlando at the age of 9 and have since been hooked! I've been a grand total of 6 times including the most recent trip (not nearly enough!). Myself and my sister Rachel (20) read tonnes of trip reports, drooled over all over the Disney treats, researched the magic band system like crazy and planned the out the holiday in advance. Our trip involved 3 completely different types of accommodation, we stayed in a villa in Kissimmee for the first 6 days, Art of Animation at Disney World for 2 nights and finally the Quality Inn Suites on International Drive (at the junction of Sand Lake road).

A relative of ours had booked the house as part of a round the world trip so our accommodation there was free, he won’t feature much in our trip report but when he does we will refer to him as Grumpy. My boyfriend, who shall be known as Sleepy for the duration of our TR, also joined us on the trip for 10days.


Introducing the cast!

Me (left) and Rachel - both from Ireland

Sleepy (my boyfriend) - from the UK, had visited Disney once as a kid but has very vague memories

& Grumpy - our uncle

 

[dancingtodisney]

I want them all...

We didn't buy anything in the end, maybe next time

Sleepy doing his thing

Rachel off for a spin

We didn't have long until our reservation at Tusker House so we wandered around through Asia.

Everest shot...

Lucky suckers getting to live in Disney

Excited bird lady

Bird

Sleepy was very distracted by the birds and our reservation was fast approaching, MOVE IT SLEEPY

TUSKER HOUSE TIME! I LOVE this breakfast, I will do it every time I come to Disney cause it's just that brilliant. On our last trip two years previous we did Tusker House and Chef Mickeys and for me there just was no comparison, the character interaction, the setting, the decor, the FOOD OMG the FOOD in Tusker House was just ten times better!

 

[m3owbox]

Hahah Sleepy posing with all the dinos is great!

 

[farrellbarrel]

Love the pictures!

 

[dancingtodisney]

On the way in we had our photo taken with Donald. Now normally you just get the one photo but there wasn't much of a line behind us. Also the gang had gotten used to the regular character meet and greets and me encouraging them to get every possible photo so we got a few variations. We got a free print out version of these pictures, one in a frame a couple of smaller snaps but I don't have a digital copy.

Mmmmmmmm foooooood

It's breakfast time right now in Dublin, oh how I would love to trade canteen food for Tusker House!

For those of you that don't know this breakfast is a buffet character breakfast. It's one of the cheaper ones too.

We had just sat down with our first plate when along came Daisy

GIRL POWER

Up next was the man himself! I got a cute one when he came up behind me and put his arm around me

Ugh... the camera is over here silly

There we go

Note to self wear beige shorts next time I visit AK, Rachel really fits in with all the Characters in their Safari gear

Couple photo

 

[dancingtodisney]

Hahah Sleepy posing with all the dinos is great!

It's definitely funny now that we have these photos to look back on at the time I wasn't so sure lol

 

[dancingtodisney]

Love the pictures!

Thanks! I'm delighted I invested in the camera, it's great to have so many nice photos

 

[dancingtodisney]

Sorry for the delay in updating Back to Animal Kingdom we go!

 

[dancingtodisney]

And finally it was time for me to meet my favourite character for the first time this trip! I love Goofy's personality, he always comes across really confident and cheeky!

Look I'm totally blushing in this pic

Think we caught Rachel mid blink

Aaaaaw my two favourite men

Right after Goofy left I was walking back out to the buffet counter when I spotted the cutest moment. A young boy had gone to get some food and when he came back Mickey was sitting in his seat with his family with his knife and fork stood upright like he was ready to eat. The little boy was so surprised, I love it when the characters do extra little things to make the experience all the more special.

Up next was the character parade and I caught Goofy in action

Mickey must've been moving too quick for me

We were enjoying 2nds or maybe 3rds at this stage when we got a re-visit

This one is really cute

And then guess what..???! Mickey came back over too!

Posers!

 

[photoflight]

"Silly Grumpy" is now part of our vocabulary. Well done!

 

[Longers]

Really enjoying this trip report - I've just caught up. Beauty and the beast is my favourite film too so I know exactly where you are coming from re the be our guest restaurant, such great theming there. Hopefully I will soon be booked for November 2014. I did the 5k last year (first race ever and in Disney) it was so much fun (if it can be fun running, - up to 2 months before that run I had never run in my life!) you will have a blast as for the half marathon I believe there are more characters and theming about. Anyway for now back to this trip report - I am following along. I just wish Disney was closer so that it could go for a weekend but I guess the travel from the UK makes us appreciate it more when we get there. Looking forward to the rest and some more photos with the new camera.

 

[dancingtodisney]

"Silly Grumpy" is now part of our vocabulary. Well done!

haha love it!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Really enjoying this trip report - I've just caught up. Beauty and the beast is my favourite film too so I know exactly where you are coming from re the be our guest restaurant, such great theming there. Hopefully I will soon be booked for November 2014. I did the 5k last year (first race ever and in Disney) it was so much fun (if it can be fun running, - up to 2 months before that run I had never run in my life!) you will have a blast as for the half marathon I believe there are more characters and theming about. Anyway for now back to this trip report - I am following along. I just wish Disney was closer so that it could go for a weekend but I guess the travel from the UK makes us appreciate it more when we get there. Looking forward to the rest and some more photos with the new camera.

Thanks very much! We are planning on going for Dinner in November when we go back. I really want a picture with Beast and I imagine the experience is even better at dinner. Well I've done one 10km race before and that's it! Training is starting now and hopefully we'll manage it. I think it'll be great fun on the night with everything Disney does to make it more than just a run.

 

[dancingtodisney]

After filling our bellies we decided to go for a wander. We walked around past Safari (I forgot to mention we'd grabbed some fast passes before breakfast) and starting to head towards Asia when we came across this delightful green person

He took a shine to my camera

I've not even zoomed here, he came really close with this crazy stare

Animal Kingdom is just so beautiful... I can't wait for the Avatar area to open up, shame that won't be open for our trip in November! Aw well, it gives us a another reason to return in 2015!

Sleepy chilling out in the jungle

We continued walking towards Asia, it was pretty hot today so Kali River Rapids was definitely on the cards

We got some fast passes for Kali and explored the area a little

We walked back to Safari as it was now time for our fastpasses..

I don't remember the tour guy (or skipper I think he's called?) or anything that he said during this ride, I think I may have been concentrating too hard on trying to use my camera, it's very difficult to take pictures from a moving vehicle and as the below picture can illustrate I was struggling!

I think I was trying to picture the brown smudges but I've no idea what they were

I did however managed to capture a big bum

Snow White was in the window seat

OK so this looks better, unobstructed, not really blurry and I actually know what animal I was trying to picture

A special tree, I know the guy told us why it was special, I think it's really old?

Look at this dude trying hide from me... PAPARAZZI

An elephant... If you look at this picture you'd have no idea I was in the middle of a crowded park in Florida!

Looks like these two had an argument

A headless Ostrich

And from another angle so you know it's not an optical illusion

Really big horns... or antlers I'm not sure which.. also photo bombed by a yet another bum

And that concludes our Safari adventure!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Next up was Kali River Rapids, I've no pictures but there is a video, I'll add in a link when I have it! Me and Rachel were the first to get soaked, there was this little girl who for the entire ride got barely a splash and was laughing hysterically at everyone getting drenched, she was sooo cute.

We decided it was showtime afterwards!

Well hello there Mr. Lion King

We were in the Lion section... ROAR

I got lots of pictures so here we go:

I really wanted to get up and boogie on down with Timon

A-wimoweh, a-wimoweh, a-wimoweh, a-wimoweh.....

What a fantastic show, I'm so glad Sleepy got to see it, I know it's moving location soon, I do hope it doesn't lose any of its spark, by far the best show in Disney in my opinion

On the way out I saw character meet and greets that looked interesting, one was for Pocahontas.. When I was a kid I had a barbie type doll of Pocahontas and it was my favourite, I really wanted to meet her.... Grumpy complained that she wasn't out and we'd be waiting ages

They also had a jungle book meet and greet but I forget who exactly... Again Grumpy was not going for it... Grrrrrrrrr silly Grumpy... didn't he know that meeting characters was all part of the fun!

We said we'd leave it because we figured we'd be back at a later date without Grumpy but **Spoiler Alert** we never made it back I don't even know if that area will still be there now when we go back

I snapped some pictures near the theatre

Soooooooo cute

Just catching some dinner:

And the rest of the gang

Guess where we went to next.....

Just in case you haven't gotten it yet...

Pretty sure I tried to get Rachel in her glasses and she wouldn't let me... Boo

 

[dancingtodisney]

This show is really good, I love the bit at the end with the seats. I don't think we had any terrified kids this time!

On our way out we ran into the birds again!

Apologies for my blury pictures!

This one is blury on purpose to illustrate just how fast they were flying......

Blue birds... I'm pretty sure they were all parrots

It seemed fitting that we went to the bird show next! Snow White left at this point to catch a bus back to her hotel on International Drive. I think it was about 3pm.

The show started and the host was really informative, I was on holiday though so none of the information was actually retained but still it was nice at the time

He looks like he's singing here, I'm pretty sure he wasn't... you can also see in the background that it was started raining

Then in true Florida form it starts LASHING RAIN....
Well, that's the end of the bird show! And of course this was the one day we'd left our ponchos in the car

We waited it out for a while and then decided we could be there all day so we braved the wetness and made our way (along with everybody else) to the park exit.

This bird looks just as unimpressed as we were

Bye Bye Animal Kingdom... See ya real soon... (or not )

 

[dancingtodisney]

The drive home was fine, I think I took a wrong turn at one point but we made it home in a reasonable time. It's a nice short drive to our Villa.

We chilled out at Villa for a bit then decided we wanted to head out for dinner and to DTD. Grumpy was living up to his name and not in the mood for any more Disney that day. He had continued with his mantra in the parks of 'we already went on that ride, why would you want to do a ride twice'

I was also upset about missing Pocahontas

So anyway, one down we drove to TGI Fridays which is one of mine and Rachel's favourites, we have them in Ireland but there menu is a bit different and we actually don't go very often. I'm pretty sure we all had steak but refused desert... you all know where we're headed in DTD right????

I remember this night my legs were starting to burn, I'm normally pretty fit and in shape but this holiday fell at a time when I was probably the most unfit I've ever been... I wasn't letting that spoil our fun though. We parked over near La Nouba and I was scalded for my choice of carpark (whoooops), I of course was not happy either considering my leg pain but what can you do!

We passed the Characters in Flight balloon, I really want to go up on this one day, I'll make a note for November!

First up was the World of Disney store... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw I was in heaven

Lumiere....

Should've picked this up for a certain someone

There was one for Sleepy too...

Soooo pretty

I think we purchased a few little bits, I got ear-rings and a bracelet and Rachel got a necklace.

Next up... I'd been waiting for this!

This dude is like 'eh what are you doing'

Look at Sleepy all pleased with himself

I opted for a milkshake

We continued to wander round and lost Sleepy at one point but eventually we were re-united.

DTD is really nice at night... On our next trip we want to go to Planet Hollywood

Sleepy in blue top and Rachel in the red one...

And that concluded our long day... off to bed to rest up because tomorrow we're heading to Seaworld.

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 6 - Seaworld and Family Dinner

We had a rather slow start to our Seaworld day, Grumpy hadn’t slept well so was up late and also took AGES getting ready. We had breakfast in the villa and chilled waiting for him. I think we eventually set off around 9pm which was about an hour later than planned. We also had to pick up a day pass ticket for Sleepy. Luckily the park wasn’t too busy.

First stop of the day was MANTA… This rollarcoaster is all sorts of AWESOME! To be honest it’s the only thing that really compelled me to go back to Seaworld, we’ve been on every trip before so I’m not all that impressed with the shows anymore. I did however think that Sleepy would enjoy it and it’s also a slower pace than Disney as it’s not as busy.

Next up was the Dolphin show, this in my opinion is so much better than the Shamu show.

Stupid poles are in all my pictures, guess that's what we get for showing up LATE....

I love the combination of animal interaction and acrobats, it makes for a really beautiful show.

Looks painful

BIRDS

Some close up Dolphin pics

Damn them poles!

The show was executed really well, shame about our view but I've always had an unobstructed view in the past so it was our own fault for arriving late!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Next up was the Sealion show! I love the mime guy at the start he is soooo funny.

The SIZE of him

The show went really badly today, a few things went wrong including the main sealion deciding to randomly go for a swim during one of his bits so he was replaced halfway through the show! Other things didn’t work out that you would only notice if you’d seen the show before. It wasn’t bad to watch though, the bits that got messed up were funny to watch.

We took a ride on Kracken and Journey to Atlantis, the rollarcoaster bit came as a fun surprise to Sleepy! Me and Rachel were in the front and got really wet!

Next up was the big man himself… SHAMU! I do really like the stadium that this is held in, as I said before I don’t think it’s the best show in Seaworld but it is impressive all the same. It was better a few years back when the trainers were in the water with the wales but that has been scrapped.

Well hello there SHAMU!

We had a really hot day today so that was starting to take its toll. Luckily we had a lunch reservation at the sharks underwater grill. It was Grumpy that really wanted to go here, Rachel wasn’t really feeling hungry so didn’t order anything and I got something pretty small as far as I remember.

Here is a googled image of the restaurant cause I failed to get any pictures of the tables etc

Next we went exploring!

Aaaaaaaah

 

[dancingtodisney]

We went through the tunnel thing on the other side of the restaurant

Sleepy and Grumpy were spending ages staring at random stuff so me and Rachel decided to ditch them and go back over to ride Journey to Atlantis again. Our plan was to meet back at the stadium for the acrobatic show. We got some yummy fudge

So we got a little distracted and made it to the show 2mins after it was due to start and they'd shut the theatre!

SO apparently the show was great but I can't tell you first hand!

Next up was a trip through one of the aquarium places (ok ok so you've probably guessed at this stage that my recollection of this day is a bit hazy )

This pic is a bit creepy

Totally convinced Rachel to get in for this picture and then refused to get one myself

We skipped the polar beer ride cause that makes me nauseous and the queue was really long.

We spotted some feeding happening so we had to stop and take some pics.

The birds kept trying to steal their food

We decided it was time to split, time for a few quick snaps on the way out

We went home and chilled for a bit before heading out to Angus Steakhouse on International Drive to meet up with my relatives. Grumpy stayed at home.. silly Grumpy. It was complete chance that my family ended up over in Orlando at the same time as us, so basically we went at that time because Grumpy was going to be there anyway so our accommodation was sorted for the first part. Then I found out my aunt (Snow White's mam) was going to be there the same week. THEN I find out my other aunts (all on my Dad's side) were going on a cruise and would overlap with the first aunt for one night and us for our second week.... RANDOM. So tonight was the one night we were all in Orlando together, all the way from Dublin!

There was loads of us! The food was only OK, I thought it was a bit overpriced.

Group shot

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 7 - AOA and Epcot

Today we were moving to Art of Animation... yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

So we didn't really have much planned during the day, we were going to pack up in the Villa, move to the AOA and then drop Grumpy to the airport. Perfect day to sleep in... right??

WRONG! Me and Rachel decided to head in early, check into AOA, collect our magic bands and get to Hollywood Studios for morning extra magic hours!

Check in was pretty dead at 7.30AM

Doesn't it look AMAZING I was so excited to be staying here!

We collected the magic bands and headed to HS. First up was tower of terror

Then R'n'R

And of course, Tower of Terror again!