Trip Report Completed - Mom and Maddie - In the Big Blue World - April 2015

Hi Everyone!

We recently returned from our second magical mother/daughter trip to Disney World. I hope you enjoy our trip report!

Who:
Mom aka Lori - I am a manager for a telecommunications consulting company and I have been working there for 16 years. I am also a mom.
Maddie - 11 y/o 6th grader and wonderful daughter

When:
Sunday, April 19, 2015 - Sunday, April 26, 2015

Where:
Art of Animation - Little Mermaid

Tickets:
6 day park hopper

Here are links to my first trip report from February 2014 and my April 2015 Pre-Trip report in case you would like to check them out.
First Trip Report: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/first-timer-not-anymore.881139/
April Pre-Trip Report: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/once-upon-a-dream-with-mom-and-maddie.891334/#post-6368896

 

[blreinsel]

Can't wait to read about your adventures! Following along.

 

[FlaggNL]

Following along as well

 

[mrdrift]

Can't wait to read the report. Following along.

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Sorry everyone, I have been very busy at work/home and I haven't been able to get my photos downloaded. I hope to do that tomorrow and get on with the trip report.

 

[12in12]

Eagerly waiting for your TR with pics!

 

[prfctlyximprct]

Now the big blue world song is stuck in my head

Glad you had a great time, can't wait to read about it!

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

I am finally back! Wow, it has been a long time. My world got a little crazy in the last few months and I haven't had time to spend on my trip report. My parents are making some major life decisions (including moving/down sizing) so I have been helping them with house hunting, getting rid of over 16 years of stuff among other things. They live three hours away from me right now so it has been tough. Okay, enough about that, time to get to trip reporting!

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Saturday, April 18, 2015 - Spring Break Day 1

Today begins the first leg of our Spring Break trip to Disney World. I had to wake up bright and early to log into Southwest.com so I could register for our flight 24 hours in advance. After getting ready for the day and waking Maddie up it was time to pack the car and hit the road.

Ready to go!!

We are excited!!!

We started on our drive to Manchester, NH. It was a pleasant day and we had an uneventful drive. We found the hotel easily this time thanks to Sally(my phone GPS) and checked into our room at the Holiday Inn near the airport. Maddie and I did the park, stay and fly package there last year and it work out really well. It is nice to not worry about navigating the airport parking garage and our flight was so very early the next morning. We checked into our room and got settled in.

We watched some TV, used our iPads and just relaxed in the room. I may have taken a nap. Maddie and I decided to order dinner from the diner attached to the hotel. She got chicken tenders, French fries and a vanilla milkshake. I got broccoli cheddar soup, a garden salad and lemonade. The food was surprisingly very good. Maddie took a shower and then we went to bed at 7 because we had to be up early for our flight to Disney World in the morning!

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Sunday, April 19, 2015 - Spring Break Day 2

Maddie and I woke up at 3:30AM, got ready, made sure we had everything out of the room and met the hotel shuttle downstairs at 4:30AM. YAWN!
We dropped off our bags and printed our tickets at the Southwest counter making sure our yellow magical express tags were attached. Then we headed off to security. The line was pretty light that early in the morning. Maddie kept making the metal detector go off. We finally figured out that she didn't take off her Alex & Ani bracelet which was hidden by the sleeve of her sweatshirt, oops! We finally made it through and headed off to our airport tradition, Starbucks. We each got a croissant and I ordered a green tea while Maddie had a vanilla bean frap.

Waiting for our flight selfie!

Our flight was on time and we had been given a great boarding number so we were able to sit together. Maddie got the window like she wanted. The flight was pretty bumpy but we arrived in Florida a little early. We headed to get the magical express and wow, the lines were so long. When we went in February 2014 we had maybe two people in front of us, not this trip. We waited for two buses to load with people before we were able to get on a bus.

Maddie on the bus, we are almost there!
Lots of people were headed to Art of Animation and the bus was packed. I missed the sign entering into Disney World because we were too far back on the bus. Bummer! I got a text while on the bus saying our room wasn't ready but I will get another text when it is. I was hoping it would be ready by the time we arrive at the resort.

We arrived at AoA and talked to a friendly cast member at the online check in desk. He apologized that our room wasn't ready yet but said he would see what he could do. I had requested a 4th floor room in either building 7 or 9, close to transportation. He asked me if a different floor would be okay and I told him that was fine. We walked over to the Landscapes of Flavor food court to grab some lunch and he said he would find us there. Maddie went to the burger line to order mac and cheese while I went to the salad/sandwich area. While I was waiting in the short line the cast member I was working with came over and gave me our room number plus the map where our room was located. I thanked him for being so helpful and proceeded to order my turkey sandwich. We also picked out our mugs. I got blue and Maddie got green since purple was all sold out.

This sandwich was so good. It had some kind of sauce on it that made it so much better then the standard turkey sandwich. We did not do the dining plan again. I determined a budget for food and bought a Disney gift card to use only toward food purchases. This worked out really well for us.

Up next, checking into our room and Downtown Disney!

 

[bee]

Great start! I would love to stay at AoA some time but the Little Mermaid rooms seem to always be full for the dates I want. How nice that the CM came and found you to give you your room number!

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Sunday, April 19, 2015 - Spring Break Day 2 cont.

Our room was in Building 9 of the Little Mermaid section on the first floor. I was a bit concerned at first about not being on a higher floor because last year I found that you could hear the toilet flushing and walking from the room above. However, it turned out to be the perfect location for us. We were given a corner room facing the parking lot but had a perfect walk just behind the Lion King section to get to and from the buses. This cut out a lot of time and walking for us. The room location actually turned out to be perfect. We couldn't get into our room with either of our magic bands. I have been seeing that this is happening a lot around the boards lately. The mousekeeper that was working in the room next door let us in which was super nice of her. We would go back to the front desk later to get our magic bands squared away but we really wanted to change out of our winter attire and get into our Florida clothes. Maddie took a lot of photos of the room. Here they are....

Our room was perfect and clean just like in 2014. These rooms are the perfect size for the two of us. We changed our clothes and decided to rest for a little while. I was surprised when we heard a knock on our door at 1:45 and it was our luggage. I thought that was really fast. Maddie and I unpacked then we decided to go to Downtown Disney. We didn't have park tickets because I knew we would be tired from a long day of travel and I was right. We went to the front desk to get our magic bands fixed before getting a bus to DTD. They had to reset our bands and the next time we went to our room they worked.

Next DTD...

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Sunday, April, 19, 2015 - Spring Break Day 2 cont.

We arrived at DTD and had a walk around. The construction was coming along and Disney Springs was really taking shape. We walked in the shops and just looked around to see the new merchandise. Maddie was so excited to go to the pin store. She really got into pin trading in February and was really looking forward to pin trading again on this trip. When we walked into the pin store and they had the giant pin board open. They were restocking it. The cast members were going to start trading from the board in 5 minutes so Maddie and I hopped in line behind two other guests. We struck up a conversation with them and enjoyed chatting about pins, etc. We each traded two pins and it was the only time during our trip that big pin board was open. Such luck!

We also took a number of photos of the Disney art work this trip. Maddie has really been into art lately and it was fun to see the beautiful Disney art.

Alice in Wonderland, Maddie's favorite

Maleficent, my favorite villain

Mulan, Maddie's favorite princess
By this time we were getting hungry for an early dinner since we had been awake for so long at this point. Our internal clocks were a bit off. I noticed The Boathouse was open and they had seating in the bar area so Maddie and I decided to try it. I was really looking forward to eating here and it didn't disappoint. The food was excellent (expensive) but excellent. I had ordered two shrimp from the raw bar for an appetizer. Maddie ordered the panko breaded chicken with fries for her meal and I had the burger with fries. We both had lemonade. When the server brought out my shrimp there was three instead of two. She said it was a magical moment because the chef knew I would love the two I had ordered and I would want a third. So cool!

Shrimp

Chicken

Burger

We walked around DTD some more while dodging rain drops but we were both fading fast. We took the bus back to our resort and walked over the generation gap bridge to Pop Century because Maddie wanted a Mickey Ice Cream bar. A cast member at AoA told us that Pop had them in the food court. We wanted to do some resort hopping this trip so Pop was our first resort. After picking up the ice cream we walked back to AoA around hourglass lake, so pretty. We both took showers and went to bed. We walked 14,158 steps which is 6.45 miles our first day!

Up next: EPCOT and Hollywood Studios

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Photos from Pop Century

Maddie and The Jungle Book

 

[12in12]

Lovely pictures! The food at the Boathouse looks delicious.

 

[sheriffwoody]

Great start! Following along. That burger from The Boathouse looks delicious.

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Monday, April 20, 2015 - Spring Break Day 3

Today we woke up at 7 AM and got ready for our day. In February 2014 we ate most of our breakfast in our room (cereal and milk) but this year we only did that three times. We went to Landscapes of Flavor for breakfast. Both Maddie and I got the child's character waffles that came with bacon or sausage, fruit and a child's beverage. My waffles were Little Mermaid themed and Maddie had Cars Themed.

After we dropped our mugs back in our room we headed out to get the bus to Epcot for our first full day in Disney World. Epcot is Maddie's favorite park which is why we went to that park first.
When we arrived we headed to ride our first attraction, Spaceship Earth. Maddie and I love this ride. The sites, the smells and the future.

Next we wanted to ride Journey Into the Imagination with Figment

Our next ride was The Seas with Nemo and Friends. We had a great time on this ride this visit and we sang the Big Blue World song over and over again the rest of our trip which is why I titled my trip report with that song.

Maddie just loves this fish. It is her favorite fish in all the tanks in the seas.
We wanted to see the preview of the Tomorrowland movie so we walked over to the theatre but it was going to be a 10 minute wait and we had to go to the restroom plus we were thirsty. We decided to do that another day and walked over to club cool. Maddie loves the Japan flavor at club cool and she made sure to have a few cups of that. I walked over to Starbucks to get a cup of ice water and bought myself the Epcot Starbucks mug. My first souvenir of the trip.

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Monday, April 20, 2015 - Spring Break 2015 - Day 3 cont.

After Starbucks we decided to take a few photo pass photos and then head to The Land.
Love this one!

It wasn't time for our FP+ for Living with the Land and Maddie said she could use a snack so we went to Sunshine Seasons to get something to eat.
I had the famous Strawberry Shortcake and Maddie had Chocolate Cake.

After we ate our snack it was time for Living with the Land. This is another ride that Maddie and I enjoy.

So many cool things to see!
Maddie and I were now ready to check out the Flower and Garden Festival and head to The World Showcase!

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Monday, April 20, 2015 - Spring Break Day 3 cont.
Walking toward World Showcase we came across the display for the new Inside Out movie. Maddie and I were really looking forward to this movie and already had picked out our favorite characters. My favorite is Sadness and Maddie's favorite is Disgust. We took lots of photos here and even got a special photo pass picture.

This display was so nice and fit in really well with Flower and Garden.

Maddie bought herself one of these Duffy's as her souvenir from Flower and Garden.
I know what you are saying, Where are the topiary photos? Don't worry, they are coming!

The next few posts will all be EPCOT Flower and Garden as well as World Showcase with lots of photos.

 

[acrab3t]

Following! I love your daughter's shirt. My Neighbor Totoro is one of my favorite movies!