Trip Report COMPLETED: "What is Mickey hiding from anyway?" ACE GANG REUNION

Hello, all! I'm Abby.

Welcome to what is sure to be a long TR!!

I’ve finally returned to the real world after a fantastic reunion with my very best friends from college. I live in Florida these days and I have a pass but I haven’t done more than 3 consecutive days at Disney since I went with my family in 2008. So, for that reason and for the fact that I would get to spend plenty of time with the best besties ever, I was incredibly excited for this trip.​

Here we are! I'm on the left then there's Kelsey, Cassie, Megan, and Val. We call ourselves the Ace Gang.

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We had all been talking about this trip since we graduated, and the hotel was booked a year out. Val and I did most of the planning. She’s from California and always seems to be at Disneyland. I’ve visited her 3 times there and it was finally time for her to come over to this side of the country. Since we were the planners (and we got the separate bedroom in our Finding Nemo suite), the rest of the girls took to calling us Mom and Dad. I was Dad since I did the driving and paid for a bunch of things so I could use my Tables in Wonderland card and everyone else could just pay me back later. We really cracked ourselves up throughout the trip, getting carried away with our inside joke and constantly trying to decide who was our favorite daughter.

We stayed at Art of Animation for 7 nights. Val and I had some extra time, and we did extra days at Disney and elsewhere in Florida. I didn’t take all too many photos on this trip. So I’ll include a bunch of photos I stole from Val, as it is probably more interesting to see WDW through the eyes of a first-timer anyway. Also, a number of these will be Memory Maker photos (We split the cost of this 5 ways and definitely got our money’s worth).​

Wednesday, October 15.
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I left work about 3pm and drove down to Orlando. Waited in the MCO cell phone lot and then it was time to go grab Val!! We headed immediately to Magic Kingdom upon her arrival by way of TTC and a pretty crowded monorail and soon enough we were entering the park.

Here we gooo!
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Val was worried that her magic band wasn’t going to work but everything went completely smoothly. We were in! We left today and headed into the lands of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy. Tears were shed as Val took it all in.
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Huzzah! More adventures to come...

 

[abzoo]

Oh my gosh, your costumes were amazing!!! I'm pretty sure I saw you guys that night. I appreciate great costumes and notice them when at the parties haha. Loving the TR!

Thank you so much! We were a little obsessed with our costumes and yours were awesome as well! The party was an absolute blast-- we picked a great night, right?!

 

[mrdrift]

Club Villian seems really awesome and a great place for some dancing. The parade pictures are fantastic with some that we haven't seen before. Looks like everyone is having a great time at the MNSSHP. Following along.

 

[abzoo]

Club Villian seems really awesome and a great place for some dancing. The parade pictures are fantastic with some that we haven't seen before. Looks like everyone is having a great time at the MNSSHP. Following along.

Thank you!!! Sometimes after reading so many other trip reports, it feels like your own won't have any unique photos or observations, so I'm really glad to have posted things you haven't seen before. But you never can have too many pictures, right?

The parade was awesome. Club Villain was definitely fun as well--- I might have accidentally almost kicked a child when my dance moves got a little out of control oops.

Lots more to come! Thanks for following!

 

[abzoo]

After the parade, we tried to figure out what we wanted to do before HalloWishes. We were walking near Princess Fairytale Hall and I think the wait was posted at 30 minutes to meet Rapunzel and Cinderella. We figured it would be less than that and we got into a line that wasn’t too long and was moving at a decent pace. But then it stopped moving and we started getting a little nervous about not having enough time to get to the hub for Hallowishes. This was the first time I’d ever been in Princess Fairytale Hall though. It’s pretty! The CM in the room with the princesses was named Meg so we had a bonding moment.

So we finally got into the room to meet the princesses and had talked about just doing pictures to get out of there quickly. We couldn’t really do that though and we had a great interaction with Rapunzel.

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She was very excited to see that Val was dressed like her & asked if was Val's first time out of her tower. She loved Pascal and as I got closer, I told Rapunzel to check out Val’s shoes (which I painted for Val as her Christmas present 2 years ago). Rapunzel got down on the floor to look at them. “Look it’s my kingdom!” She gave me compliments for my artwork.

I thought the PhotoPass photographer took a picture of Rapunzel on the ground looking at the shoes but apparently not, just a kind of blurry photo of Val’s feet. I’ll add another picture of the Tangled Toms, since I like to show them off. I really should paint a pair for myself.

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Val also showed her my Magic Band, which I had given her to wear for the night and when she was asked about her hair, Val said that I also helped with that. Rapunzel said that I must be a good friend to have around. Obviously!

I suppose I'm just really into painting Tangled art on ALL THE THINGS.

We were still by Rapunzel when Kelsey stepped over to talk to Cinderella. They seem to have compared shoes based on the pictures. I asked Kelsey later if anything exciting happened when she was talking to Cindy, but she says that nothing stood out to her. She definitely wasn’t engaging with our group when we got over to her. Oh well, we were in a rush.

Apparently no one noticed that I was so far in the shadows.

 

[abzoo]

After that, we tried to hurry over to get a spot for fireworks. We made it into the hub a few minutes after the start of Celebrate the Magic. HalloWishes was awesome, of course.

Here's a bunch of fireworks photos...

I love those swirly sparklers they have on the castle!

The perimeter fireworks definitely make everything more exciting!

yay!​

 

[Doc Disney]

You guys look like you had so much fun! Makes me want to plan a trip with my group of friends! Love the consumes too when I look at people's pics from mnsshp it doesn't look like too many people get dressed up so it's def cool that you guys did

 

[abzoo]

You guys look like you had so much fun! Makes me want to plan a trip with my group of friends! Love the consumes too when I look at people's pics from mnsshp it doesn't look like too many people get dressed up so it's def cool that you guys did

Thanks! MNSSHP was seriously awesome but dressing up was one of the absolute best things! And you're right-- there are plenty of adults (and some kids) who don't join in the costume fun but they're missing out.

Friend trips are the best!!

 

[Longers]

Loving the toms. My sister painted me some pumps ( very cheap shoes from the UK) too but I am not sure if I can wear them in the park as someone said to me it could be copyright? I do wear them sometimes at home though.

Maybe I will pack them next year ......

They don't look as professional as yours but I like them - and apparently they took her ages.

 

[abzoo]

Loving the toms. My sister painted me some pumps ( very cheap shoes from the UK) too but I am not sure if I can wear them in the park as someone said to me it could be copyright? I do wear them sometimes at home though.

Maybe I will pack them next year ......

They don't look as professional as yours but I like them - and apparently they took her ages.

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Aww those are super cute!!! There shouldn't be any copyright issue that would prevent you from wearing those shoes in the park. You're just showing your DisneySide. haha. The only comments you would get from CMs would be compliments about your adorable footwear! I mean, people even sell that sort of thing on Etsy and the Disney copyright infringement police haven't shut that down.

 

[Longers]

Aww those are super cute!!! There shouldn't be any copyright issue that would prevent you from wearing those shoes in the park. You're just showing your DisneySide. haha. The only comments you would get from CMs would be compliments about your adorable footwear! I mean, people even sell that sort of thing on Etsy and the Disney copyright infringement police haven't shut that down.

I didn't worry when she did them but then someone mentioned it to me and it kind of got me thinking. But your comments are very true - I did tell her she has to make me more as she shouldn't have put stars on them but hidden mickeys!
So next year might have custom footwear then, we will see

 

[abzoo]

After the fireworks, we had to come up with a game plan for the rest of the party-- the night was going by so quickly!! No one really had any must-do’s (besides getting some candy) but there were still a few things I wanted to do like seeing Mickey in his Halloween costume, going on a ride that has photos, Haunted Mansion (and the Magic Shot in front of HM)... so we at least had a bit of a plan.

Before anything else, though, we needed to admire Main Street a little bit. I love the lighting they do during the Halloween Party-- the colors are awesome and I was kind of regretting that we hadn’t watched the parade from MSUSA.

Oh well, onward to Tomorrowland. We hit the trick-or-treat line. [FUN FACT for any of you who don’t know-- In St. Louis, for Halloween, children have to tell a joke in order to get candy. Megan and I are from STL and when we got to college out of our hometown, we were absolutely shocked that nowhere else in the country follows this same practice. Now, I’m definitely not saying that this tradition would hold up in the candy lines at MNSSHP-- the express process of being handed sugary treats works just fine for us-- we had places to be!]

Time for some Space Mountain!

Val wanted to buy one of the special treats available at the party and got the candy corn cotton candy-- which tasted like normal cotton candy.

We decided to go see Mickey so we headed back down Main Street. Kelsey and Cassie stopped to use the restroom and the rest of us kept on walking. The next parade was about to start and we saw the Headless Horseman ride again.

We got into Town Square Theater and underestimated the head start we had on Cassie and Kelsey so we decided to stop in and see Tinkerbell since there was zero wait. Megan hates Tinkerbell so she was about to plop herself down and wait on a bench while Val and I got a photo but I made her come in with us and said that she could get a picture of her making a face at Tinkerbell, showing her hatred. Come on, Megan, it will be funny. This was what we ended up with, silly frame courtesy of Val’s Memory Maker editing.

So Megan hates Tinkerbell but apparently Tinkerbell hates Megan too. Rather, she hates Belle for stealing her name (minus the “Tinker” part). As soon as we got in, Tinkerbell started scoffing at Megan, complaining about the name thing, saying how she must think she's just soooo cool. haha.

Crazy faces all around in this one haha​

Tinkerbell also tried to take Val’s Pascal away from her. She declared that he was hers since he was the same color as her dress. AHEM-- Hands off, Tinkerbell!!

So all in all, it was an unexpectedly great experience. We didn't have to wait at all to see Tinkerbell. It was cute "shrinking" to fairy size and the set in that room is also adorable. Tinkerbell brought so much sass to our meeting and we got some good pics out of it as well!

 

[abzoo]

As we were directed to the gift shop after leaving Tinkerbell, we heard our names being called by Kelsey and Cassie, who were also exiting into the gift shop from the same spot. We were confused for a second. Wait, you just left Tinkerbell? No, WE JUST left Tinkerbell. hmmm...

Unbeknownst to us, Kelsey and Cassie were actually not that far behind us when we arrived at Town Square Theater. They asked the CMs if they had seen a Belle, Rapunzel, and a Meg and they were pointed in the direction of the Tinkerbell Meet. As there was no wait, they were also taken right into the "pixie dust room" and directed to see Tinkerbell (the other one).

TINK #2: I definitely think the one Val, Megan, and I saw fit the part better.
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Alright. Next was Mickey. Not too exciting since Val wasn't crying this time haha. But Mickey's Halloween outfit is definitely adorable.

And then we took even more group photos, really getting the money's worth for our Memory Maker package. I really am sorry if you're sick of seeing so many photos of us. Ha. But this one is my favorite. Such pretty colors all around!

 

[mrdrift]

I love when the characters have fun and joke around with everyone. That was cute how Tink was messing with Belle about steeling her name. The pictures came out really good. Glad you are getting your moneys worth from the memory maker package. Following along.

 

[DisneyFreakEst1994]

Thank you so much! We were a little obsessed with our costumes and yours were awesome as well! The party was an absolute blast-- we picked a great night, right?!

Thanks! and yeah, that night was amazing!! The best party I've been to so far

 

[abzoo]

Next, we had to head over to Haunted Mansion since we hadn’t ridden yet. We got sidetracked as we were passing 7DMT, which was posted as a 30 minute wait but looked nowhere near that long a line. About 10 minutes later we were on.

THEN we went to Haunted Mansion, which was obviously necessary. We took the Magic Shot out front first and then got on the ride.

SCARY!

But I really really love the lighting on the Haunted Mansion during MNSSHP!

Pet cemetery
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The group split up into 2 doom buggies. As Val took her seat in the first one, those of us in the one behind noticed that Pascal had jumped off of her shoulder. Oh no! Val didn’t realize he was missing until we told her as we disembarked. She was sad and the CMs told her the only thing she could do was call Lost and Found the next day. I guess Pascal just wanted to be the 1000th Happy Haunt.

The party was almost over at that point so we decided to hit Pirates on the way out. We boarded about 5 minutes before midnight and ended up getting stuck when we were close to the exit. The fog waterfall feature wasn’t working at the beginning so that kind of sucked since we didn’t end up riding it again after that. Val kinda hates Magic Kingdom PotC.

 

[abzoo]

We got one more photo on Main Street on the way out, looking a bit disheveled & dead tired.

Don't forget your shoe, Cindy!!

Good night, Magic Kingdom!​

Getting to the Art of Animation bus stop all the way at the end of the line was a bit of a struggle with our sore legs. Here are some super cute pictures of our exhaustion when we got back to the hotel. They represent the end of the night so very well.

couldn't even tell you why we were on the floor...

Alright. That's finally it for Day 4. Next, we spend the day at Universal and Islands of Adventure!​

 

[mrdrift]

What and exciting adventure the MNSSHP was. Thank you for sharing in such detail what the party is all about. Now I must go to the party next year. Sorry to hear about Pascal leaving Val. Hopefully he turns up at lost and found. Following along.

 

[abzoo]

What and exciting adventure the MNSSHP was. Thank you for sharing in such detail what the party is all about. Now I must go to the party next year. Sorry to hear about Pascal leaving Val. Hopefully he turns up at lost and found. Following along.

I definitely recommend the Halloween party! It was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. Everything about it was awesome and dressing up was so much fun. Thank you for following!!

 

[FlaggNL]

Thank you!! More coming soon!

And thank you! Can't wait for more!!

 

[abzoo]

Wednesday, October 22. Universal Day!​

After our late-ish night at MNSSHP, we needed to ready to leave bright and early to drive offsite to Universal the next morning. This was actually the day where we made the best start since even with the drive we were able to make it to our destination before Islands of Adventure opened for the day (USF opened earlier for hotel guests so we decided that this should not be our first stop).

Didn’t mention it earlier but Cassie did not join us at Universal this day. She didn’t share this plan with the rest of the group until a couple of days before but oh well. I convinced her to use her extra day on her WDW ticket and do some park hopping without us. She sent us a few updates throughout the day, including this picture of retrieving our little runaway Pascal. Huzzah!!

She went to Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

and Epcot.

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So back at Universal, we started toward Wizarding World but made a couple stops along the way. First was Spiderman. I had never been on this and was worried about feeling queasy after going on a simulator but it ended up being pretty good.