Cue the magic, Mickey bars, Ferrari and rain - we've got a 5th Anniversary trip report!

Every trip I return with the full intention to do a trip report, and often I get sidetracked. However, this one is happening!

First, here we are, DH - Rich (31) and myself, Jessica (28)

Disclaimer: This was taken very early in the morning, forgive the tired eyes, we were heading to the WDW Speedway for Rich's drive experience which we needed to be at for 7:30 am.

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We don't always look like zombies. However, sometimes we can be a little, hmmm, what's the word - stone-faced?

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We of course decided that our 5th anniversary must be celebrated at our happy place. Originally the trip started as a birthday gift for my husband. The gift wasn't the trip itself, but that I booked him to drive the Ferrari 458 Italia at the Exotic Driving Experience at Walt Disney World Speedway. At our Kingdom Konsultant Agent Education Program back in January, us lucky agents were able to do thrill rides in the exotic cars. Meanwhile, my husband was back home in cold Massachusetts, working and tending to the house and dogs. To say he was jealous was an understatement. So, naturally, feeling so horribly bad for him, I booked him a driving experience for his birthday. (It had nothing to do with the fact that if we were going to travel all the way to Florida for him to drive a Ferrari it would make sense to just make a trip out of it - nothing at all)

Once he found out about his drive experience, we decided to make it a week-long stay celebrating our 5th anniversary (my plan worked). We stayed from September 14 - 21, at Pop Century. On the 16th, my father and stepmother would be arriving at Caribbean Beach Resort (they live in North Carolina) and would meet up with us throughout the day. This was also my first trip with my new SLR and I came back with nearly 4000 pictures (I won't post all of them, I promise) so that was a celebration within itself. So now that we've gotten the introduction out of the way let's move on. Everybody neat and pretty? Then on with the show!
 

Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 1: September 14

We woke up early (myself at 3:30 am, Rich at 4:00 am) and were up and out of the house by 4:30 on our way to T.F. Green airport. Though we live in Mass, we're actually closer to Providence by about 20 minutes than we are to Boston. We also really like the smaller size of the airport, and being that we fly Southwest all the time, it just works for us. We arrived at the airport around 5:15, parked the car in the long term lot and hopped on a shuttle to the main terminal. Checking our bags and getting through security were a breeze, and before we knew it we were waiting at our gate. We began boarding around 6:30 (A-43 and A-44, we also do Early Bird Check-in all the time as well). We were up in the sky and on our way to the Sunshine State in no time!

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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We landed at MCO around 9:20 (about 30 minutes early). As we began our final descent, I noticed a large rainwall off in the distance. When we got off our plane, it was still sunny. By the time we made it outside to the Magical Express pickup area, it was pouring. It lasted just about until we approached the WDW sign, then the sun began to shine through.

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I had done online check-in, so our packet was ready and waiting for us. We first headed to our room to drop off our carry on bags, sweatshirts, etc., and get our stuff ready for the parks. Ladies, you know, getting everything in to the new Vera bag you got at the Vera outlet for a great price and bought it specifically for your next trip. I know you know! After getting ourselves together, we headed up to Everything Pop and grabbed a quick, healthy lunch - chicken nuggets and fries. Then after we refueled, we were on our way to my absolute most favorite place ever - The Magic Kingdom!

My past two trips were without DH. Having him at MK with me made me so happy!

When we arrived, MK was fully decked out with Autumn beauty! We got to MK around 1:30, and planned on staying until around 6:30. It was a Friday, which meant MK closed at 7:00 for MNSSHP. It worked out well, having been up so early, we knew we'd be calling it an early night to catch up on some sleep. When we arrived, the waits weren't too bad. We took a right into Tomorrowland (totally against my ritual, normally we head to Adventureland). At this point, the rain began again. We did the Laugh Floor (so fun, great participants that day), Space Ranger Spin, Carousel of Progress and PeopleMover all within an hour. I was ecstatic with the wait times. If only it stayed this way! We headed up to Storybook Circus so Rich could check it out, made our way through Fantasyland to get a glimpse of the awesome new castle wall. I've never been so very excited for a wall before! After passing through, we did Mickey's Philharmagic and then we made our way to the Haunted Mansion. By this point we noticed the crowds were starting to follow. It seemed as we got off each ride, the line grew 3 x the size of what it was when we went on. We cut through Frontierland over to Adventureland. Took a cruise through the jungle and sailed with some pirates. We had intentions of getting on Big Thunder, until we saw the wait time. My goodness, the crowds had arrived! We assumed it was for MNSSHP, but who knows. The wait times for everything were jumping (thanks to the My Disney Experience app for telling us, which we fully utilized, it was awesome). We decided to call it a day at MK, wandering through some shops on the way out. I was on a mission this trip to find a new Dooney. But it had to be a perfect pattern, which I did find on our last full day!


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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
They got the point... in the end.

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I want this for my backyard. That would make me smile every day. Are you listening HGTV?

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This was taken on our way out, you can tell the crowd levels had picked up a bit:

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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After we returned to Pop, we decided to have some dinner. I didn't make any ADRs for our first night. Knowing that we would be running on little sleep, I wasn't sure how the day would go. I asked Rich if he wanted to head to Art of Animation for dinner.

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I was at AoA on opening day and really wanted to show him the Cars courtyard because I had been so impressed with it. It was starting to get darker when we walked over, so we grabbed dinner at Landscape of Flavors and then made our way to the Cars courtyard.

Rich opted for the Pastrami Cheeseburger:

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I went with a create-your-own burger. Nothing too crazy here!

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The burgers were both delicious (those pickles are just fantastic). The fries were great, too. Light on the grease, a good crisp and season. Even Rich liked them (he's not much a fry guy). After dinner we wandered through the lobby and out to the Cars courtyard. I had only seen the Cars area during the day, and from behind a fence and out a window (I did a suite tour and it was still closed off opening day). Walking through at night was a whole other experience. It was fantastic. I know that it isn't nearly as grand, but made me extra eager to head out west to Cars Land.

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I'll take this for my front yard... Ty Pennington, you hearing me?!

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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 2: September 15

We woke up, got ready and headed out around 10:00 (late start). We got to Epcot and the sun was shining so nice and warm. Oh, how I love the Florida sunshine and warmth. Love, love, love it.

Rich held on to my camera while I got myself situated with my bag and snapped this beauty. Not too shabby! Good morning Spaceship Earth!

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There was a bit of a line to get on SSE, which we normally do on our way out of the park anyway, so we opted to head toward The Seas.

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This is an iPhone picture (there will be a few thrown in here). He wore this shirt solely for this purpose.

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Monorail!

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Mine!
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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After visiting our friends in The Seas, we made our way over to The Land. It was about 11:30 now. We were meeting up with my good friend Shalon aka wvugeograd (who was a former client of mine, now residing about 10 minutes from WDW). She would be meeting up with us shortly, so we decided to grab lunch at Sunshine Seasons as we hadn't eaten breakfast and were rumbly in our tumbly at this point. Shalon met up with us about 15 minutes later. Rich and I both got the turkey and monterey jack on ciabatta with chipotle mayonnaise. It was really good. It came with a side of potato salad, which was different. It was pretty good. We had this meal later on in the trip and opted for a different side. Shalon had a muffin. Forgot to take pictures of the sandwiches. They looked like sandwiches.

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After lunch, we headed to Living with the Land. When Rich and I first got to The Land, the wait was at 30 minutes and the line extended almost to the Soarin' queue! By the time we were done with our lunch, the wait time had dwindled to 10 minutes. We love LwtL. It's one of our favorites in Epcot. So relaxing. We were in the very first row of the boat and had quite a breeze, almost to the point that it was chilly. But it was awesome anyways.

Oh how I love when the shade snaps open and reveals this! I'll add this on to my dream home, along with my Jungle Cruise Pool and Cars driveway. I'll never need to go to the farmer's market again!

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After LwtL, we checked the Soarin' wait time... it was 70 minutes. FastPasses were for between 4:30 - 5:30. We had a 5:15 ADR at Rose & Crown, so that wouldn't work. We didn't even think to grab them before lunch (Rich dislikes the height deal on Soarin' so if it's just us two, we normally skip it). It's okay, there's always next trip! Plus, we were eager to get to our favorite part of Epcot - World Showcase!

We made our way through the rose garden, stopping for pictures of course! (I need to take in all the flora I can, I won't be seeing it again for another 7 months living in New England!)

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Monorail!

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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Heading to World Showcase, we always start in Mexico. On our way there, we made a stop in Disney Traders.

Duffy eating Shalon's head:
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Hola!

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There's my husband, texting at the fountain.

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We took a ride on the Gran Fiesta Tour, did some merchandise browsing and then headed into La Cava. Shalon got sangria, Rich went with the Coffee Margarita and I got the Blood Orange Margarita.

Coffee on the left, Blood Orange on the right. Both delicious. (sorry, iPhone picture)

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CHEERS!

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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
When we got outside, we stopped to listen to Mariachi Cobre play for a bit. We did some more browsing in Norway.

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We were heading for Maelstrom when I really started feeling a bit dizzy. I never drink, hardly ever and I think that combined with the heat, well it just made me feel gross. So I knew I'd better sit down and drink some water for a bit. I also snacked on this delicious pretzel DH got for me:

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After about 45 minutes I felt normal again (well, as normal for me as it can get) and we went to China. We watched Reflections of China and heading into the shops when it started downpouring outside. I think we spent a good hour inside the stores while the rain let up. Thankfully there's lots of fun stuff to take pictures of in there.

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I don't know the technical term for them, but Rich always has to stop and have a run with the flippy sticks (as I call them). He had a set growing up, and he's actually quite skilled at them. I guess if his day job doesn't work out, he can always be a professional flippy stick demonstrator. He even had an audience of about 20 people at one point, but I guess being stuck in a store for an hour, you'll take whatever entertainment you can get.

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myhappyplace

Crazy Cat Lady
Premium Member
Every trip I return with the full intention to do a trip report, and often I get sidetracked. However, this one is happening!

First, here we are, DH - Rich (31) and myself, Jessica (28)

Disclaimer: This was taken very early in the morning, forgive the tired eyes, we were heading to the WDW Speedway for Rich's drive experience which we needed to be at for 7:30 am.



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OMG, you look like Mayim Biyalik (I think that's how you spell it) in this!! Anyway, not like zombies at all, and I'm going to continue reading now...just had to say that :p
 

Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I tucked my camera away for a bit because although the downpours lightened up a bit, it was still raining pretty good. Next time I took out the camera was in Italy.

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Our ADR time was approaching, so we wandered our way to the UK pavilion to check in at Rose & Crown. I didn't stop for pictures anywhere. The sky was pretty dark still and looked as if it could pour on us at any time, so I didn't want to take the camera out. Plus I'd be back on a sunnier day for that!

We checked in a bit early to Rose & Crown, and were seated about 10 minutes later on the covered patio, overlooking World Showcase. It was a great view despite the clouds (camera was still tucked away so I snapped it with my phone).

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Rich and Shalon ordered the Fish & Chips. I don't do seafood, so I opted for the Slow-cooked Chicken Curry. Rich and Shalon loved their Fish & Chips. My chicken was good.

(I swear I use my camera a lot more on this trip!)

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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After dinner we finished off our world tour in Canada. We stopped and listened to Off Kilter for a little, before continuing on to go see O Canada!

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The view of Italy from Canada. *sigh* What I wouldn't give to be there right now!

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Disney_Belle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We made our way to Future World to head home for the day. We had a very early wakeup the next morning (6:00 am!) followed by a long day (MK PM EMH) so we didn't want to run ourselves too tired.

On our way out, the sun was shining so beautifully on SSE, so I stopped to snap a couple of pictures. We noticed something moving on the ground. It was a remote control Monorail with Perry on top, with a trail of stickers. One of the Cast Members had the remote behind her back and no one could figure out where and what was controlling this. It was hysterical. Some people ran from it, others smiled and took a sticker, one lady even picked it up and was going to throw it away lol! Perry had a sign that said, "Please take a sticker." Of course, one person kept unrolling the stickers and took about 25.

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A couple of shots of SSE:

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Shalon was a peach and offered to drive us back to Pop, which we graciously accepted. And on the way out to the parking lot, this beautiful sky happened:

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Stay tuned for days 3 - 8!
 

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