englanddg's Magical Mystery Tour!

englanddg · Sep 30, 2012

Day 12
Check Out / Check In, Flying First Class, One Last Hug

Magic Moments - 3 (My flight to DC)
Pics Taken - 63
Vid for Projects Taken - 11
Discomforts (bug bites/etc) - 0
Unexpected Surprises - 0
Peeves - 0

Breakfast - Coffee (me), Mickey Waffles (her) (Pop)
Lunch - Braised Cobia, Almond Cheesecake (me), Beef Tenderloin, Ice Cream (her) (Cinderella's Royal Table, Magic Kingdom)
Early "Dinner" - Turkey Leg, Mac and Cheese Hot Dog, Cookies and Cream Ice Cream (both) (Fairfax Fare, Hollywood Studios)
Snacks - 2 sodas, 1 dole whip, 1 cream cheese pretzel, 1 popcorn, 1 mickey ice cream, 1 cookies and cream, 1 mickey rice crispy treat

Dinner Credits left - 6
Snack Credits left - 0
____________________________________

"Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy." - Walt Disney

Well, now it's my turn to go back.

We started the day early, grabbing a quick breakfast of mickey waffles (another tradition) in the Pop food court before heading over to check out of the hotel and check in to our airline.

Today I found that Disney had already checked me into my airline, and the boarding passes were hanging on my front door. I don't remember this service from previous visits, but it's very nice.

Luggage trailing behind me, and the kid sporting her new bookbag with pride, we hiked over to Bell Services. Normally I would actually check my bags here, but since we were leaving with pretty much what we arrived with (like I said, we really didn't do much shopping this year at all for some reason), I didn't feel the need. Checking the bags at the airport isn't a big deal, and the Magical Express would have us there well before our flight, so no time pressures either.

So, we dropped off our bags and carry-ons with Bell Services. The Bellhop noticed that one of my bags was a laptop bag, and asked if I'd like to have it locked in the "secure part" of the room, nice touch. They've never asked me that before. Maybe CBR doesn't have it.

We had a short wait for a bus to Magic Kingdom, and as we rode the kid lay on my lap and I felt myself wrestling with the feelings that always arise around this time in the trip. This is the last time I'd see this ride for a while. I kept my eyes peeled out the window, as if trying to mentally record every detail lest I forget.

It was cloudy and cool today (around 80 by mid day), and it rained on and off, but no major storms (at least that we ran into). It would have been a perfect day for Animal Kingdom, but we had an appointment at the Castle to keep.

We arrived just as the show was starting, and after the Cast wished me (and all of us) a Good Morning (Good mooorning...I'm humming it now as I type), we grabbed the train and headed off to Frontierland to finish up a few final items.

I grabbed a fast pass for Splash Mountain, and we rode it, requesting the front seat as we always do. After a short wait in the "nook", we were zip-a-dee-dooing along to the brair patch. The view of the castle when we were about to plunge wasn't so great, as it was grey and overcast, but is still one of my favorite views (you MUST try this at night sometime).

Then we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We still had quite a few things the kid wanted to do, so this is the third year in a row I missed the Riverboat (it was closed for refurb in 2010, and something I simply must correct that next visit). We also missed the Hall of Presidents, but that's ok. I much prefer American Adventure at EPCOT, though this trip we didn't do that either.

We rode the Haunted Mansion, and for the first time my kid wasn't buried in my chest the whole ride, only for about half of it. Towards the end, a ghost switched our heads, and she started giggling. Maybe she's starting to realize that these are friendly ghosts who just live in a really spooky place!

We headed over to Peter Pan, and the line was a bit too long for our truncated schedule, so we skipped it and headed back towards Adventureland. We skipped the Jungle Cruise, and did Pirates. I like the movie tie in's, but I like the Davey Jones projection over the Blackbeard one.

We saw the Tiki bird show, which was campy and fun, I'm so glad they brought back the original. She wanted to ride Aladdin, but our Royal Table reservation was fast approaching, so she compromised with a walkthrough of the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse (something we both love doing).

On our way to the royal table, I grabbed a Dole Whip (gotta burn up those snack credits!), and we munched on that for a bit. I prefer to eat these on really hot days, which certainly wasn't today with it's on off drizzles and overcast sky, but it's a must do to eat one, so we did (though, we didn't finish it).

The Lunch menu at Royal Table is a truncated version of the dinner menu, and I decided on the Cobia. Cobia is a Kingfish, and reminds me of Swordfish. It's not my favorite fish, but is popular in restaurants because it's farm-raised (therefore "green") and it's lack of fishy taste makes it popular among diners. This was braised in a Pomodoro Sauce (think Marinara, it's very similar, both are tomato based and are prepared almost the same, but a Pomodoro sauce is stewed longer, and is darker and less chunky). This was served over angel hair pasta with a splash of greens on the top. It was quite good, and I enjoyed it.

The kid is a steak and potatoes girl, so you can imagine what her choice was, once she found out it was an option. The princesses were wonderful as usual, and I always find this a fitting end to a visit.

After this, we had some time to burn before the 3p parade, so we headed over to Space Mountain to squeeze in one last ride. On our way back to our traditional perch at the head of main street across from the Railway Station, I stopped by the Lunching Pad and got a cream cheese pretzel, which I nibbled as we walked over Tomorrowland Terrace and out of the park.

I'd never had a cream cheese pretzel before, and it wasn't at all what I expected, but it was delicious! It has a crumb coating that is slightly sweet, and the inside is more like sweetened cream cheese. Not really regular cream cheese, not really cream cheese icing. More like something in between. It took a few bites to analyze the taste and decide whether I liked it or not, but I definitely did, and will be checking this out again in the future. (thanks Freshee)

We slowly walked towards our haunt, and the parade was about to start up. I guess the on and off drizzles kept people away from the parade, because it wasn't very crowded at all. We put down my poncho, and sat on the curb. I ran over and picked up some popcorn and a soda, and we watched it roll by.

We said our final goodbyes with a long look at the castle and a small lump in my throat.

We still had time before heading out for the Magical Express, and so I asked the kid if there was any last minute thing she'd like to do before we left.

Of course, her answer was Rockin' Roller Coaster. So, we snagged the Resort Monorail Line and headed over to Contemporary, where we grabbed a bus to Hollywood Studios.

She raced back to the ride, and though the sign board said 40 minutes, the wait was more like 20, and we were slung into the fluorescent blacklit world of Aerosmith for one last high speed run!

We still had time left (but not much), so on our way out I stopped by Fairfax Fare to try and burn up some more Dining Credits. While I got a Turkey Leg and a Macaroni and Cheese Hot Dog with Bacon and Truffle Oil, she went and got an ice cream.

The Turkey Leg tasted a bit dry, but since it will be a year before I have one again, it was nice to have a few bites. The Mac and Cheese Hot Dog is certainly a fork dog, but I didn't have one and we dug into it. It was good. I couldn't taste any hint of Truffle Oil, so I don't know if it was just overpowered or left off. In any case, the dog really doesn't need it. It's pretty good. My only gripe (outside of the rather bland Disney Hot Dogs itself) was that they served it on a large white loaf instead of a more traditional bun. I assume this is to withstand the bulk of the toppings, but it meant that you had to eat through a lot of bread to get to the dog, so before you get your first real bite, the whole thing has mostly fallen apart. Like I said, use a fork and knife. You will want a little bit of everything on each bite.

If you are looking for a fun snack and are in that area, I recommend it.

We didn't finish any of this, though I did scoop the ice cream into the cone that came with it and the Kid munched it on her walk out of the park, finishing it just as we were getting to the bus stop.

We missed the Art of Animation bus by a hair, but another one came along before the Pop bus did, so we grabbed that. Once more, I love the fact that they put the stops together so I can pretty much grab whichever bus I wish.

We walked back through Art, and they were playing this really catchy CD of Disney Songs being covered by various artists. I wanted to pick up a CD of it, thinking Disney sells everything, right? So, we stopped by the gift shop. No go. These songs are not yet available. I hope Disney corrects this in the future, as I thoroughly enjoyed the few songs I heard.

A quick hike back to Pop, the Magical Express was already there. We unchecked our bags from bell services, and got on board.

On the way out, there was a very bad accident (T-bone), and I saw people on body boards. I know this is standard practice, and I hope everyone was ok. Both cars were pretty beat up. In the back of my mind I noted that one should still drive with extra care in the rain, even at the Happiest Place on Earth.

The bus ride was uneventful, with the kid napping on my arm. We checked in, and I splurdged a bit and bumped us up to first class. Then we walked the Universal and Disney Stores, stopping to get another engraved luggage tag for each of us at the Disney Store.

These are neat, and you can get them all over the parks with different designs. The one I normally do is at the exit of Mission Space, but it was broken this year, so no go.

Look for the larger one, and you can put 5 lines on it. It easily holds my name (line 1), 2 phone numbers (line 2), my address (line 3), City State Zip (line 4) and email address (line 5). I have several of these, not only on my luggage and carryons, but inside them as well...just in case. They are metal, so unlike paper tags, no fear if they get wet.

We grabbed some McDonalds to eat on the plane. The made an announcement for a final boarding call (that wasn't our flight), and my kid, with her new backpack on, bag of food in one hand and drink in the other, bolted down the hall thinking it was referring to our flight. I called out "Don't run", and she was trying to respond (I assume to inform me our plane was leaving), and she fell smack on her face. Thankfully it was a carpeted portion. Something about airports and her falling this year...maybe it's just her age and rapidly growing body...

After checking her over and calming her down (mostly embarrassment, a LOT of people saw it, and everyone was very sweet, trying to help her up, offering to carry her bag for her, etc), we sat down and munched on fries while waiting for the boarding line to thin out (I don't like boarding in the crowd, and just wait until there are only a few people in line before I approach the gate). Fresh fries calmed her mood, and before I knew it she was back to her chipper self again.

We boarded the plane, and settled in for the 2 hour flight. She got tucked in under her blanket (note, pack a blanket and a stuffed animal or pillow for the flight in the kids carry on. If your kid is anything like mine, they'll thank you for it later). She enjoyed the larger seats, as she could curl up in it, but I sortof missed pushing up the armrest (in first class, we had a fixed armrest) and having her sleep on my lap.

I flew on AirTran for this flight, as they had the latest flight out of Orlando. We were heading to Washington, DC to drop her off with her mother, and I have a hotel room to squat in overnight before taking a very early flight back to Atlanta and going back to the real world.

This is my second AirTran flight in a while (I flew them a lot a few years ago), and I must comment that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Their fleet is older, but the people seem to genuinely like doing their jobs, and I found both flights very inviting, from check-in through landing. I will certainly be checking out AirTran for future flights.

So, the time had come for the pilot to introduce himself to us, his passengers. The intercom sounded up, and he said:

"Hello everyone, we'd like to welcome you to the Millenium Falcon. I am Captian Luke Skywalker, and sitting to my right is our co-pilot for this trip, Han Solo. Our flight engineer, Chewbacca, is having trouble with the hyperspace drive right now, but he's downstairs working on it (someone, I assume the co-pilot, did a reasonable Chewbacca growl in the background). If he can't get it going then we should expect our flight to the planet of Washington DC to take around 2 hours. The weather on that planet is 76 degrees, and it has been raining most of the day, but we should miss those storms. If Chewie can fix the hyperdrive, and we don't run into any Imperial interferance, we will take a shortcut through the kessel run at 12 parsecs. We hope you enjoy your flight on the Falcon, she's the best ship in the Galaxy."

I am glad they don't serve coffee pre-flight or I would have spit it all over the chair in front of me.

What's best is that the Pilot kept this ruse up the whole flight. We had a good tailwind, and got in about 15 minutes early. On his pre-landing announcement, he said the Chewie had indeed fixed the hyperdrive, and it had saved us considerable time on our trip.

How unique and fun!

We landed, and I called the kids mom. She was already on her way, and about a half hour later we were saying goodbye after a long and fun summer (she's been visiting with me since late June).

Right as they were about to pull off, they hit the brakes, and she bounded out of the car and ran to me and said "I want just one last hug!"

<sniffle>

Well, there it is. My trip is technically over (though I have one last flight, no reason to trip report that one...it's not really Disney related)

Over the weekend I'm going to review all my posts and do a post-trip analysis to close out this trip report where I will add more pictures to previous posts, elaborate on things I missed or skimmed over, and specifically run through lessons I learned and things I want to do (or should do) for the next trip.

Once again, thanks to everyone who has been following us on this adventure, and I'm glad you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing. I can't wait to read about others adventures as I anticipate my next trip!

englanddg · Sep 30, 2012

My first video from the trip:

englanddg · Sep 30, 2012

My second video from the trip

englanddg · Sep 30, 2012

So, it's time for my summary...

First, I want to thank all of you who virtually came along on this trip with me. Your daily comments and feedback inspired me to keep posting daily

I tried to keep the posts informational as well as entertaining.

So, I hope that others post similar trip reports. Brain Dumping at the end of the day is a wonderful release, and reading back through them, there are already details that I noticed then that are fading in my memory now. In a year, I'm going to love that I did it. In 15 years, I'm going to probably be embarrassed.

That being said, I'm glad I tugged at the eyelids some nights and made it happen.

That being said, what did I do this time, and what did I miss, what did I learn?

1) I wish I had waited before anticipating our trip stuff. I spent a lot of money on pins, pre-trip, as the kid loved them the past two trips, so I thought it was a shoe in.

It was of no interest to my kid when we showed up. Rather, she wanted to do Sorceror's of the Magic Kingdom, and my money would have been better spent there (or in the bank).

Disney has so much to do, and so many "sub-activities" (as I think of them) like pennies and pin trading, that there really is no reason to anticipate a kid's interest before going. Kids are little adults, and like adults...their moods and fascinations change.

There is no reason to spend money trying to anticipate those interests, as they will likely change once you get there. Just go with the flow, and enjoy it!

2) Lunch ADRs...BAD IDEA! I really regret making so many lunch ADRs, even though I ate some amazing food. if you like to wander around the parks and see how the day unfolds, I wouldn't do too many of these. They are tempting, as you are not pressured to get up and moving for breakfast, but unless you are a strict schedule master (which I am not), you will find that they crimp your style. You'll be rushed between parks, and even within the park, you'll find that you spend more time thinking about the ADR then you do what you want to experience next. Unless you are travelling with a group of adults or teenagers, I'd avoid them.

3) Disney breakfast us no good, pretty much everywhere. Microwaved bacon and mediocre waffles stink, even if you have a "omelet chef" tossed in to make your eggs. (If you disagree, please let me know...but for now, I'm done with them)

4) Not Disney, but if you do Universal, it's more then a Day Trip...I thought we'd do 1 day at each park, and one day to snap up all the leftovers...but really I wish we'd done 4 days. It's not that it's really 4 days of rides, it's that if you don't do it often, it's 4 days worth of experiences. (if that makes sense)

5) The Margarita Bar at EPCOT is friendly. Check it out. They serve your drinks in a disposable cup, so you are not stuck there. For adults, it's a nice stop off with some REALLY good drinks (I still want to try many of them). Even with kids/family, I really liked doing it right before my Le Cellier reservation, as I had a warm spot in my belly when I walked in for a great meal.

6) Downtown Disney...don't skimp on renting the boats. I know Winkster and I will agree on this (though we both went on different craft). It's a cost, but my goodness, cruising the lake/river is so much fun. We skipped it in 2011, but did it in 2010 and this past trip, and I won't skip it again. Memories you won't forget, and WELL worth the price.

7) I'm glad I plan longer trips, and if you can afford or plan to do so, I recommend it. You can never tell when someone is going to be ill, or things won't work out as you planned (as anyone who read my trip reports saw).

8) Until they refurb, I won't waste my time with Ellen's Energy Adventure again, nostalgia aside.

9) The Hoop De Hoo is nice, but it has pretty much the same food as Whispering Canyon. I'd rather the hoopla over asking for Ketchup, then sitting through that trip to Ft. Wilderness and seeing the show again. That being said, if you go regularly or are looking for something new to do, not only is the show fun, but the "Wilderness" resorts have a whole range of outdoor activity options from boat rentals to bike rentals to fishing, that I would highly recommend. Any of these experiences are probably worth more then the show.

Well, I suppose I should cut this off at 10...and at 10 I say this...

10) First night in...watch the fireworks from the base of the Castle. I have seen them from all over the park, and that view still trumps them all for me.

I will add, I posted two youtube videos, and there have been questions about them, so I'll end with this:

1) I make youtube videos for every trip, and I used Windows Movie Maker or Pinnacle Studio for them. I spend literally hours trying to figure out what song I am going to use, and in the past it's been a year or so before I get the video put together. This year, I went in with a bit more of a plan (parody of Matt Harding's Dancing 2012 video), so editing went a lot faster, though in retrospect I had better clips to use. Still, I enjoy the process, as it's a great way to relive the trips (and you'll be surprised what you notice in the videos as you edit them), and when thinking about Disney or planning for future trips, these videos are, of course, first stops for me.

2) It's easy to plan videos, if you want to make something similar. Just get a lot of video shots <30 seconds, you'll be surprised how much footage you have when it's all said and done. You don't have to be stuck to a video camera the whole time, or even plan great shots.

So, thanks again for reading and being part of my trip. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. In a year, hopefully, I'll be on my next trip and rambling along again about how it's going.

Until then, I want to hear about YOUR trips, so as I hope you got ideas from mine, I can ideas from yours!

GoalieGirl16 · Sep 30, 2012

I really enjoyed your report. I can't wait to hear about next year's trip. Your daughter seems like a total doll and she will thank you for all that you do and your sensitivity to her in years to come. Keep up the good work as a dad and a Disney fan!

englanddg's Magical Mystery Tour!

englanddg

One Little Spark...

englanddg

One Little Spark...

englanddg

One Little Spark...

englanddg

One Little Spark...

GoalieGirl16

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