Funny little things from our trip

In this trip report, I am going to include some of the "different" things that happened or that we noticed during our trip. Alos, some of the special magical moments. Our trip was March 31-April 7 and we stayed at the Swan. This report will be posted in installments.

First funny thing that happened was my DS age 9 got his bag searched in security here at home.....all those Disney pins he insisted on bringing must have looked pretty strange on the X-Ray....we didn't let him live it down for a long time.....the security was very nice to him and even commented on how nice his collection was...... :lol:

We used Quick Silver Limo for our transportation, and also had a free grocery stop. I can't say enough good things about our driver. The grocery stop allowed me to stock up on some water, juice boxes and snacks. Highly recommend this company.

Since my DH is a Platinum member of Sheraton/Westin, we got a nice surprise when we checked in.....they gave us a card that let the kids eat free at any of the Dolphin/Swan restaurants. So, instead of eating hotdogs, we went to Gullivers for the buffet....a nice way to start the vacation.

On one of our bus rides (we were on our way to Typhoom Lagoon), our driver pulled over at DDT and we had a driver change. OK, this happens.....but we ended up getting a driver with a severe case of OCD (My DH said he was like "Monk") We were the only ones on the bus and he apparently felt that the previous driver had some very contagious conditions. He proceeded to clean every surface the other driver may have been able to touch.....not once or twice, but at least 3 times each. He cleaned the little microphone 5 times (we counted) and the steering wheel 4 times.......we were ready to jump up and start screaming, but figured it would then take him longer. Our little bus trip to TL ended up taking almost an hour........:hammer:

Notes on TL: the first aid station is very friendly....we know this because my DS age 6 ended up there two separate times! He sadly inherited my coordination......He was at Kitch Creek (little kids area) and managed to find the 1 hard surface and really banged up his arms and elbows....the nurse there eased his tears and bandaged him up. Later, my DH took him back there.....same place, banged up his knees....different nurse.....sigh....poor kid. He took it all in stride and we all had a great time. Weather was perfect :sohappy:

Another note on TL: if your child drops their hotdog in the sand, they will replace it for free......

More to come in a bit!
 
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GoofyMom2

GoofyMom2

New Member
Original Poster
LOL....we did throw away the hot dog!! :lol:

OK, here are some Photo Pass observations:

I had decided before the trip to take full advantage of the Photopass. Every time I saw a photographer, I had them take some pictures. I just made sure I had my card with me at all times and had them scan it. We saw tons of photographers this trip. If we had 1 take pics in front of the castle, sometimes we even moved to another photographer to get multiple angles etc. I also handed them my camera so they took some with mine as well.

Some of the spots (in front of castle, Tree of Life) etc had us do things like hold our hands together, hold a hat etc. So, they could add Tinkerbell, baby Simba etc to the pictures later. More on that to come.

We didn't just do regular poses. Sometimes we had 1 child pose alone, maybe acting silly. In front of ToT, we all pretended to be screaming. We had fun with it. (we call that "the ride that shall not be named". LOL) (At least I finally got to ride it, even if I was by myself....)

Sometimes there were photographers at character meets, we mostly saw them at MGM where we saw tons of characters.

We also have the Disney Visa so we took advantage of the private meet-n-greet at Innoventions West. The first time we only had 1 family in front of us and we got to see Minnie and Goofy. The second time there was no wait and we saw Donald and Goofy. We really got some great interaction and pictures from those meets. They gave us certificate to get our free 5x7 at the Epcot photo center. I highly recommend this if you have the Disney Visa!

Overall we had almost 100 photos. Not the most we had heard of, but a nice amount. I purchased the CD from Epcot Photo center on our last afternoon.

It took almost an hour to get the thing done. My photo guy (Tony I believe) was excellent and went through each picture, photo shopping as needed (some were edited a little). But the best part was he was able to add borders, signatures, logos etc to the pictures. Also, those special pictures I mentioned above had Tinkerbell, Simba, and Stitch added and it looked like we were holding them. They really were cute! Some of my favorites included standing in front of the castle at night holding Tink and the kids at AK holding baby Simba. On the CD, they include the non-edited pics and the ones with stuff added. It cost $99.95 plus tax. I was told that all the extras can only be added at the parks and can not be done online, but I have heard conflicting reports on this.

The pictures of us in front of the castle at night made this all worth while.....the colors are excellent. Much better than those from my camera.

I noticed I had to approach the photographers, but they were easy to spot. Most assumed since I already had a card they didn't need to explain the process. We only had to wait a couple of times to get pics done.

I also noticed that these are the only pictures I am in! Some day I have to learn to hand off the camera........

OK, not funny stories, but thought this would be good to post for anyone wanting to know about this program.

More stuff a little later!
 
GoofyMom2

GoofyMom2

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Original Poster
OK, some notes on MK

I looked for a lot of the special touches here (Lady and the Tramp footprints etc) and hidden Mickeys, took a lot of great pictures of these hidden treasures. People kind of lokked at me funny a couple of times...... I love the pics I got of the Cinderella murals in the castle.

We watched Wishes twice, and thanks from recommendations from great peeps here, we saw them from the bridge to Tomorrowland. Tink buzzed us twice and we had a great view. Highly recommend this location!

I also got a Dole Whip on 2 separate occasions...yum! Funny note: if it is 9:40 and Wishes is at 10:00, and your son insisits on getting an icream CONE (which Dole Whip stand doesn't have), it is possible to manuvear through Adventureland and thousands of people through the hub to Tomorroland, where they DO have cones and still be able to make the bridge for the fireworks........ I wouldn't recommend this to anyone else....the things we do for our kids......

Casey's is also open till midnight on EMH nights....good thing since we had skipped dinner that day due to a huge lunch....

Note from Indy Speedway: this ride taught me my son is (thankfully) a long way from getting his driver's liscense......

We rode Stitch's Great Escape....we had been warned, sorry we didn't listen. This was a horrible experience and I am now passing on my warning to others. My DS is a huge fan of Stitch and he said this was the worst ride he ever went on. Oh, BTW, that "smell" seems to stay with you. I had someone eating a smoked turkey leg in front of me later and I thought I was going to lose it..... :hurl:

We rode JC twice in a row....our first Skipper was bad, sorry to say, even my DS said something to me. So we hopped on again and our second Skipper was fantastic, had us really laughing.....PoTC was closed that week for it's refurb, bummer......

Rode Magic Carpets of Alladdin and DS made sure I was squirted twice by the camel......Rode Space M twice also using FP. Went to see CBJ and I have to agree that it needs some work. Things were out of synch and bears looked a bit "dusty". But it's still a classic.......

We went to Toontown Fair and waited in line to see the Princesses. When we got up there, my DS age 9 got very shy and wouldn't go up to them....DS age 6 had no problems. Snow White was fantastic, she walked over to him to talk, telling him she has another friend like him and his name is Bashful, etc. He finally went over to pose for a picture. Thank you Snow White!

If you want to read some funny stories on our dining experiences, please read my trip report for picky eaters......

My children learned very quickly the secrets to the busses....they would jump on and grab a seat, sometimes even saving one for me.....:animwink:

Epcot:

What is going on with Club Cool??? Most of the drink varieties were not available, much to the dissapointment of many. We demand our watermelon soda back!!

We spent a lot of time in the Innoventions sections. The kids really had a blast. We even got to build a free "robot" made of plastic to take home. This was a great free souvinear for the kids. When we ate lunch at the Garden Grill, many of the characters made a fuss over the robots on the table, got a cute picture of Chip playing with one.

We finally got to ride TT....whoohoo! Rode it twice using FP, once in the morning, once at night. I have to say that at night is better because when you go outside you are not suddenly blinded by the sunlight......Kids did the Kidcot fun stations here and at LS and the Land.

Went to Living Seas on 2 separate days, both times Turtle Talk with Crush had a huge wait (almost an hr) so we didn't get to see it this time.....But we enjoyed looking at everything else and I got my traditional pic of the kids in front of Nemo and friends, even if they were groaning during it......

DS age 9 and I also rode Soarin and it was incredible! MY DH has a severe phobia of heights so not a ride for him. Waits for this ride were about 70 min, we used FP. Loved the smell of oranges.....

1 day I went back to Epcot in the evening by myself for a couple of hours (kids and DH were pooped out) It was a real treat (sorry kids) I got to see Off Kilter, listened to the British Invasion while eating Fish and Chips in the UK gardens, I watched the acrobats in China, and went through the Stave church in Norway. Funny thing I saw in Canada: in the waterfall in the back section there were 2 lightsabers bobbing in the surf, looked really odd and out of place. Wonder how they got there........

Sad moment: I bought a really great fizzy/strawberry/wine drink in Germany. I put it down to take a picture of SSE acrossed the water all lit up, and of course it spilled.....moment of silence, please......I now refer to that picture as my $5 picture.....

Rode MS twice and the entire family had fun playing in the Space Station (?) area inside. We participated twice in the challenge game (we even won!) Not much wait for MS so we didn't need FP either time.

Topiaries were going in the week we were there......it was fun seeing new ones each time we went.....

Off to bed for now, promise a little more to come tomorrow!
 
GoofyMom2

GoofyMom2

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Original Poster
Let's see if I can finish this up! :animwink:

Animal Kingdom:

We ended up being there the day before the Official Opening of EE, so it was closed for the press events. We did get wrist bands to get the special "countdown" pins so we got day 6, they also had some day 5 available so we got a couple of those. Hopefully we will be able to ride EE next trip.

AK was very busy (and a bit hot) on the day we went, but we still had a great time. We went on KS two times (a few hours apart). This was great because we got to see different animals each time. First time there were no giraffes to be seen, second time they were standing in the road and caused a traffic jam! We also spent a lot of time on the different trails....my DS and I love to see how many birds we can find in the 2 aviaries. One very pretty red parrot type bird was really posing for pics. We also got to see a tiger up very close.

We (I should say the adults) ate at Tusker House, then we went to Pizzafari for the kids. I swear, I cannot get away from that place no matter how hard I try......

We watched a lot of the entertainment in Africa: muscians, acrobats etc. We also talked to some CM from Botswana and one gave us a map of her home country to take home.

We missed the Flights of Winder show 2 times by 5 min....some day I will get to see it. Since it was so crowded, we skipped FOTLK for the first time, but my younger DS and I saw the Pocahantas show. They have the first 3 or 4 rows saved just for the kids and they all loved it. They had so many real animals on stage. My older DS said he was "too old" to see it, but I think he would have liked it. Pocahantas was very talented , a great singing voice! They also gave the kids paper leaves to take home (keeps them from taking the prop leaves that blow around).

Oh oh, computer giving me problems....let me post so I don't lose all this....
 
GoofyMom2

GoofyMom2

New Member
Original Poster
Hopefully computer won't freeze up on me.....

In AK I found a watch and gave it to a CM....he said "you wouldn't believe the things we have in our Lost and Found". Hmmmm, wonder what's in there.....

A lot of CM were very busy setting up things for the press events. On the way out after closing, we were filmed going across the bridge at Africa....wonder if we ended up on some special somewhere.....

After our AK day, we headed over to AKL for dinner (Boma) and a looksee around. DS age 9 decided to throw a fit (overtired) just before getting on the bus to AKL....he ended up being fine a few minutes after we arrived at AKL, but nothing like the looks you get when your son is throwing a temper tantrum...... I admit, I am the meanest Mommy in the world..... I make my son go to WDW and have fun, I apologize....... :rolleyes:

We really enjoyed looking around AKL, especially seeing the animals in the Savannahs. We even got to look through the night vision googles at the savannah near the pool. I tell you, that was very cool. There was no one behind us so we got a lot of time to look. Got to get me a pair of those! Kids all voted to stay at AKL someday....I put my vote in as well!

MGM

We saw a lot of characters at MGM, from Donald Duck (barely any wait) to Power Rangers, to Buzz and Woody. We even saw Kim Possible and Ron with no wait, but even our kids didn't want to go up to them (so sorry, guys). So I went up and said hello and shook their hands......

It seemed we were about 10 min off for every show we wanted to see, and the Backlot Tour had a 45 min wait. But at least we got to go on RNRC and I got to go on ToT (By myself). I think we were all tired this day and so we didn't really do that much, combination of heat, being tired and crowds is not a good thing. We ate at 50's Prime Time Cafe.

Kids enjoyed the Honey I Shrunk.... playset and we spent a lot of time in there..... not for everyone but fun for our kids.

I will post final notes in a bit....
 

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