Trip Report Goin' Down the Bayou: Takin' You All The Way **COMPLETE**

I sit here at my kitchen table. Paw Patrol is on the TV, toys strewn around the living room. Breakfast made, eaten and cleaned up, coffee re-heated for the third time, and Malcolm down for his first nap. It feels the same, it’s our routine. Did we really just return from 8 days in Disney or was it just a dream? I see little Minnie and Mickey crocs on my counter…Snow White and Tigger stuffed toys in Kinley’s bed… It wasn’t a dream! It was 8 caffeine-fuelled, whirlwind days through Orlando, and somehow we survived to share the story with you all! Did my WDWMagic dreams come true? Did I accomplish all the things I was inspired to do by reading all the trip reports of the past? You’ll have to read along to find out!

Some quick reminders:

Who we are:
Me! (Teresa) and DH Lukas
Our kiddos Kinley (2.5yrs) and Malcolm (5 months)
My sister Emily (@AKemily)
My parents Marj and Kevin (Or “Baba” and “Oy” as Kinley calls them)

When and Where: Feb 1-8, 2018 at POR

We had a great time but MAN are we ever tired. It is a LOT of work bringing 2 kids to Disney World (never mind your parents ). But we had a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to re-living it all as I share with you because it is all still a blur in my mind. But we kept good notes, @AKemily will chime in here and there with her thoughts and feelings, and if you ever needed to see a thousand pictures of a 2 year old meeting Disney characters, we’ve got you covered!

Coming Up: Travel Day 1 - We forget something VERY important on the plane (Not a kid, don’t worry)

 

[krause]

I have a Baba too!!!


Your kids are too cute for words!! You can just see Kinleys excitement in the photos, as well as yours your photos of Sanaa are tempting me. I’m always afraid to try there.. but AKL is too beautiful and your pictures have me drooling

Thanks! I know the kids won’t remember the trip but it is priceless memories for me and it was SO fun seeing her react to everything

You should definitely try Sanaa. I am not an adventurous eater at allll and don’t like anything spicy but I could have eaten this meal every day.

 

[krause]

We arrived around 3:40 and made our way to the Nemo show. It was going for refurb so we knew we had to see it on our first AK day! Unfortunately we got there right as the line was getting long and the 3:00 show was letting out and it was a ZOO. We weaved our way to the standby line and ended up with pretty good seats!

Kinley was fascinated by it and we had the songs stuck in our head for the rest of the day.

Emily loves this show and she thinks that it was the B-cast as Dory failed to impress her and Crush was good but not “as good” as the A-cast.

We had an important FP to get to after that! We made our way back to Pandora.

Obligatory Pandora photos:

FoP was posted at 180 minutes. With our FP+ and the ride experiencing some “technical difficulties” we were in and out in 40 minutes.

Aside from a seemingly never-ending pre-show, of course the ride was AMAZING! The usual complaints that everyone else has had (glasses don’t fit quite right, can see other riders in your peripheral vision), but we loved it!

My mom stayed with the kids (she developed vertigo about 6 months ago and although it is almost completely resolved, it still flares up once in a while and she chose not to risk it and avoided most of the larger rides). I had bought Kinley an Ariel bubble wand earlier and it kept her entertained the whole time! (Yes I bought one of those, yes I hated them when I didn’t have kids, yes I let her use it constantly while walking around the park - sorry, not sorry ).

Next up: Finishing up our Animal Kingdom day

 

[krause]

Then a bit of karma hit. Because I always have an internal laugh at people looking at a map trying to decide where to go and what to do, I took a wrong turn and we took a LOOONNNGGG walk over to Dinoland .

By the time we got there the wait for DINOSAUR was long and we didn’t want to miss RoL. So we decided to walk back to EE/RoL FP+ entrance, but a CM wouldn’t let us walk past the Nemo stage because the RoL standby queue was starting there so we walked ALL the way back around. My Dad and his Sciatica were NOT happy with me .

The EE single rider wait was posted at 20 minutes so me and Em jumped in line while everyone else went to find us seats for RoL. We were in and out in 20 minutes.

We joined everyone for RoL. I was VERY excited for this show and after reading all the trip reports on here I kept my expectations low, hoping to be blown away. I am still torn. I did have a fussy 5 month old strapped to me so that didn’t help. I was happy with it but not blown away. The water effects and floats and everything are cool of course but it didn’t give me all the feels I was hoping for. Will I watch it again? Definitely. Will I watch it again after an 8am EMH morning with a 2 year old and 5 month old? Nope nope nope. I think I will love it with enough time.

We made our way back to POR.

I got the kids to bed while Emily and Lukas went to Riverside Mill and grabbed burgers for everyone. It may have just been because we were starving at this point, but everyone loved their burgers. We learned right here on our very first day that each person could only take 2 alcoholic beverages, so with 5 adults we would need 3 people to go pick up. Well, we forgot this. Every. Time. We. Ordered. Food. Sheesh. A lot of alcoholic beverage credits turned into cokes .

Everyone was asleep around 10:30pm. We were all looking forward to getting to the Magic Kingdom!

 

[ELeigh]

Then a bit of karma hit. Because I always have an internal laugh at people looking at a map trying to decide where to go and what to do, I took a wrong turn and we took a LOOONNNGGG walk over to Dinoland . By the time we got there the wait for DINOSAUR was long and we didn’t want to miss RoL. So we decided to walk back to EE/RoL FP+ entrance, but a CM wouldn’t let us walk past the Nemo stage because the RoL standby queue was starting there so we walked ALL the way back around. My Dad and his Sciatica were NOT happy with me .

The EE single rider wait was posted at 20 minutes so me and Em jumped in line while everyone else went to find us seats for RoL. We were in and out in 20 minutes.
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We joined everyone for RoL. I was VERY excited for this show and after reading all the trip reports on here I kept my expectations low, hoping to be blown away. I am still torn. I did have a fussy 5 month old strapped to me so that didn’t help. I was happy with it but not blown away. The water effects and floats and everything are cool of course but it didn’t give me all the feels I was hoping for. Will I watch it again? Definitely. Will I watch it again after an 8am EMH morning with a 2 year old and 5 month old? Nope nope nope. I think I will love it with enough time.
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We made our way back to POR.
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I got the kids to bed while Emily and Lukas went to Riverside Mill and grabbed burgers for everyone. It may have just been because we were starving at this point, but everyone loved their burgers. We learned right here on our very first day that each person could only take 2 alcoholic beverages, so with 5 adults we would need 3 people to go pick up. Well, we forgot this. Every. Time. We. Ordered. Food. Sheesh. A lot of alcoholic beverage credits turned into cokes .

Everyone was asleep around 10:30pm. We were all looking forward to getting to the Magic Kingdom!

I have seen a lot of photos of pandora but I love the “waterfall” you captured (not sure if that’s what it was), I don’t remember seeing it before.
I was wondering about how many alcoholic beverages one person could “order” at a QS, thanks for sharing that information

 

[krause]

I have seen a lot of photos of pandora but I love the “waterfall” you captured (not sure if that’s what it was), I don’t remember seeing it before.
I was wondering about how many alcoholic beverages one person could “order” at a QS, thanks for sharing that information

Thanks! I have to give photo cred to @AKemily for most (or all) of those Even after seeing hundreds of photos of Pandora I still feel like there was so much more to see!

Yeah the 2 drinks per person rule really bit us. On our next AK day I tried to pick up 5 meals by myself . Luckily we were on the dining plan so when I changed it to fountain drinks I didn't have to try to figure out price differences we could just do a straight swap.

Thanks for reading!

 

[krause]

Day 3 - Magic Kingdom February 3, 2018

As much as we all love Animal Kingdom, it never truly feels like a Disney trip until you get to the Magic Kingdom!

Malcolm woke us up at 6:20am this morning which was fine because it was another EMH morning!

We were at the bus stop at 7:10, on a bus by 7:22 and at the Fantasyland rope by 7:57!

We decided to take advantage of EMH by doing everything that everyone else was not doing. AKA not going to 7DMT or PP.

First stop - something we hadn’t done in years (if ever!). Winnie the Pooh! Fun fact: We live in Winnipeg which is the city that “Winnie” the Pooh is named after!

We walked straight onto a Hunny Pot.

What a ride. It’s very… bizarre. If you’ve never experienced it before it’s very loud and colorful and head-spinning . It was kind of a trippy start to Kinley’s first Magic Kingdom day and she was a bit overwhelmed. So where do you take an overwhelmed 2 year old?? To meet all her favourite princesses of course !

Up Next: Princess Fairytale Hall!

 

[krisri18]

Enjoying your trip report so far ! Everytime I see it in the feed, I start singing the Bayou song out loud (much to Patrick's frustration)

 

[krause]

I have worked tirelessly since October to get Kinley to know and love the princesses. She is a bit of a late talker but her vocabulary has grown immensely since October and most of it is Disney-related . We have read books, watched movies, played with toys, and I accomplished my goal of her knowing all the princesses and even though no one else can understand it, I know what she calls them. I am well aware that my 2 year old will not remember these interactions or even this trip at all, but I will remember it and the pictures are priceless . So who’s her favourite? It changes every day. But I would say Ariel, Tiana, and Rapunzel are top 3.

We knew we wanted to do character interactions but we also knew that we didn’t want to stand in mile long lines for them. So by going to Princess Fairytale Hall right after Winnie the Pooh we could basically walk straight in.

The downside of walking straight in was that we didn’t have any time to prepare Kinley for what was coming. The queues where we could see the characters for a few minutes before the actual M&G seemed to go better. I had suggested that Kinley show Rapunzel her Magic Band so that's what she did!

I got the idea from a TR to buy this “Junior Encyclopedia of Disney Characters” and get the characters to sign their page! It worked great and it will be one of our most treasured souvenirs from the trip!

Next up: Tiana!

Her dress is so big you can't even really get close to her

Tiana talked about Kinley wearing a blue shirt. “Gurl, the last time I wore blue I was wearing a blue dress and I had to kiss a frog!”. Kinley was so in awe she almost never responded to things they said to her or questions that they asked her. She just started saying her own name a few days before we left on the trip and we hadn’t quite mastered answering the “What’s your name?” question.

Tiana asked Emily if there is something wrong with her because no one wanted to stand by her

Next Up: The other half of Princess Fairytale Hall!

 

[krause]

We walked out of there and straight into the other side of Princess Fairytale Hall. Posted at 15 minutes but only one person ahead of us.

There we saw Elena of Avalor. Kinley has seen this show once or twice on the Disney channel (we don’t have cable channels but my parents do so she has seen it there a bit) but not enough to actually recognize her. I told Elena that she didn’t make it into Kinley’s book (she’s too new) but she could sign in the back cover. She promptly informed me “I prefer the front cover” - so that’s where she signed ! I think if Kinley knew Elena better this would have been one of the best interactions, and the photog took a TON of pictures.

Kinley was very excited when she saw Cinderella, but of course clammed up the second she actually got to her.

I guess she showed all of them her Magic Band, I didn't even realize until now

After these interactions we got better at getting her to smile for the pictures and she got a tiny bit better at looking at the camera.

Up Next: A classic must-do ride, and what's missing from the VotLM queue??

 

[krause]

Enjoying your trip report so far ! Everytime I see it in the feed, I start singing the Bayou song out loud (much to Patrick's frustration)

Thanks for reading! Haha we sang that song so much walking through POR, we knew it had to be our TR title. It's not a very common song, so I'm glad you know it!

 

[krause]

After that we went to Dad’s favourite - It’s a Small World!

Behind me was a boy with his parents. The boy was complaining the whole time how boooorrriiinnngggg and dumb the ride was. His parents weren't tolerating his whining. "You can't go to Disney World and not ride it's a small world", they told him. One parenting win for the day

It worked! Me, Emily and Lukas were on a separate reservation from our parents so we found it interesting that they joined us all together and left Emily out.

Separated but not forgotten!

It was just a few minutes before EMH was over and we wanted to take advantage of it all so we walked onto Journey of the Little Mermaid.

A terrible picture, but who’s missing??

"Why do you need a picture of that?", Lukas says

"People will care about this", I say.

We journeyed under the sea...

Nice clamshell selfie, @AKemily

We had used up all the EMH time and were now desperate for some food and coffee. We also had an important chair to check on...

 

[krisri18]

Thanks for reading! Haha we sang that song so much walking through POR, we knew it had to be our TR title. It's not a very common song, so I'm glad you know it!

It's so catchy! Excellent choice!

 

[krisri18]

After that we went to Dad’s favourite - It’s a Small World!
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Behind me was a boy with his parents. The boy was complaining the whole time how boooorrriiinnngggg and dumb the ride was. His parents weren't tolerating his whining. "You can't go to Disney World and not ride it's a small world", they told him. One parenting win for the day

It worked! Me, Emily and Lukas were on a separate reservation from our parents so we found it interesting that they joined us all together and left Emily out.
View attachment 263383

Separated but not forgotten!
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It was just a few minutes before EMH was over and we wanted to take advantage of it all so we walked onto Journey of the Little Mermaid.
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A terrible picture, but who’s missing??

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"Why do you need a picture of that?", Lukas says

"People will care about this", I say.

We journeyed under the sea...
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Nice clamshell selfie, @AKemily

We had used up all the EMH time and were now desperate for some food and coffee. We also had an important chair to check on...

Where's Scuttle?! Did he abscond with Gaston's Chair?!

 

[krause]

We headed to Gaston’s for our fix. We got 2 cinnamon buns and coffee for the group . We had an ADR at 10:20 so we just needed to tide ourselves over until then.

Chair still there? Check!

It was just after 9:00 and the people were flooding in (this was an 8/10 Saturday in the MK). I wanted Kinley to meet Merida and she started at 9:15 so we made our way there.

Stopped for a photopass.

There were a few people ahead of us in line for Merida M&G and we ended up waiting about 15 minutes.

This CM outside the Merida M&G was a very serious-seeming man, but what you wouldn't expect is that he is actually a Disney princess!
While we waited, a squirrel came up (you can see it in this picture on the pillar).

The squirrel jumped on and off the CM and climbed all over him! You can see the squirrels tail poking out from behind the CM in this picture.

The CM said it sometimes jumped on guests and would freak them out. He also said that they tried to relocate this squirrel but he just kept finding his way back. It seemed like he didn't want to draw attention to it, he probably didn't want his little friend to be taken away

Up Next: Merida!

 

[AKemily]

Tiana asked Emily if there is something wrong with her because no one wanted to stand by her

Me, Emily and Lukas were on a separate reservation from our parents so we found it interesting that they joined us all together and left Emily out.

Separated but not forgotten!

Nice clamshell selfie, @AKemily

Not feeling excluded at all, nope.

Thanks to everyone who is reading along! We had a great trip and we are excited for you all to be a part of it!

 

[krause]

Time to meet Merida!

What a great interaction! She spent lots of time talking to Kinley (even though Kinley didn’t respond much… I think she said “you” when Merida pointed to her own picture in the book and asked Kinley who that was.)

I think Merida is great and this was a fantastic M&G.

Lukas then took Kinley on the Mad Tea Cups. No one else in our group could stomach this ride but Lukas took her on there and spun the cup as fast as he could and she loved it! Okay it doesn't really look like she loved it but he swears she did!

We saw this little doodad that someone thought was a good idea. Seems like overkill to me, especially since you can't fill the mugs in the parks but whatever works I guess.

We caught the Trolley Show on the way to our ADR. Emily stopped to take some pictures and Dad showed Kinley the horse.

 

[tasha ratliff]

Loving it

 

[krause]

Loving it

Thanks!

 

[krause]

We were a bit early for our Crystal Palace reservation which was good because the check-in line took forever. I don’t know what the problem was (if it was CM or guest… probably guest). Right when I got to the front of the line a CM came down and said there was another check-in window with no line up on the porch . Ah well, live and learn.

We got brought in right at our reservation time.

Pooh and Piglet showed up almost as soon as we sat down.

Our server brought orange juice (No POG juice here ) and coffee for all. We stocked up at the buffet. I thought the food was very good! Better than I expected, actually. I went back and had an omelette made for Lukas which took longer than I expected but you can’t really rush that kind of thing I guess.

I had been looking forward to trying to Pooh's Puffed French Toast. Um guys, this is not French Toast. Yummy? Yep ! But it's a deep fried sugar doughnut, let's be real

The kid loves bacon

Kinley was very hesitant with the first character (Pooh) but by the last one (Tigger) she was looking forward to him coming and hugged/high fived him willingly! Yes! We were making some progress with the M&G’s!

The whole meal took an hour and I was very happy with the whole experience, I definitely think I would return to this one.


I took Malcolm to the baby care center next door to feed him (the room was full of nursing and pumping moms, with one even sitting on the floor, so I waited for someone to leave then took my place). While I was doing this, Emily noted the Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire starting so she grabbed Kin and got good and close to the castle and watched the whole thing! She said Kinley was sooo tired she kept putting her head down on Emily’s shoulder so Emily would say “Okay let’s go find Mama” and Kinley tiredly responded “No. More”. So they stayed for the whole thing. Big fail by @AKemily here with no photos .

Up next: Adventureland

 

[krause]

We all met back up and headed to Jungle Cruise for our first FP+.

Our skipper was good not great. At the end she had to improv a bit because the boat got stopped for a few minutes and I think that was her funniest time. Her best joke was “Me and my boyfriend went to dinner at Trader Sam’s the other day. I told him his wife makes a great stew. He said ‘I know. But I’m sure gonna miss her.’. Just kidding. I don’t have a boyfriend. I wear khaki to work. Every day.”

We headed to Splash Mountain for our next FP+. Here we grabbed a Child Swap pass because my Mom did want to ride this one.

Me, Emily, Mom and Dad went on the ride while Lukas was supposed to get the kids to sleep.

He failed on both accounts. So me, Lukas, and Emily went again with the child swap pass.

While we rode, Mom got both kids to sleep in the stroller. Miracle.

On our first ride, our log got stuck under the waterfall and Emily was the lucky one to get wet

On the second ride, we almost got stuck under the waterfall again, and I almost got soaked, but the water got turned off!

After we moved past, it was turned back on!

Lucky me!

Lukas again, "Why are you taking a picture of that?"

Me again, "People care about these things"

Up Next: The Wildest Ride in the Wilderness!