Going Pro Trip Report, May 7-15 2011

Hey! It's a trip report! Like most WDW enthusiasts I love reading these things (though I seldom leave lurk mode long enough to comment...sorry), and with 32 hours left until we leave the driveway now might be a good time to commence my very first. I aim to please. There will be pictures of both Things and Food.

Background--
This can be known as both the It's About Flipping Time Extravaganza Trip and the Going Pro Trip. The stage was set last time, which took place during "Heck" Week (aka Christmas-New Year's) 2006. This was the Consolation Prize Trip from arising from the sale of our home after a messy divorce. I voted WDW for our destination because I always acknowledged it as the premier vacation, being a longtime enthusiast of amusement and whimsy.

Despite the many hardships of being relative n00bs who did not understand the proper utilization of ADRs, Fastpass, and park hopping, and despite the 2-hour waits for PotC and the relentless, inescapable wailing of New Year's horns handed out at 4 PM, we had fun. In fact, upon arriving home I decided WDW would be my new obsession, and I don't do anything halfway (though I do write papers 2/3 of the way). Happily, I found this website along with AllEars, MouseSavers, etc. and eventually became a certifiable Disney Parks fan and amateur vacation planner, capable of making obtuse references to attraction design and ticket pricing in the most irrelevant conversations...

So in March 2009, tired of constantly informing various parents of new PIN codes to no effect, I decided to go on a solo 4 night tent camping trip at Fort Wilderness in January or May 2010. With months of planning, saving, and wheedling, it somehow morphed into an 8 night/9 day/6 park Mom n' Me extravaganza at Port Orleans-Riverside, May 7-15, planned into the ground, with 5 ADRs and 6 Touring Plans (that's including IoA and US, we are big Universal fans, and unashamed).

Now I have recently learned the dangers of planning a trip so far in advance with news of Grad Nites, 400 random new weekend events, and love bugs. I also spent 3 madcap days last weekend in gorgeous, wonderful Florida for my equestrian team's Nationals and came home (eventually, thanks to Delta) to grey weather, three exams, two papers, and the threat of not passing one of my capstone courses due to lack of group involvement. Fought the urge all week to write only "don't care, going to Disney World" on everything I turned in. But now that's all just about over and it's time to clean house, pack, and face the reality that the waiting is finally over...

Players--

Me: 21, college senior (film/TV production & theory) and cafeteria worker (<3 my job), enamored with Disney World, general Disney fan to lesser extent. Interests: horses/dressage, music, Sci-fi and crude adult cartoons, feminism, artifice, and reading way to far into things, from movies to stop signs and especially theme parks.

Mom aka BFF: mom age, some sort of accounting assistant (<3s her job), pleasantly entertained by Disney World, somewhat amused by Disney in general. Interests: cheesy '80s rock bands, Feng Shui, natural diets, and a bunch of other hippie stuff I grew out of by age 16. My mother can be difficult to predict. I'll show her something I think is awesome and get the smile/nod, and then write off something simple that she thinks is AMAZING. Theme parks tend to make this differentiation quite obvious.

So. I have to say, after 26 months of planning, 541 days on the trip countdown, 125 links on a paper chain, and this last ridiculous week, I don't know if I'm actually excited anymore. It must be time for a Wishes youtube marathon.

Soon I will get a Flickr account to maintain your interest via photographs while avoiding the Internet ghetto that is Photobucket. The adventure will continue.

 

[Frightful]

Ok.

So.

The day after I got back from the trip I started at my first ever 2 internships. Interesting to go from senior year exam week to a nonstop touring 9-day vacation to two new [unpaid] jobs. And I learned what this "Post-Disney Depression" thing is about, and didn't want to recap it just yet, plus uploading the pics is taking forever, but...

It was amazing. It was a bit stressful and hard with all the stuff I tried to pack in, but at the same time we did way more "stop and smell the roses" things than ever before. I really thought we would be able to squeeze in 8 hours of sleep and have breakfast every day, but oh well. At some point I did finally remember about coffee, so that was good.

Um. I love WDW. I really can't get over it. I want to be there every day. If I work minimum wage for the rest of my life I will still find a way to get there as often as possible. And every day I wish to get into the College Program for Spring 2012... along with hours of research and preparation, of course...

I took notes, so this is going to be a superlong trip report with many pics and mundane details, as well as fantastic details. It'll probably take me a few weeks to post.

I'll start at the beginning.

 

[Frightful]

The very first thing I planned... did not go as planned. I said bed BY 8 PM. As it turns out, it takes quite a while to hideously overpack one huge suitcase, and then we still had to do Mother's Day presents, which were books for the plane (planned that one for months). I think we made it at 11 and midnight respectively. Bag weighed in at 51 pounds... ugh. Shifted shoes and junk to carry-ons to make it 47, success! Revered holy moment of placing Magical Express tag on bag.

SATURDAY MAY 7

Everything about this day--at least up to the nap--was completely perfect. Everything that was supposed to happen went like clockwork. EARLY clockwork! I don't remember being this completely happy in a long time. Best day of our trip and one of the best of my life for sure...

4 AM. The Day is here. Had to stare at the date on my phone for a while. Got ready, attended to obligatory Facebook post, left the pajamas I wanted in the house *sigh*, grabbed Clif bar, checked and re-checked bags for all our park tickets, and we're off in the darkness to a cute lil' airport 40 minutes away.

5:30 Arrived for our flight at 7. Forgot checking the bag takes time and got nervous. Finally got the mammoth thing checked no problem, said good-byes to gracious driver (stepdad/husband) at security, settled at the gate with a beautiful "ORLANDO-ON TIME" sign and waiting plane. Grabbed some greasy croissandwiches and it's boarding time! There was a bit of drama with one passenger's wedding dress not fitting anywhere but everyone eventually filed on. We started got seriously excited--omg! today! it's here! we're on the plane!--and said goodbye to cold brown Michigan:

Take-off was exactly at 7:00 as affirmed by our custom Disney watches (mine is Ariel, Mom's is Nemo). We looked at some of those big lakes we have around here that we couldn't exactly identify, definitely saw Detroit, lost interest over Ohio and retired to our respective Royal Wedding gossip magazines.

Ah! I have to go back to work! Here's our first sighting of Florida so I don't leave this poor thread with one boring Michigan picture.

 

[accord99cutie]

Great so far! can't wait for more!!!

 

[Frightful]

Great so far! can't wait for more!!!

Thanks! There will be a LOT more, heh. I get into this blow-by-blow mode sometimes.

9:25 AM So, Orlando, right? We arrived about 15 minutes early. Beautiful. Weather, perfect. We saw pools and stucco houses and palm trees from the sky. Florida, like for real! As discussed upon takeoff, we jumped up and grabbed the bags as soon as the seat belt sign went off and bolted off the plane. (We are beating these people to the check-in desk if it's the last thing we do!)

Weird thing, I love MCO. It's one of the strongest memories I have from my earliest trips for some reason. So in the rush there was also gazing about in wonder and adoration, and taking gratuitous pictures. Here is one

Monorail!-like train system-thing! Love this! Remember viewing a sweet Pokemon jet from here in 2001. It's the first ride of the trip!

Palm trees!

And then we got to the terminal and I had a Moment. I've had a pic of this as my desktop background so suddenly being there turned out to be a time for brief tears and reflection

Sentimentality addressed, we continued to the escalators, admiring the various attraction posters, and then the signs appeared

and we could see the buses outside! This is where my mother first learned we weren't going to baggage claim (cool! bonus!) despite my previous instruction. I brandished the paperwork and we were directed (no one has to tell me "follow the castles" twice) to near the front of the POR line. Hooray, our first queue! And our first advertisements--Pooh movie and On Stranger Tides!

Bus came shortly and we settled in the front row. We got stuck with an unthemed Mears bus (Unlike this awesome Nemo version)

and no video, but this was made up for by our thoroughly enthusiastic driver/tour guide, Jordan. This was our first sighting of the World, accompanied by uncharacteristic squealing from me:

Our driver pointed out The Sign well in advance and I was able to get 3 pics of it--all of which are focused on the love bugs encrusting the windshield. Oh well. The Sign! We are There which is henceforth Here! Yes, we cheered. Soon there were more Signs:

Yes there! I would like to go there. And shortly there we were! I bolted off the bus and straight to the online check-in line where I was helped almost immediately. Mom got the bags and says no one else tipped the driver An excellent, if somewhat crazy, CM checked us in and added our lovely Undercover Tourist tickets to our even lovelier Key to the World cards... so magical, to see both my name and those dates on the purple plastic card of permanence. We got our room number right away! I saw a 9 at the beginning and understood Magnolia Bend, as requested! Mom decided our first task was to check out the room.

 

[Frightful]

OMG. I couldn't get over how beautiful the resort is. I had waffled between POR, POFQ and even CBR and am so pleased with my decision. All the wonderful pictures I looked at before booking, and my mediocre ones, can't do it justice.

Oak Manor for us!

We loved "our" fountain

11:15 AM We had a parking lot view room, which turned out to be a great location. Prettiest parking lot I've ever seen, and it was a very quick walk from the bus stop at the end of those long days. We opened the door to this:

So weird to know every detail of the room from pics, yet be actually standing in it. Took our time unpacking and making ourselves at home (because it IS home!) and the checked bag arrived in the process. Mom propped up a magazine page featuring Captain Jack (Sparrow, not Harkness), which I chose to allow :animwink:

Holy wow, we couldn't believe we were in Disney World and not Michigan and in our room all unpacked by noon or so. After YEARS of planning. Just wow. Magic, and stuff.

 

[kashmir]

Magic, and stuff.

Do tell us more, please!:sohappy:

 

[wild01ride]

Cool trip report.

Disney Magic is always that much more Magical when you're leaving a dismal Michigan day behind!

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[Frightful]

Happy to comply!

Once we were rested a bit I revealed my secret plan for the day. We usually head to the pool or DTD on our first day (not that there really is a "usually" when you go once every 4-6 years), but I wanted to go straight to MK like normal people do, to grab a much-anticipated lunch at Columbia Harbor House. Also, we'd waited for 8 billion days and were finally HERE so it was time to see a freakin' castle already!

Just before 1:00 we headed to the East Depot. We had always saved MK for the last day in the past (yeah, only went 1 day each trip) and I found it disappointing to watch its bus drive away so many times. Well, we sat for about 2 minutes among the gorgeous flowering trees, admired a tiny lizard, and then this pulled up:

1:02 PM Yay! That's for us! I had totally forgotten about the bus narration so that was quite exciting--

-"Welcome to the Walt Disney World Transportation System!"
-Why thank you!
-"We're on our way to the Magic Kingdom!"
-YES WE ARE AT LONG LAST!!

I took some squiggly pics of the marquee confirming our date and destination but will spare you the dizziness. I made sure to point out everything to Mom along the day: New pet resort! Fort Wilderness (we were going to stay there)! Wilderness Lodge! OMG look the monorail beam! Magic Kingdom Toll Plaza!! The Contemporary (we're going to eat there)! Space Mountain!!!

And CASTLE!!! We jumped off

Yes, there is where we are going! I asked if we could pause for pics and taking in the moment outside the turnstiles. Mom took this as a signal to call everyone we know.

That thing! It's in front of us!

Once she put the phone down we initiated our Keys and entered the Magic Kingdom. Took our first Photopass pics (wasn't going to do this, but they sent me one in the mail so I gave it a shot. We really enjoyed it) and headed under the train station to the left. This important sign was hidden under those overly insistent Let the Memories Begin! banners

I reminded my mother that I had texted her that 541 days ago in regards to our countdown, the day after she decided to go...

Once inside we remembered to go to Guest Services to get our Rewards card. Went out the side door to call and set it up to this cute magical little area and I took a bunch of pics while my mom got annoyed on the phone

These little nooks are why I love the MK, you know, besides all the awesome rides and castle and stuff. Now I should have known what a random backdrop means in WDW, but it was a total surprise when this next thing happened. I am afraid of characters and we didn't have them on any of our lists (except for Crystal Palace), but it was all quiet and secret and hardly anyone got in line, so I figured what the hey, and while Mom called her husband to activate the card since the $200 offer came in his name, I got this incredibly awkward pic

Ha. Magical.

And with the card settled (we really enjoyed the free money all week) we were finally moving. We rounded the corner and came upon this

Oh hey, it's a castle. That's different.

 

[Sarabell]

your TR is totally growing on me! I want more!:sohappy:

 

[polymissy]

It's so exciting to finally be in your "home away from home"!

Can't wait to read the rest of your report! (And good luck with your internships!)

 

[erstwo]

Joining in for all the fun! Can't wait for more.

 

[ArtieJim]

Just got bummed when I realized I had read the final entry you've posted up to this point.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

YAY!! Lovin the TR so far!! The pic with Snow White is cute And Crystal Palace is a fun place to see Pooh and the gang. We ate there 4 weeks ago!! Cant wait to read more!!! :wave:

 

[grwnupprincess]

loving your trip report so far! it's making this blah work morning a little brighter! :sohappy:

 

[Ariel484]

Great report so far! Good call heading straight for MK More please?

 

[Frightful]

Wow, if I keep up at this rate I may have it all posted before I turn 80. Thanks for the comments everyone, makes me feel special! Now where am I... according to my camera it's

1:48 PM: Poking around on Main Street, had to take a look at the Shiny Things Store. Aw, our first marveling at beautiful and astronomically priced objects!

Spent an inordinate amount of time in this store, got the Rewards card all worked out (really enjoyed all of the food purchased with our Free Money), and remembered it had been 7 hours since breakfast. To Liberty Square! --after pausing to stare at the castle--noticed these tree ribbons, assumed they were from some parade we didn't watch

Ok, seriously now, lunch.

...but who can walk by this stunning view:

All right! Food time! We made it to CHH and I had to make a note of my highly impressive, recently-gained ability to tour without maps. It's kind of weird to apply what you studied on Google Earth to real life. Anyway, we found the restaurant very cute. Food took no time to order, place wasn't crowded and virtually empty upstairs, where we achieved the ultimate goal of a window table in the "secret" bridge room. So this was our view for lunch

And thus there was more marveling; I had shown my mom the AllEars blog about this place and we had planned to try to score this very table. I had also starting reading menus years ago so I could earmark all of the non-burger, non-pizza options, and picked out the Lighthouse Sandwich as something to try. So here we are gazing out at Fantasyland, eating sandwiches we have planned on eating for about 3 years. Crazy.

First food pictures! I think this is the tuna one

Love those silly plates. Mom is picky about coleslaw and IIRC this one got a good rating. Here is the Lighthouse

It was pretty good, awesome for theme-park food, so much so I forgot to take the pic before nomming half of it. We enjoyed a leisurely, people-watching lunch, and overheard a mother explaining to her young daughter how they were going to enjoy some slow-paced touring for the afternoon--just like us

Before leaving we admired the theming and experienced our first long wait at the Ladies' Room. Decided to make the trip's first attraction our big favorite, the Haunted Mansion.

 

[Frightful]

3:00 PM Always loved this

Posted wait time was 20 minutes, but we accidentally skipped the new graveyard (thanks for explaining WHY there are two lines, apathetic CM) and made it in 10-15.

I have to say, I still love this ride, but was disappointed to find that it has lost some of its magic for me. It might be that I spent the last four years researching Halloween special effects and know how everything works, or it might be that I listened to the full ride audio over and over--but then I know there's a parking lot right behind Main Street, and have memorized Wishes backwards and forwards, and those are both still magical to me. Oh well.

We then headed for Fantasyland to check out wait times. I looked for the ring at the HM exit several times to no avail, but we did stop to appreciate the pet cemetery, and I explained about Mr. Toad, whom I had no idea existed on all previous trips.

Took a moment to check out the construction. For some reason my camera was on a stupid setting that made everything blue for the next 20 pics.

Peter Pan's Flight was 35 minutes, it's a small world was something disconcerting (15+), Carrousel and Dumbo looked unpleasant in the heat, but Snow White's Scary Adventures was 10 minutes. I told my mom we had to ride because of its impending demise. I remember being freaked out on this as a child.

Love this cheesy lighting effect.

Goodbye, we'll probably never see you again

We didn't go by the back of the castle, and I didn't notice at the time that one of my randomly blue pics shows part of the scrim covering it. I had read about this refurb and was quite disappointed that it would be up for our whole trip, but stay tuned for news on that...

Mickey's PhilharMagic was posted at 5 minutes so we headed in. Never saw this before--from now on I'll put a *** in front of every attraction we had never seen before because there are just so many. We both found it to be pleasant and amusing. The air conditioning was an especially nice touch.

Then we decided to drift around the west side of the park. I made sure to stop and explain the significance of the Fantasyland Skyway Station, having no idea that it would be destroyed shortly thereafter although the construction walls were a clue. Such a pretty spot

The Mountains seemed too far off the path to investigate so we continued to Adventureland. Look at all these weirdly happy people.

Oh, this must have been the reason why:

We were totally geeked about this. This may seem insane to many of you, but we waited well over an hour (I'm thinking closer to 2) for Pirates on our last trip. It was New Years' and soon after the Jack Sparrow refurb, the perfect storm. We found it worthwhile at the time, but powerwalking through the entire empty queue on this day was absolutely enthralling.

LOVE this ride. It's so immersive and enchanting. Had to take advantage of the magical time flux and ride twice. Saw Angelica waiting alone but ignored her. Hello! It's a walk-on!!

 

[tiaragirl]

You're entertaining me, and I'm loving it! Keep 'er goin!

 

[Frightful]

5:13 PM Looked around the shops for a few seconds, got the Simba penny I wanted, Swiss Family Treehouse next. Trying to knock out the slower attractions to save time on Official MK Day. Took our time to admire the lovely views

and very interesting engineering of this attraction.

Refreshments are now in order. After reading these forums for 4 years I naturally have Dole Whips on the list. At Aloha Isle, we experienced our first line jumper, and the suggestion was set we would wait longer for food than rides for the whole trip. I chickened out and mixed my pineapple with vanilla; Mom as a fan of all things plain and mild and went with solid vanilla.

We sat down with frigid juice products near the hub bridge to take in MK some more. While we were enjoying the peace, the music for Move It, Shake It, Celebrate it! started blasting and the festivities moved into view at the Hub. Thankfully, that's as close as we got to it.

Incidentally, this is what I thought of the Dole Whip

Then we sidled over to Crystal Palace to check out where we would have breakfast on Friday. Mom claims to have never noticed this ginormous glass structure before, and even I can't place it in any memories. This area is sooo cute

We then paused to wonder what Sebastian was doing in the Thing.

On the way out I had to get a balloon to decorate our room for the week.
The CM was a n00b so I took some balloon pics while he worked on getting the right string out. I required that my balloon be purchased on Main Street USA so that I could see and remember it reflecting the beautiful buildings, as such:

We quickly checked the Chapeau for some ears for my nephew, but my sister suggested he would prefer Cars stuff. Tried out the "gossip phone" and nothing, silence. At least I managed to find it.

6:00 PM Leaving the MK for the first time and certainly not the last.

True story.

Had to take some stupid pics on the way to the bus stop.

Bus came promptly and we headed Home for a quick nap, and thus ends for all intents and purposes Day 1.