Welcome to my September 2014 trip report. I know I’m starting it a little late – but life has been so crazy and hectic since we have returned, there doesn’t seem like any time to just sit and write.
Me – Mary, aka “mom”. I am a teacher turned homeschool mom, advocate and blogger.
Ross, the daddy, aka “Grumpy”. He is the character who works non-stop all year to make this trip possible for us.
Julia, aka “sissy”, our oldest daughter who is 12. This will be her last trip with us before she turns into a… I hate the word… teenager! She LOVES Disney as much as I do and I pray that she always does.
Hope, aka “the Hopester”, (a nickname she somehow adopted when riding Spaceship Earth last year). She is my youngest daughter, 5 ½, diagnosed with severe Autism and Sensory Integration Disorder
Many people look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them we are taking Hope to WDW. But it’s like 10 days of intense therapy for her. It challenges her so much while presenting her with the greatest incentive and rewards. We sacrifice the whole year to make this trip possible and it is so worth it.
Hope’s WDW goals for this trip:
Ride Splash Mountain and like it.
Ride 7 Dwarfs Mine Train.
Ride the Monorail without a meltdown.
Sit in booster seats rather than a highchair.
Tell me what she wants to eat rather than me just deciding for her.
Sit in a theater seat rather than her stroller during a show.
Julia's goal: Skate at Hollywood Studios
My goal: Eat at Columbla Harbour House!
Ross' goal: Eat at the Food & Wine Festival
Will we all meet our goals? You'll have to read to find out!
We were at HS today - first time. Our daughter loved the Disney jr show! And I did too. I smiled seeing your daughter dressed as Sofia because mine was dressed like her too!
Great start of the day at Hollywood Studios. Beauty and the Beast in on our to do list for our next trip and you have caught some really great pictures of the show. My family just loves Pizza Planet and a must every trip we take. Following along.
We also solved the issues of the “Olaf” cupcakes. Ross decapitated them before they arrived at the table.
Sure enough – Hope was fine with them!
After lunch, it had stopped raining so we started to walk to Monsters Inc Meet & Greet. Although we had a sneaking suspicion that the rain wasn’t done for the day.
We tried to convince Hope to take a picture with Mike & Sully – but she wasn’t having any of it!!!
We headed to Disney Jr. when we realized we didn’t have too much dry weather left.
Ross & Hope went to Disney Jr. and Voyage of the Little Mermaid while Julia & I went to the animation class.
Julia was so happy – she LOVES to draw. When it was over she wanted to do it again so I texted Ross who was still in Disney Jr. The first time we drew Flynn from Tangled and the second class we drew Mike Wazowski! I remember when we did the animation class when Julia was 7, she asked at the end if they ever drew Mike. The animator at the time told her no because Mike is a 3D animation that requires computers. So we were so surprised!
When we were done, it had started to rain again so we dashed to TSMM.
By the time the ride was over, the rain had just begun – it was a complete DOWNPOUR!
Now this is the kind of Studio days we are used to! Lol
We had tickets to see the last Frozen Sing Along of the day. Ross wanted to get there really early so he could get a seat up front. But Julia wanted to ride The Great Movie Ride. I went with Julia knowing we probably wouldn’t make the Frozen show but I told Ross, to text us with where they were sitting – just in case.
The Great Movie Ride is not one of my favorites. The wait didn’t seem like it was going to be too long in terms of how many people were on line. But it wasn’t moving very fast at all! The ride was okay – like I said it’s not one of my favorites. We had the gangster scene. There was a family in front of us with a little boy who was scared out of his mind! He just buried himself in his dad’s lap the whole time.
When the ride was over, I figured we should take the chance to get to Frozen – so we booked it over to the theater in the pouring rain. I couldn’t believe we made it in time. Ross did just what he set out to do; he got a front row seat!
The show was a blast!
We all really enjoyed it - especially Hope!
Come on… you guys knew this was coming!
Even Ross & Julia were singing at the end!
I apologized for my beyond pathetic filming which probably made some of you dizzy!
After the show, we wanted to go on Star Tours. The rain was now torrential
downpours. The ground had puddles like rivers!
We took cover in the Monsters gift shop for a few minutes hoping it would let up. But it didn’t.
My friend, Donna, had texted me asking if we wanted to meet up for dinner. Apparently, they were at Harry Potter in Universal and getting soaked there too! I told her we didn’t want to leave Disney property and they didn’t want to enter Disney property so unfortunately – it was “see you in NY!”
We walked as fast as we could to Star Tours. When we got there, Hope didn’t want to ride. I was surprised because she loved the “spaceship” last year. Ross & Julia went on and then I went with Julia. Ross was upset with the “scene” he got. He said it was identical to the one he had the other day. He didn’t want to go again so I went one more time with Julia. By now, so many people were leaving the park, it was a walk on.
We had taken cover in a stroller parking area that was empty.
After our last ride, we discussed what we wanted to do. The plan was to stay and watch Fantasmik, but the rain was out of control and we really didn’t want to sit through it in the pouring rain. So sadly, we left and headed to DD to eat and shop a little.
When we arrived at DD, the rain had finally calmed down. We went to Wolfgang Puck Express to eat some dinner.
And dessert!
Then we walked around and shopped a bit.
Hope has never really said, “I want…” But when she put on the Cinderella mouse ears, I had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to purchase.
I tried to get a shot of Duffy, but Hope was too busy to pause for a pose.
We didn’t stay too long. We were tired and I wanted to do some packing. I can’t believe our trip is almost at the end.
When we returned to the hotel, Julia went for a quick swim. Ross & I went to the Laundromat to throw a load of clothes in. Hope fell asleep in her stroller so she went along for the ride. I had filled up my mug with coffee before going in to the Laundromat. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I dropped my coffee all over the floor! I felt so bad! I tried to clean it up with all the napkins and tissues I had – then I went out and got some pool towels to clean the rest of it up.
After the mess was gone, I attempted to start two of the machines. I inserted my credit card and the machine went blank! I tried to call for help – I was a little nervous that my credit card info was there. In the end, I had to transfer my clothes to different machines. I asked at the front desk about my credit card info – but they said not to worry. After all the drama with our Magic Bands, I was so worried that I would get home and realize I just paid for all of POFQ to wash their clothes! (Thankfully that did not happen.)
By the time I got back to the room, everyone was in bed asleep. I packed up some things and then went to bed feeling sad; I knew what was going to be on our door in the morning.
Up Next: Our last full day - don’t forget to eat your Kimchi!
Great start of the day at Hollywood Studios. Beauty and the Beast in on our to do list for our next trip and you have caught some really great pictures of the show. My family just loves Pizza Planet and a must every trip we take. Following along.
Thanks! It was a fun day at the Studios. We really enjoyed the Beauty & the Beast show. I think Pizza Planet will always be on our family's "must do" list as well.
What a wonderful end to Hollywood Studios. A little rain doesn't seem to bother your family, put on the ponchos and away you go to fun. It's sad that the report is comping to the conclusion because I really love you report. Following along.
So here we are – or LAST full day! I looked outside and of course, we had our mail hanging on the door. I finished packing us up while Ross went to the food court with Julia to get some breakfast. I had our plane bags packed, our pj’s and clothes for the next day set out and most of everything else packed up.
When Ross got back with the food, he decided to call to see what the bounce back offer for next year was. We weren’t sure if we would be able to go in 2015; but, we figured it was easier to book it and cancel it, rather than not booking and trying to get a deal later in the year.
Now – when we stay in a hotel room, I always pull the phone jack out of the phone because Hope likes to push the buttons and I have this fear that she will call 911 one day. So to be on the safe side, I just unplug it. When Ross plugged the cord back in – the phone flashed that we had a message.
When Ross hit the playback, it said the message was from the 21st. It turned out to be an auto generated message that said something to the effect of, “We hope you enjoyed your WDW vacation… Thank you for choosing POFQ for your stay… Have a safe trip home… See you real soon!”
Ross & I just looked at each other. We realized that whatever happened with our Magic Bands the other day must have triggered the system to send out this message. After we got home, he joked about how funny it would have been if the system actually checked us out of the hotel and another family was in our room when we returned from the park. Although I disagree with him because I don’t think that would have been funny, I do admit it would have made for a great trip report. lol
After we dismissed the message, he booked our bounce back – even though we knew the chance of returning in 2015 would be near to impossible. We can wish upon a star - right?
We made our way to the bus stop, enjoying the beautiful morning.
EPCOT was packed!
Call me spoiled but I don’t think I have ever seen it so busy! I was excited to be here during F&W Festival – but WOW the crowds are nothing like I have experienced in past years in September.
I know I'm HORRIBLE with finishing this trip report! But life keeps getting in the way!! If anyone wants to forgive me and read on... here is the conclusion to our 2014 trip.
We started at Test Track. We didn’t have a Fast Pass, but we had a rider switch from earlier in the week that Julia and I used. I’m not really into the whole design your car thing but Julia seemed to really like it. Of course she decided that designing a car in English wasn’t quite challenging enough so she chose Japanese. I least I think it was Japanese.
After Test Track we started to walk to WS for our early lunch reservations. We had some time and Hope wanted to see Figment so we took a detour through Imagination. No Fast Pass – No problem – right?
This is how busy it was at EPCOT today. I don’t think I ever waited on a line for Figment. I’m not complaining - I mean it was only around a 15-20 wait. But still – this has always been a walk on!
We had a 12:30 ADR for Germany but before we went to eat, we headed to see Mulan. I checked the times on the My Disney Experience APP and it didn’t have her signing for very long, so we didn’t want to take a chance and miss her.
It confuses me a great deal. This is the child who listens only to K-Pop and J-Pop music, watches Asian drama series and reads the subtitles to understand, studies Japanese as a second language, learning to draw Anime and wants to change her name to Ji-Young. But she wants to eat in Germany??? Go figure. Well it makes my dad happy – he is German.
Lunch was very yummy. MY favorites are the cheese soup and the pretzel bread.
Okay – so I have to admit, I think the reason why I don’t like this restaurant much is because we have to sit with strangers. I admit it – I am anti-social in this sense. Now I think it would be different if we sat with people I knew, or kind of knew. Maybe they should have tables for the WDW Magic boards to find each other. Lol
In past years, we have had good luck with whom we got seated with. A couple of years back, we sat with a couple who had been picked to stay in the Castle room. It was the year of a million dreams. They had great stories to tell and showed us a few pictures too. Then one year we got a waiter in training so we got to sit alone. That was pretty cool!
So this year we sat with a family of three. Mom, dad & son. The boy was probably around 10-12. Ross of course who is only anti-social at family gatherings began to chat it up with them. He started asking the son how he was enjoying himself and did he like missing school to come to WDW. On and on he talked. Finally, I spoke up and said, “Honey, they don’t speak English – they have no idea what you are saying.”My husband who never believes anything I say, asked the mom, in a much slower and much louder voice – “Do you speak English?”
The poor woman choked down whatever she was chewing to respond to him. And somehow communicated to us that no – they spoke very little English. They were from Brazil and the kid spoke no English at all. Ross who was still talking loud & slow wished them a good trip.
From that moment on, I think we were more entertainment to the Brazilian family than the bell ringers on stage. They especially got amusement from Ross eating dessert. The dessert happens to be Ross’ favorite part of this meal – especially the little cup of berries. His total count was 21 give or take a few.
Hope wasn’t too thrilled with the food, but loved the music and dancing.
After lunch we headed back to Future World and guess what was happening again?
It was more entertaining the first time – but still cool to watch the fireworks float by.
The day was going way too fast! We all decided for dinner, we would walk around World Showcase since we had never been there during F&W Festival. Julia was dying to eat at South Korea so off we went.
After all the food we ate, I don’t know how we ended up at The Electric Umbrella, but apparently we were either still hungry or refusing to have extra dining credits left.
Hope decided it was time to take a nap.
After we ate, it was off to Mission Space. I sat out this time. After last year, I didn’t even attempt the green mission!
Hope found some energy to run around the play area.
We took one last ride on Spaceship Earth and then sadly, it was time to say good night to Epcot.
Duffy greeted us when we got back to FQ.
I finished packing up our stuff and made sure we had everything set out for the morning.
Do we really have to go home tomorrow?
Up Next: Our last day - would our Magic Bands work one more time?
