Trip Report COMPLETED- I Couldn't Love You, but Here's $0.25 in Souvenirs- Celebrating 10 Years of Kid Trips to Disney

We began our adventures early on the morning of February 5th. Just before 7am CT, we had my vehicle loaded up and ready to go. I’m not sure how we did it, but we managed some room for the dog so we could drop her off for boarding (aka Camp!) on our way out of town. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. She gets comfortable in the strangest positions...

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I haven’t set foot in my office since March 16, 2020, so I have no idea what rush hour really looks like these days or if Fridays are still lighter traffic days...but it was a breeze getting out of Houston.

I have no pictures for you until shortly after Lafayette, LA. I was driving up until this point, but after a series of urgent texts from my boss, we decided to stop and switch drivers. I’m not a big fan of critical conference calls at the start of my vacation, but these days, I’m thankful to be gainfully employed. After I got off the phone, I took a few pics as we were driving through the Atchafalaya.

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It’s probably for the best that I wasn’t taking pics prior to this. Everything around Lake Charles, not too far west of this area, is still showing a lot of damage and tarps from the 2020 hurricane season, so it's pretty depressing. I also hate driving over the Mississippi in Baton Rouge, so I was pretty happy to have David at the wheel.

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Speaking of David (and everyone else), if you want all of the details, please take a look at my PTR. https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/family-return-to-wdw-take-2.971452/

Now, if it looks rainy and gloomy...it’s because it was. We were at the leading edge of a front that was moving east. The rain stayed with us for a good portion of the drive.

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In light of everything Covid, we didn’t stop at any of our usual lunch spots. I packed a small cooler full of lunch stuff and we stopped at the Mississippi welcome center to eat. Unfortunately, it was really chilly, so we ate in the car. That didn’t stop a ton of pigeons from surrounding us in hopes that we’d drop some crumbs on the way to the trash.

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I was aiming for Tallahassee for the night. That’s usually where we wind up when we make good time, but we’d left so early that we were in Tallahassee by dinner time...even with losing an hour when crossing into the Eastern time zone. We didn't even have traffic with the tunnel in Mobile! Not sure why we decided on Whataburger when we have tons of them at home and this one was way off the highway, but we went a bit out of our way to eat at this one for who knows what reason. At least it had a nice little drive-in area to park and eat.

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Somewhere in between Pensacola and Tallahassee, we also developed a bit of a car problem…

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Somehow, my front sensor got blocked, which in turn disabled all of my front end safety features...as well as my cruise control. I’d had this happen once before, but it quickly corrected itself. This time, it wasn’t going away. The rest of the trip both to Disney and back would be done without cruise control. I felt like I’d jumped back in time to my first car!

We could have stopped for the night at this point. It was late enough that it wouldn’t have been crazy, but it was early enough that we felt the need to push on. So, I booked a hotel in Gainesville and we kept driving. I lived in Gainesville for several years in the early to mid 90s, so it always feels a bit strange to go back, but it was the best option for the night. It took a little bit of time to get all of our stuff upstairs, but by driving a bit farther this evening, we could all relax a bit and sleep in a little the next morning. And silly...we could be silly.

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We slept in a little on February 6th. I think it was around 9am when we went downstairs to grab some breakfast to bring back to the room. It was mainly just some cereal, fruit and hard boiled eggs. We couldn’t sit around too long, because we remembered that I forgot to get cash. I couldn’t remember if the toll plazas had switched to toll by plate (they had) and I’d need some cash for tips upon arrival at WDW. So, we waved good-bye to the LaQuinta…

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And headed to Publix…

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I didn’t spend a lot of time in there, but it was really strange, because this was the Publix we’d shop at when we lived in Gainesville. It just happened to be the closest to the hotel. It also was in the same shopping center as a restaurant I used to work at for a couple of years...so a real trip down memory lane.

With cash in hand (and an extra stick of deodorant purchased so I could get cash back), we were on our way to WDW. I also got some time to call and set up an appointment to get my vehicle in the shop when we got home (more on that later).

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David was driving, so I was actually able to take a few pics on my phone when we arrived.

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This was also his choice of arrival music. I still don’t get it, but he’s got a pretty fun Idina Menzel impersonation. I regret not taking video, but I was taking pictures.

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I’m sure most of us have experienced this, but between my phone, the MDE app, and our magic bands, they knew that we were on property. I immediately got notification that our room wasn’t ready, so I wasn’t expecting much upon arrival.

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After getting a multitude of welcome homes from the security booth attendant (Kendall had all kinds of questions about this practice), a very nice guy with bell services helped with our luggage (who looked kind of funny at the big air mattress I had in the mix) and a woman, who magically knew it was me, told me she’d messaged housekeeping to put a rush on our room. So, all there was left to do at this point was park and figure out what to do with ourselves while we waited. Since I’d canceled our B&C ADR, we didn’t have any place to be until 5pm...and it was 11:48am. Hey, I told Disney we’d be showing up around noon.

Coming up...managing the wait, first impressions on our room, and an evening in Disney Springs.
 

ferbtones

Well-Known Member
Ha ha thanks for the shout out.
I remember the agonising you did over placement on your Dooney.
Glad to hear you got a Harvey, I got a purse for my 40th which I treasure.

Good view for a standard, and yummy treats too.

Continuing to follow along.
 

RememberWhen

Well-Known Member
Random question: was that liquid soap on the washer? They used to leave packets of tide, but your picture looked different. Thanks!
 

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I really wasn’t sure what to expect with Disney Springs. I know they’ve been controlling numbers, but I’ve also heard that it’s been feeling more crowded of late...especially on weekends.

It didn’t look too bad at first. I think we all were just happy to be there and walking around.

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Now, I know some places are very popular and I knew long queues were forming outside of buildings. Still, you don’t really get just how long until you see it in person. This was at Gideon’s. This was maybe about ¼ or ⅕ of the line to get inside.

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(He’s soooooo cute!!!)

After making the drive to FL, I wasn’t in the mood to stand in any real lines. So, we just kept walking. The crowds were feeling really thick in some places, especially with the live music in the area. We considered Erin McKenna’s and the Ganacherie, but just decided to head back to The Edison to wait for it to get closer to ADR time.

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We started to get antsy, so we went up around 20 minutes to 5 (5pm ADR) to see if we could be seated.

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I would have totally understood if they said no, but thankfully, they said yes and we were taken downstairs to our table.

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Sam was absolutely in love with that staircase and started wondering why we couldn’t do something like that in our house. First off, steampunk lighted brass doesn’t exactly go with things. Secondly, the stairs were one of the earliest fixer upper projects we did to this house...and I like them the way they are! LOL

This was intended to be a night of snacking, so entrees were never in our plans. I’d heard many good things about the bacon and David and the kids wanted the fries...so that’s where we started.

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The fries were just ok, but that bacon!!!!!!! Oh, that bacon is divine. Sure, it’s bacon and as long as you’re not a vegetarian, you really can’t go wrong with bacon. My only regret is not trying the chocolate covered Valentine’s Day version of the bacon.

We also ordered drinks. This was David’s first one, but I’m not 100% on what it is. I think (and that’s a big think) that it’s The Edison, but I’m not sure. I do recall that he liked it, but it wasn’t what he thought it would be.

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This was my first drink…

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I’m pretty sure, but also not positive, that it’s the Time Turner.

Kendall ordered the non-alcoholic Smoke & Mirrors. I could have sworn that this had a bit of a presentation in the pre-covid era, but it’s just a drink.

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Poor Sam ordered a sugarcane cherry Coke. It’s not that it was bad, but she didn’t know to stir it and felt it wasn’t as fun as the other drinks.

I will say that the bar is very cool looking…

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We weren’t ready to move on yet, so we ordered the spinach cheese dip.

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I wasn’t expecting much from it, but it was really tasty. It was like chips and queso meets spinach artichoke dip. David also got another drink...The Tesla, I believe...but I can’t seem to find any pics. Now that’s shocking!
 

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
There really wasn’t anything else we wanted to have, so we decided it was time to move on. At least I got some more pics on the way out. This is such a cool looking place. I can’t wait to come back here just to hang out for some drinks.

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Oh yea...we also got a nice treat towards the end of our meal...LIVE MUSIC!



Before I move on, I wanted to address part of the trip report title...because it came from this meal and was a running joke for the entire trip. December 2010 was the girls’ first trip to WDW, so we sort of looked at this trip as the 10th anniversary of them being introduced to the Disney parks. Naturally, this prompted discussion about the highs and lows of our Disney trips over the last decade.

At some point during this meal and during the reminiscing, Sam mentioned how she was a bit underdressed compared to me and Kendall. David made a joke about how it’s hardly the first time she’s embarrassed us at Disney. The conversation covered a lot of their first two trips, where she was acting every bit a 2 year old...which is funny, because at home, she’s always been the easier child. So, we talked about her mega meltdown in DAK…

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(she was like this for close to 2 hours!)

...and how she thought she could run away from us inside the park...even though she just ran away to Dinoland.

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Or her special moment in front of the gingerbread house at the GF…

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Or how she threw a fit at MVMCP because she didn’t want to be warm and wear her coat. It was about 38 degrees out.

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Or the hours of screaming at Epcot, DHS, and on the bus...just because I couldn’t get anything right. Poor kid was entertained by an older man’s pet schnauzer pics for a while just to keep the peace. But it was our 2011 trip that really got the discussion going. I’m not sure if it was describing her MK Welcome Show meltdown, or this Test Track “you’re too short to ride, but your big sis isn’t” moment where she was trying to kill me with the stroller... that prompted what was to come.

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Sam started to say something that was “how could you still…”, but I guess I made the wrong assumption on how she was going to finish that question, and I interrupted and said “well, I couldn’t!” Unfortunately, her question ended with “love me?” So, the next words out of her mouth were “You couldn’t love me!?!?!?!” And of course David had to get in on my blunder and say, “that’s right, she’s saying I couldn’t love you!” So, all trip, it was all about how I couldn’t love Sam. In fact, I’m still hearing it!

So, now that we know that I couldn’t love my child because of her WDW tantrums, it was time to look at snacking in between meals. Gideon’s and the Ganacherie were still insane, and I wasn’t up for walking all the way over to Amorette’s...plus the line was probably going to be bad there too. After dropping my B&C ADR, I found out about Vivoli Gelato and we were right there, plus they had no wait and had some empty tables. So, we’d be having gelato next.

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I was a little ticked off about the guy who went in the exit and ultimately cut us off in line (especially because he was served first and wound up at the table I was eyeing), but they had rum raisin, so I was still pretty happy and let it go.

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HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
They didn’t feel the gelato was safe for Kendall and her allergies, but felt the red velvet cookie would be OK.

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Sam wasn’t up for any of this, so she got a doughnut (bombolato).

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David was boring...he got chocolate gelato. Sorry, but he had all kinds of fun options and this just sounded so boring to me...even if it was dark chocolate! While some of my raisins could have used a longer rum soaking, it was still excellent. Kendall also said her cookie was awesome. The doughnut wasn’t to Sam’s liking though, so that’s a bummer, but I still think she would have enjoyed it more if she paired it with some gelato.

We were at least right next door to our next ADR, so no real rush to get from point A to B.

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We were able to get a table in the corner after a bit, so we moved over there and just crowd watched while finishing our treats.

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This one was looking pretty bored in between bites.

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Coming up...the rest of our evening in Disney Springs and the return to BWV for the night.
 

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Oh man, I’m sure it was miserable then, but these pictures are priceless! 😂

It's funny, because they've always asked me why I'm constantly taking pictures. This is why! Hopefully, one day, they'll go into graduation or wedding shower slideshows.
Sleeve firmly in mouth and pouty eyes. Priceless. 😂

One of her finest moments :D
 

RememberWhen

Well-Known Member
It definitely wasn't Tide. The pic was from my phone for that one, so I can't get much definition when I zoom in. I didn't trust the stuff, so I wound up using the pods I brought from home.

It is a generic scent-free liquid laundry detergent. Very gentle. We used it to wash our masks.
Thanks! We usually bring pods because the kids have sensitive skin and it’s easy, but the pods we used last time don’t seem to be available anymore. Especially assuming we’ll be needing to wash masks in October, it’s good to see what disney is providing.

Also, grumpy kiddo pictures are the best!
 

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