I have a crazy idea...

Here we go for round two! For those who have not read my first trip report, I am currently playing catch-up on my past three trips in preparation for my next trip in September. So let's stop wasting time and get right to it!

You may be asking yourself what the crazy idea was..well, in July 2010 while getting my daily Disney fix I seen that a trip would be affordable...if we drove...dun dun dun!! After clearing it with the BF we decided 15 hours in the car couldn't be THAT bad...could it??

Jump ahead a month and it's, Friday, August 20th 2011, by 8pm we had the car all packed up and we were ready to hit the NJ Turnpike. By we I mean, me, Nicole (27) and my DBF, Ryan (22). We actually got extremely lucky and drove straight through the night, we hit about 30 min worth of traffic as the sun was coming up in SC but by 12:30pm on Saturday, August 21st this came into view..

After being in the car for 16+ hours without sleep I could not contain my excitement:sohappy:

We checked in at All-Star Music and we got our room here...

I was also super excited to find these little guys in the window..

On our last trip we never had any towel animals, and I wanted to find them in our room so bad...wish granted!!

I know people complain about the size of the room at the value resorts, but honestly, for the two of us, its perfect! We usually put in a request for a king bed and we find there is PLENTY of room in there for US. We would LOVE to stay at some moderate / deluxe resorts down the line but right now, we cant justify spending $150+ per night for a room we are never in!

We laid low for the rest of the day just taking in the resort. Ryan is a drummer, so all the music stuff was right up his alley!

Up next...an early breakfast at Crystal Palace!

 

[WDW_Princess24]

WHAT?? They have chocolate Mickey waffles!??!

August 22, 2010

Early to bed...early to rise! We are up and out by 8:30am and headed to my favorite, The Magic Kingdom, for some breakfast with Pooh and friends!

As soon as I see this

I cannot help myself! That giant smile creeps up across your face, you know which one I'm talking about kinda looks like that, makes your face hurt after about 10 minutes haha. Having that feeling like nothing else matters is truly amazing and I swear if I could move into that castle I would. Hey! A girl can dream can't she??

We checked in for our ADR's and we were seated right away as the park had just opened. We quickly went up to grab our breakfast before the characters came. Crystal Palace is the only place I have ever seen chocolate Mickey waffle's!

soooooo yummy!

Sometimes in my own head I feel so silly with the characters but than I realize..who cares right? Than who do I see coming?? I get so excited, and that smile creeps back across my face and I start to giggle, Ryan was about to ask what was so funny when...

Eeyore stopped by!! I always want to take him and run! Ever since I was a kid I have been obsessed with him! He is just so sad and I just want to hug him and love him alll day long!
We also nabbed our picture with Tigger.

After filing my belly with Mickey waffles we made a quick run over to Tommorwland where we ran into Stitch!

We do a lot of park hoping so we decided to head over to Hollywood Studios at about 1:30...and here we are..

We did all the "must-dos", The Great Movie Ride, Tower of Terror, and Rockin' Rollercoaster. If memory serves correct TSMM was a zoo (surprise) so we skipped it for now. With the exception of TSMM we got really lucky in the parks. Even though it was still summer the majority of the schools in the South had started all ready and the parks were low!

By 3:45 there was a rumbly in my tumbly and because Toy Story is one of Ryan's favorites we headed over to PIZZA PLANET!

After lunch we headed back to the resort for a quick nap. MK had EMH until 3am and I needed to make sure my batteries were fully charged and ready to go!

 

[BrittanyRose428]

You guys are so cute together! Great trip report so far, you're making me so excited for my trip with my DBF!

 

[WDW_Princess24]

EMH till 3am!!

After our nap we headed back into MK around 8:15pm

We grabbed a spot and we were ready to watch The Main Street Electrical Parade!

On our last trip Spectromagic was still around, we were both excited to see that the MSEP had been brought back. After all, as a kid I always said my dream job was to be Alice in Wonderland on top of the mushroom in the MSEP, and here she is...

..totally should have been me :ROFLOL:

After catching the parade we headed into Adventureland for...adventure, what else?!?
Off to Agrabah!

Now after we wandered through Adventureland and Frontierland we headed towards the Haunted Mansion. As I got into the doombuggy I sat down and put my feet out in front of me, as the buggy closed, I felt something strange at my feet. Yup...my flip-flop was GONE...ask me how I managed that one, I couldn't even tell you, but it somehow managed to fall off my foot and through the crack onto the moving track. I spent the entire ride sulking that the Haunted Mansion had stolen my shoe! When we went to exit we told a cast member what had happened and he said that it was probably gone for good, at first I thought he was joking until he threw in a "no really, I'm serious, it's gone". What does one do at 12:45am with one shoe in the Magic Kingdom?? Laugh barefoot all the way to the emporium where I picked up some new shoes..

Nothing like a new pair of Mickey flip flops.

We than headed into Fantasyland where we ran into..

Up next..a day of drinking around the world!

 

[WDW_Princess24]

August 23, 2010

Next morning we slept in a bit and headed over to Epcot around 11.

We headed over for a ride on the clam mobile before taking the walk to Japan for our ADR's at Teppan Edo.

As a whole we really enjoy the Japan pavilion. This was our first time at Teppan Edo, our chef was great and did a great job keeping everyone at the table entertained. Because we live in the NY/NJ area there are a lot of Japanese style Hibachi restaurants around us, we didn't find the food here to be much different. Although it was good, I prefer Tokyo Dining.

We had plans to hit up the Rose and Crown for some drinks but on our way through France I spotted that infamous pink dress! You guessed it, Princess Aurora! Now, she has been my favorite princess ever since I was a little girl and I always felt like as far as princesses go, she doesn't get as much attention in WDW as some others. Never the less 5 year old Nicole could not contain her excitement ( I had never met Aurora before).

I was hoping to see her with Philip but she told me he was out feeding Sampson, I was also curious about her blue dress, she told me she had it on that morning LOL

As we walked across the bridge into the UK we seen someone who is rarely out for meet and greets. We waited on a short line and we saw her getting nasty with other people on the line because they refused to curtsey to her and she would just shoe them away. As we approached her, I curtseyed and Ryan bowed to her majesty...The Queen of Hearts! She was so delighted we did this without her having to tell us so she posed us like this..

Now it was off to the Rose and Crown where we spent a good amount of time until we took all of our fun out to the streets of London, or to the phone booths of London..

By this time it was about 8:15 so we headed back to Japan to catch Illuminations.

 

[WDW_Princess24]

August 24, 2010
Next morning we headed over to Hollywood Studios

First thing we did was something new for me, Ryan remembered seeing this when he was 5.

The Beauty and the Beast stage show was wonderful! We both absolutely loved it! Gaston was dead on, so arrogant and cocky, it was hilarious. I found myself singing along. It really is a great production.
After the show we headed over to

As you can see, Ryan loves it, me, not so much! I actually do love it, after it's happened. Getting me on the first time is like pulling teeth. Since the drops are always different it is so unpredictable and it scared the bejesus out of me!

We caught the afternoon parade before it was changed to Countdown to Fun. I wasn't really too thrilled with the parade, although I did like how the floats stopped and CM's interacted with the kids, that was cute. I feel a lot of the parades have become kinda lack luster for the most park, hopefully that is something we will see improvements in in the future, but who knows??
Maybe she does..

I was so excited to see Boo, she is adorable!

After the parade we did the backlot tour which I was upset with. I remember it being much better before they took away from it. I am a huge fan of the Golden Girls and I was excited to see the house only to find that part of the tour had been removed..boo! We rode Rockin Rollercoaster again and headed to Hollywood and Vine for some dinner. I thought the buffet was great with tons of options. Before we left, our waiter asked us if we planned to stay in the park for the rest of the night, we said we were and he returned with two priority seating passes for..

FANTASMIC of coarse!!
This is Ryan's favorite nighttime show, I am looking forward to whatever refurbishments/changes they have planned for 2012.

After the show we fought the crowds and headed back to the resort to get some sleep, we had a day at Animal Kingdom ahead of us tomorrow!

 

[disneyjesus]

Great report. Look forward to reading more.

 

[xsupaxmanxsfnex]

Awesome trip report! This is really fun to read. I am heading down in 20 days from August 14th through the 18th and I'm really hoping the crowds won't be terrible. Looking forward for more!

 

[oommggitskait]

Loving your TR. It's making me excited to go with my BF in August this year.

 

[WDW_Princess24]

Thanks so much to everyone for reading along. I hope to post more before the night is out!

 

[WDW_Princess24]

August 25, 2010

Today was our day at Animal Kingdom.

We had some pictures taken under the Tree of Life than it was off to It's Tough To Be a Bug. I have been fortunate enough to have never been stung in the back or feel those bugs run across my butt! I remember when AK opened my aunt had gone a few months before I was going and she told me to sit up and make sure I picked my butt up at the end LOL. However, when Ryan and I went together for the first time, I didn't let him in on the secret!
Here we are on safari!

We grabbed some lunch at Pizzafari, which is basically the AK version of Pizza Planet..same pizza, same salad..I love it anyway LOL
After we ate we headed over and hoped on the line for EE, the line was about 30 min. The entire time we are on the line we are just watching the sky get darker and darker, we get to the platform, load in, and we are on our way. As soon as we leave the station it starts to POUR and I mean POUR!! It was awful and hilarious at the same time! We took a ride on the PW to dry off and headed over to Dinosaur! Now, I've been on this dozens of times, I know how it goes, but still, this happens...

Every single time I get the crap scared out of me! LOL
After this we called it a day and headed back to our resort, grabbed something to eat, and called it a night. Not before we repacked our bags of coarse! Tomorrow we were moving it over to All Star Movies for a few more magical nights!

 

[WDW_Princess24]

August 26, 2010
In the morning we got ourselves together and checked out at 11, by 11:15 we were next door at All Star Movies making our way over to our room in the Love Bug section.

We spent an hour or so just walking around the resort and checking out all of the different buildings. Say what you may about the Value resorts, but I love it. The giant colorful props really makes me feel like a kid. I love anything bright, colorful, and exorbitant so all of this is really up my ally. Plus, I can't justify spending $200 a night for a room that we are never in. Both of us were really hoping we would be placed in the Mighty Ducks building, because we are both HUGE hockey fans and the original Mighty Ducks is Ryan's favorite movie (he has played Hockey since he was 4). Needless to say he was stoked about this...

We hoped the bus and headed over to Epcot at about 1:30.

We went right to Spaceship Earth. For whatever reason we hadn't gone on this on our previous trip. Prior in this trip we rode it and didn't expect or understand why they took your picture as you began your journey back in time. This is something we have so much fun with now!
Here we are in our awesome future car

and diving under the sea on our future adventures..

We headed over to Japan for our reservations at Tokyo Dining..yes, again. I feel like we are always there LOL but it is just soo good! After our always delish meal we headed to Mexico where I grabbed a margarita and Ryan grabbed a beer. We spent some time drinking around the world before heading over to MK.
Earlier in the week we kept seeing all these adults with the princess tiaras on, now me, being such a girly girl and a huge Aurora fan I kept saying that I wanted one. So when we got to MK Ryan said that I should get it, we headed into the Emporium and I walked out with it on my head, who cares what anyone thinks right?? Ryan swears I am a real princess and I should wear a tiara all the time..LOL
So having a buzz from our Epcot adventures and my tiara in hand(or on my head) we headed over to the tea cups..

I was surprised I wasn't sick to my stomach because things that spin tend to make me queezy but I survived. We decided we to head over to Toon Town as this would be the last time we would see it standing. I'm still sad that they have not decided to relocate Mickey and Minnie's houses elsewhere. I love Minnie's kitchen so I hoped up on her counter for one last pic..

We finished off our night with my favorite, Wishes, and although I am not a professional photographer, I like to think I always get a few good shots with my trusty Cannon PowerShot

Tomorrow would be our last day in the world before heading home and MK was open till 3am that night so after Wishes we headed back to ASM to get a good nights sleep!

 

[WDW_Princess24]

August 27, 2010
As always, time seems to fly so quickly when you are in the world and after our week of fun it was our last full day in the happiest place on earth.

We started off our morning at HS, we wanted to get in one last ride on RNRR and TOT, unfortunately I think the line for TSMM was out of control and we decided since it was our last day not to waste anytime. So it was on the bus and off to spend our last day here..of coarse

For the most part the park was empty throughout the day..I had the castle allll to myself!

For dinner we had a first time reservation at..

I had read so many mixed reviews on the place I was really skeptical since I am so fussy. But, we absolutely loved it. We actually spent a lot of time in the restaurant, granted our server wasn't the most attentive but we were in now hurry. I had the shrimp scampi which had so many large shrimp in it and Ryan had the chicken parm which he devoured! For dessert we shared an ice cream bomb which was so yummy!

They are so cute!

When we were at dinner it began to rain, well pour! I started to get upset because it was our last night, there was extra magic hours, but I was afraid Wishes would be cancelled. They kept making the announcement that due to inclement weather the fireworks were going to be delayed.

Here we are again soaked.

After standing around for about 20 minutes the down pour turned into a drizzle and they began! We could barely see anything! Because of the weather and all the clouds and humidity the fireworks only added to it. It was mostly just clouds and smoke with some specs of light.

By the time Wishes ended the rain had stopped, we ran through the puddles and into Fantasyland where we found..

I RAN like a small child, like took off! 5 year old Nicole was so excited, soaking wet and all I could have cared less. This was the first time we had seen Mr & Mrs Mouse together..EVER it was the perfect way to end our trip.

Unfortunately, we had another 16 hour drive ahead of us the next morning.

Thank you everyone for joining along, I am getting better and better at this as we go along and as I am trying to remember all of these trips! I will soon be getting on my next report for our April 2011 trip, which I hope to have more details on and ever more photos!

See ya real soon!
xox