Trip Report I'll Never Grow up!-April 2016 Trip Report

Hi! So I'm a bit nervous...this is my first trip report actually being posted after browsing the forums and reading these for almost 7 years now. But we had the trip of a lifetime and I put so much planning and thought into it that I thought it would be really fun to share it finally, given how much I myself love reading the trip reports.

We just came back from the most amazing eight days at Disney World! I couldn't believe that after over 400 days of counting down the day finally came to go to the most magical place on Earth and from there the rest of the trip was nearly perfect.
Since I'm new to this specific thread, I thought I'd introduce our fun little family!

Cast and Crew:
Me!-A.K.A. Danielle, I just turned 18 and am graduating this year and heading off to Penn State in the fall! I'm probably the biggest Disney fan in my family as it's literally all I ever talk about. My favorite character is Stitch and my favorite princess is Mulan

Victoria-my 14 year old Ariel obsessed sister! We don't get along all of the time but managed to go the entire trip without getting into too many fights

Mom (A.K.A. Andrea)-If I told you her age, she'd probably find out and kill me! My mom is a saint for taking us on this trip! She's the most amazing woman I know and her favorite thing to do is say "watch the closing doors!" when we're in Disney! As you can imagine, she's the woman who has memorized the spanish monorail directions. Her favorite character is Tink!

Dad (A.K.A. Pete)-unfortunately dad is a big deal for his firm [PWC] and is a managing partner for the Long Island office. It's busy season for him so he won't be taking this trip with us, but he'll be with us in memory! He'll make a few brief appearances in the trip report. Dad has an awesome Goofy impression!

So that's our family!

Before getting into the details, I guess I'll briefly explain the title! I'm the biggest kid at heart, even if I'm only 18. Going off to college and having to do adult things scares me and Disney is one of the only places where I can comfortably feel like a little kid again. So my goal this trip was to make like Peter Pan and go off to Neverland! It's also my last Spring Break trip with the family so it's very bittersweet for all of us [even if dad couldn't be there physically].

Where we're staying: Polynesian Village Resort! We're so excited because it's our first time!
When: We stayed from April 23-30. 8 days packed full of fun and adventures

I hope you guys enjoy the trip report and I'll try my best to update regularly and make it entertaining [hopefully?!] As soon as I get my iPhoto issue with exporting my photos sorted out within the next few days I will get the trip report started.

 

[danitaytay]

Following along! Stitch is my favorite too! My first stay at Poly will be this fall so I am excited to see your resort comments.Congrats on your upcoming graduation. Leaving home for the first time and going off to college is scary but you will experience so many wonderful things. Keep busy and enjoy campus life and you will be just fine.

Thank you so much! Yay, I always love fellow Stitch fans!
I think you're going to absolutely love it. It has that Disney feel but at the same time isn't too over the top. When we walked around the resort I sometimes forgot we were actually in a theme park.
Thank you, I'm very excited but definitely nervous I can't wait for all the new adventures and possibilities that come with college life though!

 

[danitaytay]

Great job! I would love to stay at the Poly someday.

Love the end of day summary

Thank you so much! It is a really beautiful resort.
Haha, we thought it would be a fun little way to quickly sum up our days for our dad actually, since the only way we got to talk to him was through our phones.

 

[danitaytay]

Awesome report so far! Can't wait to read more..

Thank you so much!

 

[danitaytay]

Great report so far and great pictures! Your stressful airplane experience is a huge part of why I almost always fly Southwest these days. They assign each individual a boarding number (instead of 100+ people in each "group") so everyone lines up and you avoid the mob standing in the boarding area. Can't wait to read more!

Thank you so much! It's very difficult just choosing 10 pictures per post!
Yeah, the only reason we ended up flying AA is because it was the only direct flight we could find. We've had so many problems with them in the past too, but the flight time [the original one of course] worked out so conveniently and we also had free travel vouchers because of our flight they messed up last year, which caused us to miss a day of our trip actually. Our favorite is JetBlue though!!! They have the best service ever.

 

[danitaytay]

Loving your report! You and your sister are too cute! Definitely following along, and I am suddenly craving dole whip thank you very much.

Awh, thank you so much! Haha sorry about that! I'm always craving dole whips

 

[danitaytay]

absolutely following along Thanks for sharing!!

Thank you so much! And thank you for reading

 

[danitaytay]

Following along. Great start! I love the end of day summary!

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it! We have one for every day written out

 

[danitaytay]

I feel your pain with Laguardia. I'm a LI native, just moved to Philly, and always tried to avoid LGA like the plague! I usually stick to JFK or EWR even now (PHL isn't much better)!

Loving the idea of an all girls trip and even more so at the Poly! Looks fantastic! Can't wait to see how the rest of your stay goes

Yes, we love JFK! It's a million times nicer than Laguardia. Being from LI too, Macarthur is also super easy since it's only 20 minutes away from our house, but it's so hard to find direct flights there nowadays.
Thank you so much! We usually end up having a girls trip every Spring Break because my dad has to work but it's usually to our timeshare in Mexico so Disney was a big step and adventure for us I hope you enjoy following along!

 

[danitaytay]

For your first TR you are doing an AWESOME job!! You and your sis are totally adorbs!!

Awh, thank you so much!!! I'm so glad you're enjoying it so far!

 

[samantha788]

Loving your report and the end of day summary is such a great idea!
I went to Penn State too...you will have so much fun!!

 

[blreinsel]

Enjoying your report!

 

[danitaytay]

Loving your report and the end of day summary is such a great idea!
I went to Penn State too...you will have so much fun!!

Thank you so much!! Ah, I didn't realize how many PSU alum are on here! I'm so excited to be there

Enjoying your report!

Thank you so much!

 

[danitaytay]

I just wanted to thank everyone so much for all of your kind words and I'm so glad to see that everyone is enjoying the TR so far!
It's a crazy week school-wise [I know, high school ugh] but I'm going to try to at least get the first part of day 2 up tomorrow

Thanks so much for your patience!

 

[Kiwiduck]

I'm excited to be reading your trip report, especially as you are staying in the Aotearoa building which is the building that represents my country!! Hope you like it there, I would love to stay at the Polynesian one day.

 

[danitaytay]

I'm excited to be reading your trip report, especially as you are staying in the Aotearoa building which is the building that represents my country!! Hope you like it there, I would love to stay at the Polynesian one day.

Thank you so much! That is so cool!
We ended up absolutely loving it there

 

[kimberlymautz]

Following!

 

[danitaytay]

I want to apologize for updating this a bit later than I expected! I had a dance competition from Thursday-Sunday and didn't realize how exhausting it would be! But the good news is I was finally able to download my PP photos so I have those to share.

Day Two!
Sunday, April 24, 2016: Happy official first day in Disney!

I set my alarm the previous night for 7:00 so I could shower and get ready but the excitement had me wide awake at 6:30 so I quietly creeped into the bathroom without waking my mom and sister up to take a shower. Victoria and I eventually headed down to Captain Cook's for breakfast around 8 while mom finished getting ready. We weren't super hungry so Victoria got some cut up fruit while I just had some dry multigrain frosted flakes because they didn't have dairy free milk! I ended up spilling half the container and just threw the rest out...I guess you can't take me anywhere!

The two of us walked around the hotel grounds after breakfast for a few minutes to give mom some more time to herself. We of course had to take some pictures in front of this amazing surfboard.

A very sweet CM offered to take our picture after we chatted with him about our trip plans.
Do we look like we actually like each other?!

We got back to the room around 8:45, grabbed our final things, and made it to the monorail at exactly 9, just as planned!
We were so excited to be back on the monorail as it'd been a few years since we've stayed on a monorail resort, as our 2013 trip we stayed at the AKL. The excitement surrounding our first monorail ride of the trip and also managing to get an empty car quickly ended when there were maintenance issues with another monorail down the line so we were stuck at the TTC for awhile. We finally got to the park around 9:45, so we ended up sitting on the monorail for about 35 minutes

Bag check went pretty quick but go figure, mom was randomly selected for additional security screening. You'll see as this trip report goes on our luck with this random screening was slim to none. After we scanned our bands for the first time we were finally in! We took a quick PP picture in front of the first Flower & Garden topiary and the ball and then headed to Guest Relations to bring my medical pass in.

I guess a quick pause in the TR to explain some things...I have a condition called Endometriosis [as well as a few other conditions that aren't necessary to explain], which causes me to be in chronic pain 24/7, and between the combination of that and the very heavy duty medication I'm on that prevents me from being in the direct sun, my doctor usually gives me a special note to accommodate my needs because I can't physically stand for too long. The CM helping us at guest relations was super friendly and there were no problems with me receiving the card. The nice thing was that they changed it a bit and now it ran electronically so you don't have to carry around an actual pass.
We'd come to see throughout the week however that the electronic scanners were down most of the week and I would just end up receiving what looked like customized paper FPs.

By the time we were finished our first FP was ripe and we headed to Spaceship Earth, our first real ride of the trip! It was a ton of fun but unfortunately mom and I were invisible in our future video so we just stared at headless bodies! After that we ran to Test Track to grab a return time with my pass, and then headed to Innoventions. We wanted to meet Joy and Sadness but the line was 45 minutes so we met Baymax, and he was absolutely adorable.
I'm the only one who's actually seen Big Hero 6 [I know, it's a tragedy], but nonetheless, Victoria couldn't stop talking about how cute he was.

After that, our 2nd FP was ready for TT, but only Victoria and I went. Our pink sports car got a 190 score, not too bad! We decided to have some fun with the car commercial game and put our retro sports car in the craziest settings with a country singer narrator.

We had some time until our other TT return time so we headed to Club Cool while we spoke to my dad on the phone. I almost tricked mom intro trying the Beverly because she didn't remember it from last time but Victoria tipped her off Maybe next time! My mom is very gullible after all. My favorite soda was the Inca Cola, Victoria's was the Vegetabeta, and mom's was the pineapple fanta.

By the time we were done sampling some free international sodas it was 12 so our Test Track time was ready and we literally walked right on! Victoria and I made a crazy mint green pickup truck that somehow scored a 209!

This is just something I'd totally want to drive!

After being windblown from that we were starving so we headed to Sunshine Seasons at the Land for lunch. While there, Victoria was smart and said we should get a return time for Living with the Land so we could walk right on after lunch.
For lunch mom had the power kale salad, Victoria had a chicken caesar salad, and I had my favorite tuna noodle salad with a slice of strawberry shortcake, because why note...we're on vacation!

Can you spot the unhealthy amongst all the healthiness?

Everything was super yummy and filling and then we made a quick stop at the bathroom before heading onto Living with the Land.

Still to come...some crazy character greets and F&G festival fun!

 

[danitaytay]

Day Two continued...

We were able to walk right onto Living with the Land and were very excited to get the first row of theta so we could rest our tired feet in front of us. It was a nice and relaxing ride that mom and I always enjoy...Victoria, not so much! I was very excited to see all of the food we'd be possibly eating on Wednesday at the Garden Grill.

We ran into these two hysterical ladies who were riding along squirting people with a little water bottle while screaming "SPLASH ZONE!" They loved my floral ears!


After our ride through the greenhouse we made our way to the special Visa meet and greet spot and were told our characters were a surprise so we were very anxious and excited. Don't get me wrong, I love surprises, as long as they're not happening to me! I'm a very impatient person. We ended up waiting about 10 minutes and then were privately taken behind a velvet curtain [I know, very fancy and V.I.P.!] and we were so excited to see Mickey and Goofy! They were absolutely hilarious and Goofy had great dance moves. We had a wonderful interaction with them and then found out that we get the PP pictures from the meet for free!

It was then time for the Seas with Nemo and we walked right onto it. It was adorable and for the first time ever my mom actually enjoyed the ride. Unfortunately we did get stuck in the jellyfish scene for a few minutes but that was about it. We took some time to walk around the aquarium, watching a dolphin show which I thought was really cool and then Victoria absolutely lost it when she saw the sea turtles. Back during our 2013 trip she suddenly had some epiphany that she was a turtle or something. She had a whole turtle dance and everything, so up to this day we always make a huge joke whenever we see turtles. She's a strange child without a doubt
After we took some pictures in Bruce's mouth, we found a tiny little shoe not he ground and nobody claimed it so we gave it to a CM. I felt so bad because some little baby was like Cinderella now! Victoria also bought a new Squirt plush from the gift shop because mom threw her other one out a few months earlier when she refused to clean her room.

If fish are friends and not food, what does that make humans?!

From there we checked out the Butterfly House and we even got some free GoGo squeeze applesauce which was nice and refreshing. We only stayed in the exhibit shortly because it was so hot in there!

When I checked my phone it said it was 88 degrees but the sun was so strong and my back was sweating through my romper! We then grabbed a return time for Figment but we only had to wait ten minutes so I grabbed a sprite to rehydrate and Victoria sampled some funky popcorn flavors because the CM we were talking to was also from New York and thought we were very cute apparently.

After that it was Figment time and we were all singing the song when we walked off, much to my dismay. But hey, the ride's air conditioned so I'll keep my complaints to a minimum. We decided to take some PP pics in front of the ball and then went to browse Mousegears where I bought an adorable Spring Break 2016 tank.
I was truly feeling like a grad in the Mickey ears cap!

It was then time for our 3rd FP where we headed to the Character Spot and met Mickey and Goofy again, as well as Minnie.
They were all fantastic and this Goofy was just as funny as the other one! While meeting Mickey, this adorable little boy got too excited and ran into our photo session, rolling all over the floor and waving to Mickey. It was so cute and Mickey got a kick out of it.

We had done everything in Future World that we wanted to for the day so we headed to the World Showcase, our first stop being Mexico!
On the way there a very funny CM wished me a happy birthday and then thought Victoria was older than me, and when we told him our real ages he just claimed it was because I had my sunglasses on. Yeah right!

Still to come...Around the world in just a few hours! And finally meeting my favorite princess!!

 

[kimberlymautz]

Your trip sounds like a blast!

 

[Beckett]

Great trip report and beautiful floral ears! Did you make them?