Trip Report Livin' La Vida Local

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

For those of you that have been following my adventures for awhile now, welcome back! For those of you that are just joining my adventures, I'll do some quick introductions before we jump on in!

I'm Brittany and this is my prince, Dylan. We are from Pennsylvania and got engaged at MK a little over a year ago. We took a page from Walt's book shortly thereafter and chased our dreams, leading us to central Florida. I teach 1st grade and Dylan works at the Magnolia/Palm (Disney) golf courses located across from the Poly and Grand Floridian. After living in FL for a full year now, we are 100% certain that we won't be moving back to PA. We are Floridians through and through and can't imagine living our crazy life together anywhere else.

You'll see lots of faces in my report (including some of yours!), but this is the one you'll see most often. This is my very best Disney friend, Brooke (@wishes2013)! We met through this site and were brought together when we realized that we would both be teaching 1st grade at the same school. I'm not exaggerating when I say that you can either find us at school or Disney... we're together more often than we're not.

You can find the ongoing trip report that chronicles our first year living in FL and being passholders here. This report will serve as more of a "highlight reel," rather than detailing every moment of every trip we take to the parks. But fear not, there will still be lots of report to read! If you're looking for your Disney fix or a way to chase those Disney blues away, you can most certainly find it here.

To all who come to this happy place, welcome!

 

[krisri18]

So, I'm headed to the World on Saturday....any chance I might see you wandering in the parks at some point in the next 2 weeks? I don't have any cool cards like @Tuvalu, but I'd love to say hi if you are around!

Maybe @blreinsel should start posting her meet and greet locations here, then we'll know where and when to find her! She needs cards too, we could have collectors sets!

 

[blreinsel]

So, I'm headed to the World on Saturday....any chance I might see you wandering in the parks at some point in the next 2 weeks? I don't have any cool cards like @Tuvalu, but I'd love to say hi if you are around!

I have trainings for school next week and then officially start back August 1, so my park days will be limited. BUT I will definitely be at AK on Monday 7/22 and again on Thursday 8/1. I'm sure that I'll pop in at other times between now and then, but I just don't know when for sure yet.. it'll all depend on what time I get out of school and such! I'll try to remember to post here when I make plans to go so we can possibly meet up to say hi!

Maybe @blreinsel should start posting her meet and greet locations here, then we'll know where and when to find her! She needs cards too, we could have collectors sets!

That would be awesome!

 

[Songbird76]

I have trainings for school next week and then officially start back August 1, so my park days will be limited. BUT I will definitely be at AK on Monday 7/22 and again on Thursday 8/1. I'm sure that I'll pop in at other times between now and then, but I just don't know when for sure yet.. it'll all depend on what time I get out of school and such! I'll try to remember to post here when I make plans to go so we can possibly meet up to say hi!




That would be awesome!

7/22 is an AK day for us too, so I'll look for you!

 

[Rista1313]

I saw a picture of you on Ben's IG today!

 

[blreinsel]

7/22 is an AK day for us too, so I'll look for you!

Yay!

I saw a picture of you on Ben's IG today!

He's the best!

 

[Songbird76]

I didn't see you, but my daughter got heat exhaustion and we ended up spending about 4 hours in Pizzafari trying to cool her down and I finally had to take her to first aid when she wanted her sweatshirt because she was freezing. She had a fever and they gave her Tylenol and she felt better for a while. Anyway, we ended up not doing much that day, and I didn't even think to look for you because I was so worried about her. Any plans to be back this week?

 

[blreinsel]

I didn't see you, but my daughter got heat exhaustion and we ended up spending about 4 hours in Pizzafari trying to cool her down and I finally had to take her to first aid when she wanted her sweatshirt because she was freezing. She had a fever and they gave her Tylenol and she felt better for a while. Anyway, we ended up not doing much that day, and I didn't even think to look for you because I was so worried about her. Any plans to be back this week?

Oh no! That's a total bummer. I hope that she's feeling better by now! I popped into AK briefly yesterday afternoon, but probably won't be back much this week because I'm officially back to school. I've been super busy this past week starting to get stuff ready, so my park days have been seriously lacking!

 

[Songbird76]

She's much better now. But my son refuses to set foot back in AK. Today is check-out day and our last Disney day. We'll be checking into the Doubletree at Seaworld for a few days and then go to Universal. So I probably won't get to see you. I did have the pork pulled nachos last night and thought of you! They don't have them anymore at the Tambu! I had to go to Capt Cooks.

 

[blreinsel]

I’m behind (as always), but I figured I would check in from a spooky MK tonight.

 

[blreinsel]

I suppose I should try to get caught up on my report. This post is the start of my new passholder year, which usually prompts me to start a new report. Because I'm so awful at coming up with catchy report titles, I decided to just keep posting in this one.

Sunday, July 14 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

We didn't get to the parks until early afternoon, but our first FP window was open as soon as we arrived so we headed straight there.

Honestly because this was several months ago, I don't remember what all we did because I didn't take a ton of pictures. I know that we did some other things after HM, but I have nothing to show for it.

We stopped for snacks at some point!

No birthday is complete without a castle picture... AND this is my first one as a Mrs. so it was a must do.

We headed out of MK (for now) and hopped on the monorail to hop over to Epcot for our dinner ADR. We had a little bit of time when we arrived, and I wanted to visit some friends and invite them to my birthday party. The wait ended up being quite a bit longer than what was posted (and actually made us a few minutes later for dinner),

We hurried out of Character Spot and made our way to WS to check in for dinner!

 

[blreinsel]

Sunday, July 14 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

We were trying something new for dinner tonight!

We started with some bread and I ordered French Onion Soup as well. It was really good!

I believe Dylan had the roasted chicken. His stomach didn't feel great and he didn't eat a lot of it, but he enjoyed what he did eat.

There was no question about what I was ordering... the baked macaroni. It was good, but honestly wasn't amazing like I thought it would be.

Our waitress brought me a birthday dessert and they sang to me (which was really embarrassing ). But my gosh, this was AMAZING. I was really full, but I forced every last bit down- it was that good lol.

Some pictures of the restaurant.

Our overall thoughts on Chefs de France- it was fine but isn't somewhere we'll likely return. The food was good but wasn't anything that has us dreaming about having again. I was surprised by how noisy it was throughout our dinner, so I didn't love that. I'm glad that we ate there and checked another restaurant off the list, but I don't see us returning.

 

[blreinsel]

Sunday, July 14 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

I grabbed a celebratory drink to enjoy on our way out of the park!

Goodbye Epcot!

We got on the monorail and headed back to MK. I think we used our other two FPs before claiming a spot for fireworks. We were greeted by this sight as we walked down Main Street. This tour group was never ending and they were obnoxious.

We chose to watch HEA from the end of Main Street so we could make a quick exit. We had a great view, aside from this idiot who had no regard for the fence or landscaping.

I had another amazing birthday at my favorite place with my favorite person!

 

[blreinsel]

Wednesday, July 17

Caitlin and I met up at Studios and started with a Toy Story Mania FP! This might be my best score ever! I don't think I've ever gotten a prize other than the beaver until now lol.

We planned to go watch Ben, but that quickly turned into an all day adventure... we watched all 5 of his shows. He actually cried at the end of the last show, acknowledged that he knew we had come to all of his shows, and mouthed "thank you" to us. I love him. ❤

Caitlin had to leave, but I stuck around for just a little bit longer and actually got to meet up with Ben for a few minutes to chat before he went home for the evening. I ended the night with a cookie num num and then headed out of the park!

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 22

Today always remain one of my favorite Disney days that I've ever had. There really aren't words to describe it, but I think the look on my face in the pictures speaks for itself.

Brooke, Caitlin, and I arrived at AK and headed straight for Harambe Theater! Today, we would be sitting VIP, which landed us on the front bench of the elephant section!

My favorite tumble monkey was ready for some fun!

I love this dancer, too! He's always so entertaining to watch.

They found a piece of one of the animals' costumes and it became a toy lol. They were passing it back and forth, putting it on their lips like this, tossing it in the air, and putting it on each other's heads. The one on the far right actually brought it down and gave it to me at the end of the show.

I love this monkey, too! He's definitely the most expressive of them all and is absolutely wild lol. I'm always excited when I catch him in a show!

Sitting in the front row with nobody blocking our view was INCREDIBLE! We had a lot of interaction with the monkeys and stilt walkers and it made the show that much more enjoyable! We got the bugs picked out of our hair too, so that was an added feature of VIP status.

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 22 cont.

Oops, I forgot a few pictures!

We left the theater and decided to just walk around for a little while. We bumped into Kevin as we walked!

We we decided to go see the cutest dinos in all the land!

Our next stop was to visit some safari pals! Brooke's friend is friends with Minnie, so we wanted to say hello!

Brooke's friend had told Minnie that I had recently gotten married, and she was really excited to show off my rings!

We were all ready for a cool treat, and settled on the Bugs n' Grubs cone. It was delicious!

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 22 cont.

We had one last thing to do, and it was the one that made this one of the best Disney days ever!

All of the performers were so kind and treated us as if we were old friends! We really clicked with the elephant, and enjoyed talking to her in between pictures!

Although I was overjoyed to meet everybody, I was really there for one reason.

I still cannot handle the fact that this happened. I watch these performers weekly and admire their talent, and now here I was, sitting right beside them "monkeying around." I never wanted to leave, but all good things must come to an end. I'm hopeful that I get to meet more of them some day, but for now, I'll be extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to meet these ones!

We used our safari FP to visit some baby giraffes before heading out of the park!

 

[blreinsel]

Sunday, July 28

Some random AK pictures... look at all the babies!

 

[blreinsel]

Wednesday, July 31

Caitlin's birthday dinner at Hoop Dee Doo!

 

[blreinsel]

Thursday, August 1

I found some FoP fastpasses, so Caitlin and I popped into AK for a few hours to use that and visit my favorite primates!

 

[blreinsel]

Sunday, August 11

Dylan and I had actually went to AK the night before, but when we tried to get into the last FoLK show of the day, they cut the line off and said they were full. I was so upset, and was determined to get to see the show again before school started. I returned this morning and watched 3 shows to make up for it.

The monkeys were all wound up and one of them tried to "eat" my hand when he walked past me at one point during the show.