Trip Report Meet the Floridians

Hello humans!

Most of you know me by now, but for those of you who haven't followed my past TR's (particularly my most recent), I'll do some brief introductions. Feel free to check out my past reports (in my signature) if you'd like!

Who: I'm Brittany! I'm 25 and completely Disney obsessed. My better half is Dylan, also 25 and not quite as Disney obsessed. Prior to meeting me, he had never been to WDW! It was obviously top priority to remedy that.

This is our baby, Tink. She also loves Disney.

We got engaged in Magic Kingdom in June.. my dream come true! Though our wedding won't take place in Disney, it will be Disney themed.

While we were enjoying our time in the World, I accepted a 1st grade teaching position in Osceola County, Florida. Fast forward a month, and we packed up a U-Haul to relocate from Pennsylvania to the Sunshine State!

We currently live 20 minutes from Disney property, and one of our first purchases should come as no surprise. This report will be a collection of our adventures as annual passholders, and I'll update it with a Table of Contents as we go. Now, without further ado...

To all who come to this happy place, welcome!

 

[blreinsel]

I'm behind again! However, as of 12pm tomorrow I am officially on SPRING BREAK!!!! That means lots of Disney and (hopefully) lots of TR writing.

Let me just say.... Flower & Garden is by far my favorite festival. I've been one other time in the past, but that was before I became a "hardcore Disney freak." I've sampled a few things so far this year and have been extremely impressed. The merchandise is AMAZING and I'm really struggling to not buy everything. The overall feel of the festival has just been really enjoyable for me and I can't wait to share it with you all! I promise to try and get caught up this week.

 

[ScarletBegonias]

I'm am so jealous you get to be there so often!!! Enjoy Spring Break!!

 

[blreinsel]

Saturday, February 3

We were up early for (almost) park opening at MK! Getting from the parking lot to the entrance just takes SO LONG, especially first thing in the morning. When we arrived, we decided to hit up Space Mountain first because the wait time was still pretty low. P was pretty disappointed because she wanted to ride, but she was just shy of the height requirement. She was still on a thrill ride high from Test Track the other night, but I promised that she would get to ride another "fast" ride later.

Anyway, it was just Dylan, my brother, my sister-in-law, and I while my parents stayed with the kids. We planned to do child swap but forgot to get the pass before entering the queue. My parents have both ridden it before so I knew they wouldn't be upset, which they weren't, but I still felt bad. We had a fun trek through space, though! Dylan was in the other car and his ride picture was boring so I didn't even bother downloading it. My sister-in-law was a RIOT on this ride. She squealed and laughed the entire time, which of course had me in a fit of giggles too.

Our next stop was the Speedway, which we waited standby for. It wasn't too bad of a wait yet, but I knew it would be if we waited too much longer. P refused to drive for whatever reason, but she got a kick out of "racing" the rest of the family.

We stopped to get her license before moving on.

Next, we had a FP+ for Dumbo and Dylan made fun of me for "wasting" one on this ride as we walked there. I told him to mark my words and sure enough when we arrived, it was something like a 35 minute wait. That'll show him. P was much more interested in controlling a flying elephant than she had been with driving a car.

She was also interested in holding my wallet for the entire ride and I couldn't help but worry that it was going to end up in the water below us.

My dad and N.

And my brother and sister-in-law way across the pond. There were different people taking pictures, hence the varying perspectives.

 

[blreinsel]

Saturday, February 3 cont.

One last picture with Dumbo before moving on!

We waited standby for Barnstormer next, which I had never done. The wait ended up being quite a bit longer than what was posted, so that was annoying. You know what else is annoying? Parents that don't correct their kids. There were MULTIPLE families of kids just crawling all through the landscaping, messing with the props, and being plain obnoxious. Of course none of the parents saw a problem with it, but after we got closer to the main Storybook Circus area, a security guard noticed them and made them get down. This is why we can't have nice things.

The ride was really short and the seats were SUPER uncomfortable, but both kids had a blast and that's all that matters. P finally got brave enough to put her hands up. Proud auntie over here.

We passed by the carousel and P decided that she wanted to ride, so that's what we did next! I ended up on a kids horse so was uncomfortable, but it's a sacrifice aunties are willing to make for their babies.

We needed to kill some time so I suggested Philharmagic since we were right there. Everybody seemed a little hesitant, but they were happy we did it after the show ended. When will they learn to just trust me? P absolutely LOVED it and we had fun singing along together! I'm a huge fan of this show, so I was happy that she loved it too.

We started making our way to Main Street but stopped for this sweet picture on the way.

It was almost time for Festival of Fantasy, so we decided to get our family pictures done, grab some treats from Starbucks, and then claim our spot on Main Street. P was NOT having it, and obviously neither was N. I bribed her to smile in this one by telling her we could take a "special auntie picture" when we were done. It did the trick well enough.

She gets in these moods where she's just... weird. Her sense of humor is very similar to my sister-in-law's, and they're just goofballs when they get in these moods lol. So of course when it was time for the special auntie picture, she started being a weirdo. She would NOT leave my hair alone, so enjoy this otherwise adorable shot of me with a strange looking hairdo.

We tried for one last shot, but they'd had enough. It's still a pretty good one, though! I'll take it.

 

[blreinsel]

Saturday, February 3 cont.

Treats in hand, we were ready for Festival of Fantasy! Anytime I watch the parade I send pictures and videos to my sister-in-law for the kids to see, so they were excited to finally be seeing it for themselves. There's not much else to say so just enjoy the pictures. Here we go!

 

[blreinsel]

Saturday, February 3 cont.

Finishing up FOF!

The parade ended and the wait time for Tinkerbell was short, so that's where we headed next. Typically when I do character meet and greets, they're great about interacting with adults. However I noticed that having kids in our party, they were less inclined to acknowledge the adults in the group. Not a big deal since we were obviously there for the kids, but I just thought it was interesting to see the difference in them. I wasn't overly impressed with this Tink and her interaction with P in general.

After flying with the fairies, we had a FP+ for Pooh. Time to bounce with Tigger!

It was finally time for our highly anticipated Seven Dwarfs FP+! P LOVED it and kept her hands up pretty much the whole time. Again, Dylan was in the car in front of us but you can kind of see him in the corners of our ride pictures. He was teasing P about taking his ride partner for everything but she wasn't phased by his hurt feelings.

I wish the wait times for this weren't always so long because it really is a great ride. P wanted to ride again but nobody was interested in the 2 hour standby wait.

 

[blreinsel]

Saturday, February 3 cont.

Our next stop was a short wait for Small World, which turned out to be a highly entertaining and smelly ride. So N decided to dirty his diaper as we floated along through the countries. We all knew that he needed changed, but obviously that couldn't happen until we got off of the boat. There was another family in our boat and all of a sudden the wife smacked her husband and blamed him for the smell. He threw his hands up and said "I swear it wasn't me!" but she wasn't convinced. We were cracking up. Anyway, here are some pictures from our journey!

My brother, sister-in-law, and the kids' names all popped up on the screens, but the rest of us were left out. Disney refuses to put my name on those screens, I swear! P thought it was pretty great, though.

We detoured to the Tangled bathrooms to take care of N and I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of this beautiful area.

Rapunzel deserves more than just bathrooms!

We had FP+ for another boat ride so off to Adventureland we went!

I'll never stop loving these happy elephants!

 

[blreinsel]

Saturday, February 3 cont.

So I'm realizing that there are other things that we did but I don't have the pictures to remember exactly what those things are. I know that we watched Mickey's Royal Friendship Faire, ate dinner at Cosmic Ray's, and did the Laugh Floor... there may be some other things but I'm blanking. We did run into Move It, Shake It on our way over to Cosmic Ray's. The kids were grumpy so didn't have much interest in dancing. N did start dancing right at the end, but he wouldn't go out in the street with the performers.

We claimed a spot for fireworks probably around 45 minutes in advance and the CM's had crowd control down to a science this night. They were packing us in like sardines, but we had a great view and it was much more civilized than the typical elbow throwing, pushing, chaotic experience. As soon as the fireworks started, a group of teenage boys stepped right in front of P and my mama bear instincts came out. I wasn't nasty to them, but I was very stern when I told them to move back to where they had been standing so the 4 year old could see, seeing as they were much taller than her, even with me holding her. They looked scared so maybe I sounded a little crazier than anticipated, but either way they got out of the way. Everybody was HIGHLY impressed with Happily Ever After and it was super special getting to watch the show with P. Again, I'm always sending her videos of the show, so seeing it with her in real life was a lot of fun.

After the show, we split up for a little while. The plan was to ride Big Thunder and possibly Splash, but by the time we got to Frontierland the wait times had sky rocketed. N had fallen asleep so my sister-in-law and I took P to meet some princesses while everybody else went to see Hall of Presidents. P suddenly started into one of her weird moods which resulted in this lovely picture.

First up was Ariel! I love this meet and greet.. I remember meeting her when I was P's age so I guess this one is nostalgic for me. Though her meet and greet back in the day was even cooler. I remember being able to look out over the water and a King Triton statue was off in the distance. Anybody else?

Talking about how old she was turning.

Our last stop of the night was to see Rapunzel and Tiana. P has seen Princess and the Frog but I wouldn't say that she's a huge Tiana fan. However, this friend of Tiana's was amazing and may have changed her tune. I can't even remember exactly what all they talked about, but when she signed P's autograph book, she sealed it with a red lipsticked kiss and P was in awe. She was twirling and dancing around as we waited for Rapunzel to finish up with the family in front of us. Watch out Elsa, Tiana is trying to take your place.

 

[blreinsel]

Saturday, February 3 cont.

Rapunzel was spunky as always, and her CM companion was a lot of fun too. Somehow we tripped over each other and Rapunzel was making jokes at his expense. We had a good laugh.

After this, we met back up with everybody in the Emporium to grab some souvenirs. Unfortunately after that, we had to say our goodbyes as they were heading home early the next morning. The kids' first trip was everything that I thought it would be and more. I really expected there to be more bumps along the way with such a large group, but we really didn't have any issues at all. My sister-in-law did mention a "next time," so I'm already looking forward to that even though I'm sure it won't be for a few years. The weather was good for the most part, the crowds weren't bad, and the kids did extremely well considering how long our days were. Traveling with kids was a very different experience than what I'm used to, but it was certainly just as much fun.

 

[blreinsel]

Thursday, February 15

Since Dylan had to work on Valentine's Day, we were celebrating a day late. We really didn't have plans going into the night, but knew that we wanted to catch a few rides and eat dinner somewhere. A friend of his that works at the golf course also works at Star Tours and gave him this FP+ for us to use, so that was our first destination.

After our FP+, we played a game of ADR roulette and ended up at Sci Fi, which was a new one for both of us!

Our server was really attentive and took great care of us. We were hitchhikers with an older couple and they were super sweet.

I loved the detail and little Disney touches on all of the cars.

I took this picture to send to my dad because we always watched Tom and Jerry together when I was young. Lots of nostalgia going on here.

I decided to try a Magical Star Cocktail and it was super yummy! Dylan had a beer of some sort.

For our meals, Dylan went with the Reuben and thought it was okay.

I tried the Chicken Pasta and it was AMAZING. The portion size was huge and I ended up taking quite a bit home with me. It made a great lunch the next day.

I really can't say enough good things about this restaurant. I've always avoided it because I've heard a lot of negative reviews, however I didn't find any of them to be true. The atmosphere was great, the food was delicious, and the service was on point with Disney. My only regret is that I didn't get a milkshake, but I won't make that mistake next time. I definitely recommend giving this place a shot!

 

[blreinsel]

Thursday, February 15 cont.

We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant and made our way to Tower of Terror. If I remember correctly, we had a FP+ but didn't really need it.

We had just a little bit of time left before park closing, so we decided to wait standby for Toy Story Mania. It was probably about a 40 minute wait or so.

Going into this, Dylan had never beat me and it drove him insane. Would tonight be the night to change that?

Well, darn. It seems that I've misplaced the picture of our scores. I just can't remember who won. We headed out after this as the park was now closed. It was a great Valentine's Day and I'm glad that we got to try a new restaurant. I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that we can go on dinner dates at Disney. These dates sure beat Applebee's back home.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention this part of our Toy Story rematch. We were getting on the tram and as Dylan "lowered his head and watched his step" to get onboard, his 3D glasses fell off of his head. We both looked at each other before cracking up. Oops! Quite the Disney souvenir, don't you think? I just wonder how many people noticed them on his head as we made our way out of the park.

 

[wdisney9000]

Thursday, February 15

Since Dylan had to work on Valentine's Day, we were celebrating a day late. We really didn't have plans going into the night, but knew that we wanted to catch a few rides and eat dinner somewhere. A friend of his that works at the golf course also works at Star Tours and gave him this FP+ for us to use, so that was our first destination.
View attachment 271444

After our FP+, we played a game of ADR roulette and ended up at Sci Fi, which was a new one for both of us!
View attachment 271445

Our server was really attentive and took great care of us. We were hitchhikers with an older couple and they were super sweet.
View attachment 271446

I loved the detail and little Disney touches on all of the cars.
View attachment 271451

View attachment 271452

I took this picture to send to my dad because we always watched Tom and Jerry together when I was young. Lots of nostalgia going on here.
View attachment 271448

I decided to try a Magical Star Cocktail and it was super yummy! Dylan had a beer of some sort.
View attachment 271447

For our meals, Dylan went with the Reuben and thought it was okay.
View attachment 271449

I tried the Chicken Pasta and it was AMAZING. The portion size was huge and I ended up taking quite a bit home with me. It made a great lunch the next day.
View attachment 271450

I really can't say enough good things about this restaurant. I've always avoided it because I've heard a lot of negative reviews, however I didn't find any of them to be true. The atmosphere was great, the food was delicious, and the service was on point with Disney. My only regret is that I didn't get a milkshake, but I won't make that mistake next time. I definitely recommend giving this place a shot!

Ive never understood the bad reviews Sci Fi gets. The food has always been great (in our experiences) and we always have a good time. Glad you enjoyed it.

 

[LadyBelle]

Ive never understood the bad reviews Sci Fi gets. The food has always been great (in our experiences) and we always have a good time. Glad you enjoyed it.

I've had great experiences the two times that I've eaten there. I always love the Tom and Jerry cartoon when it shows.

 

[ScarletBegonias]

You can tell you know exactly where the cameras are on the ride!!! I want a picture of Harper and I like that on 7DMT!!! I have no idea where the cameras are though!

 

[blreinsel]

Ive never understood the bad reviews Sci Fi gets. The food has always been great (in our experiences) and we always have a good time. Glad you enjoyed it.

I've had great experiences the two times that I've eaten there. I always love the Tom and Jerry cartoon when it shows.

I really hope more people give it a chance and have good experiences like we all have! It doesn't deserve the smack talk it gets!

You can tell you know exactly where the cameras are on the ride!!! I want a picture of Harper and I like that on 7DMT!!! I have no idea where the cameras are though!

Haha! My mom always teases me and can't understand how I remember where all of the cameras are. Just be prepared when you crest both hills... the cameras are right there!

 

[blreinsel]

Friday, February 16

In Osceola County, we have something called "Rodeo Day" and it comes in the form of a day off of school. It has something to do with the town being a big farm town in the past, from what I understand. Kids would miss school for the rodeo so they made it into a day off for everybody... that's what I was told at least. Either way, Dylan and I were both off today so we were off to explore Festival of the Arts!

Our first stop was Club Cool for some refreshments. As we were leaving, my friend texted me and said that Paige O'Hara was meeting guests in the park and that she had her art work for sale. I could barely type a response because I was in total disbelief. I asked where she was meeting and she said right by the fountain. I literally turned around and THERE SHE WAS. We walked (ran) over and were the last people to be let in line before they shut it off. I couldn't believe it... I was about to meet BELLE!!!! I think you guys all know this by now, but Beauty and the Beast is my favorite and our wedding will be themed as such. Anyway, I ran over to buy a piece of her artwork while Dylan saved our spot in line. I was able to get an AP discount on it so it was actually pretty reasonable! We had a short wait and soon enough I was next!

Dylan said he tried to capture every moment because "the excitement was radiating off of me" as I stepped up to meet her... I'm a total fangirl, what can I say lol. What he doesn't know is that I had tears in my eyes, but I composed myself before I got up to her.

We chatted about my love for Beauty and the Beast and how lucky I felt to be meeting her. I told her about our wedding and that her art would now be proudly displayed for all to see on our special day.

She signed her name and "Belle" on the painting.

Guys... she was SO SWEET. Meeting her was an absolute dream come true and I still can't believe that it happened. I remember thinking that she didn't really sound like Belle when she talked, though certain things that she said and her laugh kind of did. Dylan pointed out that it's been quite a few years and her voice has likely changed a bit, not to mention audio enhancements and things of that sort that were surely used in the movie.

I was on Cloud 9 as we walked away and went to take advantage of our Test Track FP+.

 

[LisaBelle]

OMG! I am sooo excited for you and also incredibly jealous!!! I would have felt exactly as you did! How cool to have her signed artwork at your wedding! That will be amazing. I am so happy your friend let you know she was there!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

So cool that you got to meet her. I saw her from a far at the the D23 Expo, I tried to hear what she was saying to people because I wanted to hear if she really sounded like Belle. It was too noisy though so I couldn't hear her.

 

[blreinsel]

Friday, February 16 cont.

After our ride, we continued on to World Showcase to look around and admire the art. I'm not really an art person, but if it's Disney art I'm all about it.

I had just read about this piece, titled "Dream It, Do It," in somebody's report, so we stopped to check it out in real life. This one was HUGE and made it pretty easy to find the characters and hidden Mickey's. I can't remember how many of each are in the piece off the top of my head, but it's truly amazing and such an awesome piece of Disney art!

We continued on and stopped in France to grab a Frose' (Frozen Côtes de Provence Rosé Wine with Grey Goose Vodka and Peach Purée). It was pretty good!

As we walked, I couldn't get my mind off of the Dream It, Do It painting. I had a few Disney gift cards from Christmas that I still hadn't spent and couldn't think of a better way to spend them. I got a smaller version of it and am still so obsessed. Greg McCullough, the artist responsible, autographed it for me and was fun to talk to!

We stopped to take some pictures and ended up being in line right behind my friend that had told me about Paige O'Hara. We chatted until it was her turn and then parted ways. The photographer that she had was so much fun, but of course her shift was over as we stepped up. Our photographer was fine, but not nearly as much fun as the previous one. I wish he would have told us to move back a bit, but oh well!

We had had enough fun for one day, so started making our way out. We stopped for one last picture before leaving.

Goodbye Festival of the Arts!

I didn't think I would like this festival, but it ended up being a lot of fun! I hope they keep this one around and I'm sure that if they do, I'll add more Disney art to my collection next year.

 

[blreinsel]

OMG! I am sooo excited for you and also incredibly jealous!!! I would have felt exactly as you did! How cool to have her signed artwork at your wedding! That will be amazing. I am so happy your friend let you know she was there!

Thank you! It was pure luck... the Disney gods were in my favor!

So cool that you got to meet her. I saw her from a far at the the D23 Expo, I tried to hear what she was saying to people because I wanted to hear if she really sounded like Belle. It was too noisy though so I couldn't hear her.

She was great! Apparently she had been speaking earlier in the day but we missed her. Hopefully she comes back next year and I can make time to listen.