Trip Report Nov '13 - Surprise, 1/2 Marathon, Paraguayan Family, NOT totally a clusterfudge trip of a lifetime

abeachchick · Nov 26, 2013

Love the pic of you and your Dad!

Ariel484 · Nov 26, 2013

Congrats on finishing your first half and pulling off the surprise for your girls! Sounds like it was a fun trip.

sshindel · Nov 26, 2013

JillC LI said:
I remember the countdown to surprising our kids with a Disney trip last year. I thought the days would never pass and that I might explode with anticipation for their reaction!

There were numerous close calls. A few "We'll be in Disney... ummm, I mean, I'm feeling dizzy!". We (or more like I) almost broke down and told them on the way out of Disney On Ice, which had both girls begging to go back to WDW. The last week was really hard not to slip, and to try and pack in secret at night.
All totally worth it!

sshindel · Nov 26, 2013

By about now, I know you are probably thinking to yourself "You've written 10000 words in this trip report and visited a grand total of 2 rides at any WDW park. Are you EVER going to get around to actually writing about WDW on this Trip Report?!?"

Well, we're finally there. Up to this point, the only people on my trip who have stepped foot into a Disney park are my father and I, and we were either running, or had just run. My kids, while having fun with Grandma and Grandpa at the resort, are really starting to chomp at the bit to get out and ride some rides! Don't worry kids, so is daddy. And today, Sunday 11/10, is finally that day. First though, here's a quick snap that sums up our previous day:

First though, today is a big day. As we wake up, the family from Paraguay is in transit to Florida! The only problem, we really don't know anything about their travel plans. Like, we know they are arriving somewhere in Florida, we know that they intend on sleeping at their time-share, the Westgate Vacation Villas, but that is really about it. We do not know any more details about when they are arriving, what "units" in the time shares they are staying in, when they are going to meet us at the parks, anything.

Our original plan was to check out of the CBR today, and when everyone meets us at the parks, we'd spend the day with them and drive directly over to the timeshare at the end of the day. That was the plan up to this point. Now, not knowing ANY of the real details here, I'm nervous. How is this going to work? Are we going to have all of our things stuffed into our car all day in Disney parking? Are we moving over after a full day at the parks, with me on tired runners legs? How is this going to work. I know my wife is ULTRA excited to see her family, so (after a shower) I carefully approach the subject:
"What do you think if we extend our stay here for 1 more day. We let them get in and get settled, and tomorrow morning, first thing, we move ourselves over to their new place".
She agrees that this is likely the smart thing to do, so we get on the phone to the front desk and extend our stay one more day, even getting to stay in the same room. Perfect. The plan is to get some breakfast, then head over to the MK for a day of fun. I don't care if I'm on weak legs and a couple hours sleep, the MK is calling.
So, by around 9:30, I'm dropping everyone off at Old Port Royale for some breakfast while I head to the front desk to get set up with our extended stay. It's a pretty quick process, this agent is able to just click a few buttons and we're all set. Room extended, MagicBands should still work as keys, all ready to go. I'm back at Old Port Royale in time to get a quick bite (Mango Almond Tart again and some sliced pineapple) and we decide to just leave our cars parked there and catch a bus from Old Port Royale to MK. I think that we might have finally made it to the front gates by around noon, give or take a few. Not too bad I guess after a long night the previous night.
A quick scoot through bag-check, and we're ready to try out the park-entry on our Magic Bands. I've detailed a little in my pre-trip report my nerves on having this work. I bought the tickets through UndercoverTourist, we've got some old tickets we're using up the last few days on as well, etc. I've gone in and linked in the Undercover Tourist tickets first, and when my wife and my tickets run out, I'll link in the old ones. Is this all going to work?
Yup, no problem at all. Blink, green light, set up the finger print, we're in. Charlotte is thrilled every single time she gets to use her band for anything. No problems at all on our first entry. Phew.
Since it doesn't look too bad, I decide that the first thing I should do is to stop and get my Photopass+ card. While I'm doing this, the girls head over to listen to the Dapper Dans a little, then stop to buy sunglasses for the kids, which we had forgotten to pack. The lines for PP+ were slow, I think a lot of people were going in and looking at every single picture they had taken over the trip. I kind of wish they had a kiosk, or separate line to just turn in your voucher and get your card. I know that there is a way I might have been able to link my MagicBand into my Photopass card, but it is not offered to me at the desk, and I do not ask about it. I'll just keep my card, thank you very much. I did take the time to link into the park WiFi and book some FastPass+ options for the day. I choose the talking Mickey, Space Mountain, and Enchanted Tales with Belle. I do the tried and true picture of the back of the card, hang it around my neck and slide over to find the family (after listening to a few notes from the Dans myself

I find the girls in picking out their sunglasses, do a quick Tap To Pay with the MB, and its out to MSUSA.

Another quick stop for the Trolly Show, because I really want to try and take a little time to take in the environment here, not just rush ahead:

Decision time. Last trip, we let Charlotte pick our first attraction (The Haunted Mansion), so this time, we want to give it to Evie (even though Charlotte is begging for Space Mountain). The only problem here is that Evie is kind of got a bit of the nerves back on.
The last trip (December '12), Evie was not quite 2, and was terrified of basically every single ride. The few we got her on, if it was indoors, or partially indoors, she cried. We spent the next year secretly trying to reassure her. We had decked her nursery out when she was born with Mary Blair art, lots of concept art from It's a Small World, we can't have a kid who is terrified of IaSW can we? We talked to her often about it. We read her Small World books. We sang the song, often. We let her play the Small World app on our phones. When Disney Store released those IaSW dolls, I jumped at the chance to get them for the girls. We talked to her about flying with Peter Pan, shooting Zurg with Buzz. I played music from The Tiki Room constantly (which, lets be honest, I did anyway

). We HAD to be able to get her to enjoy some rides.
She's kind of remembering that at this moment, and a little nervous about any of the rides. So, we decide to take her through the castle, and then over to Dumbo to start with. A taste of indoors (with the new queue, which again, she was somehow terrified about last year), but an outdoor ride. Lets get her excited about things. We take our traditional "Hey dad, get a picture of us walking up to the castle":

and we bust a right over into Storybook Circus.

Once we hit the line for Dumbo, Evie starts to have flashbacks to last year. Uh Oh. She's saying she does NOT want to go inside. At All. NO. NO. NO.
Thankfully, a quick reassurance from my wife is all it takes, it's only a playground, then we can ride the ride. We carry her in, point out the lights, the sounds, and the playground, and she's ok. For a while. Until some 11 year old kid kicks her in the face on one of the climbing areas. Tears. Great. We're done for. Please, don't let this happen. Not after all the work we put in. Thankfully, we were able to get her to calm down shortly by playing with the "fireworks" part, and soon enough, our ticket was going off and it was time to head outside.

And she loved it. Phew. Not a dark ride, and she did love Dumbo last trip as well, but at this point, we feel like it was a disaster averted.
A quick celebratory snack for everyone (Charlotte with some Popcorn, Evie with an M&M covered marshmallow) and we decide it's time to hit the teacups on our way over to Tomorrowland. Charlotte is still desperate for Space Mountain, and we think that Evie's current Toy Story obsession might pan out for Space Ranger Spin being her first dark ride. A spin in the teacups first though.

Things are going great. It's time to give 'ol Buzz a shot before our FP+ for Space Mountain is time. We're all holding our collective breaths the entire trip through the queue, but are very encouraged at Evie's obsession with the Buzz AA. By the way. Anyone else think that as great as these amazing queue AAs are, the effect is kinda ruined if you have to have a CM yelling at all times to get people to stop taking pictures and start moving forward in the line?
I'm happy to report, Buzz was a roaring success with the entire family. This ride will prove a MAJOR plot point further in the trip, I'll leave that one as a surprise though. I'll just put in another picture here:

We still have a little time, so we go into MILF, and the girls have a blast with it. Both of them howling with laughter. Things are going fantastic.
Now it's time for Space mountain. Charlotte was not tall enough on our last trip for this ride, and had to sit around while her older cousins ran loops through the ride, telling how much they loved it. It was truly Charlotte's mission to hit Space this year. She measured herself once a week until she hit 44 inches. Then she measured herself once a week to make sure she didn't shrink. Remember, all of this not knowing we were even going to WDW this year. Just so that she was sure that she could do it whenever she made it.
She even had to stop herself on the way in to once more prove to all of us she was tall enough.
She was:

After the ride, we ask her what she thought:
"I didn't really like it. I mean, the stars were pretty, I really liked that, but it was too fast. It's just not for me."
No problem honey, I'm proud of you for trying.

After all of that, I think a treat is in order

After a wonderful Dole Whip Float for everyone (the 2nd longest line I stood in all week actually), the girls climbed up through the treehouse, and then it was off to my favorite thing in the universe, the Enchanted Tiki Room.
After the success of Buzz, I'm hopeful Evie will like this, but the storm/volcano section used to scare me a bit as a kid, so I'm nervous. Charlotte has only seen the Under New Management version of this, which she hated (can you blame her?), so this is kind of new for both of the girls. I've honestly not been in the Tiki Room since it's triumphant return to (nearly) the original show. I sacrificed it on the last trip to the altar of my semi-cynical nephews' first trip to WDW.
I'm proud to report, Evelyn is as obsessed with Tiki Room as I am :happy:

. We will make it back to this attraction many times in the upcoming week, as I can literally go out the exit and back in line and be perfectly happy. She loves to talk about how we made it rain in the Tiki Room. She tells everyone she sees now. Proud daddy.

Looks like I'm going to have to break this section up into a 2nd post, so we'll leave it at a very happy Tiki inspired note here and start a new post. Aloha everyone, next post coming very shortly.

sshindel · Nov 26, 2013

Dinner time, we do a quick stop in Pecos Bills while we are in the area, on the way over to Splash/Big Thunder. Nostalgia makes me love the taco salad here, so Andrea and I share one for a quick dinner. Then it's off to the mountains. Splash was Charlotte's favorite ride last trip, and she loved it as usual. Last trip was done before the big refurb, and I was amazed at how GREAT it looks now. One of the things I noted over and over on this trip is just how amazing the AAs are at Disney. When they are working (and on this trip, I really think nearly everything was in great working order), they are so incredible.
Around the Dole Whip time, I had gone into MDE and swapped out the FastPass I had for the talking Mickey to get one for Big Thunder, and right after Splash, it's time for Big Thunder.

Note to readers. You'll notice I've not mentioned anything about the Paraguayan family to this point. That's because up to this point, we've still barely heard from them. During dinner is the first word that my wife gets from anyone. They have indeed arrived, though outside of "Florida" they do not tell us where. We finally get out of them that they arrived in Miami, and are waiting for some sort of shuttle. I'm still, to this day, not sure if it was a rental car shuttle, if they were shuttling from Miami to Orlando, or any other version of this. Let's just say we're all pretty glad that we extended our stay at CBR. We will not see them tonight.

In line for BTMRR, I am talking to Charlotte a little about this ride, and her earlier ride on Space Mountain when she drops this nugget on me, right before we board our trains:

"Daddy, when we were on Space Mountain, I was afraid. I really wanted to scream 'I WANT TO GET OUTTA HERE', but I knew there was nothing you or mommy could do about it, and I didn't want to worry you, so I didn't say anything."

So yeah, my ride on Big Thunder (and Andrea's as well once I told her what she said), were through a very proud tear stained lens :cry:

. Through the tears, let me just point out that BTMRR looked fantastic. The lack of falling rocks aside, this ride looks better than I can ever remember it. Fantastic. Oh yeah, by the way, Charlotte, here's daddy's wallet, buy anything you want because you just melted your parents heart. Glow with the Show ears it is!!!

From Big Thunder, it's over to Fantasyland to close out the evening. Our big moment, will Evie like IaSW?

A big, sing-a-long inducing, thundering yes. It's worked. A full year of quietly working on her has worked. Or maybe she's just old enough now, or the Disney Magic is strong, but it worked. Phew. Again, this ride will be revisited over, and over, and over throughout our trip, and she loved ever second of it.

We still have a little time left before our Enchanted Tales FP+ reservation hits, and we notice that due to Wishes, the lines for the new Princess M&Gs are 10 minutes each, and we cycle through both sides in quick fashion. It gives us our first use of the autograph books I made, and the girls were thrilled to finally meet Rapunzel, and Charlotte's favorite Aurora. I wont blast the TR here at this point with 1000s of pictures from these M&Gs, maybe just one:

Or two:

We step outside to catch the finale to Wishes, to the girls delight, and then it's finally time to hit up Enchanted Tales. This is our first visit to this attraction, as last year the lines were terrible and the FastPasses were never working or available.
One positive I'll note is I loved that it was decorated for Christmas over in New Fantasy Land.
Negative, with FP, we skipped the main room of Maurice's Cottage, and the line at this point was probably short enough we could have just done standby. Oh well.
The girls loved the attraction. The mirror effect is fantastic, the Wardrobe and Lumiere were quite amazing. But, and I might lose some of my PixieDust points here, I just didn't feel the attraction was enough better than what used to exist over where Merida now resides to really warrant a whole attraction. I know that the footprint it takes up is rather small, and those AAs almost make up for it, but it's one of the few attractions on property that I think is a "once a trip" style. I just don't find a lot of re-watch-ability in there. Maybe it was just late, and the kids were all tired, but the kids all seemed confused as to what their "roles" were, and the interactivity just seemed to die there. Just a bunch of kids standing around and being shuffled around by attendants. Still though, the girls enjoyed it for what it was.

Now, it's 9:45, everyone is beat, and we still have to get up to the front of the park, across the monorail, on the busses, and back to our hotel. We want to kind of pack up tonight because maybe, if they ever show up, we might be moving to our new accommodations first thing in the morning. What we do finally know is that tomorrow is going to be DHS. A quick check on MDE and sure enough, no FP+ availability on Midway Mania. So we'd better get there early, and Andrea really wants Charlotte to be in Jedi.

So, snap decision 2. We'll pack tonight, but we'll throw our bags into my parents room, so we can get the hot foot on over to DHS and join the morning races to the 2 major attractions there for younger kids. We'll check out, but after the long day is over, I'll take the girls over to the timeshare, and I'll circle back to CBR for our bags.

Sleeping kids by the monorail, hauled them onto packed busses with the stroller, bags of merch, backpacks, etc.

We head back to Old Port Royale so I can get the car, take the girls over, and get them into bed while we try and quietly pack ourselves up for the morning. Exhausted, we fall into bed ourselves probably around midnight.

Tomorrow, hopefully, DHS, Family, our first Off-Site stay of our adult lives, hopefully Jedi, hopefully Toy Story, and maybe a little more.

JillC LI · Nov 26, 2013

The Dole Whip line was also the longest one I stood on last December! But DS (then 13) asked if he could look at some souvenir stands nearby while I was on line, and unbeknownst to me and my hubby, he purchased little gifts to thank me and his dad for surprising him with this wonderful trip to WDW that he gave us when we got home from the trip. Those little silver Mickey earrings are, without a doubt, the best gift I have ever received in my life.

sshindel · Nov 26, 2013

JillC LI said:
The Dole Whip line was also the longest one I stood on last December! But DS (then 13) asked if he could look at some souvenir stands nearby while I was on line, and unbeknownst to me and my hubby, he purchased little gifts to thank me and his dad for surprising him with this wonderful trip to WDW that he gave us when we got home from the trip. Those little silver Mickey earrings are, without a doubt, the best gift I have ever received in my life.

Wow, that is amazing! I can only hope that some day either of my kids will do the same. And yes, even if it's just a magnet, it would be the best gift I've ever received!
It does make me think that I probably should have snuck Charlotte off at some point and helped her pick out a Christmas gift for Andrea. Oops. Guess I'll have to find a way to do that at home.

JillC LI · Nov 26, 2013

sshindel said:
Wow, that is amazing! I can only hope that some day either of my kids will do the same. And yes, even if it's just a magnet, it would be the best gift I've ever received!

Yeah, the fact that he (a) thought to get us thank you presents; (b) acted on that thought; (c) kept it a secret; and (d) used his own precious saved souvenir money to buy US presents, makes me tear up just thinking about it. I'm glad we spoiled him with a few extra souvenirs from us while we were there since he didn't have as much of his own money to spend on himself.

RunnerFool · Nov 27, 2013

I had to aww at your daughter with measuring herself every week. I've been there, haha. I remember I did that for the Wheelie at Six Flags over Georgia. I got in the ride, strapped myself in, then screamed to be let out lol. (I believe I was 6).
Congrats on your half!

sshindel · Nov 27, 2013

RunnerFool said:
I had to aww at your daughter with measuring herself every week. I've been there, haha. I remember I did that for the Wheelie at Six Flags over Georgia. I got in the ride, strapped myself in, then screamed to be let out lol. (I believe I was 6).
Congrats on your half!

I'm proud of her. At her age, and much older, I was fairly terrified of anything Roller Coaster. I still remember the bravado I put on to my friends on the drive to our first trip to Cedar Point the year that they opened the Magnum XL 200 (at the time, the tallest / fastest coaster in the world). I talked a big game, but when we rounded the corner and caught sight of that thing towering in the distance, I may have laid an egg.

She ended up about 2 inches taller than the minimum height requirement for just about everything at WDW, but she even needed to check ONE last time before we got in the car after we told her we were going!

sshindel · Nov 27, 2013

Ok, I'm going to try and knock out one more entry here before the holiday weekend, as I doubt I'll have a chance to continue writing these over the next few days, and the longer time goes by, the more chance I'll forget things.

As mentioned before, we're hitting DHS today, Monday 11/11. We're up early, we've packed up everything, thrown all of our bags into my parent's room, checked out of DHS again, and instead of hitting breakfast, we're driving straight over to the studios. We're a little behind, we're not going to make it for rope drop, but we won't be TOO far behind.
We park, unload, and as becomes a pattern here this week, we skip waiting for the tram and just walk up to the front gate. We found that we always (even getting there later in the morning) were within a 10 minute walk to the gates, and it was just easier for us to walk than to unload the stroller and wrangle the girls into the tram.
We were through the front gates at 9:20am. We decide that we're going to split up. I'm running for FastPasses at TSMM, my wife is taking the girls over to get in line for Jedi Academy. I know it's a long-shot for both at this time, but we give it a shot. I actually run through the crowds, which is honestly still a little hard 2 days after the race, and jump in line for fastpasses. Even at this point, the CM outside are warning everyone that they are nearly out of FP for the day, and just because they are in line for FP, does not mean that you are guaranteed a FP. I end up snagging FP for 7:20-8:00. Not even the full hour at this point, but I've got-em!
I head over to Jedi and join the family in line. The CMs there are doing a very similar spiel. "Based on the number of people currently in line, we want to warn you that you MAY not get a confirmed spot, but can always stay in line for an alternate spot". Well, I guess that's what you get when you arrive at DHS 20 minutes after opening time. I take Evie out of line while Charlotte and Andrea wait. My folks are meeting us in the parks, and are kind of upset that they didnt get FP to TSMM, but hey, you've gotta be willing to play the game here to get these things. While we're in line for Jedi, they I guess head into Star Tours, so Evie and I head over to meet them in the Star Wars gift shop upon their exit. That is where I spy my ears for the trip. My favorite ears ever. Just glance left at my Avatar and I'm sure you've guessed already. That picture is a selfie I took to send to my wife, and she read the look on my face perfectly. The look that said:
"ERMAHGERD...VADER EARS!!!"
I dont even know why I put them back on the shelf for even the one lap around the store that I did. Soon I realize my life will not be complete without these, and I snag a nice little R2D2-with-a-mickey-balloon car decal as well, and I'm buying the ears. I will wear these ears nearly every single day of the trip. My wife understands. When people ask her "Aren't those ears hot, can he actually hear anything with those on, why is he wearing them?" she knows the correct answer "Yes they are hot, no he can't hear anything, and there is no way he is taking those off."
At this point, my parents meet up with me, and my wife follows not too long after. She got Charlotte into Jedi. She was the 3rd to last person to get a confirmed spot. She's in the 8pm Jedi. Well, I guess that conflicts with our TSMM fastpass, since they want us there 20-30 minute early. We'll figure that part out in a little while.
Andrea has an old friend who has moved from Chicago to Florida years ago, and she meets us at the park as well, so we're going to have a pretty big group today, if her family actually joins us too.
First though, Star Tours.

Man do I love that ride. I think I got an entirely new series of events than I've had before, and I get the world's biggest geekout during that ride. I probably could have just looped on this 4-5 times, but everyone is hungry, so we hit the Writers Stop to grab some food. While I'm in line, 2 things happen. Andrea gets the message from her family that they are pulling into DHS, so she bolts out as quick as lightening. They bought all of their tickets through Undercover Tourist as well, and had them shipped to our house, so they have no way into the parks until we can get them their tickets. Then her friend realizes she left her wallet in her car, so she has to bolt as well.
My folks and I grab the food and go find a place to sit over by Echo Lake so we can eat, and wait up for everyone. I then send the WRONG directions to Andrea on where to find us. Oops.
Anyway, we probably spend 30 or so minutes waiting while the family makes it out of their car, onto the tram, meets up with my wife, and make it through the turnstiles. Oh yeah, and they've made Family Tshirts for everyone. They stop for a few Photopass pictures before finding us:

This here is my wife as happy as she can be, surrounded by family she hasn't seen in forever.

Finally, she calls me to tell me that they are waiting exactly where I told them (Animation Courtyard), which is not where we are (Echo Lake). So, we head over and meet up with everyone. Hugs all around, and I'm changing into my matching shirt.

So we've said our hellos, and now their group wants to head off to show our nephew Franco Tower of Terror, even though he has no plans on riding it. We're right there in Animation Courtyard, and our girls want to M&G with Jake and Sofia, so the group splits up almost as quickly as it met up. We do a quick sign-n-hug with the Disney Junior set, and then decide that, since we're not going to be able to use our TSMM FP, we might as well jump in the standby line.
We kinda figure that the whole group would meet us over there, and we'll have enough people to make the standby line fly by. Well, not exactly. In fact, the group splinters more. My folks do not want to wait in line for what is posted at 75 minutes, the Paraguayan family has not gotten back with us, so it's just us and my wife's friend braving the line. Honestly, it doesn't go bad. I think we counted 55 minutes from when we walked in to when we walked out. Not too shabby. I got to ride with both kids, and they both LOVED it. I'm glad Charlotte didn't notice her sister beat her score (mainly because I was aiming while Evie fired).
We get word from the family again, and we tell them we're heading over to Pizza Planet for a quick lunch. We finally meet up with most of the family (a few of my wife's cousins have split off to hit ToT and Aerosmith) and have a nice family lunch together.
After lunch, the kids decide that they need to get their faces painted. Both of my kids love to have their faces painted, but nothing will match their cousin Franco's NEED to be in costume at all times. Either way, the kids want their faces painted before we move along.

Now that we're all set, we head over to Disney Junior Live on Stage, since there has not been a ton for the young ones to do so far today. Evie of course falls asleep right before we make it over to Animation Courtyard, so my folks agree to sit outside with her while we go in.

Charlotte and Franco both love the show, even though Franco does not speak English, Charlotte has really taken him by the hand and decided to show him a great time. Of course, this means we likely will have to make a return trip so that Evie can hit this attraction, but no worries.

After DJ, we head over and meet up with the bigger group and take a ride on the Great Movie Ride. This is really a family favorite, everyone loves it. I'm struck once again at how great the AAs are in this attraction. It had been a few years since I'd been on the ride, so a set of fresh eyes really did wonders.
Once again though, I've got a minor quibble
<complaint>
The "gangster" that took over our car mumbled so bad that though I tried, I could not understand a SINGLE word she said. Not one. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but NOTHING. It really detracted from the ride. The entire middle portion of the ride was a jumble of mumble.
</complaint>

Evie was still asleep when we went in, and was JUST waking up when we got out. And in a bad mood. Hindsight here, this might have been a warning on something. She was kind of inconsolable. I raced around trying to find chocolate milk to put her in a better mood, but could find it basically nowhere, and being dinner-time, all of the QS places were packed. Some lemonade helped, and got her to calm down enough to agree to go with Andrea into Disney Junior while we waited outside.

As we wait, Charlotte enjoying an ice cream bar, I notice on MDE that Mr. Incredible and Frozone are doing a M&G in the Animation building, but they are leaving in 15 minutes. Holy crap. And Charlotte has headed to the bathroom. And she hurt herself on the way back, twisting her ankle. I'm racing around trying to find her so I can get her in to meet her idol, she's limping around. In my head, this looked all like a very dramatic scene in an action movie. I'm yelling, pointing directions to my parents and anyone I can find, scooping Charlotte up into my arms and running, carrying her into the building, just in the nick of time. In all honestly, I probably just looked like a crazy-person.
Whatever. She was over the moon:

We make a quick trip over to the Osborne Lights to enjoy the show, the girls loved it. I tried to take a quick video of the Glow with the Show ears during the show, which came out ok:

After all of this, it's about time to make our way over to Jedi. Evie just is kinda off, but we don't think too much of it. Andrea takes Charlotte over to get ready for Jedi, I get a good spot to wait in front of the stage.

Charlotte had a blast with Jedi. I'd never watched the show before, so I really got a kick out of it. I really think Charlotte's face paint added to the show:

We decide that since the park is closed, it's time to head out and make our way over to the timeshare. We have no idea where the rest of the family is, but we were given a key earlier, and told a room number. We get the girls into the car, pull out of DHS, and Evie promptly projectile vomits all over.

Ugh.

We pull into the Hess station and whip out all our vomit-cleaning gear and do a quick clean job in the car and give her a new shirt. She's upset, but we get to watch a little of the fireworks from Illuminations in the parking lot while cleaning her, so she's ok.

Back into the car, back on the road. We make it over to the time share. It's not too far outside of the parks. We pull up to the room, grab our things, and head upstairs. The key does not work. We cannot get in touch with ANYONE. We cannot get the key to work. We wait outside for 10 minutes with two tired children, one who has thrown up recently.

I suggest we head back and get our bags, maybe by the time we make it back, they will be there and we can figure something out, or they will let us know where we should go or why our key doesn't work.

Back in the car and on the way to CBR. Evie throws up again.

At this point, I just tell Andrea, you know what, we're checking back into CBR one more night. We're getting Charlotte to sleep. Andrea wants to take Evie to an Urgent Care to make sure she's ok. Good idea.

We pull in, I get us another room, this time closer to my parents room, and we get an Urgent Care number from the front desk. My wife gets the last appointment of the night (11:30pm), and we have enough time to get our bags into the room, get my parents there, and get Evie washed and changed again. Now Charlotte is in bed, my folks are going to stay with her, and we're off to Urgent Care. One more puke for the road.

The doc thinks it's some form of virus affecting her inner-ear, so a total of a few hours later, she's feeling ok enough with some Zofran (to stop the vomiting) that we can head back to the room. 12:30am, we pull in and get McDonalds for ourselves. We get back to the room, get Evie to sleep, and just hope that she's not too sick. Tomorrow is a family day at MK, but we've got a sick 2 year old, for which I need to get Antibiotics in the morning.

To say a good day ended on a downer is an understatement. I hope that we can recover from here for the rest of the trip. I hope our little one feels better soon.

LondonGopher · Nov 27, 2013

sshindel said:
She's upset, but we get to watch a little of the fireworks from Illuminations in the parking lot while cleaning her, so she's ok.

Oh, so funny - only a parent could say that! Made me think of that scene in "As Good As It Gets" where Helen Hunt's date goes to kiss her and then stops with a horrible look on his face and she says, "It's only a little throw-up" or something like that...

Seriously though - a wonderful trip report so far - I hope your little lass was better the next day - and I am also wondering how the Paraguayans are going to figure in...I have lots of extended family from Nicaragua, bet we have had some similar experiences...

Lyear · Nov 30, 2013

Wow, made it through your report so far and really enjoying it. Glad you made it through your race, and it sounds like they do a great job with the theming. Sorry your little one felt sick, and I'm hoping she starts feeling better soon so she can enjoy the rest of her surprise trip.

sshindel · Dec 1, 2013

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving holiday. Lets see if I can knock out another entry here while the girls watch Monsters University.

The good thing here is that this one is our second day at Magic Kingdom, and the Paraguayan family's first MK trip. I don't think I need to spend a lot of time covering some of the rides that we already hit on our first day.

When last I wrote, we had spent a day at DHS, but at the end of the day, Evelyn ended up throwing up multiple times and lead to a late night at the urgent care. That means we're sleeping in a bit and making sure Evie is feeling ok. Thankfully, it really seems like Evie is already feeling quite a bit better than the previous night. We're crossing our fingers. I still need to run out to find a Walgreens to get some prescriptions filled for her.

Can I just stop for a minute and say that I love that everywhere in Florida, including Walgreens, have entire sections with cheesy Florida gifts? What can I say, I love a cheesy gift-shop.

Prescriptions filled, Pop Tarts purchased for breakfast, back to CBR to pack (again), check out (again), clean the vomit from the car (again), and hopefully finally make it over to the time share with the family. Also, I put my 13.1 magnet and my R2D2 window sticker on the car.

Car cleaned as well as we can, we finally get in touch with the family and figure out what happened with the key the night before. We were handed a key, sure, but the room number we were given was for the room we weren't actually staying in. The only problem is that they have 2 rooms, and they gave us the room number for the other room. The room we are staying in is about 8 buildings over from where we were trying to get in.
This time, daylight on us, the group still in the rooms we pack up the cars and wave one more goodbye to the Caribbean Beach Resort and head over to the Westgate Vacation Villas. Driving to the right building this time, we still don't bring up any of our things out of the car until we're sure that we can actually get into room. Thankfully, with the correct room, the key works like a charm.

Probably a good point to give a little description of the time share that we're in. Our unit is a 2br, 2 bath unit, with a loft area with a couple twin beds for additional sleeping, which our party needs. It has a full kitchen, laundry, and a nice little screened in balcony. The decor is a little outdated (maybe mid-80s) IMO, but it's in fairly good shape. One of the bathrooms seems to be basically just flat out inside the "master" bedroom, I didn't do much more than pop my head in that room the whole time we were there, but it seemed like there was a jacuzzi tub right inside the door to the master bedroom. That left the 2nd bath for everyone else to share. We could access it from our room through a sliding door, so we could go into the bathroom without heading out into the main living area. But, since the master bedroom had a sleeping baby in it most times we were in the unit, if one of us were using the bathroom, it kind of occupied the only usable bathroom for anyone else not staying in the master bedroom. I didn't get many pictures of the unit (only one) of the pool from the balcony. A pool that none of us ended up using of course.

We get in, visit with folks, move our things into the bedroom that we'll be staying, and motivate everyone to get moving to the parks. Slowly. I don't know exactly what time we got moving, but I think we probably didn't get into our cars until 12:45 or so. We're off to a roaring start. It doesn't matter, we have family to catch up with (or get to know for the first time):

We get to the MK, do the standard park/walk/monorail and we're in the park. Of course, the rest of the family is not there yet. So, we wait. We take the girls over to check out the windows of the Emporium to pass the time. Finally, a little after one, a few of the family members show up, luckily, it's Ana, Dito, Franco, and Jofi, so we pop into the line for Town Square Theater Mickey M&G. The outside standby sign says 20 minutes. It is decidedly longer than 20 minutes. More like 40. Just about the time the kids are starting to lose their minds, we finally make it in.

Now, you've likely seen videos of the talking Mickey, but let me say, it really is a magical effect. The kids were in awe. The touches around the room that they put into this M&G are really top notch. This is a high-end M&G. Even with Franco not speaking any English, his reaction to this Mickey were fantastic.

Oh yeah, did I mention a 2nd "family" shirt was given out to everyone today?

By the time we're out, the rest of the family is waiting for us outside, so I talk everyone into getting a photopass picture together. This is the ONE that I end up with everyone together in. This makes me a bit sad, I wish we had taken the time to take a few more, but still, we have this picture, and memories.

Oh yeah, once again, Evie was NOT in the mood to take group pictures. At all. The entire trip.

After this picture, the family takes off to hit the Haunted Mansion for Franco and Charlotte, who are dying to hit this together. I double back because I've promised the girls that I'll get them Mickey balloons, and it's finally time I get them. I also take the time to sneak to the Photopass photographer again for a surprise picture that I do not tell anyone else about:

Sorry, I had my Vader ears and Mickey balloons, I couldn't resist.

I meet up with everyone outside the HM, and find out from my wife that everyone else has packed a lunch, she's already chowed a sandwich, so I'm on my own for lunch. Since we're right there, I pop in for a quick fish and chips from the Harbor House. We snag an area in the Tangled section to eat and take a load off. We spent probably an hour or more in that area, eating, chatting with family, letting the kids run around. Franco I think looped through the HM 3 times. He's a horror buff (dressing up as a vampire maybe every day at home), so the HM was right up his alley.

My family head over for a ride through IASW, and once again, the kids worship this ride (so do I). On our way out, we see the rest of the family heading in, so we cut in line (don't tell) and do an entire family ride through IASW, which is one of my highlights of the trip honestly. Charlotte and Franco were inseparable, and watching Charlotte take her younger cousin by the hand and show him everything in the happiest cruise on Earth was wonderful.

At this point, it's already about 4:30, the day is getting away from us. We had promised Charlotte and Franco The Pirate League, and so we head over there. Only to find out it closes at 4. D'oh.
<minor complaint>
The people over in the pirates gift shop had NO IDEA what the hours for Pirates League were. We tried to ask them so we could decide if we would return another day, and they had no clue. I had to look it up on my phone.
</minor complaint>
Still, all the Pirates League could do that we couldn't was some face paint (which honestly Franco was carrying some with him anyway!!!), so we spring for some pirate costumes and change the kids right there between the entrance to Pirates and the gift shop. You will see this costume in many pictures to follow, but can I say again how much I love my little Charlotte:

Pirates had been closed down for some sort of maintenance issue while we were changing the kids, but we got lucky, and just as we were finally ready to snap some more pictures, it opened, so a group of us rushed over to ride PotC. Andrea and Evie, along with a few other family members stayed out, so I got to ride this one.

After pirates, Charlotte wants to hit Spash/Big Thunder, so we head over there, getting a nice group shot

After this, it's dinner time, and the Paraguayans have decided they are waiting until they get back at night to eat, so we split off and hit Pecos Bill again. We just ended up being right there when we needed food.
<complaint>
The service on this night was terrible. Just unbelievably slow. I spent 30 minutes AFTER the point where I had paid waiting to get our food. My wife was just trying to keep the hungry kids sane out waiting. It was just slower than I've ever seen for the relative crowd level.
</complaint>
After dinner, we're tired, so we decide we're going to head on our way out. Everyone else is going to catch the fireworks, so we head back and hit up the Tiki Room one more time. Tiki Selfie!

After another glorious round of singing like the birdies, the girls beg for the flying carpets, and we happily oblige. After this though, it's time for one last potty before hitting the car. While the potty break is going on, I slide out and catch my all-time-favorite MESP float heading by, nostalgia big time here:

We decide we'll catch Wishes during MVMCP, so we make our way through the Emporium and head out.

Evie has not shown ONE sign of being sick today. Thankfully. She's been a rock star. Still, we've got her starting the Antibiotic, and want to get her a decent night's sleep, so we get the girls back, bathed, and in bed MUCH later than normal, but honestly kinda early for a WDW trip.

The rest of the family shows up after the girls get to bed, and what follows is just good old fashioned family catching up. Drinks were had (many by me), Spanish was spoken by everyone but me, and I even think I followed most of it. A late-night beer run was made, and I am not 100% sure what time we went to bed, but I really think I remember seeing 3am on my phone at some point.

Tomorrow is our first trip to IoA ever. Time to see what all the fuss is about.

Tiggerish · Dec 2, 2013

Wow, I really enjoyed reading your race narrative, and then your day at MK was even more fun to read! My heart melted at the "didn't want to worry you" remark, so I can only imagine what it did you!!

Loved the Vader-ears Shadow shot, you had a great day at DHS despite the couple of hiccups.

The Paraguayans seem like a lot of fun. Love those family t-shirts, especially the first one.

Most of my family lives in another country, so I can totally relate to Andrea's delight at being among her relatives.

sshindel · Dec 2, 2013

Tiggerish said:
Wow, I really enjoyed reading your race narrative, and then your day at MK was even more fun to read! My heart melted at the "didn't want to worry you" remark, so I can only imagine what it did you!!

I still get a little misty when I think about that. It was such a "big girl" thing for her to do, and while she's growing up more and more every day, it just floored both of us. I wasn't joking when I said we both rode Big Thunder with tears in our eyes. We really did.

Tiggerish said:
Loved the Vader-ears Shadow shot, you had a great day at DHS despite the couple of hiccups.

DHS was a lot of fun. I think we could have probably done it better from a logistical standpoint if we had planned it out a little more, and I really wish we had spent even more time with the family (a recurring theme for the whole trip), but it just worked out better to split up from time to time and try and meet back together. It's been years since I've been on Rock-n-Rollercoaster (I really love the ride, but have honestly only ridden it once), as Andrea is not a coaster fan, and ToT I didn't make it on this trip either, in fact, the only time I was even in that section of the park was when I was running through it! Still, we made a good day out of DHS, and even without this much rumored massive project that may-or-maynot happen, it might have bumped Epcot to the bottom of my parks list this trip.

Tiggerish said:
The Paraguayans seem like a lot of fun. Love those family t-shirts, especially the first one. Most of my family lives in another country, so I can totally relate to Andrea's delight at being among her relatives.

They really were great. Everyone was very accommodating to the sole gringo on the trip (ok, Charlie and Evie don't speak Spanish either, but I've been married for nearly 10 years, I probably SHOULD!). We're making the trip down to Paraguay hopefully in a few years, and I really am looking forward to spending some solid time down there. The bonus is that cousin Belen has actually moved to Chicago (she moved in right after this trip!), so we'll get a lot more family time coming up! Her apartment with her boyfriend is a 10 minute walk from my work, so I'm fairly sure my wife and kids will be downtown a LOT more in the upcoming months! I'm willing to bet the rest of the family will be making visits in the near future as well.

sshindel · Dec 2, 2013

While I'm sitting on a boring conference call at work, let's see if I can cover our day at Islands of Adventure. The rate that I've been previously been going, this will go well past my meeting, but let's try and get another one in the books.

If you are following along, today's entry would be for Wednesday, 11/13/2013. The plan for the day calls for our first ever trip to Islands of Adventure, and my first trip to any Universal park since probably 1994. So, things have changed drastically since the last time I ventured off Disney property.

I want to throw out a few things to begin with to give a little background on our trip, because I know that there might be a lot of Universal major fans that will have lots of questions that start with "but you didn't see attraction <insert name>" or "didn't you know that you could have...".

Background. As mentioned above, we're IoA virgins here, and basically Universal is an unknown entity to us. I didn't do a TON of research on Universal before we left. Just enough to know the basics, the Express Pass options, an idea of what is offered at each park, the estimated crowds, etc. We had chosen IoA for a couple specific reasons.
1) Charlotte's favorite character in all of pop-culture is Spider-man (coincidentally, mine too). In previous trips to NYC, she spent the entire time scanning the rooftops, expecting to see what I refer to as her boyfriend swinging through the skies. Her second favorite super-hero is Storm, due to a massive love for the 90's X-men cartoons that I may have gotten her into. With the Marvel Superhero Island, it seemed like a good fit.
2) Harry Potter. We're all fans, and had just finished reading Sorcerer's Stone to Charlotte on the chapter-a-night basis.
3) The kids have very limited exposure to any of the Dreamworks films. Limited to Kung Fu Panda and Puss In Boots. They've never seen a Shrek film, Despicable Me, or any other produced by that studio. What can I say, we run a large Disney/Pixar bias in our family. We don't tend to like any of the Dreamworks films, so we don't want to watch them on repeat if the kids like them.
4) I thought Evelyn would be into the Seuss area, as she went through a big Green Eggs and Ham phase not too long ago, requesting that book at bedtime for nearly a month straight.
5) Charlotte loves a water-ride, so I'd heard good things about the few that are at IoA.

So, that's why we chose IoA. I know that there is probably more for younger children to do at Uni, but above is why we chose IoA with our limited knowledge.

Added factors here that flavor our experience. The big one is the weather. I'm quoting this from a local Fox weather report I found online for that day:

That big change we've been talking about is here. A strong cold front moved through overnight and early this morning. Temperatures won't warm up much and winds will be cranking. Expect a high of only around 67 under mainly cloudy skies with north/northeasterly winds from 15 to 20 mph gusting as high as 35 mph. Tonight those temperatures will be running on the chilly side, dropping into the low 50's in the metro area. Folks in North Central Florida should bundle up. Lows will drop into the mid to up 30's in and around Gainesville.

So, it was cold and windy. At least Florida cold and windy.

Evelyn also seemed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, so let's throw that in there as well.

We're up before everyone, and having went to bed kinda drunk the night before sometime after 3am, we're not rushing to get ready, but I'd like us to get on the road again and not wait for the rest of the group. We're mainly all ready, fed, and packed when the first folks emerge from their rooms. Charlotte and Franco decide they're wearing their pirate gear again today, and hey it's vacation, we let them.

Franco's love for horror showing with the skeleton-pirate getup.

We're out the door a little after 10am, and on our way to Uni. We arrive and pull into the garage to park. Evelyn immediately starts crying. Excellent. We try and figure out why and she answers, in tears:

I don't want to go to the doctors office!!!

To her, parking structure = trip to the doctors, and since we'd recently been passing a nasty chest-cold around the family before the trip, and our little sojourn to the urgent care, she's fed up with doctors.

We have to explain that we're going to a park, not the doctors.

Parked and walking our way in, I have to reassure myself that isn't the case. A grand entry isn't really something Universal does now is it? I felt more like I was going to a mall, and in some respects, I guess we were on the approach to City Walk. I guess it gets better as you go along, so you have the generic parking garage, followed by the airport inspired moving walkways, then you head to a mass of chain stores/restaurants, and finally, you make it to the park. Even with the flat parking lots and trams, Disney IMO just does the buildup to entry MUCH better. I don't think that is ground-breaking news to anyone.

Once we're inside though, I'm very impressed with the Port of Entry. That's some nice theme work. It's right on par with Disney, so kudos. We're going to head over to Superhero Island to ride Spider-man first, but do stop for a quick picture.

Making the left-turn, Evelyn is again starting to cry. The sound of the Hulk coaster freaks her out for some reason. Also, the volume of the music in the Marvel Island area seems to be bothering her. Andrea pops into the Spidey store while Charlotte and I head to the Spider-man ride. Now, I don't know what to expect here, having read next-to-nothing about this. I'm tickled by the queue through the Daily Bugle, really fantastic work here. Later-on, someone tells us that there should have been a photographer in there somewhere to snap pictures, but I didn't see this at all. A less-than 5 minute wait gets us buckled into the ride.

Wow. That's one hellava attraction. I'm in full-on geek mode for the entire ride. It has me geeking out just as hard as Star Tours 2.0 does, which is fanstastic. It really is an amazing ride. Charlotte though, not so much. She didn't like it. The villains and the "falling" part of the attraction are just a little too intense for her. I mean, she said she liked it, but just was NOT going to do it again. We get Charlotte a Spider-man t-shirt (she had grown out of her favorite one recently) and were stepping out of the store when her friendly neighborhood boyfriend popped by and let us know he was going to be signing autographs across the street in a couple minutes. The look on her face when I turned around to see this scene kills me:

So, of course, we're on our way across the street to jump in line. A moment later, we see what had drawn Spidey out of his area, as the heros start to roll down the street on ATVs (I guess they didn't want to splurge to give Spidey a true to canon Spider-Mobile, oh well). Charlotte and Andrea bolt out of the line to go and catch the little show, as I stay in line and get the autograph books ready. They come running back and let us know that Wolverine, Storm, and Rouge were there, much to Charlotte's delight. We wait a couple minutes for Spidey and Charlotte is over-the-moon once more meeting her man.

It's at this point that I start talking to the folks behind the counter to figure out what Uni's version of the Photopass is. I realize that basically one more good shot and I'm spending the $60 to get "all" our photos. I might expand on some of my photo purchasing problems later (personal problems, not too much to do with the companies themselves) in some wrap-up posts.
We're out of there and across the street to see Storm and Rogue, which again, Charlotte is thrilled with. Evie was totally into this, and kinda wanted to stop to see Wolverine, but not enough to want to get out of the stroller. Charlotte ALMOST was Storm for Halloween this year, only switching last minute to Violet Incredible. So, meeting Storm was huge for her.

We go for a quick spin on Storm Force (because Storm talked all about it to Charlie) and again, Evie is having none of it. She's staying in the stroller.

From there, Evie is in a bad enough mood from all the noise and music blasting that we figure it's time to head over to Seussland for some younger fun.

At first glance, I was quite charmed by the entire Suess area. Lots of great nods to the beloved stories. We meet up with Ana, Dito, and the kids (rest of the family still not around), and head into the Cat in the Hat. Evie starts to have a freak-out in the line, crying that she does NOT want to go in. We convince her (by means of the Cat in the Hat that pops up in that first window occasionally in the load area) to ride, and she actually really enjoys it. Charlie and Franco love it.
My thoughts though. I was underwhelmed. I thought the spinning was a bit more than I expected. The animatronics felt cheap, and it looked pretty banged up IMO. Lots of spinning, dark, and then the stark lighting in the show scenes really put me off.
We hop out and Charlotte wants to hit up the One Fish Two Fish "dumbo" ride, which she enjoys as much as any other spinner ride. Evie refuses to go on at first (eventually she decided to go) and asks to go on the carousel (which she then refuses to ride and makes Andrea take her directly off before it starts). After the ride, the kids all want their faces painted again. This is the last time we're doing that this trip by the way. Franco does it I think every single day.

The family then decides that they are going to go and get some lunch. They keep saying that there is a "Buffalo Wild Wings" in the Port of Entry, which I cannot find on my map. Turns out, they are referring to the Confisco Grill. We decide we're not making the kids, in the moods they are in, sit in a table-service style meal at the moment, and if I'm paying Table Service prices anyway, I'm trying Mythos, so we split up, and based on what the kids want to eat, we end up at Green Eggs and Ham:

Now, here's where I pause to make a few observations.
1) Seussland just seemed beat up to me. Dirty, dinged up, kind of what you'd expect from a McDonalds Playland. Now I realize it is not as bad as I paint the picture, but it really did seem to show the wear-and-tear of a kid-centric section. In stark comparison to a few of the other areas in the park, this stuck out to me.
2) Again, the background music level here seems about 3 notches too loud.
3) After spending a stretch of time at the current Disney parks/resorts, at this point in the trip, WiFi service feels like a given. Here at IoA, where there is no WiFi available, and the cell-service seems to be non-existant, it really feels like I've taken a massive step back about 5 years in park-technology. Since we were using iPhone apps as communications methods between the larger group, this is a major problem. By lunchtime we're looking for our backup charger to power our phones. Crap, I left the cord for it in our car, so I can run out to the car and get it if we're really desperate, but we decide to try and push on and hope one of our phones stays alive. The lack of WiFi / cell service here was a MASSIVE negative. Disney has spoiled me with this.

Anyway, we decide to press on once we're done with our cold-windy lunch. We head right through the Lost Continent section, which was nicely themed, but contained nothing our family wanted to stop for. We did pause to chat with the mystic fountain, which the kids enjoyed. Whatever Poseidon's Fury was, no one in my group was even interested to stop and look up what it was. The area was nicely themed, but honestly, was just like Ports of Entry for us, something pretty to look at while going through it to somewhere else.

You realize where this leads us next right? Yup, the Hogwarts Express is steaming up ahead of us.

Now, since my meeting is long-since over, it seems I'm going to have to break this post up into a second post to cover the rest of the day. It's the middle of the afternoon and Hogsmeade is up ahead of us.

sshindel · Dec 2, 2013

Time to try and finish up IoA.

We're about to enter the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as is advertised as a nearly separate entity on a lot of the Orlando tourism things I've seen (just saw it listed like this, separate from IoA, on a work related conference website I was looking at). I wonder how many people think this is a park in itself. I also wonder why Uni didn't just build it as a 3rd gate in it's entirety (with the phase 2 stuff added in). Oh yeah, so they could shore up IoA, and get that extra 2-park pass money once phase 2 opens!

The first impression I'll say is, as has been much better described than me, amazing. They really got this area right from the view down the strip. We enjoyed checking out all of the details in the shop windows (But I guess after a bit, I started just looking for the "motion-sensor triggered moving dohickey in each window"). We first went into Honeydukes/Zonkos. Honeydukes was great. Top notch shopping experience. Zonkos I was a little less impressed with. For some reason, I first really liked that they had specially designed "joke shop" items to purchase, I guess I was less-than-impressed at the selection. I was prepared to have my kid beg for something, and to be charmed enough to buy it, but there was nothing that I'd even begin to consider in that section. Also, Charlotte was confused as to why they kept blowing air at us in puffs from the ceiling. Not memorizing this store in the books, I'm guessing it was supposed to be things "whizzing" by your head, but if that is the case, I dont think the effect was pulled off 100%.
We settle on some Fudge Flies to snack on and I head outside to get a taste of the butterbeer that everyone raves about.
It was good.
Not great. Not mind-blowing. Good. I'd buy it again, but I will not after it. Maybe it needs to be a hot day and I need to have it frozen to get the full effect? I like it just as much as LaFou's Brew I think. I do tend to like the fruity taste of LaFou a little better, but again, nitpicking here. It's a good drink, and set up the "themed drink" wars that I can only imagine ends in the Tatooine Blue Milk in the distant future.

We take a quick potty break (So, am I the only one that thinks Moaning Myrtle is once again turned up about 2 notches too loud in the bathrooms) and park the stroller, or should I say "pram" outside of the 3 broomsticks. Once again, directly overhead in the stroller parking was a huge speaker, blasting background music at 100 decibels. Is stroller parking really a place that needs loudly amplified background music? I guess you see a recurring theme here. Maybe once again it's just because Evelyn was having an off day, but it really felt like we had to yell to hear each other side-by-side from time to time due to the IMO overbearing "background" music. It's not "background music" if it's shoved in your face is it?

We decide to skip the line to Ollivanders (looked like the longest of the day) and just went into the Owl Post where the girls decided their lives would not be complete without wands. Having been spectacularly good, mind-blowingly good, this entire trip, once again, I'm reaching for my wallet. Also aiding to that is my joy from seeing out of all of the wands there, they both decide, on their own, that they need "the skeleton one", both picking different variations:

We've met up with the rest of the family at this point, and Dito runs over to grab the girls to bring them over to the stage, since the singing frogs are on. We caught most of this show, which was well done, and some of another show on this stage. Both well done performances.

At this point, Charlie wants to hit Flight of the Hippogryph, which is a fun ride, better than barnstormer for sure. I really dug Hagrid's shack, and I also really liked that they hid the Hippogryph from you until you got onto the ride. Nicely done.

At this point, we regroup and decide we're all (the entire group) going to go and do the Castle Tour of Hogwarts. Most of the Paraguayan family suffers from some form of motion sickness, so FJ is out for most people. I figure I'll loop right back around after the walkthrough and jump back in line to check out the attraction.
<nitpick once again>
The forced perspective on Hogwarts didn't work for me. Same thing as with Beast's castle in FLE, it just didnt do it. It's too close to the ground to make it look like it should look. The DETAIL was fantastic, absolutely amazing, but the forced perspective didn't do it for me.
</nitpick>

We explain to the people we want to do the Castle Tour, and they just point us into the regular line anyway for some unknown reason. Maybe they didn't want to just undo the chain for the other pathway. Of course, being first-timers, we don't realize this until we hit the dead-stop and wait.

Now, the Hogwarts castle is great. Well done, lots to see and look at. My one complaint here, and it's again, a tiny, tiny nitpick:
<nitpick> I felt it was a little too dark inside. Hogwarts is a school, and in the books and even in the films, I never really felt like the castle was in near darkness at all times. I guess we're supposed to be at night? I mean, with Harry and all sneaking around in the invisibility cloak, that would seem like the case, but then you jump on the ride and you're in daylight at the beginning. Anyway, the kids were fairly scared just walking through Hogwarts, freaking out quite a bit, even though, again, it's not really a scary place in the books/movies. Scary stuff happens, yes, but the Headmaster's Office should not be terrifying.
</nitpick>
Finally, we get to the point where most of the "tour" goers can exit, and out of the group, there are 4 of us left to ride the ride.

Again, it's been said better than I, but FJ is a great ride. Even with all of the warnings, I was not prepared for how intense the ride was. It was a TON of fun. If I had to nitpick again, I think the dementors looked crappy. I've read all the books, watched the movies multiple times, and it took me a few to figure out that was what they were supposed to be. And I could see the mechanisms that made them work/move without "looking" for them. The rest of the ride, crazy fun, amazingly well done. I'm glad Charlotte didn't ride it, she'd be in tears throughout the whole thing. That section with the spiders would have ended her sleep for days on end.

We head outside and meet up with the group, and Charlie grabs Andrea to hit up Hippogryph again. They're off, and Evelyn starts begging me to try it too. Now, she's just not been in a good mood all day, she's never been on a coaster, and before this trip, IASW terrified her. I'm dubious, but she's insistent. Now, as any good father would do, I grab her out of the stroller and run her through the line. Just as Andrea and Charlotte are about to get on, I yell up and wave to them. The look of shock on Andrea's face told me she was just as dubious as I was, but Evie was still all about it. Once Andrea gets off her turn on the ride, the look of shock has been replaced by one of utter terror. She knows this is not going to end well.

So, we're off. And I'll be honest, she did good. Now, at the time, she didn't love it. She didn't want to ride it again. But, she was as happy as she had been all day, jumping around. She's since talked quite a bit about her ride on the roller coaster, how fast it went, and how she liked it. I don't know, maybe she'll be hitting up Big Thunder sometime soon!

It's getting late and colder, and so we're off towards Jurrasic Park. We decide to skip the discovery center as the rest of the family heads in there. I'm not sure if that was a good or bad idea, I don't know what's in there. Much to Charlotte's disagreement, we put the kibosh on the Jurassic Park flume ride. It's too cold to get wet. We head over and take her to Pteranodon Flyers, which she absolutely loves. I found it interesting to note the repeated announcements they gave that the ride might close at any time due to the high winds. Luckily, we made it on.

Let me take a moment to point out how great it was to see an employee (of WDW or Uni) really take pleasure in their job in the load/unload section. The dude who was charged with load/unload at Pteranodon Flyers did it with flair. He was amazingly fast, never once took one off, and had it down to such a science that it was almost like watching a little show as he got kids in and out of there. Kudos, Pteranodon Flyers load/unload guy.

After this, Franco has joined and is going to ride as well, but Andrea takes Charlotte to get the family some snacks while I take Evie to walk around the little playground. She has a blast on the slide, hitting it over, and over, and over...

Snacked and happy (note here, the pretzels at Uni were so much worse than the Mickey Pretzels at WDW, I have a hard time calling them the same type of product), we decide that we've about had it for the day. Toon Lagoon is next on the list, and while those rides look fun, it's freezing cold and windy. We're NOT getting soaking wet on either of the rides here.

I will say that I really enjoyed at least that these older classic characters were represented and not forgotten. I much prefer the theming styles of the more immersive sections of the park, by miles, but I can kinda see the Comic Strip vibe they were going for here. My wife did point out that the Cathy Ice Cream sign looked very unfortunate. Something about the pose, the unfortunate placing of all of the chocolate. It just was, in Andrea's words "the opposite of appetizing"
(this is not my picture, linked to an existing picture)

Anyhoo.

We're on our way out. I make a quick stop to pay (through the nose) the $60 for "all" of our pictures (maybe 8 total, but we wanted at least 3 of them, so it evened out). Then it's back through the gates, through the blasting Margaritaville music, the chain-shops, past the moving walkways, and up into the parking garage to get out.

We've got enough time we make two decisions.

1) Tomorrow was planned to be our "day off", rest, shop, swim, and then hit up MVMCP at 4pm for a night at the MK. Now, we still have TONS we want to do at MK, and right now, MVMCP is planned to be our last day at MK. Friday will be DAK, Saturday is Epcot for our 1 ADR at Akershus. So, a snap decision is made. We're going to just say screw-it and hit the MK all day. Yeah, we'll be using 2 tickets to do a full day at MK, but oh well. Since we only have 2 more day's tickets left, that means we'll have to buy one more day's admission. Something we'll do later.
2) Since we lost our DTD morning, we'll just hit DTD now and do a little shopping.

So, directly from Uni, it's back to WDW property for a little shopping. The girls both take a nap in the car, which we park at DTD and sit in the car for a while to let them get a good little late-nap under their belts.

Once we get them a good nap, we head into World of Disney. On our list, Evie really wants a Woody T-shirt. Charlotte has been pretty spoiled, so we'll see if there is anything she wants. Andrea wants a new wallet. I'm fairly open. And we're deciding if we're going to finally spring, after years upon years of drooling, for the Mickey Mouse Advent Calendar.

To not bore you with shopping, the one minor detail of note here is that they do not sell any Woody-only T-shirts. No one knows where we can find one. Buzz, yes. The whole gang, yes. Woody, no.

So, after a few stores, we head to the Make Your Own S-shirt shop (dont remember what the name is, it's attached to the Art of Disney store). Evie makes her Woody and Bullseye shirt, and we let Charlotte make her own shirt. Her design, the entire Incredibles family with the phrase she dictates to me under it "My family is super cool". Awwww... how can I turn this down?!?

The shirts are going to take 45 minutes to make, and we're all tired and hungry, so I decide what will happen here is that I'll take everyone back to the condo, we'll get Chick-Fil-A drive-thru, and while the girls eat/bath/bed, I'll head back to DTD and pick them up. So, a quick round trip and I'm back at DTD getting the shirts. And since Art of Disney is right there, and it's one of my favorite stores, I might as well poke my head in...

DEAR GOD, LOOK AT ALL THE TIKI ROOM ART. I find out that due to the Disneyland 50th anniversary of their Tiki Room, they got a ton of Tiki merch. I could have dropped $1000 without breaking a sweat. I should not be left alone here. I wont bore you with multiple pictures that I sent to my wife of all the art that I was drooling over. I'll say I had one of the art pictures when I headed over and checked the Print On Demand machine, and nearly dropped over. They had a piece of art on there that I've been dying over for years. It's a piece of art that I've had the plans to "respectfully rip off" for part of my full-arm tattoo sleeve that I've been dying to get started for the past 3 years. I cannot leave without at least this, and I do not.

I pry myself away from the rest of the gear, and from talking the ear off the poor CM who happened to have to check out a full-grown man who was having heart palpitations over artwork of a 50 year old animitronic singing bird show, because my wife starts sending me texts basically saying that "things are ok now, but they will not be soon, I could use some help".

The rest of the Paraguayan family had gone off to do some Target shopping straight out of Uni, and I swear, they spent 3+ hours there shopping. They were not back when we all finally climbed into bed, again, probably around midnight.

I'll save my final thoughts on IoA for a separate post. I know it seems like I nitpicked a lot here, but I think it was all in terms of a general off-day for all of us. We had fun, but I think we won't be returning until Evie is probably at least 6+ years old, so probably another 3-4 years at the earliest.

Tomorrow, another full-day at MK, this time with 100% more Christmas Party.

Tiggerish · Dec 2, 2013

Last year was our very first trip to the Uni parks (we spent a week in our DVC unit at WL but since it was going to be our only FL trip last year, there was no point getting APs and we felt that 5-day PH were just too expensive).

Like you and Charlie, Spidey is a favorite of my hubby's, and I enjoy him too. I agree, that was a GREAT ride. In fact, we (really, he, it was his decision) blew off spending the day at Cape Canaveral to spend a second day at IoA because he wanted to go back to superhero land. He desperately wanted to get in line for a picture with Captain America (the big kahuna all-time fave), but couldn't go through with it (I'm kinda glad about that...)

You have daughters--you MUST see Despicable Me. It's adorable. I didn't enjoy that ride so much, though, probably because we were in the first row. And it's pretty much the Spiderman ride with different images.

And despite our strong Disney bias, we have all the Shrek pictures on DVD, I love them, although Katzenberg's Disney bitterness was very much on display in the first one and it's a bit off-putting. Did not do the Shrek attraction.

Fellow HP fan here, I re-read the entire series to myself every summer, and I was really looking forward to the ride. Intense, yeah, that's the word. It scared the cr@p out of me. I shut my eyes at whatever scary part came first (dementors, spiders, can't remember) and pretty much didn't open them until the end of the ride. Yes, I'm one of those who hated Alien Encounter at MK.

I totally enjoyed your description of your geek-out at Art of Disney, and LOL'd at the part about the poor CM.

sshindel · Dec 2, 2013

Tiggerish said:
Last year was our very first trip to the Uni parks (we spent a week in our DVC unit at WL but since it was going to be our only FL trip last year, there was no point getting APs and we felt that 5-day PH were just too expensive).

Like you and Charlie, Spidey is a favorite of my hubby's, and I enjoy him too. I agree, that was a GREAT ride. In fact, we (really, he, it was his decision) blew off spending the day at Cape Canaveral to spend a second day at IoA because he wanted to go back to superhero land. He desperately wanted to get in line for a picture with Captain America (the big kahuna all-time fave), but couldn't go through with it (I'm kinda glad about that...)

You have daughters--you MUST see Despicable Me. It's adorable. I didn't enjoy that ride so much, though, probably because we were in the first row. And it's pretty much the Spiderman ride with different images.

And despite our strong Disney bias, we have all the Shrek pictures on DVD, I love them, although Katzenberg's Disney bitterness was very much on display in the first one and it's a bit off-putting. Did not do the Shrek attraction.

Fellow HP fan here, I re-read the entire series to myself every summer, and I was really looking forward to the ride. Intense, yeah, that's the word. It scared the cr@p out of me. I shut my eyes at whatever scary part came first (dementors, spiders, can't remember) and pretty much didn't open them until the end of the ride. Yes, I'm one of those who hated Alien Encounter at MK.

I totally enjoyed your description of your geek-out at Art of Disney, and LOL'd at the part about the poor CM.

The kids have seen bits and pieces of Despicable Me at other kids houses, and just never seemed into it. They've never asked if we could watch it at our house, or asked to stay to finish the movie. If they ask, or if it's on one of the free channels, we'll have to give it a shot.
The Tiki Room art just slayed me. I ended up with four pieces of Tiki related merch on the trip. One more piece of art for the wall, a magnet, and the Dole Whip shirt

I could have easily purchased at least 5 more pieces that I can remember off the top of my head. That is, if I had the money to spend! As it stands, I'm still figuring out how to shuffle everything around on the walls to get my new stuff up next to the attraction poster that is already on the wall.

Trip Report Nov '13 - Surprise, 1/2 Marathon, Paraguayan Family, NOT totally a clusterfudge trip of a lifetime

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