Trip Report Oh, the Places We go, The People We See

Welcome to my newest Trip Report. For those who don’t know me, I am Jen.

That’s my Daughter Claire with me.



We just got back from an amazing vacation with several family members.

We traveled Nov. 1st thru the 15th, 2012. We rested our headed at 6 different places on this trip, and though it wasn’t always easy to keep moving from place to place, I am happy to have tried some new resorts out and stayed at some familiar ones as well.



This trip came about over a year ago. My Mom’s cousin Vicki wanted to take a trip with her and my Aunt Mary. Her Daughter Katie also wanted to come along.

After some talking and planning it became a group of 16 traveling. I was elected ring leader since I have quite a bit of Disney experience.

Plans were made, some were changed, and some were a little slower at making decisions than others.

My husband Skip is what is known in the Disney groups as a resistor and he decided NOT to come along. He was not so happy about the amount of time I was going to be gone.



The dates for the cruise were set first, Nov 4 through the 8th on the Disney Dream. We all planned to arrive a day early and stay at the Residence Inn near the port. Soon I decided that I must add a few Disney days, and so did everyone else eventually. I thin decide…heck lets add some more, and Claire and I ended up staying 3 more days after the rest left.

Then after doing some research and with a heads up from my good Dis-friend Carey, I was alerted to the fact that the last Halloween party was on Nov. 2nd. How could I pass that chance up? So Claire and I decided to fly in a day earlier than everyone else to hit that party. Claire and I also decided to fly out of Columbus. My family lives near the Toledo, OH area, and the best direct flights are out of Detroit. My youngest sister, who was not going on the cruise, lives in Columbus, and I was able to get a decent priced direct flight from there, so Claire and I drove down Nov. 1 and spent the night before our early flight.



Plans were finally all set in stone and we just had to wait for our time to arrive. Not an easy task, but we all managed.



Let me introduce you to the crew. This is a picture of a picture. My sister has the CD with the actual digital copy, but hasn’t yet loaded it to the computer, so I had to go with this for now till I can get a copy.

In the back row, left to right, we have my parents, Joe and Paula, next to them is my Uncle Geoff. Next to Geoff is cousin Vicki and her son in law Thad. Next to Thad is Pete, Vicki’s husband and then me. Aunt Mary is on the end, she is married to Uncle Geoff and my Mother’s sister.

Down towards the front, left to right, is my nieces Alexis and Abby with their parents Rob and Gail. Gail is my sister. Front and center is Claire. Behind Claire are Jude, and Katie. Katie is married to Thad and is Pete and Vicki’s Daughter. And then we have baby Luke in the stroller. He is only about 9 months old and what a cutie he is.



This trip had the usual ups and downs that most every family will have, but I have to admit things went much smoother than I planned. We never felt the need to kill each other for the most part. LOL

We had several cruise newbies and several Disney World newbies as well.



Please join me in reliving a very magical trip with all the places we traveled and all the people we met along the way!

 

[jenseib]

Chip and Dale were so cute. They were having a snowball fight.




















Who doesn’t love the Dwarves?

 

[jenseib]

I couldn’t get Snow to look my way. She was too busy gazing into the eyes of the Prince.







The Ponies were so cute.








Cindy gave me a big smile and wave though.

 

[jenseib]

Here it is!!!!! That float that has been around for AT LEAST 15 years. I know it was there in the mid 90’s when I took my older two. They just keep adding a little something to it to make it look different. Sorry Disney…it’s not working, we all know it’s that same float…..and it needs to GO!!!!








They say Spectro isn’t coming back because the floats are falling apart ….why can’t this one fall apart too?

 

[jenseib]

One thing I hate about this float is it is not photographer friendly. Those Spires seem to always be in the way to catch a face in a shot.





Gotta Love Goofy!

 

[jenseib]

I noticed these girls were all wearing wigs …and that got me thinking. Do they have a wig to match their natural hair color, or do they get any old color to wear?

















And again …How cute are these Gingerbread guys?








They are flat on the back side from laying on the pan.

 

[jenseib]

Clarabelle is so much fun.











I am not sure why he has Nemo in his pocket?











The toys are coming!!

 

[jenseib]

I think Woody is telling us it’s past our bedtime.








And the best part of the whole parade ….the Toy Soldiers. These guys are amazing.

















I would go back to the party just to see them alone.

 

[jenseib]

Have you ever seen this on Youtube. I just love this video of the toy soldier auditioning to be in the parade. If you get a chance, watch it. It’s so neat.





On with the parade.

















The reindeers were pretty cool too.

 

[jenseib]

Santa!!!!!!








Hey Santa! I want a trip to Disney for Christmas!!!














That was such an awesome parade. I really hope to get back there for the Holidays to see this again someday. I had hoped that maybe we could squeeze in a small trip this year, but I don’t think it’s going to work out for that to happen.

 

[jenseib]

After the parade we decided to get some hot chocolate and cookies. I think we got snickerdoodles. We sat down over near Aloha Isle and just relaxed for a while.





Either Amanda (my sister) called me or I noticed a missed call from her and called her back at that point. I had totally forgotten, but remember, she sent an email to Geoff while on the cruise saying I had a flat tire. UGH. So she asked me what to do about it. She was going to have AAA change it. There is a care center right around the corner from her house and I think she was going to drive it over there. She had been busy and hadn’t had time to do anything about it and that was ok, as I wasn’t due home for a few more days.


After nibbling on our cookies ….we were really still really full from our 2 dinners, so we didn’t eat much …..we got up and started moving again. We saw this little band playing music.











I am not sure if we rode anything or not, but we did go and find Uncle Scrooge.





This was another character I kind of made Claire meet for me. She wasn’t too thrilled, but I made a big deal about him being rare and she was more agreeable then.

 

[jenseib]

We wandered around a bit more, and again, I don’t remember if we rode anything or not. If we did, I didn’t take any pictures. I know we sat down and just stared at the castle a few times. We just found this to be our happy place and we never wanted to leave. We probably also called Skip at some point in time.


We did get another photopass picture.














Honestly, I have never seen the park more beautiful than this night. The decorations and lights are just fabulous.

Sadly it was getting close to midnight and time to head back to AoA.





LOOK!!!!! It’s snowing!!!!





This just made it feel even more magical.











If I could have, I would’ve tried to get tickets for another party night. It just felt so magical, but sadly our trip was coming closer to an end and the next party would be held after we have left.

 

[jenseib]

I am always trying to get a balloon shot, but never happy with them.

















Sigh!!!!!!!! Time to leave.



We headed out to the bus stop where I am sure we had to wait for a bus, but I don’t remember it being too bad.

We were pretty darn tired and got ready for bed. We had one more full day left and yet time seemed to be going so fast. We had so much more we wanted to do.

I had met up with Jennifer from my Facebook group this morning while waiting in line for the bus to AK. It was so funny that she recognized Claire and her dress. It was nice to meet her.

Oh the People We See!

We went to our very first Christmas party this evening and I really hope I can get to many more in the future.

Oh the Places We Go!

 

[jenseib]

Nov. 13, 2012, Tuesday ~ Day 13


Our last full day. How depressing! This trip just seemed to go so fast (even though I have been working the report for 10 months now).


I don’t remember how early I woke, but I am sure I was up by 7. I think I took a quick walk around the pool after I showered and let Claire sleep a little longer. I didn’t bring the camera with me for some reason though.


At some point in time I had to get Claire going. She is just not a morning person and the long trip was taking its toll …on both of us, as I noticed my eyes were getting more saggy and puffy each day …..but we had 1 more day of fun to be had.


While she got ready I took a few pictures around the room.


This was the bathroom tile.





The shower curtain. I think Claire was actually taking a shower then and was worried I was going to get her in the picture. LOL

 

[jenseib]

And I finally took a picture of the new Disney Dooney I had purchased a few days earlier.





Finally Claire was fresh and clean and we headed out to the bus. But wait. She reminded me that she had not yet been over by the Ariel icon. I had walked around the pool in the morning and took pictures the day before, but she never did yet, so we went the long way around.








She was very chatty this morning and talked about all the fun she had been having and how she couldn’t wait to tell her friends at school about her trip. 2 of her best friends were going to be traveling to Disney in the next few weeks, so she had many tips to give them.





We arrived at Epcot around 9:45. Not a super early start, but not the worst either. Sadly we really short changed Epcot this trip and this day we still didn’t give it all our attention.

 

[jenseib]

There was one ride that Claire insisted we ride right away this day. Figment! ...Journey into the Imagination. We had missed it the last trip together and she was disappointed that she hadn’t been on it in a while.





I figured it was best to tackle it right away and make her happy.


























We had a nice ride, but we all know the old version was better!

 

[jenseib]

We had to make another quick stop.











If we wanted any chance of riding Soarin’ later today we had to get some Fastpasses, so we collected those quickly. Well it’s never quick because I always get behind the family with like 15 tickets.


And Claire was a bit hungry at this point too. So I told her we would get something here that I always wanted to try.





The Strawberry Shortcake. MMM! It was pretty darn good and it was a nice treat to share to give us enough energy till lunch. Well actually at this point, with deluxe dining, I was almost full at all times of the day. LOL. But it still tasted good.


And then we headed back out after our tasty treat.














It looks crowded in the picture, but it was actually less crowded than it had been for our entire stay, but the crowds never did dwindle down much while we were there. I had heard that after we left it, so did everyone else. It was much quieter the rest of the week…darn it.

 

[jenseib]

Isn’t this such a sweet picture. I wish I knew who the parents of these kids were and I would send them the picture.





I am thinking that I took this picture to get those flower arrangements, but people are in the way.










I guess I tried to get those flowers again.









Looking at my pictures, it looks like we were taking some crazy kind of walk. I think we must’ve used a restroom in this area.

 

[jenseib]

And then we headed to Spaceship Earth.





I remember the line being longer than I like, but it moved fast and we didn’t have much of a wait.


I didn’t take any pictures during most of the ride as I have taken so many in the past, that I just rested this time around.


Of course it’s always fun to take pictures of your video.





It looks like I have a heck of a lot of teeth is my picture.





And out back to the park we went.





And we I had a plan. We have NEVER gone in Club Cool before and we were going to remedy that now.





It was really neat inside and I loved all the holiday Décor.








Of course we had to try a few beverages.





Now I am not the mean Mom and didn’t play tricks on Claire. I told her that some would be better than others and some were supposed to be darn right nasty.

We tried them all and some were pretty good and even though I didn’t care for the Beverly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was drinkable. (that picture shows the Beverly as out of order, but other drink dispensers DID have it) Claire really liked some of the fruity tasting ones though and had a couple of cups full.

 

[jenseib]

After we had our fill of Coke products from around the world, we headed back out to the park once again.








And we wanted to try something else new.





We had never done the Kim Possible adventure before, so this was a totally new experience for us.








We got signed up and were given some quick instructions.


Our mission was in Mexico, so off we went.




Well not without a few pictures of the tree first.

 

[jenseib]

I loved these trees. They were real too!











Hello Mexico!





We got right to work.





I am going to tell you upfront now. Claire LOVED this and I didn’t. I couldn’t hear much and Claire was hogging the phone so that I couldn’t play along, which was fine, except that she didn’t understand everything, so then I would have to try to figure out how to replay it so I could hear it and help …or at least guide her the right way.





As time went on though, she seemed to catch on more, but it seemed to be sooo long!