Poncho Up, Find a Plug and Keep On Havin' Fun Trip Report

Hello, everybody! I guess I’ll start my report. Just to recap from my pre-trip report, I’m Jennifer. My hubby is Lance and two boys are Cameron and Wyatt. Our trip started on Wednesday, June 5th, the last day of school, and we got back on Thursday, June 13th.



I guess I’ll start on Tuesday the 4th. Although I normally get to bed before 10p, I was up ‘til 11 and woke up on the 5th at 3a. My mind wouldn’t calm down. So, we dropped Annabelle off at the Happy Mailman, got the kids off to school and ran a couple last minute errands.

Lance and I packed and ended up needing our really large suitcase and a normal sized suitcase, making sure our super duper sized suitcase was less than 50 lbs. without forgetting anything (ha!). We cleaned, since our neighbor was cat sitting, and left the house to pick up the boys 2.5 hours before the final bell. They were OK missing out on their last little bit of class time. We picked up our older son lunch and made it to the FastPark lot.

We got to the airport, through security and waited for the plane.


Our flight was good


but a little turbulent on the way down.

We got our bags and headed to Magical Express. We quickly got on our bus. Coronado Springs was the first stop – whooo hooo! We were checked in by a CM from France (I kept getting him to talk.) and were placed in Casitas. We wanted to be near the Dig Site and were relocated to Ranchos 7A.



Since it was past dinner time, we dropped off our bags and walked back for a chicken caesar wrap for me, hot dogs for the boys and a burger for Lance at Café Rix (no pics).

We mulled over our plans with the tropical storm and decided to make a final decision in the morning when we saw what they expected the effects to be.

I hope the pictures look OK and are sized well and hope you enjoy reading.
 
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Pooh'sBuddy

Pooh'sBuddy

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Wyatt didn’t like much. Again, we should have found a babysitter. It would have been cheaper. Our waiter brought out two birthday cupcakes for Lance and had everybody sing.


He had half of one and started in on the bread pudding. Oh, we were stuffed. Too stuffed to stop by Captain Cook’s.


During our salad course, 'Ohana's entertainer began with teaching everyone the shaka hand sign and called the kids up for a parade around the room.


Then, she called them for coconut races. Now, a little about our first born. He is an extremely competitive kid – competitive at everything and anything. Well, although “everyone’s a winner,” he crossed the finish line first. No elbows were thrown, but he was on a mission. Then, she taught them the hukilau (I'm still singing the song.), gave them all two leis. She had extras so she gave them out to parents taking pictures.


Fun was had by all. One last pic.


We rolled out of ‘Ohana and changed back into our tie dyes. Our first move was back to Tomorrowland. The boys agreed to ride Space Mountain one last time. Fastpasses were for 10:30pm.


We walked up to Fantasyland to the Mad Tea Party. After a filling dinner, we wanted to live on the edge. Under the Sea with Ariel had a long wait time, so we skipped it. We found another photopass photo who took pics and magic shots. We took a peak at the building.


We wanted another picture of the hidden Oswald. Cameron wanted me to post it on facebook. OK, Cameron. Well, we started looking for it and saw three CMs just standing right in the middle of the walkway. We asked, “Isn’t Hidden Oswald nearby.” One CM moved her foot and voila! I said something cute like, “Oh, no, poor Oswald,” but we quickly figured out their plan. They were waiting for the first person/family who was looking for Oswald.


One of the CMs had a menu hiding this


Now, that's Magical!!!! A large bowl of strawberry/ice cream(maybe)/whipped cream delight. Our jaws dropped, and we all chuckled and moaned. D’oh! Still stuffed from ‘Ohana, we thanked them profusely but had to decline in the hopes they could make Magic for someone else who really wanted a treat of this epic proportion. We talked about ‘Ohana and how much we ate. Thanking them again, we were off to Liberty Square: Haunted Mansion one more time. Since the guys have never seen Hall of Presidents, we inquired when their last show was and how long the show is. Once again, we couldn’t fit it in.

We hopped over to BTMRR and rode it twice. First time with a five minute wait, second time with a 15 minute wait. On one of the two times through the line, a CM said, “Back again? I saw you first thing this morning.” Keen eye! We said, “Yep!” Such a sweet CM to recognize us (probably with the help of our zany shirts) and to say something to us.
 
Pooh'sBuddy

Pooh'sBuddy

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We snapped these in line.





It was about time for the Castle projection show, and we were too far away to (1) get a good view and (2) not about to fight the crowds to get one. We decided on a spot for Wishes over near Westward Ho. Not the best idea, but again, I didn’t want to fight the crowds for a better view. I don’t mean to sound uppity, but why do people talk during shows? Even fireworks. I’d really like to hear the soundtrack. Maybe WDW should sell headphones with the soundtrack piped in. I’d spring for those.


At this point, we heard the announcement that the MK would be open an extra hour. I wondered if this was the first time it had been announced. We already knew, but I was curious. With Wishes in the books, we walked onto PoC and had a boat all to ourselves! I showed the boys the hidden mickey cat shadow on the right side. We should have done it again, but we opted for a night jungle cruise, making it our third tour. They were all OK. We did Magic Carpets since there was a very short wait.

Heading back to Tomorrowland, we took another ride on the TTA and used our Space Mountain fastpasses. The attraction photo screens were down, so we walked over for a last Spin with Buzz. We walked all the way back over to Space Mountain and found a long line for the photo CMs. Unfortunately, after at least a 15 minute wait, we found out that the camera didn’t take pictures during that span of time.

We left Tomorrowland, headed down Main Street and caught a bus fairly quickly back to AKL. Since we hadn’t received any information from Magical Express about our pick up time, I asked at the front desk. Their system was down. Oh, well. We’ll sort it out in the a.m.
 
HouCuseChickie

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
Pooh'sBuddy said:
Sadly, not yet. We both have the S iii, and we kept them in ziplocks most of the time. Thanks for the tip, I'll try the voice recording while it's in the bag and see how it goes.
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I have an HTC One X and it's sensitive enough for me to be able to use it through the bag. Obviously, not quite as good as having it out of the bag, but it's better than destroying the phone. I've heard the Galaxy III works well in the bag too, so it's worth a try...not just for Disney. I do it all the time for the pool and the splash pad.
 
HouCuseChickie

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
Awesome that you got to meet up with some fellow WDW Magic peeps :D Loving all of the 'Ohana food pics...I'm full from dinner and still could go for some of that yummy goodness! My girls were also super excited to see the hidden Oswald and very cool about the ice cream, even if you had to turn it down. I know there was more I was going to write about, but my cold meds are getting to me. Oy!
 
Pooh'sBuddy

Pooh'sBuddy

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
HouCuseChickie said:
Awesome that you got to meet up with some fellow WDW Magic peeps :D Loving all of the 'Ohana food pics...I'm full from dinner and still could go for some of that yummy goodness! My girls were also super excited to see the hidden Oswald and very cool about the ice cream, even if you had to turn it down. I know there was more I was going to write about, but my cold meds are getting to me. Oy!
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Darn those cold meds. What I take either doesn't work or makes me feel loopy.

Eating at 'Ohana made me wish I had an extra portable stomach.
 
Pooh'sBuddy

Pooh'sBuddy

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday, June 13th

Our departing day. I'll make this brief.

As usual, I spent a little time on the balcony. Each day, I've seen three cranes, one of which I nicknamed Crazy Crane because it likes to spread its wings and (I guess) try to look like a big, bad guy. We got to say good bye.


So, I woke up earlier than the guys and snapped a few pics of the resort, inside and out. Boma smelled wonderful.







I checked with concierge to verify our ME time. 11:30am. We got all packed up, how I don't know, got cleaned up and spent the little bit of time on the balcony.

We made our way down to the lobby for the last pics.




Lance gave our bags to ME, and we waited. A CM brought by a three-sectioned covered box with three covered holes on one side for the kids to stick their hands in, feel the object inside and guess what it was. Cameron was up to the challenge. After some guesses were made, the CM took out the objects one by one to share what they were. All were really interesting and educational. I'm so glad we stayed here. If only we could have had a whole day just to be there.


Our bus arrived.



We sat in front again and struck up a pleasant conversation with a mom on her first WDW vacation about our stays. We stopped off at AoA, and the bus quickly filled up.

Off to the airport. We made it through screening, the longest line we had the whole time.

We grabbed lunch at the food court. Our last "monorail" ride


and found our gate. We had a long wait. Come to find out the crew's flight into MCO was delayed. The natives grew restless, but anyway, we had a non-eventful flight back to Austin.



Apparently, we made it back before our luggage did.


Fortunately, jetBlue's luggage person was in her office, so we place in a lost luggage claim. She gave us the paperwork and promised a call on Friday.

We caught the shuttle to our car, made it through Friday rush hour traffic and picked up Annabelle before making it back home. The kitties were happy to see us.


Friday morning, I was online trying to get an update on our bags. No updates. I waited until about 10am and called their toll free line. A nice jetBlue person told me that the luggage made it on their morning flight, MCO to JFK and was in Austin. Before noon, we had a call from a driver that he was on his way. He delivered our bags soon after.


And all is well.




We did have photopass pics missing from our Chip and Dale meet and greet and our Sunset Blvd. shoot. I submitted an online request for each, waited three days and called. The CM couldn't find the Chip and Dale photos nor the Sunset Blvd. pics. I was bummed, but the past Monday, Lance called to tell me he got a call from Disney. I was hoping for some kind of news that we won a free trip back!!! LOL!!! He said it was from photopass saying that they were looking for someone else's Sunset Blvd. pics and found ours. Yea!! Apparently, I gave them the wrong date and time. Totally. Yep.

To sum it up, the CMs were great. We made the best of the weather and crowd conditions. I don't want to focus on what we didn't get to do; there's no point in that. We are blessed with the opportunities we have had to go and stay where we've stayed. I am truly amazed that all four of us kept up our marathon-like schedule. Depression hasn't really set in. I'm hoping for a chance to try Disneyland for spring break in 2015, but I really want to go back for another crack at Star Wars Weekend.



So, that's it. That's our trip. Thank you for reading along. I hope you enjoyed it. I guess this means our trip is really over.
 
HouCuseChickie

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
I put off reading the end...I didn't want to be sad, but I had to read it :( It looks like you guys had a great trip. Also glad to hear that your bags turned up and the missing Photopass pics surfaced. Wondering if we'll also get to see "Crazy Crane" in Sept. Also very cool about the lobby experience before leaving. Wonderful TR :)
 
disney4life2008

disney4life2008

Well-Known Member
Pooh'sBuddy said:
Thursday, June 13th


Apparently, we made it back before our luggage did.


Fortunately, jetBlue's luggage person was in her office, so we place in a lost luggage claim. She gave us the paperwork and promised a call on Friday


So, that's it. That's our trip. Thank you for reading along. I hope you enjoyed it. I guess this means our trip is really over.
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This is always the most depressing part of my WDW vacation - the airport back home. As long as I am at MCO - I know WDW is only a short ride away. But once I arrive back to Champaign, Illinois this is the exact picture I see an empty airport in the middle of cornfields.
 
Pooh'sBuddy

Pooh'sBuddy

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
jhoff3405 said:
Great report! Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you, and thanks for reading!

disney4life2008 said:
This is always the most depressing part of my WDW vacation - the airport back home. As long as I am at MCO - I know WDW is only a short ride away. But once I arrive back to Champaign, Illinois this is the exact picture I see an empty airport in the middle of cornfields.
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HouCuseChickie said:
I put off reading the end...I didn't want to be sad, but I had to read it :( It looks like you guys had a great trip. Also glad to hear that your bags turned up and the missing Photopass pics surfaced. Wondering if we'll also get to see "Crazy Crane" in Sept. Also very cool about the lobby experience before leaving. Wonderful TR :)
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It's truly amazing to me that I'm not really that sad. I expected I'd be devastated. Maybe it's because we had to many good experiences and adventures to keep thinking about. Sandy, I'm so glad you decided to move over to AKL. They have alot of kids' activities that I wish we could have included in our days but especially the night vision goggles. That sounds SO cool.
 
pluto13

pluto13

Well-Known Member
Pooh'sBuddy said:
We found ourselves outside the shop’s front door and I realized I have NO idea what Mouse and figgy look like. Um. Big pause. Fortunately, two very nice, friendly, SMART women standing right in front of us figured out that a woman with three guys in tow who stopped right in front of the Christmas Shoppe must have done so on purpose. We all smiled at each other and greeted each other warmly. Introductions all around, followed by questions about our trips so far. Then the subject turned to THE Figment pack. It is a pack that looks like Figment, fuzzy and all. Figgy told us the story of how she bargained for it, and we ooohed and aaaahed over it. Mouse had to get going with her hubby on crutches but not before pictures were taken to commemorate the event.


So is Figgy in the Middle?
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