Trip Report Pop & Hop, Snack & Shop, Graduation Celebration - Sept 2016

We arrived home late last night and as usual, we are all in Disney depression mode. Seriously, the return to reality is so hard!

It was an AWESOME trip. However not without a few hiccups. Let’s just say that the name of my Trip Report could easily have been, “I Almost Killed My Husband In The Happiest Place On Earth” or… “”Did The Ride Just Stop?” or… “Bathrooms Around The World”

Needless to say that Disney Magic outshines small issues – even my husband’s behavior that almost landed him in Cinderella’s moat more than once.

Warning: I have some commitments over the next few weeks, so I’m not sure how much updating I will be able to do. But I wanted to start writing before my memory and notes start to fade away. Besides, I’m so sad – it helps to re-live it! Lol

For those of you who don’t know us – our cast of characters:


Me – Mary

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Ross – My hubby who drove me INSANE throughout our trip.

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Julia (14)

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Hope (7 with Autism & Sensory issues)

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What I didn’t mention in my Pre-Trip Report is that we were celebrating the fact that Julia is starting 9th grade this year. As homeschoolers, we have never acknowledged graduations or moving up ceremonies. So since my sweet girl is starting high school, I figured she deserved a Disney Celebration, so I had that put on our reservation.

Since Ross agreed to family shirts, I had my friend make them for us. Julia was surprised and really happy!

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So if you are ready to join in the fun & craziness… welcome aboard!!
 
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Figment Forever

Figment Forever

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hi Everyone! I warned you guys... I knew life would be totally insane as soon as we returned home. :eek: I have missed the boards so much - I have so many trip reports to catch up with... @Tuvalu - you must have got in at least 3 trips since I last checked! lol

Well if you guys can forgive me and you still want to travel along with us, I promise to get going and post something over the weekend.
 
Figment Forever

Figment Forever

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Original Poster
Day 3: September 14th Continued... (Finally)

So when we left off, Julia, Hope & I were on our way to EPCOT to meet Ross and our friends from home. We were all having lunch in Germany.

We got to the monorail with no problems.

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Ross was worried that Hope may not want to leave MK so early, but thankfully, she was fine. I think she understood that we were meeting friends at EPCOT.

We walked into EPCOT with no problems and though Future World and made our way to Germany. We had a delay on the monorail, so we were a few minutes behind. I gave my friend Jen the ADR info – but they wouldn’t let her check in until all of us were there. So we sped up our foot power to get there as quickly as possible.

We said a quick hello and I left Hope and Julia with our friends while I got on the line to check in. That would be when my first problem of the trip occurred… My husband arrived and Hope went haywire. As soon as she saw him, she wanted to leave. She has him wrapped around her finger and he almost always gives into her – something I do not do. So suddenly, she no longer wanted to have lunch. So what should have been a wonderful “reunion” moment turned into a fight. However, Hope was able to get it together and we all went inside to enjoy a rarity – lunch at Disney with friends.

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Hope and Kady went up to do some dancing. (Ross was close behind.)

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Germany is still not my favorite but it continues to be on top of Julia’s list. The food is yummy, (especially the dessert)

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but I wouldn’t mind trying a different country.
 
Figment Forever

Figment Forever

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Original Poster
Afterwards, we headed out and started walking towards Future World. We stopped to see the wait time for Frozen but it was down. Hmmm… I hope this wasn’t a sigh of things to come…

The original plan was to head right out to MK but my friend Jen was really tired, she has MS and the previous days they spent in the parks were taking a toll on her, so they decided to go back to their hotel and rest a while. We decided to meet up in MK later on that evening.

Best buds!

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We said our good-byes, but then before we could leave a small voice called out, “SOARIN over the world PLEASE”. Okay – let’s go. We got a return time and then walked on to LWTL while we waited for our window to open.

Finally, a happy reunion...


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Of course, my husband can’t just ride the ride – he has to interact with the cast members.

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After that, we soared. I was very happy to see dear Patrick was still there. I saw the new theatre entrance and was hoping we would get to go there, but they sent us off to the left.

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My reaction to the new SOARIN? Julia and I agree that we usually do not like change. We prefer things stay in their original form. But SOARIN Over The World won us over. It also was a hit for Hope, who does not like change X 100. So that was a huge success. Although we wouldn't mind seeing the older version every once in a while, we were happy with this update.

When we exited, Julia asked to go on the update that should have never been - Figment – of course!

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We almost made it to the exit of the park, but a tiny voice didn’t want to leave yet… “Find Nemo!” Hope called out. So we off we went to the big blue world.

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Figment Forever

Figment Forever

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Original Poster
Day 3: September 14th continued...

Finally, we headed out to the monorail. But when we got to the TTC, the monorail to MK wasn’t working. No big deal – time for something new – we rode the ferry.

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Hope decided to take a nap.

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As we entered the MK, Ross thought he had a brainstorm. He decided we should attempt to watch Monster’s Laugh Floor together with Hope asleep.

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Unfortunately, it didn’t work. She woke up soon after we took our seats. I didn’t want to have a huge issue – she obviously was not happy with her surroundings when she woke up. So the two of us slipped out leaving Ross and Julia to enjoy. The two of us decided to go for a spin on the teacups. A first for Hope – she refused the teacups last year, but had started to ride them at Six Flags that summer, so I was glad she was willing to give it a go.

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After our spin on a teacup we went for a whirl on our favorite elephant.

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We met back up with Julia and Ross and made our way to our first Fast Past – Peter Pan.

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Followed by Mickey’s Philarmagic

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and 7 Dwarfs Mine Train. I was holding my breath with the mine train. Last year Hope rode it once and that was it – NO MORE! So I wasn’t sure if it would be a one-time deal this year too. Well, she LOVED it!!

Of course, I can’t seem to find my photopass pic of it right now. :banghead:
 
Figment Forever

Figment Forever

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3: September 14th Continued...

I got a few texts from my friend Jen. They were on their way back to MK and would meet us at Winnie The Pooh. On the way, Julia picked up a snack – she apparantley found a new love… the Mickey pretzel.

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We met up with our friends and then hopped a honey pot.

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We all had Fast Passes for Splash Mountain so that’s where we headed next. Unfortunately, Hope refused to ride so Ross sat this one out and I went on with Julia.

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Ask me if I can find my Photo Pass Pic? No.

We were hoping to get to the Haunted Mansion, but Jen really wanted to see the Electrical Parade and this would be her last chance to see it, so we all found seats on the sidewalk across from Pecos Bills.

While we waited, Ross got a snack…

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I still can’t believe all the food he got for 1 credit! Lol We all munched away.

We are usually not the family who waits to see a parade, but I’m glad we did. It was a really awesome parade and the fact that it would be “retiring” soon was an extra reason why I’m glad we took the time to enjoy it.

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After the parade, we said our good-byes to our friends. Even though MK had EMH that night, they weren’t staying onsite. I wish we had more time together and I wish we had taken more pictures of the kids – what was I thinking? But it was an awesome to experience time in WDW with our friends!

We decided to visit our ghost friends at HM and then our grizzly friends at the Bear Jamboree. Before we knew it, it was almost midnight, so we headed home.
 
Figment Forever

Figment Forever

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 4: September 15th

Since we didn’t get to sleep until almost 1:00AM, we didn’t set alarms for this morning. Today was our AK day. I had planned to hit AK on 2 days – 1 full day and then another afternoon/evening. I had been excited about the opening of ROL, which obviously did not happen so we were left to see the lighting of the tree.

You can tell AK is not our number one park. It’s not two or three either. Funny, I really want to LOVE AK but I just can’t. Everest, FOTLK, Safari, Nemo, Bugs Life & Dinosaur and then we’re done. Dinosaur was under refurbishment so that was a bummer. Maybe after the new section opens we will find a new found love? We’ll see…

We had an early lunch ADR at Tusker House, so we weren’t worried about eating breakfast – we just snacked in the room before leaving. We headed out for the bus stop at 9:45. I really like the screens at the bus stops, but unfortunately, the ones here at POR didn’t seem to work very well. I would say inconsistent at best. For example, AK didn’t even appear on today’s screen.

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A few pictures while we waited. Julia and Hope were both sporting the Pocahontas look.

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A moment when we were not fighting.

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We waited a LONG time for a bus to come, but finally we were on our way!

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