Sept 13 - 22: A Canadian Family Heads South

Hi whoever is reading this. The trip report is finally 100% uploaded. I may have a few more pictures to add later, but the main report is complete. Hope you all enjoy reading it.

The 2012 Trip Report

Intro

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 2012 edition of the Burnett family trip report. Let’s start with a brief intro of the crew this year (you can see a more detailed intro and tentative itinerary at the PRT: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/let-the-wind-carry-you-home-september-pre-trip-report.836558/ ).

This year we have my DW Tammy, our DD Stephanie, our DS Liam and me (Graham). We’re booked for 9 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village in a one bedroom apartment. This is our 5th trip in 4 years. This year we’ve decided to try the waterparks and more option on our park passes, and we’ve also booked the Not So Scary for Sept 19th, and a family photo session at Epcot on Sept 16th. So, without further adieu, let’s jump in...



Day 0 – How do they expect me to concentrate at work today?

As has been our normal practice, we head down to Buffalo the night before our arrival at WDW since it is a lot cheaper to fly out of there rather than Toronto or Hamilton airports. However, I first had to get through a full day of work (normally I take this day off to finish packing etc, but I’m an accountant and we were just in the process of closing the books at the company I work for (Tim Hortons – coffee anyone?), so that wasn’t happening this year). I was concerned that I would be too “antsy” all day and that they day would drag. Fortunately I had a lot to do, so I didn’t have a lot of down time, and before I knew it the end of the day had arrived. I jumped in the almost 100% packed car, drove home as quickly as I could in rush hour traffic, got home, spent a few more minutes packing the car, and we were out the door by around 6:15pm. Traffic to the border was great, and we have Nexus passes which means we don’t need to sit in the customs lines at the border (we cross border shop quite a bit too, so the passes are great), and before you know it, we’ve checked in to the Sleep Inn hotel. We love this place, not because it’s super fancy or anything (it’s not), but because it’s the place we always stay the night before we go to Disney. Anyways, check in went smooth, then we headed out to Cracker Barrel for a late dinner, then back to the hotel for an “earlier” night since our flight is at 6:10am the next day. We were all in bed and asleep by 10:30, with a wake-up call at 3:00am. Good night everyone.



Day 1 – How can you not be happy to be at the most Magical place on earth?

The alarms started going off around 3 (I had set the bedside alarm, as well as the alarm on my Blackberry, my Playbook, and had scheduled a wake-up call also – there is no way we’re sleeping through all those), and Tammy and I got up and started getting ready. I hate that kind of sick feeling you get when you wake up and haven’t slept enough, but that was quickly overtaken by the excitement that today was the day we had been planning for almost a full year. Steph and Liam were up not long after us, and we were out of the hotel room by 4. We grabbed a quick breakfast in the lobby, and then hopped on the hotel shuttle to the airport. Check in went extremely smoothly (the agent at Southwest asked if we were professional packers since our two larger bags both weighed in at 49.5 lbs (50 lbs is the maximum). We didn’t tell her we had weighed them a few minutes before at an empty scale and had to do some last minute rearranging. Security check was pretty good too. The agent was a guy with a really dry sense of humor who made the experience more tolerable for the kids (they both have inherited my sense of humor, so they catch on pretty quick to when people are being funny and play along). We grab some caffeine from a coffee shop in the waiting lounge and sit patiently waiting to be boarded.

Boarding call came quickly, and before we knew it we were in the sky.

I’m a pretty relaxed flier, so I was able to sleep for about an hour of the 2.5 hour flight (Liam fell asleep for a while too), which really helped the time “fly” by. The plane touched down in Orlando around 8:30, and we made our way quickly to the Magical Express desk.

The AKL line was really short (actually, the whole airport was pretty dead at this time), and we were boarded on a bus almost right away. After a few minutes the ME movie started, and before we knew it, we had arrived at Kidani. We had a nice talk with a CM who was waiting when we got off the bus. His name was Hamilton, but his tag said Hammy. He asked where we were from (we’re from Hamilton, Ontario), so he thought that was kind of cool. He knew about an attraction we have in Hamilton (the African Lion Safari), so that was neat. After our discussion with Hammy we head to the front desk to begin the check-in process. Everything there went smoothly too and, to our surprise, our room was ready. Once we received all the check-in materials, we head up to room 7311. I noticed they have the RFID locks on the doors in Kidani which makes life easier when your hands are full. We got into the room, and we were all really impressed. We love this place. Here's a few room shots:

S

I love this headboard.

Is it odd that I'm super excited about being at Disney and my wife is super excited to have this in our room:

Must be a mom thing So we drop our bags, try to make a quick call to my parents using video chat on the Playbook (that didn’t work well. One complaint about this place is the free Wi-Fi in this resort is terrible. In the room you can’t connect half the time, and when you do you can’t really do much other than basic web surfing), and then decided to head to Animal Kingdom since it’s so close.

The park was pretty empty, and I also noticed that while it was really humid, it wasn’t overly hot. The kids wanted to do Everest first, so we headed over. The wait time said 10 minutes, so we head in. It was more like 5. Love this ride. The waterfall effects were all working, and they have the yeti positioned in such a way that I found myself kind of ducking when we went by. The kids loved it so much that they wanted to do it again, so round 2 it was.

After that everyone was getting kind of hungry (it was around 1:00), so we headed to Flame Tree. Tammy and I got the ribs, and Liam and Steph split the chicken and ribs.

The food here was OK. I found the ribs to be a bit dry, but the food did the trick and we were soon full. Next was Dinosaur, which was another walk-on, and then the kids wanted to do Everest again (guess which ride is their favourite). One more Everest walk-on, and then we called it a day in the park. Our plan was to head back to the room and nap for a few hours since I can’t stand when tweens get tired and suddenly become so much smarter than you (at least in their eyes they are). Our bags had arrived when we got back, but we just wanted to sleep, so we unpacked after the nap. Oh sleep, how I missed you. The nap was great, and everyone was up by 5:00 and ready to go. We had 7:00 reservations at ‘Ohana, and couldn’t wait to get there.

We showed up at around 7:05 (some transportation issues had us running a bit late) and checked it. Tammy and the kids went to look in the shops, while I tried my parents on the Playbook again (which worked great in the Poly. They had a really good wi-fi signal. I’m wondering if the Wi-Fi is really strong in the lobby area of each hotel, but weak in the rooms). Anyways, the buzzer went off, and we were soon in wood fired meat heaven. Our server was Roy, and he was fantastic. Our drinks never got empty, and he was by about every 10 minutes to see if we wanted anything else. Everything was so moist and delicious.

The one thing they’ve started doing is opening the shrimp up so they are easier to eat, which made Steph very happy. The bread pudding was amazing as usual (so good that I asked for the recipe. They had me fill out a form with my e-mail address and will e-mail it to me later).

With bellies full we decide to walk around the Poly a bit.

Hidden Mickey

We head out down to the beach and the pool. This resort is amazing. After that, we head back to Kidani since the kids wanted to swim before bed.

The pool there is nice, and the kids made a friend in the pool. I didn’t catch her name, but she was an extremely out-going, not shy at all twelve year old girl. As we were getting ready to leave she swims over and starts talking to Tammy. The conversation was something like “Hi....I’m really happy I can swim right now...I haven’t been able to for the last 3 days...you should know why...girl things....Is it weird that my cup size is bigger than my 18 year old sisters?...”. What??? Really??? This is how you strike up a conversation with complete strangers? Tammy and I both laughed afterwards. Anyways, we were done for the day. We headed back to the room and crawled into bed thoroughly exhausted by our first Disney day. Tomorrow’s plan is the Magic Kingdom, and then we’re meeting up with some friends who are down here for dinner at Boma.

 

[gwhb75]

Day 5 – Typhoon Lagoon and the disappointment

Up bright and early again, so I finished day 4 of the trip report. The plan this morning is to go to Typhoon Lagoon. When we decided to do the water parks, we thought that we’d like Typhoon Lagoon more than Blizzard Beach, so we wanted to do it last.

We got to the park around 9:45 and the crowds were light.

The park officially opened at 10, and we went and found four beach chairs together (we had almost the entire beach to choose from).

Please see my previous rant on appropriate swimwear (perhaps the rule should be “if you put on a bathing suit, and parts of you are covering parts of the bathing suit that should be covering you, consider a different bathing suit”). We decided to hit all the slides we could before the crowds picked up, so we headed over to Crush ‘n Gusher. There were no lines there so we ended up riding two of the slides. We then headed around the park to where all the other slides were. Steph, Liam and I did Humunga Kowabunga (Tammy went up to do them, but made the mistake of looking down the slide before riding it, and decided the stairs were the better way down). We then did a couple of the more twisty slides which were more up Tammy’s ally. We also tried the Shark Reef but I just couldn't get the hang of it (they may as well have given me a straw instead of the snorkel since every time I breathed in I just got a mouthful of cold, refreshing saltwater).

Again, there were no lines yet. The family slide was up next, and it was kind of “meh”. You have to carry the raft up to the top of the slide, and the ride is really short compared to Blizzard beach. It was OK, but nothing fantastic. We rode the last two tube slides and called it a day for the slides. Lunch was at the Leaning Palms. Tammy and Steph got the chicken, Liam got the burger, and I got the pulled pork sandwich. Not bad for counter services. After lunch we did one lap of the lazy river, and then the kids and I went into the wave pool, while Tammy relaxed on a beach chair.

The wave pool was a lot of fun (I lost my glasses in one of the waves. Fortunately someone else found them and returned them to me). After the wave pool we decided to call it a day at Typhoon Lagoon(it was around 2:30). I will say that Typhoon Lagoon is excellently themed, and has a more laid back feel to it than Blizzard Beach, but we all agreed that Blizzard Beach was the better park (well...Liam didn`t, but he normally will go against what everyone else says just because he can). We got back to the hotel around 3:00 and relax for about an hour. There is a Sunset Mingle thing at 5:00 over at Jambo house that we thought would be fun to do, so we head over there around 4:30. We check in, and then take the kids over to the kids club so they can have fun while we do this. Liam is a lot like I was at his age, in that he`s very unsure about being left anywhere and would rather stay with us instead of doing more kid friendly things. At first he said he wanted to come in with us, but after some coaxing from a bunch of awesome CM`s relented and decided to stay at the kid`s club thing. The mingle thing was OK, and we`re glad we did it at least once. We went back to get the kids (and, of course, when we get there they don`t want to leave). They had a great time with the CMs there (Marc-Anthony, Grace (from the Botswana presentation we went to), and Toppsy).

They were drumming away when we got there, and had their faces painted (Liam like a warrior, and Steph like a princess).

We managed to pry them away from there, and boarded a bus to Epcot. We had reservations for Biergarten tonight, and were really looking forward to trying it. We get to Germany about 5 minutes before our reservation, but the line up to check in was huge.

Our ADRs were for 6:40, and we didn`t get up to the desk until 7:00. We get up to the desk when a woman storms over ``when are we getting in. We`ve been waiting for 20 minutes...``. She was informed it would be another 5 minutes and she walked away muttering “so much for reservations”. We completed our check in and were told they were really busy tonight, so there would be a 15-20 minute wait (I told him we’d be back to complain in 10 ). After around 15 minutes our buzzer goes off and we head in. The place looked amazing, and the band was playing which was fun.

However, we were kind of disappointed in the place. The food and selection was OK, but nothing fantastic, and the server, while very nice, was hardly seen during the meal. None of us really enjoyed the food, and didn’t eat that much (there was nothing wrong with the food, it just wasn’t our thing).

The place was packed though, so obviously a lot of people do like it. With dinner done we debated staying for Illuminations or beating the crowds to the busses. Beating the crowds won out this time, so we headed out. We hit Spaceship Earth since it was empty, and then that was it for the day. I will mention that I’ve messed my foot up somehow over the last few days¸ so I had to buy a tensor bandage (it feels like a stress fracture). I’m sucking it up right now, but it hurts like crazy. Anyways, that’s day 5. Tomorrow we have breakfast/brunch reservations at Tusker, and then the MNSSHP tomorrow night.

 

[gwhb75]

Day 6 – AKL part 2 and the MNSSHP
First up yet again. We have 10:40 reservations for Tusker House this morning, so we’re heading to AKL this morning. Everyone gets up and ready at a good time, and we were in the park by about 9:30. The kids (and their Dad) want to ride Everest first, so it’s off to Asia. There is no line to speak of, so we ride twice. After the second ride it was getting close to check in time, so we head back to Africa. I split up with family when we hit Tusker House to get fastpasses for the safari while they go check in for breakfast. I got fastpasses for between 11-12, which should be perfect. We checked in at Tusker House and got the pictures with Safari Donald. The CM who was Donald’s handler was hilarious. At one point there was no one in line for pictures, so Donald and him were goofing off. He leaned in and said something, and the person inside actually laughed out loud. Our family was the only people who heard it, but it was soooo funny. Breakfast was great, and they started bringing out lunch items around 11:00, so we got to try some of those items too.

The kids also got some character pictures (it’s odd, 4 years ago it was all about characters, and now that they are older they don’t care anymore).

We got out of Tusker House around 11:40 and went over to the safari.

This was a lot of fun. However...partway through the trip the safari leader mentioned that he sees a lot of dark clouds on the horizon, and it looked like we were going to get rain. The rain forecast was confirmed when we passed the elephants and they all suddenly took off running towards shelter (it was really cool to see them all running so fast).

We got off the safari, and the skies just opened up. It rained so hard and there was thunder and lightening (which Steph hates. We had a tornado hit our house when she was 6 years old and she still remembers it, so storms freak her our).

We stood under a covered bridge for about 30 minutes until it started letting up, then we booked it to the busses. The plan was an afternoon nap so we could stay late at the MNSSHP, and we were all in dreamland by 3:00. After the nap we got up and got ready (no costumes this year), and headed out. The first stop was Epcot (the night before there was a bit of confusion with regards to a hoodie I had brought to the Biergarten, where I thought Tammy had taken it and she thought she had given it to me, and it got left behind). It started raining again on the way to Epcot, and the dollar store ponchos weren’t cutting it anymore (it felt like putting plastic wrap on), so we caved and bought Disney ponchos.

Next up was guest relations where I found my hoodie. Yaaaaaa. We then took the monorail ride from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom for the MNSSHP.

The party was great. We hit a few rides (Spalsh, Thunder, Tomorrowland Speedway, Space Mountain, Peter Pan and Pirates), had dinner at Pecos Bills (where I used the self-serve kiosk for the first time – we all got the cheeseburgers), and collected a lot of candy.

The kids also met Sleeping Beauty. For the fireworks, we got a great spot up where they do the dessert party. This was so much better than fighting the crowds on Main Street.

We also caught the parade which is, in my opinion, the best parade at the MK. After the parade the kids got pictures with Tarzan, Jane and Turk.

Exhausted, we left the park around 11:45. We got back to the room around 12:15 and just crashed. Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow yet.

 

[LizC]

Sounds like you are having a great trip so far. Can't wait to hear about the rest. Thanks for sharing!

 

[gwhb75]

Sounds like you are having a great trip so far. Can't wait to hear about the rest. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for reading. We had an absolute blast and can't wait to go back next year.

 

[myhappyplace]

Lovely view for the fireworks, great trip!

 

[mousefreak]

Enjoying your TR. Hate to see all the rain you experienced during your trip.

BTW, big fan of Tim Hortons!

 

[gwhb75]

Enjoying your TR. Hate to see all the rain you experienced during your trip.

BTW, big fan of Tim Hortons!

Yeah, there was a lot of rain this year, but I guess that's the risk of going in September. However, there's still lots to do even in the rain (and being caught in the rain at Disney still beats not being at Disney at all).

I'm a big fan of Tim Hortons myself. Are you Canadian?

 

[gwhb75]

Enjoying your TR. Hate to see all the rain you experienced during your trip.

BTW, big fan of Tim Hortons!

Just saw you're from Columbus, Ohio. That's where the US Tim Hortons head office is located.

 

[DisneyPrincess5]

Great TR so far! Your food pictures look amazing, especially the sweets! That ice cream sandwich ahhhhh

 

[gwhb75]

Lovely view for the fireworks, great trip!

Thanks. We were surprised there weren't more people in there.

 

[gwhb75]

Great TR so far! Your food pictures look amazing, especially the sweets! That ice cream sandwich ahhhhh

It's crazy that they consider that a snack. The thing is big enough to be a meal.

 

[jhoff3405]

I am along for the ride!
Looking forward to seeing your EPCOT photo shoot pics, I would LOVE to do that.

Felt the same way about Biergarten....great atmosphere, but the food was "meh."

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Great Trip Report!!! Good to hear about the shrimp at 'Ohana...I just remember peeling shrimp for 3 last trip and wanting everyone to just move on to beef (or really anything that didnt' require peeling). The excitement over the washer/dryer set up cracked me up. It's odd- I have a strict "no laundry on vacay" rule, but just having it there would make me feel like "at least it's there in case we really need it." Sorry Biergarten was a let down. It's been ages since I've been, but we cut it from our plans b/c of so many reviews like yours. Oh well. Nice fireworks pics too

 

[gwhb75]

I am along for the ride!
Looking forward to seeing your EPCOT photo shoot pics, I would LOVE to do that.

Felt the same way about Biergarten....great atmosphere, but the food was "meh."

Thanks. We've seen all the pictures from the photoshoot now on the Disney website, but we can't do anything with them except order prints off them (I've tried to save some but it won't let me). We ordered the CD with all the images on it, so that should be here within a few weeks.

Yeah, I don't get the huge popularity of the Biergarten. The place was packed but, like you said, we just felt "meh".

 

[gwhb75]

Great Trip Report!!! Good to hear about the shrimp at 'Ohana...I just remember peeling shrimp for 3 last trip and wanting everyone to just move on to beef (or really anything that didnt' require peeling). The excitement over the washer/dryer set up cracked me up. It's odd- I have a strict "no laundry on vacay" rule, but just having it there would make me feel like "at least it's there in case we really need it." Sorry Biergarten was a let down. It's been ages since I've been, but we cut it from our plans b/c of so many reviews like yours. Oh well. Nice fireworks pics too

The shrimp was so much better already opened (and deveined).

The laundry thing made me laugh too. Tammy was so happy to have it and I was like "really?". The one thing that was great about it was not having loads of laundry to do when we got home.

Biergarten = "meh" as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks for the complement on the fireworks pics.

 

[gwhb75]

Day 7 – The Quest, the crafts and the Garden

After the late night last night, we all slept in a bit (around 9ish). We woke up with no real plan for the day today. We had breakfast in the room, and discussed what we should do. The kids wanted to try Disney Quest, so we headed to Downtown Disney. We got there around 11:15 and decided lunch would make sense first, so Earl of Sandwich was the first stop.

We didn’t feel overly hungry, so we split the Hawaiian BBQ, Earl’s Club and a grilled cheese.

For dessert we had two strawberry shortcakes and some grapes. Earl of Sandwich was great, and is one of our favourite restaurants at DTD. After lunch we split up since Tammy isn’t a big arcade and video game fan, so she went shopping while I took the kids to Disney Quest.

Let me just say that we had a great time there. I know the technology is a bit dated, but the kids had so much fun. We did the Virtual Jungle Cruise (a raft ride where you paddle a raft simulator), virtual Pirates of the Caribbean (a virtual pirate ship where you work as a crew to sink ships and collect treasure),

Cyber Space Mountain (you design your own coaster and then ride it in a simulator), Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blaster (like a cross between bumper cars and Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin)

and the Mighty Duck pinball game. The kids had a blast doing all these, and when we finally met up with Tammy again they made her come in and ride Jungle Cruise and Pirates with them. After Disney Quest we headed back towards the busses (we were hoping to hit the new Phineas and Ferb attraction also, but the weather had other ideas...that’s right...pouring again).

We made a quick stop into the candy store to use up some snack credits (Steph got a Reece’s Pieces rice crispy treat, Liam got a piece of maple fudge, Tammy go a while chocolate chip cookie, and I got an English Toffee square). The bus finally arrived, and we headed back to the AKL. On the way we discussed dinner tonight, and decided we didn’t really want to go to Whispering Canyon (and the 8:35 time was too late for us), so I went up to the room to try and change our dinner tonight. A quick call to the dining reservation line, and we had 6:45 reservations for the Garden Grill. While I was up doing that, the kids went to Community Hall at the AKL, which is like a rec room. There is a Wii, and Xbox360 and 3 Play stations, a foosball table, a pool table, a few TV’s as well as a bunch of crafts and stuff you can do. The kids decided they wanted to do some crafts. Liam coloured a lizard and Steph made a tote bag. It looked like so much fun that Tammy decided to do a bracelet, and I painted a Mickey statue.

This was an absolute blast and a nice change from the normal go-go-go we usually do at the parks. We were there for almost two hours just having fun. I have to go back Friday to pick up my Mickey once it’s been glazed and fired.

Here's a picture from the balcony of the craft room.

We left Community Hall and headed to Epcot. We got to the Garden Grill at around 6:50, and were seated quickly.

The dinner started with salad (which was delicious) and then we got the main course (turkey, tilapia and roast beef with all the sides) as well as a kids platter of macaroni, broccoli, chicken and sweet potato fries.

For dessert the adults got a white cake with berries, and the kids got cupcake cones.

We loved this place, and the kids had a blast with the characters (Chip, Dale, Pluto and Mickey). Unlike other restaurants, this one is a lot smaller (not to mention it slowly rotates which is really cool) so the characters come by several times during your meal and interact with you.

I totally recommend this place. After dinner we hit a few rides (it was EMHs at Epcot). First we hit Finding Nemo, then Imagination. Liam and I then went to Mission Space – Orange version while the Tammy and Steph rode Imagination again, then we all met up at Spaceship Earth for one last ride before the ride back to the hotel. We don’t have any real plan for tomorrow so we’ll see what that day brings.

 

[gwhb75]

Day 8 – Hollywood, Kona DTD and man am I getting old

Later wake up yet again. Hollywood became the destination for the day based on the fact we hadn’t done Toy Story yet and Steph wanted me to go to the learn to draw thing with her. I think the constant exercise and tons of sugar are starting to catch up to both the kids as they are in weird moods today. One minute they are happy, polite, just behaving great, then the next they are arguing with us, fighting with each other, etc. I hate having to be the “crack-the-whip” kind of person, but I had to put an end to this ASAP, so we had a very serious talk with both of them and were even heading out of the park to go back to the room when they both apologized and asked for “one more try”.

We’ll see.... We got into the park around 11:00 and headed over to Toy Story for fastpasses (2:45-3:45). We then decided that we wanted to try some cupcakes from Starring Roles (based on all the pictures we’ve seen).

I got the red velvet, Tammy got the carrot cake, Steph got the Butterfinger and Liam, just trying to be different, got a chocolate éclair. We split the cupcakes up so we could all try a piece of a different one. They were all really good. The park wasn’t overly busy today so Tammy thought we should get RNR and ToT over with early. Liam and I went on RNR which had a 20 minute wait, then we picked up Steph and went on ToT (walk-on). Walking away from ToT, it hit me that I won’t be seeing these rides again this year which made me kind of sad. Actually, since this morning I’ve had this kind of sad feeling that the trip is soon coming to an end. I kept thinking back to “at this time last week we were just arriving and had a whole 10 days ahead of us, and now we’re down to 1.5 days”. Anyways, I don’t want to worry about going home while we’re still here, so we soldier on. We hit Star Tours again (still awesome), then lunch at the Backlot Express (I didn’t bother taking pictures since chicken nuggets and burgers from counter services all look the same). American Idol after lunch (I was actually surprised how full the theatre was), then off to the drawing thing.

This was a lot of fun.

We all drew Buzz Lightyear.

I’m no artist, but at least you could tell it was Buzz when it was done. The last ride for the day was Toy Story. I forgot how much I love that ride. What a blast. With heavy hearts, we leave Hollywood Studios for the last time on this trip. We head back to the AKL and stop by the Community Hall again (the kids both wanted to challenge me to a game of foosball). The foosball was a lot of fun, and I know when we come back on our next trip the kids are going to want to spend lots of time here. Dinner tonight was Kona, so we headed over to the Poly.

We were seated quickly and were ready to start our meal. Liam and I got the steak, Tammy got the Pork Chop and Steph got the catch of the day.

For dessert Tammy got the banana-chocolate crème brule, and the rest of us got the Kona Cone.

It was pretty good. I liked Kona. I don’t think I liked it more than some of the other places we’ve eaten at this trip, but it was definitely good. After dinner we made a quick trip to downtown Disney to buy a few gifts/souvenirs, and then called it a night (and, of course, we had to get caught in the rain waiting for the bus back).

Hard to believe, but tomorrow is our last day here.

 

[gwhb75]

Day 9 – The end is near
A little last day music while you read this



So the final day is here. Let’s start with the obligatory shot of the worst thing to ever wake-up to.

It’s weird how a few weeks before your vacation this package brings such excitement and happiness, but once you’re here you dread getting it. I always hate that “last day feeling” I get where you know that this is the last time you are going to see whatever you are looking at. However, that’s no way to spend the last day of a vacation, so we didn’t think about it. Today we did something completely different...we actually spent the morning at the resort. I took Steph and Liam down to the pool while Tammy packed (she prefers to do all the packing herself so I just do my best to stay out of the way).

The kids had a great time and I got some cool pool shots.

We discussed it afterwards, and agree that next year we’ll spend more time around the pool rather than the constant running around each park. Anyway, we headed back up to the room around 10:30, and made the decision to head to Downtown Disney again to use up our snack credits at Goofy’s Candy Co. What in the world are you supposed to do with 20 snack credits remaining on the last day? I’ll tell you what you do...you buy $100 worth of candy and chocolate.

It was crazy how much stuff we’re bringing home with us. We asked the cashier if this was normal to use so many credits on the last day, and she assured us it is 100% normal. Whew...However, before we purchased all the candy, we stopped at Wolfgang Puck Express.

Don’t ask me how this place is only a counter service, because it is absolutely fantastic. For lunch Tammy got the vegetarian pizza, Liam got the bacon wrapped meatloaf, Steph got the pasta with the cream sauce, and I got the spaghetti and meatballs.

The food was amazing, and the set-up is a lot like I imagine the Be Our Guest restaurant will be at lunch time where you place the order and then someone brings the food to you. I don’t know why we haven’t been here before, but we’ll definitely be back. OK, so it’s our last day, it’s now 2:00, and we still haven’t been to a park. It just doesn’t feel right to us if we don’t go to MK on our last day, so we hop, for the last time, on a Disney transportation bus. We arrive at the MK around 3:00, and I’m concerned since the kids have a list of rides they want to do, and we really only have about 2.5 hours since we have dinner reservations for 6 at Crystal Palace, and then it’s another MNSSHP so we’ll be kicked out once dinner is done. I was totally surprised to find the park really quiet today. We went to Space Mountain first (walk on), then the Tomorrowland Speedway (Liam’s favourite I think). After that it was Haunted Mansion (where a CM showed us where the ring is embedded in the ground), then Big Thunder Mountain (walk-on) and finally Pirates (our last ride for this vacation – there’s something kind of sad with the way the ride plays the “Yo-Ho Yo-Ho” song when the ride first starts which is fitting given the melancholy feeling you get knowing it’s your last ride until next year.). We did all these rides in just under 2 hours which I thought was really good given it pretty much covers an entire circuit of the park. After the rides we hit a few photographers to get some pictures, then checked in to Crystal Palace.

Daddy got some love from the kids

Dinner here was good, and the kids got pictures with all the Hundred Acre Woods characters (except for Piglet or, as I refer to him/her “the androgynous baby pig”).

Oh No....it's all done now.

We were done dinner around 6:30 (we got in earlier than 6:00) and had a plan to go play some golf at Wintersummerland and then go swimming, but, you guessed it, it started raining again so we headed back to the AKL where the kids and I went to the Community Hall again while Tammy finished packing.

And so ends our last offical day at the parks. Tomorrow we head home.

 

[gwhb75]

Final thoughts

If you’ve read through this whole trip report, thanks. I know it’s a lot of reading, but I write it so that we can look back at it at any time and remember the great time we had.

We had an amazing time this year. The amount of rain we got was certainly unexpected, but we didn’t let it ruin our time there. There is definitely a “sadness” when you reach the end of your trip. For me I think it’s caused by the fact that we’ve looked forward to this trip for almost a whole year, planned it, dreamed about it, changed parts of it repeatedly, and now it’s over. We have already started discussing next year’s trip though, so that definitely helps, but those first few days back are always hard.

 

[myhappyplace]

It really does look like you had an amazing time, glad you shared your report with us!! Always nice to be able to see how other families do Disney, and it was a joy to read