Sorcerers, Spies and Superbowl Adventures - A February Trip Report

This trip began a very long time ago. In fact, over 15 months ago, I assumed that this trip would be our first trip back to WDW in over a year. But that hasn't been the case! Never the less - we were super excited to join my husband in Orlando for a conference Feb. 6 - 11. The reservations were made for the Beach Club (conference rate.) My husband's ticket was purchased for Tuesday and we were all set........ or so I thought.

Two weeks ago, my husband called and said he wanted to go to an additional 'meeting' in Orlando on Tuesday - the day he was supposed to arrive. He said we should all just drive down together on Friday.........so that he could go to the meeting on Tuesday...........hmmmmmmmmmmm.......... a meeting he 'had' to go to..... that we 'had' to arrive 3 days early for...... sounds like someone figured out they'd get more park time by arriving early! So we booked the Caribbean Beach at a great rate and added on a few more nights.

Friday, we left home, stopping overnight in Georgia. On Saturday, we pulled onto Disney property promptly at 3 pm. We only had time to check in quickly and throw our bags into the room, before we had to rush off to my son's 4:30 haircut appointment at the Barbershop in the MK!

Hey! I know that place:

We were getting ready to walk out the door when my daughter spilled a bottle of water on her outfit. She insisted she HAD to change clothes, so I told my husband and son to head on to the bus stop without us and to get on the first MK bus. I told them we'd be right behind them.

They were right on time to their appointment, but sadly, I missed the whole thing. It took my daughter and I a good hour to catch up with them with the whole outfit changing, waiting for the bus, etc.

(Pictures of haircut to come - all are on my husbands phone at this time.)

It was a perfect evening in the MK though, so who can be sad???

 

[erstwo]

And then to Fantasyland

Top on Mermaid!

We watched Philharmagic and tried to fastpass Peter Pan, but it wasn't quite time for us to get a new Fastpass yet.

We continued on to Frontierland to fight to save the MK

After we defeated the villain, we were stating to get hungry, so we made our way to Pecos Bills

The new 'order for yourself' kiosks were great!

Yummy!

After lunch we were so excited, we were headed straight for Splash. We literally skipped out of Pecos headed for Splash, only to be greeted by this sad, sad sight:

Splash was down! It had never opened that morning. So that's a whole day in the MK with only 1 mountain operating. People walking up to the Splash queue were NOT happy and I can't blame them! I wasn't mad, but I was sad. My kids were excited and now we were just bummed.

More to come! We finally make it to the pool at the Beach Club - Stormalong Bay!

 

[disneyny]

Loving your trip report and your daughter's dresses. I will have my first little girl here in a few weeks and can't wait to dress in her in cute disney things! I will have to check out etsy. I am so jealous of the crowds and weather. We have been twice in February and I love the weather but we have to go when school is off since I am a teacher so it is always crowded President's week. I so wish I was going this week but since I am 8 1/2 months pregnant it isn't happening this year. Maybe next!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Such a great report so far!!

For all you phone booth callers, these numbers should work! I never try them because I have no earthly idea what I would say if someone answered!:lol:

Canada Booth - (407) 827-9884
Center UK Booth - (407) 827-9863
Left UK Booth - (407) 827-9862
Right UK Booth - (407) 827-9861


That is so exciting they were in the promo video! Your hubby got the catch phrases, how could they not use it?

The shot of your daughter holding up Chip and Dale to Chip and Dale was absolutely ADORABLE!!!

Yes! The Firehouse! I couldn't wait to read more about Sorcerers. I'm hoping to try it out in March!

 

[erstwo]

Loving your trip report and your daughter's dresses. I will have my first little girl here in a few weeks and can't wait to dress in her in cute disney things! I will have to check out etsy. I am so jealous of the crowds and weather. We have been twice in February and I love the weather but we have to go when school is off since I am a teacher so it is always crowded President's week. I so wish I was going this week but since I am 8 1/2 months pregnant it isn't happening this year. Maybe next!

Yes! I love etsy! Such great stuff. Congratulations on your little one! I hope all goes well - I have to say having a boy first and then a girl is my absolute favorite.

We were really lucky with both the crowds and the weather. We were actually at the mercy of my husband's conference schedule, so we really just lucked out. Sorry you have to stick to the school schedule! But THANK YOU for teaching!!!! I appreciate teachers so much! Here's hoping this time next year (or sooner!) you'll be sitting back relaxing after a nice day in the parks.

Such a great report so far!!

For all you phone booth callers, these numbers should work! I never try them because I have no earthly idea what I would say if someone answered!:lol:

Canada Booth - (407) 827-9884
Center UK Booth - (407) 827-9863
Left UK Booth - (407) 827-9862
Right UK Booth - (407) 827-9861


That is so exciting they were in the promo video! Your hubby got the catch phrases, how could they not use it?

The shot of your daughter holding up Chip and Dale to Chip and Dale was absolutely ADORABLE!!!

Yes! The Firehouse! I couldn't wait to read more about Sorcerers. I'm hoping to try it out in March!

I LOVE that you have those phone numbers! Do you know when I picture a Kingdom Konsultant, I picture y'all with Mickey ears and a superhero Mickey cape?? Ha! :lol: You really are all like Disney super human super heros!

Yes - the husband knew what they'd want to hear (at the time he wasn't sure if it was for TV or what) so he just fed them the lines. It's the business/ PR guy coming out in him. He later said they had just interviewed this set of really cute 4 or 5 year old girls and he was afraid they would beat them out based on cuteness alone! :lol:

My overall opinion of Sorcerers is that it is a wonderful addition to MK. I do worry about eventual portal 'crowding' but I have a feeling WDW will find a way to quickly deal with that if it becomes an issue. My kids liked it as much or more than Kim Possible.

I love that Chip and Dale shot too! One of those times I wish I didn't have a fixed lens though. It was hard to fit all 3 of them in the shot!

 

[erstwo]

Day 5 con't

With Splash closed, we decided to try our hand at Sorcerers in Adventureland. If you've kept up with which lands we had completed (which would be hard to do!) you'll know this was our last land to conquer (or so I thought!)

Our first portal was to the right of the gift shop.

This was one of the first times we had to 'wait our turn'

More portals

At this point we were feeling something familiar.......but something that we hadn't felt since about October...... what was it?....... Oh yes! We were hot! It was really warm outside and we had an awesome pool waiting for us back at the Beach Club! So we headed out toward the bus stop.

It was still a beautiful day in the MK!

 

[erstwo]

When we got to our room, Mousekeeping had been there!

My daughter was totally distressed that Dale was alone on the bed without Chip. She was also sad none of the other plush were on the bed (they were still in her backpack, which I reminded her) She immediately rearranged the animals and she took this picture herself!

I guess that's they way it should be done? :shrug::lol:

And then it was on to the pool!!! Now remember - I don't really take pool pictures. I did take my phone down though and took this one photo below. But there are a million amazing Stormalong Bay pictures out there, so you can google those if you need to!

I have to say the pool was awesome. The sand bottom was a little weird at first - took a little getting used to, but if you stay at the YC or BC, I don't know if I'd bother going to a water park - there's a mini water park right at your hotel! There's a beach in one pool for the kids. A kids pool. Three (at least!) hot tubs. A lazy river. A whirlpool (literally a whirlpool) The list goes on. On this afternoon my son was ready to conquer the huge "Pirate ship" slide that you see going over the BC/YC pathway. At first my daughter didn't want to do the big slide, preferring to stay in the little slide/ pool behind the big slide, but eventually she worked up the nerve and after riding it once was hooked!

I could only ride it three times. Those little 'lines' where the pieces of the slide are joined together start to hurt after a while! I thought it was just me, but then I had a long conversation with a little kid about it and he informed me it hurt him too.

Anyway - an afternoon at Stormalong Bay = almost worth the price of the BC!

 

[erstwo]

After a while in the pool I texted my husband to find out his location, arrival time back at the resort, etc. He was unsure of his plans, so we decided (okay, I decided - the kids would have stayed in the pool all night!) that it was time to get out and get dressed to return to the MK. My goal this night was to see Wishes since we usually skip it to ride rides, beat the crowd out the gates, etc.

We wanted to finish up our Sorcerers mission in Adventureland, but first:

this was on my 'trip' to do list

We thought the Tiki Room was pretty neat. The last time I saw the show was in 1995 and I had ZERO memories of what it was like other than there were birds everywhere and you sat in a circle. I thought the fact that the entire room comes to life was kind of cool.

After the Tiki Room, we met up with my husband and continued to play Sorcerers. This is when I realized this game might become much bigger than just some little kids playing a card/ video game. We had to return to the portal near the gift shop. There was one teenage kid casting his spell at the portal and there was another one just sitting on the round bench seat. After the first kid was done, I asked the second guy if he was in line. He said, "Oh, no." "I'm just here trying to trade and collect spell cards." He was trying to accumulate all 70 spell cards! Wow - Already! And the game hasn't even really started yet. I can see this game becoming very popular among the local AP holders.

After we defeated the Adventureland villain, we rode Pirates!

And then we had dinner at Pecos Bills (Yes, for real! I know we had just had lunch there, but it was sooooooo good!) I got the taco salad this time. :slurp:

And then discovering that Splash still wasn't up and running, we made our way to the Hub to grab a spot for Magic, Memories and You and Wishes!!!

Magic, Memories, and You is such a great show!!! It literally draws you into another world. At one point they make it appear that one of the castle towers is blasting off into the air and you really feel like it is actually taking off! Amazing! I think MM&Y is a perfect example of something the Disney fan community thought would be terrible - "Projecting pictures on the Castle? How tacky!" "What a terrible idea!", etc. - and has turned out to be a great addition to the MK night time line up. It just makes you say, "Wow!" and "I wonder how they do that?!"

And then.......... "Wishes!"......"Star light, Staaaaar bright. First star I see toniiiight."

I love this one of my husband holding my daughter during Wishes

 

[erstwo]

After Wishes, the boys headed to Frontierland - Splash was open! - and my daughter and I headed for Fantasyland!

Fantasyland was pretty empty!

I guess this was at 8:20ish? The park closed at 9, but I guess everyone left after the fireworks.

After this we rode the Carousel.

I still had the fastpasses for SM. The boys ran across the park to run in and ride SM right before closing. We were hoping they could ride, hop off and then I could get in line with the third fastpass just in the nick of time before the closed off the queue. My daughter doesn't ride roller coasters. Well, it took them a little longer than they thought to get to Tomorrowland and it was looking like I wouldn't get to ride.

I told my husband to go on - after all, he had been at a conference all day working while I was out in the parks playing with the kids and splashing in the pool

But right after they went in, my daughter decided she wanted to ride Space Mountain. What??? I asked if she was sure and she said she really wanted to try it. So we ran up the queue trying to catch up with the boys. But by the time we got up there they were already loaded on their car. They got to see my daughter though, and they wished her good luck as they rounded the 'curve' toward the first tunnel.

We walked right up to be seated - there was no line. I was seated in the very front car, a first for me! Unfortunately, I didn't really get to enjoy it much as I had to turn halfway around to hold my daughter's hand most of the ride. :lookaroun:lol:

The picture at the end was hysterical! My husband has it on his phone, I'll have to see if I can get it posted here. My daughter survived, but I don't think she'll be in the repeat riders line anytime soon. Ha!

When we got off the ride and to the gift shop it was 8:59/ 9:00. My son and I stuck our heads out of the gift shop doors and sure enough - the rope wasn't up blocking the queue yet. We asked the CM and he waved us on - we got to be the very last riders on Space that night! So cool and so fun!

I loved the moon placement in this shot!

We made our way slowly to the front

And onto the bus!

Up next - A day at the Animal Kingdom (a giraffe tries to eat us!), we are assigned our secret spy mission, and an otherwise uneventful evening at Epcot

 

[Disneyfalcon]

I LOVE that you have those phone numbers! Do you know when I picture a Kingdom Konsultant, I picture y'all with Mickey ears and a superhero Mickey cape?? Ha! :lol: You really are all like Disney super human super heros!

:ROFLOL: That is the most awesome image! We need to get a pictures made in that exact outfit!!

Yes - the husband knew what they'd want to hear (at the time he wasn't sure if it was for TV or what) so he just fed them the lines. It's the business/ PR guy coming out in him. He later said they had just interviewed this set of really cute 4 or 5 year old girls and he was afraid they would beat them out based on cuteness alone! :lol:

:lol: I'm glad he beat out the cutie little girls!

My overall opinion of Sorcerers is that it is a wonderful addition to MK. I do worry about eventual portal 'crowding' but I have a feeling WDW will find a way to quickly deal with that if it becomes an issue. My kids liked it as much or more than Kim Possible.

Excellent. I'm wondering about the crowds too. It's going to be a 10 out of 10 when we are there in March so I don't know if it's the best time to try it!

I love that Chip and Dale shot too! One of those times I wish I didn't have a fixed lens though. It was hard to fit all 3 of them in the shot!

I have a love and hate relationship with prime lenses. They take the sharpest, most wonderful pictures. But sometimes the fixed length can make me crazy!

 

[erstwo]

:ROFLOL: That is the most awesome image! We need to get a pictures made in that exact outfit!!



:lol: I'm glad he beat out the cutie little girls!



Excellent. I'm wondering about the crowds too. It's going to be a 10 out of 10 when we are there in March so I don't know if it's the best time to try it!



I have a love and hate relationship with prime lenses. They take the sharpest, most wonderful pictures. But sometimes the fixed length can make me crazy!

I think you need pictures in that outfit too! :lol:

I am so VERY interested to see what it's like when you are there in March. I hope you will do a Trip Report (please?!) I would love to see what it is like. ETA - I'm also interested to see what older kids think of it. My kids don't have any type of game system at home, they're still too young - no Wii, Xbox, Dsi, etc. so I wonder if they liked it more because it was all new to them?

I WISH my shots were sharp and wonderful! :lol: Maybe if I had your skills. But if I spent the time figuring out my camera, then I wouldn't be able to do things like check into WDWmagic 3 times a day! Ha! :lol: Priorities.

 

[HopLow]

I guess it was because so many things (including MSEP) were down, but this parade was always out (or so it seemed!)

Seriously!!! What is up with this parade??? Every time we tried to walk through the hub, there it was!

The BC looks gorgeous! I love quiet resorts. Our last trip, we spent a bit of time over in the direction with ADRs, and it was lovely to walk around and enjoy the scenery and ambiance. And they have a lazy river????? Man... I'm going to have to save up for the next trip. I'm not big on pools, but the lazy river would be awesome.

I am super excited to try the Sorcerer's thing on my next trip! Keep it comin!!

 

[erstwo]

Day 6 - Thursday

My husband was up and gone at the crack of dawn. As usual, we slept right through it and were up around 8:30ish. After another breakfast in the "Solarium" (Can you pass the tea your Majesty? :lol We were off to the bus stops.

Today, my goal was to finish the Discovery Kids Club card for my kids. It seemed really important to my daughter and I still hadn't seen Festival of the Lion King, a must do for me on any extended trip, so AK it was!

First stop - Camp Minnie Mickey. We had to swim upstream as FoLK had just let out. Luckily the Discovery Kids Club stop was on the way down to Camp Minnie Mickey.

After we learned a little and got our stamp, we wandered down to CMM. Miss Bunny was out!!!!! We always try to get Miss Bunny and always miss! As you can see here, we missed her by ONE person this time! Booooooooo! Always stinks to be the first person cut off - but I guess it has to be someone right? I tried not to feel sorry for us, but honestly, I think we were the only people in line who even knew who Miss Bunny (or Thumper for that matter) was - I heard kids asking their mom who the bunny was and the parents said "I don't know." And when the character attendant said that Thumper would be right out, someone asked which movie Thumper was in.

But we knew who Thumper was!

And this guy!

 

[erstwo]

Seriously!!! What is up with this parade??? Every time we tried to walk through the hub, there it was!

The BC looks gorgeous! I love quiet resorts. Our last trip, we spent a bit of time over in the direction with ADRs, and it was lovely to walk around and enjoy the scenery and ambiance. And they have a lazy river????? Man... I'm going to have to save up for the next trip. I'm not big on pools, but the lazy river would be awesome.

I am super excited to try the Sorcerer's thing on my next trip! Keep it comin!!

You aren't kidding! The '3 o'clock parade, was at 10, 11, 1, 3 & 5 o'clock!

They do have a lazy river! It's not very big, but it's really nice. It's up to 6 feet deep in parts too, so it's a little calmer than other pool sections because you don't get as many tiny kiddos. (Not that I have anything against the tiny ones!)

Thank you for reading!

 

[erstwo]

There was some 'monkey' business

Akward hug

Goofy was out in front of his queue because he had no line! My son took my camera off of my neck and handed it to the photopass guy - he insisted that I be in the photo. Ha!

I forgot to point out that Safari Mickey had joined our family!

Next - it was time for FoLK!

Elephants rule!

Time to wait for Pocahontas and Meeko!

Isn't it sweet how kids make friends where ever they go?

This was a beautiful Pocahontas! And she was so sweet!

 

[erstwo]

By this time, we had been in AK for 2 hours - all of them in Camp Minnie Mickey. I forced everyone to move along.

Lunch was at Flame Tree. This was my second time eating at Flame Tree and once again I wasn't liking it. This was the BBQ salad. It might be great on a hot day, but today when it was chilly and overcast, it was just gross. I really don't like cold chicken.


ETA - Oh! AND - what is with people feeding the birds?????? They even give you that little card on EVERY SINGLE TRAY that says - please don't feed the animals and then all around I see people feeding the birds french fries, even pieces of napkin and bbq????? Why do people do this? I understand if you're at a public park and it's the only thing to do, but you're at a THEME park people! Are you so bored you must entertain yourself while you eat by feeding the birds? Really?
Then the people one table over (who fed the birds napkin pieces and bbq) were complaining about the bird po op all over the place. Gee - I wonder why those birds stick around a po op everywhere? Hmmmmm............ Okay, I'll step off my soapbox now. Ha!

There is officially no place I like to eat in AK except Yak & Yeti table service. We haven't tried Rainforest yet, so that's next on our list. Maybe we'll find something there? :shrug:

Next stop - Discovery Kids station on Discovery Island!

So pretty back here!

I guess this is where the boats used to depart? Or arrive?

One of my goals this trip was to really study the Tree of Life. Mission Accomplished - it's amazing.

The longer we stared at it the more was saw. Like, we didn't see the octopus at first, but then all of the sudden, there it was!

My son - sooooo funny.

Next up: Safari! "That giraffe tried to eat you, Mommy."

 

[enchanted_belle]

Oh man, I feel like I've been so behind... but I guess a trip to the world will do that to ya!! Ok, all caught up now and ready to read more.

And I'll have to chime in and say your daughter is super cute and I love how she takes her stuffed animals with her! You can tell her that even when she gets older she can still do that :animwink: I'm going to be 23 and I still take stuffed animals with me to WDW..hey they have to go back and visit their home!

Jess speaks truth haha... on our trip, my BF and I went EVERYWHERE with my little Pascal plush, and took pictures of him. It turned out to be a huge game of sorts for us!

Epcot is still about learning. See?

Oh that box... We got to know it very well through the KP missions. :lol:

 

[erstwo]

Oh man, I feel like I've been so behind... but I guess a trip to the world will do that to ya!! Ok, all caught up now and ready to read more.


Jess speaks truth haha... on our trip, my BF and I went EVERYWHERE with my little Pascal plush, and took pictures of him. It turned out to be a huge game of sorts for us!



Oh that box... We got to know it very well through the KP missions. :lol:

That is a great reason to be behind!

I bet that Pascal is a great 'World' traveler.


That box is in a KP mission??? I've never done that one! Something to do next time! :sohappy:

 

[mamamouse]

hooray all caught up

 

[erstwo]

Ok- Day 6 continued - (updating between loads of laundry! )

So the Safari said 10 minute wait - which once again meant, 5 minute walk up the queue!

The park was so empty, the left side was even closed this day.

Our driver was fantastic! She was very knowledgeable about the animals.

I have heard all kinds of theories about when is the best time to ride the Safari to see the most animals. I have heard - 1)first thing in the morning. 2.) right before closing and 3.) only when it is above 70, if it's below that, the animals will be hiding trying to keep warm.

Well, none of these things were true this day. It was cloudy, cool (maybe 62ish?), and in the middle of the afternoon. But the animals were everywhere!!! And so active! I wonder if they feed them around 2 or 3?

First these guys weren't up against the other side of the safari

It was Safari Mickey's First Safari!

I'll spare you a ton of other pictures, but this was funny. First we saw a "Wild Africa Trek" vehicle stopped so the occupants could take pictures of this giraffe.

Turns out they should have rounded the corner for a better shot, because when we went around there was a giraffe headed straight for the safari path!

The giraffe seemed to stop just short of the path and so our driver pulled up cautiously. Everyone was oooohing and aaahhhing including us. But then just as we 'stopped' (really more like idling) the giraffe seemed to decide he/ she wanted to cross over after all and started moving towards us. For about a split second it looked like it was ready to stick it's head inside with us! This was the only shot I got before I moved closer to my kids (we were the only 3 in the row) to lean over them in case the giraffe did stick it's head inside for a closer look at us. :lol:

My daughter yelled, "I think that giraffe wants to eat you Mommy!" and everyone died laughing as our driver moved us farther down so the giraffe could cross. I'm sure if we had actually been in any danger of the giraffe sticking it's head in the car, the driver wouldn't have moved, but the ladies in the two rows behind us and I were laughing so hard because we all thought that giraffe really might have wanted to eat us! I joked with my kids that I probably still had some lettuce from lunch stuck in my teeth (at our nearest zoo, they have a tall platform where you can pay $1 to feed the giraffes a lettuce leaf at certain times each day. It's a lot of fun.)

El elefante (one of the FEW things I remember from high school Spanish - so useful right? Ha!)

ETA - those are two BABY elephants! They were playing and it was so cute!

 

[enchanted_belle]

That is a great reason to be behind!

I bet that Pascal is a great 'World' traveler.


That box is in a KP mission??? I've never done that one! Something to do next time! :sohappy:

I wouldn't mind STILL being behind, if you know what I mean lol. And Pascal was a wonderful companion on our trip laughs for all involved!

Yep, it's part of the England one... we only did England and France because we had our minds (and tastebuds) set on other parts of World Showcase that day. :lookaroun