Trip Report That Disney Swing- February 2014 trip report

And we are back! OK, well, we have been back for a few days but I have been flat laid out from the trip so I am just now starting this. Honestly, I am still in bed but I can type and rest, right?

Now, before I start I want to give a few words of warning. I am not going to pull punches with this report. I have always been a pixie dust fan but I still have opinions and whether they agree with yours or not, well, they are mine. So yeah, that's that. And now, let us begin.

Sunday, February 23rd, 2014
The plan was to head out at 6 am so that we could arrive at downtown Disney but 7 pm. At 6:30 am we were still at home with my hubby constantly remembering last minute things. Finally I just said, "Hey, it's your friend. If you wanna make him wait then fine." We left at about 6:45.

Check out those trip buckets!

These are some seriously sleepy kids!

Kid you not- we stopped 5 times in the first 2 hours of the trip! Bathroom breaks, snack breaks, gas fill ups, etc. Eventually we hit the Georgia line!

Looks like I was traveling with 4 of the 7 dwarfs- dopey, grumpy, sleepy and doc.

@sweetpee_1993 The inside of the Georgia welcome center made me think of you!

A few more hours down the road and we were finally to ATL. We both love and hate Atlanta. We love it because it means we are about 4 hours into our travels down to Florida and hate it because, well- have you ever driven in Atlanta? It's crowded with people who feel the need to go 90 in a 55 and tourists afraid to go 45 in a 55.

At least we get to use the HOV lane! By the way, Atlanta is the only city I know of where the interstate's seem to get clogged with church traffic!

At least the travel buckets were doing their jobs!

 

[UberPlannerMom]

Kinsey was so proud of his Boogie!

 

[UberPlannerMom]

Tuesday, February 26th, 2014 continued...
Before I leave the Jedi training behind I have to say that my favorite part of the whole thing was when the stormtroopers were freaked out. Who knew you could pull that off with a whole head mask/ helmet?

Anyway, next up was lunch! We always eat at Pizza Planet. The food is nothing amazing but it's pizza planet! I mean, come on, who doesn't want to be part of Toy Story? Today, though, I was worried that Kinsey would refuse to leave Pizza Planet if we went in so I suggested a new place to us. We ate at ABC commissary. I have read a few negative reviews but hey, why not try for ourselves?

We all got the surf and turf burgers with a blueberry cupcake with lemon icing.

These cupcakes were soooo very good. Calling it a blueberry cupcake is not really right. It is a lemon cupcake with blueberries in it and then topped with a lemon creamy whipped topping. It was really refreshing and felt and tasted light and wonderful.

The burger was plenty big for us to take those 3 sandwiches and feeding all five of us!

My boys definitely enjoyed lunch. It isn't the most immersive of dining places but that cupcake made it one of my favorite quick serves of the whole trips.

Boogie just had to pose on this tree.

Next up was Toy Story Midway Mania with a fastpass+. Thank goodness for the fastpass because the line was plenty long. If I remember right it was at about 50 minutes.

Kinsey cracked me up by jumping up to claim the glasses for us. Amazingly the kid grabbed just the right number without anyone telling him how many we needed and without any prompting of any kind.

Kinsey gives it two thumbs up!

We really enjoyed our ride and even Brad was having a blast. When it was over we went to leave and they asked if we wanted to go again! Woot woot! There are two cars together that are used for the handicapped cars. There was one older couple waiting in the handicapped area to go. That meant that there were 4 empty seats in the cars we were just in so they offered to let us ride. They said it was just for Brad because he was cracking them up during the ride. Yay for cute kids!

 

[UberPlannerMom]

What better way to follow up Toy Story Midway Mania than by going to meet up with Buzz and Woody? Kinsey was so super excited about it! And hey, all those photo ops make for a happy momma!

We have an escapee!

That better be one powerful rocket!

I have no idea what you are supposed to do for this one but Will was all for pretending to be shot by Zurg!

Something stinks...

This one never comes out well

 

[UberPlannerMom]

I LOVE Brad's expression here!

Brad is still a little shocked but Will was loving it!

Woody won him over!

Those are some good looking guys!

We decided to follow the toys up with some monsters!

It was at this point that we realized that we really needed to start watching our clocks because we really wanted to see all the great shows that Hollywood Studios has to offer. We popped over to Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular and got in about 10 minutes late. We still saw enough of it for this face to occur...

Please forgive the blur but it was just too funny!

 

[UberPlannerMom]

Wednesday, February 26th, 2014 continued...
We were coming up on our fastpass time for Disney Jr. so we headed that way. Along the way we decided to stop and visit with Daisy Duck. Kinsey loves "his ducks." His favorite characters are actually Huey, Dewey and Louie if that tells you anything!

While we were visiting with Daisy a sprinkle began to fall. No biggie to us as we had those fastpasses for Disney Jr., right?

Ok, here is where I am going to have my one and possibly only complaint about fastpass+. I knew when I chose it that we probably wouldn't need it but I went ahead and scheduled it anyway so that I would know we were one of the first people in so the kids could see well. Ummm... nope, apparently not how that works. They merge the fastpass and standby people all together really far back in the line so we might have actually gotten closer seats if we had been standby. Oh well, I suppose. You live, you learn. The boys adored it and that is all that really matters!

I was expecting the storm to be over when the show was over. It's Florida after all. The storms are usually horrible but pretty short. Again, I was wrong. The storm was really raging on. I draped a raincoat over my drive system, we put the babies in their rain coats, tucked Brad under the rain cover and took off. Where should you go when it's pouring down rain? Beauty and the Beast of course! The rain did make us a little sad since it was right at the time for the second showing of Lights, Motors, Action but maybe we can catch it some other trip. Anyway, away we went. By the time we got there we were SOAKED! It was bad! But the show gave us some time to begin to dry. Kinsey was not a fan. The minute he saw the enchantress (mean woman!) he was done. Honestly I think he was just tired and looking for an excuse. He put his head under my shirt and promptly fell to sleep. I can't blame him for being tired. After all, he is only 2 and chose, nay insisted, on walking the entire trip! We only managed to get him in the stroller for the voyages through the parking lots!

It was still drizzling when Beauty and the Beast ended. This was just a rain that wouldn't quit. Not ones to throw in the towel we decided to do a check of the wait times. Imagine our excitement when we saw that Tower of Terror said 13 minutes! Everyone knows that means walk on! Yes!

We just kept taking turns walking on with Boogie. I went 3 times (one time was because someone did something untoward in our picture so they took us up the chicken elevator to ride again!) and Hubby went, I guess once. I could have sworn he went twice. :/ I had forgotten how much I love this ride! This time period is when I had my most random happy of the day- I found a hairbrush to fix my drowned rat hair. See, this is why I overpack! Haha!

This is how Kinsey stayed happy during our lovely visits to the Hollywood Tower Hotel, a huge lollipop and a straw turned into a phaser gun.

When we were done with our tower of terror marathon we hit up The Great Movie Ride on our way out. We managed to shut down the park, but our day was not over!

See, it was STILL raining! I even got a drop of water on my lens
Up next was dinner at Cape May Café.

This was our only sit down meal that did not have any characters. Man do I wish they had characters. It was during this dinner that we realized that the characters coming around is why we managed to eat at our other meals! Seriously! Ok sure, digging for autograph pages can get hectic and you have characters walking up as soon as you put something in your mouth BUT just watching for them gave the babies something to do. Our kids made a huge mess at this meal because we couldn't convince Kinsey that the crackers were anything but toys. He usually loves seafood but when asked to choose between playing and eating, playing won out and that was rather stressful for us. I will say that the food was really good and they actually brought something out to recognize Kinsey's birthday!

This thing was very yummy!

After dinner we walked around a bit. Hubby and I both decided that we prefer the aesthetics of the Beach Club over those of the Grand Floridian and, to be quite frank, it seems better cared for. Our hope is to someday come back, just he and I, and stay at Beach or Yacht Club or maybe even Boardwalk and have a trip where we actually get to ride a ride or two together, before we are at an age where we won't enjoy them anymore!

And with that our day was done!

 

[FlaggNL]

Thanks! The characters at 1900 Park Fare really are great!

Guess we absolutely will check that out

 

[UberPlannerMom]

Thursday, February 27th, 2014
And finally we arrive at our first day at Epcot. Who doesn't love Epcot?

The morning dawned bright and early again. Today I stepped up the morning even further, making sure that I took care of pretty much everything. And guess what? That meant we were out the door in plenty of time to make it to rope drop. Yay! I made sure the whole family was fully aware that we needed to beeline for Norway in order to not have to wait all day long to meet Anna and Elsa. Yeah- they didn't believe me. Shocker there, right? So yeah, I tried to beeline. They meandered. We didn't get back there until 9:05 (park opened at 9) and the line was already at 3 1/2 hours! Obviously we walked away.

As we were walking back toward future world my hubby noticed that I was actually shivering. I pretty much never get cold. I love the cold! But nope, it was COLD that day. It was crazy. We had been wearing shorts and short sleeves for most of the week thus far and now we had to stop and buy me something to keep warm? Yeesh! So, we stopped at MouseWorks and Hubby picked out a hoodie for me. Kinsey, whose favorite movie is Finding Nemo (well, Frozen may have surpassed it now but at the time...), LOVED my hoodie as well. It's the Seagull Mine hoodie! Love it! Kinsey also managed to worm some sour gummy worms out of us while we were in there! Haha!

When we walked out of MouseWorks we headed over towards the place we knew would make Kinsey happy, The Living Seas Pavilion. Kinsey was excited before we even made it to the line!

Fishy Face!

Nemo was a walk on and Kinsey and Brad LOVED IT! I loved just getting to see those faces light up. It was great. We timed it out so that we could use our Turtle Talk with Crush fastpasses right after. Well, there was no need for the fastpass so I switched that up and in we went. We were ushered straight into the theatre for the first show of the day. I was proud to see Boogie and Kinsey go up and sit on their own and wait patiently. We waited and waited. And then, they asked us to leave. They told the kids that Crush was having trouble waking up and out we went. OK I guess except that when we got out I looked back and they were ushering in another theatre full of people. I don't get it... Why not let us have that time slot and have those people have to wait instead of sending us out and disappointing all those kids that were waiting so patiently? Oh well I guess. We just decided to take the kids to explore the rest of the area.

Why is it always so hard to get this picture? Some people are crazy at this area!

Boogie actually took this picture because Hubby had gone to change the baby's diaper. He did ok after quite a bit of coaching.

I don't know how well you can tell in the picture but they were feeding the frog fish while we were there. Boogie thought it was incredibly exciting!

We had to pull them all out almost kicking and screaming. They could have spent all day in there. I really think that next trip down we may have to schedule in a day for sea world!

I suppose now is when I should interject a change in our plans. If you read my pretrip report then you know that with six days scheduled at the parks we only had time to do two of the parks two days. The other two parks needed to be one day. We had planned it with two days at Hollywood in case we couldn't get Jedi training the first day but I was hoping that Epcot would get to be a two day park. Well, yeah, with all the issues we had already had that week we had to use up that second day at Hollywood. So, Hubby offered to take our travel day and make our travel be later in the day and we would spend half a second day at Epcot. That plan changed my touring plan for the day and really helped me chill out. I decided that since we would get the morning half of a second day at Epcot our time that first day would be best spent in World Showcase. It was almost time for World Showcase to open but since we had a few more minutes we introduced the little ones to Figment!

Kinsey LOVED Figment. He actually got a Figment plush and has slept with it every night since we got home!

The kids ALWAYS love the post show for imagination and it ALWAYS gives me a headache. :/

Sad story. I wanted to get a picture of Kinsey with his new Figgy in front of the fountain. Hubby wanted Kinsey to ride in the stroller for once. The deal he made with Kinsey was for him to just sit in the stroller for a rest instead of being strapped in, and then, having forgotten within about 10 seconds that that was the case, Hubby swung the stroller around really fast and sling=shotted my poor Kinsey out of the stroller and across the pavement! Consequently, this is the cuddling Figgy picture I got!

 

[UberPlannerMom]

Thursday, February 27th, 2014 continued...
Off we headed to World Showcase, starting with Canada.

Do you remember from the last post how Kinsey fell out of the stroller. Well, he cried until we got to this lovely set of topiary. I thought he must have loved how pretty it is. Nope, little guy just cried himself to sleep. Even with him asleep I figured we should start the kidcot stations because no way were we coming back to hit the countries he was going to sleep through.

Time for another photo op! Doesn't my baby look happy?

I had to call this a red version of a Tardis to get Boogie to get in...

He's telling his girlfriend, "I just called to say I love you!" Cute, ehh?

After this we went in the UK gift shops. I knew it would be the perfect place for him to pick something out for his girlfriend since she is definitely a whovian. He wanted to buy her everything! The final decision was a dalek blueprint and some dr. who door hangers. When we walked out we noticed a line for Alice! Yay Alice!

While we were in line we discovered that we were behind another rather young person in an ECV. It may sound silly but it was nice to not feel like the only person who looks just fine but who would have issues trying to do Disney on foot due to health concerns. While we chatted with them I gave them our left over ride swap fastpasses for Hollywood studios. The husband was really excited!

This is Brad's response to face characters! Stranger Danger! Alice really worked to get him to like her!

So cute!

Just past Alice, Boogie noticed a place to sign up for Agent P's adventure. He was very excited to give that a shot. We signed up for a mission in France. The person signing us up was a little older and, frankly, kind of annoying. Kinsey had woken up in time to see Alice but not in time to use the bathroom before seeing her. So, while we were signing up for Agent P's Adventure the pee-pee dance began to emerge. Before long he was whimpering about needing to pee. Still the lady continued on, repeating the same things over and over and pointing out squirrels and such. We actually walked away from her while she was still doing that. Good grief lady! So anyway, Hubby took Kinsey to the bathroom while I helped Boogie with his mission. Boogie and I also hit up the French bakery. Sooo yummy! When Hubby and Kinsey got back we had to meet them over at the artist stand because Hubby couldn't find us in France! How funny is that? It's a tiny little area! Kinsey loved the area since he is our little artist. At 2 years old he already insists that he doesn't color, he draws.

The biggest issue was getting him to walk away! He was very mad that he couldn't do his own art!

 

[UberPlannerMom]

I only allowed the boys to complete the set of France missions before turning the phone back in. I love the France pavilion but my goodness that took up a lot of time and left my Hubby asking why are we here over and over again. Little tip for everyone- the picture is so much more important than what is said! Seriously. After turning the phone back in my Hubby decided that he wanted his own treat from the patisserie so back in we went.

Now this kind of tickled me- On my advice, Hubby got a croissant jambon fromage. Kinsey wanted to choose for himself so he got some large custardy tart looking thing. We used our credits, went out to find a table and sat down to eat. Suddenly Kinsey starts saying no, no, no. Hubby and I were completely flummoxed. What on earth? It took us a minute but eventually we figured it out. Once he saw that croissant heated up, he decided he just had to eat it! Who's ever heard of a kid wanting to trade a pastry dessert for something with ham and cheese? Guess he really does take after me! Haha!

After eating we kept up our trek around the world. Up next Morocco! I saw signs pointing towards Aladdin and obviously followed them. This is when we had another little ECV hiccup. Hubby had taken Kinsey (and Brad this time) to the bathroom again so that left me to find the Aladdin line with Boogie. We found the line and Boogie ran in. So there I am, wondering if it's ok to take the ECV in. A cast member saw me and said to go right ahead. In I went. There were only 2 families in line so we were right at the front really. Another cast member saw me and asked me to go out this set of double doors and park it and then come right back in the doors to rejoin Boogie and told me that after visiting with Aladdin we would go back out those doors in order to get the ECV. No prob Bob. Except that that cast member was no longer there after we met Aladdin and the new guy wouldn't let me out those doors. Yeah, Morocco is very twisty. Took me a minute to get back to it. It just kind of made me worried about the stuff that was in it. It's one thing to be able to keep an eye on it and be a little ways from it, it's something completely different to not be able to see it at all. Oh well, it all worked out. Aladdin was worth it.

Aladdin seemed impressed with Boogie's knowledge of the sequels. I was impressed with Aladdin's knowledge of his sequels...

Happy baby waiting his turn

Street rats in training?

We collected the ECV and headed back out. I saw a pretty little planter and thought I would get a cute brother picture...

Where I saw a photo op Kinsey saw a choo choo track! Haha!

Brad hadn't even made it that far!

Oh well. Boys will be boys...

 

[FlaggNL]

Wow nice Star Wars shirt of your boy

 

[tor29c]

Excellent report! Your family is beautiful! Sorry you had to endure those hiccups along the way but it didn't seem to dampen anyone's spirit for long!