Trip Report The countdown just hit zero - We’re in Disney right now!

Greetings fellow Disney lovers and welcome one and all to this happy place. As the title suggests I am in Florida right now, living the dream

Some of you will know me but for those of you who don't let's have a quick introduction as my 17 night trip has already started. Yes you read that right - 17 nights - whoooooo. Hoooooooo.


Me - Tracey - I absolutely love Disney, my house is covered in Disney - my first night in POR will see me spending 300 nights in my favourite place - I live in a bubble and the outside world frustrates me in terms of horrible, violent people but that's another story and not one for my trip report.


Chris - my husband, best friend and my rock. We've been married for 21 years and we still laugh and joke with each other. He never wanted to go to Disney but now his hooked - love me, love Disney!


We're in Florida from the UK for our 21st trip - I am fortunate to be able to afford this every year but I'm still jealous of all my American friends who can get cheap flights over regularly (and this who now live here) - this trip alone with overnight at a hotel before our flight, car parking, Disney, Kennedy and Universal tickets, car hire and hotel cost us in excess of £4000


It's a substantial amount of money but hey, the amount of memories we create we really don't mind and why we can afford it we will go......

Here we are last year.

This TR might be a little different from my last 3 - I’ve previously done daily updating every night which at times has seen me spending all day in the park and then writing till well beyond midnight. Those of you who have done TR’s will know the time they take (it’s certainly a commitment but we all do it to share our stories and our love of Disney so others can live through it all and help with Disney blues or countdowns to their own trips)

I’ve not had a holiday or break from work since March so I just need to chill!


That said since I’ve been here I’ve been writing every day (but not posted) - so our trip - so far - will be easy to post (as I’ll just copy and paste) and add photos of course!


After that though who knows as we’ll be into the Disney park part of our holiday (more about that shortly)

We’ll just see what happens and and I’ll update when I can for those of you who want to read it!


All aboard!

 

[Longers]

For a second I thought you had knocked over the Jenga Tower but then I realised it was the reflection in the mirror.

I wish I could say that was on purpose and I planned it (but I didn’t). But now you say it that’s what I’m going to tell everyone in the UK as it does look like I could have been planning that all along!

 

[Bullseye1967]

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We waited out the crowds and then headed to the carousel

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It was 11.30pm and whilst we had consumed a lemon ice and a milkshake today we hadn’t had ice cream - so we shared one whilst looking at a beautiful Castle..View attachment 244795

Sorry for blurry picture

And then we headed out

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We finally made it home around 11.45pm

Another fab day!

Spetacular shots of HEA!!! Thanks for sharing!

 

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Spetacular shots of HEA!!! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks glad you liked them.

 

[Longers]

Ok back to the rest of today - we spent around an hour in our room before heading out to MK - we waited for a bus and when it came it was packed full. Thankfully as we’re at the West depot quite a few people got off allowing space for us.

By the time we were on our actual way out we had been on the bus 40 mins already and the bus was again jammed full heading to the MK

We headed down a very busy Main Street as the Castle lighting show had started

We wandered around a bit before trying to get a quick service meal at Columbia harbour house - that took ages because of all the crowds so we had the discussion on whether we thought we should stay or not for the night and HEA

It was 7pm by this time - If we were staying then we would need to stay until midnight as HEA was on at 10 and with all these crowds we couldn’t leave with them

Or else we made our way out slowly taking pictures and got home with the intention of getting to the park for opening tomorrow.

We took the second option! The crowds were too much for me and if we’d have stayed we would probably only managed 1 ride as the HM queue was an hour!

I sat and just had my frozen lemonade while Chris took some photos (I’ve had the camera pretty much all holiday so I thought I’d let him play)

 

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and A few more

I think this shot is our watercolour mode

I think this is a HDR shot

And this (along with some of the others) is our miniature mode shot - it does one section clear and blurs everything else (and is the one we used for some of the tree of life photos)

This is one of our favourite modes to use

 

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And then we headed down Main Street - taking photos along the way!

I love how this one turned out - even have a purple Mickey balloon in it

This was taken around 8.15pm so you can see how busy it was!

We waited at the bus stop for a while but decided that there would need to be at least 2 buses that would leave before we would get on so we decided to get on the French Quarter bus and walk home - the bus was empty only 8 other people were on their way back from MK

We got off the bus and took a stroll along the sassagoula river hand in hand home

We’re going to sleep soon so we can make opening at MK tomorrow for our last full day here, I can’t think about that though - I just have to know we have more memories (and lots of snacks) to use up tomorrow!

More tomorrow.

 

[Tiggertoo56]

One again beautiful photos of the parks. Sorry to hear that it's your last full day coming up - doesn't seem had long ago done you got there! But no doubt you'll be back in the UK planning for next year! We're at POFQ from Oct 25th to Nov 16th so our paths may cross at some point. Looking forward to the rest of the report to brighten up my working week.

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

I can't believe how crowded the MK was!! Yikes! I guess that's why I haven't done the new FEA yet. But it is getting close to Thanksgiving and I remember how each day got worse. You had the best plan to have most of your stay before TG.
Sorry, Chris, but some of your pictures were blurry! LOL!
Have a great MK day!
I'm curious, what did you think of POFQ? I still wish we could do POR, but not with the dogs policy.

 

[Zipadeelady]

It can't be close to your last day already, you just got there.

Love your purple mickey balloon shot and also the watercolor and HDR shots. So cool.

 

[Longers]

One again beautiful photos of the parks. Sorry to hear that it's your last full day coming up - doesn't seem had long ago done you got there! But no doubt you'll be back in the UK planning for next year! We're at POFQ from Oct 25th to Nov 16th so our paths may cross at some point. Looking forward to the rest of the report to brighten up my working week.

Thank you - and we have already booked for November next year so our paths will definitely cross we’ll need to sort out to meet nearer the time!

I can't believe how crowded the MK was!! Yikes! I guess that's why I haven't done the new FEA yet. But it is getting close to Thanksgiving and I remember how each day got worse. You had the best plan to have most of your stay before TG.
Sorry, Chris, but some of your pictures were blurry! LOL!
Have a great MK day!
I'm curious, what did you think of POFQ? I still wish we could do POR, but not with the dogs policy.

It was madness! And our plan was always to be gone by thanksgiving.
POFQ was nice, probably the next best thing to Riverside from some of the resorts we’ve visited this stay.

It can't be close to your last day already, you just got there.

Love your purple mickey balloon shot and also the watercolor and HDR shots. So cool.

Funny how we feel as if we’ve been here ages - our Kennedy day seems so long ago - maybe it’s because we’ve packed so much in - who knows why - but I know my work colleagues will probably say it feels like I’ve just gone too.

More photos to follow from today

 

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Sunday 19th November

With a heavy heart we started the last full day at home - and there was only 1 place we were headed - Magic Kingdom

We were walking in at 8.05am - only 5 mins after the park opened.
I have really missed the welcome show - that really set up a day at the MK - I understand the reasons not to do it anymore but to be honest without the bag search being right at the front of the park maybe they could bring it back?

This sight never gets old

We headed to buzz (walk on)

Then HM (said 10 min queue but again straight in)

I want some of this wallpaper!

 

[Longers]

Then we headed to Splash mountain - which only opened yesterday after refurbishment (we had a FP for later but it was only a 10 min wait and BTMRR was showing 40 mins) so why not - we’d bought the ponchos due to rain being forecast so decided to wear them! Normally we don’t but no point in carrying them and not using - I didn’t want to be wet all day anyway

 

[Longers]

When we exited Splash Mountain BTMRR was showing a 20min wait - we obviously we were going to get on the wildness ride in the wilderness so off we went

So we’d done 4 rides before out 10am FP at Winnie the Pooh

We had a little wander around and grabbed a really early lunch as the crowds were picking up and queue times were increasing.

 

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We then sat down for 5 mins and enjoyed this view

We were of course here - on our rocking chairs!

We had a FP for Splash to get to - so off we went again.

As we came down one of the smaller drops the lights were on!

We the stopped for ice cream - Chris had a strawberry lolly - I didn’t take a photo of that - but I did take one of mine!

 

[Longers]

It was then back to HM - queue time 65 mins but we had a FP

We then headed down to Main Street to check out the shops and confectionery

And spotted someone making Xmas baubles

$37,500 for this Castle!

It was approaching 2pm - so that’s parade time!

I’ll spare you loads of parade photos again but will just share this one - they have legs - shortly before this there had been a brief rain shower - I wonder if that’s why they didn’t use the electric wheel things?

And then there’s always time for an ice cream - we shared this and sat on the hub grass listening to the Castle show

 

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We were headed towards the people over next

Purple wall photo - Chris thought this was rather bizarre - a purple wall has its own Instagram page!

I told him to think of something and we could start a trend maybe?

We secured a FP for Under the Sea for 5 mins time so off we went

 

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We headed out of the park shortly after 5pm as we had packing to do

We had hoped to leave the room and head to another park tonight, alas after packing and eating we’ve run out of time

I do however think I would have been a blubbering mess so maybe it’s for the best to leave things for tonight

Whilst we managed to do quite a few rides in MK today that was down to good planning, getting their early and maximising FP’s as wait times were around an hour for most things - that said it’s less in terms of wait times than I expected but I think it will be far worse tomorrow as I’m guessing quite a few people will have arrived today.

 

[Kiwiduck]

I love your watercolour and miniature effect photos. Very cool!

 

[coachwnh]

I can't believe the trip is almost over. Glad you allowed us to follow along. Have a safe trip home.

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

I know you are probably on the plane by now? (almost 6 am here now). Have a great flight. I'm sure you will both sleep, as it seems you didn't let the grass grow under your feet while you were there!
Loved all the pictures. I especially love Tomorrowland at night, spectacular! The people mover is one of our favorites, esp at evening with the lights. Glad you got to ride Splash! I always think of that crazy ride we went on and talked and laughed all the way through. Memories
You and Chris sat on "our" chairs,LOL. I always thought no one else knew about them, as we were always able to get them anytime we went by. Really a nice spot to sit and relax.
When you have down time, let me know how the policy change situation at POR went?
Thanks again for the wonderful photos. I can't say which one I loved the most!

I almost forgot: Happy Birthday! what a great place to spend it!