Trip Report The "HECK YEAH My Job Sent Us to WDW" + 2 Birthdays Trip Report

The cast of this trip is the same as our last trip:

Me (Lynn) and my husband (Brett)

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Trent
: Our son was just about to turn 1 this trip. His birthday was just 2 days after we got home, so we celebrated him the entire trip. It was also Brett's birthday while we were down there, so we actually celebrated both of them!

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Introduction and background

We stayed at the Contemporary Resort for 6 days/5 nights from June 11-16. The main reason for the trip was for a work conference I was attending at the Contemporary. The best part was that not only was my job paying for 4 of the nights, the mileage there and back, and a food per diem, but the room rate was so phenomenal, that we had to take advantage and stay an extra night. $179 per night and no tax…yes, please!

Oh and Brett and Trent tagged along. One would think that it was torture sitting in a conference all day while at the Happiest Place on Earth, especially since it was an accounting conference…us CPAs aren’t known for our party-hard skills…but it wasn’t bad since it was so unbearably hot during the day that we wouldn’t have wanted to even go to a park anyway.

I did not do any type of pre-trip report for this trip. Why? Because when I tediously put together a pre-trip report for our April trip and shared it all over the interwebs, it got completely rearranged the second we arrived on property. Oops.

Since this was our first time staying in a monorail resort, our main goal was to maximize the convenience factor…so the plan was to do either Epcot or Magic Kingdom each day, but we didn’t have any specific plans on which one we did on each day. We kinda winged it and it ended up working out so well.

We LOVED not having to get in the car, park (probably at the very end of a row because that seems to always happen), take a tram to get to the park, then do it all over again to leave the park. And no folding up the stroller either! We could just put Trent in and roll him right onto the monorail. It was glorious.
 

Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
This day, I was done at 4pm and when I got to the room, Trent was napping, so what do you think I did? You guessed it, I napped too!

After we woke up, we took the monorail to Epcot with no particular plans. We were hungry, so we took a chance and stopped by the Garden Grill to see if they had any openings. Lucky us! They had an opening for an hour from then, so we killed some time by going to the Seas with Nemo & Friends and then to MouseGear.

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Nemos everywhere!

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“Shhh Shhh” = Fishy Fishy

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This was the first time that I’ve ever seen there not be a line to take a photo in Bruce, so we took advantage.

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Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We then headed back to Garden Grill for our dinner time.

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“Is it time to eat yet?”

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Dinner was delicious. Nothing in particular stands out, but we enjoyed everything.

Harvest-inspired Farmer’s Salad

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Basket of Warm Breads with Maple Butter

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Beef, fish and turkey. I got the beef all to myself and Brett ate the fish and turkey (I had a few bites).

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Roasted All Natural Turkey Breast with Lemon Caper Sauce and stuffing.

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Sustainable Fish of the Day with Roasted Tomato and Pepper Compote and veggies.

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Char-grilled Filet of Beef with mashed potatoes

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Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Our wonderful server brought Trent out his own little kiddie plate of macaroni and cheese (which Brett helped Trent eat), some plain broccoli, a chicken drumstick and Trent’s favorite: sweet potato fries!

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Who enjoyed everything the most? This guy!

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He got to meet all the characters!

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Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Dessert was brought out along with a birthday card and 2 pieces of chocolate cake for the birthday boys.

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Trent got to celebrate his birthday with his first birthday cake at Disney World….sans shirt (at the recommendation of our server)! Let’s get messy!

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He's not quite sure what he wants to do yet...

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He was hesitant at first, picking off each individual sprinkle and eating them one by one.

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But then he finally dug in!

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I think he looks like he has a mustache and goatee in this next photo.
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He didn’t go completely crazy, but enough to be cute and fun. Everyone that passed us had to comment on how cute it was and that they wanted to take their shirts of and eat cake too. Go for it, I say! I’m actually really glad we got to do this (along with his first birthday cake smash photoshoot) because he was not cooperative on his actual birthday - he didn't nap the morning of his party (which was the weekend after we got back from Disney) so he was almost in a zombie state by the time we gave him his cake...a completely different story than this cake encounter, indeed!
 

Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Illuminations was just starting as we were done eating, but we decided to capitalize on Magic Kingdom’s late closing and took the monorail to MK.

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We got to Main Street just in time to watch the pre-show, then we watched Wishes. Trent didn’t seem all that interested, so he just kinda looked around at everyone.

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While most people don’t want buildings in their photos of the Castle and Wishes, I really like how the next photo shows the red light on them. It’s borderline eery and it gets me pumped for Mickey’s Not so Scary Halloween Party!

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Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Up to this point, I felt like we accomplished nothing that night after waiting to eat dinner and taking quite a while to eat and then going back and forth between parks…until we started going on rides and walked right onto everything. It was marvelous

We started with the Peoplemover.

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We then headed towards Dumbo.

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First we stopped for a photo.

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Then we let Trent play in the queue area since there weren’t that many kids around and we weren’t in a rush to go anywhere. He loved this little fire truck…it’s just his size!

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I really like all the colors in the Dumbo area.

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Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Then it was time to ride! Brett sat in front of us to turn around and take photos. I think he secretly just wants his own Dumbo to ride.

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I look really surprised in this next photo…I have no idea why. As they say, like a deer in headlights!

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We then walked right on to the Tea Cups. We spun a little, but not too much! We don’t need a sick baby on our hands. If he’s anything like his momma, it won’t take much to bring on that queasy feeling!

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Then we backtracked a little and walked on to Buzz Lightyear…Trent’ favorite ride. I know you’re not supposed to be looking at the camera on ride photos, but if the flash wasn’t so bad and we were looking in the right direction, this would make for a cute family photo! Now Trent looks like a deer in headlights!

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I find it funny after all the years of Brett and I always competing for the top score on the game rides, we barely even actually “play” now. I let Trent control my gun and Brett takes photos of Trent because he gets so into the game. It will be fun when Trent is old enough and we are all back to some friendly competition.

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Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
That was the fastest we’ve ridden so many rides! I think the park was closing up soon, so we decided to head out with the masses.

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The entrance ALWAYS has people standing in front of it and we can never get a good photo, even the one time we stayed over an hour after the park closed to take “empty park photos” one night a few years ago…it must have been a lucky night for us!

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When we left, we remembered that the resort monorail wasn’t working when we arrived, so we decided not to risk it and instead see how long it took us to walk back to the Contemporary. After all, we were all about maximizing our convenience and doing things differently than if we were staying at our usual non-monorail resorts. It took about 10 minutes, which wasn’t too bad. We’d prefer the monorail, but the walk is a good option too. We especially liked watching the monorail zip by us.

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Almost there!

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Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
WOW... @fractal has some serious photo taking competition. :p Your pic's are spectacular!

Uh-oh! Haha thanks! I just hope my trip reports can at least be half as good as his one day!

Are all the pics done by your husband? Because he has really outdone himself with night shots this time. I love the People Mover one so much.

And Trent playing Buzz - aww. In case you didn't realize it forever ago, your son is the cutest thing ever.

Yep they are all his...the good ones anyway. The blurry dark ones during the conference? All me baby.

And thank you :happy:

Awesome pictures! Love the People Mover one, the teacups and the fisheyes. Actually, they're all great!

Thank you!!
 

Lynn1030

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 - Thursday

Yet another day of leaving a room with 2 sleeping babies while I got to go enjoy some accounting conference fun.

Although it sure was nice waking up to this…have fun Magic Kingdom-goers!

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Breakfast was chocolate croissants. They were much better than yesterday’s offering, but I was still waiting for my dang bacon.

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Brett and Trent headed to the Contempo Cafe and enjoyed a delicious breakfast. My job pays for this and them two make out like kings while I get a chocolate croissant. Something is wrong here…

Trent got his own plate of Mickey Waffles and fruit. Yum!

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“Seriously Dad, enough with the photos during breakfast.”

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“I’m watching you…”

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