Trip Report the "I can't eat anymore steak!!!, Wishes vs HEA, snake incident" Trip report. May 2017

Disney Dreaming

So we're back.... and I cannot even express the sadness I'm feeling already. There may have been silent tears.. who am I kidding!! There were definitely tears!! I could put it down to jet lag but I feel its the PDD kicking in a little earlier than usual.
BUT
I thought what better way to try and pull myself through this emotional state (other than booking another trip...watch this space ) but to start my trip report for you lovely lot! But mostly so that I can re-live our fabulous and sometimes a little less fabulous holiday moments!

This trip has been so up and down for us with some things surpassing our expectations but with others failing miserably to meet our personal ones at all. That said, I'm not here to complain at all but just to express our personal experiences whilst we were there! They may be waaaaay different to others opinions.
We also didn't know what to expect with travelling another family and there being so many of us which we just aren't used to. We realised about half way through the holiday that the plans that we all made together re: dining, park selections & pool time were very different to what we had all discussed before leaving, therefore myself, sister and mum decided it would be every man for themselves and they could fit in with us as and when they liked which seemed to work out really well for us..as you will find out!

I warn you now...the first few days I COMPLETELY forgot (in my state of excitement and jetlag) to write any notes so I will be working purely from memory and hopefully photo prompts facepalm: MY BAD) which leads me nicely to photos.. I will now inform you that my photography skills are certainly not to the standard of some of the reports I have seen here..BUT.. I did give it my best go and I hope any photographers reading don't cringe too much!!

So, without further ado, please sit back and (hopefully) enjoy the ride along our Disney Vacation!! A trip full of firsts, lasts, excitement, lots of sunshine, (a few) tears but oh so much magic!!

If you do fancy a read of my PTR just so you're filled in with who, what, where, when and why here it is http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/my-first-pre-trip-report-may-2017.924079/

Heeerreee weeeee goooooooo!!!

 

[laben594]

Following!

 

[Big Hair]

Onward, I look forward to following your adventure.

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Day 1 – Magic Kingdom Day

So… as you would expect, we all had slight jetlag therefore would be waking up well before the sun came up…however just how early this happened on this occasion is somewhat different. We bought mum a Fit Bit for her birthday and she’s pretty much on with how to work it..except for syncing it up with her app when we got the USA…do you see where I’m going with this? Long story short mum was up, showered and ready for coffee at what she thought was 8:40am..which; lets say it together “is actually 3:40am US time”. So once I’d convinced her it was early early early, we all laid for an hour or so chatting about the day ahead until we slept until a normal time!

We had planned on a full day in the Magic Kingdom tonight so we wanted to pace the day out and then get ready to see the fireworks at about 8pm to get a good space. We were all up for breakfast at around 9-9:30am. I had bagel with cream cheese & cherry coke. (Cherry Coke is my go to Disney beverage. I rarely have fizzy pop at home so it’s an absolute must when I’m here). I decided I would probably use snacks for breakfast and use my quick service credit for lunch and then table service for dinner most days. This didn’t happen much in the end because…well…The Bounty Platter. Need I say more?! The other family brought cereal with them from home and bought milk and sides of eggs for something hot if they fancied it and used their QS for lunch the same as me. Han did QS breakfast and snack lunches. I love how flexible the dining plan is.

We dropped our mugs at the room and went for the bus. Before we knew it, we were at the Magic Kingdom around 10:15am!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Me and Sissy ready for our first day!!!!
I have some more pictures from the bus ride in but they're on my camera...leave it with me and i'll post them ASAP.


The line at security was not big at all and we were through in no time.


Now usually as we walk into MK it just look absolutely perfectly beautiful but instead we were unfortunately met with the Emporium all covered in a HORRID brown scaffolding. Luckily my vision was blurred from the tears of excitement and over the two weeks it was gradually changed to the graphic version. But anyway. “honnneeeeyyy I’m hoooomeee”. We wandered up Main Street and since we were all wearing matching t-shirts we thought now would be the best time to use our first Memory Maker moment.
We think they forgot to add a bit of Magic here but I do think my sister has worked her magic on Photoshop and added it. I will ask her for the edited one!!

Then it was onwards to our first FP+ of the day. Buzz Lightyear at 10:45am. I was sat with Niambh who is 7…luckily I won. Even though at one point we were just spinning!!!!!! After this we thought why not meet the guy himself, so we queued about 10 mins to meet him. He was a great M & G and very fun. We didn't feel rushed with him which sometimes you can with meet and greets! He even posed us for a picture and pretended to scan his Magic Band! He had a fondness for Jess in our group!



At this point the group split as Niambh wanted to go on the Astro Orbiter but me mum and sis had an appointment with the Grim Grinning Ghosts! I just love this ride. We managed to squeeze into one doom buggy together with a bit of a tight squeeze. This ride will never get old. It's an absolute gem! I love that the hitch hiking ghosts held up a sign saying “This way to the UK”. Disney gets cleverer every day ! It was starting to get quite hot as we came out of HM so we thought a quick drink & sun cream break would be a good idea- but then it was on to our 3rd FP of the day and a solid winner in the favourite department…Splash Mountain!!! This was a first for us in terms of passengers on the ride today. After 20 years of visits to Disney World, we finally convinced mum to go on Splash Mountain!!! I’m so glad she did because she got a corker of a picture too,

As usual I seemed to be the only one to get soaked but we soon dried off in that glorious Florida heat.


After our ride through the Briar Patch, it was time to head to Fantasy land and to our lunch at Be Our Guest. Gimmie that French Onion Soup!!!

Next up..How was lunch & Dole Whips!

 

[LisaBelle]

Enjoying your report so far! What a fun group!

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Thank you to everyone who is following along!! There will be an update soon
I just thought though, I should put my PTR link on here in case anyone is new to the party and has no idea about the group, resort etc!!
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/my-first-pre-trip-report-may-2017.924079/

^^^^^ so there it is ! Come to think of it I'll put it in my first post too just to be super efficient!!

 

[Missy_May]

Great so far! Following!

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Day 1 continued…

In no time we were over the bridge and into the Be Our Guest restaurant. We had pre-ordered so that we didn’t have to queue and boy are we glad we did that!! We decided that the room that had the biggest tables was the Library so we sat in there this time. The West Wing is definitely my favourite though! We all ordered a mix of food probably one from everything on the menu. I had the French Onion Soup to start which as usual was divine and then the Braised Pork for main. It was absolutely lovely except with there being quite a lot of it, the pork was a little bit dry and needed more sauce but other than that it was fine. Sister had the FOS and Turkey Sandwich which she also said was lovely.
Sorry I already started eating before I remembered to take a picture!


After lunch we thought we would see what the wait time was for a couple of Fantasy Land rides. There was only a 30 minute wait for It’s a Small World so we thought lets’ get it out of the way on the first day and then it’s done ! We received our first red queue card of the holiday!! It only ended up being about a 15-20 min wait in the end. After this we wandered through the Adventure land for a Jungle Cruise. The queue was quite long throughout the whole time we were there so the 30 minutes we waited was quick in comparison. Our skipper was good however the 10 unaccompanied teenage boys chanting and messing around throughout were not so much . We saw so many big groups of kids around in all the parks this time? Is it end of year school trip season ?! At this point it was VERY hot, so since we hadn’t tried the elusive Dole Whip before, we headed over to tick this off our list. The people in front of us seemed to get a better ice cream consistency than we did as ours had melted off before we even left the queue but anyway, I did like it but there was SO much, you could definitely share one between two. (sorry no pictures I just had to shove it in my face asap) I ended up binning most of the ice cream and just drinking the pineapple juice which was so refreshing.

We headed over to the wildest ride in the wilderness with our fast passes and again it’s a crowd favourite. Mum bowed out of this one. One mountain was enough for her this holiday!

It was about 3:15pm as we came off the ride and as we were right at the beginning of the parade route we had no choice but to watch it go past so we could cross over. I do love this parade and the music is great so I didn’t mind but we had a day set to watch it from Main Street properly.
Now it was time for a swash buckling journey through the seven seas! I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this ride and it will never get old for me. All the effects were working including Blackbeard in the mist which looks so cool! Off topic...during that week it was the premiers etc for the new Pirates film and I had seen all over social media Johnny Depp had been at the Pirates ride in California . No such luck for us in Florida though!

At this point mum decided she wanted to leave to go back to the resort but the rest of us were powering through to see Wishes! On our way round to Tomorrowland we went into Mickeys Philharmagic. Oh my gosh its so good I love it!!!! I'm so glad they keep the big theatre attractions! So as the rest went to the Speedway, me and sis went to do somethings we had not done before- Carousel of Progress (oh my god..the song is worse than it’s a small world ) and ...can you guess where else?
Yep the people mover! Such a nice relaxing ride. Might even sneak a couple minutes shut eye when in Space Mountain!!

It was around 7pm we met everyone else at the Speedway and wandered through to the hub to get a space for Wishes and get some food. While half waited with the bags, the other half went for food. A couple of the group got hoodies as it came over quite chilly when the sun had gone. We were positioned to the right of the castle next to the new gardens- perfect view. It made us quite close to Tink as “she” came down the wire….I say “she” because it was 110% a man this time which made us laugh! Still brill though! We didn’t know this would be the last time we would see wishes as we thought we’d be back before the new ones started next week but alas we didn’t have time.

To avoid the crowds leaving, we made fast passes for Space Mountain so we could head straight over to Tomorrowland. I think this ride is so cheesy but so good at the same time!! I always forget how good it is until I go on it again!


After a long day we though 10pm was enough for us so we headed out and didn’t wait too long for a bus.

Next up- Hollywooooooodddddd and our first ADR experience

 

[amjt660]

The entire group shots look great

Enjoying and following along

Max

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Day 2-Hollywooooooooddddd dah dah dah dah dah dah daaaaah….

So..day 2. It was time for some red lipstick and a little bitta' Hollywood! This used to be my all-time favourite park when we were kids but since they’ve: in my opinion; gotten rid of the whole point of this park to “re-imagine” it into “The New Hollywood”, it has lost its identity. HOWEVER… I do think that although I’m not a Star Wars fan, it will be amazing I’m sure! BUT..I digress!

We were awake early again about 5:30am and showered, gathered our things and wandered up to breakfast about 9am. I thought instead of wasting my snacks on breakfast, I would go and buy some from the shop and get some bagels & cream cheese and have those for a few days. They were delicious & I just bought a side of eggs. The dining hall was never super busy the whole time we were staying which was nice as sometimes at the All Stars you could be stood waiting for AGES!

We arrived into MGM...I mean Hollywood Studios around 10:30-10:45am and wandered up and through the shops. Fully love the pet ears and outfits they have here!! I refrained however as I don't think my cat would be that happy if I rammed ears on her head!
Me and sissy
We spotted 50’s Prime Time diner to the left but more on that later. We all had a FP+ for Toy Story Mania between 10:35 and 11:35 so we headed that way. On our last visit, we hadn’t managed to get on this ride so we were excited to try something new . Unfortunately, myself and mums’ shooters weren’t working so we sat with sulking faces the whole way round…they obviously let us ride again…mum won… 107k to 123k.
Next up Tower of Terror FP-

My absolute favourite ride in the world. I know I know..I say I love every ride but really this is my number 1. Every time I go on it, as soon as those doors close I say, “why am I doing this again?!” and then as soon as those words speak “you are about to enter…The Twilight Zone” I soon realise why!! THISSSSS ISSSS AMMMAAAAZZZING! We had made fast passes for all 10 of us but only 6 were used as the others bowed out so we used the remaining ones to ride again!! We also received our second red queue card of the hol!!!



We wanted to right Rock n Rollercoaster but the queue was 120 minutes and we had a FP for another day.

Lunchtime- There were quite a few options on the Boulevard so we split up to get food and met back at a table in the middle. I had salad again and the rest had some of the Mexican food options (fajitas, Empanadas etc) which they all said was lovely. I had my first Strawberry Lemon Slushy of the holiday. YUM. (I am so sorry I didn't take any pictures of the food ...I do have some other tasty food delights on my camera though..I just need to work out how to get them onto my computer....I know no excuses !!!!)

We were all full and hot after lunch so we thought we should go and cool down in what better place than to see the one and only Indiana Jones! Great show as always except the ball wasn’t in it?! We weren’t sure if this was because it wasn’t working or just because they don’t do it anymore?? After the stunt spectacular, we headed over to Muppets. We walked sadly past the old Streets of America and my favourite little store “Writers Stop”. *sob* After this we went for a ride through a Galaxy far far away, but not before we had watched the young Jedis being escorted to the stage. ADORABLE!

It was VERY hot by this point in the afternoon but we couldn’t go back to the hotel as we had our first ADR!! 50’s Prime Time. We have been before but back in about 1997 so we were really looking forward to it. We had booked two separate tables so that we could be in at the same time but we weren’t anywhere near each other in the end. (I have more pictures...blah blah yes I know you dont believe me and my trip report is just full of writing! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE!! I PROMISE IT GETS BETTER!) The food was great and we became members of the “Clean Plate Club” aka "the Fat Pig Club"


If I could have licked the plate I would have. I had “Aunt Liz’s Fried Chicken” and that mash ohhhhhmmmmyyyyyy I could have eaten a full plate of the mash! The chicken was lovely and juicy and they certainly don’t skrimp on the portions . Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone for the mammoth vanilla milkshake!!! Mum and sis got “A sampling of Moms favourite dishes”. Both said it was lovely. I love that we got a TV table as it was really entertaining to watch the old clips between courses. It seems our server wasn’t really feeling it this evening as we didn’t really have much interaction with him other than when he brought the food over and cleared the plates. It sounds like the other table had more entertainment with their server who made one of them stand in the corner for not eating their greens, but all in all we enjoyed the experience and the food.

We got out just in time to go and get in for Fantasmic at 9pm.

Mum decided to head back to the resort so the rest of us carried on to the theatre. After the Mexican waves we were soon onto our favourite little mouse working his magic. The soundtrack is just beautiful and I can't help singing along!! After the show we decided against rushing out to watch the fireworks so we snuck out the side entrance of the theatre to get to the park exit. Although we didn’t get back to see the fireworks properly, the rest of the gang said it was amazing! Kay even said it was better than Happily Ever After…….SHOCK I KNOW! We managed to see some of them on the bus back to the resort though!


Next up…Tidal waves and Sunshine…

 

[disneyworlddad]

Great Trip report. . . . following along. . . waiting for the I can't eat anymore steak part!

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Great Trip report. . . . following along. . . waiting for the I can't eat anymore steak part!

Thank you for reading!! Oh the steak eating begins on day 3 and I felt like it would never end!! More coming up!!!

 

[Santa Raccoon 77]

Sorry to hear you had a bad time on Virgin.

 

[amjt660]

Day 2 looks like it was fun considering it was May 5th

I know you are not a Star Wars fan(yet) but if May 4 is "May the fourth by with you" then May 5th is "Revenge of the Fifth" which sounds like Revenge of the Sith which is Episode 3 of the series.

Max

 

[DonnaOnTheRocks]

I'm late, but following now! Great start!

 

[DonnaOnTheRocks]

My absolute favourite ride in the world. I know I know..I say I love every ride but really this is my number 1. Every time I go on it, as soon as those doors close I say, “why am I doing this again?!” and then as soon as those words speak “you are about to enter…The Twilight Zone” I soon realise why!! THISSSSS ISSSS AMMMAAAAZZZING! We had made fast passes for all 10 of us but only 6 were used as the others bowed out so we used the remaining ones to ride again!! We also received our second red queue card of the hol!!!

This is my #1 Favorite too!!! SO GOOD!

If I could have licked the plate I would have. I had “Aunt Liz’s Fried Chicken” and that mash ohhhhhmmmmyyyyyy I could have eaten a full plate of the mash! The chicken was lovely and juicy and they certainly don’t skrimp on the portions . Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone for the mammoth vanilla milkshake!!! Mum and sis got “A sampling of Moms favourite dishes”. Both said it was lovely. I love that we got a TV table as it was really entertaining to watch the old clips between courses. It seems our server wasn’t really feeling it this evening as we didn’t really have much interaction with him other than when he brought the food over and cleared the plates. It sounds like the other table had more entertainment with their server who made one of them stand in the corner for not eating their greens, but all in all we enjoyed the experience and the food.

The fried chicken there is the best! Sorry you didn't get much interaction this time, but the food definitely makes up for it! Next time, try the PB&J milkshake

 

[WisDisneyFan]

Day 1 – Magic Kingdom Day

So… as you would expect, we all had slight jetlag therefore would be waking up well before the sun came up…however just how early this happened on this occasion is somewhat different. We bought mum a Fit Bit for her birthday and she’s pretty much on with how to work it..except for syncing it up with her app when we got the USA…do you see where I’m going with this? Long story short mum was up, showered and ready for coffee at what she thought was 8:40am..which; lets say it together “is actually 3:40am US time”. So once I’d convinced her it was early early early, we all laid for an hour or so chatting about the day ahead until we slept until a normal time!

We had planned on a full day in the Magic Kingdom tonight so we wanted to pace the day out and then get ready to see the fireworks at about 8pm to get a good space. We were all up for breakfast at around 9-9:30am. I had bagel with cream cheese & cherry coke. (Cherry Coke is my go to Disney beverage. I rarely have fizzy pop at home so it’s an absolute must when I’m here). I decided I would probably use snacks for breakfast and use my quick service credit for lunch and then table service for dinner most days. This didn’t happen much in the end because…well…The Bounty Platter. Need I say more?! The other family brought cereal with them from home and bought milk and sides of eggs for something hot if they fancied it and used their QS for lunch the same as me. Han did QS breakfast and snack lunches. I love how flexible the dining plan is.

We dropped our mugs at the room and went for the bus. Before we knew it, we were at the Magic Kingdom around 10:15am!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
View attachment 206990
Me and Sissy ready for our first day!!!!
I have some more pictures from the bus ride in but they're on my camera...leave it with me and i'll post them ASAP.


The line at security was not big at all and we were through in no time.

View attachment 206988
Now usually as we walk into MK it just look absolutely perfectly beautiful but instead we were unfortunately met with the Emporium all covered in a HORRID brown scaffolding. Luckily my vision was blurred from the tears of excitement and over the two weeks it was gradually changed to the graphic version. But anyway. “honnneeeeyyy I’m hoooomeee”. We wandered up Main Street and since we were all wearing matching t-shirts we thought now would be the best time to use our first Memory Maker moment.
View attachment 206991 We think they forgot to add a bit of Magic here but I do think my sister has worked her magic on Photoshop and added it. I will ask her for the edited one!!

Then it was onwards to our first FP+ of the day. Buzz Lightyear at 10:45am. I was sat with Niambh who is 7…luckily I won. Even though at one point we were just spinning!!!!!! After this we thought why not meet the guy himself, so we queued about 10 mins to meet him. He was a great M & G and very fun. We didn't feel rushed with him which sometimes you can with meet and greets! He even posed us for a picture and pretended to scan his Magic Band! He had a fondness for Jess in our group!
View attachment 206998
View attachment 207318

At this point the group split as Niambh wanted to go on the Astro Orbiter but me mum and sis had an appointment with the Grim Grinning Ghosts! I just love this ride. We managed to squeeze into one doom buggy together with a bit of a tight squeeze. This ride will never get old. It's an absolute gem! I love that the hitch hiking ghosts held up a sign saying “This way to the UK”. Disney gets cleverer every day ! It was starting to get quite hot as we came out of HM so we thought a quick drink & sun cream break would be a good idea- but then it was on to our 3rd FP of the day and a solid winner in the favourite department…Splash Mountain!!! This was a first for us in terms of passengers on the ride today. After 20 years of visits to Disney World, we finally convinced mum to go on Splash Mountain!!! I’m so glad she did because she got a corker of a picture too,
View attachment 207319
As usual I seemed to be the only one to get soaked but we soon dried off in that glorious Florida heat.


After our ride through the Briar Patch, it was time to head to Fantasy land and to our lunch at Be Our Guest. Gimmie that French Onion Soup!!!

Next up..How was lunch & Dole Whips!

I love it!!! So far it seems as if your all having a great time! Keep going.....I'm late to the party, but I'm enjoying it!!

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Thank you all for your patience with me
This is where the notes diminished into nothing for a while, so I'm trying to use pictures and my brain to write these next few bits!
Update will be coming tonight xx

 

[*Flynnderella*]

This is my #1 Favorite too!!! SO GOOD!



The fried chicken there is the best! Sorry you didn't get much interaction this time, but the food definitely makes up for it! Next time, try the PB&J milkshake

It is gorgeous and you get sooooo much of it too!! Ohhhh I know I saw that but I didn't know if it would be too sweet for me?! I should have just got it.. next time for sure!!

 

[amjt660]

Patience is a virtue

And we are all trying to be virtuous....

But seriously your part of the world has been rocked hard in the last couple of weeks so we would all understand if you are a little too distracted to post .

Take you time - we will be here

Max

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Day 3 Typhoon Lagoon and Cinderella-gate


Where were we….Right yes. Sunday 7th May. Usually we wouldn’t have a water park day so early in the holiday but to tell the truth it was so needed! We have never experienced actual Florida heat properly. December and September didn’t seem to be so warm or humid which is the only other times we visited, so water parks were never high on our list of must do’s.

We got to Typhoon Lagoon about 26 million hours after we set off from the hotel…okay fine. 40 minutes but still. Ridiculous that you have to drive past the entrance to go to Disney Springs to go back again!! But anyway, we got there about 10:30 and managed to get a really good spot pretty much on the beach in the middle of the park above the wave pool (which I didn’t venture ANYWHERE near this time. Long story short, on our last visit my brother convinced me to venture further than the shallows and told me if I jumped at the right time my head wouldn't go under and he would hold on to me. Well..turns out we were just a little too far in so we were where the wave crashes. I did about 4 tipple tales under water, swallowed A LOT of water and my brother didn't keep hold of me. Therefore I will never go in there again).

Our view! (I think I have a better photo somewhere!)

It wasn’t that busy at the park really which was nice, as the lazy river had plenty of hoops and the slide queues weren’t any longer than 10-15 minutes max. Now I’m not really a slide kind of gal I tend to stick to the lazy river and POSSIBLY the family raft rides. Well today I was adamant I would be sunbathing all day and dip my toes but NO. Everyone else had other thoughts. Hannah and David took Niambh to the wave pool and were gone most of the day while Shannon carried on sunbathing, I was traumatically forced from my sunbed around late afternoon with sis, Kay, Matt and Jess to ride Keelhaul Falls, Mayday Falls (which I thought would be tamer than it was), Gangplank Falls and the new Miss Adventure Falls. All treacherously cold when your body is nice and warm from the sun but we definitely laughed our way down them all!!!!

It was about 4pm when me and sis decided to head back to the hotel to get ready for Cinderellas tonight. Our reservation was 7:15 so we presumed 3 hours would be long enough for us to get back and ready and out again since the water park was so close to the hotel………..WRONG. While me and sis went for the bus, the rest of the gang decided they would shower at the water park and just get changed back at the hotel. Oh how we wish we had done this. So we get to Disney Springs and wait there for 40 minutes. In that time, the rest of the group had showered, changed, got the bus from Typhoon Lagoon and met us at Disney Springs. Fuming. All in all, 1 hour 40 mins to get back to our hotel. WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE BUSES!!!!!????!!?!?

Luckily mum had headed back earlier in the day so as we rushed in to get ready, she had showered and gotten ready before hand. We left the hotel, in a hot mess, and made it to Magic Kingdom at about 6:45pm. This gave us some chance to get some nice group shots on Main Street.

Group shot

Us girls

Coming up...Part 2...Cinderellas Royal Table