The I Planned it All and Threw My Plans Out the Window TR

Hey everybody!! I got home from my family's first WDW vacation late last Friday night and have been feverishly uploading pics ever since.
It was hot and more crowded than I expected but I had a wonderful time at Disney. The trip that I spent a year planning came to life and I got to see the sights I had been longing to see.

So... first a little background. I did a PTR on this site but in case you didn't read it, my name is Cassie. I am the proud mommy of 2 beautiful kiddos, DD6 and DS4. I have a very handsome hubby Marshall who doesn't share my Disney love but was excited to go on vacation anyway. Also featured in this TR you will find my aunt Wilma and cousins Samantha, Kai, and Elijah. They live in Orlando (where my husband and I grew up) and I hadn't seen them in a few years. I planned everything for me as well as for them as my aunt isn't very good at that sort of thing.

We were in Disney from 5/19 until 5/24. My aunt left on 5/23 which was a resort only day for her. My immediate family lives in the panhandle of FL and we drove to the world. My kids and I were so excited when our countdown calender looked like this:

IMG_0352 by cassierocks84, on Flickr


IMG_0353 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

So without further ado... here is my recollection of our trip!

DAY 1:

I was planning on getting up at around 5 am so we could get on the road by 6. Here was the first plan out the window, lol. My son woke up at 4 AM! It wouldn't have made any sense to go back to bed so he and I went ahead and got up and I got to my tying up loose ends before leaving. I let my husband and daughter sleep a bit more, especially since my baby girl wasn't feeling her best. (she has asthma and allergies and suffered quite a bit on this trip as she has most of this year )
This is my son's "I'm going to Disney but I'm sleepy face"

IMG_0354 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

My daughter wasn't so happy about the early wake up call:

IMG_0356 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

Oh wait, you mean Donald gets to come too??

IMG_0357 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

We were in the car just after I wanted, leaving our house at 6:10. My hubby set out on our course which includes a really long ride on I-10. It was a very foggy morning and I was happy not to be driving. My husband (who I will now start calling by name: Marshall) didn't want to stop for gas when we first left so we ended up making our first stop at 7:45 in a small town called Blountstown. We got back on the interstate only to get off again an hour later in Tallahassee because Marshall saw a sign for Steak n Shake (we don't have one!). After filling our bellies with steak, egg, and cheese bagels, we were on the road again. We stopped AGAIN a couple of hours later at McDonalds because Marshall wanted a coffee and we figured we might as well feed the kiddos (who conked out as soon as we set off). So if you're counting, that's 3 stops and none of them were even potty breaks! We actually managed to only make one more stop for gas before making it into Orlando. The kids sleeping helped so much. I started to get really excited when I saw this:

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and this:

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and then I saw THIS!!!!

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[Cassie S.]

Day 2 cont'd
After finishing our breakfast, we exited the castle and saw Cindy's fountain. I had my little princess take a pic for me.


DSC01879 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

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I also had my cousin (7) take a pic. You can tell the sun was very bright, lol.

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Now here is more of my trip title coming into play. I had never been to WDW as an adult and had obsessively planned this trip. I had touring plans for every day and while we did the majority of what I wanted to do, little was done in the actual order I planned. I REALLY wanted to do the meet and greet with the stepsisters at the castle wall since DS was dressed as a prince. This didn't happen since all the kids were super anxious to ride some rides. I couldn't really blame them; we were in Disney World!!
Here is DS running to Fantasyland!

DSC01881 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

The kids set their sights on the carousel since it was right in their faces. First, they couldn't resist the call of the sword in the stone.

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Once they realized that darn sword wasn't going to budge, we proceeded to get in line for our first ride of the trip!!

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The boys had to continue their swordfight from breakfast into the queue.

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My Prince Charming looked so valiant on his white horse

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My Princess

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Daddy and the kids

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After the carousel, we secured fastpasses for the LM ride and took off for a potty break. I changed DS out of his prince costume seeing that it was super hot and the costume had long sleeves. I was proud of him for not complaining at all wearing it. I told DD she could change out of her princess costume but she declined. I had packed a Cindy shirt and bow for her with a blue skort but she just took off her crown and donned the bow for now.

Our next stop... It's a Small World!

 

[Cassie S.]

I know the DH wasn't at all excited for this one but it was so hot and the line was short so why not? I actually enjoyed myself very much on this multicultural cruise.

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The kids hadn't seen a ride video of this one so they were very excited as well.

My aunt looks WAY too excited, lol.

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We exited to the Rapunzel themed portion of New Fantasyland. That is one gorgeous bathroom, lol.

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We got a little lost and went the wrong way. Once I saw the HM, I knew we weren't in Fantasyland so we doubled back to get to the rest of the new Fantasyland and use our LM FP.

I loved seeing the Beast's Castle on the horizon. Eating CS at BOG was on the books for Thursday.

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We made it to the LM ride!! Ariel is my favorite princess. The movie came out when I was only 5 and I know ALL the songs. I was so happy she finally got a ride.

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I enjoyed the ride very much. I have heard very different opinions about it but I'm glad I kept an open mind.

Once we left, we checked out this guy:

DSC01958 by cassierocks84, on Flickr
I wish we had gone inside the tavern but the kids were itching to do something else.

So instead he headed toward Storybook Circus!

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The person who thought up the indoor playground/pager system for Dumbo is a genius! I didn't really get any pics inside because it was a zoo but the AC and seating for parents was awesome. I can see it being stressful if your pager goes off and your kids don't want to stop playing yet but thankfully mine came down right away when I called them. The CM who took our pager asked who was going to fly the Dumbos. All 4 kids declared they would be flying so he asked them if they had flying licenses. Their little faces looked sad to admit they did not. He then produced licenses for them! This was so cute and they were so proud of the licenses to fly.
Once we got that squared away, we headed to this beautiful sight:

DSC01968 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

 

[Cassie S.]

url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/89642819@N02/8884941155/]

[/url]
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Hehe, you can see DS license still gripped firmly in his little hand

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After flying on Dumbo, we headed over to check out Big Top Souvenirs. They had an impressive selection of treats.

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I selected a Mickey head brownie. Mmmmmmm.

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The kids got some cotton candy and everyone was pleased.

It was hard getting the kids out of the store. Once we were able to wrestle them away from all the Disney merch, I decided I wanted to do a character M&G. We walked over to Pete's Silly Sideshow and did the Daisy/Minnie side. It was crowded but at least it was inside. We saw Daisy first. She was very funny as DC7 wanted nothing to do with her so Daisy hid behind people and played hide and seek with her to try and make her smile.
DD and DS went to work getting those autograph books filled up.

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The photopass photographer was nowhere to be seen so I took some of my own pics. People are right when they say the lighting in here sucks.

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Just then, the pp guy shows up so I got more Daisy pics, this time with DC5 as well.

47566640065 by cassierocks84, on Flickr
can you believe the 2 boys are only 9 months apart?!


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[Cassie S.]

Next up was Minnie. This side had a photopass person who was not MIA.
While we waited for the family in front of us to finish, 2 sweet CMs played with DD and DS. They were trying to get them to step back onto the carpet by telling them if they stepped on the wood flooring, a tickle monster would get them. My DS being who he is, thought that was hilarious and he wanted to see this tickle monster! He immediately stepped onto the floor.

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He continued to play with the CMs even after it was our turn, lol.


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Minnie was so pretty in this costume!

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Remember how I said it was very difficult to get the kids out of the Big Top store?? Well, we had some deja vu because the meet and greet exits into the very same store!! Ahhhhhh!!!! The kids again could not keep their grubby little hands off of the merch and we had to hustle them out of there with the promise of getting some lunch. We made our way over into Tomorrowland next.

 

[LeCellier.Lover]

O my goodness your entire family is soooo adorable! I love the outfits! I've never seen the Prince Charming outfit before! I also love how your cousin is wearing a Mulan outfit! I'm glad to see girls still giving Mulan some love And of course the Cinderelly dress is priceless! How cool that the kids were given flying passes, I love little magical moments like that! Mhhmm all those desserts look delish! I really want to try a cake pop!
Can't wait to read more!

 

[Alison1975]

Loving this!!! Can't wait for more!!!

 

[Cassie S.]

Been so busy with life and children and work but I'm back for another installment!!

Ok so when I left off we were on our way to Tomorrowland. When I originally planned this day it included a midday break for lunch back at the resort so we could recharge and come back for a late night. This did not happen. No one (including myself) wanted to leave MK at this point and it's a good thing, considering what would happen with the weather (spoiler alert!). We WERE hungry though so we headed over to Cosmic Rays.

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It was a mad house in here! I got food for my kids, hubby, and myself while the hubster took said kids to the bathroom. I ended up deciding to do the 1/2 chicken for me and the hubs and an adult chicken nugget plate for the kids to share. I also had to pick up one of those adorable little chocolate cakes to try! I lost my aunt and cousins in the madness and we met up once we found tables to sit at.


DSC01988 by cassierocks84, on Flickr
how did that french fry get in there? lol


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if you look REALLY closely, you can see the chicken.


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the big man himself


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just as yummy as it looks

My hubby looked like he was starting to get stressed by the crowds and the heat already and it was only Day 2, our first park day! We needed to do something fun, stat!

I forgot to mention that we had grabbed fastpasses for Space Mountain on our way through Tomorrowland. Now that we had filled our bellies, it was time to take a ride through space!! This was my daughter's first real roller coaster and in retrospect, a very bad idea. My DS4 was too tiny for this one so my aunt sat out with him.


DSC01993 by cassierocks84, on Flickr
this is the only pic in the vicinity of Space Mtn with DD6 smiling

I really enjoyed SM. It was very jerky and very fun. I almost lost my tiara a couple of times from all the jerky movements. The problem with this one for my daughter: she was in the dark and there was no one to hang onto. We came to a stop and out into the light and she was HYSTERICAL. I felt so bad. I would have liked to get the ride pic anyway since I had PP+ but the computers were down and we never made our way back for it in time. We had grabbed FP with everyone's tickets so since DS and my aunt didn't go on, we had 2 left that we planned on using for my aunt to ride with someone else. She didn't want to go on so we spread some magic and gave the FP away. When I tried to do this, people acted like they didn't trust me, lol. Like it was too good to be true... just take the darn FP and enjoy the ride! One other magical moment: a castmember saw how upset DD was after the ride and gave her a special "I'm celebrating" button with "I conquered Space Mountain" written on it. Too sweet!

The kids had been itching to ride Tomorrowland speedway since before lunch since you can see it in Fantasyland. We headed there next.

 

[Cassie S.]

DSC01996 by cassierocks84, on Flickr
This was a lot of fun! Those little cars seemed impossible to steer. It could also be that I was trying to drive from the passenger side since I rode with DC7 who insisted she would drive and then got scared, lol.

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DD in the bright sun

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I told DS to look sad since he's not big enough for some of the rides. I had gotten him a shirt that reads "I wish I was taller" and has Mickey climbing on top of Donald and Goofy. The original photo idea was to have him stand by the measuring stick of something he was too small for but that didn't happen. I had him make the sad face in line for the speedway instead and ended up with this:

DSC02000 by cassierocks84, on Flickr
Next stop, Buzz Lightyear! This had about a 20 min wait, not bad. I pulled out the bubbles I had packed for lines for this one. I believe this is the only time they got used though we waited in a couple of longer lines??

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I managed to get my own "no face" Buzz pic and of course the kiddos had to pose with Zurg at the end.

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our ride pics are hilarious:
first up DH and DC7

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then me with DC5. My eyes are so bugged out! Talk about concentration!!

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next is my aunt with DD, no idea what they're staring at

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finally, DC15 and DS

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On our way out of Tomorrowland I took a sweet pic that shows Frontierland mixed in:

DSC02010 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

 

[Cassie S.]

DSC02011 by cassierocks84, on Flickr
our next stop was to check out the other 2 mountains. We wanted to FP the one with the longer line and standby the other one.

DSC02016 by cassierocks84, on Flickr
check out the crowds! I wasn't prepared for what "moderate" crowds mean
Ok so I lied earlier about only using the bubbles that one time. Apparently we used them again by BTMRR.

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see that cloud on the right side? It was gonna cause trouble.

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BTMRR had a 40 min standby while SM had 60 so we FP the splash and headed into the mining line. Our FP time was in 2 hours, 5:30-6:30. Not bad, we thought.

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My tiny DS was big enough for BTMRR!! So excited for his first roller coaster!!

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my aunt has her arms up and it looks like DH is riding by himself but really DD is smushed up against him.
DS was having a BLAST!

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After our ride on the runaway train, we still had an hour to go on our FP and it was HOT. So I had to get me one of these:

DSC02025 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

 

[Cassie S.]

we really wanted to ride Splash and I took this pic:

DSC02026 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

Sadly, it was not meant to be. That black cloud in my BTMRR pics got closer and closer until we realized we needed to make a run for it and leave the park. Everyone was tired and without Splash to look forward to, we were ready to go. We had almost made it to the front of the park when the rain started. It started with a vengeance and was coming down so hard it hurt. Wait, that was HAIL! We were being pelted with freakin hail. I stopped at one of the bag check tables and pulled out ponchos for the kids and decided the adults would just rough it. Everyone grabbed a child and ran to the buses. We were so SOAKED. It did not let up AT ALL on the way back to the resort.

We ended up checking out the arcade because there was no way I was walking all the way back to the LM section of AoA in that. The kids were so happy about our trip to the arcade. I really liked the way they do things sans tokens and tickets. Everything goes on a card. We played for about 2 hours and it was great.

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My son was totally addicted to the Monkey Ball game. Too funny.

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My daughter made several friends.

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Finally, my aunt, cousins, and husband decided to take their chances going back to our rooms though the rain continued. I was hungry and decided to take the kids (my 2) into Landscape of Flavors for dinner. This ended up feeling like a mistake. It was so crowded and people (guests) were acting pretty rude, not watching out for others. My kids were tired and cranky and driving me CRAZY. We only waited in one line (pizza and pasta station) and it took at least 30 minutes. I ordered an adult cheese pizza for them to share and I took their caesar salad. I also was itching to try the pesto bread thanks to the review on Disney Food Blog. My plate ended up looking like this:

DSC02042 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

I also HAD to get a Mickey ganache from advice on the same site. It did not disappoint.

DSC02043 by cassierocks84, on Flickr

I grabbed the kids and headed to the gift shop to pick up our purchases from the previous night at DTD we had shipped to the resort. This feature was nice but they had a hard time waiting a day for their stuff. After picking up our bags, we finally headed back to the room. The rain had stopped and the kids wanted to go swimming! I decided to go along even though I wanted to go to sleep. I didn't know when we would get to swim with the busy schedule I intended to keep. DH had gone out to DTD to the movies for some alone time and to see Star Wars. Before we changed into our swim suits, I let the kids open the Disney presents I had purchased for them. All year while planning this trip, I picked stuff up from the Disney store and online for them. You can see the presents in my PTR also.

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[Cassie S.]

more present opening pics:

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they were happy

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Ok, now time to suit up for the Flippin Fins pool.

 

[Cassie S.]

If you look really closely you can see my son.

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and my daughter

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I really liked this pool. Felt a little cold at first but we got used to it. We also met a nice dad and his two kids from up north and played with them for about an hour. I was very tired after this and wanted to go back to the room. I did take a few more pics of the resort at night first.

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all my pics of King Triton came out dark.

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this one was the best

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We got back to the room and got baths. Then we took a few more pics with our new toys.
Pretending to sleep:

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sleeping for real

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[Jose]

Continue pleasee

 

[CrazyDisneyLady]

Your children are adorable...my children are now 21 and 17 and I miss the days of the excitement and cuteness when we would go to Disney. I have travelled several times with them as older children and it is just not the same vibe. Enjoy them while they are little they look like they had a blast.

 

[Disney_Dad88]

Our vacations a very similar, except we will be going in January. We also live near the Florida panhandle (spelling) though not in Florida. We are also staying at the AoA and your trip details so far are almost exactly what I am planning. Keep posting because Im loving this one since its kind of a preview for me and my family's trip.

 

[Englebabies]

Your kids are just too cute

 

[Cassie S.]

Continue pleasee

Working on the next installment.

 

[Cassie S.]

Your children are adorable...my children are now 21 and 17 and I miss the days of the excitement and cuteness when we would go to Disney. I have travelled several times with them as older children and it is just not the same vibe. Enjoy them while they are little they look like they had a blast.

The way to a mother's heart is to compliment her kids. We had a great time for their first trip and hope to get back for a few days in early December.

 

[Cassie S.]

Our vacations a very similar, except we will be going in January. We also live near the Florida panhandle (spelling) though not in Florida. We are also staying at the AoA and your trip details so far are almost exactly what I am planning. Keep posting because Im loving this one since its kind of a preview for me and my family's trip.

I hope you have a great time in January and that I can provide info to help!

 

[Cassie S.]

Your kids are just too cute

Thanks so much!!