Trip Report The "I'm not going to write a Trip Report, Just Kidding Yes I Am" Trip Report

"I don't have time", "This trip was far too special to share", "I don't have enough pictures"...you name the excuse, I've said it. We just got back Monday afternoon (May 5) and I really want to go back trough all my pictures and share my experiences with you guys to put a final close on my best trip to WDW ever to start planning the next one!


A little background information first, I had been planning this trip for my 16th birthday for a while. Probably 2-3 years. We had around 5 trips from the time I conjured up this idea to the time we stepped foot in the airport last Thursday. Why my Sweet 16? Because I could FINALLY do the Keys to the Kingdom Tour which was amazing! More on that later...


The Cast:

The Birthday Boy:

he's the Disney fanatic that planned this whole trip (the others just paid for it ) (his 11th trip)

The Grandma:

the totally hip grandma that kept up with us during the whole trip (sometimes she was ahead of us!) (her 4th trip)


The Mom:

the second disney fanatic of our bunch (her 12th trip)



Let's get started!!!!


Originally, my plans were to stay at the Grand Floridian (my favorite resort), but the Mom and Grandma didn't exactly like the price We originally booked All-Star Movies but upgraded to Caribbean Beach with the Memory Maker package later. I actually love the Memory Maker and MM+. Magic Bands are da bomb. Everything is so easy and it's a great new system!


We left school early Thursday to make our 5:30pm flight out of Indy. We had a nonstop flight via Southwest to MCO. We had a bit of turbulence due to some thunderstorms (a reoccurring trend during our trip).

You can see the MK and EPCOT area from the plane!

selfie alert! (another reoccurring trend during this trip!)

in the clouds ...


B Side, Level 1!!!! I always get lost at MCO and I can't ever find DME when I land! My only complaint about DME is that it takes forever (or it feels like...) to actually get the bus moving to WDW! I didn't get a picture from DME except this blurry one...but here we are!

 

[TheMouseFan]

Yay! So glad you decided to write a report! I meant to comment in your other thread, but I never got around to it. I wanted to encourage you to just pick which threads you read and avoid the negative ones! That's what I do! Can't wait to read more!

 

[ImagineerDude]

Caribbean Beach was really nice. We stayed at Aruba "near transportation". The busses weren't terrible even though we were usually the last stop (but we were also the first to be picked up). The resort was HUGE, but I loved the themeing. the price wasn't too bad at less than $150 per night. I don't have too many pictures of our resort. it was rainy most days and we weren't at are resort that much! I got a plastic pirate sword and my birthday button at check in! I got a lot of free stuff this trip!!

Old Port Royale

waiting to go to the Boardwalk via a busy DHS bus (it was the 25th anniversary day) and walkway around 9:45 Thursday night. Our bus driver was really nice and informed us the best way to get back to CBR after our meal.


We got to Beaches and Cream (one of our favorites) around 10:30 - they close at 11 - and had little to no wait without an ADR. We sat at the bar and we actually saw one of our waitresses from our past Christmas trip! It's a sign we go there too much!

I had what I always get there, a hot dog. It was late so mom and grandma shared a burger. AND I FORGOT TO TAKE PICTURES OF ALL OUR FOOD. I got the birthday cake ice cream for dessert and grandma got chocolate. Nothing fancy like a kitchen sink But we did get our Christmas waitress to let us take a picture of one:

and all of a sudden after the restaurant closed, the "Kitchen Sink" alarm lights came on and our waitress got the whole restaurant to sing happy birthday to me and I got a HUGE cupcake! And I got a balloon and card signed by all the cast members working that night! So cool!

we went to the BC bus stop full and tired. We decided on taking whichever bus came first, MK or DTD, because we could both get transfers to CBR. MK came first...yay!! I got my first beautiful look at the castle and train station! I love MK! it's my favorite park! We got back to our room after midnight and CRASHED!

We woke up nice and early and barely missed a MK bus. We tried to get him to stop but he didn't he just waved

Here we are waiting for the bus!

Matching shirts and everything!



Much like our bus, our next stop for this trip report is the Magic Kingdom!

 

[stevehousse]

Glad ur doing a report!

 

[ImagineerDude]

Woo hoo! it's pretty early! Although I got a picture of 5am last year before the All-Nighter!

We sure do love the bus!

See my birthday button? Yep it was my birthday that day!! I wore the button the whole trip though.



Welcome to the most magical place on Earth...the Magic Kingdom!!

We were actually planning on being the opening family, but they didn't do an opening show that day due to the media event for the Mine Train. BUMMER! It's seriously one of my favorite shows in WDW! We also passed a bunch of media people on our way to the bag check and they said the ride is awesome! That's exciting!

We couldn't help but notice the masses of people (and strollers) here before 8 this Friday morning:

ignore my face but shouldn't all these kids be in school!! Not meeting Anna and Elsa. Then a little before 9, about 30 CMs waked under the train station tunnel. Never had seen this before:

they were blocking people from running towards Princess Fairytale Hall. But finally we were in!

as you can see by the sky...it started raining! So we ran to Space Mountain...no time for pictures! In fact we "speed-walked" and were the first riders of the day! So cool! Unfortunately our MagicBands glitched so we don't have an actual Memory Maker picture of our on-ride photo, but we do have this one I took with my phone to help us remember the photo number! Check out the number ones we are holding with our fingers...cuz we were the first riders!!

as you can see, grandma hasn't ridden Space enough to know to be ready for the camera!

After that we headed over to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin and walked right on:

I scored about 13,000...not so hot!

Mom was the winner with over 100,000!


We were getting hungry and some Gaston's cinnamon rolls were calling our name! But do we actually get to eat our food...or will a bird steal it?!?! Find out in the next update

 

[cw1982]

We were getting hungry and some Gaston's cinnamon rolls were calling our name! But do we actually get to eat our food...or will a bird steal it?!?! Find out in the next update

Lol... I had a pigeon steal my bagel at UNI when I was 16! Too funny

Great report so far!

 

[Disney Shib]

@ImagineerDude you seem like the perfect candidate for the Disney College Program. You should check it out once you get into college. I used to drag my family to Disney all the time in high school. Best thing I ever did was apply once I was in college.

 

[mrdrift]

Great TR so far, glad you decided to write this TR. Happy late B-day buy the way. Will be watching for the rest of the report.

 

[ImagineerDude]

@ImagineerDude you seem like the perfect candidate for the Disney College Program. You should check it out once you get into college. I used to drag my family to Disney all the time in high school. Best thing I ever did was apply once I was in college.

I plan to!!

 

[Maggie Mae]

Can't wait to enjoy this trip report!!

 

[ImagineerDude]

On our way to buy some colossal cinnamon rolls, spotted Stitch and Pluto in their space gear by the TTA line. We only met Pluto. He was our first character on this trip! He was during our Christmas trip too now that I think about it!!

We totally have autograph books too!! We got them for my two younger cousins.


Another delay on our quest for cinnamon rolls...we saw some actors from the new Disney Channel show "I Didn't Do It" filming a Disney 365 in New Fantasyland. For the mine train of course!

She said Heigh-Ho at least 20 times while we were over there We saw Laura Morano and some guys from Shake It Up last year!



Passing the mine train. such a photogenic attraction. Beautiful.

All right, we are all getting pretty hungry. By the time we get to Gaston's it's about 10 and there's no line. What? That's right no line to our surprise! Everyone must have been checking out the boring media people on the mine train that didn't even appreciate what they were getting to ride...

We all split two cinnamon rolls and I got a LeFou's Brew. It has a unique taste but I think I like it

And our cinnamon rolls didn't get stolen by a bird, but a girl sitting at the table next to us did! It was kind of funny ok, really funny!



We passed Fairytale Hall on the way back....insanity.



We made our way to Jungle Cruise and we had the most amazing skipper, Ryan! She had some different jokes I hadn't heard before and it was a great experience. No pics of this though




Big ThunderMountain baby!

"This here's the wildest ride in the wilderness!!!"



The park was getting busier with strollers and high-school band groups alike filling up the streets of Magic Kingdom. It started to rain. Hard. So we sprinted to Philharmagic just in time to watch the next show. I love this show too! (again no pictures)

It was raining even harder when our show ended. We threw our 3D glasses in the bins and bought some ponchos in the Philharmagic gift shop. One of our best investments of all the trip!!




Some mandatory castle photos as we leave the park:

We had a 50's Prime Time Café reservation at 1:25 and a Great Movie Ride FP+ experience before that. Will we make it??? This bus needs to hurry up!

 

[ImagineerDude]

I haven't forgotten about this TR I promise!!! update coming soon!

 

[ImagineerDude]

We made it to Hollywood Studios around 12:15. It was so funny to see how different everything looks when it's not Christmas time! But it's still beautiful! Hollywood Studios is actually my second favorite park after MK. and it's my mom's favorite so DHS is a most do for us. It was still RAINING by the way. But nobody has had any fits yet!

I don't know why I'm not wearing my poncho! it may have been because every attraction at DHS made us take off our ponchos. MK didn't.


We had a Great Movie Ride FP+ ready so we did that before our 1:25 lunch ressie at 50's Prime Time Café. GMR is a favorite of my family. No pictures AGAIN! sorry!


We walked into the "living room at 50's and some snotty guest waiting informed us that it was reservations only today. Well guess what buddy we've had reservations for at least 80 days ahead so don't take out your poor planning skills anger on random strangers!


50's is actually a really neat place inside. We were seated rather quickly at a TV table. Lazy brother Bob was our server

I had the fried chicken and mashed potatoes with my grandma and my mom had the chicken noodle soup. We were so hungry we didn't take any pics of our food! But then Bob brought me this:

Yum!

Perfect timing!!!! We showed him the picture and he replied with "At least you got my good side" lol! The food wasn't that impressive but great lunch overall!

At this point it was storming and we ran to find a nearly empty American Idol theater with a show starting at 2:15. Lunch went rather quickly!

creepy photobomb

Our three singers and judges just weren't into it IMO. As I said before there were a ton of high school groups here and they all were singing and cheering VERY LOUDLY. We enjoy AIE and went back to the finale later. But before I get ahead of myself...It stopped raining! Well it did until we got off of Toy Story Mania, another favorite. I like it much better than Buzz in MK and we didn't wait at ALL with our FP+ We never got that lucky on TSM with regular FPs. I reallllly like the new system in case you haven't noticed!


We had never been to the Animation thing at DHS so we decided to check it out and we found one of the most exciting and fun things of our trip...more characters! And they were everywhere!

Tinker Bell

Donald and Daisy in their Hollywood attire

Jake!

I really wanted to meet Flynn!! Their line was cut off seconds before we got there. We ended up meeting Rapunzel later in MK.

some would say a 16 year old kissing an "8 year old" is a little weird...but when in Disney...and she kissed me first!






Andddd I can't seem to find the rest of our photopass pictures but I'll be sure to add more when I do. We still have 6 more characters to meet!

 

[Jae99]

Great TR! It looks like you had a blast for your 16th birthday.

 

[mrdrift]

Nice report and Pictures!! Looks like you guys are totally enjoys yourselves taking in some of the Animation things that you haven't done before with all the characters.

 

[ImagineerDude]

Sorry for the delay everyone! Update coming soon!

 

[ImagineerDude]

After we met all of the fun characters, we walked outside and it wasn't raining! Just kidding, it started pouring after we thought it was done. We made our way past the Brown Derby and down Sunset to see this beauty awaiting us (no not Belle...) :

I FINALLY got to ride this amazing attraction for the first time in forever twice over Christmas. It's really not as bad as it seems...I love it!

Here's our ride photo (Love the memory maker!!)

I don't know why my mom is so scared...my grandma is the only one that hasn't ridden it before and she's having a blast! Check out the people in front of us!!


After we left the infamous Hollywood Tower Hotel, we walked over to Rock 'n' Rollercoaster. This was also a first for us over Christmas. It is such a smooth coaster and by far my favorite coaster ever! The wait time said 40 minutes and since we had some time to kill before AIE finale we said "why not?" I mean, what else were we supposed to do? Grandma sat out on this one.

We had an annoying high school group in front of us in line, but once we boarded it ROCKED!

That picture just cracks me up



We went over to watch Voyage of the Little Mermaid next. (we spent a LOT of time in Animation Courtyard). We all hadn't watched the show since 2010, and it's just not that good. It's neat but especially with the new ride in MK it could go bye bye and I wouldn't even mind it not being replaced.



We waited around the Hat for a while before entering the finale queue for AIE. We got to be in the video for one of the contestants and our judges and hosts were much better this time. We actually had 2 of the same judges from over Christmas! The finale show was much better than the afternoon one we watched. Some high school girl that was really good won. There were like 3 kids from the same school in the finale and we were RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of their cheer section. Needless to say, I couldn't hear anything (especially more pouring rain and thunder brewing on the rooftop ) by the time we got outta there.


After that, our original plans were to go to EPCOT for EMH until 11pm that night. Instead, we hopped on a bus to MK and spent the rest of my birthday in my favorite and the most magical place on Earth.

But will it ever stop raining???? Find out in the update coming sooner than this one

 

[Raven66]

Really enjoying your report and pictures. The one of you all on ToT and your mom's face is great!! Happy belated birthday!!

 

[ImagineerDude]

Yay! We are back at Magic Kingdom! Unfortunately, I can't even slightly remember what we did when we first got there. I'm thinking we shopped a bit, did a few rides (Hall of Presidents maybe), then (get this) we were at to Sleepy Hallow for a funnel cake, I had my birthday pin on and before we even ordered a CM asked me if I liked funnel cake. I told him yes and he said stay right here...then he gave me one!! Something free from Disney I couldn't believe it. We ended up buying another one and it started raining again! It ALWAYS rains when I get funnel cakes from Sleepy Hallow! I don't know why but it never fails!


We got stuck behind the horrendous Electrical Parade so we just decided to watch it. SpectroMagic was soooo much better IMO, but honestly the electrical parade is growing on me No pictures, I was too busy eating my free funnel cake! The parade ended with Pete's Dragon, not the flag and eagle, by the way.


We made our way to the hub and got a spot right in front of the castle (perfect spot for Celebrate the Magic, not so much for Wishes...my two favorite nighttime spectaculars in Magic Kingdom! )

Just enjoy

These pictures were taken with my iphone so they probably aren't the best quality.


After the shows I wasn't crying like I do sometimes after Wishes. I did get a bit teary-eyed but the best was yet to come! Well only if we got around the masses of people exiting the park. I'm hoping the hub expansions helps or they do something to help overcrowding. It really is becoming a serious issue.


We made our way to BTMRR! We had rode it earlier with about a 40 minute wait then it had a 30 minute wait...after the fireworks! We didn't wait that long but it was a good 20 minutes. It's always better at night.


And then to Little Mermaid...walk-on...then we met Ariel! (I'll get these pics inserted soon!)


The park was closing at 11, and it was around 10:45...so we rode Barnstormer and then Dumbo! We all got our own elephant!

Dumbo selfie with the madre! I really like the new Dumbos


It's 11:57! OMG! We wanted to ride Space Mt too! So we RAN. Like legit ran. "Grandma, meet us by the big spinny thing in Tomorrowland!" (Astro Orbitor). So yep, me and my mom did a little Disney no-no and we made it from Dumbo to Space Mt in 2 minutes, a minute to spare! There was a line at the entrance to Space. What?? Apparently it was broken down, but luckily they were opening the line up for 7 minutes because apparently it was down for 7 minutes.

So you know how we were literally the first riders on Space Mountain? Well we were (all most) the last! There were maybe 6 groups behind us in the line. Didn't get our picture because grandma had been waiting for about a half hour and I was tired! And as we were exiting, a man asked what time it was. I told him almost 11:30. "Oh crap my wife's going to kill me". So we really didn't think about it, and as we were walking up Main Street after most of the crowds had gone, my grandma said she was talking to this woman that said her husband went to space mountain about 45 minutes ago "it's a small world after all"


Photopass people still had lines around them though (overcrowding is seriously a problem, oh wait did I mention that before? )




Starbucks is open after park closing!!

 

[Violiav]

How do you get them to have the birthday button waiting for you at check in?