The Surprise! We're going to Disney. Here's a cookie, now get in the car. TR + A One Day bonus?

Hello All!

Avid reader, who had to take a break for a few months due to a self imposed 'Disney break.' But now I'm back and lurking more than ever! Here's the most recent photo of my family. I'd say it sums us up quite nicely:

Ha!
I am so excited for another year of WDW and all the fun that comes with traveling to the World. From May of 2011 to May of 2012, we had an unexpected 'year of Disney' due to some planned and some unforeseen circumstances. When we walked out of the gates of AK in December of 2010, we fully expected not to set foot in a park again until February of 2012. But there were other forces at work that led to us purchasing our first ever AP's on May 1, 2011. It turns out I'm one of the luckiest ducks out there because - after doing the math (over and over and over- Man! Disney makes those numbers tricky!) - we were able to purchase our second set of AP's last month. We had an additional trip planned for September of this year already, so once we did the math, it made more financial sense to invest in an AP, rather than buy tickets for both trips separately.

Anywho - this AP purchase wasn't planned either - we had no idea 8 months ago that this was coming! As I said, we were taking our 'Disney break.' We were making the most of it too! This summer we saw so many cool things - including driving Route 66 (or what's left of it?) from Chicago to St. Louis:

(one day we hope to pick up where we left off and head to Disneyland! I guess some people would tell you Route 66 leads to LA, but we Disney lovers know better right? )

It was around 8 months ago that some of our dearest friends mentioned they were going to take a trip to WDW. "Hmmmmm......" we thought. If there's one thing we've learned - Disney is always twice the fun with friends! Was there really any way we could let them go without us? We might die of jealousy - Ha! When we learned their parents (who were traveling with them) would be departing mid way through the trip, we knew it was 'meant' to be!

Now - we decided to keep the trip a surprise from the kids because - as always- you have to be sure the money all lines up. This particular trip was due to be paid off December 22 - not the best timing? Since we had kept the secret until December, we decided - why not just keep the secret a little longer and surprise the kids?! So that's what we did!

We were able to take advantage of the Stay, Play & Dine package, saving us enough to cover the cost tickets to fly into MCO. It was a super short trip, so it seemed to make the most sense to fly!

On the morning of the trip, the kids woke up to find this box:

wrapped up in another box and tied with a big red bow. (Sorry no picture of the big box - I was running around like crazy getting ready the night before! - just imagine the Mickey wrapping paper - ok?

My husband and I woke up first and woke the kids up, telling them "Someone left a surprise for you in the kitchen!" They unwrapped the box to find this message inside:

And of course, the box was filled with those fabulous cookies made by a sweet friend. Aren't they amazing?!

After all the jumping around and excitement, we really did say, "Here's a cookie, now get in the car!" We had no time to waste. We had to get to the airport to catch an early flight.

 

[sam_disney]

just caught up again--- making me so excited for july now! Cannot wait to go back with my family x

 

[foreverbelle]

OMG The picture with your daughter in front of the F&G...precious. I absolutely love it...and thanks for the review on the new Ariel ride. We are looking forward to seeing it come May ourselves. As always loving the report!!!

 

[disneylove94]

Loving your trip report!!! Definitely helping to pass the time while I am at work suffering from WDW withdrawals!​

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Caught up> Ok...total envy...Horace Horsecollar AND Clarabelle Cow!!??!?!?!?!? So jealous!

 

[Cassie S.]

Loving your TR!! Absolutely adorable kiddos. Making me super excited for my kids' first trip.

 

[erstwo]

Okay, y'all - I'm going to respond to posts, promise! But I figured I'd better post while I can!

So....... we were in Epcot! And it was going to be a great day!

I remember heading to the Seas pretty early in the day. We rode Nemo into the building (walk on) and when we got off the ride, the dads, my friend and the little kids wanted to see Crush again, while the big boys wanted to head upstairs.

Such sweet memories!

I did wish we had walked a tiny bit faster upstairs. When we got up there - it was almost totally empty. Only one other family was wandering down the big hallway in front of us down to the circular tank viewing area. We lagged behind looking for dolphins and missed being asked to 'help' feed the fish by mere seconds. Boo! But I was happy for the family in front of us - it was a multi generational group, grandparents, parents and children. They took them up the circular black staircase in the middle and let them help feed the fish.

We got to see the divers though!

Most interesting to me was watching them train some of the larger fish so that it's easier to get them onto carriers and such in case the fish were to need medical attention. One fish didn't want a treat - he wanted the divers to throw shells from the bottom of the tank over him - the CM at the viewing area with us said the fish thought of it like a massage. Fish sea shell massages? Who knew?

The rest of these pictures happened in some order - though what order, I can't exactly remember.

My husband wanted to go to Innoventions to get our 'free' Disney Visa photo. When we arrived, it wasn't open yet. But the kids played around in the money exhibit.

We went to Club Cool!

And then we hit up the World Showcase:

I think the boys went on an Agent P adventure while my daughter and I met some characters:

We ended up in China....... where we took some rather squinty pictures.
My inability to keep my eyes open in photos is rather notorious among those who know me well - at least in these photos everyone is squinting! It's not just me!

We're trying here!

And to prove I *can* keep both eyes open (even if I did have to crop everyone else out....):

 

[erstwo]

Dinner that night was at Garden Grill. I was bummed that they seated us 'up top' since we were a party of 9. I was hoping they could fit us in one of the extended booths, but it was a no go. So we made the best of it!

The food was wonderful as always. Our waiter was really fun - from Moracco. Came here to work at the Moroccan pavilion and decided to stay! He said I was the only one who had ever guessed that? Seemed like the most logical path to "The Land" to me.

After (or maybe before?) dinner we saw these guys:

And we rode Test Track:

And played in the exit queue a bit:

And we finally got our 'free' pictures that my husband was so determined to procure :

I will say, it was lots of fun character interaction. They characters saw my son's hidden Mickey book and took him around the room showing him hidden Mickey's. Neat stuff like that!

We ended up on the bridge between France and the UK, near the International Gateway, to watch Illuminations. I remember being exhausted, but Illuminations was awesome as usual!

I think we had some time left in the parks after Illuminations, so the big guys rode Mission:Space.

And then it was time to head 'home.'

At some point during this day, I made a fatal error and allowed my daughter and my husband to be alone together in a gift shop. This was the result:

I mean seriously? "No." is such a simple sentence, but for some reason, my husband just doesn't know how to say it to my daughter.

So - Merida - rode home with us:

And joined all of her new friends waiting in our room:

 

[erstwo]

just caught up again--- making me so excited for july now! Cannot wait to go back with my family x

Thanks for sticking with it! I have been so bad about sitting down to finish this report. The days are going to fly by - I can't believe it's less than 180 days until I get to go back with my sister and my parents in September! I hope you have a wonderful time in July!

OMG The picture with your daughter in front of the F&G...precious. I absolutely love it...and thanks for the review on the new Ariel ride. We are looking forward to seeing it come May ourselves. As always loving the report!!!

Thank you! You are very welcome - not exactly the best, most extensive review, but it's a classic ride, so that pretty much speaks for itself! Wow - May will be here so quickly, how exciting! Thanks for sticking with the TR!

Loving your trip report!!! Definitely helping to pass the time while I am at work suffering from WDW withdrawals!​

"Welcome" to WDWmagic! (I see you've been here almost as long as I have, so I put that in quotation marks! ) Thank you so much! WDW withdrawls can be the pits - . Thank you so much for reading my report!

Caught up> Ok...total envy...Horace Horsecollar AND Clarabelle Cow!!??!?!?!?!? So jealous!

I KNOW! I guess they are out for a while? It seems to be a daily thing, and not just during the busy season. It was a great magical moment!

Loving your TR!! Absolutely adorable kiddos. Making me super excited for my kids' first trip.

Thank you so much - A first trip is really, super exiting no doubt! I hope it is everything you're hoping for and more!!!!

 

[cfry06]

Beautiful family! Looks like wonderful times were had!! And the pic of your daughter in front of F&G?? So adorable!! Look fwd to the rest of this (and future!) report(s)!

 

[jaideo]

Wonderful TR, I really enjoy reading.

 

[erstwo]

Beautiful family! Looks like wonderful times were had!! And the pic of your daughter in front of F&G?? So adorable!! Look fwd to the rest of this (and future!) report(s)!

Thank you so much! And thank you so much for reading!

Wonderful TR, I really enjoy reading.

Thank you! More to come!

 

[erstwo]

The next morning - the sun was up and shining brightly before I emerged from the room because we slept. in. - Yay! We were Disney tired. We all walked over to AoA for breakfast - it was a madhouse over there. Then stopped to play on the Nemo playground on our way back to Pop.

We decided we wanted to relax a little at the pool before deciding what park to visit that day. Since my daughter really doesn't like rides not located in Fantasyland , I hadn't ridden on many rides yet this trip. So I was a little more anxious than the others to get to a park, but still dragging slightly, so I was okay with some relaxing by the pool:

I think I went to refill my coffee at the beverage station and when I came out I saw the lifeguards heading out to open the pool for the day.

They selected one little girl as their volunteer to 'turn on the flowers' at the pool for the day. So fun!

It was a perfect warm morning. Just a great way to start the day!

 

[erstwo]

After a while I got a little anxious and started talking about visiting AK by myself to ride Everest and then returning. Looking back, I wish I had just kept those thoughts to myself, because all the adults then agreed it was time to pull the kids out of the pool and just get ready to head to the parks for the day. I think the other 3 adults would have enjoyed more pool time, so I was bummed that they felt that they needed to head out to the parks with me. I would never have wanted to spoil their fun!

But soon we were all dressed and headed out!

Our friends had had a wonderful day at AK before we arrived. They had a friend working as a CM there who hooked them up with great show seats and fastpasses so they had done everything they wanted to do at AK. They decided to meet us a little later in MK and we decided to head to AK.

But when we got to the bus stops I knew going to AK with my daughter just to ride Everest would be a waste of 3 hours of her life. She'd end up sitting on a bus, then sitting outside of Everest and then sitting on a bus again for no reason. So at the last minute, I hopped on a bus to MK with my daughter, while my son and husband headed off to AK and Everest.

My daughter and I had such a good time in MK though!

First stop, the garden that once belonged to Belle and her storybook, then to Rapunzel and her Flynn and now to Merida:

It was a long wait, but we finally got in! I didn't like the 'story telling' as much here as I did with Belle and Rapunzel, but I thought the activities were awesome!

And this Merida was great. She commented on my daughter's 'adventure boots':

 

[Gabe1]

Your trip is a trip down memory lane for me, the younger DD and the older DS, good times we had just like you guys are having now! Fun report.

Tip: About that photo spot, ours was the WoL X-Ray photo-op when you just walked inside. My DS was 2 when the pavilion opened, some years later we had to hold my then 2 month DD next to the X-Ray Photo-op. We have my son from age 2 to I believe 17 and my DD from 2 months until around 14 when we eeked one last time into the WoL before Disney ended our family timeline. So my advice is pick something you are pretty darn sure Disney will never, ever remove as I am still bitter over those X-Ray Photo-ops untimely demise.

 

[tiaragirl]

Merida and her hair! I am in love!

I also love your daughter's adventure boots, and the "matching shirts" on EPCOT day!

 

[erstwo]

Next, we were off to lunch!
Cosmic Ray's was just across the way, so we headed there:

It was busy! But my girl and her adventure boots found a table for us!

So good!

All fueled up, we were ready to conquer the Princess line. When we'd entered the park (around 11, I'd guess?) the line for the Princesses was over an hour. Now at around 1, it was maybe 15 minutes?

The Photopass photogs did a great job with these:

They were all great princess 'friends' but Sleeping Beauty was particularly sweet to my daughter this day.

The line to get backstage at the Mouse House was super short, so we stopped by to visit the man himself.
My daughter loves to go nose to nose with several characters. She just seems to do it naturally. To me, it is so cute!

Now, during all of this, my husband and son had ridden Everest -at least twice- and transferred to the MK. Our friends were in the MK as well, and I think at this point we joined them in Tomorrowland and got Fastpasses for SM.
Then we met up with a friend of theirs (is that clear as mud? Not only do we have friends with us now, now we have friends of friends ) who lived in Orlando. She was there with her infant son and her husband would be joining us later.

We did lots of different groupings at this point. I think we all rode Little Mermaid because the friend of the friends hadn't seen it yet and it was baby friendly and then we split littles and bigs and those who didn't like thrill rides (my daughter) and those who couldn't go on them (the baby ) and it was just a big mash up of groups splitting off and riding different things, only to meet up and split off again.

But I DO know that at some point in all of that I managed to get THIS:

and post it on Facebook for all of the world to envy.

I also know that somehow, some way - even though it was on my 'list-of-things-I-can't-wait-to-try-ahhhh-I'm-so-excited-about-this-attraction' attractions - my friend and my husband ended up in Enchanted Tales with Belle with the littles.

But I did get to ride Space Mountain, so maybe that was the trade off?

 

[erstwo]

These were some of the photos from Enchanted Tales with Belle:

My husband as a guard:

My daughter THRILLED to be Ms. Potts:

At any rate, at some point we said goodbye to the friends of friends and headed off to our dinner reservations at Be Our Guest!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!

We were so pumped about these reservations. I have no idea how she did it, but my friend managed to get these reservations days and days after BoG opened for reservations. As a party of 9, that was no easy task! But if they were going to 'give' them to us, we were going to take them!

Gaston had everyone rolling while we waited to be paged:

Now, for the sad, sad news........in fairness, I did warn you at the beginning - I didn't take a single photo of BoG. I know.

We were exhausted. Seriously exhausted and super hungry (our reservations were for 7:05 - one of the 5 kids even fell asleep at the table) We planned to finish with Wishes, but that flew out the window due both to the time (Wishes was at 8 pm) and the tired kiddos.

The meal, though. The meal was amazing! Fantastic steak. On par with any other I've had elsewhere and paid a similar price. Desserts were to die for and the grey stuff??? It's delicious! If you'd like to try the grey stuff be sure it's your 'birthday.' It was also nice to be able to take photos with the beast at the end of the meal. Although the ordering QS kiosks looked a little out of place in the study/ library.

On our way out of the parks we stopped by Guest Services to upgrade to AP's - yay! Paper, not plastic - boo! But still AP's! Yay!

And that's it for this part of the TR folks! This is the last pic I have for this trip, Merida on the way home with us:

Our flight home left MCO at 9 am, so you know what that means......... a very painful 5:30 am wake up and 6:00 bus ride for this family!

The 6:00 am bus actually ended up being overly full. Don't they take ME reservations just for that reason? So we ended up on more the 6:15/ 6:30 bus, but no worries. We were there in plenty of time for our flight!

Up next: One month later - Flower and Garden!

 

[erstwo]

Your trip is a trip down memory lane for me, the younger DD and the older DS, good times we had just like you guys are having now! Fun report.

Tip: About that photo spot, ours was the WoL X-Ray photo-op when you just walked inside. My DS was 2 when the pavilion opened, some years later we had to hold my then 2 month DD next to the X-Ray Photo-op. We have my son from age 2 to I believe 17 and my DD from 2 months until around 14 when we eeked one last time into the WoL before Disney ended our family timeline. So my advice is pick something you are pretty darn sure Disney will never, ever remove as I am still bitter over those X-Ray Photo-ops untimely demise.

Thank you!
That is a great point about the photo spot. I guess the only true continuous spot would be the Castle. We started with those statues though, so maybe we'll just keep on in the same spot, even if they take out the statues? I would be sad if they took away our 'memory point' though - so sorry that happened to you!

Merida and her hair! I am in love!

I also love your daughter's adventure boots, and the "matching shirts" on EPCOT day!

I know! That hair (in my super quiet voice.....shhhhh.... that wig!) - Super fantabulous. Totally captured the 'spirit' of Merida's onscreen hair.

Thank you so much! Thanks for sticking with the TR!

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

I can't blame your husband for not being able to say no to your daughter. I mean, look at how cute she is! She must play that card to her advantage lol

Ohhhhh, the Dole Whip. How I so could go for one of those right now. We actually have a dairy bar in our city that serves Dole Whip. My sister and I went to get one a couple weeks ago and all they had was the pineapple flavored one. I decided two things that day... 1: I don't like the pineapple flavored DW too much and 2: It's just not the same as eating the Dole Whip float at Disney!!

 

[Bethany M]

At some point during this day, I made a fatal error and allowed my daughter and my husband to be alone together in a gift shop. This was the result:

I mean seriously? "No." is such a simple sentence, but for some reason, my husband just doesn't know how to say it to my daughter.
/quote]


But look at all the cute Big Merida and baby Merida pictures! Sooo cute! Can't wait to read the bonus day!