Trip to the World with a First Timer: Sept. 8-12 Pre-Trip & Trip Report

so exactly two weeks from today i will be arriving in orlando and beginning my vacation in walt disney world! :sohappy:

this trip is more exciting than usual for me because i am going with my best friend from college and former roommate, maggie. we both graduated in 2008 from elon university (woo!). after graduation, i stayed in nc and maggie moved back to her home state of georgia. since graduating we have only seen each other once and that was actually just this past may when she returned to nc to see her brother graduate from elon.

maggie and ashley (that's me) from the glory days of college. ahh...it's only been two years since graduating and i already miss it. good times.

so back in march maggie had mentioned that some of her friends had just returned from a vacation in wdw and they loved it. she has never been and she knows how much i love it so she asked if i would want to go with her and show her the world! ummm...did she really have to ask the question?! :lol: so immediately i kicked it into planning mode and we decided to go in september for value season and low crowds.

first we had to decide where we wanted to stay. maggie and i are both pretty frugal (i hate that word. let's say financially responsible instead) so i thought that maybe the values would be a definite for us. i had also suggested maybe doing a moderate or staying at the wilderness lodge since it is on the lower end price wise out of the deluxes. i was very pleased when maggie said she wanted to do her first trip right and we would splurge and stay at the wilderness lodge! i have never stayed here before so i am very excited to see what it's like. i also suggested that doing the dining plan might be a good idea and maggie was on board! (i love planning for someone who is so open to suggestion!) i figured that there would either be a room discount or free dining coming out after we booked the trip and sure enough, free dining came out for disney visa card holders (that would be me ) and we got free dining. a financially responsible person's dream come true!

since this is maggie's first trip to the world, i decided to make her a "first timers guide to walt disney world" i put together a binder with information including the wdw planning dvd, free park maps, menus for the restaurants we would be eating at/considering eating at, disney trivia, park hours and a pair of minnie mouse ears! on her visit in may, we went over her binder and i showed her some shows i had on the dvr that were in wdw.

so now you know the planning process of how our trip came to be. now, on to the scheduled itinerary!

wednesday september 8th - arrival day
9:10am - i arrive at mco
9:20am - maggie arrives at mco (very nice planning!)
then we board the dme and head to the wl!
once we arrive we will have lunch at roaring fork, check out the room, hang out by the pool (weather permitting), check out the resort, etc.
3:00pm - head over to mk for our first park of the trip
TBD - dinner at a QS location TBD
9:00pm - watch wishes
head back to the resort after wishes

thursday september 9th - epcot and dhs
7:45am - head to epcot
11:30am - lunch at tutto italia for our first table service meal
1:00pm - head back to the wl for time by the pool, to relax, nap, etc.
4:00pm - head to dhs
5:50pm - dinner at sci fi dine in theater for the must see, amazing atmosphere this place has
8:30pm - see fantasmic!
head back to the wl after fantasmic!

friday september 10th - ak and epcot
7:30am - head to ak
TBD - grab breakfast at a QS TBD
1:10pm - head back to wl to get ready for dinner tonight
3:15pm - head to epcot
4:15pm - dinner at le cellier! (i have never been so i am interested to see if it lives up to the hype)
9:00pm - illuminations and then emh begin
12:00am - park closes, head back to the wl

saturday september 11th - dhs and mk
6:50am - head to dhs for morning emh
12:30pm - lunch at a QS TBD
1:30pm - head over to mk
3:00pm - watch the parade
7:00pm - head over to the contemporary for dinner
7:35pm - dinner at the wave
then show maggie the monorail resorts after dinner

sunday september 12th - dtd and departure day
8:30am - head to dtd
TBD - lunch at earl of sandwich
12:00pm - head back to wl then wait for dme to take us back to the airport
5:00pm - ashley departs from mco
5:30pm - maggie departs from mco

i am so excited for this trip and to experience seeing wdw with someone who has never been! i know i need to slow down from my normal pace and let maggie enjoy all the small things that make wdw so wonderful. its crazy, but i actually hope we have some wait times for attractions so she can see all the cool details that go into the queue.

i will be taking a ton of pictures while there and will try to post my trip report shortly after returning. thanks for reading!

 

[mouselvrmom]

More great pictures, Ashley!

I love that Maggie picked all the health and fitness choices on SSE! :lol:

More, more!!! :sohappy:

 

[Fashionista007]

I love your TR! I love that you met blackthidot in a random encounter. And I love the pictures of WL! It looks amazing. Can't wait to read more! I love it all :sohappy:

 

[disneygirl1]

Great report so far Ash! Looks like you girls are having a blast!!!

I just love WL!!! I so want to stay there one day. That was my choice resort for our December trip, but there were no more rooms left with the % off discount code I got, so we opted for AKL instead!

Can't wait to read more!!! And how awesome that you ran into John and Colleen! John is definitely a very cool dude!!! He has be cracking up on facebook daily!! :ROFLOL:

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

More great pictures, Ashley!

I love that Maggie picked all the health and fitness choices on SSE! :lol:

More, more!!! :sohappy:

thanks jenn! :lol: isn't maggie funny about being so healthy that even her choices on sse were healthy ones?!

I love your TR! I love that you met blackthidot in a random encounter. And I love the pictures of WL! It looks amazing. Can't wait to read more! I love it all :sohappy:

thanks! the wl was beautiful so it was pretty easy to get a good picture! i'm glad you're enjoying reading!

Great report so far Ash! Looks like you girls are having a blast!!!

I just love WL!!! I so want to stay there one day. That was my choice resort for our December trip, but there were no more rooms left with the % off discount code I got, so we opted for AKL instead!

Can't wait to read more!!! And how awesome that you ran into John and Colleen! John is definitely a very cool dude!!! He has be cracking up on facebook daily!! :ROFLOL:

thanks! we had a great time! wl is AMAZING! akl looks amazing too though! i might be staying there in december if my family backs out of our december trip. it looks like i will miss you by just a day. darn. it would have been nice to meet another forum member.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

once we got back to the wilderness lodge, maggie wanted to check out the fitness area because she wanted to go running. maggie normally runs every single day, and she told me when we planned our trip that she would want to go running. i told her that she probably wouldn’t since we would be doing so much walking. well, she decided that she wanted to run at least twice during our trip. so today was to be the first day of her running. so once we got off the bus, we went to the wl villas and checked out the fitness center. maggie was impressed and i was impressed with the lobby area at the villas.

now that maggie knew where the fitness center was, we walked back to the room. maggie then went running at the fitness center and i went to sit out on the beach.

i love this sign and i just love humphrey!

when i got back to the room, i saw that mousekeeping had left this little guy in our room earlier and i hadn’t even noticed it!

i sat on the beach for about 30 minutes and called my mom to update her on how the trip was going. it was so hot though out in the sun. i didn’t last very long in the sun and i was sweating like crazy. so i headed back to the room and waited for maggie to get back from running. the plan was to be at the bus stop at 4 but we were ready to go about 15 minutes early so we headed to catch the bus to hollywood studios. we only had to wait about 5 minutes for a bus and we arrived at hollywood studios at 4:12.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

we walked to the tip board to see what the wait times for all the rides looked like. toy story was at about a 110 minute wait (no surprise there) but rock n roller coaster and tower of terror looked had minimal waits. so we made our way over to ride.

tot had a 13 minute wait so we decided to head over to rock n roller coaster first. it said a 30 minute wait but we really only had to walk from the entrance to the preshow area. once we were let into the alley, we came to a stop and they kept sending empty cars through the ride. it was very strange, since there was a pretty long line in the alley. it looked like 2 cars continued to get sent through the ride without any passengers. not sure what was going on there. but it really didn’t take too long for us to ride.

after rnr, we went over to the tower of terror which had been reduced to a 5 minute wait.

both rnr and tot were on maggie’s favorite rides list. she loved the fact of how long the actual rides were. i guess she is used to rides at six flags where they are over in about 2 seconds when you stand in line forever. she really enjoyed all the preshows and the details in every ride. i think that’s what helps make the rides seem longer than they really are.

after tot, we had time for one more ride before our dinner reservation at the sci fi dine in theater. so we made our way over to the great movie ride where i thought we would have plenty of time to ride and then get to dinner on time.

i really hate this queue area because everyone always watches the screen instead of actually walking. it was ridiculous how people would not be paying attention and then also when people will almost run into the person in front of them because they are watching the screen instead of where they are going. so they were having a lot of difficulties loading the ride vehicle in a timely manner. when we were finally loaded, we almost missed getting on because of how long it was taking people to just walk through the doors to where the ride was. but oh well. it’s part of the fun of disney i guess! :lol:

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

after we got off the ride, it was 5:50 and our dinner reservation was at 5:50. oops. i really didn’t think it would have taken so long. so we rushed over to the sci fi and got there at 5:53. once we got there we found out that they were 20 minutes behind schedule so i guess it wasn’t too bad that we got there late or we would have been waiting for a lot longer for a table.

there was a very angry lady with a party of 7 that had been waiting for a long time when we got there. and she was one of those lady’s that kept going up to the host stand and telling them that other people were being seated before them. then the hostess would have to explain that those people had a reservation before the other parties’ time. people are fun. we got seated probably just about 10 minutes after our reservation time and before the angry party of 7.

once we got in the restaurant, i couldn’t help but notice a TON of empty tables. it was kind of ridiculous. i used to be a hostess so i know that you never want to have empty tables when you have a waiting area full of people. maggie and i couldn’t figure out why they were so far behind schedule if they had so many empty tables. and it looked like there were a lot of waiters on duty for the number of tables. then we noticed that a lot of the empty tables hadn’t been cleared yet. maggie thinks that maybe they didn’t have any bus boys that night. not sure if that was it but we were happy to finally be seated!

maggie was starving so we had already decided what we were going to order before we sat down at our table. well, we waited and waited and it was taking forever for our waiter to show up. and that is the most painful thing when someone is starving, so maggie was about to die. finally our waiter came over and we ordered immediately. after we ordered, we then had to wait what seemed like forever to get our food. so while we waited, i just took a bunch of pictures.

our food arrived and we were thrilled to be eating. i ordered the ribs with fries and maggie got the reuben with some kind of black bean salad.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

half of my ribs were great and the other half were so tough i had to tear at them like a rabid dog. :lol: maggie devoured her reuben and she said it was good but that she has had better reubens. she said the black bean salad thing was not good.

we sat in the back of a car with a family of 4 in the front two seats. there was the cutest little girl right in front of me who kept looking at me. she was probably 2 years old. her mom kept apologizing but the little girl couldn’t have been better behaved. she just wanted to see what we were up to. the mom must have apologized at least 3 times during their dinner. it was very nice that she apologized even though her daughter wasn’t bothering us at all. i just thought it was so refreshing to see a parent be so courteous. ok, side not over. back to dinner…

shortly after finishing our entrée, the waiter returned and gave us dessert menus and we immediately ordered our desserts. i knew that if we didn’t, we might be there forever. so i got the apple crumble :slurp: and maggie ordered the sugar free brownie. really maggie? a sugar free brownie? she said she thought that it was a brownie she had seen go to another table that looked really good but it turned out that the other table had ordered the brownie on the menu that had sugar.

my dessert was delicious and maggie said hers was okay. she couldn’t figure out how a brownie and ice cream couldn’t have sugar. i said they obviously used something else. what that something is, i don’t know but that’s why i ordered a sugar dessert! :lol: i offered maggie a couple of bites of my dessert and we were done with our meal, with one last picture with some help from the waiter.

after dinner, we had some time before the 10 o’clock fantasmic so we caught muppet vision 3-D, walked the streets of America and then went to see the voyage of the little mermaid. we were hoping to get to ride tsmm but there was still a 90 minute wait so we decided it could wait until we were back on saturday.

after seeing votlm, it was about 8:25 so we decided to go see what fantasmic was looking like for the 10 o’clock showing. so we walked down and heard that the 8:30 was completely full and people had already begun standing in line for show at 10. yikes! we didn’t really want to stand in line that long so we went to see what the wait times were looking like for rnr and tot. rnr had about a 45 minute wait which would be too long if we wanted good seats for fantasmic and tot had about a 30 minute wait. again, i just couldn’t be sure that we would be able to get a seat at all if we took too long on the rides. so we bit the bullet and got in line.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

ugh. i cannot tell you how much i hate waiting in these types of lines! it was awful. everyone was hot and sweaty and of course the one person to our left was saving a spot for the 20 other people in her family. so when those 20 said people plus a couple strollers try to make their way through the crowd to join their family, they all look so puzzled at how there isn’t any room for them. :brick: of course all of you won’t be able to fit in the same space that one single person was standing in! ugh! drives me crazy!

so they finally started to let us walk up a little bit farther in the line. and then we had to wait again until the 8:30 crowd exited. and it felt like it took forever for them to get out of there! it was so frustrating with all the people who tried to join other members of their party in line. there was no room for people to walk through the crowd and yet they pushed their way through anyway. and did i mention it was hot?! people were sweaty and smelly all around us. maggie and i thought we were going to die. :lol: and i am so short that i wasn’t getting any breeze. at least maggie is tall and was getting a breeze! oh man.

well finally they let us all the way in to the theater and our time spent waiting really paid off. we got a seat in the mickey section, right in the center of the theater. i was so happy that we got good seats since maggie had never seen it. and we made sure that we kept space in between us and put our bags on the outside of us so we could have some breathing room.

i really didn’t think the 10 o’clock showing would be so crowded! but man was i wrong!

the show finally started and it was great. maggie really liked it. here are a couple pictures to give you an idea of where we were sitting. this is another show where i always try to take pictures and they always turn out terrible.

after fantasmic, we hung around until almost everyone had left the stadium. i just don’t see the point in fighting the crowds to leave the park to then wait in line for a bus. so we waited to leave and then once we did, we just hung around taking pictures, and going in and out of the shops.

i saw this window display on the way out of the park and i just love it.

we left the park a little before 11 and made our way to the bus stop. once we got there, there was no one else in line. it was crazy. every other bus stop was packed with people but the wilderness lodge line was empty. it was quite nice. we only waited about 3 minutes for a bus and were back to the resort by 11:24pm. we got a quick refill of soda and were in bed a little after midnight.

tomorrow we would be going to animal kingdom and back to epcot! and it was my first time eating at le cellier!

 

[jhoff3405]

Great report, great pictures! After reading through your report, I am sold on trying to go in September. My family and I have only been in the summer and during Christmas break as I work in a school, and needless to say have not ever seen a "short" line.

Love the lodge, it is on my list to stay at.

 

[tiaragirl]

It's beyond me why they don't start showing Fantasmic! more regularly. When people need to waste an hour and a half of their day waiting in LINE for a nighttime show, there is obviously a problem. We ran into this in August. Who wants to spend an that much time in a line at DISNEY? Think of all the things you could DO with that two hours.

/end rant.

You guys look like you're having a great time! I went on my last Disney trip with a 'Maggie'. Oh Laur, only you would run when we are on a cruise in the Bahamas.

 

[disneygirl1]

^^^ I totally agree I get so annoyed by the irregularity that Fantasmic is show too!!! I swear for the last few times I been there it was shown once the entire time we were there!!!

Ans Ash, what are your dates for December??? We leave around diner time on 12/11.

 

[diddy_mouse]

I LOVE your pictures of the WL! My DH and I stayed there in Dec of '07 and we had a first floor room near the Mercantile shop. It made it very easy to catch a bus in the morning, definitely a *poof* you're there type of moment. :lol: And we are sooooo staying there again!

It is so nice to experience WDW with a first-timer let alone your best friend. My husband was a first-timer back in '04 and I was trying so hard not to overwhelm him. I really liked how you put together a binder of WDW related goodness for Maggie. Very nice touch and a great way to usher someone down the WDW path.

Can't wait to read more!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Great report, great pictures! After reading through your report, I am sold on trying to go in September. My family and I have only been in the summer and during Christmas break as I work in a school, and needless to say have not ever seen a "short" line.

Love the lodge, it is on my list to stay at.

thanks so much for reading! september is a great time to go with really little wait times. it is really hot though but you are probably used to that if you go in the summer! i can't say it enough. the wilderness lodge is great!

It's beyond me why they don't start showing Fantasmic! more regularly. When people need to waste an hour and a half of their day waiting in LINE for a nighttime show, there is obviously a problem. We ran into this in August. Who wants to spend an that much time in a line at DISNEY? Think of all the things you could DO with that two hours.

/end rant.

You guys look like you're having a great time! I went on my last Disney trip with a 'Maggie'. Oh Laur, only you would run when we are on a cruise in the Bahamas.

i know really! i don't understand the fantasmic thing either! why only 2 shows when it is obviously so popular?!

we really did have a great time. and its funny that you also had a fitness nut on your trip! they sure make you feel like a slacker :lol:

^^^ I totally agree I get so annoyed by the irregularity that Fantasmic is show too!!! I swear for the last few times I been there it was shown once the entire time we were there!!!

Ans Ash, what are your dates for December??? We leave around diner time on 12/11.

i love fantasmic and it is so sad that sometimes i can't see it because it is simply not being shown.

i will be down there dec. 10th staying at okw with my boyfriend's family. we won't have park tickets for those days but we will probably be going to dtd. let me know what your itinerary looks like for those days. maybe we can meet up!

I LOVE your pictures of the WL! My DH and I stayed there in Dec of '07 and we had a first floor room near the Mercantile shop. It made it very easy to catch a bus in the morning, definitely a *poof* you're there type of moment. :lol: And we are sooooo staying there again!

It is so nice to experience WDW with a first-timer let alone your best friend. My husband was a first-timer back in '04 and I was trying so hard not to overwhelm him. I really liked how you put together a binder of WDW related goodness for Maggie. Very nice touch and a great way to usher someone down the WDW path.

Can't wait to read more!

thanks so much diddy_mouse! the wl was wonderful and our room location was the best! maggie had a great time!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

Day 3: Animal Kingdom and EPCOT

today was to be a long day with an early start. it was our only day at animal kingdom so we had a lot to pack in to a half day. we were up and at the bus stop for the animal kingdom by 7:25. we waited about 30 seconds and our bus arrived. we made quick stops at the poly and the grand floridian and then we arrived at the park at 7:47. a little early for a 9 am opening but i really thought it would take us a lot longer to wait for a bus. oh well. that just meant that we would have plenty of time for pictures and figuring out our game plan for the day.

and you can see that there really weren't many people there.

once some more people started arriving we decided to start a line at the turnstiles and made sure to go to one on the right hand side since we would be going to expedition everest first.

they let us in the park probably about 15 minutes before official park opening and we walked up to the rope. we were standing right behind one of the cast members. and then the opening ceremony began and i was really excited since i had never seen it before.

after the opening ceremony, it was time to walk slowly behind the ropes and make our way over to asia.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

of course as we were walking, a couple of people made their way in front of us. but we were still doing pretty good at not letting a stampede of people pass by us. the sun was pretty blinding behind everest, but it made for some cool pictures.

we finally got up to ee and luckily we were on the left side so we were the 5th and 6th people in line. woo hoo!

maggie loved this ride! she was so shocked when the ride goes backwards. i didn't want to tell her anything about the rides because i wanted her to get the full experience. and i'm really glad i did because she really enjoyed being surprised!

after we rode, we decided to grab a fastpass and then head over to africa to ride the safari.

and check out who we ran into on our way over to africa! king louie!

we arrived in africa and the safari was only a 10 minute wait so we basically walked on. and when we arrived at the loading area, we saw one of our friends from college who is a cast member! she used to work over in the mk so i was shocked that we rain into her in the ak. so we hugged and briefly chatted as we made our way onto the ride. i let maggie sit on the left since i knew that more animals would be on the left side of the car. aren't i such a good friend?! :lol: and we saw a lot of animals out!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

we saw baby giraffes! they were so cute!

after the safari (which was another one of maggie's favorites from the trip) we walked through the pangani forest exploration trail.

after our exploration, we were getting kind of hungry, so we walked over to pizzafari to grab some breakfast.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

once at pizzafari, i got an apple danish, fruit and of course, a diet coke. and i really hate those paper straws. they just taste so awful. but the danish was good! :slurp:

after our quick breakfast, we needed to head over to dinoland usa to catch the first showing of finding nemo the musical. on our way over to dinoland, we decided that we should grab a fastpass for dinosaur before the musical. so we quickly walked over to dinosaur, grabbed our fastpasses and then made it in time to see the musical.

maggie really enjoyed this show. she thought it was weird at first to see the people on stage next to the characters they were playing. it is a little hard to get used to. but she really enjoyed it.

after finding nemo, it was time for us to head back over to asia to use our fast passes for ee. once we got over there, there wasn't any wait time so i knew that something was wrong. the ride had broken down. bummer. we would just have to hope that it would start working again soon before we had to leave the park.

luckily we had gotten those fastpasses for dinosaur, so we headed back to dinoland usa.

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

the wait time was about 30 minutes so it was pretty good that we had gotten fastpasses. i guess since everest was down, everyone was heading to dinosaur. we were the only two people in the fastpass line so we just walked up to the preshow area.

maggie was hilarious on this ride! we were in the front car and maggie kept grabbing my arm throughout the whole ride. and the on ride photo was HILARIOUS! :lol: i knew when the picture was being taken so i made a scared face but maggie's was all real. :ROFLOL: after the ride she was like "i made the worst face for the photo" :lol: i think it was the best face!

after dinosaur, we went over to see the festival of the lion king.

but on our way over i saw that winnie the pooh, tigger and eeyore were out for pictures. maggie had mentioned that tigger was one character she really wanted to see so i knew that we just had to stop. the pictures with pooh and tigger were taken on maggie's camera so i don't have them. but here is the one with eeyore.

once we got to the fotlk, we sat in the lion section. rawr! it was another great live show! you really can't go wrong with such great music!

after the show, we went to see some characters. donald, goofy, chip and dale and minnie all had crazy long lines. we looked at mickey's line, and it was nonexistent. how could mickey not have anyone in line? it was good news for us!

 

[WishIWasAtWDW]

we skipped seeing all the other characters because their lines were just way too long. so we went over to see its tough to be a bug.

had to get a picture of maggie with her glasses on!

i was a little disappointed with ittbab because the hopper animatronic wasn't working. that's kind of a big element of the show to not work. at least the stingers and the bugs exiting the theater effect worked. :lol: maggie screamed at the stingers and was like what was that?! she had also asked me on the bus ride to the park if the bugs in ittbab were real. :lol: i told her they weren't real but she was still a little freaked at the end part.

now it was time if we wanted to try to ride everest one more time or if we should leave. we decided we wanted to ride again and we would just lose some time at the resort later this afternoon. so we walked back to asia to try and ride.

the ride was back up and running so we got to ride. it was cool because it was our first and last ride at ak. neat how it worked out like that. we made our way to the exit and stopped in to shop really quick so i could get my mom a bag that she wanted.

we exited the park and saw a wl bus waiting there. we ran to catch the bus because we really needed to catch it. the bus driver was a cute old guy and told us that we should never run for a bus. it was cute but we really wanted to sit inside with some air conditioning. we waited at the bus stop a little longer than i would have liked, to let more people catch the bus. we made it back to the wl at 1:45.

up next: our evening at epcot and dinner at le cellier!