TwoTigersMom's Picture Packed Trip Report!

Our vacation began on Wednesday November 26th. Our Elves, Crispin and Fisher, arrived that morning, just in time to go with us!

We left home that afternoon and headed to Atmore, AL. My MIL decided that we should go to the Poarch Creek Indian Thanksgiving Pow Wow instead of her house for Thanksgiving this year. It was actually a lot of fun. It was very interesting to watch the dancing and learn more about their culture.

The boys, Hagan (7) and Austin (3), had a blast. They had an area with some games and other fun things for the kids to do too. Here we’re trying some stretching exercises so he’ll be tall enough for Rockin’ Roller Coaster

Austin was flying high…

Hagan wasn’t truly happy until he caught a greased pig, but what kind of country boy would he be if he hadn’t??

On Friday morning, we headed on down to Orlando. We arrived at Gaylord Palms about 6pm and didn’t leave the resort once until we checked out on Sunday around 10am! That place is absolutely amazing!

 

[TwoTigersMom]

They were having their Holiday Gnome Hunt so we just had to find all of them. There were supposedly 20, but we found 23. Here’s some of our favorites..

Saturday morning, we went to see ICE! Amazing is all I can say…

The boys LOVED the slide!

 

[TwoTigersMom]

Even the big one..

Saturday evening Hagan and I ran to the main atrium, while Kevin (DH) and Austin took a nap. We watched the alligator feeding.

On Sunday morning, we checked out and loaded back into the car for the looong drive across I-4 to Saratoga Springs. When I got out of the car to go check in I realized that our electric running boards weren’t working. We got to spend the whole week climbing in and out of the tank with no running boards, what fun!

As soon as we got checked in we went to Animal Kingdom. We stopped to talk to the folks holding the tarantulas when you first go through the gates. Hagan informed us all that the tarantulas have bald spots on their butts because they kick the hairs off with their legs to deter predators. Leave it to Copperhead Hagan to know this :lol: Then we headed to Dinosaur. Austin has been talking about riding this for 2 years! He just hit 40 inches and wanted it to be his first “Big Boy” ride. He loved it! When we got off the ride it was pouring. We pulled out our ponchos and took off to the car. We unpacked and relaxed a bit then went to our ADR at Flying Fish. This is always a must do, the first night of every trip.

Monday was another AK day, thank goodness since were rained out the first day. We started off with a nice morning safari then breakfast with Donald.

Austin had to stop to smell the roses…

We had a lot of fun at Conservation Station, where Hagan told anyone and everyone about his Save The Frogs article he wrote for the paper.

I just loved this guy!

Tuesday was Magic Kingdom day. We made an early morning stop at Chef Mickey’s for breakfast.

Austin needed a lil Minnie sugar

 

[TwoTigersMom]

At Magic Kingdom I can’t remember what order we did what, but at some point we went to Tom Sawyer’s Island to play for a bit.

We watched the Pirate Tutorial

We rode BTMRR and Splash Mountain a couple of times. Then we went to Tomorrow Land and rode Buzz a bazillionty times. Austin and I waited for Kevin & Hagan to ride Space Mountain. We decided to ride the TTA while we waited. We got back over to SM and they weren’t done yet. About an hour later, they finally come out. The ride had gone 101 while they were on it and then they got fast passes for 2 more times! Lucky ducks!

Wednesday morning was breakfast with Stitch!

Austin fussed at him for spitting on us the day before in Stitch’s Escape, so he spit on Austin again!

Lilo went to hug Hagan, but he informed her that he doesn’t like girls! She wasn’t too happy…

Pirate practice..

We walked around Poly for a bit, checking out all the ginger bread houses. We especially loved this guy

We went o DHS and straight to TOT. Austin has been harassing Hagan for almost 2 years and calling him a chicken because he hated the ride. Austin swore up and down that as soon as he was tall enough, he would ride it and really show Hagan what a chicken he was! Well, all was fine through the line, onto the elevator and even throughout the ride. The yelling came when he saw that the woman in front of him had held her arms up and you couldn’t see him in the picture at all. They gave us a fast pass to ride again and Austin started yelling! He didn’t want to ride again because “it hurt his feelings”. After, bribery with ice cream, cookies and candy, we got him on once more. Of course, throughout all this, Hagan couldn’t let his brother show him up and in the process decided he actually LOVES TOT!. He even held his hands up on it.

Next up was Hagan’s first ride on Rockin’ Roller Coaster.

While we were in line, I asked him if he realized that it goes upside down. He said “Oh yea, I know that”. I asked him how he knew and he said “Stacy told me on TV” :lol: He loved it and rode it several times.

By then it was time for lunch at Prime Time Café. We sent Kevin off to get fast passes for Toy Story Mania. I had no clue that by noon the fast passes would be for 8pm at night!

Lunch was delicious and we had a great “Cousin” who served us. She gave Kevin a hard time for whining. Now, let me say, I don’t do greens. I absolutely HATE greens, but I love their fried chicken. So I decided to risk it. I thought I’d be sneaky. I hid a little in some leftover salad and stuffed a bit under my leftover mashed potatoes. There was still too much left on my plate. After she got our desert order, she brought out my desert. My greens covered in whipped cream!

 

[TwoTigersMom]

I actually got off lucky. She was spoon feeding the folks next to us doing the “Choo Choo” and the airplane!

Osborne Lights were absolutely awesome!

That night, dinner was at

After dinner the kids were plain p00ped

We started off Thursday morning with a yummy breakfast with Pooh & Friends.
“Piglet did you forget deodorant?”

We went back to Buzz after that and rode a couple more times then again on Space Mountain. After that we headed to Toon Town where I got to finally meet Elizabeth (PinkRose)! Crazy how we live in the same state, maybe 2 and half hours apart and we have to meet in Orlando.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing Fantasyland and just hanging out. That evening, we took the boat to DTD to meet up with some great friends at

It was so much fun to meet everyone!

I think Dave (ClemsonTigger) spent most of the night in fear that I might spill this on him.

I would never abuse alcohol (especially a watermelon martini) by spilling it!

I think we pretty much closed the place down. We had a nice stroll back to SSR with Pumbas Nakasak and his better half.

 

[TwoTigersMom]

After a very late night, we had early morning plans at Epcot on Friday. We started with breakfast at Cape May.

We had a blast that day at Epcot. So much fun, I never even took my camera out! As we were walking in past SSE, there they were…. The Dream Team! I was sooo excited because they didn’t have boxes of Ears or anything with them, so when they stopped me and the boys to talk to us, I just knew we had just won something great! They asked me a lot of little chit chat questions and one played football with the boys for a bit. Then the one talking to me reached in his messenger bag and started digging around for something! Out came our prize! Stickers for the boys :lol: After that we rode Test Track a couple times then Soarin. Then it was time for our lunch at Le Cellier with Dave. We had a great time with him and a delicious lunch then we parted ways. Kevin, the boys and I went to International Gateway to the Team Possible location and picked up our phone and got our mission. A CM had asked us if we’d like to do it, while talking to a CM (also a member here and sorry I just can’t remember your name!) at Test Track. The game was a lot of fun. Hagan was really into it, Austin was at first too, but lost interest well before it was over. As we were leaving to go back to the room, we ran into Epcot.nut, e4ymod, Tiggerific418 and NemoRocks! I’m so glad we got to see them!

Saturday was supposed to be another Epcot day. However, I think my family would have committed mutiny if I had made them go. We went to DHS again for some fast pass time on TSM instead. I think we rode it about 8 or 9 times :lol: After that Hagan and I rode RnRC a couple more times. When we came out, there was Dave, he walked us out so we could say “goodbye”.

Austin wasn’t quite tall enough for RnRC yet…

He wasn’t to happy about that…

We walked back to the Yacht Club to have lunch at Captain’s Grille. After lunch Austin was tired and started crying about one thing or another…

Then he saw the server coming with dessert

After a little horseplay on the boardwalk

 

[TwoTigersMom]

It was time to go fishing!

Hagan ended up catching 8 large mouth bass

Austin caught 4, but spent more quality time with his…

That night we went to Citricos for dinner. It was delicious! The boys were getting tired and after Hagan finished his meal he passed out, so we got his dessert to go.

Austin on the other hand, said “I’m eating MY dessert!” and he did. He almost passed out holding his spoon with the last bite of ice cream

On Sunday, we finished packing up and went over to the DVC office to see Audrey. We came out with points at Bay Lake Towers! After we left there, we stopped by DTD. Kevin and the boys napped in the car while I did a little Christmas shopping. When I was done, I brought lunch out to the car and we began our journey home.

Oh remember our running board trouble? Well, Monday morning I dropped the car off to have them fixed. Kevin picked me up and he wanted to go look at a new car. While we were at the other car lot, the salesman said he’d need to see our car to give us a price. Kevin told him about the running boards and the guys said “Did you try pushing the button?” to which Kevin replied “What button?” We went back to our car and they were ordering a module for it. We pushed the button that we didn’t know existed (neither did the dealership we were at) and out pops the running boards! Evidently, during one of Kevin’s “gotta play with all the buttons” moments, he had turned them off! :lol:

I hope you guys enjoyed my report! If you want to see more pictures…. http://twotigersmom.smugmug.com/gallery/6701446_HyqeS#P-1-15

 

[Disney_Belle]

Looks like you guys had a great time!!!

You're pictures are adorable...

I love the shirt "Jingle Bells, all girls smell" ... lol lets see if he thinks that in 10 years haha.


Good to see you had a great time!!!

 

[disney4life2008]

What kind of camera do you have? Your night pictures are PHENOMENAL!!! Any tips?

 

[TwoTigersMom]

Looks like you guys had a great time!!!

You're pictures are adorable...

I love the shirt "Jingle Bells, all girls smell" ... lol lets see if he thinks that in 10 years haha.


Good to see you had a great time!!!

He loved that one too and got a lot of CM interaction with it :lol:

What kind of camera do you have? Your night pictures are PHENOMENAL!!! Any tips?

:lol: No tips at all, it was 1/4 luck and 3/4 camera. I have a cannon XTi

Thank you both! We did have a great time!

 

[Hakunamatata]

Awesome photos and great report. I cant wait until my boy is old enough to do the fishing excursion with me. Ive done it twice, once on our honeymoone and once with my dad. It is a blast and well worth the price if you love to fish but dont get to much.

 

[TwoTigersMom]

Awesome photos and great report. I cant wait until my boy is old enough to do the fishing excursion with me. Ive done it twice, once on our honeymoone and once with my dad. It is a blast and well worth the price if you love to fish but dont get to much.

It sure is! We've done it twice now and it's great! We don't get to go fishing hardly at all here. When we do, we sure aren't going to catch the number of fish we do there :lol:

 

[yankspy]

Great report. In all my trips to WDW I have never done the fishing excursion. I love to fish. How much is it if you don't mind me asking?

 

[TwoTigersMom]

Great report. In all my trips to WDW I have never done the fishing excursion. I love to fish. How much is it if you don't mind me asking?

We do the one at Cresent Lake. The morning one is $260 + tip and the afternoon one is $230 +tip. In the morning you get to go out onto the lake in Epcot. They don't take you there in the afternoons. It includes up to 5 people and they provide everything including the guide.

 

[tigsmom]

Looks like another fun trip Heidi! And you got to meet up with some of your "make believe" friends. :king:

Have to tell your DH to leave the phone in the room next time though. :zipit:

 

[TwoTigersMom]

Looks like another fun trip Heidi! And you got to meet up with some of your "make believe" friends. :king:

Have to tell your DH to leave the phone in the room next time though. :zipit:

:ROFLOL: That thing is permenately attached to his ear, I think. Actually, I think I used the phone more than he did this trip. He was pretty good and did end up leaving it behind some. Our monitoring company calls his cell if there's an alarm at our house. We had a couple of scares the first few days of the trip. Turned out some motion detectors just needed new batteries, thank goodness. I think he was a little nervous about leaving it after that. However, this was the first trip that, after he went back to work, he didn't yell about how much money the employees had lost him and didn't say the usual "See! This is why I can not go on vacation ever again!". :lol: Of course, I knew this time would be better since my Dad's there now to hold down the fort. :sohappy:

 

[EPCOT Explorer]

Great thread! Looks like y'all had a great time!:sohappy:

 

[pinkrose]

Great trip report and great pictures!!!! It was so nice to finally meet you and your family!

 

[TurboCaroline]

Nice report Heidi! You are so lucky to be able to go so often...I see you are going again in 23 days...:lol:

 

[SpongeScott]

Nice, Heidi. Sorry we didn't get to meet on the 5th, but we'll definitely meet for the half-marathon. The morning of the race, head on over to the vicinity of Tent S to meet the running gang.