Wake me up when September Ends: Oct. TR - Friends, Fun, and Disney at Forty!

It's us! Again! September marks the first month that we haven't visited WDW since getting our AP's in April, so we are itching to get back 'home!' Now, someone once posted a whole thread about how people who live far away from WDW manage to get there so often, so I feel I should clarify some things. Not all of those trips were 'once a month.' The reason we were there in June & July was our July 1-5 cruise on the Dream. So in one continuous visit we knocked out 2 months.

When we purchased our AP's we knew for sure that we would be taking 3 trips to WDW in the next 12 months. This October Trip is one of them. This is how my son chose to celebrate his birthday for the last 2 years, and honestly, it's one of those 'twist my arm' type things - we couldn't be more excited to take him to WDW!

I guess I should introduce the cast: Myself, my husband, daughter and son two weekends ago after cheering on our Auburn Tigers to victory:

Now, honestly I probably wouldn't be doing another trip report, but I need some advice from my WDWmagic friends, so I just decided to wrap this all up in one nice package. The thing is, it's Fall Break in our hometown, so TONS of people we know will be at WDW while we are there. We are soooooo excited to spend time with our friends at WDW. I know it's not for everyone, but for us, friends & family make WDW that much better! :sohappy:

More.....

 

[AUPr8Hd]

A great start :sohappy:

War Eagle!

 

[erstwo]

After the show we headed over to see sorcerer Mickey, but the line was too long, so we settled for Frozone and Mr. Incredible instead:

After that, I tried to talk my kiddos into Backlot Tour or The Great Movie ride, but they weren't interested, so we decided to take the boat over to Epcot for dinner.

On our way out we noticed that the flags were at half staff. I wasn't 100% sure why, but I assumed it was for Steve Jobs.

After all, he was the largest Disney stockholder right?

 

[erstwo]

It was one of those evenings when all was right with the world and it was great to be at WDW.

I had to sit inside with the stroller, but mr. big stuff got to enjoy the breeze on the back of the boat:

We went in through the international gateway and headed toward the American pavilion. The crowds at the Food & Wine were minimal and the intoxicated were very few.

 

[erstwo]

The kids wanted chicken nuggets for dinner (surprise, surprise) but I found a new favorite:

Chicken flatbread, where have you been all my (WDW) life?

Yummy apple pie to follow it up:

A little post dinner checkers:

After dinner, nothing would do but Test Track, so off we went. We stopped outside to listen to some guy with a couple of 90's easy listening hits perform at Eat to the Beat:

Test Track said 30 minute wait, but it was more like 5. And that was mostly waiting for Fastpassers to clear.

 

[jhoff3405]

Wow, another trip!!
I need to get myself an AP and follow in your footsteps!

 

[erstwo]

After Test Track, we raced to try to get on SSE, but everything was already closed. MK had closed at 7 for MNSSHP, AK had closed at 6, and DHS was also closed for the night, so we headed to the bus stop to go back to ASMusic.

Still smiling, so it was a great day!

Up next: Here comes the rain!

 

[erstwo]

A great start :sohappy:

War Eagle!

Thank you! War Eagle!!!

Wow, another trip!!
I need to get myself an AP and follow in your footsteps!

Yes, yes you do! It has been/ will be a magical year that's for sure!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Yay, you're back! War Eagle!!

I love your Dd's Mickey shirt! So cute! And your food pictures have officially made me hungry.

 

[erstwo]

Yay, you're back! War Eagle!!

I love your Dd's Mickey shirt! So cute! And your food pictures have officially made me hungry.

We are back! And finally dried out. :lol: War Eagle! Saturday night turned out not as we had planned it - the last time we were at Epcot when Auburn played a football game it was the SEC championship game against South Carolina last December - we were hoping if we were in Epcot Saturday night we would have a winning repeat against Arkansas. But that didn't turn out as planned. :lookaroun :lol:

Thanks so much! I made that shirt last year for a one day visit last October. I was glad it fit her for another trip.

The food pictures kind of drop off after this. Once it started raining, it got much harder to motivate myself to take off my poncho, get out the camera, put the camera back, put my poncho back on.......... you get the idea! Say, that reminds me - what kind of waterproof camera do you have? We bought the Fujifilm one at Target about a month ago and the pictures were so terrible we went back and got a refund. Yours takes great pictures - do you mind sharing which one you have? Thanks so much!

 

[erstwo]

I have time to do the first half of Day 2 - last Friday

We had 8:20 breakfast reservations for 1900 Park Fare this morning. This was my son's birthday trip, so after many trips of mostly counter service, I let him pick out 4 Table Service meals. He picked all character meals and after crunching the numbers I determined that we would be much better off using the Dining Plan than paying out of pocket, so we added the Dining Plan onto our room only reservation. I am so thankful they allow AP holders to do this!

Despite our relatively early bedtime (for me, not the kids - the kids are used to more like 10 to 12 hours of sleep a night), that 6:30 alarm was not all that welcome. I got up, showered, got ready, got the kids up and ready in 50 minutes flat. Not too shabby. We were out the door by 7:20, which had me a little worried because I knew we were pushing it time wise.

Isn't that first morning at Disney just magical??? The whole trip awaits you and I just can't wait to dive right in.....

 

[erstwo]

I know the sky looks so dark in this one, but I have about 1 million pictures of Disney light fixtures. Maybe it's the family involvement in the construction industry, or the closet interior decorator in me, but I am fascinated and overwhelmed at the thought of how much goes into every. single. light at Disney. All the styles, all the maintenance, all the selections! I can't imagine making all those design choices. And who keeps up with the light bulbs??? Gah.

Right as we exited the building we saw the most dreaded of all Disney sights............. the bus we wanted to board (the MK bus) pulling away....... NOOOOOOOOOO............we started jogging, but it was no use. The driver seemed determined to leave us behind........... Curse you early morning pictures!

Luckily for us, there was a man right behind us who was headed to MK too. He ran right past us with his son, waving his arms, until he was parallel with the bus doors on the sidewalk. The driver stopped! And let us all on! :sohappy:

I tried to thank him, but he didn't speak English. But thank you nice man! Including us, the bus only had 7 people on it. We headed straight for MK.

On our entire trip, we only once stopped at another All Star Resort. There was no other 'sharing' busses on this trip.

We exited the bus at MK and jogged straight to the monorail:

Now, I am no photographer. And I have no plans to improve drastically any time soon - it's too far down on the list, but I do always keep a fixed lens on my camera for pictures of my kids. It is very limiting to have a fixed lens, but it doesn't bother me, because every once in a while I get a capture that I just love. This is probably my favorite from this whole trip:

 

[PartOfYourWorld]

I'm in great report so far!!! :wave:

I love the Lady plush your daughter got. I actually saw that when I was there two weeks ago and felt how soft she was, your daughter has good taste in plush!

 

[erstwo]

We checked into 1900 Park Fare right at 8:20 - whew! If we had missed that bus we would have been late for sure. I can't stand to be late!

We skipped the photo package photo and went straight in to eat. We had a great table. Pooh was there before we even had time to order our drinks!

And then after ordering drinks, Tigger came by to visit:

I don't know what those pecan-y things are, but I could have eaten 5 of them.

Miss Mary came by to discuss our manners:

This picture cracks me up, because my son wants to have a picture with every character, but any character he deems too 'girly' he pretends/ acts like he was 'forced' to take a picture with them:

We had a tea party, just before.....

The Mad Hatter paid us a visit...

 

[erstwo]

The parks were waiting, so we paid our bill and off we went!

Going to the Grand Floridian, and we're gonna get married...... doesn't have the same ring to it, but what a GLORIOUS day for a wedding at WDW! Isn't she lovely?

We monorailed to the MK and made our way down Main Street. We had royalty to meet and we had dressed just for the occasion:

Next up we took a turn toward Adventureland and decided on a wild ride through the jungle! It was a whole 5 minute wait:

Our skipper was hysterical. No. Really. I actually laughed AND I could HEAR the whole thing! Hallelujah - speakers that work/ have appropriate volume. It was so good I took a video - first time ever on the Jungle Cruise.

 

[erstwo]

We headed further into Adventureland towards Pirates:

But it was closed.

But there was Pirate Goofy! (Could there have been a connection between Goofy being nearby and the ride being closed??? :lookaroun Hmmmm..... )

 

[erstwo]

We steered toward Frontierland, but Little Miss Can't Be Wrong has never liked BTMRR, and ever since they installed the lapbars on Splash (thereby lowering the 'log level'/ viewing ability above the log she hasn't enjoyed Splash. (She can now see the drop, whereas before the log in front of her was so high, she really didn't see most of it.) So, I promised my son we would return later with my husband in tow and we took a right and headed toward Liberty Square.

Along the way we saw Donald. My kids were in a character mood, so we got in line...

I tried to capture my avatar only in Haunted Mansion form - thought it might be cool, but someone put their hat in my photo. Bummer. I still like it though!

So. In all of my trips to WDW in the last 3 years, I haven't seen the Hall of Presidents. Not once since 1995. It was time to take care of this. The sky was looking a little ominous, so we pulled out the first poncho of the trip and covered the stroller before entering for the next HoP show.

 

[erstwo]

I can't remember the exact order of what came next. At some point it came a torrential downpour. I think that on our way out of Hall of Presidents it was drizzling and we walked toward Fantasyland. The kids wanted to ride Haunted Mansion. I know that as we approached HM, it started to rain so hard, we had to take shelter under that little porch area next to the HM gift merchandise cart at the exit to HM.

We stood under the porch and put on our ponchos and covered the stroller. We parked the stroller in HM stroller parking and headed under the HM covered entryway. I had to ask if HM was even open. There were so many people - not moving - crowded under the awning, I thought it might be closed. But no, they were all just waiting/ hoping for the rain to pass, so we ran right up to the entrance and rode.

Then we made our way through Fantasyland. But PPF was a long line (as usual) and no one wanted to ride IASW. We watched Philharmagic

and it was STILL raining when we exited. Boo. We rushed over to the Carousel and rode:

My daughter nearly died when I gave her pre-chosen 'pink' horse to another little girl who was eyeing it. I figure she's been on that carousel more times in 3 years than most people will ride in their lifetime, but she was in no mood to share, and cried the whole ride so I knew it was time to exit the park and head back to the hotel for a nice long nap. My husband was arriving this afternoon. We had planned to meet up at a park, but I figured meeting up at the hotel would be even better.

There was a break in the rain anyway.

 

[erstwo]

I had to make good on my promise to buy my daughter and autograph book, so we stopped by Castle Couture on our way out.

It stared to rain again while we were in there and the kids were saying they were hungry (another trigger for my kids) so we stopped for some snacks at the popcorn cart at the hub, but decided to eat them in the bakery where we could be nice and dry.

Please exit through the awesome gift shop-

It was still drizzling, but the citizens of Main Street were out!

And then we were off to All Star Music! Up next..... walk up dinner at Chef Mickeys? Can we get in? During free dining? Are we crazy or what?

 

[erstwo]

I'm in great report so far!!! :wave:

I love the Lady plush your daughter got. I actually saw that when I was there two weeks ago and felt how soft she was, your daughter has good taste in plush!

Glad you are here! :wave: Thanks so much!

I love the Lady plush too.


****
If all goes as planned I'll get the rest of day 2 up tonight! And the onto the deluge of rain that was this past weekend in Orlando.

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We are back! And finally dried out. :lol: War Eagle! Saturday night turned out not as we had planned it - the last time we were at Epcot when Auburn played a football game it was the SEC championship game against South Carolina last December - we were hoping if we were in Epcot Saturday night we would have a winning repeat against Arkansas. But that didn't turn out as planned. :lookaroun :lol:

No it didn't!:lol: There was a little bit of yelling at our house.

Thanks so much! I made that shirt last year for a one day visit last October. I was glad it fit her for another trip.

You made it! Awesome!

The food pictures kind of drop off after this. Once it started raining, it got much harder to motivate myself to take off my poncho, get out the camera, put the camera back, put my poncho back on.......... you get the idea! Say, that reminds me - what kind of waterproof camera do you have? We bought the Fujifilm one at Target about a month ago and the pictures were so terrible we went back and got a refund. Yours takes great pictures - do you mind sharing which one you have? Thanks so much!

I totally understand that! I have the Canon 10D. It's been out for a while so I don't know if there's any new ones coming, but I have liked that one.

Right as we exited the building we saw the most dreaded of all Disney sights............. the bus we wanted to board (the MK bus) pulling away....... NOOOOOOOOOO............we started jogging, but it was no use. The driver seemed determined to leave us behind........... Curse you early morning pictures!

That is the most dreaded of all Disney sights!!:lol: You are so right!

Now, I am no photographer. And I have no plans to improve drastically any time soon - it's too far down on the list, but I do always keep a fixed lens on my camera for pictures of my kids. It is very limiting to have a fixed lens, but it doesn't bother me, because every once in a while I get a capture that I just love. This is probably my favorite from this whole trip:

That is absolutely gorgeous! I love it!