Trip Report We were on a (Disney) Break...

Tashifer90 · Feb 3, 2024

Back!Elbow!Shoulders! said:
Tobias is such a cutie! My toddler also loves jam so pancakes and jam sounds like a perfectly normal combo to me.

Sometimes the most random combos just work don't they haha! Just last night he had Thai green curry sauce on his chips

Tashifer90 · Feb 3, 2024

Friday 29th September 2023 - Continued
After spending so much time getting the car seat in we then waited another half an hour to to get out of the car park! We managed to get the express pick up, but apparently this service isn't offered for leaving the car park

We were stationary for a solid half hour and Tobias was struggling because i think by this time it was about... 11pm our time? But only about 5pm stateside.

Hugging our poppet for emotional support.

Once we got the hotel, we checked in and got our room. Tobias was very happy running around the resort and it was so nice to just let him do that as well. So many times being a parent you need to stop them from running into danger but it was really nice to let him off his reigns and run loose in a safe space.

Our room was in the perfect location! We were in the block of rooms just by the boat transfer to disney springs, facing the fountain. We were a minutes walk from the swimming pool and max a few minutes from the lobby. We didnt have any of the noise of being near the pool with the bonus of being really close by. I'll see if I can find out room number as I would 100% recommend this room for any length stay.

Room was lovely as always!

With the Mardi Gras beads!

And don't even get me started on the beauty of the grounds.

Tobias was doing so well to not be mardy despite technically being well up past his bed time.

We showed him the splash pad and his eyes were popping out his head

So powered by pure Disney magic we headed to Sassagoula River floatworks for some food!

We played it safe with Tobias and he just shared some of Tashas tenders, but apparently my chips were better!
I got myself the Korean impossible burger (You will note a trend this holiday of me ordering vegan food. I'm not vegan i just thought it all looked nice and kept ordering it accidentally

)

Totally forgot to get pictures of the food cause we were so tired but wired and excited and nervous we were in a foreign country with just us and our child with no back up and then excited again etc etc.

Tobias took great delight in running round the resort to stop at the water fountains, despite being full to the brim of tenders and fries!

Then we had the easiest bedtime routine ever! He was asleep by 9PM which would be around 2am the following morning UK time, so safe to say we weren't far behind him!

We did minimal prepping for the following day and decided to just rest up and get ready for our first day in the parks!

Tashifer90 · Feb 4, 2024

Saturday 30th September 2023

The day started bright an early at 3am, 4am, 5am and then when Tobias finally woke up at 6am

Jet lag and excitement are a powerful tool to wake up!

We got ready and headed out as fast as possible (with a little bit of unpacking) and headed to quick service for breakfast.

Tobias was ready to go!

Ok 'quickly' might have been a poor choice of words. Me and Adam ran around getting ready and Tobias chilled on the bed eating a croissant

Oh to be a toddler!

Over at the quick service We all got versions of the mickey bounty platter.

We all enjoyed what we had ordered. The tater tots were cooked to perfection and Tobias helped himself to a bunch of ours after he'd eaten his.

The classic Mickey waffle must also have his moment. You just know your in disney when its mickey waffles for breakfast!

We decided to take the pressure off ourselves to have the 'perfect' holiday and set aside some of our expectations/traditions when it came to our plans for the trip.

The first of these was to do away with our tradition of making Magic Kingdom our first park of the trip. Don't get me wrong, there is no better feeling than that first walk down mainstreet USA and seeing the castle. But we decided that we would take the pressure from our first day after such a long travel day and going to MK on one of the busiest days of the week. Our destination for the day Animal Kingdom! We thought the crowds would be fairly quiet by comparison and we knew it would give Tobias several chances to stretch his legs after being sat so long the day before.

Over to the bus station we went and fortunately didn't have to wait too long. Tobias loves all forms of transport so the bus was an exciting ride from him. He spent his time looking out of the window and flirting with the ladies on the seat across whilst sat on Adams lap. I on the otherhand got to look after the stroller.

see if you can find me in the photo

We arrived at Animal Kingdom at around 8.30am. It was our first time using the new bus loop and It's soo much nicer than walking , what felt like, miles to the front of the park.

Once we were through security and into the park we headed over to pandora and saw that Naa'vi river journey was a 25minute wait. We weren't planning on getting genie plus that day so thought it was likely to be the shortest wait for that ride and hopped in line.

we waited more like 15 minutes and Tobias really enjoyed the queue, however, we hadn't figured what it would be like trying to keep an active toddler still and in the same place in line without the use of a stroller. Adam ended up having to pick him up as he was so desperate to run straight through the queue. It certainly made us have a rethink on how we would have to choose what rides to go on for the rest of the holiday if things stayed the same.

The actual ride was fun for all of us. its so peaceful and I just enjoy looking around and taking in the sights as the boat moves. Tobias was amazed by everything glowing around him.

After the ride we headed over to the drums and let Tobias have a go.

he tried to fully climb onto the drum so he could better make some noise. Luckily Adam was on hand to prevent any falls or breakages!

We also took a few moments to capture some family photos in front of the floating rocks.

To Be Continued...

Wicked Sisters · Feb 4, 2024

We absolutely loved our stay at POFQ, we were in block 3 which was wonderful as well. Tobias is so well behaved and adorable.

Tashifer90 · Feb 4, 2024

Saturday 30th September 2023 - Continued

After the mini photo shoot it was time to head off to Kilimanjaro Safaris! Little less of a queue this time so Tobias enjoyed running all the way to the front whilst we tried to keep up behind

and we were off! All super excited to see some animals!

As we set off me and Tasha laughed and reminisced about the last time we brought Tobias on this attraction and it sent him straight off to sleep with the aggressive bouncing and how glad we were he would actually be awake to experiance it now that he was down to one nap a day.

But it would appear that the lure of the super bouncy 4X4 was just too great...

It was 10:20!! We've never had him nap so early!

There was a part of me that had a mild panic and thought that whilst we were on holiday he would go back down to 2 naps a day, but luckily that never really happened.

So me and Tasha enjoyed a very bouncy ride seeing the animals and being in constant amazement that Tobias remained asleep throughout!

We even got very close to a Rhino!

Pretty close right? Rhi Know! I couldn't believe it either!

After the ride was done we picked him up and made the long walk back to the Pram assuming he would wake up on route.

...He did not...

You may also note that I was still adapting to the humidity...

We popped him in his pram and then to Expedition Everest, we found a quiet spot to wait at the top at the Rivers of light viewing area, where there were a couple of tables.

I waited with Tobias and re-hydrated whilst Tasha went and had a go first!

Then it was my turn!

Then it was my turn! It definitely felt awkward single riding having never done it before and the family i was with were only Spanish speaking, i wasn't confident enough to try out some small talk as i was only about 1200 days in with my Duolingo. (I'm literally only doing the 5 mins a day lol

)

One thing i did translate though... The boy behind me definitely did not like the ride! The screams from behind me were definitely clear enough even in Spanish that i could tell he would not be going on that ride again

On my way back to Tasha i accidentally got a little lost and had to take a minor detour via the ice cream vendor, so grabbed my first Mickey Ice cream sandwich

We headed over to Dinosaur as he was still snoozing away and swapped about doing that.

We still went out and did the scary faces though!

I think the lady next door to Tasha may have actually been more frightend of her!

After this we headed over to grab a Drink (Since becoming a parent i had a new found love of coffee) so was eager to try all that Disney had to offer on this. We stopped at a Dino Bites Snacks and I had the Shakin' Jamaican Cold brew (Note it did not actually wake me up, but it did make me shake and gave me palpatations later, so worth noting

) we also grabbed a mickey pretzel. The aroma of this was clearly too much as Tobias immediately woke up and started to steal it!

As you can tell despite our best efforts to keep the pram cool, he was still very warm!

To be continued...

Tashifer90 · Feb 4, 2024

Saturday 30th September 2023 - Continued

Once Tobias had a bit of pretzel onboard we dashed to the Nemo show, as one was about to start in about 5 mins and we managed to get there just in time!

Tobias did enjoy the show, even if it was a little overwhelming for him so soon after his nap (He usually requires cuddling for a good 15 minutes after his nap before he's ready to resume his day, he even makes the ladies at his nursery do the same lol). Tasha really enjoyed how light and entertaining the hsow is. perfect to enjoy and get some air con at the same time.

At least... We think he enjoyed it?

Then it was time for a nappy change, but the family changing room was occupied and had been for a while (we were reliably informed by Mike the washroom attendant who was a super nice guy and very chatty!) So I just quickly dashed into the mens room to change him quickly.

We thought we could get Tobias on Tricertops spin quickly so he had done his 'Thrill' ride of the day as well. He was a big fan of it as we went up and the breeze cooled us down as it was getting very hot at this point! It was about 12:50 so the sun was beating down!

He always lost his belly when we dropped it down, so once we were up, we were up for good!

Because the heat was making us super warm we decided to play it safe and not force Tobias on a bunch of rides on his first day, we grabbed him something a little more substantial on the way back to the bus to keep him going.

You can always rely on an uncrustable! (I actually bought an uncrustable maker for when we were back home and they're still a hit every time he has them)

Once we were back at the hotel Tobias was in his element, stopping by his favorite fountain on the way in.

We ended up with a bunch of these coins when we got home from our holiday as Tobias kept stealing them out the fountain and stashing them whilst we weren't looking!

We popped back into the room and got on our swimming gear and headed to the pool to cool down!

Tobias absolutely loved his time in the pool, but certainly not as much as his time in the splash pad!
It was his first time ever being at one and it't safe to say, splash pads are a hit!

Notice his first bruise on his leg, Literally happened the first step he took out of the hotel room before leaving for breakfast

Only problem with swimming is, the smell of the chlorine masks the smell of other things! So once we got back to the room we realised that Tobias had left us a present

unfortunately the way we realised was because he had been sat on one of the beds and we noticed that the bed was dirty. Tasha had an uncomfortable call with guest services to request full bedding for one of the beds as it had almost gone through all the layers. Guest services were brilliant and mouse keeping were going to come and put the bedding on the bed whilst we were out. Tasha pre stripped the bed and put everything by the door in a way that hopefully the housekeeper wouldn't have to touch any of the dirty parts of the bedding. We felt terrible that we couldn't sort it all ourselves but I guess that they are used to these kinds of things happening.

We decided to head out for tea and try and do some shopping for essentials at Wal-Mart so that we could have some snacks and drinks for in the room.

We grabbed some cereal, snacks and some fruit to keep in for Tobias. Also managed to get some of this snack mix that Walmart seem to do and i always try and grab a couple of them every time, they are super yummy! We don't get these kinds of snack mixes in the UK. its only been the last couple of years these kinds of things pop up at christmas time expect they are quite expensive for what you are getting.

Tobias also took a liking to these as well of course!

After we had grabbed these we went to the Millers nearby (off the 192). We had heard that this one wasn't as good as the one down I-Drive but we were hungry so we went anyways!

To be honest, i could not fault the place. Food was absolutely fantastic and the staff were even more so

We got the potstickers to share and they came out with the mains

I ordered my usual favorite the Mahi Tacos.

Pan-seared Mahi, Monterey Jack and cheddar cheeses, shredded cabbage, pico de gallo, garlic-lime crema, grilled flour tortillas, served with black beans. The Garlic-lime Crema is AMAZING!

Photo limit reached! To be continued...

Tashifer90 · Feb 4, 2024

Saturday 30th September 2023 - Continued

Tasha went for the Chicken parm alfredo

That isn't how it came out, she had already started tucking in before i got the photo

I can't blame her, it looked delicious!

Then Tobias opted for beef burger!

The kids portion sizes were unreal, this kid never went hungry the entire time we were there! He didn't quite get the hang of eating the burger, so he mostly ate the chips (He's better at this now though lol)

Then it was back to the hotel for bedtime! It was Tasha's turn for putting him to bed, so i enjoyed a walk around following the route we took after we got dropped off on our wedding night taking in the sites of french quarter.

After a while of strolling around, i got the text confirming it was all clear to come back to the room as Tobias was fast asleep.

Tobias didnt really sleep with a teddy at this time, his favorite thing to sleep with was his hot wheel cars, Me and Tasha frequently refer to them as his 'Emotional support cars' which actually proved very useful when we weaned him off his dummy a couple of months ago!

Once i snuck back in the room i climbed into bed and we were all our for the count by 8:30 pm!

Tashifer90 · Feb 4, 2024

Wicked Sisters said:
We absolutely loved our stay at POFQ, we were in block 3 which was wonderful as well. Tobias is so well behaved and adorable.

We loved it too! It was ideal having the Park, splash pad etc all in such close proximity. It might not be the biggest hotel, but if anything that actually made it better? That way we weren't having to walk for ages to get to the hospitality area. We would definitely go back again!

Oh Tobias knows how to seem like he's well behaved. But don't let the curls fool you! He's a sneaky one when he wants to be! haha!

k8einwdw · Feb 5, 2024

Tashifer90 said:
Tobias didnt really sleep with a teddy at this time, his favorite thing to sleep with was his hot wheel cars, Me and Tasha frequently refer to them as his 'Emotional support cars' which actually proved very useful when we weaned him off his dummy a couple of months ago!

This is hilarious!

donaldtoo · Feb 7, 2024

Tashifer90 said:
Saturday 30th September 2023 - Continued

Once we were back at the hotel Tobias was in his element, stopping by his favorite fountain on the way in.
View attachment 766816
We ended up with a bunch of these coins when we got home from our holiday as Tobias kept stealing them out the fountain and stashing them whilst we weren't looking!

I first read this as… “Once we were back at ‘The Hotel Tobias’…”
And then I thought… “His favorite fountain was why he was able to build ‘The Hotel Tobias’…!!!!!” :hilarious:

Minnie1986 · Feb 7, 2024

Tashifer90 said:
Helloo Everyone!

As our trip report title suggests after our last trip report in Sep 2022 we were most definitely NOT going to be visiting WDW for the foreseeable future.

We were determined!

And we failed

We lasted until June when we used some disney maths to figure it would be 'cheaper' for us to return to disney this year rather than a 2024 trip. I'm not going to lie to you, i dont remember the math and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't stand up to scrutiny but who cares! We had our next magical trip booked and we were the happiest people in the world.

If you've read one of our trip reports before welcome back! We can't wait to share our time with you all

If you are new here we are Tash, Adam and our toddler Tobias.

View attachment 766308

Tobias was 2 and a quarter years old at the time of the trip (yes hes a big boy!)

The time of the trip was 2 weeks from the 30th of September. We LOVE spooky season at disney although travelling with a toddler (and no babysitters) prevented us from doing all of the night time spooky events we would usually do.

Also yes it's taken us this long to have some free time to write our trip report. The tail end of 2023 was full of sickness in our house and we're finally on the up!

The aim of the trip was just to enjoy disney from a chilled perspective and go with the flow. We've learnt that trips to disney with a toddler go by their schedule and you best be prepared for all your plans to change last minute.

Our home from home this trip was Port Orleans French Quarter. It holds a special place in our hearts in that its the hotel we stayed in for our wedding in disney in 2019. We couldn't wait to return as a family of three and enjoy everything the hotel had to offer.

So sit back and enjoy our trip (keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times). We hope you enjoy it as much as we will reliving it!

Following!

Minnie1986 · Feb 7, 2024

Tashifer90 said:
Saturday 30th September 2023

The day started bright an early at 3am, 4am, 5am and then when Tobias finally woke up at 6am

Jet lag and excitement are a powerful tool to wake up!

We got ready and headed out as fast as possible (with a little bit of unpacking) and headed to quick service for breakfast.

Tobias was ready to go!
View attachment 766765

Ok 'quickly' might have been a poor choice of words. Me and Adam ran around getting ready and Tobias chilled on the bed eating a croissant

View attachment 766766

Oh to be a toddler!

Over at the quick service We all got versions of the mickey bounty platter.

View attachment 766768
We all enjoyed what we had ordered. The tater tots were cooked to perfection and Tobias helped himself to a bunch of ours after he'd eaten his.

View attachment 766769
The classic Mickey waffle must also have his moment. You just know your in disney when its mickey waffles for breakfast!

We decided to take the pressure off ourselves to have the 'perfect' holiday and set aside some of our expectations/traditions when it came to our plans for the trip.

The first of these was to do away with our tradition of making Magic Kingdom our first park of the trip. Don't get me wrong, there is no better feeling than that first walk down mainstreet USA and seeing the castle. But we decided that we would take the pressure from our first day after such a long travel day and going to MK on one of the busiest days of the week. Our destination for the day Animal Kingdom! We thought the crowds would be fairly quiet by comparison and we knew it would give Tobias several chances to stretch his legs after being sat so long the day before.

Over to the bus station we went and fortunately didn't have to wait too long. Tobias loves all forms of transport so the bus was an exciting ride from him. He spent his time looking out of the window and flirting with the ladies on the seat across whilst sat on Adams lap. I on the otherhand got to look after the stroller.
View attachment 766770
see if you can find me in the photo

We arrived at Animal Kingdom at around 8.30am. It was our first time using the new bus loop and It's soo much nicer than walking , what felt like, miles to the front of the park.

Once we were through security and into the park we headed over to pandora and saw that Naa'vi river journey was a 25minute wait. We weren't planning on getting genie plus that day so thought it was likely to be the shortest wait for that ride and hopped in line.

View attachment 766771

we waited more like 15 minutes and Tobias really enjoyed the queue, however, we hadn't figured what it would be like trying to keep an active toddler still and in the same place in line without the use of a stroller. Adam ended up having to pick him up as he was so desperate to run straight through the queue. It certainly made us have a rethink on how we would have to choose what rides to go on for the rest of the holiday if things stayed the same.

The actual ride was fun for all of us. its so peaceful and I just enjoy looking around and taking in the sights as the boat moves. Tobias was amazed by everything glowing around him.

After the ride we headed over to the drums and let Tobias have a go.

View attachment 766772
he tried to fully climb onto the drum so he could better make some noise. Luckily Adam was on hand to prevent any falls or breakages!

We also took a few moments to capture some family photos in front of the floating rocks.

View attachment 766773

View attachment 766776

To Be Continued...

Tobias is absolutely adorable!

lindawdw · Feb 7, 2024

Wonderful TR so far! Glad Tobias enjoyed the flight, and it all went so smoothly for you! Port Orleans is such a nice resort. It sounds like you had a fun day at AK which was such a great park choice after your travel day! Tobias is so adorable.

Tashifer90 · Feb 7, 2024

donaldtoo said:
I first read this as… “Once we were back at ‘The Hotel Tobias’…”
And then I thought… “His favorite fountain was why he was able to build ‘The Hotel Tobias’…!!!!!”

Hahaha!! Everyone would be welcome at Hotel Tobias!

There would free snacks for all and a never ending splash pad

Tashifer90 · Feb 7, 2024

lindawdw said:
Wonderful TR so far! Glad Tobias enjoyed the flight, and it all went so smoothly for you! Port Orleans is such a nice resort. It sounds like you had a fun day at AK which was such a great park choice after your travel day! Tobias is so adorable.

We were hesitant to break tradition, but it worked out very well we think! Port Orleans was so perfect for us! It was just the right amount of busy! And plenty of room for him to run amok

donaldtoo · Feb 7, 2024

Tashifer90 said:
Hahaha!! Everyone would be welcome at Hotel Tobias! There would free snacks for all and a never ending splash pad

Oh my, I see a hotel magnate in y’all’s future…!!!!! :hilarious:

Tashifer90 · Feb 8, 2024

donaldtoo said:
Oh my, I see a hotel magnate in y’all’s future…!!!!!

I better get trademarking then! haha!

Tashifer90 · Feb 8, 2024

Sunday 1st October 2023

Tasha was awake by 05:40 whilst me and Tobias dozed for a bit whilst she got herself ready.

Tobias quickly adopted his new routine of sitting in bet eating fruit loops whilst me and Tasha ran around getting ready, doing Genie + and our virtual queues

...We forgot to buy bowls when we went to Walmart so the stacking cups got repurposed!

We definitely felt more in sync this morning and 'ready' for the magic at the Kingdom, we were all showered, dressed and on the bus by 07:50!

I made the mistake of putting it on portrait and ruining an amazing shot of the castle!

So i had to make up for it

Beautiful skies! At least for now.

There was low queue times everywhere today as bad weather was forecast for the afternoon so we were going to make the most of it whilst we could!

We broke from tradition again, foregoing our usual first ride on Magic Kingdom being Jungle Cruise and took Tobias straight to Peter Pan as we were eager to watch him enjoy the ride

Believe it or not, but this is the best photo we got on the ride

He did enjoy it despite the almost immediate ride breakdown we had once we got on, i think we were sat waiting for a good... 5 minutes?

After this, we saw the It's a small world only had a 5 minute wait so we hopped straight over and jumped on that too. Tobias loved this ride too, lots of smiles and clapping along!

Even though the ride did start to lull him into a slumber towards the end of it

Then we had our boarding group called for, for Tron! We had never done this ride before so was super excited to do it. We rider swapped and me and Tobias went for a wander whilst Tasha did it first.

We almost managed to catch a glimpse of her gripping on for dear life as she flew over head!

Then it was my turn and the rain... Came... Down!

I was absolutely soaked by the time i got into the building and the Air con almost froze me to death before i got on the ride!

I ended up right at the back which felt super intense, i was single rider with another single rider and we chatted a fair amount before we got on the ride, it was nice to feel less awkward as a single rider for a change.

Nothing bonds you like screaming at the top of your lungs anyways

Me and Tasha have very different reactions to this ride

Tobias was now feeling a little shuffly so we headed into Dumbo for him to play at the play area. Which was amazing!! Nice safe spot from the rain and the air con wasn't super cool either.

Tobias has a natural urge to constantly climb to the highest part of any room that he's in (We often joke he's part mountain goat) so this place was perfect for him!

Although we couldn't coax him to go down the dark slide (He's still quite scared of these) I still maintain to this day he would have absolutely no problems going down summet plummet because it's open

After a quick nappy change it was to infinity and beyond on Buzz lightyear!

To be continued...

Katiekitten · Feb 9, 2024

I can't believe how grown up Tobias looks.

LeighM · Feb 11, 2024

Tashifer90 said:
Sometimes the most random combos just work don't they haha! Just last night he had Thai green curry sauce on his chips

Reminds me of when I was younger. I remember drizzling honey on my spaghetti casserole and would put steak sauce in my mashed potatoes

Trip Report We were on a (Disney) Break...

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