“Shhh! You’re Ruining the Magic!” A Family’s First Disney Trip Report NEW 10/6

[caralyn817]

Joining in! Can't wait to read more about your trip!

 

[caitlinnf]

Joining in! Can't wait to read more about your trip!

Thanks for joining! There is definitely a lot more to come!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

sounds like a great location and pretty good if that was the only bad weather you experienced!

 

[MouseHouseof3]

Awesome! Can't wait to hear more!!

 

[RGirl]

Great update! POR always seems so appearing - it is definitely my first choice for a mod. We *almost* stayed there on our last trip. Can't wait to see what your dinner plans were!

 

[caitlinnf]

sounds like a great location and pretty good if that was the only bad weather you experienced!

Seriously, the weather was amazing for the rest of the week. I was in heaven.

Awesome! Can't wait to hear more!!

I'm hoping to finish up day 1 by tomorrow!

Great update! POR always seems so appearing - it is definitely my first choice for a mod. We *almost* stayed there on our last trip. Can't wait to see what your dinner plans were!

POR is absolutely gorgeous. I instantly felt at home there. It is just so relaxing and beautiful. Definitely give it a shot! Dinner is coming soon

 

[DreamingPink]

Joining in. Love the title. My daughters and I will be taking two families this summer to WDW for their first time ever, so this really caught my eye. Can't wait to hear more.

 

[caitlinnf]

Joining in. Love the title. My daughters and I will be taking two families this summer to WDW for their first time ever, so this really caught my eye. Can't wait to hear more.

Thanks for joining! There is definitely a story behind the title, but it comes in a bit later

 

[caitlinnf]

Dinner with a Mouse and His Friends​

When I last left off, we were headed to the bus stop in search of refuge from the rain. Our first experience with Disney busses was pretty darn good, as we had barely gotten under the shelter when a Magic Kingdom bus pulled up. What do you know, that’s exactly what we needed! So we hopped on and soon arrived at the Magic Kingdom. It was at this point that I was lamenting not going to a park the first night, because we were sooooo close, yet soooooo far!

Unfortunately, at this time the resort monorail was not running from 11:30am-7pm each day. (I knew about this ahead of time so it wasn’t a big deal, but I really felt sorry for people who may have booked a monorail resort and didn’t know this.) It was still raining very hard, so our options were limited to another bus. This was a pretty long wait, but we didn’t mind too much, since we were still very very early for our ADR. Eventually a bus came, and quick as a flash, we were at the Contemporary Resort! (sorry no pictures yet.)



We still had about an hour to kill before dinner, so we spent some time browsing the gift shops, trying to answer the trivia questions outside of the little store, and the kids hung out with some CMs and did some coloring too!

Eventually it was close enough to reasonably check in for dinner, and we were hungry! As you have probably guessed, we were dining at Chef Mickey’s tonight. If anyone read my PTR, you will know that we have a character meal every day during this trip. Crazy, right? It was super fun for the kids, but Ben and I will be enjoying a different side of Disney dining on our next trip!


So, we headed in and I took the lead to check in the family. I saw my MIL give a little sigh of relief when we were checked in successfully…they had handed over all planning and dining/FP+ reservation booking to me for the entire trip, so I guess she was nervous that something would go wrong? Relax lady, I’ve got this


We had a short wait, but not too bad, and we were seated by a very nice server, whose name I can’t recall (spoiler: I don’t remember a single CM’s name, nor did I ever write one down. Stellar trip reporting here, folks.) At this point, the kids realize that there are characters walking around and pretty much lose their minds. It was funny. We were seated in the little room off to the side of the main area, and when we sat down, Minnie was nearby. We sent the grandparents off to get food while Ben and I waited with the kids until she came by.

Minnie was very sweet and the girls were thrilled to meet her.


I believe Pluto came shortly after, so we still waited to get food. I liked seeing Pluto; he is my favorite of the fab 5. Bethany thought it was hilarious that he signed his autograph by putting the book on his nose.

At this point, Ben and I finally were able to escape and get some food. (Spoiler again: no food pictures occurred during this trip. It makes me sad, as I love dining reports, but I would have gotten too many annoying comments from my traveling party, so I skipped it. Sorry!) The kids had the standard kid dishes. Definitely mickeyroni and cheese, probably some chicken nuggets, and I’m sure some fruit and corn or green beans. Ben and I tried most dishes between us. I found the food to be pretty fresh and tasty. We definitely found enough to fill up on! My favorite was the mashed potatoes. Oh man, those were AMAZING.


Apparently while we were getting our food, Goofy materialized out of nowhere, so the grandparents handled this interaction. These pictures crack me up because my FIL is NOT into characters. I love that he is in the picture, and I am positive it’s because our server talked him into it. She was great.

We also got dessert sometime. The kids opted for the ice cream topped with reeses pieces and m&ms. Clearly, they enjoyed it.

I tried a few different things. The best was when I decided to put some of the bread pudding in a bowl and top it with ice cream and caramel sauce. Awesome decision!

The main mouse stopped by at some point. Gigs absolutely loved Mickey. It was so cute to see his face light up.

Donald was in the room right behind Mickey, but got rerouted during the napkin waving hijinks.

Around this time, our bill came, FIL’s eyes bugged out at the cost of the meal (we were on the DDP, but the 18% gratuity was a bit of a sticker shock!), and our server said that Donald would be by shortly, and she would be upset with us if we left without seeing him.


We waited for another 10 minutes or so. Donald came back, and started back around the room, I took this random picture while we waited.

A minute later, the CM that is in the picture behind Ben came up and said “Was I smiling in that picture? I didn’t want to ruin your picture by not smiling.” I explained that I was taking a (poorly attempted) shot of the monorail track. Ben likes to tease though, and said “we were told that if we get enough pictures of unsmiling CM’s, Disney will comp our vacation!” The CM laughed and told us that if that is the case, we should have a free vacation in no time. I thought that was kind of sad.

Soon after that, Donald disappeared through the double doors again, only a few tables before ours. Sad! We were done and sick of dealing with squirrely children, so we decided to just leave. We promised the kids that it was not the last chance to see the duck.

Since it was after 7pm now, we decided to hop on the monorail and do the resort loop. It was very fun to ride by and see the resorts all lit up, and especially the castle! It is so gorgeous at night. The girls enjoyed their ride and had fun playing on the poles, which made my poor husband cringe. LOL!

Once we got back to MK, we caught a bus back to POR. We gave the kids a bath, unpacked a bit, and called it a night. We wanted to be well rested for our first park day tomorrow!!​

 

[huggiebear23]

Great update.. I love Pluto too! He's my fav

 

[delyrium]

Yayy! I'm loving your trip report thus far, since we're going for our first trip in a few weeks, staying at POR, and have kids the ages of your older two. It's like a snapshot of things to come!

 

[KatMark]

I found your TR without a bat signal.

I'm loving the start of this, Caitlin.

Travel day can be so tiring, but glad it was pretty uneventful.

You are right...POR-Riverside truly is beautiful. I've always told Mark that if we ever decided not to rent DVC anymore and go back to a moderate and couldn't get the Coronado (which has a special place in our heart), we would do POR-Riverside.

What fun pictures with the Fab5 (well, minus Donald) at Chef Mickey's. Yes, that gratuity added on with a big group is quite the shocker. But so worth it with those darling faces loving seeing those characters.

I can't wait to read more.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

"At this point, the kids realize that there are characters walking around and pretty much lose their minds" ... ok I may have literally LOL'd when I read that

that's a nice family picture with Minnie

'girls enjoyed their ride and had fun playing on the poles, which made my poor husband cringe. LOL!" ... ok, also LOL'd at that - since all Dad's know their number one job is to keep their daughters off the pole

 

[RGirl]

Looks like you had a great time at CM! The kids look so excited and happy - isn’t that just the best?! We had a great time there on our last trip too - we love character meals, although it was nice to balance them with all the signatures via DxDDP. Given all your character meal ADRs, I’m excited to read about which ones you liked best.

 

[caitlinnf]

Great update.. I love Pluto too! He's my fav

Pluto is the best. He's just so loveable.

Yayy! I'm loving your trip report thus far, since we're going for our first trip in a few weeks, staying at POR, and have kids the ages of your older two. It's like a snapshot of things to come!

Thanks! Yes, lots of similarities. I love reading trip reports of people with families like mine. It's like I'm there too

I found your TR without a bat signal.

I'm loving the start of this, Caitlin.

Travel day can be so tiring, but glad it was pretty uneventful.

You are right...POR-Riverside truly is beautiful. I've always told Mark that if we ever decided not to rent DVC anymore and go back to a moderate and couldn't get the Coronado (which has a special place in our heart), we would do POR-Riverside.

What fun pictures with the Fab5 (well, minus Donald) at Chef Mickey's. Yes, that gratuity added on with a big group is quite the shocker. But so worth it with those darling faces loving seeing those characters.

I can't wait to read more.

I'm glad you found it!
You know, I have seen a lot of good things about Coronado, but it just didn't feel right to me. I'm really glad we settled on POR.
Seeing my kiddos faces light up was definitely a highlight of the trip!

"At this point, the kids realize that there are characters walking around and pretty much lose their minds" ... ok I may have literally LOL'd when I read that

that's a nice family picture with Minnie

'girls enjoyed their ride and had fun playing on the poles, which made my poor husband cringe. LOL!" ... ok, also LOL'd at that - since all Dad's know their number one job is to keep their daughters off the pole

Seriously, they lost their minds. "MOM! MOM! MOM!!! It's MINNIEEEEEEEEEEE!"
LOL...I kind of nudged him to look at what they were doing, and he looked up and immediately put his head in his hands and shook it. Poor guy.

Looks like you had a great time at CM! The kids look so excited and happy - isn’t that just the best?! We had a great time there on our last trip too - we love character meals, although it was nice to balance them with all the signatures via DxDDP. Given all your character meal ADRs, I’m excited to read about which ones you liked best.

I was pretty nervous about Chef Mickey's going in, but it turned out really great. My husband and I won't be doing any character meals on our anniversary trip, but I'm so glad we did them with the kids!

 

[caitlinnf]

“There’s No Show Today”


After a not-so-great night’s sleep (sharing hotel rooms with kids is torture), we were up bright and early anyway, at 6am. Yep, my family, including my in-laws are the type to get straight to the point and get things done, so the only option for us was to attempt rope drop every morning. Will we do it?? Stay tuned…

Anyway, this morning was an AM Extra Magic Hour morning, so we were all at the bus stop by 7am. We had great bus karma, and by 7:20 or so, we were:


At the Magic Kingdom!!!!!!!!!!! Hey, we have three small children, two of whom are princess obsessed. Did you really think we would start anywhere else? So, we’re a bit early, but no one cares. We are actually some of the first people at the turnstiles, but I lead the family to the fence near the center, so we can get a great view of the welcome show. No one was standing there yet, so it was perfect. A few minutes later, either Ben or one of his parents asked me something along the lines of when the show started. A CM who was standing nearby looks over at us and says:

“Oh, there is no show this morning.”





I was a little confused, but decided that I must have misunderstood in my research, and there wouldn’t be one because of Extra Magic Hours. No big deal, plan B is that we get a nearly front place spot at the turnstiles, only behind a group of kids belonging to a dance group, who were clearly planning on having a race down Main Street (to what attraction, I don’t know.)


I had planned on being early, so I packed more breakfast for the kids, and they munched on mini muffins and took in the sights.

I looked up and saw this, and couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear. I was SO excited to finally be here!!!!

As the time got closer to rope drop, I hear an announcement. The announcement was for people to gather to the center in order to be able to see the welcome show.




Um. WHAT?? My family looked at me incredulously, and all I could say was, “I THOUGHT SO!” At this point, more people were there, and I made the decision to just stay in our good place in line, even though we had an almost completely blocked view. We had another MK day planned, and would make seeing it a priority that day. I have to say though, I wanted to find that CM and give him the stink eye. Lol


Even though we couldn’t see well, it was awesome hearing the music and feeling the excitement grow as the dancers and the characters showed up. I leaned back and zoomed in and was able to get this picture.

Bethany was behind me and being held up by Grandpa, so she had a better view, and was VERY excited about what she was seeing!

Soon, the countdown was happening, and we were IN! I had told the family before the general direction in which we were heading, and basically just said to keep up, because we had big plans for this morning!


We started making our way down Main Street, and I was so excited to see the castle! I took a couple of pictures while walking.

Even with three strollers, our group did a good job maneuvering, and eventually we made a right turn and hit Tomorrowland, right before the internal rope drop there, and just in time for them to announce that Space Mountain was down. Lots of people were sad and turned around to head elsewhere, but we were undeterred, we had other plans!

What did I pick as our first Disney World ride? I wanted it to be something that the entire family could do, and something that was fairly exciting and help us gain some momentum for the morning. Plus, we are a family of Toy Story lovers, so…


Off To Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin we go!!! We walked right on, of course.

Ben and I took Gigs with us, Bethany rode with Grandpa, and Becca with Grandma. What did we think?

(One of my favorite pictures)

When we got off, the kids were all hyped and jumping up and down, shouting how much they loved it! It had only taken a few minutes, and there was still no line, so we turned around and hopped on again! This ride really is a lot of fun.

After the second ride, the girls spotted some other kids with Zurg and had to get a picture too.

Gigs LOVED being in there, and didn’t want to get out. But, we had many more things that we wanted to accomplish this morning, so we had to drag him away from Zurg and off to our next adventure!​

 

[dachsie]

Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin has a special place in my heart. I got the call for my current job while on that ride. Of course I missed the call but called back later and was offered.

 

[KatMark]

What a fun update. Well, except for the misinformed CM that there would be no opening show.

I love the photos of all of you on Buzz. Such a great first ride that the entire family could ride.

The picture of the kids with Zurg is awesome!

I can't wait to see where you go next.

 

[Disney before Sally]

I can actually feel the magic. You have a talent for writing prose.

Subbing

Can't wait to read more!

 

[Mommy Poppins]

Loving your TR so far! Can't wait to read more!