Another magical week at Disney! My first TR!

[*Michele*]

That sounds like a WONDERFUL surprise to be in the parade. However, did you have to use a day off your tickets to enter??

I know the military salute tickets are only 4 days and it would seem that would mess up your plans for later in the week.

We did use one of our days but we went into this trip fairly "plan free" for once. We have been so fortunate to have been able to come to DW the past four years (thanks mostly to the discount) that we told ourselves we were going to be completely laid back and go with the flow on this trip.

I'm glad you all are enjoying my report! I know I'm leaving things out (I'm bringing a notebook next trip!) but it's been fun to relive the week! I'll try and add more after tae kwon do this evening.

 

[*Michele*]

Day 3 Monday Aug 16 ~ We decide that today is going to be a “non-park” day. Around 11am we drive over to DTD and Disney Quest.

Much less crowded than when we were there last in June 2009. DS beats everyone twice in Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam game. I tried to watch him to see what he was doing differently than everyone else but I couldn’t figure it out. I guess what it comes down to is that I am 38 and he is 9 LOL! We end up spending three hours in there. Probably not a place I would pay a ton extra for, but with our Military discount definitely worth it! I wanted to go to the big Disney Store, but we decide we’ll go there later in the week when we have more time.

We have snacks for “lunch” at 2:30. We don’t want to eat a lot as we have reservations at Chef Mickey’s at 5:10. This is our one “eat-out” meal for the week. It rained quite heavily on Monday (although we had no idea in DQ) but it was just a bit cloudy as we headed toward the Contemporary and a beautiful rainbow stretched across the sky.

We took our “private” boat to the Contemporary (since no one else was going that way) excited to see Mickey and friends.

This was our first time in the Contemporary (aside from Monorail trips) and it is such a neat building!

Check in and tell the hostess that we are declining the photo so she seats us right away. (The photo line was huge, I think people don’t realize you don’t actually have to go to the line as directed.) We are seated in the back of the restaurant and there’s only a few other people there which means that Mickey and Donald spend extra time at our table. Yay for early dining! Interaction with the characters is great although Mickey notices my husband flirting with Minnie. He comes back to our table to give DH the “I’m watching you” gesture.

Towards the end of our meal, during the “celebration” that acknowledges birthdays, anniversaries, etc., we’re sitting there twirling our napkins when our server brings us two cupcakes and whipped cream! I completely forgot that I mentioned we were celebrating our anniversary on the online reservation form. So unexpected and so nice!

We checked out the gift shops and DS got a pressed penny before we walked down to the boat ramp for the ride back to the Fort. I convince DS to sit towards the front of the boat (he always wants to sit in the back) and the captain lets him blow the horn. We talk to him a little bit and then he gives DS three Transportation Trading Cards: http://www.zimbio.com/Disney+World/articles/109/Transportation+Trading+Cards+Unadvertised
How cool! I had never heard of them! Something to try and collect on future trips!
We end our evening at the campfire and skip the fireworks as DS is tired and I want to get up early on Tuesday to see my first MK rope drop.
 

 

[BradyBz12]

Yay, another great TR

 

[PrincessNP]

Very exciting day! We love the CR. Chef Mickey's is always an amazing spot to meet the characters. We have actually only done breakfast there.

Keep all of the great pics coming!

 

[*Michele*]

Thanks so much for the lovely comments!

Day 4 Tuesday Aug 17 ~ The morning does not start well. My son awakes at 5:30 throwing up. We give him some water and a nausea pill and he falls back asleep. I can’t fall back asleep because I’m worried this is a repeat of our last trip to Disney when my son caught a virus and we spent the last two days of our vacation in the hotel room and then driving to the ER (two bags of saline later and he was good to go ). I drink my coffee which always makes me feel better and DH gets up at 6:30 as I forgot to turn off my “rope drop” alarm. Oops. DS gets up around 8 and says he feels a little better.

No MK, but no worries, I have brought Disney movies! We get to watch Disney movies at Disney! (I am a bit silly at times…) DS wants to watch UP. Eeek. One of my favorite movies, but it makes me cry so I have only seen it once. We start watching the movie and I make it to, oh, the first 30 seconds in before the tears start which makes DS laugh and laugh. He thinks his Mom is nuts. Stupid Pixar movies.

DS says he is feeling much, much better by the time the movie is over so we have lunch and discuss what we’re going to do for the rest of the day. We decide on Epcot’s World Showcase. We figure we’ll take a slow walk and try and see some of the movies we’d never seen before.

I love Epcot! It was the very first Disney park I’d ever visited in 1991 on Spring Break.

We notice that there’s still FPs left for Test Track. We’re not sure if we should grab them or not because of DS, but in the end, DH goes to get them. We wander into Innoventions and make a video game of ourselves and play the Piggy Bank game.

Love how you can play them at home too!

Stop into Club Cool for some soda

(I like Mozambique’s although my son declares it “gross”) and head to Canada. My husband jokingly asks the Le Cellier hostess if there’s room for a party of three. To our surprise she says “I can have you seated within 15 minutes.” What? Gah, we just ate lunch, we are not hungry in the slightest. Boo. (We ate there last year, and while I don’t remember the steak, they serve this mushroom risotto that I love. The Maple Crème Brulee was pretty yummy too.) We go to the Canada movie which we’ve seen several times but Canada is so beautiful we don’t mind watching again and again.

Next stop the UK. Hoping Mary Poppins is out front but she’s not there. Check out the gift shop where there is a line of three people. I get in line and ask what it is for. (I love a short line even if I have no idea what’s in store for me, lol!) Tigger and Pooh are here! We had decided that this year we were not standing in any character lines. (It still amazes me how much time we wasted standing in character lines our first year at Disney.) But this line was so short and we were in no hurry (and it was inside!) so why not?

Next up: France.

 

[kampfirekim]

Not throwing up at 5 a.m.!!! Good thinking, mom! Bringing Disney DVD's to Disney...pure genius! (I'm a genius too. ) No better way for DS to recover from his tummy bug!

Nice pic of S.E.

Always grab the fast passes. If you don't use them, you can always pass them along to an unsuspecting stranger. They'll love you for it!

Sounds like a good time....except for Club Cool. Blech!

Keep it coming. You're doing great!

 

[polkadotsuitcase]

Off we go down Main Street! Now, instead of wondering how “that family” got to be in the parade, we are that family! I told my husband that we were now in a hundred vacation photos and facebook pages, lol!

Now here's a pic you just don't see every day! How incredibly cool you got to be in the parade!

And how incredibly cool I get to read another great TR...

 

[blm2003]

What a great time you guys had! Loving all the pictures, keep them coming!

 

[*Michele*]

(I notice that my son is wearing two different shirts in the previous post at Epcot so somewhere I’ve got my times/days incorrect. I’m going to pretend I don’t see this.)

We check out the lovely gardens of England and head to France. We watch the Impressions of France movie and I tell my husband that on our next trip we are splurging on a bottle of champagne. Play a bit in Morocco and head to Japan. DS loves Japan and has a great time checking everything out in the gift shop. We make an exception to the “one souvenir” rule and buy him a headband (which he’s been wearing to Tae Kwon Do all week even though I tried to explain that his class is based on Korean philosophies.) We watch a bit of the Taiko drummers (we had seen the entire show last year. If you haven't seen them, they are a must do. They are awesome!).

Off to America where we watch The American Adventure. Awesome film! We are loving all the movies!
Somehow we skip Italy and head into Germany. I have a soft spot for Germany as my mother is German and I was fortunate enough to visit there as a child. DH gets a beer (of course, lol) and we pick up some Gummi candy.

By now we’re getting hungry so we skip over to Mexico. (Reflections of China next trip for sure!) Ask if there’s any openings at the restaurant, but of course they’re full. We had expected that though so no worries. We ride the The Three Caballeros ride and head towards the exit.

We get back to our camper, eat dinner, watch a little TV, relax a bit and remember we have FPs for Test Track! Back to Epcot we go! We zip through the FP line, hop on and as soon as we get to the part where the ride passes the truck it stops. Hmmm. We’re there for about 15 minutes but we have a good time chatting with the family in the back seats. We were just thankful it didn’t stop during the best part of the ride, where you’re zooming around the track.

On the bus ride back to the Fort we’re able to see the IllumiNations. For such a rough start to the morning, we had a great day!

 

[CooperPrincesses]

Great trip report and you got to be in a parade...wow I am hoping for that pixie dust on our trip. My DD would absolutely be over the moon if that happened on her birthday (me too, and I would probablly cry a little too, becuase well I'm just like that)

Glad your son was feeling better later in the day and you had such a great time at Epcot. We were going to bypass it this trip but DD decided that she wanted to eat with the Princesses so we'll get to spend some time there after all.

Love the trip report, keep it coming. Can't wait to hear how the rest of your visit went.

 

[*Michele*]

Great trip report and you got to be in a parade...wow I am hoping for that pixie dust on our trip.

It's really one of those 'Once in a lifetime/ I can't believe this is happening moments' that you want to share with everyone! Hoping you get lots of pixie dust!

Day 5 Aug. 18 ~ Today is a water park day so not many photos. We decide to go to Blizzard Beach as we’d never been there before.

DS comes to conclusion that ‘he’s not quite ready’ to ride Summit Plummet, which is fine as Mom is not quite ready to ride it either. We spend a fun few hours there and head back to the camper at noon.

After lunch DS and DH go off to do a little fishing in the canal by our loop. I watch for a little bit (I left my pole at home.) but it’s really hot and I am distracted by the ducks that seem to think I am going to feed them as they waddle up to me. I go back to our cool camper and the boys return in a little while having only caught one fish. DS is pretty happy with that result though and he says he is ready to go to the Fort’s pool. Great pool and slide but the water is hot. We play for about 15 minutes and decide to go to Typhoon Lagoon.

Love TL, it’s our favorite water park. We ride everything and can play in the surf pool for ages.

Back at the Fort we decide to check out the other loops. I love the 800 loop. Shaded and there was only one camper in there so we really got to check out the sites. I think we’re going to try and get a site there next trip. We also see this:

My son loves this RV! (I’m hoping it’s okay that we took its photo Miss Disneylitch.) We go to bed early as we are going to attempt the MK rope-drop once again in the morning.

 

[kampfirekim]

DS comes to conclusion that ‘he’s not quite ready’ to ride Summit Plummet, which is fine as Mom is not quite ready to ride it either. We spend a fun few hours there and head back to the camper at noon.

After lunch DS and DH go off to do a little fishing in the canal by our loop. I watch for a little bit (I left my pole at home.) but it’s really hot and I am distracted by the ducks that seem to think I am going to feed them as they waddle up to me. I go back to our cool camper and the boys return in a little while having only caught one fish. DS is pretty happy with that result though and he says he is ready to go to the Fort’s pool. Great pool and slide but the water is hot. We play for about 15 minutes and decide to go to Typhoon Lagoon.

Love TL, it’s our favorite water park. We ride everything and can play in the surf pool for ages.

Back at the Fort we decide to check out the other loops. I love the 800 loop. Shaded and there was only one camper in there so we really got to check out the sites. I think we’re going to try and get a site there next trip. We also see this:

My son loves this RV! (I’m hoping it’s okay that we took its photo Miss Disneylitch.) We go to bed early as we are going to attempt the MK rope-drop once again in the morning.

One is never ready for summit plummet. You just have to go for it!

The last time I rode was a lonnnggg time ago and I screamed the whole way down. My mom went down after me. She said that when I started screaming the CM said, "That's what happens when you don't keep your legs crossed!" ....

We checked out 800 loop too. It was a very nice loop.

Love the RV pic. I've only seen the little small version of it. Very cool!

Enjoying your TR! It really shows through that your family had a blast!

More please.

 

[*Michele*]

One is never ready for summit plummet. You just have to go for it! Maybe next year. Maybe...

The last time I rode was a lonnnggg time ago and I screamed the whole way down. My mom went down after me. She said that when I started screaming the CM said, "That's what happens when you don't keep your legs crossed!" .... That would be me! And, I know how badly the bottom of my swimsuit rides up on the smaller Humunga Kowabunga at TL, I can only imagine how bad it is on SP.

We checked out 800 loop too. It was a very nice loop. I liked that it seemed so shady, but DH may want one on the canal, so we'll see.


Love the RV pic. I've only seen the little small version of it. Very cool! It was so neat to see it in person! It's a bit like seeing a celebrity.

Enjoying your TR! It really shows through that your family had a blast! Thanks! I'm trying to see when we can get back. I'm trying to convince DH that we really need APs.

More please.

I'll try to get my last entries done soon.

 

[SC DAD of 2]

MICHELE great TR. Nothing like great family fun at WDW and it looks like fun

was had by all. Thanks for sharing.

More please.

By the way....I Love the Fort.

 

[jsmla]

I'm usually just a lurker here but I wanted to say how much I'm enjoying your reports! I love your go with the flow style


Jennifer

 

[DaveInTN]

Great report. Awesome to be in the parade! But the puking stinks. But hey, it's Disney, so even the puking doesn't sound that bad.

Keep it coming...

 

[LONE-STAR]

 

[Cockburn Family]

great stuff so far...

 

[DebbieT11]

Loving your TR..... and I agree about feeling like you've seen a celebrity, I've seen Shan-man by surprise, and the mouse-ke-tab and got all excited telling TheBigGuy "Honey! there's some of my imaginary friends!!"

He didn't quite get it...lol.

 

[*Michele*]

Thanks eveyone for such nice comments!

I'm usually just a lurker here but I wanted to say how much I'm enjoying your reports! I love your go with the flow style
Jennifer

Thank you! It only took our family four years to figure the best way for us to 'do' Disney, lol!

Great report. Awesome to be in the parade! But the puking stinks. But hey, it's Disney, so even the puking doesn't sound that bad.

It really wasn't too bad and DS recovered quickly.

Loving your TR..... and I agree about feeling like you've seen a celebrity, I've seen Shan-man by surprise, and the mouse-ke-tab and got all excited telling TheBigGuy "Honey! there's some of my imaginary friends!!"
He didn't quite get it...lol.

ROFL!