...to my neurotic mind while I take you on a trip through our 7 day, 6 night excursion through the World! We were part of a group of 36 (8 other families!) that we would spend our week floating between all of those groups to equal one amazingly, crazy, epic adventure!
Meet the main characters of this tale, my family:
WHO? DH: Frank Favorite Park: Hollywood Studios Favorite Rides: Space Mountain & Star Tours Favorite Show: Fantasmic!
ME: Jenny Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom Favorite Rides: Tower of Terror & Haunted Mansion
Favorite Show: Fantasmic!
DS: Maks, 4 Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom Favorite Ride: "Buzz!" I assume this means both TSM & Buzz Lightyear's SRS Favorite Show: Disney Jr Live! & "fireworks"
DD: GiGi, 16 months Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom Favorite Ride: Dumbo & Winnie the Pooh
Favorite Show: Voyage of the Little Mermaid & Muppets 3D
WHERE? We stayed at Pop Century, had the DDP, visited all 4 parks and hit up both the MNSSHP and the Food & Wine Festival! My little champs hung in there with us as we made it through 10, 11, 12 & 13 hour days! Because, "giving up is for Rookies!"
WHEN? Our adventure took place Sunday, September 27 - Saturday, October 3, 2015. WHY? While I have been to WDW when I was a girl and my family (sans GiGi) visited MK for one day 2 years ago, this was all of our first time getting the whole experience.
I planned this trip for 2 years, asked and answered 1,234 questions and did 99% of the planning for a group of 16 people. Planning is my thing and I think I pretty much nailed it.
BIG props to all you posters, I would not have been able to plan this trip without the help of the Dis!
So, thanks for joining my trip report and reading along!
Departure Day - Lesson #1: Always carry your poncho! Hollywood Studios - Run, Forrest, Run! Magic Kingdom - Attack of the Princesses Chef Mickey's Review Animal Kingdom - Hell is not this hot Ohana - Table for 20 MNSSHP! Epcot Food & Wine Festival Departure Day - disaster breakfast @ Cape May Cafe
The day is finally here!!! 2 years of planning and at this point, it just seems so surreal that we actually get to go the WDW! We landed at MCO at 2:42 pm and quickly made our way down to the Magical Express. Surprise! We found some friends waiting for us! My best friend and her family had landed 15 minutes before us and our plans did not allow us to hang out until Wednesday, so meeting in the airport for hugs and a picture was only natural.
After our little rendezvous, we said our goodbyes, walked right onto the Magical Express and we were on our way! BOY, did we get lucky!! My cousins arrived later that evening and waited 40 minutes for that sucker to fill up. We were not on the bus long before I saw the sign for Pop. Maks was not yet amused.
But then he saw the hotel and quickly perked up! First stop: front desk, but first.. look more friends! After we said hello to another group, we headed to the check-in desk. While our room was ready and we had gotten our room number, I had to add my debit card to our account (I had lost mine a week prior while apple picking) and ask them to contact bell services for me to deliver our Garden Grocer order. The cast member helping me looked at me like I had 3 eyes when I asked her to do this, as if she had never heard of garden grocer. Nonetheless, she called and they said it could take up to 4 hours. Annoyed, as I wanted my beer, we said fine and made our way to our room.
We had paid for a preferred room and requested an adjoining room in the 60s buildings, lake side. We got super lucky! We were in 60's, Building 5, in an adjoining room with my cousins and while we were not facing the lake, we were on the side of the building and it was nice & quiet. Mogli & Baloo greeted us everyday:
After we checked out our room, we were ravished and headed over to AoA. The plan was to eat at the Landscape of Flavors and then walk around the Cars area. I could not wait for the create your own pasta bowl! I got chicken alfredo with spinach and broccoli, Frank did the create our own burger and added lots of bacon, onions & BBQ sauce & Maks had the pasta & turkey meatballs ("yuck" he said, so G got them instead). I wanted to confirm with a cast member that we could do 2 desserts instead of a drink, since we had our mug and they said, yes of course! So, Maks picked out a blueberry muffin to share with his sister, a, Oreo Mickey cupcake we took back with us and then we got a stamp to come back for gelato. We had the nutella and pistacho gelato. Sorry, no pictures.. 2 hungry, small children = no time for that!
Review of the food:
The pasta was nothing special, Frank said his burger was mighty good and the kids seemed to enjoy their food too. The gelato was AMAZING. We never did finish eating that Mickey cupcake to know for sure.
I didn't see a huge difference between Landscape of Flavors and Everything Pop! Dining to say one is really better than the other.
Moving on, now that we were fed, we were ready to go take a look around. Mother nature had other plans for us though and when we opened the doors, it was a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. Since we had no ponchos with us, we decided to walk around the gift shop. Maks' birthday was in August and he had racked up $200 in gift cards! We didn't find much, but Maks did get a penny presser book as we had started to collect pennies already! We did have fun while there though.
Outside, the rain was NOT letting up. We were getting bored in the gift shop and decided to make the best of the situation, so back to the food court we went to wait out the rain.
Just as we finished that first beer, there was a break in the rain so we decided to make a run for it. It had stopped raining now and we were fine to walk normally back to our room. When we had first gotten to the room, I did not see a pack and play in the "closet" like my TA promised, so I called down - they asked me if I wanted extra pillows, so I took them up on that and asked for extra towels too. So when we opened the door, all of that was already there but I did not yet see our Garden Grocer order, so I decided to call bell services myself. Just as I was beginning to unload our carry-ons, a knock at the door and our luggage had arrived. Perfect timing! We started unpacking and decorated our window:
We finished up and our garden grocer order arrived. Everything that needed to be kept cold, except for the beer, was. Love that service and will definitely use them again. We got bottled water, beer, milk, snacks to take the parks and a few things for breakfasts when we did not have a character meal planned. We ordered a month in advance and got a 15% discount. Had I known they offer discounts the earlier you order, I would have done that.
It was nearly 8 pm at this time and Big Hero 6 was starting down at the pool. We put on our suits and went down to meet our friends. I thought we would be sitting in the main pool, with the movie projected much larger than it was. There was a screen set up just to the side of the pool, with chairs all in front of it. You could see the movie from the kid's pool though, so that is where we went. The kids got the play and hear the movie in the background and we were able to enjoy our drinks from Petals with our feet in the water. I had the banana cabana and it was very good. I ordered my Frank the mango margarita and asked for a floater - whoa, it did NOT need that floater!
Maks ASKED to go to bed around 9 pm (this may seem late, but we stay on CST when we travel, so it was only 8 pm our time) and you do NOT say NO to a 4 year old who ASKS to sleep. So up we went. We put the kids to sleep and I got our park bags ready for the next day. Our other cousin had now arrived, they drove down and had left Tennessee that morning, so we took turns visiting with them. While Frank was gone, I ironed our clothes for the next day and packed our park bag. We made our plan to meet in the lobby at 8 am the next morning and said goodnight.
We had a great first day and were ready to get our adventure started. It had not even been 24 hours and I already learned an important lesson
NEVER GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT YOUR PONCHO!
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