Heat, Humidity, and Our Favorite Disney Dog Was a Thug! LINK TO NEW PTR!!

[RGirl]

Hello! And welcome to my third trip report on the DIS. I'm so excited to be starting a new one.

My name is Roni, and my companion in Disney adventure on this trip was my 6-year-old daughter, Willow. This is us:

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This was our third trip to WDW and our second Disney cruise. Here is a picture of Willow from our first trip in 2010 when she was just 3.

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Here we are together in 2011 when she was, wait for it, ... 4!

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Here is Miss Willow on our cruise last year (yep - she was 5!). (No picture of us together because I took all the pictures and didnt get a single one of us together. )

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For good measure, here is Willow on her fifth birthday at Disneyland! (She's the short one.)

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This was the FIRST time that we have done WDW in August or even in the summer. Our two prior trips were in October, but we became slaves to the school calendar this year and therefore decided to brave the heat and crowds of August. It was definitely a change....

A little about us:
Me:
Favorite Disney park(s): MK and DLR
Favorite Attraction: BTMRR (or did that change on this trip?)
Favorite Character: Pluto (usually....)
Favorite Princess(es): Belle and Tiana

Willow:
Favorite Disney park: Hollywood Studios (or did this change on this trip?)
Favorite Attraction: ToT (or did this change on this trip?)
Favorite Character: Pluto (or did this change on this trip?)
Favorite Princess(es): Belle and Ariel

I am waiting for my PhotoPass+ CD, but it should be arriving anytime, and I have plenty of pre-arrival information to share as well. I took a LOT of pictures on this trip, so get ready for that. (Because I tend to be constantly being pulled in one direction or another by my traveling companion, more of my pictures than I care to admit may be a bit blurry, but I did my best.)

I hope you will join me in reliving our two-week Disney Vacation Extravaganza!

Up Next: How Many Times Can I Change the Plans?

Installments:
1. How Many Times Can I Change the Plans?
2. Counting Down and Packing Up
3. Seemingly Endless Travel with a Nice Surprise at the End
4. Seemingly Endless Travel with a Nice Surprise at the End (Cont.)
5. Seemingly Endless Travel with a Nice Surprise at the End (Cont.)
6. Seemingly Endless Travel with a Nice Surprise at the End (Cont.)
7. Let the Dining Begin in Earnest!
8. Let the Dining Begin in Earnest! (Cont.)
9. Princess Willow Is Revealed
10. Princess Willow Is Revealed Cont.
11. Princess Willow Is Revealed Cont.
12. Princess Willow Is Revealed Cont.
13. Some Royal Meetings
14. Some Royal Meetings Cont.
15. Some Royal Meetings Cont.
16. Some Royal Meetings Cont.
17. Some Royal Dining
18. Some Royal Dining Cont.
19. Get Us Out of Here!!
20. Some Fancy Dining in the Wilderness
21. Some Fancy Dining in the Wilderness Cont.
22. Some Late-Night Fun with Friends
23. Some Late-Night Fun with Friends Cont.
24. Some More Late-Night Adventures
25. A Lot of Complaining and a Few Rides
26. A Lot of Complaining and a Few Rides Cont.
27. Some Overheated Character Meets
28. A Culinary Respite from the Heat
29. Something We’d Never Done Before
30. Something We’d Never Done Before Cont.
31. Farmer Mickey and Friends
32. Farmer Mickey and Friends Cont.
33. Farmer Mickey and Friends Cont.
34. A Little More Princess Dining
35. A Little More Princess Dining Cont.
36. A Little More Princess Dining Cont.
37. Serious Speed and Character Fun
38. Serious Speed and Character Fun Cont.
39. Serious Speed and Character Fun Cont.
40. Planning Update
41. Get Us Out of Here!
42. A Family Day Dinner
43. One More Ride Won’t Kill Us, Right?
44. One More Ride Won’t Kill Us, Right? (Cont.)
45. A Yeti-Sized Infatuation Begins
46. A Safari Breakfast
47. A Non-Disney, Real Life, Halloween Update
48. So We Love Animal Kingdom Now?
49. Some More Characters
50. Did Someone Say “Characters”?
51. A Detour from Our Character Mission
52. Hey, Why Don’t We Meet Some Characters?
53. We Finally See a Show!
54. We Meet the Real Chef
55. We Meet the Real Chef Cont.
56. Some Fabulous CMs
57. A Canine Disney Thug????
58. A Canine Disney Thug???? Cont.
59. A Wet Ride
60. Three Little Fairies
61. We Need More Characters!
62. A Real-Life Holiday Update
63. A Short Break from the Heat
64. A Short Break from the Heat Cont.
65. Some New Tomorrowland Experiences
66. The Rain Pours Down
67. A Beastly Dining Experience
68. A Beastly Dining Experience Cont.
69. “My Little Legs Are Too Tired”
70. “My Little Legs Are Too Tired” Cont.
71. Some Italian Dining
72. A Few Characters and Get Us Out of Here!
73. A Few Characters and Get Us Out of Here!
74. Our Final Signature Dining Experience on Land
75. Our Final Signature Dining Experience on Land Cont.
76. Non-Trip Christmas Update
77. Some Friends Cheer Us Up
78. Breakfast with Minnie
79. Seriously? We Love AK Now?
80. Will the Yeti Let Us Down?
81. Dinos, Yetis, and Ice Cream!
82. Pre-Trip Update
83. A Few More Characters
84. A Few More Characters Cont.
85. A Final Royal Dining Experience
86. A Final Royal Dining Experience Cont.
87. Some Last WDW Shopping
88. Our Final Hours at BWI
89. Our Final Hours at BWI Cont.
90. Boarding the Fantasy
91. A Little Exploring
92. A Little Exploring Cont.
93. A Little Exploring Cont.
94. Our First Fantasy Characters
95. Our First Fantasy Characters Cont.
96. Dining with DCL
97. Some Late Night Doings
98. Willow’s Morning
99. Mommy’s Morning/Afternoon Begins
100. My Brunch - A Meal of a Lifetime
101. Afternoon Characters and Formal Characters
102. Even More Formal Meets
103. A Formal Evening
104. A Formal Evening Cont.
105. Some Breakfast and Some Characters
106. Some Pool Time
107. Some Spa Time
108. Some Palo Time
109. More Food and More Princesses
110. More Food and More Princesses (cont.)
111. A Make-Over at Sea
112. A Fancy Lunch
113. Real Life Update: Spring Break!
114. Real Life Update: Spring Break! (cont.)
115. A Mystery
116. A Mystery Cont.
117. More Pool Time
118. Family Portraits
119. More Characters
120. More Dining
121. Some Morning Errands and Swimming
122. Another Yummy Lunch
123. We See a Movie
124. Ahoy, Matey!
125. We Meet Some Pirates
126. We Party with the Pirates
127. A Pirate Dinner and an Earlier-than-Expected Night
128. More Swimming and a Lost Willow!
129. A Change of Plans
130. Breakfast and Preparing to Get Off the Ship!
131. Some Fun in the Sun
132. Pelican Plunge and Lunch
133. Swimming with the Rays
134. Back to the Fantasy
135. An Unexpected Good Time
136. An Unexpected Good Time (cont.)
137. The Finest of Dining at Sea
138. The Finest of Dining at Sea (cont.)
139. A Last Meal on the Fantasy
140. An Afternoon and Evening at MCO
141. Home We Go

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

Following along...too cute for words!

 

[shan23877]

Reporting for duty! Have I mentioned that I CAN'T WAIT to hear about the trip??

Love the Willow through the years pictures. Adorable!

 

[1000HappyWishes]

I'll be joining in!

 

[hstrickland]

for another TR!!! Looking forward to following along once again. This will help pass the time until our next trip

Heather

 

[Queenofallthings]

I'm in!

 

[Pixiedust530]

Your daughter is precious. I can't wait to read more!!!

 

[Luvchefmic]

I found you as most do, its like a big old rabbit hole here on the Dis click a link, follow another, next thing you know you're IN ! and the outside world ceases to exist

Willow is adorable Your title is what grabbed me ( Oh NOT Pluto I would my all time favorite ! A Thug ?? !) and your avatar you got me, your sense of humor ! ( really want to know about that avatar)

Ruthie

 

[RGirl]

Following along...too cute for words!

Welcome! Thanks for joining in! Hopefully, I'll actually get some real updates coming here pretty soon. Have to get the preliminary stuff out of the way (while waiting for PP+ CD ).

Reporting for duty! Have I mentioned that I CAN'T WAIT to hear about the trip??

Love the Willow through the years pictures. Adorable!

Hello! Glad you're here. It's so weird to look at the pics from that first visit to the BBB - she has changed so much.

I'll be joining in!

Welcome! Thanks for joining.

for another TR!!! Looking forward to following along once again. This will help pass the time until our next trip

Heather

It wouldn't feel right to do a TR without you, Heather! Did I see on your ticker that you are going to stay at Fort Wilderness???

I'm in!

Thanks so much for joining in! Hope to have an actual update sometime today.

Your daughter is precious. I can't wait to read more!!!

Aww - thank you! I think she's pretty great. And thanks for joining in - hopefully an update sometime today!

I found you as most do, its like a big old rabbit hole here on the Dis click a link, follow another, next thing you know you're IN ! and the outside world ceases to exist

Willow is adorable Your title is what grabbed me ( Oh NOT Pluto I would my all time favorite ! A Thug ?? !) and your avatar you got me, your sense of humor ! ( really want to know about that avatar)

Ruthie

Hi Ruthie! Thanks for joining in! Looks like you have a trip coming up in just a few days.

Love your description of the DIS - so true!

We are big Pluto fans too. You will have to wait to find out more!

You know, I have had that avatar for years. I don't even remember where I got it, but I just love it!

 

[mickey40]

JoiniG in. can't wait To read about your adventures.

 

[Luvchefmic]

yep little mini trip ..just 2 days BUT the beauty & blessing of living so close, yet far enough away to get away from it

So C'Mon gotta know what Our Boy did ( or didn't do )

 

[solana131]

I'm joining in too! Willow is just so cute! Love the pic of her and Mary Poppins

So quick question....you said that you didn't have any pictures of the two of you from the cruise. They don't have PP peeps on the cruises?? Strange.

Can't wait to read along

 

[RGirl]

JoiniG in. can't wait To read about your adventures.

Welcome!! Thanks for joining in! I'll get this baby rolling along here shortly.

yep little mini trip ..just 2 days BUT the beauty & blessing of living so close, yet far enough away to get away from it

So C'Mon gotta know what Our Boy did ( or didn't do )

Oh, I can't even imagine what it would be like to be able to get to WDW easily. Lucky you!!!

Gonna get a background post up here shortly. Soon we will actually be heading to WDW in one of these updates.

I'm joining in too! Willow is just so cute! Love the pic of her and Mary Poppins

So quick question....you said that you didn't have any pictures of the two of you from the cruise. They don't have PP peeps on the cruises?? Strange.

Can't wait to read along

Hello! Great to see you here; thanks for joining! And thanks - we had so much fun with Mary and Bert on DD's birthday.

The ships actually have professional photographs on board instead of PP. Last year, I did not buy any pictures (mostly because we had very few taken). This year was very different.

 

[RGirl]

How Many Times Can I Change the Plans?

Okay - let’s get this report rolling, shall we? I will try to keep the preliminaries somewhat brief so that we can get to the good stuff. And I will apologize right now for the dearth of photos in this update - believe me, that will be changing very soon.

The trip planning started while we were aboard the Disney Wonder in July 2012 and I, of course, booked us another cruise to get that magnificent discount. I booked us on the repositioning Panama Canal cruise, because that would be a dream come true for me to do. Of course, we didn’t end up doing it (because, if we did, you would be reading a Panama Canal TR right now) - and that was really due to the timing. Those repositioning cruises are all scheduled during the school year, and the PC ones are 14 days - hard to find a way to make that happen. So the Caribbean it would be.

After studying the school calendar and reading up on when other states go back to school , I finally decided on August for our trip. Now I have been to Florida in August before. Actually, I lived in Florida (Miami) for a year and moved to Florida in August - it ain’t for the faint of heart. But schools here go back in early September (Tuesday, actually) and many Southern and East Coast schools seem to go back much earlier, so I thought our one chance to reduce crowds at least a little would be to go in August.

Anyway, I switched our reservation to a Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy. We live in Washington State, so if we were going to go all the way to Florida for a cruise, there was no way we were going to miss out on WDW. Not to mention that we hadn’t been to WDW since 2011. So I booked us for 7 days (8 nights) at WDW preceding the cruise. We would arrive there the evening of August 9 and then depart for the Fantasy on August 17. We were going to be staying at POR (a Royal Room) for the first time.

I got to talking with my good DIS friend Shannon, and somehow that resulted in me (a person who has never done the DDP because it didn’t seem to make financial sense) purchasing the DELUXE DINING PLAN. Interestingly, when I added up the cost of my non-DDP conservative dining plans, I was already at close to the DxDP cost because of the character meals that we do. So I threw caution to the wind and went Deluxe so that we could do even MORE character meals but balance them out with some signature dining.

And then, Disney released the 30% discount on deluxe resorts to Disney Visa card holders. I won’t drag on about how I wrung my hands and went back and forth on the next change. Let’s just straight out say it - we weren’t going to be staying at POR anymore. We were going back to the BW.

Up Next: Counting Down and Packing Up

 

[amandaw]

I made it....finally!!

You know I'm excited to hear every little detail of y'alls trip!

 

[solana131]

Hahaha...you sound like me with all the changing. I can never decide on a resort

 

[shan23877]

Who is this crazy Shannon person who is trying to force DxDP on everyone? Seriously, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on some of the restaurants. I do hope you enjoyed it!

If you ever need to get a POR fix, let me know I have 100s of photos of it. I love BWI, I think you made the right choice

 

[hstrickland]

It wouldn't feel right to do a TR without you, Heather! Did I see on your ticker that you are going to stay at Fort Wilderness???

No way I would miss it!!!

Yep...FW again, but just for a few nights before the big trip. Since Bill can't get off work until Friday, we'll head down on a Tuesday or Wednesday and just hang out at FW and enjoy all the activities there. The kids love the golf carts, pool, fishing, etc. My parents are going with us again, too. We're trying to get a 2 bedroom villa through Davids Rentals for the remainder of the trip....we'll see what happens.

Can't wait to see how you liked the DxDP!! We've always loved it...works well with the signature restaurants and character dining.

Looking forward to more!!!!
Heather

 

[Queenofallthings]

Good for you on doing the deluxe dining....couldn't agree more when it comes to character meals, it makes more sense and you get more meals....sounds perfect to me!

 

[Pixiedust530]

Deluxe Dining! I can't wait to hear all about it! Sounds delicious!

Changes, changes, changes....it seems like every time I read PTRs and TRs here on the DIS that change is a common theme. Changing of ADRs, changing of resorts, changing of dates. I think that I am the ONLY one here that makes a plan and doesn't change. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong.

I'm so jealous...a week and Disney AND a week on a Disney Cruise....sounds just divine. I hope that one day I am able to make a Disney Cruise a reality. Can't wait to read more!