"It was the coffee police!" a fun-filled, action packed April 2016 Trip Report!

[orna14]

Hiya everyone! My name is ~Jules~ and welcome to my first ever Trip Report here on the Dis!

Contrary to this being my first Trip Report, this is my 16th trip to Walt Disney World, Florida, and definitely one of the greatest. (Though aren't they all?)

Before I get into any details about the trip, I've got to get into our cast!

This is the family! I'll go from left to right just to keep things simple.

First up, we have my Disney Dad! Lover of animals, anything green, and most everything Disney! He's our rock on vacation and was excited to relax, take a swim, and see all of the new Star Wars stuff in HS.

DD
Favorite Character: Sully
Favorite Hotel: Animal Kingdom Lodge
Favorite Restaurant: Spoodles ( ( )
Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy, Brave, and Monsters University

To his right we've got my Disney Sister, Maddie! She's about a week away from being 17 years old, member of our school color guard, and plays around 4 different instruments. She's my partner in crime and we share a huge love for Disney.

Maddie
Favorite Character:
Favorite Hotel:
Favorite Restaurant:
Favorite Park: Animal Kingdom
Favorite Movie:

And on her right we have the writer of this trip report, me! Also known as the photographer and the obnoxiously tall younger sister, cameras are my passion and Disney is my everything else pretty much.

Jules
Favorite Character: Donald Duck, Remi, and Mufasa
Favorite Hotel: Animal Kingdom Lodge and Old Key West
Favorite Restaurant: T-Rex
Favorite Park: Animal Kingdom
Favorite Movie: Ratatouille and The Lion King

And last but most certainly not least is my beautiful Disney Mother, the catalyst to my obsession with Disney! I swear nobody knows more about Disney than she does - movies to parks to rides to the Disboards, my DM is always on top of things.

DM
Favorite Character: Snow White, Alice, and Tinkerbell
Favorite Hotel: Animal Kingdom Lodge
Favorite Restaurant: Chef Mickey's
Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite Movie: Alice in Wonderland

Now that you have all been interested to our cast, you should probably know what our plans are for this wonderful vacation!

Where: Animal Kingdom Lodge!
When: April 9th to April 14th
Who: Our family of four!
What: A good old yearly trip to Disney World staying at a new resort

Two notes about the above information - for one thing, originally we were meant to stay at Pop Century for our first night, then a standard room at Animal Kingdom Lodge for the rest of the trips. However there's a big and awesome change to this later on, so stay tuned for that.

Second, Disney World is our families yearly trip, and it's been a steady tradition since I was 3 years old. What's so awesome about this is that, now that we've stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge, our family has officially stayed at every single Walt Disney World hotel! There are some technical exceptions, like villas and parent only trips, but I totally think it counts.

AND one last thing before the trip report really begins - the itinerary!

Saturday, April 9th - Fly out of airport at 8:40 PM
Sunday, April 10th - Hollywood Studios day with Lunch at Sci-Fi Diner around 12
Monday, April 11th - Animal Kingdom day with Lunch at Tusker House around 1
Tuesday, April 12th - Epcot day with Lunch at Via Napoli around 2
Wednesday, April 13th - Magic Kingdom day with Lunch at Be Our Guest around 12
Thursday, April 14th - Fly out of Orlando around 6:30

So that's everything! I hope you stick around and enjoy the ride!!




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[orna14]

Table of Contents

April 9th, 2016
Travel Day!

April 10th, 2016
coming soon!

April 11th, 2016
coming soon!

April 12th, 2016
coming soon!

April 13th, 2016
coming soon!

April 14th, 2016
coming soon!​

 

[orna14]

Day 1- April 9th, 2016 - Travel Day

Hello everyone and welcome back to the first day of our trip report! Probably the least exciting, but still definitely worth mentioning.

The basic plan for the day was for Maddie to attend and compete in her color guard show, while my parents and I had to leave the house by 2. The show ended around 3:45 so we would pick Maddie up then head straight to the airport! So here we go!

The morning went by crazy fast. Cleaning, packing, organizing, all that last minute stuff that everyone procrastinates. We left the house at exactly 2:02, all packed and ready to go. Of course because we live in Pennsylvania the weather is always getting in the way so yes, on APRIL freaking 9th, it started to snow as we left. Which kind of ruined my plan to wear shorts?

Jeans it was. But whatever, we were going to DISNEY WORLD.

So we left, drove through the flurries, got to Maddie's show with time to watch her perform. Pretty much as soon as she finished she got changed and we left the gymnasium. We were in and out super fast but I will say that the show was awesome (as usual) and she's super talented.

Seriously look how hardcore she is? That was a photo from last year but still!

ANYWAY, the drive to the airport was uneventful. We stopped at airport parking, drove to the airport, and got dropped off at the Southwest gate.

From there, security was actually a breeze, and there was no line for bag check in??? How awesome is that???

I can't quite remember what time we got there but I think we arrived around 6. At 6:30 ish we had dinner at the airport Chickies and Petes - mostly for the crab fries but the salad was very good too.

Amidst our dinner conversation came the first quote worthy sentence, and trip report title contender, of our vacation. I don't really remember the context of the conversation but it definitely had to do with planes and... maybe skydiving? "It's like flying. Like down. So like falling."

OKAY OKAY we think we're comedians but I swear this was hilarious at the time.

After dinner we had a little over an hour to kill before boarding our 8:40 flight. My mom and I charged our phones in another seating area and around 8:30 they announced that our flight was packed full - but hey, could be worse.

We boarded the plane around 9 then from takeoff it was a smooth flight. We touched down in Orlando around 11 - 11:30 and I'd hardly slept! My parents and sister both did but truthfully, I was wide freaking awake. I was in Florida!!! Who could sleep at a time like that!!!!

Apparently a lot of people because eveeeeryone in the entire airport was grumpy! Okay, not the magical express people but NO SHADE INTENDED certainly my family was. No blame really it was just getting in the way of my Disney SPIRIT.

Really, though, we got on our Magical Express bus, after getting our bags and checking in. As we stepped into line, my mother tiredly revealed to us that instead of staying at Pop Century that first night we'd be doing Animal Kingdom Lodge every night!! Yay!!

Around then it was like 12:30. We boarded the bus immediately, got our seats, then! - sat. And sat. And sat. I'm not complaining, I swear, but - we sat for what felt like forever. Our bus finally left at like 1:15 in the morning, and took a good half an hour to get to the hotel.

BUT NO COMPLAINING CAUSE WE WERE IN DISNEY.

Since we got to Animal Kingdom Lodge - Jambo House this night - at like 2 in the morning, the lobby was EMPTY.

IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. Looking at pictures honestly just doesn't do it justice. Being the room captures the light and feeling so well, immediately I felt like I was at home.

That's Disney Magic.

And that was our travel day! Short, sweet, insistent on trying my patience - yeah, definitely our travel day. Coming up next will be the start of our first day, at Disney's Hollywood Studios!




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[swim mom 29]

Following. We had some of that April snow here in Columbus, OH too. I think we were spoiled by the mild winter. Travel days can be so tedious, especially when they are so late. Can't wait to ear about the fun stuff!