Magic Kingdom? I Think I Know My Way Around Magic Kingdom! WDW January 2023 TR **COMPLETE** 9/4 x4

[khertz]

It was such an amazing week, I think I'm officially hooked on traveling to Disney in January! I totally get it about those weeks where everything goes wrong, we've definitely had those trips in the past! I'm so happy you had a week where everything went right! Those are such amazing trips, I cannot wait to read more about it!

I am with you, January was fantastic!! We loved it so much! I'm going to check out your TR too

 

[disneyAndi14]

Joining in! What a fun start to your trip. AK is the best.
My daughter and I have been 3x in later January, we love it except we have had some cold weather spells during these trips.
We are from the north so it wasn’t really “cold” but still colder than we wanted when in Florida!

 

[vamassey1]

Great early start on your first day. We're rope droppers unless others slow us down.

That was great you saved on Genie + but a major ouch on ROTR.

Isn't it great when everyone can finally ride all the rides. I'm sorry your didn't get all your ride photos. We had trouble in June with photos showing up and I had to fill out the request. Thanks for the tip on Magic Band +. I haven't broken down to get one yet but I might for our trip in April. My DDs both had it last trip in November but we didn't. I might wait until we get there to get one, youngest is a CM and gets a good discount.

Looking forward to more.

 

[bsjs0708]

Love your pics! And your kiddos are so adorable! Looks like a great day at AK..

 

[khertz]

Joining in! What a fun start to your trip. AK is the best.
My daughter and I have been 3x in later January, we love it except we have had some cold weather spells during these trips.
We are from the north so it wasn’t really “cold” but still colder than we wanted when in Florida!

Thanks for joining!

We really love AK, and have spent a lot of time there on past trips! Not as much this time unfortunately, but it was a great way to kick it off anyway.

The cold hit us at the end of the week, and it wasn't as bad as we have experienced during other trips, so that was great! I'm sure if you're coming from the north during Jan you are hoping for warm weather to escape the winter!!

Great early start on your first day. We're rope droppers unless others slow us down.

That was great you saved on Genie + but a major ouch on ROTR.

Isn't it great when everyone can finally ride all the rides. I'm sorry your didn't get all your ride photos. We had trouble in June with photos showing up and I had to fill out the request. Thanks for the tip on Magic Band +. I haven't broken down to get one yet but I might for our trip in April. My DDs both had it last trip in November but we didn't. I might wait until we get there to get one, youngest is a CM and gets a good discount.

Looking forward to more.

If we would have waited on the rest of the family every day, we definitely wouldn't have gotten as much accomplished. But they totally understood that we were going to go with our plans each day, whether they were able to keep up with us or not.

Ugh, YES $72 was just painful to pay for ONE ride!

It was almost like a brand new trip with her able to do so many things for the first time! And luckily for me, she is a little thrill junkie in the making, so she enjoyed everything!

Oh yeah, anytime you can get a discount at Disney, that's worth waiting! I didn't realize ours had gotten so old that the long range RFID wouldn't work. I think next time we will break down and get at least one so we don't have any trouble with our ride photos.

Love your pics! And your kiddos are so adorable! Looks like a great day at AK..

Thanks so much!!

 

[Jeepdisney]

Following along! Cannot wait to hear all about your Disney trip!

 

[khertz]

Following along! Cannot wait to hear all about your Disney trip!

Thanks for joining!

 

[khertz]

Before I get to the next Disney Day update, I wanted to share some photos from our busy Mardi Gras 2023 weekend! If you have followed my trip reports in the past, I have shared other Mardi Gras adventures we have had, and you may remember that DH is a huge Mardi Gras fan. He has brought up the kids to follow in his footsteps!

It has been a really long time since we have been able to celebrate Mardi Gras! In 2019 & 2020, we were on vacation, it was canceled in 2021, and we were on vacation again last year. So DH and the kids were ready to go all out, and I was willing to tag along.

We live about 2 hours outside of NOLA now, so that meant getting up really early Saturday to hit the road. We attended the 2 daytime parades, Iris & Tucks, but called it a day after that. Sunday was an absolute marathon day where we went to 3 daytime parades, Okeanos, Mid-City & Thoth, then had a short break before the nighttime extravaganza of Bacchus. The kids had an absolute blast and came home with SO. MUCH. STUFF! We had about 4 trash bags filled with stuffed animals, sunglasses, toys, socks, trinkets, t-shirts, pretty much everything except beads (because that’s my big rule, we are not keeping beads!).

Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler!


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DD caught this skirt early on Saturday so it became part of her weekend wardrobe!


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One of the parades, the Krewe of Tucks, is well known for throwing things like printed toilet paper, and plungers. My friend’s wife rides with this Krewe every year, and she goes all out decorating beautiful mini-plungers for her wife to give out on the route. She knows how much our family loves Mardi Gras, so while she is creating these little glitter masterpieces, she texts me photos, and I was showing them to DD. She had made one that was like a crawfish pot, one covered in hot pink feathers and flamingos, voodoo dolls, etc. and DD was really into it. She said she really hoped we could catch one, so we made a sign and crossed our fingers, and she got one!

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It’s a little hard to see because it was still in the cellophane but this is what it looks like up close.

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That was everything from Saturday, up next was our Sunday marathon parading day. I really thought (and hoped) the kids would tire out after the daytime parades but they powered through until Bacchus was about 2/3 of the way over.

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Here is a little video snapshot of our weekend that DS recorded for his YouTube channel:

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[khertz]

Day 2 Continued: Sunday January 22nd

We did not want to have to waste a LL on Dinosaur if we didn’t have to, and it was still posted at just a 10 minute wait so we gathered together and headed towards Dinoland. We saw one of the floatillas jamming as we crossed the bridge, but no characters.

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We spotted another Photopass photographer by the big dinosaur so we stopped for some more photos.

2023-01-22 - Disneys Animal Kingdom Park - DinoLand USA_20 by disneymom1024, on Flickr


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2023-01-22 - Disneys Animal Kingdom Park - DinoLand USA by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

Dinosaur still had a low posted wait, and it only ended up taking us 5 minutes to get on.

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We left DN behind in the capable hands of Nonni, who did not want to get jostled around on Dinosaur. He may not look it in photos, but he is actually a pretty happy kid!

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DD was worried about her Minnie ears falling off, so DH offered to hold them for her.

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2023-01-22 - Disneys Animal Kingdom Park - DINOSAUR by disneymom1024, on Flickr​

DS still names this as one of his favorite rides!

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We were able to book another LL around 10 I believe, and we were able to book Kilimanjaro Safari for a 12:30 return time. After such an early morning, we were all starting to get hungry. We all hopped on the app to mobile order an early lunch, our family of 4 from Restaurant-osaurus, and my parents and sister from Flame Tree BBQ, for around 11 am. But we still had time before we could go eat, so we walked to Asia to walk through the Maharajah Jungle Trek.

Just a quick note about mobile ordering and using gift cards. We had stocked up on discounted gift cards before the trip and merged them on disneygiftcard.com which can be done up to $1000 on each card. We used this to pay for all of our food, and you can pay with a gift card when mobile ordering but you can’t save the gift card as a form of payment to use in the app. What we found easiest was to type the gift card number into a Note on my phone so that it was easy to copy & paste when paying for mobile orders.

Along the way, we saw Kevin walking around!

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[khertz]

Day 2 Continued: Sunday January 22nd

Of course, the highlight of this trail for us is the tigers! But we had lots of other animals to see before then, including the komodo dragon, some monkeys, and a room full of lizards and bats. I usually skip the bats part, but the kids convinced me to try it out this time.

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Once we got over to the main tiger viewing area, we couldn’t see any of the tigers out and about. After looking for awhile, we finally spotted one off in the distance resting,

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DD started tumbling at the end of the summer, and so her goal was to cartwheel around WDW as much as possible. She asked way more times than we actually let her do it because she usually wanted to do it in a very crowded and bustling area. But we did find a spot on the trail where there weren’t a lot of people around.

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It was about at this point that we could hear the tigers vocalizing a lot! They were SO loud! One of the CM’s showed us where the other viewing area was and said one of the tigers was walking around that we would be able to see well.

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So cool! Big cats are my favorite, but specifically tigers! DD is also a cat lover, so she enjoyed this close up view of the tiger as well.

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DD wanted a picture with this fountain.

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After the Jungle Trek, it was time to head back over to Dinoland for our lunch. Crossing the bridge, we spotted another floatilla, but this time we saw Pocahontas and Meeko!

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We also spotted some of the animals around the Tree of Life having their lunches as well!

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Our mobile order was ready as soon as we got into the restaurant and we had an easy time finding a table. Only one side of the restaurant was open that early in the lunchtime hour.

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They had given us some extra kids sides, plus French fries with their meals which we had substituted with fruit and applesauce, so we had some extra snacks to take with us. DD was really obsessed with the little Cuties mandarin oranges that they had available, so she ate a lot of them throughout the week.

 

[vamassey1]

Dinosaur is DH and DD's favorite. I can take it or leave it. DD is going to be very upset if they close it.

Great family photos in Dino area.

DN looks a little tired.

 

[BLTFrank]

Following...

 

[afwdwfan]

As we have returned from this trip and people asked how it was, I find myself saying, “It was honestly perfect!” We had a really amazing time and got to experience almost everything we wanted to, which had been one of my fears going into the trip that we would miss out on some of the headliners. But we got to do it all! I hope you’ll join in!

That's great!!! Sounds like it paid to take the kids out of school to go during that lower crowd time.

DD finished her homework

I'm glad you were able to get her to make good use of that plane time.

His shirt is awesome!

As it turned out, we had a GREAT view of the Castle and Space Mountain from our balcony!

I'm glad that it worked out, even if after they switched it up on you.

We had reserved 2 single strollers through Orlando Stroller Rentals

DId you get one for DD? We're going on a spring break trip and trying to decide if we want to take one for our 6 year old.

Once we were let into the park, resort guests were sent to the left to check their on-site status

How does this process work? Do they scan your band again once you're in the park?

Once again, DS really enjoyed this ride and DD loved her first time on it! I was a little worried how she would do with the restraint, but I explained it to her as best I could before we went on so it wouldn’t be a surprise, and she did fine. Of course, her first question was “Can we do that again?!” and the answer had to be no.

I'm glad it was a hit!!! This is kind of what worries me for our upcoming trip. We last went with the kids in 2019 and our youngest couldn't ride any of the bigger rides. He's 45" now and I can see him being anywhere from fearless, loving it all and having a meltdown because he can't ride again, or just flat out getting scared and not wanting to do anything.

In the ways of Cinderella, DN had tossed off one of his tennis shoes, which we never did get back, so we spent some time looking around the entrance to see if we could find it, but no luc

I guess it is time for his first pair of Mickey Mouse crocs!

Update: I got an email back from Photopass and apparently someone was doing something inappropriate in this photo so we can’t get ours.

I kind of want to know what they did.

Before I get to the next Disney Day update, I wanted to share some photos from our busy Mardi Gras 2023 weekend!

Looks like a fun weekend! And I'm glad DD got her plunger!

DD was worried about her Minnie ears falling off, so DH offered to hold them for her.

It's a good look!

DD started tumbling at the end of the summer, and so her goal was to cartwheel around WDW as much as possible. She asked way more times than we actually let her do it because she usually wanted to do it in a very crowded and bustling area. But we did find a spot on the trail where there weren’t a lot of people around.

Our DD is the same! She doesn't do it as much now as she used to but she'd cartwheel her way around anywhere she could.

They had given us some extra kids sides, plus French fries with their meals which we had substituted with fruit and applesauce, so we had some extra snacks to take with us.

Gotta appreciate bonus food at Disney World! Can't afford to keep buying their snacks all day!

 

[khertz]

Dinosaur is DH and DD's favorite. I can take it or leave it. DD is going to be very upset if they close it.

Great family photos in Dino area.

DN looks a little tired.

I am not a big fan of Dinosaur either! Both kids really enjoy it unfortunately

DN was definitely a little discombobulated most of the time, as it was not the schedule he is used to.

Following...

Thanks for joining in!

 

[khertz]

Heyyyyyyyy Andy!! I have been away from this board too long, it's so nice to see some familiar "faces"!

great!!! Sounds like it paid to take the kids out of school to go during that lower crowd time.

It absolutely did, and now I'm a little worried that we were too spoiled to it.

I'm glad you were able to get her to make good use of that plane time.

It was definitely a relief to have most of her work done before we even got there. Same for DS, although he had a little more to do once we got home. And it kept her busy!

His shirt is awesome!

He loves it!

I'm glad that it worked out, even if after they switched it up on you.

It was a relief, for sure. We were pretty disappointed when we got the text, especially since we had already been told our room request had been granted. It was a great surprise to see that it was still pretty much the view we had been hoping to get! I'm sure the 10th floor would have been a little better, but 6th was pretty good!

DId you get one for DD? We're going on a spring break trip and trying to decide if we want to take one for our 6 year old.

Yes! She did walk a lot, and sometimes we'd leave it parked for a bit and then go back for it later. But I don't think she would have been able to handle all the walking, especially walking back and forth to MK from the resort as many times as we did. I think by next time we go, so won't need one, but we got good use out of it and I was very glad we rented one for her!

How does this process work? Do they scan your band again once you're in the park?

Yes, there are a line of CMs waiting to scan bands before letting you continue on the path. If I am remembering right, they would just scan one of us and ask how many in our party, they didn't have to scan every single person. So it went quickly.

I'm glad it was a hit!!! This is kind of what worries me for our upcoming trip. We last went with the kids in 2019 and our youngest couldn't ride any of the bigger rides. He's 45" now and I can see him being anywhere from fearless, loving it all and having a meltdown because he can't ride again, or just flat out getting scared and not wanting to do anything.

It's sooooooo hard to know how they are going to do! With DS being as hesitant as he is to try new things, I was worried it would be the same with DD. She had a few times she was nervous, but more nervous-excited so she still wanted to try everything new.

I kind of want to know what they did.

Me too! I tried asking if they can crop out whoever was misbehaving but the response was that I'd have to call to talk about it with someone, and I decided it just wasn't worth the effort for one photo.

Looks like a fun weekend! And I'm glad DD got her plunger!

It was fun! Exhausting but fun!

It's a good look!

Our DD is the same! She doesn't do it as much now as she used to but she'd cartwheel her way around anywhere she could.

My sister was like this when she was little, both with gymnastics & dancing. I remember her tap dancing through WDW one year when we were kids! The legacy continues...

Gotta appreciate bonus food at Disney World! Can't afford to keep buying their snacks all day!

YES! Disney World & free don't often appear together in the same sentence, so free snacks to take with us was a great bonus and kept DD super happy!

 

[amazingact21]

Just saw you had a new WDW TR and popped over to subscribe! I'll be back later to catch up.
How fun that you were able to experience your nephew's first trip to Disney and that DD was tall enough for all the attractions!

 

[DL1WDW2]

great trip report and son follows in your footsteps .Future blogger!
You definitely need Togo toUniversalStudios for their Mardi Gras Festivities.
Their floats are incredible and designed by professional team that creates Mardi Gras Parade Floats in New Orleans!
Feet don’t fail me now!
I was just at USO for Super Bowl weekend Yay KC Chiefs! And going back first weekend in March Need more beads! Will try to take great photos for you !

 

[DL1WDW2]

Sorry got way off topic planning your sons future blogging about Parades …

 

[rdkeim]

Really enjoying your TR and pictures! So far you have some great family group photos. Good decision to get to AK for early entry even if you had to leave some stragglers behind Looks like you all had a great time on FOP and EE - nice to get them done before the lines got too long. For some reason in all our trips we've never done the Jungle Trek. Need to remedy that. Cartwheels in the park - how cute. I think that will be something you look back on years from now and smile. Mardi Gras looks like it was a very fun time!

 

[khertz]

Just saw you had a new WDW TR and popped over to subscribe! I'll be back later to catch up.
How fun that you were able to experience your nephew's first trip to Disney and that DD was tall enough for all the attractions!

Traveling with DN was great, but it sure made me thankful we are past those baby days in the parks! They were definitely special & magical, but it's quite nice not to be stressing about nap schedules, eating schedules and diaper changes.

great trip report and son follows in your footsteps .Future wealthy blogger!
You definitely need Togo toUniversalStudios for their Mardi Gras Festivities.
Their floats are incredible and designed by professional team that creates Mardi Gras Parade Floats in New Orleans!
Feet don’t fail me now!
I was just at USO for Super Bowl weekend Yay KC Chiefs! And going back first weekend in March Need more beads! Will try to take great photos for you !

I sure hope so! I keep telling him he needs to hit it big on YT so I can stop working.

We have been to Universal during Mardi Gras before, but I will leave the parade for those who don't get to experience it in New Orleans, we'd rather ride the rides.

Really enjoying your TR and pictures! So far you have some great family group photos. Good decision to get to AK for early entry even if you had to leave some stragglers behind Looks like you all had a great time on FOP and EE - nice to get them done before the lines got too long. For some reason in all our trips we've never done the Jungle Trek. Need to remedy that. Cartwheels in the park - how cute. I think that will be something you look back on years from now and smile. Mardi Gras looks like it was a very fun time!

Thanks for joining in!

Yes, thankfully our family was understanding that we weren't TRYING to ditch them, we were just going to prioritize our touring plans over waiting around when they weren't ready!

It was several trips before we dipped our toes into the animal trails! It's definitely worth the wander, and it doesn't take too long. Another thing we love with the kids is Wilderness Explorers, but we had a talk with the kids about that before this trip and ultimately decided that since they had both completed their books in 2020 on our last trip, we didn't need to spend time doing it this time around. But it's definitely a lot of fun and very educational for the kids at the same time!