My very first TR-aka the one where the trip was way more fun than the title...

[Aandd Beyond]

Gimme A Little INTRO there, Gomer.....

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Hi-I'm Amy, 41-yrs old, and head over heels for all things Disney. I am the head purchaser for an internet company-so I most days I sit at my little cubicle surrounded by my lovely Disney memories and dream of my next trip. I love the planning part, I spend hours poring over Vlogs, Instagram, Disboards trying to narrow down exactly what I want to do on my next trip. I make spreadsheets and graphs only to arrive at Disney and turn into Dug-"SQUIRREL!"

Fav Disney Park: MK
Fav Non-Signature: 'Ohana
Fav Quick Service: Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn
Fav Nighttime Show: Main Street Electrical Parade
Fav Rides: HM-Dinosaur-Soarin
Fav Character: Stitch and Goofy

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My BF, Derrick is 35, and every bit as much into the parks as I am. He is a warehouse supervisor at the same internet company-so we pretty much do everything together. He loves photography and enjoys documenting both our Disney travels as well as other places. If you are interested you can check him out on Instagram at travelthrumyeyez.

Fav Disney Park: DHS
Fav Non-Signature: Trail's End
Fav Quick Service: Casey's Corner
Fav Nighttime Show: Main Street Electrical Parade
Fav Rides: Dinosaur-FOP-SDD CBJ
Fav Princess: Tie between Belle and Ariel-has tattoos of both
Fav Character: Donald Duck

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About Us:

We live outside of Pittsburgh PA and when we aren't planning our next trip we enjoy suffering along with the Pirates and watching the Penguins and Johnstown Tomahawks play hockey. We love searching flea markets, estate sales and yards sales for, yep you guessed it Disney Stuff. Derrick has managed to turn this hobby into a small business to help pay for trips and we sell a lot of items on Ebay, Etsy and Amazon. We have been to Disney eight times as a couple and have yet to get tired of it. People constantly ask us why we are going to Disney again and let's be honest unless you are a Disney person you just don’t get it.

Colby and the other Max

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Mostly we travel just the two of us, occasionally my 15 yo daughter will go but she is very particular about what time of the year, so she stays with her dad or my mom when we visit. She is literally the only child I know who says "oh, we are going AGAIN?"

There Reaction when we tell them we are going to Disney again !!!

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In addition we have two fur babies Max and Betty, Max of course is in honor of Goofy's son and well we wanted our second dog to have a Disney name, but Betty was a rescue and already accustomed to her name so the best we can do is Donald appears to have a long-lost cousin named Betty so um yeah we are just going to go with that.
We mostly stay at Value Resorts or off property. We are the type of people that boot camp the parks we want to be there from rope drop until the last firework explodes in the sky, so we aren’t very particular with hotel accommodations we just want a place to lay our heads and shower. I have yet to enjoy the feasting of the Dining Plan so we mostly just pick out a few ADR and do either quick service meals or our personal favorite-the popcorn bucket refills-to be honest there are some days when that is the only sustenance we need-not really but I am happy eating it all day every day and it's one of the snacks Derrick misses most about the parks. Probably our favorite part is just being there, I love the atmosphere and magic of it all. We love meeting the characters and enjoy long drawn out pantomimed conversations especially with Chip & Dale and the #1 Donald.

Ultimately, we would like to make new friends with like-minded people who understand the joy of park hopping and whose eyes don't glaze over when we mention Festival of Fantasy or the International Festival of the Arts. I love reading about everyone's little slice of Disney heaven and hope that our trip makes you smile because I know that each trip brings us so much happiness to be able to share that with someone else would be just as magical.

This travel report will cover our 4-day 3-night trip to Disney World September 14-17. Where we ambitiously tried to do not one but two MNSSHP, our first trip to TSL, Dino Bash in AK and oh yeah, the International Food and Wine Festival. Can we cram it all in on one trip-and did we mention weather was in the mid 90's-stay tuned to see how successful we actually were and how successful I am at recapping the whole crazy trip…

 

[adventuregirl]

Joining in!

 

[KimmyD]

Looking forward to more!

 

[xlsm]

hopping on board!

 

[Aandd Beyond]

Part II Pre Trip Plans - Kidding with 2 weeks to go how much planning are we actually doing.

So, I have been a long-time reader of the blogs and love reading everyone's TR and have always wanted to post one of my own, not only to share my experiences but also to have something to look back on and relive my own trips. I love how detailed everyone is and it really allows the reader to enjoy every minute. So, I had originally planned on documenting my next trip and then just decided to go ahead and just do our last visit anyway. So, I apologize in advance if any of the details are fuzzy and lack of pictures, but I am doing this solely from Photos, Instagram,bank statement and what I can remember.

But first a little about myself or I guess I should say the two of us. I am relatively new to Disney, as a child my parents always took us every few years and I remember the olden days when you had to get lucky and hope you ran into characters. In fact my lone autograph book from childhood literally only has two signatures, one from Brer Rabbit and one from *maybe* Friar Tuck. I remember a later trip when they had built Toontown and the excitement over being guaranteed an actual meet and greet with The Boss himself. Fast forward a bunch of years later and I have a daughter of my own and when she turned 11 I was finally able to finally afford a trip to Disney as part of a larger family trip that included my Mom, Dad, grandmother, Sister, BIL and 3 yo nephew. At that time, I was a recently divorced single mom and let me tell you standing there with my daughter on Main Street-the pure joy of being able to give her this trip was one of the most magical moments I have ever felt in my entire life. That whole trip was a dream come true, her happiness and the memories I was able to make with my dad, who would pass away unexpectedly less than a year later are something that I will treasure for my lifetime. And every trip since then has been just as amazing because each time I get a chance to relive the magic of that first trip and make new memories to add-I am 100% hooked for life.

Colby's 1st Day EVER in the Magic Kingdom​

Derrick, my other half meanwhile has been a Disney Fan longer and has been going regularly since 2011-fun fact my first adult trip him and I were there the same time but couldn't make meeting up in the parks work, this was when we were just friends and before we started dating and living the Disney life together lol. He likes to say even though he has 5 Disney tattoos I am still the bigger fan. It's still up for debate.

Photo from Derrick's 1st Trip in 2011​

Anyhow Derrick and I decided to take a year off from Disney and see other places and do other things, well after six months I was not all about that life and after a super stressful summer the only thing that could fix me was a trip to my Happy Place. So, on the 28th of August we decided to plan a trip to Disney September 14-18th. Hooray for Disney! Boo for having missed every window for booking. But that was ok we had been to the parks enough that we were ok with missing out on scoring the really good FP-we are flexible people and would make it work, I mean after all we were headed to Disney. The reason we picked this weekend was because of MNSSHP, we had attended one in 2016 and swore if we ever went again we would do two nights and this weekend met our needs. Another thing we knew was we wouldn't be taking any more extended time off from Disney and that we would becoming AP holders again-YAY! So, time to get to planning. Airfare was easy as we have a rural airport that flies to Orlando once a day at 7 am with a returning flight at 8 pm. Next was hotel, knowing we were going to have AP benefits we decided to book off property at one of our local favs, nothing fancy but we know when in Orlando we are only sleeping and showering so we don't get fancy. And Finally, FP, whelp you guessed it with two weeks to go not much was left so we grabbed what we could and figured we would make the most of it-after all we were going to DISNEY!!!

Two weeks out and we were wondering what we were thinking, we checked the crowd calendars and it seemed like a good idea but then a coworker reminded me it was smack dab in the middle of hurricane season, but I was still positive. I mean wasn't a rainy day in Orlando better than any day at work? Now time to get Halloween party planning. We both knew we wanted to go costumed to one party and probably stick with Halloween shirts for the other one. We racked our minds and Derrick came up with THE BEST idea for me and a great one for himself, they were themed but not matching-we had done Donald and Daisy last time.

Colby, Derrick, Amy, and Derrick's 82 YO Grandmother Olaf who was the star of the party.​

So off to Amazon, Target and Etsy to get everything we needed. The clock was ticking, and we had some crafting to do to make the outfits perfect because everyone knows the magic of Disney is all in the details. Meanwhile we were scouring the blogs, boards and Instagram to figure out what was a must do for this trip, I mean we had IF&W, MNSSHP and AK Dino-Bash and TSL to squeeze into 4 short days. Around this time, they put out one of the perks of being an APH at IF&W was if you visited Epcot 4 times you could get the cutting board and I knew that was something I definitely wanted to accomplish. We only booked one ADR and that was for Trails End breakfast, Derrick had fallen in love with the brunch bacon and had been dreaming of it for months. we figured we would see what we were in the mood for when we got there. Next up Travel/Disney/MNSSHP day-oh yeah and we have to hit up Epcot too!

Oh, wait a minute were we trying to do too much at once…

 

[Aandd Beyond]

Joining in!

Welcome and I hope you enjoy

 

[Aandd Beyond]

Looking forward to more!

Welcome and I hope you continue to enjoy!

 

[Aandd Beyond]

hopping on board!

Thanks and welcome aboard!

 

[petals]

joining in

 

[DLo]

Looking forward to reading more about your adventures

 

[suse66]

Looking forward to reading along!!

 

[Aandd Beyond]

joining in

Welcome and thank you

 

[Aandd Beyond]

Looking forward to reading more about your adventures

And thanks!

 

[Aandd Beyond]

Looking forward to reading along!!

 

[disneyseniors]

Following along!

 

[dnllmz]

Joining in!

 

[kclark9830]

Sounds good so far! I would be super thrilled with a last minute trip .

 

[Aandd Beyond]

Travel Day and Day 1-Pre Party Fun.......

Flight departs @7-arrive MCO around 9ish

Fast passes @ MK

Quick Trip to Epcot

MNSSHP @ 7


So, as I mentioned earlier we are lucky enough to have a Teeny Tiny Airport close to our house that has two flights out a day and the first one out is to MCO at 7am. We have flown this a bunch of times and have it down to a science. Well for some reason Derrick had a horrible night sleeping and managed to keep both of us up have the night so we overslept a little and were kind of slow moving by the time when we got up at 4:30am. After our delayed start I was embarrassed to the second to last family in line to go thru security, but we were still so excited to be going to DISNEY!!! We had just enough time to grab some sodas and quick muffins for the flight and then we were boarded and on our way. When we landed at Orlando we needed to grab our bag from baggage claim and get the rental car.

WE MADE IT TO MCO!!!

Do you know what the good news is about being one of the last people to check in-your bag is the first to come off! So, we grabbed our bags and headed to Alamo. The one thing I like about them is they let you pretty much do everything in advance, all we had to do was walk to the garage and pick out our car and we were off and on our way.

First stop of course was the Premium Outlets I love checking out what kind of Disney Park merchandise they have at the Character Warehouse. This time we didn't get too much, some socks, plush tsum tsums and some fun Hitchhiking Ghost ornaments. Does anyone else make this part of their travel plans? We love scoring great deals on park merchandise and have managed to get some really nice stuff there. Then we grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonald's and it was time to head to Magic Kingdom.

It's typical when we pull into a parking lot anywhere on WDW property that 9 out of 10 times the attendants will start a new row in fact we almost have come to expect it, well let me tell you our luck was changing! We were one of the very last cars they let park before starting a new row- and neither one of us could believe it! So, we real quick decided what we "needed" to bring in the parks with us for the day as we had no plans on returning until around midnight after the MNSSHP. We grabbed our water bottle, portable chargers and extra t-shirts to wear to the party and we were on our way. After we got thru security at TTC we debated a few minutes-monorail or Ferry and since it was our first visit in a while we elected to go with the Boat and luck was on our side we were some of the last folks to board before it departed to the Magic Kingdom.

I have no idea why we always have our mouths open in selfies...



Our philosophy for getting to MK is to just take our time, we like to ride in the back of the Ferry and check out the Poly and wave at the passengers on passing boats and then leisurely disembark the boat at docking. By now it was a little after 10:30 and our first FB was at BLSR and we were starting to notice how warm it was getting. We made our way thru the entrance and just took in all the magic of being back home had to offer.

First stop we were off to battle the evil emperor Zurg and our first FP of the day. Derrick is a champ at this game and always manages to come out a conquering Galactic Hero-I on the other hand am pleased with myself if I break 100,000 for a score.

Galactic Hero Again !!!!​

We also wanted to get our AP and I was convinced you could do it somewhere in TL but wasn't sure on any of the details. For some reason CM's seemed sparse that day and when we finally found someone to ask they had no idea where to go other than the Main Street GS. Having just come from that direction and with a FP for SM in the 20 minutes or so we decided to relax on the People Mover. Now is it just me or does that line seem to bottle neck lately-seems like they have really started to let the line grow before sending about 20 people or so up at a time? People Mover-check Space Mountain-check and we were officially done with Tommorowland for now. Off to Liberty Square and our Annual Passes. This process is always a breeze and the people who work are always a pleasure. I can't remember his name but he was helpful-the only bad news was they were out of AP sliders so we would have to wait until we got our bands in the mail. Next stop FP for BTMR, but we decided to stop for a snack and to our surprise we found the Cauldron Popcorn Bucket! I was thinking I would have to wait for the party to start to find this gem because it was an absolute on my list of souvenirs. We were feeling great and ahead of schedule, so we decided to cool off with a visit to the good ole Country Bears and were lucky enough to have one of our favorite CM's welcome us. I am so bad with names, but he is a hoot and we enjoy the way he warms up the crowd and his terrible bear jokes.

Next stop Epcot so we could accomplish day 1 of our 4 day required check-ins, I really wanted that cutting board. So, we hopped on the monorail at MK and transferred over at TTC. While on board we were lucky enough to snag a Soarin FP. We hopped off headed straight for the Land, of course we got a little distracted by all the F&W booths and had to stop off and sample some goodies. By now the temps were in the low 90's and our northern selves were just not used to it so we weren't really that hungry but had seen the Loaded Mac 'n' Cheese from the Active Eats booth and wanted to try that despite the heat. Let me tell you that was super spicy, but very delicious and we washed it down with a M.I.A Beer Company HRD WTR Pineapple Coconut Hard Sparkling Water-that was different. Not bad different or good different it just left us feeling meh. Not sure that I would recommend it to anyone but that is the fun thing about F&W is you win some you lose some. By now it was getting close to 2:30 so we needed to get moving to the ride and we wanted to switch up our shirts, so we were a little more festive for the Halloween Party. We headed to the land, enjoyed a quick trip around the world and had a quick pit stop to change up our look-next up was the MNSSHP. On the way back we were lucky enough to just catch the return monorail to MK and we even scored seats-my luck was continuing to improve!

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Next UP… Mickeys Not So Scary Halloween Party Night 1

 

[Aandd Beyond]

MNSSHP #1..........

Finally, it was time for our First MNSSHP of the weekend. After arriving at MK getting in was a little bit chaotic and we felt a like cattle being corralled in-little did we know that this was just the start to the evening crowds. This was the weekend of Hurricane Florence and it seemed like lots of locals had turned up for the party. We grabbed our bands and headed to the firehouse to get our Orange Bird card. Next, we decided to leisurely walk down the alley and take advantage of all the photo pass photographers. This year they had lots of magic shots and fun frames to pose with, don’t ask me how but 3 out of the 4 photographers gave us the same flaming pumpkin shot and by the time we got to the last one we were like can we do something else, Please?

Can't Believe We are still surprised even after getting this shot 10 times !!!!​

At the end of the alley they gave us our treat bag but from previous experience I knew we would need a larger bag, so I splurged on a reusable tote that I knew would get some mileage on trips to Aldi's back home. So it was now 4:45 and we still had awhile before the party even started. We thought maybe now would be a good time to grab a bite to eat and headed to Cosmic Rays where we shared some nuggets and fries-it was still too early for the Halloween treats to appear. We grabbed our food and headed down to enjoys some sweet songs sung by the one and only Sonny Eclipse and try and formulate a game plan for the evening. By now we had been up 12 hours straight and the heat and lack of sleep were starting to take its toll on us. We decided that the best course of action would be to get in line for characters. And although the 100 Acre Woods Gang isn't one of favorites I needed to meet Eeyore in his adorable clown costume. So off to Fantasyland we went. We got in line at 6 and were waiting in the actual que area for the gang to show up. We had a great view of passersby in costumes and had the most adorable group costume in front of us as Heffalumps and Woozles so time went pretty quick. Watching all the guests dressed in costume was definitely getting us excited to wear our costumes to the next party. I had yet to see anyone in the same costumes as we had planned to wear. Back to waiting on Pooh and Friends, rumors said they might come out prior to 7 but the CM's assured us they wouldn't start before the Party did. Also, the characters wouldn't be signing but they did pass out adorable autograph cards. We spent the time in line chatting with new friends from CT and discussing party strategies.

But Seriously How Cute is Eyeore as a Clown?

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Finally, it was 7 and time to get the party started. The gang rolled in adorable as ever and the line moved along smoothly. Of course, as we got close it was almost time for them to go and freshen up but we lucked out and got our meet in right at 7:25. We decided to go to Big Top and check out the party merchandise and see if there was anything we "needed". Once there we were once again kind of surprised at the crowds and didn't see anything we wanted, of course CM were passing out laminated cards with items available kind of like they do in the QS restaurants. Ok time for a sugar rush with a Goofy slushie and cookie from the bakery there. We walked out only to run into a line-we thought maybe it was for the seven dwarves but were started to see it was for the candy-which was all the way down by the train platform. Yes you read that correct it was like a 20min wait for candy-let me tell you we skipped this line and made our way over to see Pirate Goofy and chastise him for what he had done to The Barnstormer sign.

Next up was the Haunted Mansion. In 2016 at the party on our way along the boardwalk I was started by someone behind me who I thought I was dressed up as the most amazing ghost I had ever seen. Fast forward two years later and I finally realized she had been a performer at the party as the marvelous Lady Carlotta. Derrick and I both wanted a closer look at her performance. SHE WAS AMAZING!!! We stood in front of the HM for at least 30min and laughed until our sides hurt at her. She engaged with people in the que as well as those crowded down front and she was worth every penny I paid for admission.

Unfortunately, it was time for her break and so we decided to check out some other party offerings. We made our way down by the river and stopped by three different photo pass booths who all had different magic shots, we couldn't wait to see what exactly it was that we had been posing for on the app later that evening. Then we checked out the candy lines at harbor house-still too long.

So off to Frontierland, at Country Bears they had candy and we though oh well we are kind of here for some of that, so we headed inside. The cool thing about this candy stop was we walked down right in front of the stage and we were able to peak over and see bears hibernating beneath the stage-I love glimpses at behind the Disney magic. Next up Tom Sawyers Island and this was a funny stop-previously we had gotten green peeps and they were gross but as we walked up the CM's were like "we don't have candy-we only have applesauce" I felt like maybe they were worried they were going to get egged for passing out the bad treats. With the weather still in the 90's that applesauce was amazing! So, we immediately looped back around and got another one to enjoy as we made our way over to Splash Mountain to see their candy line. Well we finally had stumbled upon a short one and wanting to take advantage of the minimal line we must have looped thru at least 8 times to fill up our treat bags. We were starting to fade after walking around all day our feet were starting to hurt so we thought it was time to check out the Halloween overlay on POTC and see if the hype was worth it. We hopped in line and were rather surprised how slow it was moving-until we approached the cell where the CM was and realized everyone was slowing down to interact with the Pirates-after that we moved almost immediately to the launch area and met up another Pirate offering a reward for the return of the scalawag Gunpowder Pete. I have to say I thought the whole thing was fun and Gunpowder Pete kind of popped out in his scene and startled us. I often complain that WDW doesn't do as much as some of the other parks so it was nice to see them step it up and try something different.

Channeling our inner Tigger!!!​

Now it was getting close to the stage show and we weren't sure if we should head over and watch or make our way to another part of the park. We kept telling ourselves we had plenty of time and whatever we didn’t get done this party we could easily do the next party. I feel like I keep mentioning it but it was so hot this night, possibly one of the hottest nights I have ever had at MK and that with the long day was making us move a little slower. We decided maybe we should ride the carpets-no line and there is always a nice breeze while we figured out our game plan. And after a little talking we decided maybe it was just best to call it a night-it was after 10pm and we thought maybe we would meander our way over to Tommorowland and catch SM in the complete dark-so that is what we did. That ride did not disappoint it is one of my favorites anyway but to be able to ride it in the complete dark was a fantastic treat! However, leaving the ride was very different-during the day they send you out the back doors while they do work on the exit but at the party they have you leave via the FP line which was odd. On our way out, we sat on a bench and caught the firework show which was amazing and the perfect ending to our night. We made our way down Main St and onto the Ferry boat to end our perfect first day-


Next up TOY STORY LAND!!!

Hope you continue to HITCHHIKE along with us on our adventures.

 

[Aandd Beyond]

Following along!