Birthday Blog: Disney!!

Ok so I did this post last, it’s just kind of an extra thing… but I thought I’d be remiss to not include our Disney adventures here, especially since it’s become such a big part of our life in the past couple of years.

Buckle in, this is going to be a long post.

My first trip to Disney World was 1985.

(look at my fat little face!!)

We went for one day – did the Magic Kingdom all day! My mom said my friend we were with needed a nap in the afternoon, but I wouldn’t stop going. So that hasn’t changed.
I still vividly recall watching the Main St Electrical Parade, riding Haunted Mansion, and being totally freaked out by the ship attack room in POTC. And riding the teacups until turning green.

Second trip was a much longer trip, my parents decided we’d do Orlando for a whole week! This had to have been ’89 based on my memories of what was open.

We did Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios – and also Seaworld and Universal.
I remember HATING Epcot. It was boring, and I remember going in Sunshine Seasons and trying to find something to eat (I was super picky as a kid) – found a place with macaroni and cheese but it had some kind of MEAT in it which grossed me out, LOL. Like I literally don’t remember anything else about Epcot except the nasty mac and cheese. I’m sure we rode various stuff but I have no memory of it.
The only thing I remember about Magic Kingdom was begging for a stuffed Pegasus (from Fantasia). Still have it!
Oddly though I remember a lot about Hollywood (MGM) Studios. We did the Indiana Jones stunt show and mom got picked to be one of the villagers! And I remember doing the Studio Backlot tour – the LONG version, where we got to walk past seeing the animators and the sets and everything. I wanted to be an animator at the time and was enthralled. And I remember seeing a Muppet show with people in Muppet costumes.

(World of Motion!)

I also remember our hotel getting struck by lightning while eating dinner in the restaurant.

Trip 3 was in 2001June 20, 2001 – WHEN WE WENT TO DISNEYWORLD
The crew: A week-long trip with me and my parents, and Ash and her parents.
The transportation: Flying!
The hotel: We stayed at a hotel off-site, did Disney World the whole time – no Universal or Seaworld. (We did all 4 parks, plus Typhoon Lagoon.)

The places we ate: Teppan Edo, Sci-Fi Dine In, San Angel In – those are the only ones I remember.
The characters we met: Tigger!
New stuff we did: Of course this trip was our first to Animal Kingdom, since it was new. And our first to any of the waterparks, and the first time I discovered – hey, Epcot is actually pretty cool! Also the first time we rode Rock n Roller Coaster or Tower of Terror. Dad’s park pass and fastpasses all came floating out of his shirt pocket in the first drop LOL

Notes: It was a fantastic trip, except for having to use the 3rd party buses and the fact the housekeeping staff would NOT change my bed’s comforter after I spilled spaghetti-o’s on it. And the fact our parents abandoned us at the hotel for a day while they went to the Space Center and wouldn’t let us go to the parks by ourselves LOL. Even now they say “Yeah we just should have let ya’ll go out on your own.”
But a lot of my memories of the park came from this trip, because I remember so little about the first ones. This trip is really where my Disney Parks obsession started. After this is when I started looking up Disney on snopes, followed by finding sites like Yesterland and really digging into the history.

Things we Learned: We didn’t realize how crowded the restaurants would be and started getting reservations earlier in the day after the first couple of days of getting turned away. (And that’s why I had spilled spaghetti-o’s on my bed’s comforter. We couldn’t get into any of the Magic Kingdom restaurants, decided to just eat the hotel restaurant, only to come back and find it closed. So we bought stuff in the gift store and used the microwave they had in the lobby.) I wish I’d remembered all that for our next trip…!

Trip 4 – 2009.
March 28, 2009 – DISNEY WORLD 2009 PICS
The crew: I wanted to check out Megacon in Orlando — and we thought it would be fun to take Kevin and Chase’s Brother Scott… then we could all do the con and a day or so at Disney, right?

The transportation: We flew!
The hotel: We stayed at a little hotel near the con center since the trip was SUPPOSED to be about Megacon.
The places we ate: Tutto Italia, Rose and Crown, Planet Hollywood

The characters we met: Snow White, Prince Ferdinand, Dopey, Aurora, Belle, Jasmine, Aladdin, the Genie, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore. Kevin got scouted by a talent agent in Hollywood Studios!
New stuff we did: Pretty much all of it was new for Chase! Saw Spectromagic, Celebrate a Dream Come True. Ate at a few of our favs for the first time.

Notes: It took a little convincing — Chase had never been to Disney World. (we considered doing WDW for honeymoon the year before, and I wish we had…) He’d been to Disneyland and felt like, Disney World is just a bigger Disneyland right?** But I convinced him and we ended up doing 3 day parkhoppers – with the plan of doing one full day at the parks, and then spending daytime at the con Friday and Saturday, coming back to the parks in the evening. Well that didn’t go as planned because we were all having so much fun at the parks, that we really didn’t even want to do the convention that much. We spent maybe 3-4 hours at the con the first day before leaving and heading back, and on the second day, maybe 2 hours at the con, LOL!

We did get to see Spectromagic this once – or at least part of it, we had people pushing in front of us the whole time.
Rode Test Track and it stalled out during the final run around the outside. We had to be rolled back in by a tech, got put in a new car and got to ride it again.

(Chase hanging sideways in our stalled out car… “this is part of the ride, right? I think it’s part of the ride.”)
Things We Learned: The McDonald’s by the con center had really good fries LOL we’d stop and get fries there after the con to hold us over til we got to the parks and the fries were always SO GOOD!
The first night, I had flashbacks to the previous trip – we couldn’t find anywhere to sit down and eat, everything was full. We made sure the next day to scout out dinner earlier in the day. We had Rose and Crown the next night, and Tutto Italia on the last.

Our last day we finally got some luck and meeting characters (all the others we’d seen the days before had their lines closed already). We met a bunch on quick succession. Dinner was Tutto like I said… we ended up with SUPER late reservations (I think like 9pm?).

So we basically just wandered the World Showcase all afternoon and into the evening. We tried not to snack because we were looking forward to dinner. By the time we sat down, we were STARVED. We scarfed down our spaghetti and lasagna so fast, it was all gone in like 60 seconds LOL. And it was SO GOOD, we all walked out of there very full and very happy.

**Chase gave me a little statement on his feelings towards Disneyworld pre-2009 trip and post-2009 trip:
Before my first trip to Walt Disney World in 2009, I had only been once to Disneyland. It was a trip with a friend’s family and was focused on his 3 nephews. A lot was going on in my life at that time, so I wasn’t able to relax and enjoy the Disney Experience like I would come to learn years later.
My pre-WDW trip experience was tainted with the memories of rush, rush, rush, crowds and crying kids. I didn’t relate to the excitement my wife felt.
But going on our own, it was much nicer, much more relaxing. The one thing even after all these trips under our belt now, is the smell and the atmosphere of being at the Happiest Place on Earth. Its wonderful memories and every time we go, you get to do the things you always love, and you always discover or see something new. No matter how big or small, its a wonderful escape and always a pleasant place to be.

Trip 5 – 2010! Well this one is an outlier, because this is our Disneyland trip.
April 19, 2010 – DISNEYLAND 2010 RECAP
So after loving our 2009 trip, we got to thinking, let’s do the same thing, but this time let’s go to Anaheim. We found an Anaheim Comic Con to build the trip around — decided we’d do one Disneyland day and then spend our other days sight-seeing. Chase lived in LA for a while so he wanted to show us some of his old haunts!

The crew: Me, Chase, Kevin, Scott, and we threw Ash into mix this time, too!
The transportation: We flew and luckily our layover was in Minneapolis, where Scott would be catching his plane, putting us on the same flight!
The hotel: We stayed at the Marriott by the Anaheim Convention Center, so not too far from Disneyland!
The places we ate: CARNATION CAFE WHY DON’T WHY HAVE A CARNATION CAFE? That baked potato soup, ya’ll. We’ve tried to make it at home with no success.

The characters we met: Just the Princesses in Fairytale Hall – Snow White, Aurora and Jasmine.
New stuff we did: ALL OF IT! Technically, for me, anyway.
Notes: Of course I was super excited to the visit the ORIGINAL but I really wish we’d had more time to see everything. We missed a lot, because at mid-day we went over to California Adventure for the rest of the afternoon. So it was rushed. We did POTC, Peter Pan, Small World, Indy, Jungle Cruise, Star Tours, Muppet Vision 3D, Monsters Inc Ride, Tower of Terror, and Soarin’ – which wasn’t bad for one day but we missed a LOT!
Things We Learned: That I really want to go back and dedicate more time to it!

Trip 6 – 2012!
January 20, 2012 – DISNEY WORLD 2012 RECAP!!

The crew: We didn’t have a 2011 trip, but Christmas that year Chase and I thought, instead of giving each other Christmas presents, let’s take a trip to Disney in January, just the two of us, just a weekend trip. So this was our first trip that was just the two of us.
The transportation: We flew! We decided to rent a car at the airport (I can’t get over my hatred of the Bethany Bus), and ended up renting a mustang, so that was fun.
The hotel: We stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge – this was our first time staying on property and BOY did it change our Disney trips forever! We got a great deal on it too – I guess back then was when there was actually still an “off season.” And it helped that some family friends who are DVC members gave us enough points to cover one night of our stay!

(View from our window!)

The places we ate: Paradiso 37, Rose and Crown, Chefs de France, Sci-Fi Dine-In, Main Street Bakery, Tony’s
Dinner was at Chefs de France which was… weird. We checked in for our reservation, and then sat in the freezing cold for an hour waiting to be called. People kept coming up to the stand asking what was taking so long and they kept telling everybody that it was very busy and backed up. Finally we started seeing people we knew came up AFTER us getting called in, so we asked. Got the same “very busy” spiel at first — then suddenly the manager showed up and reservation sheets were flying and it was discovered they missed calling us. So they sat us right away. Waiter was all business, and the table next to us was SUPER rude to him, so we tipped him a little extra. And then he turned SUPER nice to us, it was funny. I don’t really remember much about the food though, but we haven’t made an effort to go back.

The last morning we had breakfast at Main Street Bakery, and it was SO GOOD and I was SO BUMMED when they replaced this location with a crummy Starbucks. We shared an amazing cinnamon roll, a cheese danish and a croissant and they were all so good.
The characters we met: Pocahontas and Meeko, Mickey, Goofy and Rafiki. Stitch, the Beast, Aurora, Mary Poppins, Alice. Tiana, Rapunzel. Mike Wazowski, Buzz Lightyear, Aladdin, Jasmine, Ariel and Eric, Belle, Cinderella and Aurora (again).

New stuff we did: Chefs de France, Animal Kingdom Lodge! Chase rode Tower of Terror for the first time… he got off saying, “Never again.”
Notes: During the day the weather was ok, but it got VERY cold in the evenings and mornings! So we had to layer up quite a bit.
We got to meet up with some local friends and they spent the day at Hollywood Studios with us! That was fun! Chase forgot the stuff he’d put in a locker and we had to go back and beg to get it out because it was after park closing LOL

Things We Learned: Don’t eat at Tony’s. Don’t leave your stuff in a locker LOL

January 28, 2013 – DISNEY SKIRT PROJECT!
My first time making something to wear on our Disney trip – I got some Haunted Mansion fabric from spoonflower and made a skirt!

February 6, 2013 – I HAVE WRITTEN A SONG
My ode to Disney Food

Trip 7- 2013!
February 19, 2013 – WE ARE HOME ! DISNEY WORLD RECAP

The crew: Another trip with just the two of us! We ended up going “True Love Week” which was a lot of fun, with some special photo-ops.
The transportation: Flying and renting a car again!
The hotel: We stayed at Caribbean Beach, and they gave us Happy Anniversary buttons at check-in! They never do that anymore…

The places we ate: Gaston’s Tavern (pork shank! I miss those!), Earl of Sandwich, Le Cellier, Tutto Italia, Cinderella’s Royal Table, Kona Cafe, Be Our Guest, Rose and Crown
The characters we met: Merida, Buzz Lightyear, Alice, Mary Poppins, Donald, Tink, Periwinkle, Gaston, Peter Pan, mermaid Ariel. Mary Poppins with Bert and the penguins! MIke and Sulley, Ralph and Vanellope, Mr Incredible and Frozone, the Beast, Mulan, Snow White and her prince, Tweedle dee and Tweedle dum, Woody and Jessie, Tiana and Naveen, Stitch, Chip and Dale (they were hilarious)

For True Love Week, the princesses had their princes with them in Fairytale Hall! So we met Cinderella, Prince Charming, Aurora, Prince Phillip, Rapunzel and Flynn! We were the last ones in the room so as we were meeting Rapunzel and Flynn, Flynn and Chase started talking to Phillip and Charming about how they needed some cool facial hair, too.

New stuff we did: Caribbean Beach! New Fantasyland! LE CELLIER! (Beer cheese soup!), Cinderella’s Royal Table, KONA CAFE! Pixar Play Parade! (only time we got to see it)
Notes: We ran into this photopass photographer after lunch in Epcot who was hilarious and posed us in multiple places and did every single magic shot she had. It was so fun!

Under the Sea was still pretty new and broke down 3 times while we were on it. So that was neat.
On Valentine’s Day, It ended up getting rainy and cold as the day went on. Which sucked because I had a cute outfit planned for dinner (Cinderella’s Royal Table). I ended up having to add tights and a sweater to my Haunted Mansion skirt outfit because it was so cold, which wasn’t what I was going for. My feet got soaked and I was stuck with wet tights on my feet throughout dinner. And then a lady thought I worked in the Emporium. LOL (But Cinderella’s Royal Table was fun, it was so neat to eat in the castle, we got to see a proposal and our waitress was awesome.)

And the Ziti sisters cornered Chase in Italy because they liked his beard LOL

Things We Learned: We attempted to NOT eat lunch on our first day we got to the parks… which meant we got up god early to go to the airport, flew to Atlanta and then Orlando, got our car, got checked in at the hotel and then went to Magic Kingdom before we ate. Let’s not do that again LOL

We really enjoyed Be Our Guest for dinner!
Our last day turned out COLD and I basically had to put on every piece of clothing I brought LOL.
Also leaving the Magic Kingdom to go directly to the airport is super sad.

(me: “sigh I hate the giant hat” – Chase: “no way it’s great”)

More posts: Pics, Part 1, Pics, Part 2, Pics, Part 3, Pics, Part 4 Pics, Part 5, Pics, Part 6, Pics, Part 7

July 11, 2013 – ME & WALT
Conversations with walt

October 22, 2013 – DISNEY EXCITEMENT
The Disney excitement code system.

December 10, 2013 – OOOH DISNEY STUFF!!
After we booked our 2014 trip, we got a package in the mail from Disney, inside the very nice box was a USB stick. The video on it was Edna Mode explaining the new Magic Band/Fastpass+ system. We never got this again and it was so neat! I still have the USB stick!

Trip 8 – 2014!
March 17, 2014 – BACK FROM DISNEY WORLD
The crew: So we had such a good time the previous years we decided my parents really needed to come back with us.
The transportation: We flew – out of Nashville since it was cheaper.
The hotel: We split the trip together, and we got to stay in Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary!! It was SO COOL! We had a view of Space Mountain from our room.

The places we ate: Biergarten, Le Cellier, 1900 Park Fare, Be Our Guest (lunch), Liberty Tree Tavern, Flower and Garden booths, Tutto Italia (SO fun, our waiter was great, there was much Limoncello…), Akershus, Rose and Crown (while watching Illuminations), Kona Cafe
The characters we met: Dug and Russell, Cinderella, Aurora, Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, Alice, the Mad Hatter, Ariel, Snow White, Rapunzel, Anna and Elsa, Belle, Mike and Sulley, Phineas and Ferb, Donald, princesses at Akershus (Ariel took a selfie with us!), Fairy Godmother, Pluto, Tink, Vidia, Peter Pan, Wendy and Tiana, Mickey

New stuff we did: Biergarten, Flower and Garden Festival, DAPPER DAY!, 1900 Park Fare (and visiting the Grand Floridian in general), Festival of Fantasy parade, Maelstrom (somehow we never did this before?!), Akershus
Notes: Dad wasn’t feeling great the first day. He ended up sleeping in for half of the second day to feel better but thankfully he did (feel better).
The second day we were there was Dapper Day!! The only time I’ve managed to be there on Dapper Day 🙂 So I brought my Haunted Mansion skirt back – this time with no extra sweater and tights.

Also it was my parents anniversary and Mickey and Minnie left them a “Congratulations!” signed photo in the room, that was so cute!
Day 3, got on the monorail to head to the Grand Flo for our breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, only for it to breakdown at the poly, so we walked the rest of the way. Made it in time, food was good and the Mad Hatter was hilarious.

Mom actually got out and danced in the Move it Shake it Parade, it was hilarious.
We did the pre-order your lunch thing for Be Our Guest, which was nice! We weren’t super impressed with it for lunch though, which was disappointing after we’d enjoyed dinner so much the year before.

We were actually there for the first performance of the Festival of Fantasy parade, but we skipped it since we figured it would be a madhouse. We had fastpasses for it the next day though! We had to wait quite a bit in the fastpass area but we wanted to get there early to stake out a good spot, and it was worth it – we had the castle in the background of everything!
On our Epcot day, we got there before rope drop so we could hoof it to Norway because I wanted to meet Anna and Elsa. We waited about an hour and 45 minutes. Dad and Chase brought us breakfast after they rode Test Track LOL. Some people in line behind us were supposedly waiting like 4 hours.

We did the backlot tour and mom got picked for doing the special effects demonstration LOL

(She’s the one in the pink hat.)

Day 6 my parents decided to take that morning easy… but I had a plan! I was going to get up and go over to MK by myself and knock out some characters I wanted to cross off my list. Nobody wanted me to go alone LOL so Chase came with me. I knocked out a bunch of characters that morning!

And then we did Enchanted Tales with Belle when my parents came over and met us, and Mom got picked AGAIN! She played the wardrobe, and Chase was a guard.

We watched Festival of Fantasy for 3rd time, this time from the balcony of the train station, which was a great vantage point.

Things We Learned:
Stand on the upper breezeway between the Contemporary and Bay Lake Tower to watch Wishes, it’s magical! And no kids being put on shoulders in front of you!
We were supposed to transfer over to a Marriott for the night just because of the way our flights worked out vs what we booked at the hotel. But then we saw online Art of Animation was about the same price. So we canceled the Marriott, booked AoA for that night, which was so much easier because we just gave Disney our bags and they transferred them for us!

One of my fav trips.

More posts:
March 18, 2014 – DISNEY, DAY 1 AND 2, March 18, 2014 – DISNEY, DAY 3 AND 4…, March 18, 2014 – DISNEY, DAY 5 AND 6 AND 7…

January 6, 2015 – MY DISNEY BOOK
I made a Disney book for the 2015 trip. It was a little journal with all of our reservation info, menus of where we were eating, fastpass times, etc in it.

Trip 9 – 2015
February 18, 2015 – DISNEY TRIP REPORT
The crew: Just me and Chase!

The transportation: We drove for the first time! We rented a car here and drove it down since we didn’t think my Bug would make it. Plane tickets were SO expensive that it saved us a LOT of money. We drove halfway – stopped in Columbus GA, for the night, then another 6 hours in the morning.
The hotel: This year we stayed at Pop Century for the first time.
The places we ate: ‘Ohana (dinner), Leaky Cauldron (YUM), the Plaza, Mama Melrose’s (YUM), Tutto Gusto, Rose and Crown, Teppan Edo, Friar Nook’s (mac and cheese cups?!), Boma, Pop Century Food Court

The characters we met: Tigger and Pooh, Baymax and Hiro, Chip and Dale, the Mayor of Main Street, Duffy, Aurora, Tink, Tiana, Lady Tremaine, Alice, the White Rabbit, Anna and Elsa, Donald and Goofy,
New stuff we did: Driving… Pop Century… rode the ferry to Magic Kingdom! (I love the monorail so I’d never wanted to do the ferry…), we got embroidered ear hats! (well I had one from when I was little, but no clue where it is), Fantasmic, a tour, Universal…

UNIVERSAL?!: Yep we went to Universal for the first time – I’d been once back in 89 but not since, and we were really excited to see Harry Potter World! We didn’t do much else at the 2 parks except Harry Potter land… we did check out the Marvel area too.

Notes: My goal this year was to ride rides I had never rode, or it had just been a really long time.
I got a Lady pillow pet and mousekeeping made her a friend (a towel animal!)
Since we drove and I didn’t have to worry about weight limits on a suitcase, I was able to bring a ton of extra clothes – which helped when it got cold.
They had Cinderella’s carriage from the live action movie on display at Hollywood! So neat!

Back to riding Tower of Terror by myself… and the little kid next to me kept thinking I was her mom. Awk.
We decided to give one of the tours a shot… we did the “Marceline to Magic Kingdom” one and loved it!! Best part was getting to see behind the scenes at Haunted Mansion!

We headed over to MK after Epcot closed one night since it was EMH for Magic Kingdom…. and found a practically empty park. We got to watch the Main St Electrical Parade without being crowded, it was awesome. We also closed down the Peoplemover – we rode it once and asked if we could stay on at the end (since there was no line), the CM said yep, you’re the last ones.

(I’m in the middle there somewhere)

Things We Learned: We really took advantage of later hours/late EMH hours this trip and I think it was great. Wish we’d do that more often. And the tour was great, gotta do more of those.

More posts: DIIIIISNEY WOOOOOOOOORLD

December 1, 2015 – #MOUSEEARSFORAYEAR
For 2016 Chase and I made a big decision. For a couple of years we’d looked at trying to do a second trip in a year, but it was never feasible. So we thought, what if for Christmas we buy annual passes, instead of paying for one big trip – we do several smaller trips? So that’s what we did. We got APs for one year, and were able to go SIX times. YAS.

Trip 10 – March 2016
March 28, 2016 – BACK FROM DISNEY!
The first of our trips as Annual Passholders, we went down over Easter weekend!
The crew: Me & Chase

The transportation: Driving my car — the car we bought specifically so we could take Disney road trips after my Bug died the year before.
The hotel: Pop Century
The places we ate: Flower & Garden Booths, Skipper Canteen, Garden Grill, Yak and Yeti

The characters we met: Easter Bunny & Mrs Bunny, Pluto, Mickey, Chip and Dale, Jake the Pirate, Wonderland Flower, Chewie, Kylo Ren
New stuff we did: Skipper Canteen, pearls in Japan (decided I’d get one for each trip), Garden Grill, easter egg hunt in Epcot

Notes: This was one of the few times we drove straight through without stopping overnight. We left after work and got in around 6AM the next morning. It was fine for me, Chase didn’t do so well so we don’t do this much.

One of the Jawas took a gazillion pics on my phone LOL

We went to Animal Kingdom for the first time in a couple of trips too, did some stuff we hadn’t done before (I’d never ridden Everest! So I did.)
I got sick the last night – don’t know if it was dinner at Yak and Yeti or something else. But thankfully felt ok enough for the ride home the next day.

Things We Learned: Driving all night and having breakfast at Casey’s Corner is A-OK with me.

More Posts: MORE DISNEY PHOTOS!

May 2, 2016 – DISNEY STUFFFFFF
While planning multiple trips at once was often frustrating and confusing, sometimes it was magic.

Trip 11 – May 2016
May 31, 2016 – DISNEY TRIP W/KEVIN – PART 1!!
The crew: Me, Chase and Kevin. So I wanted to take Kevin on one of our Disney trips with us, talked to his parents, got it worked out. We decided to roll this trip in with Megacon again like we’d done in 2009. We just told Kevin we were going to Megacon, but we couldn’t go to Disney because it was too expensive to do the con and Disney at the same time. When we drove under the sign we said look where we are! He just laughed and said “Disney World!” and we said, we’re going right now. And handed him the magic band box to open. He was giddy.

The transportation: We drove again, stopped overnight in Columbus.
The hotel: Pop Century
The places we ate: Whispering Canyon Cafe, Crystal Palace, 50s Primetime Cafe, Tutto Italia, Be Our Guest (breakfast), Rose & Crown

The characters we met: Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, Mary Poppins, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Chewie, Kylo Ren, Merida, mermaid Ariel, Daisy, Minnie, Alice
New stuff we did: Whispering Canyon Cafe/visiting Wilderness Lodge, disneybounding, 50s Primetime Cafe, Be Our Guest (for breakfast. It came out cold and we weren’t impressed. Kevin loved getting to see the inside for the first time tho).

Notes: I did a Disneybound outfit for the first time! I put together a Leia outfit, and got Kevin an x-wing pilot shirt so he could be my Luke. And then Chase wore his Chewie shirt so we all matched.

We considered this to be Kevin’s birthday trip so he wore his birthday button and got sang to + a dessert at Tutto Italia and a birthday card and a serenade at Crystal Palace, he loved it! All the girls sent him birthday cards to open at the first dinner that night, too.
Told Kevin he needed to buy a hat to protect his head in the sun since he didn’t bring one. He goes to pick one out, comes back with a Jack Sparrow hat with attached dreads. So that was his hat.

Kevin also got sick the first night. But was ok after that. Weird.
If you only go the Magic Kingdom for an hour and a half in the morning, you get a ferryboat all to yourself on the way back to T&T.
Things We Learned: Make sure Kevin got all of his clothes out of the dresser before we leave, LOL.

More posts: DISNEY TRIP W/KEVIN – PART 2, PLUS MEGACON!, DISNEY AND MEGACON PHOTOS – PART 3!, LAST ROUND OF PHOTOS!

Trip 12 – July 2016
July 6, 2016 – BACK FROM DISNEY (AGAIN!)
The crew: Me & Chase. This was a super short trip over 4th of July weekend.

The transportation: Driving!
The hotel: Pop!
The places we ate: Liberty Tree Tavern, Morimoto Asia streetfood, The Daily Poutine (OMG), Plaza, Beaches and Cream (OMG)
The characters we met: Mickey Mouse, Lilo, Joy and Sadness, Rapunzel, Tiana, Donald, Goofy

New stuff we did: Typhoon Lagoon! Well it wasn’t new for me, but it was for Chase and we had so much fun. This was also the first time we stayed at Magic Kingdom ALL day – since we went on the 4th, we went at rope drop, and stayed til after the fireworks, just in case. We got a locker to keep our bag in and took a nap in Hall of Presidents, LOL. Checked out the new Soarin’. New Frozen ride and meet and greet!

Notes: We forgot our ponchos in the car and got stuck in a downpour and had to buy new ones.
In between our visits to Plaza, it changed. Last time it was SO GOOD! This time it was crap and we canceled the upcoming reservations we had for it 🙁
Also I called out a family jumping lines to get on the bus and the dude yelled at me and I pointed him out to a CM who sent him to the back of the line. VENGEANCE
Things We Learned: BEACHES AND CREAM IS THE BEST

More Posts: DISNEY PHOTOPASS PHOTOS!

Trip 13 – September 2016
September 13, 2016 – DISNEY WORLD TRIP REPORT/PHOTOS PART 1

The crew: Me and Chase. This was our “BIG” trip of the year. We drove to Atlanta on Saturday morning, spent the day at Dragon Con, crashed in Cath’s room in the Marriott, got up super early Sunday and drove on into Orlando for a week long trip.
The transportation: Driving of course.
The hotel: Port Orleans French Quarter and OMG did we love it.

The places we ate: Sassagoula Floatworks (the version that was up during refurb, anyway), Flame Tree BBQ, ‘Ohana (breakfast), Art Smiths’ Homecoming (YUM), Be Our Guest (dinner), Yachtsmen Steakhouse, Via Napoli, La Hacienda San Angel, Kona Cafe
The characters we met: Mickey, Pluto, Stitch, Lilo, Beast, Minnie, Goofy, the stepsisters, Aurora, Woody and Buzz, Chewie (he did NOT like Chase’s Boba Fett shirt), sorcerer Mickey, Minnie

New stuff we did: POFQ; it has become our fav hotel! Chase had never ridden Dumbo so we rode that – Barnstormer, too. Via Napoli (it’s hard to go there with Tutto Italia next door… but it was worth it!), checked out Trader Sam’s at the Poly for the first time, that was neat! Visiting Yacht club/eating at Yachtsmen and getting “dressed up” for it – I got to wear my new 7 Dwarfs skirt I’d made.

Notes: Spent a good bit of time in Disney Springs now that it was done. Lots of neat stores, we really liked Uniqlo.
We did the Behind the Steam: Steam Train Tour and it was AWESOME. We got to go backstage and see where they service the trains, how they run them, where they came from, etc. We got to sit in the driver’s seat of the Roy O!

We had a last breakfast at Kona early in the morning before we left to drive home all day – it took us out a weird way, towards backstage, and we got to see a whole new tour group checking out the trains on their train tour LOL
We did get to see the park decorated for Halloween – the first parties were starting while we were there but I couldn’t convince Chase to go! (Even thougH I had tightrope walker with me since we’d gone straight from Dragon Con!) I did get to get pics with some of the pumpkins tho.

Things We Learned: We still really like Be Our Guest for dinner. Don’t care for it for breakfast or lunch.
Got our shoes soaked in a massive downpour at Animal Kingdom the first day — didn’t I learn not to do that in our 2001 trip?! Apparently not.

More Posts: DISNEY TRIP PICS, PART 2, & RESTAURANT THOUGHTS

October 6, 2016 – BEING A GROWN-UP SUCKS
We had to cancel and reschedule our October/Halloween trip due to the Hurricane. Thankfully we did go ahead and reschedule, because the party we had tickets for was canceled, the parks were closed – but it still sucked, especially since we were going to be down the same time as my cousins and that would have been so fun 🙁
But Disney did help us reschedule it for later in the month and we got everything back except our California Grill reservation, not bad.

Trip 14 – October 2016
November 1, 2016 – DISNEY, AGAIN
The crew: Me, Chase and Kevin. So after we took Kevin in May, we got to thinking, why not take him more? We were able to get his May ticket turned into AP thanks to some help from a few Disney CMs on the phone and he got to go on 4 more trips with us!

The transportation: Driving of course.
The hotel: Port Orleans French Quarter! We were originally at Pop for this trip, but when we rescheduled, we upgraded 🙂
The places we ate: Hoop dee Doo Revue, Daily Poutine, Food and Wine booths

The characters we met: Jack Skellington, Sally, Tarzan, Jane, Elsa, Anna, Mulan, Aurora
New stuff we did: The Halloween Party!! It was so cool to finally see the parade I’ve watched on youtube a gazillion times. Hoop dee Doo. FOOD AND WINE! We’ve never gotten to do food and wine!
Notes: KEVIN FINALLY GOT TO BE THE REBEL SPY ON STAR TOURS! He has tried everytime we’ve ridden it. It was so exciting!

We got to wear our costumes at the party – Chase was the guy from the Maelstrom mural, I was the tightrope Walker, Kevin was Link. And it turns out wearing upholstery suede in Orlando is not a great choice – he kept removing parts to put in his shield backpack and by the end of the night half his costume was gone LOL
Food and Wine was so crowded, at one point we squished into an area to eat our beer cheese soup from Canada and share a piece of the steak, and kevin spilled the steak juice on my hat and those crazy birds came flocking over trying to grab our soup while we were dealing with the cleanup, it was crazy.

Things We Learned: As much as I looked forward to the Halloween Party it was a little bit of a letdown. I think because we ended up going to so close to Halloween and it was SO crowded. I’d love to give it another shot when it’s not Halloween weekend.

More posts: PHOTOPASS PHOTOS, PLUS SOME WEBSITE THOUGHTS

Trip 15 – November 2016
November 28, 2016 – ONE MORE DISNEY TRIP REPORT
The crew: Me, Chase and Kevin – this was our last AP trip for me and Chase! (Kevin still had one more to go since his was May-May.)

The transportation: Driiiiiiiiving
The hotel: Pop

The places we ate: 1900 Park Fare (dinner), Rose and Crown (for thanksgiving), Frontera Cocina, Tutto Italia (we did the candle light processional dining… more on that later), Mama Melroses
The characters we met: Santa! Peter Pan, Elena of Avalor, Cinderella, Jasmine (Kevin showed her his Jafar face), Moana

New stuff we did: We got to see everything decorated for Christmas (WOW!), got to see the castle light up (WOW, I cried ok)
Notes: I pulled a “Mema” – we got Kevin a bunch of games for my old PSP he plays in the car. I wrapped them all up and he got to open one every couple of hours.
Got to see the Candle light Processional, that was pretty neat.
Our last night we had tickets to go see Moana in Disney Springs! It was a neat experience!

Things We Learned: So the day we did our Candlelight processional dining, we were STUFFED – it was WAY too much food. Then more walking in the heat, riding stuff, then a very late dinner at 1900 Park Fare……. and Kevin got sick. Chase got him to the bathroom just in time. But he couldn’t eat dinner and missed most of the characters. We figured it was eating too much and being out in the heat, but we finally figured it out on the next trip… (and from henceforth, the Grandflo is known as “Kevin’s Polenta Puke Palace”). He also started feeling bad again just as we got up to leave before sunrise the last day – thankfully he got it out of his system before the 12 hour car drive home.
Also he’s banned from Tower of Terror LOL (banned by me and him, he said he’s done with it!)