Some of our Best Friends are Princesses. A Brent and the kids Trip Report, starring Cinderella and Ariel. COMPLETE 4/7! - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Some of our Best Friends are Princesses. A Brent and the kids Trip Report, starring Cinderella and Ariel. COMPLETE 4/7!
Welcome aboard! You are about to embark on a wonderful, magical, fun-filled journey with Brent, his daughter Jordan, and his son Brendan. In it we will experience many princess encounters, many wonderful meals, surprises, family fun and memories that are certain to last a lifetime. We also celebrate the kids birthdays as they are both in March. A bit of introduction is in order.
Brendan: will be 14 at the end of March. Objective for trip was to go to Disneyquest as many times as possible and avoid as many princess meets as possible. He did a pretty good job.
Jordan: Will be 16 early March. Wants to meet Ariel as many times as possible and eat so many Dole whips she wouldn't even want one again until she can make it back. She did a pretty good job of that too.
Last but not least myself, the Cinderella man himself, Brent!
Cinderella's biggest fan. She is very special to me and my relationship with Liz (Smile chaser) Many of you know me from my previous Disney adventures with Liz. I proposed to her at Disney with Cinderella's help years ago. Liz and I have taken many trips to Disney together and with our kids. This year we decided to go separately with just our kids. Liz took her daughters on trips in November and January, so now it's our turn. My objectives were to meet my beloved white glove clad princess as many times as possible and enjoy some family fun with my kids. They aren't getting any younger yknow. . At their ages you just don't know if this was the last chance we get to do something like this all together.
Here's the details:
Dates: Friday Feb 22 - Sunday Mar 3.
Where: Art of Animation. Little Mermaid section. A new resort to explore!
Ten day tickets with water park option and hoppers.
Places we plan to patronize for meals include Akershus Banquet Hall, Chef Mickey's, 50's Prime, 1900 Park Faire, Tony's Town square, Be Our Guest (!) Coral Reef, Crystal Palace and Cinderella's Royal Table.
And now without further adieu, our trip actually began on Thurs the 21st. We drove to Detroit metro airport and spent the night at the Baymont DTW hotel with a park fly package. Good thing too as the next morning found a Winter storm closing in. It didn't look too bad as we headed for the airport shuttle at 6:30 am to catch our 9:00 am flight. We checked our one bag and proceeded through security. By the time we did that we were getting texts from friends and family that schools were closing and bad weather was coming. Sure enough we looked outside and the snow was flying. We were undeterred though as we changed into our shorts in the bathroom and anxiously awaited our plane to start boarding. They de-iced our plane which caused a bit of a delay. I've never been through plane de-icing before. It's definitely something I don't need to experience again either. Here's what our wing looked like:
We were airborne about 40 minutes behind schedule. We made up some time in the air, landed, got our rental car and headed home! We were a bit lucky as I reserved the cheapest smallest car I could. They were out of that class so they upgraded us to a Jeep for the same price. We'll take it! I was told they were out because of Daytona 500 weekend. I never realized Daytona is only an hour away. We were now happily headed to our resort. . We parked in the main lot and walked along the sidewalk to the main building. Halfway there a snake crawled out of the bushes in front of us. Darn thing was 5 ft long if it was an inch! Our room was ready so we drove around to the little mermaid section, unloaded and began dragging our luggage up to the fourth floor. We opened our door (love the RFID locks) and my almost 16 year old daughter squealed in delight at what we found. The room was gorgeous! A few pictures:
Here's a picture of our Jeep:
As you can see Jordan was thrilled. We had a quick lunch at the food court then decided to take advantage of the we warm weather and go for a swim. We tried out the flipping your fins pool. We then headed to Epcot as we had dinner at Akershus. Brendan headed into Epcot, but Jordan and I headed to hop the monorail to the magic kingdom as we had some princesses to see. We would hook back up for dinner. We did this quite a lot this trip as the kids are now old enough to branch out on their own a bit. Jordan and I arrived at the MK and took our first photo pass pictures of the trip:
We then walked around a bit and got a pre-dinner Dole whip so Jordan could get started on one of her trip objectives. . We then saw some princesses! Here's what our first meeting with them looked like.
As you can see my Cinderella slippers made their first appearance too. The photo books I made for Jordan and myself also made their first appearance. I think the princesses approved. Many of the princesses ask us if they may look at them and spend a minute or two just thumbing through them.
We decided to not see fantasy land. We would save it for when we had more time. Thus we headed for Epcot. The ferry was there so we took that. Check out the sunset.
We met Brendan at spaceship earth and grabbed another photopass picture.
We then rode spaceship earth then strolled around a bit then headed to Norway for dinner. Always a pleasure to dine with princesses. ....
We caught a little of illuminations when we were done eating. It had been a long day so we headed back to our Jeep and our resort.
Tomorrow: Chef Mickey, our first visit with Tinkerbell and Animal Kingdom after dark. And. Gangnam style?????? Huh?
Stay Tuned! . . . .
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Last edited by Disdadnmi; 03-23-2013 at 09:37 PM..
Saturday Feb 23. Chef Mickey then MK and Animal Kingdom
We arose quite early this morning to make a 7:15 breakfast at Chef Mickey. Our Jeep certainly came in handy this morning. Here are a few pictures of breakfast.
We sat by a family with cute little girl dressed as rapunzel. Here's where it's important to mention my daughter Jordan and I had some wristband bracelets made up. Here's a picture:
We had a couple extra made up of each so Jordan gave the little girl dressed as Rapunzel one of the purple ones. The little girl looked like she won the lottery.
After breakfast we walked over to the magic kingdom. Nice little pathway from the Contemporary. . We hit the turnstiles right at opening and were bound to check out the new fantasy land. A meeting with Ariel was first:
Then it was onto her new ride. We loved it. It's very well done. After that we took in haunted mansion, big thunder mountain and pirates. This is when Jordan felt a need to feed her dole whip addiction. Brendan wasn't hungry so he struck out on his own. As we were finishing up our tasty snacks I noticed the line to see Tinkerbell was very short so we got in line. We met Rosetta first:
Then we meet Tinkerbell. She was full of it! Jordan had her sign her book.
Tink asked where so Jordan pointed to a picture of Tink in her book. It just happened to be near a picture of Cinderella. Sooooo the little green brat says "Ok, I'll just sign right here over Cinderella. I'm better than her and her old princess friends anyway.". I was standing there beside myself and Jordan was loving it. I finally composed myself enough to get in the picture. Here's where I plotted my revenge... You see Tinkerbell had been getting everyone to smile for the camera by saying 'butterflies', I interjected just when the picture was about to be taken and instead of butterflies I said "Say Cinderella!!!". Tink said Cinderella??!!!!! And sounded just like Anastasia or Drusilla yelling to get the ironing done! It was hilarious!! One of the pictures nearly captured the moment.
All in all a good meeting with Tinkerbell and Rosetta. .
Now it was off to see the princesses but who should we meet on the way but Mary Poppins??
Now it was finally time to see the princesses!! Aurora was first. She loved the photo books.
Rapunzel was fun as always. I was concerned about the frying pan but she assured me she only used it on Flynn.
I finally got brave enough to show Cinderella my new shoulder tattoo. I think she approved. .
Now it was time to Head back to the resort and get some lunch and a swim. I then made a quick grocery/beer run. It was after all my vacation too. . Once I returned with the groceries we headed to Animal Kingdom because it was open until 8 and we had never been there in the dark before. We arrived there and had some fun with the photo pass photographer.
Brendan and I do love each other honest! We headed to Asia to ride Everest. We then walked around to Dino Land and rode a few rides then headed back to Everest to rude it in the dark. It was amazing!! We then figured out where the camera was and had to ham it up! Brendan was doing it gangnam style.
I figured out where it was and I Kapernicked (football fans know what this is!):
(Had the tattoo and everything)
Then we just had fun.
We must've ridden that thing 6 times in a row. That was about all I could take in my old age.
Then we strolled around and took a picture by the Tree of Life in the dark. Not often you get to do that.
We shut the park down and headed for home. We took a moon lit swim in the mermaid pool. It was a great day and we were really feeling like we were on vacation now. . We had some really good family time today,
Tomorrow: We explore the resort and do night time extra magic at the magic kingdom. .
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Last edited by Disdadnmi; 03-23-2013 at 09:57 PM..
Location: Physically stuck in Michigan while my heart and soul reside in Disney.....
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Ok.....lets get one thing PERFECTLY CLEAR! You do NOT 'just notice' Tinks line is short and decide to hop in it. You open the park, plot you stragedy, practice running.....carefully manuevering the crowd as not to make parents mad when you push small children out of the way. I have learned it is easier to pick up the darling little kids, telling the parents how adorable they are and carefully displace them out of the direct Tinkerbell route. Its really a skill. Brent tells me I am like a weasle in crowds. I can clear castle to gate in 4.3 minutes in the most crowed conditions Being short has some advantages.
Second......... LOVE TINK!! I think she should have signed over everybody that was NOT her. Just kidding......but I do think she could have been more respresented in said books. Perhaps having her own chapeter or five.
Enjoying the TR ...keep it coming.
BTW,,,,,,,its important to note here I didn't even get a picture of a dole whip float. Sighhhh.
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. At their ages you just don't know if this was the last chance we get to do something like this all together. 
. We parked in the main lot and walked along the sidewalk to the main building. Halfway there a snake crawled out of the bushes in front of us. Darn thing was 5 ft long if it was an inch! Our room was ready so we drove around to the little mermaid section, unloaded and began dragging our luggage up to the fourth floor. We opened our door (love the RFID locks) and my almost 16 year old daughter squealed in delight at what we found. The room was gorgeous! A few pictures: 
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