Long-Awaited Family +1 Vacation Trip report 1/18/14-1/25/14 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Long-Awaited Family +1 Vacation Trip report 1/18/14-1/25/14
Think I have enough things done to start the trip report. It was a great trip filled with many smiles, a MASSIVE Surprise, frustrations, lots and LOTS of laughs, and of course, Disney magic.
Myself, Hope, 34 years old. Love Disney. Love to plan. This was my 4th trip to WDW and I have 2 trips to DL under my belt.
My DH, Rob, 35. He goes to Disney and enjoys it but always acts as if it is not a big deal. However, he always has a great time!!!! This is his second trip to WDW and he's been to DL once.
Oldest son, Levi, 14. He has decided he is simply too old for Disney. He had a great time, he just doesn't like to admit it! First time to WDW.
Oldest son's best friend, Hayden, 14. He was so excited about this trip, I think he had me on the excitement factor. Since returning from the trip his response to the question "What are you doing now?" He responds, plotting my next trip!! This is his firs trip to ANY Disney park.
Youngest son, Ronnie 8. LOVES Disney. Official MagicBand tapper on all things they allowed him to! Bringer of smilers and funny one-liners. This is his first trip to WDW.
My Mom, Judy or Jude, here on out known as MOM! She is a dedicated Disney fan and has been more times than she can remember.
My step-dad Linn. Enjoys Disney although I think he enjoys watching everyone else have a ball just as much! Has also been to Disney more times than he can count.
They were our main tickets to Disney, being DVC members, they shared their rooms with us which proved to be a problem!! Who knew having 2 separate rooms could mean so many (easily solvable but still there) issues!!
We were up and out the door by 6:15 Saturday morning. Made it to the Denver Airport with plenty of time to spare. We parked, wheeled our bags to the bus stop, got on, made it to the next bus stop to find Mom and Linn boarding! How's that for timing??? Checked the bags at the curbside check in and went inside to wait for Hayden. Everyone kept giving me lots of advice on where to find him but I knew he would be upstairs. Sure enough, as soon as I turned the corner there they were! I wish I had a picture of that kid's face! I don't think he could be any more smiley!!! His mom told me she has never seen him shoot straight up out of bed like he did that morning!
I apologize. I didn't take many pictures of the hotel...it was too dark and my phone camera simply didn't want to take pictures too well at AKL. I didn't take a massive amount of pictures anyway this trip. Very thankful for Memory Maker!!!!
The security line was long and no sooner had we made it to the gate than they started to board the plane!
Some funny pictures:
MOM!!!
On the plane I made a trip to the back of the plane and asked the flight attendant when my son, Ronnie, could give them little gifts (Pixie bags) that he and his brothers (it was too long to explain the Hayden factor) had made for the flight crew. This dear, sweet lady totally teared up on me!!! She told me how many crew members there were (5) and then gave me a time and I made my way back to the seat. We had given one to the man who had checked us in at curbside (he wasn't too sure what to do about it) and had given another to the lady boarding us onto the plane. That left us with TEN more! Yikes, 5 too many. There was a rather rambunctious little boy behind us and I gave one to him after asking his parents but they didn't seem too thrilled with the idea. Oh well. Later in the flight I gave another to a sweet little girl a few aisles ahead of us after a failed attempt to give one to her older sister. I think Dad thought I was trying to poison his daughter or something.
Anyways, the time came for us to give the Pixie bags out. I gather up the bags and the Ronnie and off we went to the back of the plane. That flight attendant just beamed and thanked Ronnie over and over again. Both of the attendants in the back gave him big ole hugs. The 2 older boys informed me that there was NO way, no HOW they were delivering those bags!!! Party poopers!!
The flight attendant then escorted us to the front of the plane with 3 of the Pixie bags, 2 for the pilots and 1 for the last flight attendant. What happened next stunned us all!!! The flight attendant up front told us to stand at the front of the plane and turn around for the passengers to see us and then she got on the PA system to announce to the WHOLE plane how thankful they all were that Ronnie, Levi, and Hayden made them these wonderful little bags and how much they appreciated the thought and effort that had gone into them!!!! Poor Levi and Hayden were slinking down in their seats just as far down as they could go and Ronnie just beamed!!!!! On the way back to our seats the passengers all told Ronnie "good job!" and gave him high 5's all the way back to our seats!!!! All over little old bags of goodies!!!! Not only that but they made these cool little crowns out of bags of peanuts and then when we landed the pilot again announced their names and thanked them!! As for the last 3, a flight attendant stopped and asked if there was ANYTHING at all she could help me with and I asked her if she might like to help me give out the remaining Pixie bags. Her eyes lit up and she said she knew just who to give them too and was only too happy to be able to share some Magic.
The flight was very smooth. It was so exciting to land in Orlando! I so remember those little trains from the outlying areas to the main terminal. They haven't changed much since I was there all those years ago. It wasn't much warmer in Florida than it was in Colorado and that was to be a theme for the rest of the week.
Rob and Linn were off to get the rental car we had for a day and the rest of us were very slowly off to the Disney Magic Express. Ronnie was so excited about his magicband, he was off tap-tap-tapping every Mickey head he saw! He is STILL wearing his MB and it's been over a week!
We were quickly loaded onto the bus and after about a 20 minute wait we were off. I managed to lose my sunglasses and the setting Florida sun was BRIGHT!!! (I searched and searched and searched. As soon as we got into our room, guess what showed up?) We stopped at AoA which looked really neat, POP, and then Jambo house!!! Check in was quick and easy although slightly longer than normal because we had to check in 2 rooms. Yeah.....2 rooms with a party of 7. Five in 1 room, 2 in another.....with magicbands that talked on different wavelengths....we had some *fun* with this throughout the trip!! My first stop was the concierge to figure out tickets for the boys upcoming day at Disney Quest and to change the first appointment of the day on Sunday from 9 AM (who made that?????) to a much better time of 2:50 PM.
Then up to the rooms when the first of the Disney Magic was to be showered upon us!!
The giraffe (sorry I took this from the wrong side, was chocolate as was the banner!)
My Mom and the boys had this in their rooms, ALL from chocolate:
As you can see, I arrived a few minutes TOO late:
Those little chocolates were YUMMY!!!! We also had these little things called Zebra Domes? Yummy!!!
The only clue as to the who it was from was a card saying "thank you for staying at the AKL, here is a gift from us to you!"
Mom, Linn, and I went off to grocery shop (no fun!) and have dinner off property while Rob and the boys planned on swimming (which Hayden was BEGGING to do) and having dinner.
Sadly, it was too cold for the pool to be open, BUMMER, and they had a very frustrating time at The Mara trying to get both the normal dinners and a GF dinner. Rob eventually gave up on the GF part of it and just got Ronnie Roasted Chicken (which was GF, thankfully).
Then it was time for bed and our first day!!!!
UP next:
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I really wanted to make rope drop at MK since I have never made it before (that I remember). We were up bright and early for breakfast in the room, made by my awesome hubby, eggs and bacon! With MK opening at 8, we felt for sure we had enough time to drive the rental car to the MK parking lot and make it for rope drop leaving at 7:30 from AKL. Yeah…that would be a big, fat NO seeing as you no longer park at MK but at the Transportation center and you have to then either take the monorail which was not operating yet or a boat. We missed the boat by about 30 seconds. Ah, well. A goal for the next trip, right?
Getting into MK with our MagicBands was super easy and we were IN! First FP of the day was with the new Talking Mickey at 8:15. We wondered around the flag area a bit, finding the restrooms, and enjoying the scenery before going in. Again, the MagicBands worked like a charm and we were ushered in to see the Big Cheese himself. I knew Hayden wasn’t much of a Mickey Mouse fan, but laughed super hard when he told me the part he disliked the most was Mickey’s voice. His face was priceless when I told him this Mickey talked.
Seeing as this was the first day, I took a lot of photos. Sadly, my photos decreased as the day/weeks went by. This post will have quite a few pictures.
Having some fun in the quae along with one picture of a cool poster there.
Excited to meet Mickey.
Doing what the family does best: having fun and joking around.
Rob realized I was taking pictures and thus:
Levi is much like me and doesn't like his picture being taken. This is one of the best.
And finally! We meet Mickey! Poor Hayden was to meet Mickey over and over, and OVER again for the next 5 days!! Not sure he ever got over being creeped out by him but he was very thankful that only this one spoke.
This is the only picture that you can see all of our "matching" shirts"! It was chilly enough outside we mostly had coats on for the rest of the day. Mom laughed at me because my coat would be on for 5 minutes and then off for 2 minutes, on for 10, off for 10, on for 15, off for 5, ALL day long!
The joke he shared was “What did Daisy Duck say when she bought some lipstick?.......Put it on my Bill please!” He was very interactive and it was a lot of fun talking to him. I hope the talking Mickey is here to stay and they will introduce more later.
Next we were off Main Street. We never did make it to the castle today but we did manage to get some great Memory Maker photos in before the boys took off on their own. They couldn’t WAIT to be exploring on their own.
Hayden. Can you get a bigger smile? I don’t think so!
All of us
Mom and Linn:
Rob and I:
Levi and Hayden.
Somehow we never managed to get a picture of just the 4 of us, oh well!!!
For the most part the 2 older boys toured the park on their own throughout the day, checking in every hour and randomly showing up in the same line, normally right ahead of us. (I’m sure they thought I was tracking them but really, I wasn’t!) It’s really weird because the memories they made are certainly not the same ones we made. There were times throughout the trip that we were in groups of 2’s and 3’s or 2’s and a single person exploring on their own. Our group seemed to be a pretty fluid group. You will find my pictures are Ronnie heavy mainly because I was with him almost all the time.
I’ll stop this post here since it is pretty picture heavy. Up next, Firsts!
Hope, I'm sorry you all missed rope drop, but there never has been parking at MK as Walt wanted the guests' first impression to be the park from the monorail. I remember in 1980 how excited I was to round a curve on the monorail and see Space Mountain for the very first time. I can't wait to meet the talking Mickey in May. Great picture of the whole crew with him.
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Great start to your touring! Sorry you didn't make it quite in time for rope drop, but as you say, that's a goal for next time.
it was indeed!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lfredsbo
Off to a great start! Bummer that it wasn't warmer for you.
Mickey sounds like a lot of fun! Haven't met the talking one yet!
It certainly stayed cool to downright cold all week !!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great start to your day at MK! Love the pictures!
Thanks!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Hope, I'm sorry you all missed rope drop, but there never has been parking at MK as Walt wanted the guests' first impression to be the park from the monorail. I remember in 1980 how excited I was to round a curve on the monorail and see Space Mountain for the very first time. I can't wait to meet the talking Mickey in May. Great picture of the whole crew with him.
Cam, thank you for correcting me. I can understand Walt wanting it seen from that perspective.
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I can't wait to meet the talking Mickey in May. Great picture of the whole crew with him. 
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