The "Together the Magic Continues - As a Family" Trip Report. Aug 26 - Sept 6 at POP - COMPLETE!! 11/15 About This Page:

[Disdadnmi]

All of us have been to Disney World several times together but this was our first trip as a family, as myself and Smilechaser (Liz) were married last Spring two months after a very magical trip to Disney where I proposed. (With a lot of help from Cinderella!) You can read about that trip report here:
http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...es-4-19-a.html

The players are as follows: ME! Brent, Father of DD Jordan 12, and DS Brendan 10. I am also incredibly fortunate enough to be the stepdad of two wonderful young ladies, Tori 14, and Cheyenne, 10, and last but not least the husband of Liz (Smilechaser). I am also the stepfather to two more wonderful young ladies, Ashleigh, and Kimmie, but they are older and did not accompany us on this trip. L

Most of you know of my fascination and adoration for Cinderella. It will show up again on this trip. J Smilechaser feels almost equally about Tinkerbell, and that comes out as well.

Our pre trip report is here for those who are interested:
http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...er-unless.html

Tuesday August 25, Pre vacation day and Wednesday August 26, Travel day!

We’ll start here as we travel 2 hours from our home to Detroit Metropolitan Airport and stay at a hotel to catch our flight. Our flights really aren’t early enough to warrant a hotel stay, we could have very easily made the two hour drive to catch our flights which leave about 11:00 am, but it actually was cheaper to book a hotel for the night and leave our vehicle there on a ‘stay-park-fly’ package than it would have been to park it an airport lot for the length of our stay. I got out of work around 2:00 (Liz had the day off already! ) and we were in our Disney clothes and on the road by 3:00. Had a nice dinner on the way and were giddy with anticipation. J Arrived at the hotel and checked in around 6:00. Drove on through the city of Detroit to visit some relatives in St. Clair Shores. Had a nice visit with plenty of pie, cake, and ice cream, (Thanks Aunt Betty!) then we were on the way back to our hotel for a good nights sleep. (or a fitful nights sleep. I think Liz and I were as excited as the kids) Woke up the next morning to the sound of rain. A quick check of the radar would reveal thunderstorms in the area. Hmmmm. Hope this doesn’t affect our flights. Liz has some history of traveling in the rain. (See our trip report from last year when she had the foresight to travel right into Tropical storm Fay and forget the ponchos here

http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...stallment.html

We had a good breakfast at the hotel and were off on the shuttle to the airport. Now here is where it is important to note that myself, Brendan, and Jordan are on one flight and Liz, Tori and Cheyenne are on a different one. We booked our trips long ago before we were married and I booked airfare a long time ago and Liz waited until closer to book airfare so we were on different airlines, but flights were within a couple hours of each other. Our flight was uneventful and on time. Brendan managed to con a handful of the cookies they serve on the flight from the stewardess as we were leaving because he is “such a nice young man!” We quickly retrieve our luggage (No, we don’t let Magic Express take it to our room. It only takes a few more minutes to grab it yourself and that way you know you have it. Unlike Liz’s trip last year when Liz gave ALL her bags to Magic Express and due to all the confusion Tropical Storm Fay caused she did not see it again for three days, so not only was she wet because she forgot her ponchos, but had no dry clothes to change into.) and go to Magic Express and are able to get right on a bus. Thing are going great! Then to our surprise Liz and the girls are on the bus too even though their flight was almost two hours before ours. Turns out she spent much of that two hours sitting on the runway n Detroit without Air Conditioning. But she prefers we not talk about that. J

So we arrive at Pop and our rooms are ready. We are in the blue 90’s building. Ground floor, facing the pool. Perfect! We get settled , unpacked and Liz decorates the window in true Cinderella fashion:


Thanks Liz!

Then we get some food at the food court, go swimming, unpack our garden grocer order and by this time it’s actually getting a bit late, so we go for a quick night swim then go to bed early, as we are going to hit morning EMH at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow morning!



Day 1 Thursday August 27 - Magic Kingdom and Cinderella blows me a kiss!!

As has become my tradition, I wake well before everyone else and head to the food court for my morning cup of coffee and walk the grounds a bit before the rest of the family wakes up. Ahhh nice warm morning. Humid already, I love it! It had been a cold Summer back home in Michigan and I was really looking forward to the heat. The older I get the less I like being cold. Everyone wakes fairly easily this morning and off we go to the Magic Kingdom. No breakfast this morning as we have a 10:00 ADR at Crystal Palace. Upon arrival the first thing we do is just walk down Main Street and take it all in. Seeing the castle always just brings me to tears. Sniff. After walking trough the castle we head toward the teacups and I ride them with the younger three kids, while Liz and Tori ride Pooh. Don’t know why I rode the darn teacups. I am much too old for that spinning, but I make it through unscathed. Then we ride Peter Pan , see Philharmagic then head to the Haunted Mansion. By now we are close to our ADR so we head to the Crystal Palace. I believe we stop at Pirates of the Caribbean on our way there. I had never been to the Crystal Palace so this was quite a treat for me. The kids had a good meal and we all enjoyed the characters.






At one point Cheyenne went back up to get some bacon and sausage and happened to come back right as Piglet was visiting us. She comes up and says “Tori, I got us all some baco uhhh ooh. Sorry”. L

Priceless moment. After this we ride Splash Mountain and get Fastpasses for big Thunder. The girls are ready to go back to the hotel now for a swim break but Brendan and I want to stay so we split up. Brendan and I head to Tom Sawyers Island to explore while we wait for our big thunder fast passes to be good. The island is just something we had never really done before and Brendan really enjoyed it. Exploring the caves was his favorite.

After that we rode Big thunder and headed back to the hotel for a dip ourselves.

Refreshed, we head back and visit Ariel: Always glad to see the little Mermaid.

Now we head over to Tomorrowland and wish Space Mountain was open. With that and the TTA being down the park is really missing something. Hope they get it done soon! We ride the carousel of progress and take the pathway to Toontown. Now some of us get in line to ride the Barnstormer and Jordan and I line up to see the Princesses. Not much of a line, maybe 20 minutes, but we get in there and we see Sleeping Beauty and Belle. NO Cinderella???!!!! Huh!!??? Oh no! So we great the Princesses and Belle notices my shirt which naturally has Cinderella on it and she comments. Then she whispers in my ear: “ She’ll be back in about 10 minutes”

Thanks Belle! I owe you one, Honey!! All excited and Giddy that I may get to see my beloved Cinderella after all I go out and grab Liz and we get back in line. Things are looking up, Thanks again Belle! So we get back in line with Liz this time and when it’s our turn to see Cinderella Liz goes up first and talks to her a little, then when I get up Cinderella tells me, “I hear you’re my biggest fan!” And we have a nice chat. Truth be known I’m as nervous as a High School boy. Why is it that a 42 years young man gets all nervous and weak in the knees when he talks to Cinderella???

As we leave she blows me a kiss and says “ Goodbye Boyfriend!” Ahhhh Liz had to help me walk out cuz my legs were jelly! The perfect end to a perfect day.


After that we ride the Barnstormer a few more times and head back to the room.


Tomorrow: Typhoon Lagoon and Epcot in the evening, and my first experience with Biergarten. Later on: A visit back to 1900 Park Faire, the place where I proposed to my darling Liz.




Brent