Ok part 3 of our trip report for our family trip to Disney World – and this one is going to be pretty picture intensive.
For parts 1 and parts 2 please click on the links.
Friday Feb 7th
The theme of being up earlier than the rest of the family continues. Another quick run in the Boardwalk area this morning. The weather was a bit cooler and there were definitely fewer people out and about so I pushed it a bit faster. It felt good after several days of walking at a constantly changing pace to be able to just get out and move. I regretted not continuing longer after I got back to the room and the kids were still asleep! I could have kept going without feeling guilty. Oh well.
Breakfast in the club room again and then we walked to Hollywood Studios. Even at a nice leisurely pace and we beyond beat the ferry boat. Usually the boat versus walking is close but for some reason the boats were very slow that morning.
We started with a short standby line for Star Tours and then wandered over and I did standby line with T for Rockin’ Rollercoaster (this was a first time for both of us). T loved it.
We then did our fast pass for Toy Story Midway Mania after a quick pretzel (and beer for me) snack.
We decided to try the Pirates of the Caribbean show and T and K were picked to be the audience members who held up the skeleton key at the start of the show. They enjoyed that and the show was pretty cool.
Then time for lunch at the ABC Commissary before doing a fast pass for Star Tours.
We checked several times during the day to see if we could get K on Tower of Terror but wait times were too long and we were out of fast passes for the day. So we did not get her on the ride but we still did lots of other fun things.
Decided to let T build a double bladed light saber (blue and red) as his treat to match up with K’s new Anna dress and then we walked back to the hotel.
After a quick snack in the Club room and I hung out in the room with the kids while Heather did some laundry while soaking in the hot tub by the quiet pool.
During this I decided we should do a bit of a special supper so I made 8 pm reservations for Akershus Royal Banquet Hall to have dinner with the Disney Princesses. K dressed as Anna from Frozen and was extremely excited to show off the dress to the Princesses.
So T wouldn’t feel too left out we picked him up a foam sword and shield on the way, similar to what I had grabbed as part of my half marathon running costume in January (see http://biggoofyrunner.com for more details on that).
We were greeted by Belle at the entrance and then saw Snow White, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Ariel (Little Mermaid) and of course Cinderella.
It was late magic hours at Epcot that night so after supper we did test track through the standby line – very close to end of magic hours and park closing at that point.
We started walk toward the Nemo ride but hit the Character Spot on the way to see if Mickey, Minnie and Goofy were still taking pictures – they were and we were the last family of the day. The characters were playing around and in the end the PhotoPass photographers got over 90 pictures with us and the characters – some even with all three characters together with us. That stop alone paid for the Memory Maker + we had pre-purchase. We were certainly glad we had it at that point!
And we still managed to get on Nemo and then walked back to the hotel through a mostly deserted Epcot. I had my DSLR with me and managed to get some cool photos on the way. Some examples are below – I will be adding a gallery on the site with more later as I get some time to process them.
Feb 8th – cool and rainy
We still had some laundry that needed extra drying from the night before so I took it over to the laundry facility early in the morning (while everyone else was sleeping, again). I had some issues with one of the dryers eating my coins which was unusual for Disney. While things were drying I got in a bit of longer run. I ended up having to dry a few things a bit longer and could have run further but the hot tub was right there by the laundry area so I decided that would be more productive instead. I sat in the hot tub for about 20 minutes in a light rain. Very peaceful.
We decided on Animal Kingdom to start the day again and hit the club room for a fast snack and then hit the bus to Animal Kingdom. Fast pass to Everest in the rain – makes for a different experience. There was only a light rain when we got in the cue – but when the ride started it was coming down pretty darned good! Second time in one trip I was getting high speed rain in the face. It was pretty funny. I don’t think the kids liked it by I laughed. Was still fun.
We had fast pass for Nemo musical next but had a wait so we hit Primeval Whirl (T and I) as a walk up, Triceratops Spin (all 4 of us), and then dinosaur dig play area. Then got in line for Nemo – Nemo was a first for all 4 of us – very cool.
Then had fast pass for Dinosaur but a bit of a wait yet – the rain picked up and we got a bit wet as we were waiting. Unfortunately it looks like the standby time clock was way out from what I could tell (said 20 minutes but looked like a walk on). We could have skipped our fast pass and just rode and not got as wet. Oh well – did the ride, had fun and then headed over to Asia for lunch.
Hit the quick serve food place near Yak and Yeti and found a mostly dry spot to eat. Rice seemed like a nice treat after many days of fries.
Then headed to the safari ride and it was basically a walk up as well – lions were very active in the rain – took many pictures – looks like some turned out pretty nice.
Then, back to the hotel for a quick snack and hit the hot tub.
On to Magic Kingdom probably around 6 pm and hopped on the steam train and rode around to the Fantasyland Station and tried to get on Barnstormer but it was not running so we got on Dumbo instead.
After that we wandered over to Tomorrowland and rode the speedway. K and I got a car with busted steering and they let us go a second time while Heather and T waited in the spectator / fan bleachers.
Decided to checked to see about Space Mountain but the line was too long, so we looked at Space Ranger spin, also too long, so we looked at People Mover…and it had a line? I have never seen a line for the People Mover? Very odd – we left Tomorrowland and went to Adventure Land instead.
Did the Jungle Cruise (T and K sat up front by the driver and participated, a lot), then did Tiki Room (saw 3 different families get up and leave during the show – never seen that before).
Next we rode Magic Carpets. The family in front of us wins the award for the worst ride load we have ever seen – they were supposed to go in car 9 but went to 12 instead and yelled at their kids when they tried to go to the right one. They wouldn’t move for the family that were supposed to go in that carpet – Heather let that family know which car was free because of the mix up and they took that one. The mixed up family also loaded with adults on the inside instead of the outside and were on the verge of arguing with the Cast Member who was helping to sort them out. All around pretty rough. And this was NOT a language barrier issue.
After Magic Carpets we went on Pirates as a walk on and got first row (both times through this trip has been front row which is cool).
We then ate at Pecos Bill’s and then went to head over to check out Big Thunder Mountain. As we were leaving the restaurant we saw that Electrical Parade was on and was just passing by the restaurant – we were able to grab a spot right near where the floats go back stage and saw the full parade from there. The kids were happy to see everything and wave at the characters. With the constant waving to the crowd that the Cast Members do K was sure that Alice and Cinderella and others had seen her waving and had waved back to her personally – very cute.
Once the parade was over we headed off to Big Thunder – there was a bit of a wait but not too horrible. T, K and myself were put in one car and we went for the ride while Wishes was going on. It was misty with low lying clouds so couldn’t see most of the fireworks but we could see several that were launched from closer to Cinderella’s Castle, so that was cool.
After that we wandered over toward Barnstormer again and did the Ariel ride and met Ariel in her grotto along the way.
At Barnstormer T got his own seat and I sat with K.
Then we headed into the Speedway again and this time I was with T. We then went and did Space Mountain (only about 15 minutes wait).
After Space Mountain we did Space Ranger spin and started heading for the exit, stopping for a few pics along the way.
There was a bus waiting for us when we got to the cue and we left shortly after getting a seat – bus pulled out at 12:42 am.
Both kids fell asleep on the ride to the hotel (go figure) – K laying against Heather and T sitting up with me hold his head in my hands so he wouldn’t fall over.
Quick wander up to the room and then to bed.
Sunday Feb 9th – last full day and it is a bit warmer and no rain!
At Epcot we did a tour of the countries and all the kidcot stations – we hit all stations but did no rides besides Living with the Land. We had lunch at The Land and during our wandering tour the kids got to test out the new beaker drinks called Doofenslurpers.
They are a blue raspberry slush drink in a large beaker cup with Doofenshmirtz on it. Kids loved them and we brought the cups home with us so I can only imagine what kinds of concoctions we will have to think up to put in them.
Then it was time for a bit of a slight rest at the room and then hit the pool for a while. On the way we were able to roast marshmallows on the beach so the kids had a nice treat. Once we got in the pool I was quite cold and was shivering quickly (the kids and Heather were fine but I think I got more heat on my shaved head that day than I thought and I really felt the sun setting pretty quickly), so I hit the hot tub near the pool and watched the kids play from there.
After a while we went back to the room and got changed before heading out to the Boardwalk to grab a pizza. Coming down the bridge over the canal the Friendship boats use to get to Epcot, K was power skipping at full tilt and tripped. She ended up with a pretty good goose egg and a bit of shiner out of it in the end too. Nothing serious but it obviously hurt and with how tired she was she kept starting to cry again after we would get her calmed down. We got some children’s Advil for her from the store on the Boardwalk and she was back to herself before too long. We also got some ice to put on it when we got our pizza from the pizza window on the Boardwalk which helped as well.
By the time we were done the pizza she was primed and ready to go see the Princesses in Magic Kingdom.
Everything seemed to be ok so we continued on – went through Epcot and saw some of Illuminations on our walk through to the monorail to Magic Kingdom.
Quickly into Magic Kingdom probably around 9:30 pm or so (magic hours to 1 am that night). We decided to go to Town Hall to confirm if we had one more day of tickets for the kids or not in case we wanted to do something in the morning. Plus we wanted to confirm the times for the Disney Princess greeting areas. We got a very cool cast member who confirmed everything and then gave us fast passes to see both pairs of Princesses and one for Space Ranger Spin for T. Very cool.
Wandered over to watch Wishes and after that made our way to see the Princesses. Rapunzel and Snow White first and then Cinderella and Aurora second. Fast Passes for these were awesome – really makes the little princess feel special coming out of a side entrance and walking through to the meet and greet areas while a whole line of people are waiting in the standby line. Almost makes the girl feel like everyone is waiting to see them. It was kinda neat.
After that we tried to pull out Excalibur (which we had never tried before) – it did not work.
We then went on the Carousel before wandering to Tomorrow Land.
Some of the rides still had longer waits in Tomorrow Land so we did our Space Ranger Spin fast pass (which we really did not need as the ride was a walk on and the fast pass cue path was longer than the shortened standby line cue path).
Did our ride and then decided to try one more thing before we left. We decided on Space Mountain which had a 20 minute wait but before we got there we saw a horde of cheer leaders and a bunch of others hit the line so we decided to try something else.
Decided on Laugh Floor – we got seated in the center along an aisle (or at least the kids did) and T ended up getting called on to be talked to by one of the monsters. After a bit K couldn’t contain herself and leaned into the picture and the show took a different turn after that. K wouldn’t speak but just did the craziest monster faces she could, just to see what they would look like on the big screen. Got a bunch of laughs from the crowd and gave the monster a bunch of material to work with like “did she get some evil candy?” and said that he was a bit scared of her. They both thought the whole thing was hilarious and the crowd seemed to enjoy it so that was good.
After that we wandered out to the busses – there was one waiting but we were able to get some seats for T and K (a man popped up quickly to let T sit – very nice) but Heather and I had to stand a bit away. Kids were good but K ended up falling asleep so at the Yacht Club a woman let Heather sit beside her to hold onto her for the remainder of the drive to the Beach Club. K woke up when we got there and we wandered to the club room for a quick snack and then headed to the room. Got off the bus at 12:20 am.
We let the kids watch a show while we did a bunch of packing and organizing and then got them off to sleep and we followed an hour or so later once we were organized.
Monday Feb 10th – check out day
I was up around 7:30 with everyone else sleeping – had a shower and got dressed, etc.
Did a bit of work on the computer and called the resort / airline baggage number to pay for our baggage and about 20 minutes later our luggage tags and boarding passes showed up under our door.
We finished getting ready and took the bags down to the baggage drop off area – quick and smooth.
Then back up to the Club room for a final snack and headed out. Inez (spelling?) had a little care package for Heather (some danishes and muffins).
Wandered downstairs and sat in the lobby for a couple minutes to get the final bit of ambiance and then headed out and sat outside for a few more minutes before the bus came. Bus had one more stop after ours and then we were off to the airport. We did a wander and had a quick lunch before heading through security. Security was quick – only delay was that I forgot to take out my laptop and they had to scan my carryon bag a second time.
Then on to our gate and got on to the plane fairly quickly – a small horde of cheerleaders got on too but they were quite subdued. Nice smooth flight and got off the plane in Minneapolis and grabbed our bags quickly with no hassle – bags were almost already waiting for us since we were in the back end of the plane.
After we got our bags we headed over to the hotel shuttle area and called the hotel. Shuttle was there in around 10 minutes and driver was very courteous and we went straight to the hotel. Once we were checked in we went to TGI Fridays for supper and after moving some stuff around in the van we wandered over to the Mall for some (more) shopping.
A few things were bought at the Disney Store and I picked up a flip phone case for my phone – had to get Best Buy to price match their own website? What the heck is that? Then went back to the hotel to watch some shows before bed.
Kids went to bed and Heather and I made sure everything was good to go and then went to bed too.
Tuesday Feb 11th
Organized a bunch of stuff and got some things out to the van.
Then we went to IHOP for breakfast – finished loading the van and off we went.
Next was a stop in Albertville Premium Outlet mall for some kids clothes and a major cash drop at the Nike store. Both Heather and I got a bunch of stuff and the kids also go some clothes items. Some very deep discounts on shoes – Heather got 2 pair and I got 4 – I also picked up a winter running jacket that retails for $300 in Canada for $105 – awesome!
Then got gas and some snacks and headed on.
There was some heavy blowing snow just around Fargo – we planned to stop there for lunch / early supper but K was asleep so we decided to keep going to Grand Forks instead. K woke up 5 minutes after we passed Fargo but we kept going anyway and the weather cleared up.
In Grand Forks we had supper at Ruby Tuesdays and then did a quick stop at the beer store and a craft store before getting gas and hitting the road. We were at the Canadian border by 9 pm and home around 10.
We let the kids play for a few minutes while we unpacked some stuff and got organized a bit and then got them to bed.
Whoohoo sleep in our own bed!
