It Really is a Whole New World...Mother Daughter May 2017 TR! (Updated 8/26!)

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May 5, 2013
Welcome to my trip report, thanks for stopping by!

This latest trip was a short (too short) mother daughter one to check out the Flower and Garden Festival for the first time! Our goal for this trip was to try all new things, and I think we did a pretty good job with that! But we'll get to that later...

Now for the introductions:



I am Debbie, and a bit of a Disney addict. My parents took me to Disney World for the first time when I was 5 back in the 80s and I never looked back. Well, ok, maybe back then I wasn’t fully aware of the awesomeness I was experiencing, there mayyyyy be a picture of me having a complete breakdown while meeting 80s space Mickey at Epcot. In fact, I think most pictures from that trip are of me crying, sorry mom and dad! I did however eventually grow up to love Mickey and everything Disney World!

My travel partner this trip? My mom!



We share a love for all things Disney, and we always have so much fun traveling together!

As mentioned earlier, for this trip, we decided we wanted to try as many new things as possible, so we were so excited when we got reservations for the Highway in the Sky dine around, and the ROL dining package…two new things! Yay! Plus we got to experience a number of other new things, which we'll get to soon.
 
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Part 1: Disney, here we come! Well…Disney store.
May 9th

It was finally here! Our travel to Disney day!!! My mom was flying in from Boston while I was coming in from DC. My flight was in the morning, but since my mom had to teach that day, she wasn’t flying in until the afternoon. Our plan was for me to hang out in the airport and wait for her to arrive, pure torture, I know.

Our travel day went a LOT smoother than our last trip. No flight changes or storms to worry about. In fact, it was a very relaxing travel day. My flight was around 11:15, so I was able to sleep in, enjoy a few cups of coffee, even water my garden one last time!

I ended up leaving my house a little before 10:00. I can’t even begin to describe how much I love flying out of DCA, I can get there 30 minutes before my flight and still make it to my gate with plenty of time to spare. Plus I’m only one metro stop away, so it’s super convenient.

I arrived at the airport just after 10:00 and like always, there was no line for security. Ah, what a breeze. I made my way to my gate and waited a bit over 30 minutes for them to start boarding.

While waiting I kept thinking I was hearing a cat meowing, I was starting to think I was losing my mind until a guy sitting next to me blurts out “there is a cat! I thought I was losing my mind!” Oh thank goodness, it’s not just me hearing the meows. It turns out there really was a cat in a carrier sitting down a bit from us. Good to know I wasn’t completely losing it!

Eventually they started boarding my flight, and soon it was my turn, yay!

It turns out that the cat I heard earlier was on my flight across the aisle from me, which was no big deal, until it’s owner decided to take it out of the carrier mid flight. I don’t have issues with cats, but the poor woman next to me who was sitting on the aisle side certainly did and when she saw that cat she jumped over onto me to get away from it!

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Well hello there new friend…welcome to my lap.

Once the cat was put away, the woman and I had a good laugh about that little awkward moment, and soon enough we were making our descent into Orlando! The flight was so fast this time, just under 1.5 hours!

Upon arrival to the airport I did our first new thing of the trip! I made my way over to the Hyatt to check-in!

Don’t worry, we were not doing a Disney trip from the airport hotel. We decided since my mom wasn’t getting in until after 6, that we should just spend the night at the airport since it was so much cheaper than a night at Disney. Not going to lie, it was SO hard to not head to DME!

After checking in and dropping my stuff off in the room, I felt like I had to get at least a mini Disney fix, so I made my way down to the Disney store! I bought some gifts for my mom, and got her a little Pluto stuffed magnet to give to her when she got off the plane.

It was eventually time for my mom to arrive, so I went to meet her getting off the fake-o-rail and got my camera ready to get a shot of her. I was standing there waiting when I swear I hear someone say my name. So I look around and there she is, behind me! WHAT? How did that happen?

Turns out she decided to go through the store next to the fake-o-rail exit rather than just follow the hall, because as she put it, don’t you always exit rides through stores at Disney? Haha, good point mom.

I made her stop to get that arrival picture I was hoping for in front of her ride exit gift store.


I like that she’s doing the character pose with her foot here. Someone has been prepping for Disney!

We went back to the room so she could drop off her stuff and freshen up, then made our way to the hotel restaurant for some dinner. After dinner we decided to head back to the room to relax and get to bed nice and early because in the morning we were going to Disney World for real!
 
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Part 2: Onward to Disney…for real this time!
May 10th

My mom and I had planned after spending the night at the Hyatt at the airport to catch an early morning DME to our resort, the Yacht Club. I had woken up around 4AM to use the bathroom, and after not being able to fall back asleep for a while I whispered to my mom “are you awake yet? I’m too excited to sleep.” Sure enough, she was wide awake as well. It was only 4:30 AM.

We got ready, had coffee, lots and lots of coffee, then around 5:30 made our way downstairs to catch DME! There was one other family there when we arrived, but they were in a different line. My mom and I scanned in our magic bands, were ushered to line 5 and wound our way to the front. Once there, we were met by another CM who ushered us onto a bus that was already waiting. Yippy!

The bus waited to see if others were coming, but after about five minutes no one else showed up for our bus, so off we went on our own private DME! Since we were all alone on the bus, I didn’t feel at all awkward leaning out into the aisle to get a video of our entrance to Disney World!


We finally made it!!!!!

It was a super fast trip to the YC, especially with it being the one and only stop. There was no one outside greeting people yet at that time in the morning, it was only about 6:15 by then. So we made our way inside and over to the front desk.

This is where we met my new favorite person in Disney World, Georgette. Not only was she the perfect bubbly happy CM you expect to see at Disney, but she made our trip extra special as well.

We started chatting with her about our trip and how our goal was to try to do as many new things as we could for this trip. Without missing a beat she says “well, I have one more new thing for you to try, would you like to try an upgrade?”
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An upgrade? We've never been upgraded! I don't think I can contain my excitement!

She continues with “and how about one other new thing, how about one of our newly renovated rooms?”

YES YES YES!
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She tells us that she is putting us in a water view room on the fourth floor. The room wasn’t ready yet, so I made sure she had my cell # so we could get the text when it was. She also told us that when we got the text, if we weren’t on the 4th floor, to come back because someone made a mistake and she would fix it.

Seriously, best check in experience ever. We are so grateful for what she did for us! We did end up running into her again at the very end of our trip and let her know how special she made it for us. It was nice to be able to let her know how much we appreciated it!

So far for the day we already had two new experiences in the book:
-First time being upgraded (only took 18 trips to Disney!)
-Newly renovated room at YC

 
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Following along. My husband and I are headed to Yacht club in September and I can't wait to see the renovated rooms!
 
Following along. My husband and I are headed to Yacht club in September and I can't wait to see the renovated rooms!

That's so exciting! September is our favorite time to go now, there is so much to do with all the Food and Wine happenings, plus the crowds are very manageable. And you can't forget the Halloween party!

The new rooms are so nice, the beds are super comfy, there are plugs EVERYWHERE (including USB plugs), and the bathrooms are so much nicer than they were before. I'll be posting a ton of pictures on here soon once I get them all sorted out.

I hope you guys have a fantastic trip!
 
Joining in! Your trip already sounds like it's off to a great start with getting your room upgraded! Looking forward to hearing more :)
 


Joining in as well. I took my son on a 4 day trip back to WDW this past Oct. to the Food and Wine festival. He's 29 now and hadn't been in about 17 years - when he got "too cool" to go there with Mom. (Plus we live very far away). But there wasn't much choice this time, because I was in a cast after surgery, had to be Orlando for business, and needed an assistant to carry bags etc. (so paid his way).
Anyway, it was completely magical. By Day 4, when we were in the Lion King show, hearing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" I was crying like a baby because of all the memories of being at WDW with him from age 3 to very early teens. They change so much after that and we weren't that close anymore, but being at Disney was, again, a very special bonding experience. I love that you're going with your Mom and look forward to hearing more.
 
Part 3: The Running of the Bulls
May 10th

After checking in, it was still only about 6:45 in the morning. Fortunately the store, which was temporarily in the lobby, was already open for business, so I grabbed a lemonade and we picked up some sunblock for the trip. We then dropped our bags off at bell services and decided to wander around the area taking pictures!



I think I get this same exact shot every trip…

Don’t you just want to sit here and watch the world go by?




Yeah, we did just that!


Of course we had to go check out the lighthouse.




In the middle of wandering, it occurred to me that I completely forgot one of the most import pieces of my outfit, my ears! So we booked it back to bell services to get my bag so I could dig them out. Much better.




We decided since it was still so early to take a leisurely stroll around the boardwalk taking pictures.

We stopped at some benches to look out over to the YC and passed the time trying to guess which room would be ours. Spoiler, we didn’t even come close to guessing right!

Which room would be ours????

While waiting we got to see the Friendship boats set out for the day!



After a while we decided we might as well start meandering our way over to the IG to get in line. We got there around 8:15 and ended up being the fourth in line. Around 8:45 they started letting us through security and up to the holding point right by the bridge to France.

We had a plan for that morning to hightail it over to FEA since we missed it in September and didn’t have a FP+ for it…pretty sure it was everyone else’s plan as well. At 8:56 the CM holding us back got the notice that the front gate was open and we could be set loose too! The second that rope was pulled aside the race was on, or as my mom and I would come to call it, the running of the bulls had begun!

Did anyone get a chance to watch the speed walking event at the summer Olympics? I’m pretty sure we all looked just like that making our way into the park. We probably could have even given some of those athletes a run for their money!


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Totally what we all looked like rounding the corner!

Kudos to my mom whose age I will not reveal, but is much older than the other speed walkers that morning, she ended up beating all but two people coming in from the IG!

The people coming in from the front have a definite advantage for FEA we discovered. We were up in the front of the IG crowd with one other couple when we rounded the bend where Future World connects to World Showcase and the masses from the front of the park were already up past Mexico. No worries, the IG crowd seemed to be the more speed walking inclined, and we ended up passing a ton of the front gate people.

We finally made it to FEA, and ended up with probably 50-75 people from the front gate in front of us. Not horrible. What was horrible was that FEA wasn’t running!

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Since we had made such an effort to beat the crowds, and I was still out of breath, we decided to wait it out and hope it opened soon. Fortunately for us it did! We made our way inside and soon were on the ride…in the front row!



It was fun, and really well done, but we preferred when it was Maelstrom.

It was a good start to the day, and there was still so much more to come!
 
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Joining in! Your trip already sounds like it's off to a great start with getting your room upgraded! Looking forward to hearing more :)

Thanks! Yeah, it was the most amazing start to a trip, that first day was an explosion of pixie dust! We had been saying this may be our last Disney trip for a few years, but after all the great luck we had this trip we're talking about going back sooner. Disney certainly knows how to make people return customers!
 
Joining in as well. I took my son on a 4 day trip back to WDW this past Oct. to the Food and Wine festival. He's 29 now and hadn't been in about 17 years - when he got "too cool" to go there with Mom. (Plus we live very far away). But there wasn't much choice this time, because I was in a cast after surgery, had to be Orlando for business, and needed an assistant to carry bags etc. (so paid his way).
Anyway, it was completely magical. By Day 4, when we were in the Lion King show, hearing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" I was crying like a baby because of all the memories of being at WDW with him from age 3 to very early teens. They change so much after that and we weren't that close anymore, but being at Disney was, again, a very special bonding experience. I love that you're going with your Mom and look forward to hearing more.

Oh my goodness, that is so sweet! I'm so glad you two had such a great trip together and it was such a great bonding experience!
 
I'll be posting a ton of pictures on here soon once I get them all sorted out.

I hope you guys have a fantastic trip!

Awesome I cant wait to see them! And thank you. Only 113 more days!

I love the Frozen ride photo! You an your mom look so happy... while the kids in the boat look terrified.
 
What a great start to a trip!! Upgrade, new room! Yay! And FEA! It's such a cute ride! And that photo is adorably hilarious of the kids faces lol
 
Popping in to follow...I'll go back and read a little later when I have more time.

Looks like you were there the week after me!!

I'm taking my mom in October so I'm really excited to see how things went for you guys!!
 
Joining along! How awesome that your trip started off with so much pixie dust!

I love the picture of you & your mama on FEA!
 
HI:wave: following along. I just got done reading your last TR from October. I really enjoyed it. It's great that you and your mother are able to enjoy Disney together.
Well hello there new friend…welcome to my lap.
:rotfl:

An upgrade? We've never been upgraded! I don't think I can contain my excitement!

She continues with “and how about one other new thing, how about one of our newly renovated rooms?”
:jumping2:
 
Following along! Waiting impatiently for our own mother/daughter Yacht club trip! Love your pics of early morning YC and Boardwalk. We are always up early (jetlag) so this is one of my favourite experiences. Lovely!
 
Aww I wish I could do this with my mom. Hopefully when my son grows up he'll invite me on Disney trips!
 
Part 4: Flowers Everywhere!
May 10th

After our ride on FEA we had a bit of time until our 10:00 FP for Soarin, so we decided to go check out all the displays and topiaries for Flower and Garden. Warning, this is a very picture heavy post!

First up was Anna and Elsa just outside of FEA.


We then made our way past Mexico and got some pictures with the three caballeros. We ran into a nice family here who offered to get a picture of both my mom and I, love when people do this!




Next up were the butterfly topiaries! So pretty.




We wandered over to future world next, still snapping pictures.









Of course we had to stop at all the photopass photographers!



We checked out the butterfly tent, but didn’t stay too long since it was so much hotter in there!








We took a ton of pictures of the displays and topiaries around future world before heading back to World Showcase to check out some more of the topiaries.


This was our favorite topiary!










After exploring and a ton of pictures, it was finally time to head over to Soarin for our FP! There were quite a few people arriving for the FP when we got there, so we ended up having a bit of a wait, but it was still better than waiting standby! We were actually shocked how crowded it already was in the Land at that time in the morning, even Living with the Land had a long line! On our trip in September the Land was empty except for right outside of Soarin that time in the morning and Living with the Land was walk on. We were starting to realize that this trip was going to be a lot more crowded than September!

Soon it was our turn for Soarin, and once again we were in row 3. We have never been in any other row so it was a bit annoying to be there again, but we didn’t want to wait any longer for row 1, so we took it and soon we were flying!

I still prefer the previous version of Soarin, but it was still fun, and the smells were a lot stronger and more noticeable this time than they were in the fall which was cool.

Our plan was for after Soarin to hit up the food booths for Flower and Garden, but we had about 30 minutes after getting off the ride before they opened, so we did what we do best…took more pictures!



Around 10:50 we decided to make our way over to the first food booth of the day. During our Food and Wine trip last fall we didn’t plan our booths well and kept running back and forth between them, so for this trip we planned to actually go in order we hit them, which meant starting in Mexico at Jardin de Fiestas!

Next up, So much Food!
 
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