Jingle Bells....AKL....Disney for 10 Whole Days! ** Updated June 2015: Videos Added**

[thornton0511]

Life Update Feb 2014

Hello everyone. It's been a good while since I have added an update to my story and I apologize for that. This week has been something else. I, my DS, and DH all came down with a strep throat flu combo (not kidding) and trust me if I had posted updates in my condition there is no telling what it would have said. There were times when I did not know my name lol. Being sick is no bueno. Thankfully DD did not get sick with strep and since she decided to come down with the flu the day after we got home from our Disney trip in December I guess that helped her from getting it again this go around with us. To top it off we received an email from Chase telling us that our Disney Visa CC number had been hacked (thank you Target ) and someone tried to buy groceries in TN while someone else was trying to buy out the Apple store in CA . So getting that sorted our whilst being sick was fun let me tell you. Thankfully the bank was on top of it and we now have a new account. We use our Disney Visa for EVERYTHING! Whew. Anywho all is well now and I am working on getting the ball rolling once again for this TR! Thank you to all who take the time to read and follow along ​

 

[scottny]

YUCK! Hate being sick.

Chase is very good about fraud and things.

Glad things are getting better.

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

Holy Moley Jenn!!! I'd heard about all the CC hacking via Target (in fact we just got Target here in Canada right before all that happened). My God I'm so happy to hear you got it sorted. Just wow.

And then to be sick on top of that. I hope you all feel better soon. At least one of you got spared.

 

[thornton0511]

Finishing an Afternoon at the Studios
After we finished lunch at the Sci-Fi we made our way over to the Backlot Tour. Meh. That's about how I feel about this but the kids really enjoy catastrophe canyon so what do you do ya know? Sigh. I know that this ride must have been cool in its day but now it just makes me sad….it's so outdated. So is Muppet Vision but at least that one is classic, backlot just feels like it's been neglected. Like MGM left and forgot to take it's tour with them….I dunno. So anyways it was now about 12:45pm and we are waiting in the area where they show you the special effects for the Pearl Harbor movie….how old is this movie now? Lol! Sorry can't help it. We got through all of that yada yada audience participation, walk through the props that are over a decade or two old, hop on a bus….this is when I first considered to take some pics. First of all, always remember, NO dancing while on the tour bus!

Yay…..the earful tower …..or whatever!

Okay I admit I do have a soft spot for the significance of this plane….

And then you get to the part when they drop you off at the building with more movie stuff. This stuff is at least more recent and somewhat cool I think. I found a case that has the puppets from The Sound of Music. First of all LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie! But oh my goodness these puppets scared the crap out of me when I was little….what am I saying they still scare the crap out of me! With those big shifty eyes that are always watching…and yet here they were right in front of me just hanging there in this case….creepy. Obviously I had to keep record of this encounter with a picture

Ugh. Just creeps me out posting it….moving right along…….we made our way out of the backlot tour and it was now a little after 1pm. The kids had been going on and on about the Honey I Shrunk the Kids area to their grandparent so we decided to return to show them and let the kids burn off a little more of that energy they had built up on the seemingly boring tour.

We took these pictures to compare to our visit here in May 2011 to see how much the kids had grown.


Pretty amazing. Goodness they grow so fast!
After this apparently we headed back over to ride Star Tours though I have no picture to prove this. I do remember that I sat this round out with DFIL since after his attack earlier this morning this ride was a no go. I passed the time with DFIL by talking him into a photo op….lol he is a riot!

It was now getting close to 2:00 and we were at that point of over stimulation when you need to leave and take a break from the parks. On our way out we stopped for a few snacks. Gotta burn those snack credits right?! I was dying to try the famous carrot cake cookie from here

And the kids wanted to split a Mickey Pretzel

And DH was craving something sweet so I suggested here

For one of these…..nom nom nom

With snacks in containers we headed out of HS and back to the resort. We stopped briefly by guest relations on the way out to try to solve our park hoppers dilemma but with a gazillion people waiting in line (probably to fix their fastpass+ or MDE issues) we decided to try at the resort again. Would we be able to get this issue fixed before our dinner plans at a different park……wait and see!
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[DisneyKid4Life]

I'm with you Jenn. The Backlot Tour just holds no interest for me anymore. The only thing I like is Catastrophe Canyon (and frankly that's getting old too) and of course the Earful Tower and the PLANE!!! I can't even remember the last time I bothered with it.

That's such a great idea to recreate photos from prior trips. It really does show how quickly kids change. Great memories.

 

[thornton0511]

YUCK! Hate being sick.

Chase is very good about fraud and things.

Glad things are getting better.

Holy Moley Jenn!!! I'd heard about all the CC hacking via Target (in fact we just got Target here in Canada right before all that happened). My God I'm so happy to hear you got it sorted. Just wow.

And then to be sick on top of that. I hope you all feel better soon. At least one of you got spared.

Awww thank you guys!

 

[thornton0511]

I'm with you Jenn. The Backlot Tour just holds no interest for me anymore. The only thing I like is Catastrophe Canyon (and frankly that's getting old too) and of course the Earful Tower and the PLANE!!! I can't even remember the last time I bothered with it.

That's such a great idea to recreate photos from prior trips. It really does show how quickly kids change. Great memories.

Thanks Rob I really keep hoping the rumors are true and Disney will bulldoze that whole area of HS and build something new and cool

 

[thornton0511]

Life Lesson #3
Once we had returned to AKL the kids and their grandparents went off to entertain themselves while DH and I got in line with the concierge to try again to upgrade our tickets. While in line a friendly CM was asking people in line what they were needing assistance with, to make sure they were in the right place I suppose, and when he got to us we informed him that we were needing to upgrade our basic park tickets to park hoppers. He said we were in the right place and we could take care of that here no problem. Be careful what you promise buddy for we have heard this before.
When it was our turn we told the concierge what we were needing and the issue we had the night before. Try try again with no success. She said we would have to go to guest relations at a park to take care of this and that there was nothing they could do here. That was not going to be sufficient with DH and so began the longest time a person has ever stood at the concierge desk in the history of Disney.
Apparently she said that there was some series of numbers that was needed to enter in the computers to upgrade the tickets and that at the resort they did not have a way to access the numbers for the tickets. When she tried to swipe our bands and our tickets that were linked together the numbers were not showing up. I guess the computers at guest relations have a way to pull this up that they do not have at the resorts? I dunno. So at that point I remembered that I still had the envelope and that paper from Disney that the tickets were attached to up in our room. I asked her if this would have the numbers she was needing. She said yes so I ran…..all the way up to the 5th floor, and down the Kudu trail….grabbed the paper, and ran all the way back down the kudu trail to the lobby. This took a while. But I had the paper with the letter from Disney and numbers. She entered the numbers. Didn’t work. Guess that was not the numbers she was looking for. At this point I was frustrated and told her that I did not understand why people can get upgraded at the resorts but not us. I bought the tickets online with Disney. I had everything with me that came with the tickets. What is the deal? We had dinner plans in a few hours in Epcot and had to have this done before then or we would not be able to get into the park. At this point she left and got a manager to see if he could help.
This guy had a smugness about him. He informed us there was no way it was going to work and we would have to go to a park and wait at guest relations. His excuse for why it was not going through on their end at the resort was because we purchased our tickets online through a third party. Really? Since when is buying tickets directly through Disney a third party company. I could sense my DH getting frustrated at this point and knew that it would not do any good to argue this with the CM so I bit my tongue. DH was pretty upset though and told Mr. Smug that we had wasted enough time on this as it is and telling us that we now have to go to stand in another , longer, line because we want to give Disney more money was unacceptable. The manager somewhat arrogantly apologized but said that was the way it was going to have to be but offered us 3 fastpasses to use tonight to make up for our time spent on this. It was really a good gesture but the way he said it was almost like he was offering the moon and he wanted us to fall over with praise for his generosity. Whatever. Either way we had lost this battle and it would do us no good to argue anymore. With our tails tucked behind us we walked away from the concierge desk….defeated. It had been decided that DH and I would go alone to stand in line at Epcot and the others could meet us when it was time for dinner there. We saw no need to drag everyone out to stand in line at guest relations and I could see that my husband's parents were needing a rest anyways. I turned one last time to get sassy Mc Sasserson's attention to ask if we needed eveyone's MB at guest relations to take care of the transaction and he said no just one because the others will pop up when they swipe the first one. Sure. We decided to bring them all just in case. And since we had KTTWC the in laws could still have access to their room. So we hopped on a bus headed to Epcot to stand in the guest relations line. When we arrived this is what it looked like…..

Life Lesson #3. Make sure you add the PH option before purchasing your Disney tickets ALWAYS if you think there is just the slightest chance that you will want to park hop….good grief.
To be continued……
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[DisneyKid4Life]

Wow... Just... Wow. Honestly Jenn, I see this as completely and 100% because of MyMagic+. Once upon a time you could do so much at the resort. Now everything is Guest Relations at the park which obviously has massive lines due to... MyMagic+.

I specifically remember back in 2011 I had a regular 7 day pass (purchased through Undercover Tourist, NOT Disney), and easily added park hopper to it. It took maybe a minute or 2. The complexities of this system really scares me. Scaring me even more is while all this is happening, Universal is opening new stuff left and right. This is going to be an interesting couple of years in Orlando.

 

[thornton0511]

Wow... Just... Wow. Honestly Jenn, I see this as completely and 100% because of MyMagic+. Once upon a time you could do so much at the resort. Now everything is Guest Relations at the park which obviously has massive lines due to... MyMagic+.

I specifically remember back in 2011 I had a regular 7 day pass (purchased through Undercover Tourist, NOT Disney), and easily added park hopper to it. It took maybe a minute or 2. The complexities of this system really scares me. Scaring me even more is while all this is happening, Universal is opening new stuff left and right. This is going to be an interesting couple of years in Orlando.

you might be right Rob. I was just glad to get it done and over with so we could go back to enjoying our vacation. I have been to universal twice in my life and DH once but we have yet to take the kids. Our heart just belongs to Disney and Universal just seems so much more grown upy to us. But with our kiddos getting older we might just start to share some of our time with universal on our trips. Especially with the FP+ changes. We just are not fans at all. And when you can spend one night at a universal hotel and get two days of front on the line passes for that stay....well Disney better just start making things more appealing.

 

[thornton0511]

The Park Hopping Drama Comes to an End……

By the time we got in line at Epcot's guest relations the time was now 4:30pm. We had left HS at around 2pm. Other than bus travel all of the time spent between then and now was on getting this upgrade done. Never again will we go this route. Live and learn. Finally it was our turn at the window. We were greeted with a smile from a very nice CM. We went through the whole spill and she quickly got to work (after giving us some funny looks from responses that we had gotten from the concierge at AKL). She said that she would need all six magic bands and she would start…..wait….what? You mean to tell me that we need ALL of them, not just one? Nope. All six. Can you imagine the ride back to AKL that we would have had to take to retrieve the other bands if we had taken the manager's advice? Holy cow!! So glad that we decided to bring them all with us. Anyways she started with Sydney's band. "Funny", she said, "this band already had the park hopper on it." Okay that's weird. Then I remembered that the night before the CM that tried to do the upgrade started with DD's band and when it came up with an $80 charge she said that was not right for the upgrade cost. That's when everything went downhill and she could not get it to work and this whole "we can't do it here" thing started. But we had not given the CM any form of payment at that time either. We informed the girl of this and she said "well it's on here so apparently the upgrade was working from the resort." Nice. We did not understand the amount that it was wanting to charge us though. Upgrading to PH is $58 per person. Then the CM had a lightbulb. She asked if I purchased these tickets before the price increase. Yup. Okay well apparently to upgrade the system wants to charge you’re the $58 for the PH PLUS the difference of the cost increase of the tickets prices going up. You have got to be kidding me. I think at this point she could see the utter defeat and hopelessness on our faces and decided to sprinkle a bit of pixie dust on us.
She went ahead and had the remaining 5 tickets upgraded for the $58 instead of $80. Not sure if she was "really" supposed to do that but I gotta tell you she made our day! We made sure, once we got into the park, to swing by and report how awesome she was (not giving the details about the "discount" just in case). So finally the drama of the park hopping upgrade was finished. THANK GOODNESS!!! It was now around 5:15pm. That is a LONG time to spend on something like that. Bleh.

We were now free to enter a new park, and it also happened to be my favorite…….​

 

[thornton0511]

An Evening at Epcot

With all of that mess put behind us we could once again enjoy getting back to Disney fun! Tonight we were at my favoriest park and we had some big plans for the evening.
1. Fastpass+ for the following three
-Test Track 5:40-6:40pm
-Soarin 7:25-8:25pm
-Illuminations 9:05-9:25pm
2. Dinner at Biergarten @ 6:40pm
Yes I had made my selections before the dreaded tiering started.
After leaving some praise for the CM who helped us out at guest relations we decided to head back to the front of the park by the turnstiles to wait for our children and my husband's parents to arrive. They were supposed to meet us here at 5:30 pm. It was now 5:15. We passed the time by people watching and taking random pictures of these cute little guys

We waited and waited for them. I don't know what happened but they did not show up until after 6:00. This was going to now be pushing our plans. As it seemed to be a theme this week with us we started to "walk quickly" to test track. We had not been on this ride since the remodel (it was still under on our last trip) so I was not aware of the new queue other than you get to design your own car or whatever. We were familiar with the old fp line that moved pretty quickly. The new one as most of you probably know takes FOREVER! We went through the whole design you car part and it was close to 6:20. I knew that we were pushing it big time. Then the doors opened up where the lines come together and I was like no way this is not going to work! I was panicked a little and knew we would have to find a way out and miss our ride. It was not worth missing our ADR though in Germany. We pushed back through the room where you design your car and then through the waiting area on the other side of that room. I don't think that CM's are used to seeing people come through that way lol. We told them our dilemma and they showed us to an exit quickly. The time was now inching toward 6:30 and our ADR was 6:40pm. So I ran. Told the others I would see them in Germany. I got in line at the podium…..at 6:40pm.

I was really starting to see a pattern here where we were not allowing enough time for one reason or another and as a result we were spending an awful lot of time rushing from one scheduled thing to the next, and missing a lot of our FP+ along the way. It was just too much planning. Too much of a schedule and I like both of these things a lot. Regardless of all of this we had made it here in time and got checked in with the entire party there with no problems.
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[thornton0511]

Dinner at Biergarten

Ahhh Biergaten. This was not a restaurant I had originally made an ADR for, but after Disney Food Blog gave a very yummy review and then Chef's de France announced that Remy would no longer be making appearances I had switched some things around (as I do a lot in planning my trips) and so here we were.
You will find on this trip I do not have a whole lot of night time pics. My camera sucks and at the time the Iphone I was carrying was a 3 and had no flash so…..wah.

We waited outside for a bit (they were running behind) and it was no problem because when I am in World Showcase it never ceases to amaze me how much I feel like I am really a million miles away in some distant country. I love Epcot….did you know that? Our pager went off about 7:00 and we were seated.

Oh my goodness the inside of this place is AMAZING!!!!! I think I could live here lol. Since we were a party of 6 we had 2 table mates. I was not really looking forward to this part so much only because I am awkwardly shy around people I do not know and this is hard for me. Thankfully we had DFIL along to talk nonstop the entire time. Lol see I told you his chit chat would come in handy for me. The couple was extremely nice and by the end of dinner I had warmed up to them a bit and did not feel so out of place. Usually at this point I have food pics but alas I have none. Maybe not the worse thing considering that people's plates from buffets are kind of gross looking sometimes. I did however get some smiling faces which meant that dinner was a hit.

And speaking of the food….I could live on their pretzel rolls and mac and cheese everyday for the rest of my life! Nom Nom Nom. Biergarten was fantastic for sure and I thought my change to this place was a good choice!
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[thornton0511]

A Perfect Way to Finish a Day
Once we had finished dinner we had a decision to make. It was 8:00pm and we were in Germany. Do we attempt to get to the other side of the park to ride Soarin by 8:25 (which was the latest time for our FP+) or do we try Test Track again and hope that the manger concierge guy was true to his word and attached some extra FP to our MB's. We decided to go with Test Track since it was closer and that meant no running or rushing because it did not have a scheduled time, and plus we had come so close to getting on the ride before dinner. I have to be honest it was nice to just casually walk to a ride for a change.
We got to the FP line and I held my breath as I lined up the Mickeys. It turned green….YAY! We were in. We went through the line and designed our cars without the stress of racing a clock….ahhh it was so nice.

Overall I really do like the ride and I am glad that they did not change anything with the track but I really do wish that there was an option to bypass the queue for FP. Sometimes you just want to get on the ride lol. We were off by 8:30pm.
We had one last thing to do this evening and that was Illuminations. I realize that having a FP+ for this is seemingly pointless seeing how you can pretty much see the show from anywhere around the lagoon (some better than others) but really what was my 3rd selection going to be? Plus it was a reserved spot in the front which I had never seen before so I thought that would be neat.

We found the roped off area with no problem. It was a pretty big area and we claimed a spot right in front of the store they have there.

We passed the time by making friends with a Disney duck and then it was time for the show to start….YIPPEE!!!

It was awesome! And it was also neat to see my in laws reaction to their first Disney firework show. They were speechless to say the least. It ended up being the only scheduled FP+ that we used for the day but I would say that it was worth one of the 3 spots…depending on how the tiering goes.
When the show was nearing the end I tried to scope out our escape route. We were right smack in the middle of the roped area and there would be no way to bypass all of the people to our right and left. Then I noticed again that we were right in front of the store. As soon as the finale was over we quickly got up and made a dash for the sliding doors and walked right through the store managing to beat a ton of people. No one else really took our route and I was a bit surprised. Maybe cutting through a store is kind of like cutting through a parking lot to avoid a red light? I dunno. Either way we were out and had a good head start in beating the crowds. It took no time at all to hail a bus back to AKL.
Once we got back to the resort apparently we caught our second wind because we found ourselves in the gift shop at 10:30 at night. Good grief. We had wanted to get some donuts for the kids for their breakfast in the morning but then it turned into a mini shopping spree in which we found some Disney magnets for my sister in law, a princess zipper pouch thing with pens and stuff for Sydney, and I found a shirt that I have wanted for a while. I have a special place in my heart for Dumbo. It has been that way since I was a toddler. I have more details to this in my PTR under our Disney movie night section if you want to find out more. But anyways I have wanted a dumbo tee for a long time but could not really find one I liked until I saw that they were selling some a while back in the parks. It was never offered at the online store and I had forgotten all about it until I was staring at it here in this store at this very minute. I had to have it….early Christmas present to me from the hubs was the compromise lol…..I knew what I was wearing in the morning hehehe. And the next morning was going to be a very special morning too, perfect for wearing dumbo. Which is why we needed to hurry up and get to our room, get cleaned up, and off to slumberland. For tomorrow we would be visiting the most magical kingdom of them all…..

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[Chrispygal]

Loving your reviews! Commenting to subscribe to thread.

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

Oh God Jenn, I am SO GLAD you didn't listen and had all the bands. That certainly would have been enough to put me over the edge.

My understanding on the whole "ticket upgrade" issue is once you use the tickets once, they should always show the value of whatever the current price is. So I have no idea why it would try to charge you for the price increase. Just weird, but I'm so very glad you got the right price (and you did get the right price of $58) regardless of what the system says.

I'm with you, I can just sit and look around in World Showcase and be perfectly content. So beautiful and so unique.

Yay, finally a relaxing ride. So far I've only done single rider on Test Track, and it is MUCH quicker as the car design is pretty basic.

I was quite curious about the Illuminations FP. Sounds like a good deal. And cutting through the store is not only perfectly acceptable, it's also smart!

 

[always_learning]

Just jumped on board and read all the way thru! I love seeing Disney thru the eyes of newbies..especially really fun grandparents. Thanks for sharing

 

[thornton0511]

Loving your reviews! Commenting to subscribe to thread.

Thank you so much! Happy to have you join

 

[thornton0511]

Oh God Jenn, I am SO GLAD you didn't listen and had all the bands. That certainly would have been enough to put me over the edge.

My understanding on the whole "ticket upgrade" issue is once you use the tickets once, they should always show the value of whatever the current price is. So I have no idea why it would try to charge you for the price increase. Just weird, but I'm so very glad you got the right price (and you did get the right price of $58) regardless of what the system says.

I'm with you, I can just sit and look around in World Showcase and be perfectly content. So beautiful and so unique.

Yay, finally a relaxing ride. So far I've only done single rider on Test Track, and it is MUCH quicker as the car design is pretty basic.

I was quite curious about the Illuminations FP. Sounds like a good deal. And cutting through the store is not only perfectly acceptable, it's also smart!

Meh. I was just glad to get the whole PH thing over and done with at that point. Dragging it out so much was really just putting a damper on the vacation and stressful.

Love love love World Showcase! The last two times we have been to the World was in May and every stinking year we start in Mexico and by the time we get to Japan we are drowning in sweat from the humidity and heat, so we always end up bypassing the second half just because of the weather. Going in Dec allowed us to take our time and really explore the countries and see things that I have always wanted to see and missed. Really cool

Test track queue I don't understand. I think I remember hearing when they first reopened it as a new ride that the FP line did not have the design your own car bit and you just went to the ride and people did not like missing out on that experience so they added it in to both lines. I could be totally wrong on this too though. Either way I do wish that there was a option with the FP line to bypass the design part. When we get into a FP line its because we want to get to the ride...fast. It just takes a whole lot of time even with the FP line. But its cool too.

Yeah this time watching Illuminations from the roped of spot was really cool and probably the best view we have ever had too. I am sure that going on a not so crowded time helped but it was a really large area and we had lots of room to spread out and not be...well...

 

[thornton0511]

Just jumped on board and read all the way thru! I love seeing Disney thru the eyes of newbies..especially really fun grandparents. Thanks for sharing

Hi there! Glad to have you join along