****OFFICIAL August, 2012 (PART 2)****

[Dwheels]

We r leaving now on the sad bus :-( had an amazing week!! Did seem more crowded than usual for this week but still had a great time! Can't wait for next year!

 

[disneybarbie]

Hi everyone, wow it's September already! Hope everyone had great trips to the World - it was fun to countdown with you all

Would love to read some other TRs if anyone is writing them.


Emma x

 

[Emteach]

We r leaving now on the sad bus :-( had an amazing week!! Did seem more crowded than usual for this week but still had a great time! Can't wait for next year!

We were surprised as well. Especially on our MK days it seemed packed! We were so happy though with our trip - got home about an hour ago after a long day of travelling (Flight and then a few hours from the airport).

We were so amazed with all the magical extras as well. From getting picked in Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor to volunteering in the Backlot Tour and a food pep talk from Snow White herself (when my sister wouldnt eat her supper - Snow White recommended just enjoying the dessert and not liking Ariels food either).

Will be posting a food review once I figure it all out lol. My family thought I was insane I think for taking so many pictures of food and not allowing them to take a bite until I did so lol.

 

[Emteach]

Alright Ladies and Gents here is the start of my Dining Review. I still really dont have a clue on what I am doing. I opened a photobucket account so hopefully pictures will follow (if I figure it out lol).

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=46021004#post46021004

 

[netnurse31]

It's really amazing how quickly time flies here. We have 3 more days left and it feels like we just got here! We have had some terrific experiences. We love POR! All of the CM's are so friendly and helpful! We were in a food coma by the time we got back to our room last night. Had lunch at Le Cellier, which was probably the best meal we have ever had at DW. Then we had supper at 50's Prime Time Cafe. We could hardly walk by the time we headed back! Today we are eating at Sci Fi and 1900 Park Fare then doing EMH at MK....until 2am (or until we pass out lol)

Hope everyone had, or is having as magical a time as we are!

 

[pigletto]

Well folks .. it's over.

We are settled into the airport hotel and waiting to go to bed. Flight leaves early tomorrow morning. It was a great trip but exhausting.
We spent our last day at the MK today. All I can say is that I will NEVER do that again. It was mobbed. We waited 35 minutes for PIRATES. That may be nothing to those of you who travel during the holidays but in 6 trips we have always walked on. It was so busy and hot today I was actually happy to leave.
Until I walked out of the front gates though and started to cry

It's hard not to be sad when something you wished and planned and dreamed for comes to an end. Overall a great trip but I don't know if this is the week for us anymore. Crowds were heavier than we experienced before during the same week the previous years and the end of the week was very hot.

We'll see. We still had a fabulous trip and I am not complaining.. I'm just thinking if we want to spend that much we would prefer to go when it's cooler.
I forgot sunscreen today and have blisters on my shoulders so that's probably not helping

Off to bed, and to hit the airport in the morning.

The highlight of the trip for us was Sanaa. WOW. Wasn't expecting much and just loved that meal and the ambiance.

Can't wait to read some trip reports of my fellow August buddies

 

[ashmarie06]

Started a dining review today for all interested

 

[Emteach]

Same here. Do you have a link to your dining review would love to take a look at yours as well

 

[LifeIsDis]

Hi everyone, wow it's September already! Hope everyone had great trips to the World - it was fun to countdown with you all

Would love to read some other TRs if anyone is writing them.


Emma x

My TR is in my signature

Alright Ladies and Gents here is the start of my Dining Review. I still really dont have a clue on what I am doing. I opened a photobucket account so hopefully pictures will follow (if I figure it out lol).

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=46021004#post46021004

I will totally look at your dining review!

Started a dining review today for all interested

I'm interested

 

[Emteach]

My TR is in my signature



I will totally look at your dining review!



I'm interested

Just started reading your review, looks great so far!
I have a question for you and I hope it makes sense. How do you get the links on your first post? Ie) "Lets Shop Till we drop links directly to that post when you click on it"? I cant for the life of me figure it out - I just posted the url beside it but I like your way so much better!

Cant wait to read some more

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

We returned last night. I can hardly believe its over.

The resort was wonderful, the weather was better than we anticipated (surprised at the lack of rain for the last few days) and we had an awesome time. That said, for our first August trip, I am so glad we booked "wet" activities (Aquatica, DC, etc.) because we wouldn't have lasted a day in a theme park in that heat .

I hope to begin a trip report in a week or so.......but first have to get settled back in to "real life". School starts tomorrow for my boy.

We now look excitedly towards December, when we will be spending Christmas week in Orlando! Onsite at SeaWorld this time....can't wait!

 

[4Joyces]

Hi, everyone! Hope everyone is back safely and enjoyed your trips!

We got back on Saturday, and I brought a killer cold back as a souvenier

Still managed to get everything unpacked and the laundry all done yesterday- the first day of school isn't going to wait for me to feel better

I wanted to get some thoughts out about our trip- the good, bad & ugly.

Good:
** DD LOVED WDW. She was in absolute princess heaven. She was shyer than I thought she'd be with meeting the characters (we kept having to tell her to get her hands out of her mouth- she never does that at home!). Our favorite characters were Vidia, Anastasia at 1900PF, and Lilo at 'Ohana.
**The CSR was beautiful. Our room wasn't huge, but there was plenty of storage space and we weren't tripping over each other or our suitcases or anything. The pool there was great and we had a great time watching Lilo and Stitch poolside on Fri 8/31
**For the most part, the buses were great. The longest we waited was about 30 minutes, but that was after MSEP and Wishes at MK and we got on the 3rd bus that came by.
**Teppan Edo was our favorite non-character meal. My kids eat like birds, so I'd never take them to a hibachi place where we had to pay $40 per person OOP, so it was fun to take them for "free" on the DDP
**DS and I spent an absolutely perfect morning at DHS, just the 2 of us. Like old times We were 2nd in line at the turnstiles, hoofed it to TSMM, rode it and got FPs, then headed to ToT and RnRC twice each in standby (once in the single rider, once together), then grabbed a RnRC FP before heading back to TSMM. Saw B&tB, had lunch at the SciFi Dine In, did RnRC and ToT a couple more times, and were back at the resort by 2:30. DD and DH had some daddy-daughter time at Blizzard Beach during that time and we all met up again for dinner and MK for MSEP/Wishes.
**this was our first time at the water parks and enjoyed both Blizzard Beach & Typhoon Lagoon. My kids are big time water nuts, so they both loved it. DD went on water slides for the first time and loved it! DS did the Summit Plummet and had a grin on his face the rest of the day!
**The rain at the beginning of the week was a bit of an inconvenience, but not as bad as I feared. And AK was a ghost town on Monday 8/27, which was nice. We rode EE twice in a row at about 3pm with no line.

Bad:
**I was kind of surprised/disappointed in all the ride closures/issues. We were turned away from lines at Pirates, Space Mtn, EE, and Splash and the PP FPs machines were broken at RD on Sunday 8/26. Totally threw off our morning plan.
**though the CSR was beautiful, we were stuck in Ranchos 7A. Ugh. Lots of walking. We ended up only using our refillable mugs about 3 times because it wasn't worth the 30 minute roundtrip walk for pop. I also question whether those beds are "real" queens, because they seemed smaller than our queen at home.

Ugly:
Delta broke our nice Jeep jogging stroller on the trip down. Broke the wheel axle- not fixable. The stroller cost over $200. But because it's a few years old, they'd only give us $150 for a new one. And we have to buy it first and then submit the receipt and wait up to 6 wks for a check. And they wouldn't pay for a rental because they had a loaner for us. The loaner was basically a step up from an umbrella stroller with no basket and 1 mismatched wheel, which was smaller than the others, so the stroller wouldn't go in a straight line. I ended up renting one from Baby Wheels Orlando, who were great to work with. I'll be taking it up with the Airline again to get them to pay for it. The lady in baggage claim was totally rude on top of everything. Like we should've been happy to trade in our $200 jogging stroller for the piece of crap they gave us. DH works at the MSP airport and I'm going to have him talk to someone at Delta when he goes back to work tomorrow. If he doesn't have any luck, I'll write a letter.


Anyway, overall we had a great time! The parks were busier than I expected on some of the days, but I'm guessing the hurricane had something to do with that. Seems like lots of people skipped parks on Monday and that effected crowds the rest of the week. I put pictures on the FB page. Can't wait to read about everyone else's trip this week!

 

[LifeIsDis]

Just started reading your review, looks great so far!
I have a question for you and I hope it makes sense. How do you get the links on your first post? Ie) "Lets Shop Till we drop links directly to that post when you click on it"? I cant for the life of me figure it out - I just posted the url beside it but I like your way so much better!

Cant wait to read some more

Thank you so much for reading my TR! Love having readers

And for the links. When you post something, in the top right corner of the post, there is a number (like post #10 or something). Click on that and it will bring up just that post. You copy the link. Then for my table of contents, I edit it and type the name of the chapter in and highlight it. Then look at where the font, and sizes, etc. are and you will see this little globe. Click on that and a box will come up where you can put the URL in for you post. And that should be it! If you have any trouble, let me know!

 

[Emteach]

Thank you so much for reading my TR! Love having readers

And for the links. When you post something, in the top right corner of the post, there is a number (like post #10 or something). Click on that and it will bring up just that post. You copy the link. Then for my table of contents, I edit it and type the name of the chapter in and highlight it. Then look at where the font, and sizes, etc. are and you will see this little globe. Click on that and a box will come up where you can put the URL in for you post. And that should be it! If you have any trouble, let me know!

Got it! Thanks so much - I would have NEVER figured that out!

 

[LifeIsDis]

Got it! Thanks so much - I would have NEVER figured that out!

You are very welcome! Yeah, it's a little confusing.

 

[bukosluvswdw]

**I was kind of surprised/disappointed in all the ride closures/issues. We were turned away from lines at Pirates, Space Mtn, EE, and Splash and the PP FPs machines were broken at RD on Sunday 8/26. Totally threw off our morning plan.

We just got back last night and we were disappointed with all the ride closesures. BTM, Splash, SM, PoC were some @ Epcot, Soarin was down, Star Tours was done, RnR was down. It seemed like everyday there was a problem some where.

 

[elaine amj]

We were very fortunate and didn't have too much probs with ride closures. I saw it a few times though! BTMR was closed pretty much alll day on our first MK day so we were happy we were headed back again.

We did have a few ride delays and stop and gos on various rides. We've been lucky enough on previous trips to have almost no delays so it was a bit of a shocker for us.

The only disappointment we had with ride clousres was the Downhill Double Dipper at Blizzard Beach. After waiting 30 mins in line (in the last hour of the day!!!), the thing broke down again and my kids finally gave up.

The longest line we waited in was 1 hr for Ariel. It was nuts but worth it for my DD who had just had a Mermaid Makeover. I had gone into the line at 10:15 for the 10am meet. After waiting 10 mins, we were finally told she was not meeting at 10am that day - but at 11am (even though the Times Guide said 10am). So we went back again after our CRT breakfast. Got in line at 11:45am for the 12pm meet. We were the last in line and just made it in before they closed the line (the next line wiuld have been for the 1pm - 1:40pm meet). Waited until 12:40pm to actually meet her because it takes that long to get through the line.

CRAZZZYYYYYY!! Especially since I'm an anal planner who does NOT do lines. I was planning to do this at 3:30pm for the 3:45pm meet after an afternoon break when the line would not be as bad...but was worried DD's makeup would smudge by then. So we decided the hour's wait was worth it. And it was (even though her makeup lasted fine allll day)

 

[RunDanceSkate]

Hi, everyone! Hope everyone is back safely and enjoyed your trips!

We got back on Saturday, and I brought a killer cold back as a souvenier

!

DD and I both brought back a killer cold. We are miserable.

 

[4Joyces]

We were very fortunate and didn't have too much probs with ride closures. I saw it a few times though! BTMR was closed pretty much alll day on our first MK day so we were happy we were headed back again.

We did have a few ride delays and stop and gos on various rides. We've been lucky enough on previous trips to have almost no delays so it was a bit of a shocker for us.

The only disappointment we had with ride clousres was the Downhill Double Dipper at Blizzard Beach. After waiting 30 mins in line (in the last hour of the day!!!), the thing broke down again and my kids finally gave up.

The longest line we waited in was 1 hr for Ariel. It was nuts but worth it for my DD who had just had a Mermaid Makeover. I had gone into the line at 10:15 for the 10am meet. After waiting 10 mins, we were finally told she was not meeting at 10am that day - but at 11am (even though the Times Guide said 10am). So we went back again after our CRT breakfast. Got in line at 11:45am for the 12pm meet. We were the last in line and just made it in before they closed the line (the next line wiuld have been for the 1pm - 1:40pm meet). Waited until 12:40pm to actually meet her because it takes that long to get through the line.

CRAZZZYYYYYY!! Especially since I'm an anal planner who does NOT do lines. I was planning to do this at 3:30pm for the 3:45pm meet after an afternoon break when the line would not be as bad...but was worried DD's makeup would smudge by then. So we decided the hour's wait was worth it. And it was (even though her makeup lasted fine allll day)

We had that same problem with Ariel. Times guide said 10 and we planned the morning based on that. Only to be told she didn't meet till 11 that day. Bummer. Luckily we had lunch at Akershus the next day and she was at that, otherwise we would've missed her- we couldn't wait at MK. Too much else to do!

 

[elaine amj]

Back at work today Just finishing up a Mickey rice krispie bar as part of my lunch today. I sure miss being with the Mouse!

We had a very good trip. The only problem we had was a number of metdowns at various times by my kids. The first 2 days they were miserable brats. My DS was super impatient to get to a "Real" park. Silly me planned waterparks for our first 2 days as we have never done them before and thought they would like it. I had to have several "count your blessings and quit being a spoiled brat" talks with them both. The hurricane threw a lot of kinks into my careful plans so that was frustrating. They did have several more meltdowns throughout the course of the trip - usually whenever they got hungry. The most annoying part of that is they would get hungry 2-3 hrs after a huge meal, give me 2 mins notice and then start crying and whining. UGH! They are old enough to know better - which irritated me even more.

My other annoyance was TMobile sucked in WDW!! We have a Pay as you go plan and were on a $2/day with 2G data. I thought that was fine since mostly I wanted it for FB and the Dis. It was hopelessly slow and a lot of times I couldn't even post pics or status updates on FB! And wifi at Pop was sometimes better, sometimes not. Near the end of our trip, it got worse and worse, and I actually went TWO days without posting on FB! (Well I tried about a dozen times...but nothing would post). I'm not a huge FB poster but I really wanted to chronicle my trip on FB and was trying to post a status update at least 1-2 times a day.

After 8-9 days of this, I decided to upgrade to the $3/day 4G plan. This was NO better at all and I still could rarely post to FB...only intermittently. What a waste of money that was.

On top of that, my phone service sucked and the few times we separated and I wanted to text/call my DH - our phones didn't work. One time it took 2 hours for me to get a text from DH in MK.

Anyway - back to the trip itself (and all the good stuff!). The weather was actually manageable. We did have one of those neck cloths that really helped much more than I ever dreamed. I also carried a spray bottle of water that we would spritz into our faces. There were only a few times we got ridiculously hot. The worst was one day walking across World Showcase back to Future World slightly late for an ADR. THAT was bad. Other than that, ducking in and out of cool stores and rides was great.

We had so many fun, unique experiences this trip. Getting the kitchen sink for lunch, bfast in CRT, Mermaid Makeover for DD, dining in so many different and unique places all over the World (including so many different resorts)...it was all just so special.

Thanks for being a part of my trip...it added so much to my fun to share our August excitement with all of you.

While we still love WDW, DH is getting slightly Disneyed-out (as am I). We have no plans to go back next year and likely our next trip with the Mouse will be in Disneyland...which we *may* do next year. Dunno abt that one though. We're planning a cruise in March and then possibly a California road trip in July - both with close friends.