Please Take One More Bite

[jash08]

Guess who's back, back again!

Hello all! It feels so good to be back! I have to start this trip report out with an apology. I have been an bad Diser. I have disappeared for several months. Nothing major happened, don't worry! I was traveling for work and was not home much. When I was home I wanted to spend time with my family. I kept saying, "I will start my report a little later." And then I realized, I will be going back to Disney in a little over 90 days. WHAT?!?!?!?! Time to start this report.

My name is Ashley. I am a hard working, joke telling, booth dancing, Disney nerd. I completely love my life! By day I am an Accounts Receivables Manager for a medical billing company. That is just a fancy way of saying I figure out where the money is at and get insurance companies to pay the claims. Pay up fools! By night I am a crime fighter set on saving our city... wait that is a TV show. Ok, by night I totally geek out with my husband. There are Disney sing-a-longs, lots of puppy videos, nerdy movies, and a lot of laughs. There is also name calling, all done with love.

My husband's name is Jeremy. He helps to support our Disney habit by playing games all day. No seriously, that is what he does for a living. He is a casino dealer. Say it with me, oooohhhhhhhhh. He is pretty awesome. Not just because he is stupid good at math, but because he lets me be me. He laughs at my goofiness and usually joins in. He lets me OCD out and then just smiles and says "no big deal babe." But most importantly, he is down to go to Disney every year!

And here we are!




We went on down to Florida on January 29, 2015 and stayed until February 7, 2015. We were at POFQ. Here is a hint, WE LOVE IT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So sit right back and I will tell you our tale. If you want to see what else we have gotten up to, check out the reports in my signature.

Please Stand Clear of the Doors...

 

[BellaBaby]

Sounds good! I was looking for Jan/Feb TRs as DH and I are thinking of a quick trip then and have not been in either of those months. Interested in the weather especially; but also crowds. Looking forward to hearing all about it!

 

[jash08]

Sounds good! I was looking for Jan/Feb TRs as DH and I are thinking of a quick trip then and have not been in either of those months. Interested in the weather especially; but also crowds. Looking forward to hearing all about it!

Welcome! We love going at that time of year. It is not too crowded and we get away from cold weather. The last two years it has snowed at home while we were in Disney. Definitely a much better time in Disney!

 

[jash08]

Good Evening! I wanted to hop back on and get this report rolling! Before I get started, just a quick WHODAT to my boys, the Saints. Being from New Orleans means I am a die hard Saints fan. Through feast or famine, always proud to call myself a member of the Whodat nation.

So I will start out the report with travel days. I say days as we technically travel for two. We live about two and a half hours from the Nashville airport and we like early morning flights. I am talking red eye, sun doesn't come up until almost half way through the two hour flight early. Last year we drove the day of the flight. We had to be on the road by 2:15 am, and we were. But it made my OCD self kind of anxious. The flight this year was 40 minutes earlier. I told Jeremy we are spending the night in Nashville! I was able to score an awesome deal at the Holiday Inn Express. We thought we would have to take a taxi since most hotel shuttles don't start until 5 or 6 and our flight was at 5:50. The Holiday Inn Express has a 24 hour shuttle and also has Park and Fly deals. I decided to work half a day on Wednesday and we could leave during the early afternoon. Jeremy came to pick me up at noon right on schedule. I walked out the door with my fist in the air, a la the Breakfast Club and we were ready to roll. We made a quick stop off at the house so I could change and then headed to Walgreens. I had some kind of allergy thing going on and I needed some decongestants. Shortly there after we were on the road.

We arrived in Nashville around 3:30 pm and headed to the hotel. Check in went smooth and we were shortly in our room. It was a nice size room and everything was in order. We headed out and went to a comic book shop for a bit before heading to Opry Mills Mall. We walked around for a little while and then headed to Dave and Buster's for some dinner. Jeremy had Buffalo chicken sliders. I was not hungry at all but had to eat something. I got some potato skins and picked at them. We got back to the hotel around 7. I was exhausted and fell asleep shortly there after. It was not a big deal since we had to be up at 2:15.

BEEP BEEP BEEP DISNEY DAY!!!!!!!!! I was out of the bed like a rocket. Still really congested, but ready to go. We were on the shuttle at 4. No surprise we were the only ones on it. Our driver was very helpful with our luggage and extremely friendly. Even though it was only about a 3 minute drive, he wanted to know where we were going, what we had planned, and if it was our first time. We said our goodbyes and thank yous (we are Southerners-we say thank you, nice to meet you, and have a good day to people we have known for 4.5 minutes because we don't know what a stranger is) and headed inside. The security line was looooooonnnnnnngggggg. It was probably only 15 to 20 minutes, but at 4 am, that is a long time. We were surprised with a close gate. We almost always get the farthest possible gate! Jeremy went to Starbucks to get us some breakfast while I held our bags. There was a dance group going to Disney with us on the same flight. While waiting for Starbucks to open, he posted the following on Facebook: What does the O stand for in O 4 30? O dear God it is early. We split a plain bagel and waited to board. We were able to board at 5:20. The dance group was excited and as all teenage girls do, were taking selfies and trying to decide on who to sit with. Listen up girls, put your tushy in a cushy because this plane needs to go. Mickey is waiting! We had an awesome flight. The flight was scheduled to depart at 5:50 and land at 8:40. We left at 5:44 and landed at 8:17!!!!! Yay tail winds! We made a quick stop at the restrooms and bee lined it for Magical Express. We walked right on the bus. After about 10 minutes, we were backing out and I was getting teary eyed at the video and bouncing up and down in my seat. We were finally here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The bus had 3 stops and POFQ was number one. We love this place. It is beautiful and the cast members are awesome. We were the only ones getting off here, so the greeter at the door took some time with us. He wanted to know where we were from. When I said Kentucky, he started singing My Old Kentucky Home. And this my friends is why we continue to come to Disney! We headed inside to check in. There was a bit of a line, so a cast member came up and escorted us to the seating area with a hand held computer. Once he had our names, he went to the counter for our packets. He comes back all smiles and says "Great news! Your room is ready!" We, meaning I, did a little happy dance and off we went to our super awesome room. Seriously, it was a corner room in between the bus stop and food court. It only took 15 seconds to get to the food court and about 1 minute to the bus stop. We dropped our bags off and said let's go! We were off to the bus stop. There was NO WAIT at the bus stop. We were on our way to the Magic Kingdom by 10:00 am!

Up Next: WE ARE HERE!!!!!!

 

[jash08]

It was a beautiful day. Sunny and 70 degrees- perfect weather for Disney. We were starving, but you have to get one ride in before you stop to eat. To the TTA! This is one of my favorite rides. It is one of the things that says you are here, in real life, not a dream. We stopped for a picture of course on our way in.













Once we were done with the ride, we headed over to Cosmic Ray's. Both of us had the bacon cheeseburger and chocolate cake. Now that we had eaten, we had to decide what we wanted to do. After a quick look at the My Experience app, it was time to head to Under the Sea. It had a 20 minute wait, that actually ended up being about 7 minutes. A few pictures from our trip.

















Once we were done, it was time for our first Fast Pass, Enchanted Tales with Belle. We had never done this show before. It was very cool and seeing the looks of awe on the children's faces was amazing. I was standing there wondering how they did it. Must be magic! Once the show was over, it was time to meet Cinderella and Rapunzel. We had never met Rapunzel before and were excited to meet them. They were both lovely. Rapunzel was even walking around playing while waiting for Cindy to say good bye to us!
















After the royal meeting, it was time for another ride. Tea cups only had a five minute wait so we hopped right in line. After a quick spin (see what I did there?), we decided to take the walkway by the train tracks and head back to Tomorrowland.








Jeremy suggested we take another tour on the TTA. I sure wasn't going to disagree, so up we went. I guess he needed a rest because the next suggestion was the Carousel of Progress. It was now time to head to Main Street for our last Fast Pass and the Festival of Fantasy Parade. A few more pictures on our way there.








Up Next: That is one sparkly float!

 

[jash08]

Hi all! I am going to finish up our first day. Thank you to all of you who have read along so far. Feel free to comment or ask any questions!



I wanted to make sure and see the new Festival of Fantasy parade. We had early dinner reservations at Crystal Palace. I decided to make our last fast pass for Mickey. This would mean we could watch the parade and then meet with Mickey before dinner. We loved this parade. We were right in front of the Chapeau. Here are just some of our pictures.

 

[Bbdavis]

Great thread!

 

[jash08]

It was now time to meet the boss. I can honestly say I love this. It is so much fun and very magical. I fall in love with Disney a little more with every experience!




















We still had some time before we needed to go check in, so we decided to take a ride on the Walt Disney World Railroad. I love to do this at least once a trip. So relaxing and it reminds me of my childhood. After our trip around the kingdom, we decided to head to our dinner reservations. It was only about 30 minutes before our reservation, so not too bad. A picture on the way.





This was our first time with dinner at the Crystal Palace. While we enjoyed it, I much prefer breakfast. Between the two of us, we had prime rib, mashed potatoes, jalapeno cornbread, sausage, chicken nuggets, penne pasta, and stir fry noodles. We saw all of the four characters in less than an hour.





















By the time dinner was over, I was exhausted and we still needed to unpack. It was time to head back to the hotel. But of course a few pictures on the way out.








The wait for the bus was about 15 minutes. Once the bus arrived at the hotel, it was to the food court to pick up our mugs and I grabbed a banana for in the morning. Whew, what a jam packed first day!

 

[BellaBaby]

Sounds like a wonderful first day!! Love your pics in front of the castle!