Three Generations of Disney Princesses: An April 2018 Girls Trip
- Thread starter Tink0812
- Start date
Tink0812
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
Thursday April 19th Part 1
After a well-rested night, I was the first to get up at 6:45 am. I took a quick shower and threw on some clothes. With wet hair and no makeup I made the trek to the food court to pickup breakfast for the crew. Since the food court had been so crowded the previous day we decided it would just be better to just send one of us down to pickup food and then eat it in our room. My mom had a chocolate chip croissant with chocolate milk. Natalia had banana bread, applesauce, and milk. I had a Danish and apple juice. It was delicious for a quick and easy breakfast! After breakfast mom got ready while I got Natalia ready and packed our park bags for the day. We left our room around 8 am Animal Kingdom bound. We had to wait about 20 minutes for a bus.
Once we got to the park it was just a short wait before they were letting everyone into the park. Of course they let everyone in before the actual rope drop time so people could advance to the areas that they wanted to go to first and not crowd the front entrance to the park. Our plan was to avoid the crowds that would be headed to Pandora and to Kilimanjaro Safari and instead, head over towards Asia in hopes of meeting a couple of special people right after rope drop. We did stop for a few photopass shots along the way….
Our plan worked and we were only about the fourth family in line to meet Mickey and Minnie in their safari gear. Natalia loved this meet and greet! They started the meet and greet a few minutes before rope drop so they were just dropping the rope when we were leaving.
Since we knocked that meet and greet out so quickly we had plenty of time to spare so we headed over to watch some of Natalia’s favorite animals who were out having some fun. This is near Kali River Rapids for those who also like to watch them!
Kali River Rapids was not open yet and the CM said that there were ducks in the water for the ride and they were having problems getting them out. They wouldn’t be able to open the ride until the ducks were clear of the path. Not a problem for us though because we weren’t planning on riding it anyways. We looked in some shops around Asia before heading over to Africa to prepare for our first fast pass of the day. We still had some time to kill and Natalia was begging for a snack and drink, so we stopped by a cart and picked up some water and pretzels to share. Just the perfect snack! Before we knew it, it was time for our 10:15 fast pass for Kilimanjaro. We had a great safari and saw a lot of animals really close to the vehicle. A giraffe even tried to stick its head inside the vehicle. Here are a few pics of our adventure:
After we returned from our exciting safari we got on the train to head to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. This was a first for all of us! In years past we have totally forgotten about this part of the park. Natalia really enjoyed the relaxing train ride:
Once we arrived at our destination we immediately came upon Rafiki. Natalia has only seen the Lion King once and she was very little so I’m not really sure that she knows who Rafiki is but she ran right up to him and posed for pictures. Thankfully there wasn’t a line because I’m not sure we would have gotten her to wait.
Then we went to the petting zoo. The only animal that was close enough to pet were the goats, which were a hit. The rest of the animals were too far back in their exhibits.
After we finished with the petting zoo we went inside to see one of the Thompson’s gazelle that was being checked out by the vet. They were doing ultrasounds and liver biopsies to find out what was wrong with it. When we went inside Natalia immediately saw Doc McStuffins and we had to get in line. We were only the second group in line and Natalia did not want to wait her turn. She kept screaming that she didn’t want to wait and threw a little tantrum. Once it was her turn though she was very happy……..
She really wanted Doc to play with her! Let's stop here for now....stay tuned for part 2!
After a well-rested night, I was the first to get up at 6:45 am. I took a quick shower and threw on some clothes. With wet hair and no makeup I made the trek to the food court to pickup breakfast for the crew. Since the food court had been so crowded the previous day we decided it would just be better to just send one of us down to pickup food and then eat it in our room. My mom had a chocolate chip croissant with chocolate milk. Natalia had banana bread, applesauce, and milk. I had a Danish and apple juice. It was delicious for a quick and easy breakfast! After breakfast mom got ready while I got Natalia ready and packed our park bags for the day. We left our room around 8 am Animal Kingdom bound. We had to wait about 20 minutes for a bus.
Once we got to the park it was just a short wait before they were letting everyone into the park. Of course they let everyone in before the actual rope drop time so people could advance to the areas that they wanted to go to first and not crowd the front entrance to the park. Our plan was to avoid the crowds that would be headed to Pandora and to Kilimanjaro Safari and instead, head over towards Asia in hopes of meeting a couple of special people right after rope drop. We did stop for a few photopass shots along the way….
Our plan worked and we were only about the fourth family in line to meet Mickey and Minnie in their safari gear. Natalia loved this meet and greet! They started the meet and greet a few minutes before rope drop so they were just dropping the rope when we were leaving.
Since we knocked that meet and greet out so quickly we had plenty of time to spare so we headed over to watch some of Natalia’s favorite animals who were out having some fun. This is near Kali River Rapids for those who also like to watch them!
Kali River Rapids was not open yet and the CM said that there were ducks in the water for the ride and they were having problems getting them out. They wouldn’t be able to open the ride until the ducks were clear of the path. Not a problem for us though because we weren’t planning on riding it anyways. We looked in some shops around Asia before heading over to Africa to prepare for our first fast pass of the day. We still had some time to kill and Natalia was begging for a snack and drink, so we stopped by a cart and picked up some water and pretzels to share. Just the perfect snack! Before we knew it, it was time for our 10:15 fast pass for Kilimanjaro. We had a great safari and saw a lot of animals really close to the vehicle. A giraffe even tried to stick its head inside the vehicle. Here are a few pics of our adventure:
After we returned from our exciting safari we got on the train to head to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. This was a first for all of us! In years past we have totally forgotten about this part of the park. Natalia really enjoyed the relaxing train ride:
Once we arrived at our destination we immediately came upon Rafiki. Natalia has only seen the Lion King once and she was very little so I’m not really sure that she knows who Rafiki is but she ran right up to him and posed for pictures. Thankfully there wasn’t a line because I’m not sure we would have gotten her to wait.
Then we went to the petting zoo. The only animal that was close enough to pet were the goats, which were a hit. The rest of the animals were too far back in their exhibits.
After we finished with the petting zoo we went inside to see one of the Thompson’s gazelle that was being checked out by the vet. They were doing ultrasounds and liver biopsies to find out what was wrong with it. When we went inside Natalia immediately saw Doc McStuffins and we had to get in line. We were only the second group in line and Natalia did not want to wait her turn. She kept screaming that she didn’t want to wait and threw a little tantrum. Once it was her turn though she was very happy……..
She really wanted Doc to play with her! Let's stop here for now....stay tuned for part 2!
Tink0812
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
Thursday April 19th, part 2
After our fun at Rafiki’s Planet Watch we went over to Pandora for our 11:30-12:30 fastpass for Na-vi River journey. This was my first time in Pandora. They were still working on it and just doing soft openings when we went last year. I will agree with the fact that it is a really beautiful area and very artistic; however, I am not crazy about Avatar. In fact, I haven’t watched it. Na-vi itself was a very relaxing boat ride. Natalia really enjoyed all of the glowing things. The standby line was 120 minutes when we got in the fast pass line. We waited about 20 minutes in the fast pass line. I just don’t see what all of the hype is. I definitely would not have waited 120 minutes for it! It may just be that I didn’t understand it because I haven’t seen the movie, but still.
The long wait for Na’vi and the slow trek out of the park really wreaked havoc on our afternoon plans. We had planned to grab something to go in the food court, take a short nap, and head back to Animal Kingdom in time for our 2:30-2:45 pm fastpass for the 3 pm showing of Finding Nemo the Musical. The other complicating factor was that we waited an hour and fifteen minutes to get a bus back to All-Star Music. While we waited, getting more angry, hot, and tired by the minute we knew we had a difficult decision to make. Our choices were either to turn around and head back into the park where we could eat and make it to our fastpass on time (which meant skipping nap time) or head back to the resort and cancel our afternoon fastpass. We chose the latter of the two options because Natalia really needed to cool off and rest. I was so sad to have to give up this fastpass because we didn’t get to do Finding Nemo the Musical on our last trip either due to a similar situation. I really think Natalia would have loved it!
Once we finally made it back to the resort my mom continued on to the room with Natalia so she could get out of the heat and wind down. I stopped by the food court to pick up some lunch for us all. Natalia had a slice of cheese pizza. I had a hot dog and fries and my mom had a burger and fries. We ate our food, took a short nap, changed clothes, and headed back to the bus stop. And here comes a long-winded story, sorry....
We had a dinner ADR at Beaches and Cream scheduled for 5:40 pm. We were out at the bus stop at All-Star Music by 3:30pm to catch a bus to Animal Kingdom, leaving so early because of the bus troubles we had earlier in the day. We only had to wait about ten minutes. Our plan was to take a bus to Animal Kingdom then get on a bus to the Beach Club from there since Animal Kingdom was the closest park to our resort. Well, to say the least, our plan failed….miserably. We made it to Animal Kingdom just fine around 4:00pm then proceeded to wait on a bus to the Beach Club for over an hour. This was the reservation that we were the most excited for on this trip and we began to face the fact that we may not make it. Once we finally got on a bus, we got stuck in non-moving traffic then the bus passed the Beach Club to drop people off at the Yacht Club first. We were literally getting off of the bus at the Beach Club five minutes after our reservation time. We bolted to the main lobby to look at the map as we were unfamiliar with the layout of the property. Our route to the restaurant looked fairly easy; however, they are doing some construction around the Beach Club which made the process even more difficult.
Realizing that we were likely not going to be seated for our reservation my mom decided to give them a call. It was an automated system that kept saying that it couldn’t find any reservations for Beaches and Cream under her name. We believe this was because the time had passed for our reservation. She tried everything she could to get to talk to a real person but it wasn't happening. Since we had a starving toddler and two very angry adults we just decided to proceed with our after dinner plans and walk on over to Epcot. There would be plenty of things we could eat there.
On our way there we made the decision to eat at Sunshine Seasons because it was near The Seas with Nemo and Friends which was our first ride that we had planned on doing. My mom held down the fort at our table with Natalia while I ran to get food for Natalia and I. Natalia had the kid’s macaroni and cheese with applesauce and a chocolate chip cookie. I had a very delicious chicken Caesar salad and fresh pineapple. When I returned from getting our food my mom was chatting with a CM named Kelly. Kelly said she was drawn to the table by Natalia who was making cute faces at her. She had asked my mom how her day was going and my mom very honestly told her that we had been facing a lot of disappointment. She took the time to listen to the entire story of our day and proclaimed that it was completely unacceptable to have a day like this at WDW. She brought us a piece of chocolate cake and directed us to guest relations at the front of the park. She apologized numerous times on behalf of Disney and encouraged us to go tell the story to guest relations so they could take the charges off of my credit card for the reservation. After thanking Kelly many times, my mom went and got herself a chicken Caesar salad as well.
Bellies finally full we headed over to The Seas with Nemo and Friends where we walked right on (finally, something was going right). Natalia loved this one on our last trip so we made sure to include it on this one. After that ride, we headed to the front of the park to speak with guest relations. The lady at guest relations was less than magical. I wish we would have caught her name but believe me, the following story was mentioned in our after-visit surveys.
My mom went up to the desk while Natalia and I hung off to the side. We thought it was best for her to do the talking since she is a customer service representative and is a pro at handling difficult situations. Very politely she introduced herself to the CM who responded very little words. Something to the effect of “what am I helping you with?”. Mom then launched into her story about our frustrations with transportation, missing our reservation, being unable to reach the restaurant by phone, and talking to a CM who had directed us there. The CM then asked what my mom was hoping to accomplish by coming to guest relations. Mom said that we simply didn’t believe that we should be charged the “no show” fee for our reservation because we allotted plenty of time and only missed the reservation due to difficulties with Disney transportation. The CM then asked why we chose to use Disney transportation. Well, we flew here from central Illinois and don’t have a vehicle of our own with us. We always rely on Disney buses and have never had a problem before. The CM then stated that it is not Disney’s fault that there was traffic or that the yacht club stop was scheduled before the Beach Club. Well, duh, we aren’t stupid! But Disney does state that buses will run to the resorts every 20 minutes from the parks and twice in the same day we proved that to be false! The CM literally said, and I quote, “Well, you never should have relied on Disney transportation, that is where you went wrong”. She went on to say “and you never should have taken a bus from your resort to Animal Kingdom expecting to transfer to a Beach Club bus”. So we asked, well then what should we have done. According to her, we should have taken a bus from ASMusic to DHS then transferred to a Beach Club bus or taken a boat. Well, we could have done that too but AK is only five minutes away from our resort so it was technically faster to do it that way. We still would have hit the same traffic. She made some rude comment about us not being willing to take her advice and promised that the charges would be removed from our account. She left us with the comment “and next time, use other transportation”.
After our frustrating visit to Guest Relations, which took up a lot of our time, we were in desperate need of some retail therapy. We went to a few stores, bought a few things, and then headed to the World Showcase to stake out a spot for Illuminations. After we found the most perfect spot (immediately to the left of the entrance to the WS where there are tall tables) I went in search of some adult beverages. I got a strawberry/mango/lime margarita and I got my mom a lime one.
Just for grins and giggles I took a picture of the Mexican Fruit Punch, non-alcoholic of course, that I bought for Natalia. We settled in and took some selfies to pass the time.
As always, Illuminations was wonderful! It is still my favorite part of Disney and I just can’t go to Disney without watching it at least once. After the show was complete we slowly walked to the exit and actually didn’t have to wait on a bus.
After our fun at Rafiki’s Planet Watch we went over to Pandora for our 11:30-12:30 fastpass for Na-vi River journey. This was my first time in Pandora. They were still working on it and just doing soft openings when we went last year. I will agree with the fact that it is a really beautiful area and very artistic; however, I am not crazy about Avatar. In fact, I haven’t watched it. Na-vi itself was a very relaxing boat ride. Natalia really enjoyed all of the glowing things. The standby line was 120 minutes when we got in the fast pass line. We waited about 20 minutes in the fast pass line. I just don’t see what all of the hype is. I definitely would not have waited 120 minutes for it! It may just be that I didn’t understand it because I haven’t seen the movie, but still.
The long wait for Na’vi and the slow trek out of the park really wreaked havoc on our afternoon plans. We had planned to grab something to go in the food court, take a short nap, and head back to Animal Kingdom in time for our 2:30-2:45 pm fastpass for the 3 pm showing of Finding Nemo the Musical. The other complicating factor was that we waited an hour and fifteen minutes to get a bus back to All-Star Music. While we waited, getting more angry, hot, and tired by the minute we knew we had a difficult decision to make. Our choices were either to turn around and head back into the park where we could eat and make it to our fastpass on time (which meant skipping nap time) or head back to the resort and cancel our afternoon fastpass. We chose the latter of the two options because Natalia really needed to cool off and rest. I was so sad to have to give up this fastpass because we didn’t get to do Finding Nemo the Musical on our last trip either due to a similar situation. I really think Natalia would have loved it!
Once we finally made it back to the resort my mom continued on to the room with Natalia so she could get out of the heat and wind down. I stopped by the food court to pick up some lunch for us all. Natalia had a slice of cheese pizza. I had a hot dog and fries and my mom had a burger and fries. We ate our food, took a short nap, changed clothes, and headed back to the bus stop. And here comes a long-winded story, sorry....
We had a dinner ADR at Beaches and Cream scheduled for 5:40 pm. We were out at the bus stop at All-Star Music by 3:30pm to catch a bus to Animal Kingdom, leaving so early because of the bus troubles we had earlier in the day. We only had to wait about ten minutes. Our plan was to take a bus to Animal Kingdom then get on a bus to the Beach Club from there since Animal Kingdom was the closest park to our resort. Well, to say the least, our plan failed….miserably. We made it to Animal Kingdom just fine around 4:00pm then proceeded to wait on a bus to the Beach Club for over an hour. This was the reservation that we were the most excited for on this trip and we began to face the fact that we may not make it. Once we finally got on a bus, we got stuck in non-moving traffic then the bus passed the Beach Club to drop people off at the Yacht Club first. We were literally getting off of the bus at the Beach Club five minutes after our reservation time. We bolted to the main lobby to look at the map as we were unfamiliar with the layout of the property. Our route to the restaurant looked fairly easy; however, they are doing some construction around the Beach Club which made the process even more difficult.
Realizing that we were likely not going to be seated for our reservation my mom decided to give them a call. It was an automated system that kept saying that it couldn’t find any reservations for Beaches and Cream under her name. We believe this was because the time had passed for our reservation. She tried everything she could to get to talk to a real person but it wasn't happening. Since we had a starving toddler and two very angry adults we just decided to proceed with our after dinner plans and walk on over to Epcot. There would be plenty of things we could eat there.
On our way there we made the decision to eat at Sunshine Seasons because it was near The Seas with Nemo and Friends which was our first ride that we had planned on doing. My mom held down the fort at our table with Natalia while I ran to get food for Natalia and I. Natalia had the kid’s macaroni and cheese with applesauce and a chocolate chip cookie. I had a very delicious chicken Caesar salad and fresh pineapple. When I returned from getting our food my mom was chatting with a CM named Kelly. Kelly said she was drawn to the table by Natalia who was making cute faces at her. She had asked my mom how her day was going and my mom very honestly told her that we had been facing a lot of disappointment. She took the time to listen to the entire story of our day and proclaimed that it was completely unacceptable to have a day like this at WDW. She brought us a piece of chocolate cake and directed us to guest relations at the front of the park. She apologized numerous times on behalf of Disney and encouraged us to go tell the story to guest relations so they could take the charges off of my credit card for the reservation. After thanking Kelly many times, my mom went and got herself a chicken Caesar salad as well.
Bellies finally full we headed over to The Seas with Nemo and Friends where we walked right on (finally, something was going right). Natalia loved this one on our last trip so we made sure to include it on this one. After that ride, we headed to the front of the park to speak with guest relations. The lady at guest relations was less than magical. I wish we would have caught her name but believe me, the following story was mentioned in our after-visit surveys.
My mom went up to the desk while Natalia and I hung off to the side. We thought it was best for her to do the talking since she is a customer service representative and is a pro at handling difficult situations. Very politely she introduced herself to the CM who responded very little words. Something to the effect of “what am I helping you with?”. Mom then launched into her story about our frustrations with transportation, missing our reservation, being unable to reach the restaurant by phone, and talking to a CM who had directed us there. The CM then asked what my mom was hoping to accomplish by coming to guest relations. Mom said that we simply didn’t believe that we should be charged the “no show” fee for our reservation because we allotted plenty of time and only missed the reservation due to difficulties with Disney transportation. The CM then asked why we chose to use Disney transportation. Well, we flew here from central Illinois and don’t have a vehicle of our own with us. We always rely on Disney buses and have never had a problem before. The CM then stated that it is not Disney’s fault that there was traffic or that the yacht club stop was scheduled before the Beach Club. Well, duh, we aren’t stupid! But Disney does state that buses will run to the resorts every 20 minutes from the parks and twice in the same day we proved that to be false! The CM literally said, and I quote, “Well, you never should have relied on Disney transportation, that is where you went wrong”. She went on to say “and you never should have taken a bus from your resort to Animal Kingdom expecting to transfer to a Beach Club bus”. So we asked, well then what should we have done. According to her, we should have taken a bus from ASMusic to DHS then transferred to a Beach Club bus or taken a boat. Well, we could have done that too but AK is only five minutes away from our resort so it was technically faster to do it that way. We still would have hit the same traffic. She made some rude comment about us not being willing to take her advice and promised that the charges would be removed from our account. She left us with the comment “and next time, use other transportation”.
After our frustrating visit to Guest Relations, which took up a lot of our time, we were in desperate need of some retail therapy. We went to a few stores, bought a few things, and then headed to the World Showcase to stake out a spot for Illuminations. After we found the most perfect spot (immediately to the left of the entrance to the WS where there are tall tables) I went in search of some adult beverages. I got a strawberry/mango/lime margarita and I got my mom a lime one.
Just for grins and giggles I took a picture of the Mexican Fruit Punch, non-alcoholic of course, that I bought for Natalia. We settled in and took some selfies to pass the time.
As always, Illuminations was wonderful! It is still my favorite part of Disney and I just can’t go to Disney without watching it at least once. After the show was complete we slowly walked to the exit and actually didn’t have to wait on a bus.
StarWarsMomofGirls!
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2015
I somehow missed your first post... Odd.
Our first trip my youngest literally decided to potty train the week before we left! Oye! But it sounds like Natalia is doing great so far!
This is why I would almost always prefer to check bags. I end up being that sweaty gross person walking through the airport and get to the gate a complete and utter mess!
My girls still love the videos!Natalia loved the bus and really loved the video they were playing.
Yum! Looks delish!I. Pizza is one of Natalia’s favorite foods. I ordered Natalia a plain cheese pizza and my mom and I both had the Red Vine pizza. Absolutely delicious! I also really liked the lemonade. I would eat here again in a heartbeat! Here’s a few pics of our dinner:
Travel day will do that to you!
In case you can't tell, Natalia gave it her stamp of approval by attacking that pizza!
My daughter and I picked the same ears!ears for Natalia and I.
How scary! The whole thing is kind of scary but that would def shake me a bit!
This is what we have found works best, that way we can take turns getting ready and eating.
So Cute!
Your not missing anything by not seeing he movie. I really don't know why people are waiting so long for Navi Journey Boat Ride. It's nice but def not worth the long wait.
Too Bad. Finding Nemo is an amazing show! But there will always be something for next time that way!
What a great CM.
Too bad it was followed up by a not so great CM.
You deserved it!I went in search of some adult beverages. I got a strawberry/mango/lime margarita and I got my mom a lime one.
Well That looks amazing!Just for grins and giggles I took a picture of the Mexican Fruit Punch, non-alcoholic of course, that I bought for Natalia. We settled in and took some selfies to pass the time.
JAMIESMITH
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2011
We were frustrated by Disney buses on our 2015 trip. 2016 was better.
That guest relations CM sucks at her job and should be removed!
That guest relations CM sucks at her job and should be removed!
Tigger's ally
Segway test dummy
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2010
The Doc McStuffins pictures are grandfather's favorites.
Tink0812
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
Friday April 20th
This morning was our early wake-up time. My alarm went of at 6:15 am and I jumped up to take my shower. Then, like every other morning, I got Natalia ready while my mom got ready herself. We had an 8:25 am breakfast ADR at Chef Mickey’s to get to! Luckily there was morning extra magic hours for Magic Kingdom, so the buses were running early. We were at the bus stop around 7 am with a bus arriving shortly thereafter. Once we got off the bus at Magic Kingdom we went through security then hung a hard right to walk on over to the Contemporary. Given that we actually had good luck with the bus on this morning, we had plenty of time to spare before our ADR so we looked around the shops and went out on one of the decks to watch some boats. We finally checked in around 8:15 am and took our entrance picture! My mom was being a party pooper and didn’t want in the picture…
As soon as we were done with our photo op our buzzer was going off and we were quickly seated. We took turns getting some food from the buffet and before we knew it we had a few visitors…….
Chef Mickey's Review: Prior to coming on this trip, I almost canceled this ADR because I had read so many negative reviews on here. I am so very glad I didn't! I have very fond memories of this place from when I was a child and it lived up to those memories on this trip. Natalia got to spend a lot of time with each of the characters and we all enjoyed our food and dancing to the music. I would go back in a heartbeat!
After our magical breakfast with the best of friends we took a quick ride around the resort loop in the Monorail. This was Natalia’s first monorail ride……
We got off of the Monorail to be met with a very large crowd at Magic Kingdom. Our first fastpass was for Peter Pan’s Flight from 10:15-11:15 am. Since we were a little early, we decided to let Natalia ride the Carousel as she has yet to ride one. Picking out a horse, sitting on one, and getting strapped in was no big deal. I even got a couple of smiling pictures but as soon as the ride started moving she was screaming bloody murder. She kept saying “stop mommy, stop”.
After that traumatic ride, we had to cheer her up some so we did the natural thing, resorted to bribery. We bought her a Moana doll. Yeah, we have a problem! Then it was finally time for Peter Pan’s Flight. Just like the first time, she loved it!
Our next fastpass wasn’t until 11:20 am so we went over to Gaston’s Tavern for some La Fou’s Brew to cool off and give the princess a little break. After our little break, we went to our most favorite thing of the whole trip, Enchanted Tales with Belle. Natalia was a bit too young to hold any of the parts as she wasn’t able to do any of things on command but she loved watching all of the other kids play their parts. She was “ohhhing” and “ahhinng” the whole time. She really loved the opportunity to meet Belle at the end and didn’t want to leave!
Let’s stop this post here for now and I will try to get the next half of this day out either later this evening or tomorrow!
This morning was our early wake-up time. My alarm went of at 6:15 am and I jumped up to take my shower. Then, like every other morning, I got Natalia ready while my mom got ready herself. We had an 8:25 am breakfast ADR at Chef Mickey’s to get to! Luckily there was morning extra magic hours for Magic Kingdom, so the buses were running early. We were at the bus stop around 7 am with a bus arriving shortly thereafter. Once we got off the bus at Magic Kingdom we went through security then hung a hard right to walk on over to the Contemporary. Given that we actually had good luck with the bus on this morning, we had plenty of time to spare before our ADR so we looked around the shops and went out on one of the decks to watch some boats. We finally checked in around 8:15 am and took our entrance picture! My mom was being a party pooper and didn’t want in the picture…
As soon as we were done with our photo op our buzzer was going off and we were quickly seated. We took turns getting some food from the buffet and before we knew it we had a few visitors…….
Chef Mickey's Review: Prior to coming on this trip, I almost canceled this ADR because I had read so many negative reviews on here. I am so very glad I didn't! I have very fond memories of this place from when I was a child and it lived up to those memories on this trip. Natalia got to spend a lot of time with each of the characters and we all enjoyed our food and dancing to the music. I would go back in a heartbeat!
After our magical breakfast with the best of friends we took a quick ride around the resort loop in the Monorail. This was Natalia’s first monorail ride……
We got off of the Monorail to be met with a very large crowd at Magic Kingdom. Our first fastpass was for Peter Pan’s Flight from 10:15-11:15 am. Since we were a little early, we decided to let Natalia ride the Carousel as she has yet to ride one. Picking out a horse, sitting on one, and getting strapped in was no big deal. I even got a couple of smiling pictures but as soon as the ride started moving she was screaming bloody murder. She kept saying “stop mommy, stop”.
After that traumatic ride, we had to cheer her up some so we did the natural thing, resorted to bribery. We bought her a Moana doll. Yeah, we have a problem! Then it was finally time for Peter Pan’s Flight. Just like the first time, she loved it!
Our next fastpass wasn’t until 11:20 am so we went over to Gaston’s Tavern for some La Fou’s Brew to cool off and give the princess a little break. After our little break, we went to our most favorite thing of the whole trip, Enchanted Tales with Belle. Natalia was a bit too young to hold any of the parts as she wasn’t able to do any of things on command but she loved watching all of the other kids play their parts. She was “ohhhing” and “ahhinng” the whole time. She really loved the opportunity to meet Belle at the end and didn’t want to leave!
Let’s stop this post here for now and I will try to get the next half of this day out either later this evening or tomorrow!
StarWarsMomofGirls!
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2015
Well, you got a great pic of the 2 of you!My mom was being a party pooper and didn’t want in the picture…
I think Chef Mickey gets a bad rep. We ate there once. I mean it's not amazing food. But it's fine. And super fun!
Tink0812
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
Day 4 continued...
Once we were finished visiting with Belle we had some time to spare before our 12:35 pm fastpass for the Magic Carpets of Aladdin so we took a leisurely stroll over to the Country Bears. We had wanted to do this on our last trip because Natalia loves singing and dancing, but the show times had never matched up with our schedule. This time though, as we walked up there was only 8 minutes till showtime. I wish I would have taken some photos of Natalia singing and dancing because she had a total blast! I’m glad we were able to squeeze it on this trip. After our country concert was over we headed for a quick potty break before our fastpass time. Coming out of the bathroom Natalia decided it was time for a complete meltdown. We knew she was tired and probably a little hungry so we decided to skip out on our fastpass and bid farewell to Magic Kingdom. On our way out we did catch a little of the Move It! Parade and she did perk up a little bit for that but by the time we reached the bus stop she was out cold.
We had originally planned on grabbing a snack on the way out of the park but with a sleeping toddler, we decided to just wait until we got back to the resort to grab something. My mom and I were still pretty full from our big breakfast so we just decided to have a milkshake. My mom had the Backstage pass again (the chocolate one with Bourbon) and I had a non-alcoholic cookies and cream one. We got Natalia some real food though because we knew she wouldn’t settle for any less. She requested pizza so I joined the line with all of the newly arrived junior high band members and got her a slice of pizza and some applesauce.
After we made it back to our room, we ate our goodies then took a good nap. Prior to coming on this trip we had canceled our ADR for the Rain Forest Café that we had previously had on this night. We had eaten there on our last trip and really enjoyed it but since then they had changed the menu and we couldn’t really find much that we would like to eat. We were just planning to eat quick service somewhere around Animal Kingdom instead. Well, after a long hot day with an exhausted toddler we were discussing what we would do in Animal Kingdom that evening and the only thing that we had come up with was the Finding Nemo show that we had missed earlier in the week. The problem was that the last show was at 4 pm and there was no way we were going to make it back to the park in time without having to wake Natalia up from her nap early, thus risking more meltdowns. So, quite reluctantly, we decided to forgo our plans to go back to Animal Kingdom and instead, return to Disney Springs to look at a few stores that we had bypassed on day one, eat somewhere there, and just relax. We wanted to make sure we were back to the resort with plenty of time to pack everything up that evening.
We were back out at the bus stop around 4 pm to catch a bus for Disney Springs. Once arriving there we stopped by a few stores that we had missed on day one, bought several more things, and suffered a great disappointment in learning that Little Mismatched was no longer there. We tossed around several ideas for dinner but while wandering around trying to make up our mind, we stumbled upon Wolfgang Puck Express. This was a first for all of us! My mom had the chicken alfredo which she loved. I had the macaroni and house made chips which were both nothing short of fantastic. Natalia had the chicken strips and fries. We let her try ketchup for the first time! It was a hit but she preferred to lick it off of the French fries instead of just eating the French fries with the ketchup on them.
Overall, we really enjoyed our meal here and would definitely come back. It was nice and quiet with ample air conditioning and a large selection on the menu. After we finished our meal we just weren’t quite ready to give up yet so we wandered through a few more stores then decided to get some drinks and listen to some of the live music. My mom had a frozen lime margarita and I had a rum runner from the Dockside bar. Delicious! This was the coolest evening of them all and we had a perfect breeze to sit and enjoy the scenery with. We eventually decided that we needed to head back to the resort so we could get all of our packing done and give Natalia a bath.
Once we were finished visiting with Belle we had some time to spare before our 12:35 pm fastpass for the Magic Carpets of Aladdin so we took a leisurely stroll over to the Country Bears. We had wanted to do this on our last trip because Natalia loves singing and dancing, but the show times had never matched up with our schedule. This time though, as we walked up there was only 8 minutes till showtime. I wish I would have taken some photos of Natalia singing and dancing because she had a total blast! I’m glad we were able to squeeze it on this trip. After our country concert was over we headed for a quick potty break before our fastpass time. Coming out of the bathroom Natalia decided it was time for a complete meltdown. We knew she was tired and probably a little hungry so we decided to skip out on our fastpass and bid farewell to Magic Kingdom. On our way out we did catch a little of the Move It! Parade and she did perk up a little bit for that but by the time we reached the bus stop she was out cold.
We had originally planned on grabbing a snack on the way out of the park but with a sleeping toddler, we decided to just wait until we got back to the resort to grab something. My mom and I were still pretty full from our big breakfast so we just decided to have a milkshake. My mom had the Backstage pass again (the chocolate one with Bourbon) and I had a non-alcoholic cookies and cream one. We got Natalia some real food though because we knew she wouldn’t settle for any less. She requested pizza so I joined the line with all of the newly arrived junior high band members and got her a slice of pizza and some applesauce.
After we made it back to our room, we ate our goodies then took a good nap. Prior to coming on this trip we had canceled our ADR for the Rain Forest Café that we had previously had on this night. We had eaten there on our last trip and really enjoyed it but since then they had changed the menu and we couldn’t really find much that we would like to eat. We were just planning to eat quick service somewhere around Animal Kingdom instead. Well, after a long hot day with an exhausted toddler we were discussing what we would do in Animal Kingdom that evening and the only thing that we had come up with was the Finding Nemo show that we had missed earlier in the week. The problem was that the last show was at 4 pm and there was no way we were going to make it back to the park in time without having to wake Natalia up from her nap early, thus risking more meltdowns. So, quite reluctantly, we decided to forgo our plans to go back to Animal Kingdom and instead, return to Disney Springs to look at a few stores that we had bypassed on day one, eat somewhere there, and just relax. We wanted to make sure we were back to the resort with plenty of time to pack everything up that evening.
We were back out at the bus stop around 4 pm to catch a bus for Disney Springs. Once arriving there we stopped by a few stores that we had missed on day one, bought several more things, and suffered a great disappointment in learning that Little Mismatched was no longer there. We tossed around several ideas for dinner but while wandering around trying to make up our mind, we stumbled upon Wolfgang Puck Express. This was a first for all of us! My mom had the chicken alfredo which she loved. I had the macaroni and house made chips which were both nothing short of fantastic. Natalia had the chicken strips and fries. We let her try ketchup for the first time! It was a hit but she preferred to lick it off of the French fries instead of just eating the French fries with the ketchup on them.
Overall, we really enjoyed our meal here and would definitely come back. It was nice and quiet with ample air conditioning and a large selection on the menu. After we finished our meal we just weren’t quite ready to give up yet so we wandered through a few more stores then decided to get some drinks and listen to some of the live music. My mom had a frozen lime margarita and I had a rum runner from the Dockside bar. Delicious! This was the coolest evening of them all and we had a perfect breeze to sit and enjoy the scenery with. We eventually decided that we needed to head back to the resort so we could get all of our packing done and give Natalia a bath.
Tigger's ally
Segway test dummy
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2010
Friday April 20th
This morning was our early wake-up time. My alarm went of at 6:15 am and I jumped up to take my shower. Then, like every other morning, I got Natalia ready while my mom got ready herself. We had an 8:25 am breakfast ADR at Chef Mickey’s to get to! Luckily there was morning extra magic hours for Magic Kingdom, so the buses were running early. We were at the bus stop around 7 am with a bus arriving shortly thereafter. Once we got off the bus at Magic Kingdom we went through security then hung a hard right to walk on over to the Contemporary. Given that we actually had good luck with the bus on this morning, we had plenty of time to spare before our ADR so we looked around the shops and went out on one of the decks to watch some boats. We finally checked in around 8:15 am and took our entrance picture! My mom was being a party pooper and didn’t want in the picture…
As soon as we were done with our photo op our buzzer was going off and we were quickly seated. We took turns getting some food from the buffet and before we knew it we had a few visitors…….
Chef Mickey's Review: Prior to coming on this trip, I almost canceled this ADR because I had read so many negative reviews on here. I am so very glad I didn't! I have very fond memories of this place from when I was a child and it lived up to those memories on this trip. Natalia got to spend a lot of time with each of the characters and we all enjoyed our food and dancing to the music. I would go back in a heartbeat!
!
As a family, we always preferred CP with Pooh and friends over Chef Mickey's as it was inside the gates. Still liked Chef Mickey's and know we took you there several times so understand you wanting to take Natty there as well.
Tink0812
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 3, 2011
Day 5: Saturday April 21st....heading home
The day we had been dreading eventually arrived much to our dismay! After a week full of fun we had slept great the night before and I had no problem getting up with the 6:45 am alarm. Our flight was scheduled to leave MCO at 11:20 am and the DME was scheduled to pick us up at 8:05am. As per usual I was the first one up and showered then I got Natalia ready while my mom got ready. We finished packing, did a once over of the room to make sure we got everything, and began the trek to the front of the resort. We had not received a bill tucked under the door so we stopped by the front desk to get a copy and make sure we had no outstanding charges.
Once the bill was settled we headed out to the DME stop. We got there about 5 minutes till 8. There was a DME bus there but it was the bus before ours. They said they would have let us on if they had room but they didn't. We only had 10 minutes to wait anyways. One of the CM's manning the area told us to go ahead and get in line to check in for our flight. I responded with "I thought that was only if you were checking luggage". The CM replied with "Even if you aren't checking bags, you can at least get your boarding passes printed". So, with this new information, I get in line thinking man that would make our lives easier. No, what the CM told us was not true. Since we were not checking any bags, we could not check in at the resort.
Our bus came right on time and only picked up about three families from our resort. We then continued on to All-Star Movies and picked up about five families before heading to the airport. Natalia actually slept a little bit on the bus ride. We arrived at the airport and continued our very long trek to the Southwest counter to check in for our flights. The line was absolutely insane. There were so many people that there was no way to move. I had mom watch Natalia and our bags while I jumped in line for one of the check-in kiosks. Thankfully I had no problems there and in about 20 minutes we were on our way. Security was an absolute nightmare! I don't think I have ever seen so many people packed in that part of the airport before. The TSA officers were doing everything they could to speed up the process. They were moving everyone through the full body scanners so no one had to take off their shoes or jewelry. They didn't even make us take our liquids or anything out of our bags. And...bonus, they let us keep Natalia in her stroller.
After surviving the nightmare of security we only had an hour before our flight so we hiked to our gate. Literally, it was a hike. Then mom watched Natalia and our bags while I braved the long line for Starbucks to get us some breakfast. We were regretting the decision to wait and get breakfast until we were at the airport but Natalia was such a trooper about it though. We boarded our flight on time, picked different seats than the last time, and had an uneventful flight home followed by an uneventful drive home from the airport.
Thank you everyone for following along on our trip report! We had so much fun and can't wait to go back! We are already tossing around the idea of another trip!
The day we had been dreading eventually arrived much to our dismay! After a week full of fun we had slept great the night before and I had no problem getting up with the 6:45 am alarm. Our flight was scheduled to leave MCO at 11:20 am and the DME was scheduled to pick us up at 8:05am. As per usual I was the first one up and showered then I got Natalia ready while my mom got ready. We finished packing, did a once over of the room to make sure we got everything, and began the trek to the front of the resort. We had not received a bill tucked under the door so we stopped by the front desk to get a copy and make sure we had no outstanding charges.
Once the bill was settled we headed out to the DME stop. We got there about 5 minutes till 8. There was a DME bus there but it was the bus before ours. They said they would have let us on if they had room but they didn't. We only had 10 minutes to wait anyways. One of the CM's manning the area told us to go ahead and get in line to check in for our flight. I responded with "I thought that was only if you were checking luggage". The CM replied with "Even if you aren't checking bags, you can at least get your boarding passes printed". So, with this new information, I get in line thinking man that would make our lives easier. No, what the CM told us was not true. Since we were not checking any bags, we could not check in at the resort.
Our bus came right on time and only picked up about three families from our resort. We then continued on to All-Star Movies and picked up about five families before heading to the airport. Natalia actually slept a little bit on the bus ride. We arrived at the airport and continued our very long trek to the Southwest counter to check in for our flights. The line was absolutely insane. There were so many people that there was no way to move. I had mom watch Natalia and our bags while I jumped in line for one of the check-in kiosks. Thankfully I had no problems there and in about 20 minutes we were on our way. Security was an absolute nightmare! I don't think I have ever seen so many people packed in that part of the airport before. The TSA officers were doing everything they could to speed up the process. They were moving everyone through the full body scanners so no one had to take off their shoes or jewelry. They didn't even make us take our liquids or anything out of our bags. And...bonus, they let us keep Natalia in her stroller.
After surviving the nightmare of security we only had an hour before our flight so we hiked to our gate. Literally, it was a hike. Then mom watched Natalia and our bags while I braved the long line for Starbucks to get us some breakfast. We were regretting the decision to wait and get breakfast until we were at the airport but Natalia was such a trooper about it though. We boarded our flight on time, picked different seats than the last time, and had an uneventful flight home followed by an uneventful drive home from the airport.
Thank you everyone for following along on our trip report! We had so much fun and can't wait to go back! We are already tossing around the idea of another trip!
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