Unexpected News! Discovering you’re Expecting while at Disney World-- A June 2014 trip report

[Dumbo In Wonderland]

Unexpected News! Discovering you're Expecting while at Disney World - A June 2014 Trip Report

Chapters:
Day 1: June 14 - Part One - Arrival & Art of Animation
Day 1: June 14 - Part Two - Magic Kingdom
Day 2: June 15 - Part One - Magic Kingdom
Day 2: June 15 - Part Two - Downtown Disney & Magic Kingdom
Day 3: June 16 - Part One - Epcot
Day 3: June 16 - Part Two - Epcot
Day 4: June 17 - Part One - Hollywood Studios
Day 4: June 17 - Part Two - Hollywood Studios
Day 5: June 18 - Part One - Magic Kingdom
Day 5: June 18 - Part Two - Magic Kingdom
Day 6: June 19 - Part One - Animal Kingdom
Day 6: June 19 - Part Two - Epcot
Day 7: June 20 - Hollywood Studios
Day 8: June 21 - Part one - Epcot & Downtown Disney
Day 8: June 21 - Part Two - Magic Kingdom
Day 9: June 22 - Magic Kingdom
______________________________________________________________

Hey everybody!… Glad to bring you this amazing trip report for what was our tenth Disney trip together, June 14-22, 2014. Who are we, you ask? We are Colin and Ashley! “Dumbo In Wonderland” is our name, a combination of our two favorite animated movies. Colin will be doing the reporting for the trip.

This is me, Colin. Those ears are actually mine. I was born that way (I wish).

Colin

Favorite Disney Character: Donald Duck
Favorite Disney Animated Movie: Dumbo
Favorite Disney Pixar Movies: Monsters Inc. & Monsters University
Favorite WDW Rides: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad & Splash Mountain
Favorite WDW Show: Fantasmic
Favorite WDW Restaurants: Garden Grill & Be Our Guest


Here is Ashley. She wishes she could live in Disney World. Who doesn’t?

Ashley

Favorite Disney Character: Cheshire Cat
Favorite Disney Animated Movie: Alice in Wonderland
Favorite Disney Pixar Movie: Up
Favorite WDW Rides: Expedition Everest & it's a small world
Favorite WDW Shows: Finding Nemo The Musical & The Country Bear Jamboree
Favorite WDW Restaurants: Cinderella’s Royal Table & Be Our Guest

We’ve been married for 8 years (celebrating our anniversary during this very trip), and in those eight years, we’ve vacationed at Disney ten times. We have loved every minute of it.

Our first nine trips together:
1-Our Honeymoon - July 2006 - All Star Music
2-Christmas Family Reunion - December 2007 - Pop Century (with both our parents and Ashley’s sister)
3-Fall Break - October 2010 - All Star Movies (Dalmatians)
4-Our 5th Wedding Anniversary - June 2011 - All Star Movies (Toy Story)
5-Family Reunion - October 2011 - Pop Century (with Colin’s parents, brother and his GF)
6-Colin’s Birthday - May 2012 - All Star Movies (Fantasia, pool side)
7-Disneyland, California - October 2012 - Paradise Pier
8-Colin’s Birthday - May 2013 - All Star Movies (Fantasia 2000)
9-Fall Break - October 2013 - All Star Movies (Fantasia 2000)

We don’t have any kids… yet. But we have an amazing kitty cat named Annabelle:

We absolutely hate leaving Annabelle behind when we go on vacation, but Auntie Katee takes good care of her while we are gone. Here’s Annabelle investigating our brand new luggage that we bought for our trip as an anniversary present to each other:

We live in Kentucky -- about 12 hours away by car. We both work in education, so summers and fall breaks are good times for us to visit. This summer past, we weren’t planning on going to Disney World. I wanted to get a new lawn mower, and we already had a trip to Canada planned for the earlier part of June to visit family. My boss gave me two weeks off, so we decided to go to Canada for a few days, and then immediately afterwards leave for Florida. Because of the time constraints, we decided to fly this time--the first time we’ve flown to Disney since our honeymoon in 2006.

Okay so now some info about how we like to do Disney:

1) We like the cheap resorts. We don’t need a fancy resort; we like the characters so our favorite resort is All Star Movies, and for this trip we were so happy to be staying at Art of Animation for the very first time.

2) We are huge pin collectors and traders. Part of our favorite thing about Disney is the pin collecting. We buy them, trade them, and enjoy collecting them. We have over 2000 pins in our collection.

3) We get the Quick Service Dining. We like to eat pizza and stuff like that. We’re not fancy eaters--we know what we like to eat and we get it.

4) We like to drive to the parks. Yeah you can a ride a packed bus, and some people love that, since they are sick of their cars, but we like the comfort of being able to stretch out and turn on the AC on the way home after the fireworks.

5) We don’t care for Dole Whips. But we are all about frozen lemonade slushies. The places to get them are Cheshire Cafe across from Mad Tea Party, Fife and Drum at the American Adventure, and Anaheim Produce on Sunset Boulevard.

That’s enough information to get us going, so the first post will be shortly!

 

[nilla]

Four of your five "how we like to do Disney" points go against the very fabric of my being, but following anyway!

Ok, so maybe I exaggerated that *a bit*. Sounds like a fun story. Can't wait to read it!

 

[Anesthesia Fine]

Oooh, we were there the week before! It was lovely.

Following because frozen lemonade slushies are life and I cannot wait to use this knowledge on our next trip.

 

[Dumbo In Wonderland]

Day 1 - June 14, 2014
PART ONE: ARRIVAL - ART OF ANIMATION

Day 1 began at about 12:30 in the morning. We landed in Nashville, returning very late in the night from our first of back-to-back trips, from Canada. The plane into Nashville from Dallas was delayed several hours.

We live about 2 hours from Nashville, so what we did was pack our suitcases for two trips. We left the Florida suitcases in the our car at the Nashville airport while we were in Canada for a few days. The plan was to land in Nashville, switch suitcases, spend the night at a hotel near the airport, and then get up early for our next flight to Orlando. Because our plane was so late getting in from Dallas, and the amount of time it took to unpack our Canada suitcases and re-pack our suitcases for Orlando, we didn’t get to bed until about 2 am. It was a grueling process and I don’t think we’d be doing this ever again! NEVER AGAIN!

We woke up at about 7:00 after a few hours of sleep and headed to the airport. I should point out that Ashley had a respiratory infection before we left for our first trip to Canada, so she was still coughing pretty badly, but she was ready to go. You are not going to stop my wife when the Mouse awaits!!

The airplane:

On the plane:

Orlando skyline as we are landing:

We had a direct flight from Nashville to Orlando. Compared to the usual 12-hour drive we’re used to doing, this was a breeze.

Orlando International Airport (with the fake-o-rail):

Multiple days of travel is grueling, but once you’re there, you’re there! Unfortunately we weren’t out of the woods just yet. It took us a while to get out of Orlando International Airport; mostly thanks to Dollar Rental Car which we were not impressed with. A person in line behind me, who didn’t have a prepaid reservation, wandered over to Enterprise and was literally driving circles around us before we were even out of the line. It was pouring rain outside, which was not a welcome sight, but it did cool things down so we were hoping that if the rain stopped, we’d get to have an enjoyable evening.

To the land of purple road signs!

YES!!

We were very excited to to be staying at Art of Animation. We love All Star Movies, and this is like the ‘sequel’ to that hotel. Although we were secretly hoping to get an upgrade to a family suite (like that would ever happen), we were thrilled to be checking into the Little Mermaid, which has the standard-sized rooms.

Art of Animation Lobby:

Okay so by this point we were both already pretty much worn out from having traveled all the way from Canada the day before to Nashville, and then today from Nashville to Orlando. We were just waiting for something else to go wrong. And luckily it didn’t… but when we went to check in, the desk clerk offered us a preferred room at Pop Century with a free night. We were about to freak out that they didn’t have a room for us at Art of Animation--but apparently this was just an offer and we didn’t have to take the offer… so we didn’t! Hey we’re paying big bucks to sleep under the sea. Put us under the sea, Ursula!

Little Mermaid building:

Our room:

Flounder and Sebastian:

Prince Eric painting:

Octopus coat rack:

It took us a while to find Ariel. Turns out she’s in the bathroom, on the shower curtain. The bathroom is her grotto!

Clam shell bed:

Mickey head towels:

Okay now what… OH YEAH LET’S GET TO THE PARKS!

TO BE CONTINUED!...

 

[2Monkeys]

Following along! Love how the Little Mermaid rooms are decorated!!

 

[Tink0812]

I'm in!

 

[Dumbo In Wonderland]

Day 1 - June 14, 2014
PART TWO: MAGIC KINGDOM

Okay so we got checked in and unpacked and eager to get going! But the first stop for us was the Landscape of Flavors food court for supper/lunch/whatever meal we were on… Pizza and meatball sub:

After buying some mouse ears at the gift shop, it was time to hit the park!

Which park do you normally go to first on your trip? Most people go here…

So that’s where we went, of course!!

Actually, we were on a mission...

Our plan for Day 1 was to visit Magic Kingdom, and specifically to meet the talking Mickey. We were going to dress up as Mickey and Minnie--Disney bounding, if you will. Ashley had bought a Minnie dress last trip but never got a chance to wear it. I had red shorts and a black shirt, and after buying a pair of Mouse Ears at the hotel gift shop, we were ready to bound our way to Magic Kingdom and meet the main dude!

Monorail time!

Which color monorail are we going to get? I hope it’s the yellow one, since that's my favorite color. IT IS!

And there’s the most magical place on Earth! Right where we left it...

And Cinderella Castle…

Before the trip, we decided to pony up and buy Memory Maker. We already usually end up buying the digital download of the Photopass anyway, which ends up costing about the same as the Memory Maker. The bonus of Memory Maker is that you get your ride photos for free; we ended up going on all the rides at Walt Disney World where your picture is taken, save for Space Mountain. Mine Train was also too new to have pictures set up yet, as it had just opened about two weeks earlier. Here’s the first of many Photopass pics:

We also asked the Photopass photographer to take a few shots of us in front of this adorable picture of Mickey and Minnie outside the Main Street Cinema:

He had us recreate the photo since we were bounding as Mr. and Ms. Mouse:

By this point it was time for us to use our first FastPass+. We’d pretty much booked all the FastPass+s long before our trip. We changed a few throughout our trip, but the three for Day 1 were locked in… first up…

The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train had just opened a couple weeks ago to the public. It’s kind of funny that this was our first ride of the trip, since we were eager to ride it and see what the hype was all about. We actually remember being at the Magic Kingdom in 2011 on the day that Snow White Scary Adventures closed down for good. We really liked that ride, and were curious to see if they incorporated any of the former ride into the new one.

I actually started sneezing while on it. Allergies… Guess we know which dwarf I am!

What I liked about it: the part where you go in the tunnel and see the dwarfs. Unfortunately this is pretty much the only show scene and the rest is a rather short baby coaster. Was it fun? Yeah pretty much; but I’m a huge Big Thunder fan so this wasn’t much of a comparison. Would I wait two hours to ride this? Nope. Thank you FastPass+!

So we’re in Fantasyland and we’ve got some time to kill, so where do we go?

It’s hard for us to be in the MK for very long without going on this ride. It’s kind of slow and trippy but it’s just a total classic and it is one of Ashley's all time favorites. One trip (October 2010) it was closed for renovation and it just didn’t feel right; much like it didn’t feel right this trip not being able to ride on the PeopleMover, which was closed along with the Astro Oribter for renovation.

it’s a small selfie:

And you know what the rest of the ride is like:

Afterwards, it's time to take a break at the coolest bathroom in the world. Anyone care to argue?

Let down your hair!!

Okay so in the introduction, I mentioned that we are huge pin traders/collectors. Usually one of our first stops while on Disney property is the pin hut at Downtown Disney, where we’ll spend most of our allowance, or as Ashley says, “get a big haul.” DTD wasn’t in our plans on Day 1, but since we had time before meeting Mickey, we wandered to the Frontierland Trading Post to see what was new this year. We ended up buying a huge haul. The cast member remarked that it was the most pins he’d ever sold in one transaction. I’ll show you some pics of the pins we bought, later on. We found a few Frozen pins, and some Seven Dwarfs pins.

We also had time to stop at the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom kiosk in Liberty Square (behind the Christmas store) to get our daily supply of Sorcerer cards. We’ve been collecting them since they started giving them out. Ashley loves free collectables! Last trip, they started making us actually play the game in order to get any new cards, so since we still had a bit of time before our FastPass to meet the talking Mickey, we walked up and down Main Street trying to whoop Boss Teal (Hades) and advance to the next level.

Excited to meet the mouse:

Eventually it was time to meet the main mouse at Town Square Theater…

Okay now the funny story and one of the highlights of the entire trip… As you can clearly see, Ashley and I are Disney bounding as Mickey and Minnie. Lots of people complimented us all evening long on our look, but Mickey took it to the extreme. First of all, Mickey DID NOT talk. Not sure why… maybe he had laryngitis that day. But regardless of that, he didn’t need to use words to convey that HE WAS TOTALLY SMITTEN WITH MY WIFE. HE THOUGHT SHE WAS *ACTUALLY* MINNIE…

We both went up to meet him, and Mickey pretty much motioned for me to go stand in the corner so he could have some one-on-one with my woman! Here I am watching as he makes moves on my beautiful wife!:

So that he can have her all to himself!!:

*Finally* after what seemed like decades later, Mickey motioned for me to join them… ahem… so we could get a group shot.

OMG…

Okay… so now that I had my wife all to myself again… we made our way back up Main Street. The parade was about to start but we weren’t going to watch it just yet. We got our pic taken here:

And then we made our way to the Cheshire Cafe:

This is a small drink/snack stand across from the Mad Tea Party/Cosmic Ray’s. Now, as my screen name suggests, our favorite Disney movies are Dumbo (mine) and Alice in Wonderland (Ashley’s). She *loves* Cheshire Cat. We can’t figure out why you can’t *meet* Cheshire Cat. You can meet a two-legged Marie for crying out loud… why not Chesh? Anyway, this is his hangout at M.K. and coincidentally, they sell frozen lemonade slushies here. So we often visit this place, usually later in the evening and just take a break from all the action.

It was almost time to call it a night, but we had one last FastPass+ to burn up, for Peter Pan’s Flight.

Peter Pan’s Flight is always a good trip, but never worth the four-million minute wait (especially during the heat of the day). So it was a no-brainer to get a FP+ for this ride. However, we’d spent the better part of two days on airplanes, so this ride was kind of more of the same… with mermaids! Hidden Ariel...

Well, afterwards we made our way back to the hotel. We had a long day planned ahead of us for Day 2. Where would we go next? Stay tuned to find out!

TO BE CONTINUED...

 

[Dumbo In Wonderland]

Four of your five "how we like to do Disney" points go against the very fabric of my being, but following anyway!

Ok, so maybe I exaggerated that *a bit*. Sounds like a fun story. Can't wait to read it!

Which one is the one you don't disagree with? I'm hoping it's the pin trading.

Oooh, we were there the week before! It was lovely.

Following because frozen lemonade slushies are life and I cannot wait to use this knowledge on our next trip.

The only problem with the slushies is the rate at which they melt. Sometimes they can get pretty icy. When you're at Disney World in June though it's something you just deal with!

Following along! Love how the Little Mermaid rooms are decorated!!

The entire resort was amazing with its theming! The Cars area was by far the neatest though.

I'm in!

Glad you're aboard!

 

[Dumbo In Wonderland]

Day 2 - June 15, 2014
PART ONE - MAGIC KINGDOM

After spending our first night Under the Sea in our Little Mermaid room at Art of Animation, we woke up to a much hotter and muggier Florida than the one we had enjoyed the previous evening. Florida in the summer… *Sigh.* This was our second time visiting WDW in June, and let me just say that 90 degree weather is not the best thing in the world. Speaking of hot, today we were fortunate enough to have in our possession the hottest FastPass+ you could get your hands on during the summer of 2014: a meet and greet with Anna and Elsa. Maybe we could ask the Queen of Arendelle if she could turn it down a few degrees!

Alas, it’s off to the Magic Kingdom once again!

Tram selfie:

Nice and sunny today:

We made our way up Main Street and the Move It! Shake It! parade was going on. We’ve watched a lot of parades in our day, and never really stopped to watch this short dance party parade go by; but we had some time to kill before meeting Anna and Elsa so we stood in the doorway of one of the shops on Main Street and watched it happen.

Now’s a good time to point out how amazing the performers are at Disney World. They probably don’t get a lot of recognition, but sweating it out in 90+ degree weather, in costume, dancing and moving… that can’t be an easy job. We actually saw a mishap during this parade: one of the stilted performers fell right on the ground in front of us. It was interesting watching what happened next: the performers around her immediately stopped what they were doing and unhooked her stilts and quickly removed her from the street. She walked off to applause from the crowd and appeared to be okay.

Before going into Fantasyland, we stopped for some quick pics:

The line for Anna and Elsa was two hours long:

Standing in line for *anything* in Fantasyland during the daytime hours is a total drag… I couldn’t imagine not having a FastPass+ for this. We were inside the air conditioned portion of the line in seconds. A few minutes later, it was time to meet Anna and Elsa.

We’ve seen them on YouTube… they are the most popular girls in Florida… and I have to say some of the Annas and Elsas are really good. I think we got the backup crew today.

Ashley had done her nails with Frozen nail wraps and she showed off her nails to Anna, who thought they were pretty interesting.

When we meet Elsa, Ashley asked her if she could turn down the heat, but she said she wasn’t able to. Bummer!

Anna:

Elsa:

After we got our pictures taken with them, then we were off to the Frozen-themed gift shop (limit 3 Frozen items per guest, per purchase…)

We had to buy the set of Frozen pins, of course. At this point, there weren’t many Frozen pins available for purchase, but we would eventually find a few more here and there throughout our trip.

Okay… so what else could we do in Fantasyland in the heat of day that wouldn’t involve navigating through a chaotic crowd of kids in strollers? Well, next door to Frozen is Mickey’s Philharmagic! Ahhh… I *love* Mickey’s Philharmagic. Is that not the coolest 3D film experience at Disney World? (*Cough cough* Rest in peace, Captain Eo, AKA Michael Jackson). Mickey’s Philharmagic is by far one of my favorite attractions. PLUS, the obvious… Donald Duck is my absolute favorite Disney character! I LOVE DONALD!

How can you not love the part where the Fantasia brooms toss water on poor Donald, soaking the audience in the process, and send him under the sea into Ariel’s grotto where he meets up with that cute, adorable, little yellow fish named Nemo…

Wait, what? Nemo?? *Sigh.* Yes. This wasn’t the first time we overheard somebody in the audience tell their kid enthusiastically “There’s Nemo!” once poor Flounder swims on screen. Ummm… no. Nemo is ORANGE. Poor little guppy… Second fiddle to a CLOWN fish.

Back out into the summer heat, and we still had another hour to kill before our Secret Bonus FastPass for lunch at Be Our Guest. Thanks to Disboards, I knew that you could put in a secret URL and print out a FastPass to eat lunch for Be Our Guest. I don’t think you can do that anymore, but hey at least they’re opening the Beast’s castle up for breakfast now!

So with time to kill, the first place we wandered to was Liberty Square. In addition to buying pins early on our trips, Ashley also likes to look at the holiday ornaments and we always buy a few for ourselves and our family members. So we stopped at the Christmas store. Does anybody else love the smell in that place? I wish they sold that in little bottles!

After looking at a few ornaments, we made our way to Adventureland:

We figured now would be a good time to get on Pirates of the Caribbean. Our faithful, reliable standby ride which NEVER has a wait longer than 20 minutes because it loads so quickly, and the indoor air conditioned line is so spacious, and… and… wait a minute… does that sign say 1 hour wait??? Sheesh, do you need a FastPass+ to get on EVERYTHING now?? (FP+, you’re ruining all the spontaneity!)

Okay, well there’s no wait for the Enchanted Tiki Room… We can spontaneously get on that attraction instead!

(No shame!)

After the Tiki Room, we still had some time to kill so we played the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game for a while, and finished off our quest in Adventureland.

Finally it was time to make our way back to Fantasyland and have our wonderful, amazing lunch at Be Our Guest:

Now, in the introduction I pointed out that we are Quick Service diners, so although we will from time to time eat at a fancy restaurant while at Disney, it’s never a major priority for us. To be able to use Quick Service credits on something like Be Our Guest is a major bonus. The turkey sandwich is really good, and the best thing about the whole meal: free refills on drinks! Even the ordering experience is somewhat magical as you place your order in the library before entering the grand ballroom. Ashley and I both had turkey sandwiches. I always get the Grey Stuff for dessert. Don’t believe me? Ask the dishes.

After eating such a big meal, and with the temperature outside up in the 90s, we just decided to make our way back to our own little undersea grotto at the Art of Animation to cool down for the afternoon. We had FP+s for Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain for later in the day, but Ashley, who was still battling the end of her respiratory infection, was needing a break. So we said forget it, and we made our way back to Art of Animation for the afternoon instead.

We also had to go into town later to buy some groceries for the rest of our trip anyway, so this was a good time to knock that off our list. I hate leaving Disney property once we’re on it, so better to get that experience over with before too long.

I decided to take a few pictures of some of the pins that we’d bought so far:

Ashley was in the bathroom, AKA Ariel’s Grotto. Then suddenly, she comes out of the bathroom and hands me this little thing:

Pregnant.

NO WAY!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

Ashley and I have been married almost eight years by this point, and we had been secretly trying to add a little princess or prince to our Disney family for almost two years now. We were actually almost to the point of seeking out fertility treatment.

And then our dream came true.

Right here, in Disney World; in Ariel’s undersea bathroom to be specific, we discovered that we were going to be a Disney Mom and a Disney Dad…

HOW COOL IS THAT?

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

[Madmother]

Congratulations!!!!! wishes do come true!!!!

 

[nilla]

Which one is the one you don't disagree with? I'm hoping it's the pin trading.

Correct!

The kids don't pin trade much before, but they did walk around with the 75-lb lanyards back when they were much smaller. We had some great "Disney Magic Moments (tm)" back when they did.

We're table service-loving, Dole Whip-devouring, Disney bus-riding, moderate-staying freaks, but don't let that get in the way of this fantastic trip report!

Oh, and congratulations! What an awesome time to get the news.

 

[disneyfam]

This is SO great! I wish Disney would have sold pregnancy tests on property when we were there in 2002 because I'd have pretty much done the same thing. We found out the day we got home but boy I wished I could have done what you did.

 

[UDFlyer12]

That's fantastic! Congrats!

 

[cindianne320]

Congratulations! I had to check out your TR when I saw the title and the dates- DH and I were on our 8 year anniversary trip, too, and were actually in the MK on June 14, too! (And we brought home our own little souvenir, who was born on 3/13 )

 

[disneyjes]

Congratulations!!! How incredibly exciting

 

[Tigger's ally]

So, with location in mind, if it is a girl, she will be named Ariel and if it is a boy he will be named Grotto?

 

[Dumbo In Wonderland]

Congratulations!!!!! wishes do come true!!!!

Thank you!

Correct!

The kids don't pin trade much before, but they did walk around with the 75-lb lanyards back when they were much smaller. We had some great "Disney Magic Moments (tm)" back when they did.

We're table service-loving, Dole Whip-devouring, Disney bus-riding, moderate-staying freaks, but don't let that get in the way of this fantastic trip report!

Oh, and congratulations! What an awesome time to get the news.

It's not that we're against any of those things. We like to do some table service on our trip, and I would love to stay at a moderate resort one day (Port Orleans French Quarter has always appealed to me). Anyway everything pretty much changed with this trip .

This is SO great! I wish Disney would have sold pregnancy tests on property when we were there in 2002 because I'd have pretty much done the same thing. We found out the day we got home but boy I wished I could have done what you did.

It's crazy that they don't sell pregnancy tests, just with the amount of people who stay on their property. That's kind of an important thing to have if you happen to need one, right?

That's fantastic! Congrats!

Thank you!

Congratulations! I had to check out your TR when I saw the title and the dates- DH and I were on our 8 year anniversary trip, too, and were actually in the MK on June 14, too! (And we brought home our own little souvenir, who was born on 3/13 )

Wow what a coincidence! You know what they say... it's a small world! Congrats on your little one... I don't want to blow the ending of the trip report but obviously we have a little one now too. Ours was already in the oven though by the time of our trip ha ha, and not a "souvenir"!

Congratulations!!! How incredibly exciting

Thanks!

So, with location in mind, if it is a girl, she will be named Ariel and if it is a boy he will be named Grotto?

People were convinced we would name our baby after a Disney character... you'll have to wait and see!

 

[Dumbo In Wonderland]

Day 2 - June 15, 2014
PART TWO - DOWNTOWN DISNEY & MAGIC KINGDOM

Okay so we were at the hotel for the afternoon, and we'd just found out we were going to be Disney parents! First there was disbelief. We needed to go to Walmart to get groceries, and get some more pregnancy tests to just “make sure,” even though the one she used is like 99.9% accurate. So we drove down to Walmart and loaded up on supplies. At least the Disney spirit exists at Walmart, sort of:

By now the realization was sinking in that Ashley won’t be going on any of the roller coasters! You’re not supposed to go on the roller coasters if you’re pregnant, right?? (I won’t give away the ending to this story, but we went on most of the roller coasters anyway. Not all of them, but Ashley knows which ones she felt comfortable going on, and there were a few rides we ended up skipping i.e. Mission Space).

Alright… so let me be the first to admit that I knew nothing about pregnancy and parenthood and all that stuff, but the thing that we both quickly found out was that the first trimester of pregnancy is a total bummer! Ashley never did have morning sickness, so we dodged that bullet, but she was already incredibly tired! The heat, the fact that we’d been traveling for a week already, the respiratory infection she was getting over, and now we find out she’s a couple weeks pregnant… How are we going to keep up our speed? What does the vacation now hold in store, now that we’ve just found out this amazing news? Maybe we’ll have to try and take things easier...

Nah...

Back to Art of Animation for supper. These nice looking clouds were looming, and yeah it pretty much started pouring at this point… at least it’s cooling things off, right?

I decided to try the ‘create your own pasta’ at the food court. I’d read good reviews about it: you pick what kind of meat you want, which type of sauce, and which vegetables you want added to it. I’m not really sure it was worth the value, to be honest… it was pretty expensive; but it counted as Quick Service so I wasn’t too upset or anything.

We went and sat down in the calm, Lion King area of the food court, and lo and behold the family from hell decided to sit right next to us. Don’t you hate it when that happens? You scope out a relaxing, calm place away from the chaos, and then the chaos seems to find you anyway...

Oh well. After supper, we realized that we really needed to go to Downtown Disney. There were a few things we still needed that we didn’t get at Walmart: 1) another suitcase, as it dawned on us quickly that since we didn’t have our car this trip, we weren’t going to have enough space in our luggage to bring back souvenirs, and 2) a fan, since it’s noisy in the room at night. We usually bring our own fan from home, but again, luggage restraints. It was still pouring outside, so we figured it was good time to just bear and grin it and go to DTD.

Parking wasn’t a big problem… we parked in the Casting Center parking lot, which was a bit farther than we’re used to, but we trudged through the rain and hit the World of Disney Store, as well as the pin hut. Ashley also bought a brand new customized phone case. Unfortunately we didn’t take any pictures while at DTD… too busy shopping.

As we were shopping, it stopped raining and cooled down considerably. We both felt rejuvenated enough, now that it was cooler, to try for Extra Magic Hours at Magic Kingdom. Off we go!

We made it back in time for the second showing of the Electrical Parade. We missed the fireworks and the first parade, which in all likelihood was probably cancelled, but there was hardly anybody on Main Street now, and it wasn’t too wet, so we figured we’d just sit down and watch it.

I love the Electrical Parade.

Two things that are great about the Electrical Parade: 1) Alice in Wonderland. We love the White Rabbit (who doesn’t?) and we always try to get his attention during the parade and sometimes he’ll come up and give us five. 2) Elliot, Pete’s Dragon. The coolest float in the parade, without question: the icon of the parade in my opinion. Wait a sec… there’s a kid sitting next to me asking his mom who that dragon is, and the mom doesn’t know...

Sad! Pete’s Dragon remake in the works?...

With Extra Magic Hours officially commencing, we decided to wander to that one part of Magic Kingdom we hadn’t been to yet: Tomorrowland. There was practically no line for Buzz Lightyear, so we walked onto it. We don’t normally go on this ride, unless there’s a short line, but they take your picture during the ride and since we had Memory Maker, so it was a free pic.

I should point out now that Ashley is incredibly good at Toy Story Midway Mania--she creams me every time. But for some reason, I’m always whooping her at Buzz Lightyear. I don’t know if she’s letting me win or what, but I beat her 270,000 to 7,000 or something like that. The picture says it all:

During a previous trip, this would be right around the time we’d be getting on the PeopleMover for a break. Honestly one of our favorite rides. You get to relax and just observe the magical place that is Tomorrowland. But it was closed for renovation, so instead we went on Carousel of Progress.

With midnight approaching we wandered back towards Fantasyland. There wasn’t a wait for Dumbo, so of course we did that next. I love Dumbo, but I’ll never ride that thing during the day when there’s a million hour wait.

I really like the circus area that they’ve built as part of the New Fantasyland. Of course, Dumbo is my favorite Disney movie, so maybe it’s just me. We always stop into the Big Top Souvenirs, one of my favorite shops at Disney World just because it smells soooo amazing in there! We got some kind of slushy to share… don’t really remember what it was exactly but I’m sure we drank it down pretty quickly.

Wandering back towards the older Fantasyland, we stopped first on Ariel. The line at this point at night is nonexistent. I don’t like this ride quite as much as I enjoy the dark rides at Disneyland, like Pinocchio’s Daring Journey or Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride… I think they could have done this ride more in that black-light style. But it’s grown on me.

Afterwards, we walked on Winnie the Pooh.

All the time I’m thinking about what it would be like to be a Disney Dad, and have a kid in Fantasyland. No more getting on the rides past midnight… we’d actually have to have FP+s for some of these if we want to ride them during the day, or wake up super early for Rope Drop (something that Ashley and I have never done, as we like to sleep in). It’ll happen!!

Still not ready to call it a night, since this was our only chance to really do Extra Magic on our trip, we kept on walking and got on the Haunted Mansion (no pictures), followed by Pirates of the Caribbean, which we had wanted to ride earlier in the day:

As the picture shows, nobody was on it hardly.

Finally we made our way back to the front of the park:

And had a slow, blurry ferry ride back to the T&TC.

Ferryboat selfie:

Followed by a tired tram ride back to our car:

We were back to our hotel and in bed by 3:00 am. Really late, busy day, but we managed to get a lot of Magic Kingdom done and were ready to kind of slow down for the rest of our trip. Ashley needed to. She was a mom to be!

To be continued...

 

[gjaninek]

Following. I too work in education, love pins, counter service meals, and will be experiencing a value resort for the first time for the next trip (normally do moderates). Looking forward to hearing more about your trip.

 

[LashesandDashes]

Congrats! I will be following along!