“All Aboard the Seven Dwarfs Whine Train!” A May 2015/Mother's Day TR! ***TR COMPLETED 2/8!!!

[princessesandpascal]

Hi there! Good to see you!
Hello! Welcome!

“Share the Fun!” as the princessesandpascal crew proudly presents:

“All Aboard the Seven Dwarfs Whine Train!”: A May 2015 Trip Report!
Alternative Titles: "Punchline Does Not Mean Hit the Child!", “Is Time-out Air Conditioned?”, and/or “Mom Wants a Quickie with Mickey!”

Welcome, everyone, to the Trip Report of a Lifetime! I should really say, the Trip Report of the Trip of a Lifetime: we are back and in full on Post-Disney sadness after our first trip in three years! What better way to stop pining away for those Disney memories than to relive them, right?

Let’s put some faces to those strange title and subtitle quotes:

Player One: Me!

Howdy folks! I’m Shannon and I’ll be the voice behind this trip report! I am 21 years old and this was my sixth trip to the most magical place on earth. I am an aspiring writer and lover of puns, and am so excited to write my first TR! You may also know me as a seven-time Galactic Hero on Buzz, the secret girlfriend of Flynn Rider, and that girl who is probably making a terrified face in your Splash Mountain photo.

Favourite Rides: Haunted Mansion, Dinosaur, Splash Mountain
Favourite Show: Festival of Fantasy
Character I’m Most Like: Kristoff (I said Elsa/Rapunzel before, but I am definitely Kristoff. Ice is my life.)
Favourite Characters: Flynn Rider, Ariel, Rapunzel, Baymax, Elsa, Anna, Sven, Kristoff, Stitch
Favourite Disney Restaurant: Ohana
Favourite Disney Snack: Cream cheese pretzel from Lunching Pad

Player Two:

This is Karen, or as I know her, Mom! This was Mom’s 10th trip to the World (a few trips with her sister in the 80s and once with my dad before I was born!). She is the enabler of the trip and the most hard-working and warm-hearted woman I know. Her Disney pastimes include stalking Chip and Dale, making sarcastic comments, and talking in a pirate voice. All. the. time.

Favourite Rides: Buzz Lightyear, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Dinosaur (this was after I said “No, you can’t say ‘all of them’”
Favourite Show: Festival of Fantasy
Character She’s Most Like: Merida
Favourite Characters: Pluto, Chip and Dale
Favourite Disney Restaurant: The Garden Grill
Favourite Disney Snack: Dole whips!

My Dad is also in the picture, but he isn’t a Disney lover so he did not accompany us on our Mother’s Day soiree. It was a girls only trip!

If you want to know how the planning went into this trip, check out the very quick (two page) PTR: “I’ve Got a Dream: I Just Want to See the Floating Lanterns Gleam!”. PTRs are hard, guys. Luckily, this TR has tons of pictures, hopefully some video at some point, and lots of stories to make it stuffed with as much fun as a cream cheese pretzel. (Mmm... cream cheese pretzel.)

Our trip details: we stayed May 4-12 at a preferred room at Pop Century! While we weren’t on the DDP, we had seven wonderful TS meals and lots of snacks and CS goodies. We visited all four parks and Downtown Disney and had the most amazing Mother’s Day celebration trip ever! If you like characters, bows, Disneybounding, rides, food, parades, Festival of Fantasy, Flynn Rider, and fun (and who doesn’t), then hop on board!

Chapter Links:

Introductions (you're here!)

Day One (May 4, 2015): Arrival Day and Magic Kingdom
Chapter One: The Origins of the Seven Dwarfs Whine Train, or, The Boring Travel One!
Chapter Two: I'm Pretty Sure Today Is Not My Birthday, or, We Check In and Start the Magic!
Chapter Three: "The Adults Are More Excited Than the Kids!", or, We Meet a Talking Mouse!
Chapter Four: "Did you just hit yourself in the face with a napkin?", or, Dinner at Chef Mickey's!

Day Two (May 5, 2015): Epcot and Magic Kingdom
Chapter Five: "The Damp Hordes of Soarin'!", or, A Very Wet Epcot Morning!
Chapter Six: "If I Hear that Princess Processional Song Again I Will Scream", or, Brunch at Akershus!
Chapter Seven: "This Is The Best Day of My Life!", or, A Change of Parks and a Festival of Fantasy!
Chapter Eight: "I Tried to do a Backflip, Once.", or, Characters, A First Ride, and a Big Splash!

Day Three (May 6, 2015): Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney!
Chapter Nine: "What Could Go Wrong?" "FAMOUS LAST WORDS.", or, Up a Mountain and Back in Time!
Chapter Ten: "But Where Are The Otters?", or, We Explore the Tree of Life, Meet New Friends, and Go Back in Time Again!
Chapter Eleven: "Best Mac and Cheese of My Life!", or, Eating and Browsing at Downtown Disney!

Day Four (May 7, 2015): Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios!
Chapter Twelve: "Me and Flynn Rider Go Way Back!", or, Princesses, Galactic Heroes, and BACKTRACKING.
Chapter Thirteen: "Pluto Refused to Take a Picture With Me!", or, Brunch at Ohana!
Chapter 14: "And I Didn't Even Google It!", or, Lucky Guesses and So Much Frozen at DHS!
Chapter 15: “They’re IN Our CAR!”, or, Dinner at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre!
Chapter 16: “If There’s 8 Of Us, They’ll Know We’re Not Lying!”, or, Disaster Strikes at Toy Story Mania!

Day Five (May 8, 2015): Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom!
Chapter 17: “Baymax, that’s CHEATING!”, or, Toy Story Gets a Redemption Arc, I Meet a Certain Fist-Bumping Robot, and We Embark on the Search For the Best Mac and Cheese EVER.
Chapter 18: “They taste better when they’re free!” Pirates, Fireworks, and Something is Closed… a Night at MK!

Day Six (May 9, 2015): Epcot and Magic Kingdom!
Chapter 19: “THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TIME!” Racecars and Saving the World at Epcot!
Chapter 20: “This Water Costs WHAT?”, or, Lunch at Via Napoli!
Chapter 20 Continued: “She Bought TWELVE Pretzels?!”, or, Our Marathon Magic Kingdom EMH Night with Princesses, Disappointment, Rude Guests, Even More Princesses, and Unidentified Roaches!

Day Seven (May 10, 2015): Mother's Day: Magic Kingdom -> Epcot.
Chapter 21: Our Mother's Day Extravaganza!, or, We Have a Slow Start: Will We Make It To The Mine Train?
Chapter 22: Mom Wants a Quickie With Mickey!, or, Dinner at the Garden Grill!

Day Eight (May 11, 2015): Magic Kingdom
Chapter 23: “PRINCE ERIC’S A JERK!”, or, Our Last Morning at Magic Kingdom Becomes a Character Hunt with Brunch at Kona!
Chapter 24: “What’s In That Barrel?” “Guns.”, or, We Have A Run-In with The Majesty Makers, and We Learn Splash Mountain’s Biggest Secrets…
Chapter 25: “It’s Okay Folks, You Can Laugh… She Did”, or, Jungle Cruising, A Pirates Near-Miss, and the last moments of our last night!

Day Nine (May 12, 2015): Departure Day
Chapter 26: “You Can’t Come Back If You Don’t Leave!”, or, Our Last Pop Morning and Returning Home.

The Epilogue. Final Thoughts, Overall Disney Magic, and What’s Next?​

 

[nilla]

My Dad is also in the picture, but he isn’t a Disney lover so he did not accompany us on our Mother’s Day soiree. It was a girls only trip!
​

Is he the one with the long, black ears and floppy tongue?

I'm subscribing to this TR, btw Sounds fun!

 

[princessesandpascal]

Is he the one with the long, black ears and floppy tongue?

I'm subscribing to this TR, btw Sounds fun!

Absolutely! Can't you see the family resemblance?

Thanks for hopping on board! It was definitely a fun one!

 

[princessmegan20]

I've always wanted to do a mother/daughter trip! I can't wait to see how yours went!

 

[princessesandpascal]

Chapter One: The Origins of the Seven Dwarfs Whine Train, or, The Boring Travel One
Date: Monday, May 4th

Our vacation began, as most of our Disney vacations do, at 4:00 in the morning.

Disney is the only reason I will ever tolerate being awake at 4am. I was surprisingly awake for it being so early, and it didn't take long to get me out of bed. I had set my alarm to play “I’ve Got a Dream” to wake me up, since part of my main excitement about the trip was to finally have my beloved Tangled get its own themed area and float in FOF.

There would be no snoozing, iPhone. It was Disney Day!

We packed up the last few things we needed, got dressed and ready for the day, said goodbye to the dog, loaded our suitcase and carry-on for each of us into the SUV (spoiler alert: we both came home with an extra carry-on thanks to Disney shopping) and set out with Dad for the airport around five after stopping for some breakfast sandwiches at Tim Hortons. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8, and we live an hour away from Pearson in Toronto (where we were flying out of and into), so it was a bit of a long morning when we were that excited about finally being on our way to Disney!

Dad dropped us off at the airport at around 6 and then we found our way to the ticket counter and started the long process of getting to the gate. In Orlando I feel like I have absolutely no clue what’s going on while wandering aimlessly through the terminals, but flying into/out of Toronto it's pretty idiot-proof so I was happy to follow the lines on the floor as they brought us to each checkpoint. Security went pretty much as normal, other than us taking a bit longer as Mom’s hair was up in a ponytail, making her look hardly anything like her passport photo to the facial-recognition machine we used to check in. The machine that we were using did not like that (hmm, I wonder why) and made us go a roundabout way to security. Travelling is such a pain. Luckily it ended up alright and we were on our way!

After security, we got drinks and snacks somewhere, though I don't remember where despite this day having been literally last week. Luckily, we made it to our gate in one piece. It was also around now that I learned that our bags were so heavy because Mom brought not one, not two, not three, but FOUR toiletry bags. One for her makeup, one for her hair products (as you can see in the intro, Mom and Merida have their hair in common), and two for who-knows-what. I don’t get my high-maintenance personality from nowhere.

After waiting for a while, we were finally ready to board! Our seats were toward the front of the plane, so once we boarded it was just a few minutes until we were taking off. The flight to Orlando was just under three hours, but it felt like an eternity. Somehow the flight home felt like it took 20 minutes, but the way there went on forever.

Other than the woman in front of me who adjusted her seat’s recline every five minutes or so, the flight was really good. We flew Westjet for the first time in a few years and we noticed they don't have nearly as much legroom as Air Canada does, but that could've been a result of Ms. Fidgety in front of me. I watched Big Hero 6 (one of my favourites along with Tangled and The Little Mermaid) and started Into the Woods (Anna Kendrick is my favourite actress so that was a must) on my iPad, and finally we arrived in Orlando!

We made our way off of the plane, through the gate area, and onto the little airport faux-no-rail (that, of course, we have no photos of except for this selfie because we were taking video clips). Sidenote: while we were in Disney, the news story about the man dying after going through the window was released which made our trip on the shuttle on our departure day super fun and not terrifying at all!! #sarcasm

Thankfully, we made it to the DME area in one piece and were securely inside our tram until it was time to exit. Because we’re Canadian, we didn’t have our MagicBands yet, so we had to just show our paperwork at DME. The most boring way to get on the bus, but we were in the Pop Century/AoA/AKL line within seconds! (we were actually bus line #5, but the 4 snuck into the photo.)

You can see the Stitch backpack here that I got at Hot Topic and used for the trip. It got a lot of attention from CMs and characters and the ears eventually kind of folded themselves down into the body of the backpack from taking a week of wear and tear. Still good enough for next trip!

And of course, just as I was trying to get my backpack settled together, the line started to move. Which caused me to stand up and jerk the backpack strap in a way that made the strap fall out of the little buckle-thing and left me standing there with a one-strapped backpack, my sunglasses, camera, and iPhone and needing to move because of all the families behind us.

I’m like, the queen of getting it together, guys.

Luckily, I did get it together, and hurried outside only to feel a sense of horror as our bus line loaded themselves onto a yellow Mears bus. I’ve been a Disboarder long enough (I had another account during my unspeakable teenage years) to have read trip reports where those on the yellow buses were stuck watching nothing or worse, sports, on their way to Disney. I was disappointed that we were going to miss out on the quintessential DME magic, but when we boarded and saw a pre-loaded clip playing of an artist drawing Disney characters, I felt a bit better. And even better than that when the DME TV movie actually played on those tiny screens! (Only to then realize how terrible the DME TV clip is compared to the old one).

(What could've been... #stillbitter)

Just as we left the airport, the driver came on the speaker and announced that his name was Rick. Mom and I looked at each other, and then things got emotional. We lost my uncle/my mom’s brother named Rick back in 2013, and we had always said we wanted to go to Disney with him and his family. We got really emotional at this because we knew that he was on this trip with us, and we saw so many more signs of him around during the trip: U2 (his favourite band) played in the Pop food court and we saw a lot of guys throughout the trip that resembled him. It was a really uplifting way to start the trip off.

We enjoyed the ride to the World despite the annoying voice of Carissa telling us the things we'd known for months and finally passed through the arches (of which I have no pictures because we were in the back of the bus, but most of you have gone through those arches before, so you can picture how they look, right? Like Figment, imagination!) Mom also saw a sign for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and thought it said “Seven Dwarfs Wine Train”, which is a completely different ride that is a little more adult-catered. This turned itself into the "Seven Dwarfs Whine Train" during the trip which I referenced when I saw adults whining and complaining over the weirdest things on this trip. And that turned itself into the TR title, because we saw a lot of whiny adults. Fun!

Once we arrived on property, it felt like no time at all before we were pulling up to this:

Home sweet home!

Up Next: "I'm Pretty Sure Today is Not My Birthday", or, We Check In and Start the Magic!​

 

[nilla]

Because we’re Canadian...

Knew it! The giveaway? "Favourites" with a "u"

(It's blurry because EXCITEMENT.)

LOL!

Seriously, this is an awesome TR so far. Can't wait to read more! Your writing and attitude are fantastic.

 

[Sailormoon2]

Your writing style is fantastic. Very engaged, can't wait for more!! Your travel day is so similar to what I anticipate our August one to be...4am wake up with Tims on route to airport. Lol.

 

[princessesandpascal]

I've always wanted to do a mother/daughter trip! I can't wait to see how yours went!

Thanks for joining in! This is our fifth time just going with the two of us. It's nice since Dad isn't a big Disney fan so us girls can do our favourite things without having to worry that we're doing too much of the parks or whatnot. We're hoping to rope him into a Christmas trip in 2016/2017, which would be a much different touring style.

Knew it! The giveaway? "Favourites" with a "u"

LOL!

Seriously, this is an awesome TR so far. Can't wait to read more! Your writing and attitude are fantastic.

That's always a dead giveaway! The right way, to us!

Thanks so much!

Your writing style is fantastic. Very engaged, can't wait for more!! Your travel day is so similar to what I anticipate our August one to be...4am wake up with Tims on route to airport. Lol.

Thanks for joining in! Tims is a must-do that early. Stacey should work it into her show.

 

[princessesandpascal]

Chapter Two: I'm Pretty Sure Today is Not My Birthday, or, We Check In and Start the Magic!
Date: Monday, May 4th

Where we last left off, we had just arrived at Pop! We went to the online check-in desk and were shocked to find that our room was ready! It was still before noon, and we were even more thrilled to find it was our exact request: 60s, building 5, on the second floor. What we weren’t thrilled at was seeing her put a birthday button on the desk, and both of us kind of stared at each other before asking her what was up with that.

“It says here you’re celebrating Shannon’s birthday!”

There were two problems here: one, my birthday is in January, and two, I don’t like a lot of attention, whether it be my birthday or otherwise. With no idea how it ended up on the reservation, we politely explained that it wasn’t my birthday, and we’d like it removed from all dining reservations. The CM kept trying to get me to keep it there, but finally agreed to remove it. Disney is really pushing this “I’m Celebrating!” thing, apparently. (Later we figured out that Mom said we booked the trip on my birthday, so the phone agent added it to the reservation in a mistaken moment. Still weird.)

We were also unceremoniously given our MagicBands, and by that I mean they were vaguely tossed on the counter in front of us. We didn’t really care about the box (one more thing to try and shove in the suitcase at the trip’s end), but Mom said later she wished we’d been given them a bit more “magically”.

Maybe we would’ve if we’d kept my birthday around.

Checked in and ready, we started the quick trek out to Building 5. We paid for a preferred room, and it was so worth it. Our room was really close to the yo-yo stairs near us, and just as close to the Mowgli and Baloo ones. Walking to the room, we noticed just how many cheerleaders were still around. A quick google search of “summit cheerleading” brought me to their itinerary page where it mentioned that they had the option to extend their package until May 5th. We had a couple days left with the cheerleaders. Joy.

We were in room 5242 and once we arrived, we scanned our bands to open the door, unpacked our carry-ons and got the decorations in the window!

After getting settled, we needed to make a game plan for the afternoon. We knew we were going to the MK before our 7:45 ADR at Chef Mickey's. Our first FP+ for Sometimes-Talking Mickey was scheduled for 3:40-4:40, and by that point it was about 1 PM at the latest. We decided to get some lunch at Everything Pop and then go to the park despite it being the heat of the day. I pulled out my phone and switched our Haunted Mansion FP which was originally 6:05-7:05 to a slot around 2:30 so we’d have a ride to get to right away. This was a reason we loved FP+: it gave us a lot of flexibility. We couldn’t change our Mine Train FP for 5-6pm, but by changing Haunted Mansion, we were able to pick up more after 5. The system really worked out for us, with not a lot of backtracking.

After getting our FPs squared away, we got changed and finished freshening up before setting out for the afternoon. (I of course had to grab my custom Tangled ears from Etsy). This was the view from our room, the 70s buildings (we argued a little over whether it was 70s or 90s, since I thought the colours looked more 90s, but Mom won because she actually existed in the 70s. Age won on that one.)

We headed down to Everything Pop and each got an order of chicken nuggets and fries, with our refillable mugs: purple for me and green for Mom. The new refill thing was weird, since the screens stopped working about halfway through our stay and it stopped caring about how much we’d filled up.

Mom made me wait to eat so she could take a food picture, so I held up my nugget in a sign of protest. It’s CHICKEN NUGGETS. They look the same everywhere, but I’m a Disboarder too, so I guess I can understand.

She also went on a search for napkins and came back with a disposable cleaning cloth that the custodial CMs use. I laughed so hard could barely function. My mother, ladies and gentlemen. After devouring our nuggets and finding real napkins, we headed back to the room to drop our mugs off (still no bags) and headed out to the bus stop. No time for gift shop browsing! We have a park to go to!

My notes (that were still good because it was the first day) say that we were on a MK bus by 2:17. We piled onto a bus with a ton of apathetic teenage cheerleaders who were the absolute least pleasant people to share a bus with.
But we had to shake it off. We were in Disney!

(easier said than done.)

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom pretty quickly and made our way to the tapstiles and bag check. This was our first trip with MagicBands and we loved how easy it was to enter the park and not have to put the tickets back in whatever pouch they came from. We grabbed a map (no idea why, because we know where almost everything is) and a times guide and set off into the MK. We passed the Dapper Dans on our way up Main Street:

And there, after walking past the giant facade that blocked half of it from our view, was the castle!

And the Partners statue was all covered up. We’d been recklessly optimistic about it being available to see while we were there, but no dice. There’s always a reason to come back, even if Disney has to cover up that reason to make your decision! Other than that though, Main Street wasn’t too bad. There was a big eyesore (which we christened Dirt Mountain: the fourth of the Magic Kingdom mountains) coming over the bridge from Tomorrowland, and a ton of walls up, but we didn’t let it affect the magic. There were worse things to worry about. Like that stroller that just ran into my foot!

We stopped for a Photopass, and then headed to the Haunted Mansion for our FP, but before going there, we had to go to the washroom. How convenient! There’s an entire Tangled-themed washroom right next to the Haunted Mansion! Walking around the corner, I was so excited to see Rapunzel’s tower and all the lanterns. Tangled is my absolute favourite Disney movie, Rapunzel being my favourite princess (tied with Ariel and Elsa doesn’t count because she is a queen not a princess fight me on this I can't choose between those three), Flynn Rider being my all-time favourite Disney character-slash-secret boyfriend, and I am obsessed with this theming.

After stopping for a break, we took a bunch of photos:

Finally, we headed off to the Haunted Mansion for our 2:30-3:30 FP! We scanned our bands and headed right in, almost up to the front.

We settled ourselves into the Stretching Room when it was time, and I had to take a picture of my favourite portrait:

I almost bought a pin with her on it last trip, and I somehow made it home again this year without any girl-on-the-tightrope merchandise. In my defense, they don’t have much: all I saw was a gorgeous wall print in Memento Mori that was a) expensive and b) probably wouldn’t have fit well in my suitcase. This photo will have to suffice. Till next time, girl-on-the-tightrope. Every other time we rode we stood underneath you to avoid the shoving hordes of humans.

Of course, being on that side of the stretching room meant that when the doors opened, we were as far from them as humanly possible (for anyone who doesn’t know their Haunted Mansion info: the doors open right under girl-on-the-tightrope!). So we were involved in the human vortex that dragged us into the queue and eventually into our Doombuggy.

After a wonderful tour through the mansion and an unfortunate incident of head-swapping, we were stopped short mere feet from the unloading area. Mom was on the outside of the Doombuggy, so she poked her head out to try and see what was going on. What we gathered was that the teens in front of us (of which there were a lot) dropped something getting out of their doombuggy.

Of course, the other teens in the ride, who were now also stopped and stuck in their doombuggies, decided to scream what I assume is some new trend, which is a chant which I couldn’t pick any words from other than “sausage”, so it sounded to me like:

(indecipherable babble) “SAUSAGE!” (more very loud indecipherable babble) “SAUSAGE!”

That made the next three-or-so minutes so much fun.

Finally the ride went back into motion, letting us off next to one very ticked-off looking Cast Member standing with four bored-looking teenagers. We high-tailed it out of there as fast as we could and there was almost an audible sigh of relief. And then it was off to our next destination... but where would we choose to go with an hour until our next Fastpass and no itinerary in mind?

Up Next: "The Adults Are More Thrilled Than the Kids!", or, We Meet a Talking Mouse!
​

 

[tinkerjlee]

Joining in! I so love the Haunted Mansion! Sorry about the teens. Ugh....

Can't wait to hear more!

 

[KathyM2]

Hello fellow Canadian!! I knew it when you said you stopped at Tim's for breakfast...even before you said you were flying out of Pearson lol. Loving your TR so far!! Looking forward to hearing the rest!

 

[princessesandpascal]

Joining in! I so love the Haunted Mansion! Sorry about the teens. Ugh....

Can't wait to hear more!

Thanks for joining along! I think HM is my favourite ride of all the parks. It was pretty unfortunate, but luckily we got lots of rides on it without any chanting teenagers!

Hello fellow Canadian!! I knew it when you said you stopped at Tim's for breakfast...even before you said you were flying out of Pearson lol. Loving your TR so far!! Looking forward to hearing the rest!

Tims is always a giveaway! And Pearson helps too! Thank you, thanks for reading along!

 

[irene_dsc]

Joining in! Great writing! Plus, it is totally cracking me up that at 21, you get to complain about all the annoying teenagers, because obviously, you are soo much more mature than them. (I also have nieces who are high school competitive cheerleaders. I don't think they've gone to WDW, but they've gone to DL just about every year I can remember.)

 

[nilla]

I didn't realize a sausage chant is now a HM tradition. I will have to remember that next time I ride.

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[ursalita]

Joining in!

Sidenote: while we were in Disney, the news story about the man dying after going through the window was released which made our trip on the shuttle on our departure day super fun and not terrifying at all!! #sarcasm

I heard about this right after we got back.

You can see the Stitch backpack here that I got at Hot Topic and used for the trip.

I love your backpack. I'll have to stop at Hot Topic the next time I'm at the mall. My DS would love it!

We were also unceremoniously given our MagicBands, and by that I mean they were vaguely tossed on the counter in front of us. We didn’t really care about the box (one more thing to try and shove in the suitcase at the trip’s end), but Mom said later she wished we’d been given them a bit more “magically”.

What a bummer that you couldn't get the box in the mail.

and got the decorations in the window!

Fun idea!

This was the view from our room, the 70s buildings (we argued a little over whether it was 70s or 90s, since I thought the colours looked more 90s, but Mom won because she actually existed in the 70s. Age won on that one.)

"Leisure Suit" gives it away for me.

Looking forward to hearing more about your trip.

 

[tiggergal15]

Love this report!! Can't wait to read the rest of it!!!

 

[Nanaji]

Hi there, Great report so far. My sister was at the World over Mother's Day too! Where about do you live in Ontario? We are a little over an hour northwest of Pearson. My solo trip is in October. How lovely to spend the week with your Mom. I am looking forward to the rest of your report.

 

[princessesandpascal]

Joining in! Great writing! Plus, it is totally cracking me up that at 21, you get to complain about all the annoying teenagers, because obviously, you are soo much more mature than them. (I also have nieces who are high school competitive cheerleaders. I don't think they've gone to WDW, but they've gone to DL just aboutt every year I can remember.)

Thank you! Haha, well, a lot of people my age did plenty of things to complain about too! It was really too bad, because in 2009 we met a lot of very friendly cheerleaders while we were there over March Break. I think it's because their competition was over and they were tired/defeated if they didn't win. The morale was very low in the orange magicband/cheer bow department!

I didn't realize a sausage chant is now a HM tradition. I will have to remember that next time I ride.

Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks for the reminder that I need to check how my writing sounds before posting! If you start that again in the Mansion, be prepared to have people throwing objects at your Doombuggy!

Joining in!
I heard about this right after we got back.

I love your backpack. I'll have to stop at Hot Topic the next time I'm at the mall. My DS would love it!

What a bummer that you couldn't get the box in the mail.

Fun idea!

"Leisure Suit" gives it away for me.

Looking forward to hearing more about your trip.

It was pretty terrifying hearing about that and knowing we needed to be on the tram again in a few days!

Hot Topic has a surprisingly large amount of Disney merch! I got a couple of hair bows there before we left too, and we each got umbrellas (Little Mermaid for Mom, Tangled for me!).

Leisure Suit was what gave it away for Mom too! Thanks for joining in!

Love this report!! Can't wait to read the rest of it!!!

Thank you!

Hi there, Great report so far. My sister was at the World over Mother's Day too! Where about do you live in Ontario? We are a little over an hour northwest of Pearson. My solo trip is in October. How lovely to spend the week with your Mom. I am looking forward to the rest of your report.

Thank you! A lot of people we know were, I just got back from the dentist and her brother was down there as well. We are similar, a little ways north of Toronto. We don't really like to give exact specifics out online, of course!

 

[princessesandpascal]

"The Adults Are More Thrilled Than the Kids!", or, We Meet a Talking Mouse!
Date: May 4, 2015

After the Haunted Mansion, we decided to walk through Fantasyland to Storybook Circus, since according to Lines the wait for Donald and Goofy at Pete's was really short.

On our way there, we paused for a strawberry lemonade from Prince Eric’s Village Market.
The lemonade was good, but not as cold and refreshing as we’d hoped. We’d wished we’d stopped for LeFou’s Brew instead. Finally we arrived at the Storybook Circus, and as Lines predicted, there was hardly any wait for The Great Goofini and the Astounding Donaldo, so we hurried in:

Goofy was fun, as usual, and we had to get a selfie in. When Donald and I took our selfie, the Photopass photographer suggested we both make a duck face, and I agreed to sacrifice a little bit of my self-respect for a cute photo.

I really liked the meeting area at Pete’s: it reminded me of Toontown which I sorely missed in the last few years it’s been gone. The line never seemed too long, and even though we never made it through Minnie and Daisy’s side, we both thought it was really cute.

After we met the boys, we paused in the shade to check the time and found that our Mickey fastpass was just about to become active. The train station was right there, and we hadn’t taken it for a while, so we decided to go down and hop on the train in the Circus. We didn’t wait more than a few minutes before we were on our way to Main Street!

There’s no bad dancing on the train, much to my dismay.

Once we arrived at Main Street, Mom wanted a picture here, which turned out really cool with the silhouette:

It was time for our FP+ to meet a certain talking mouse! It was a bit of a wait, even with FP+: and there were a lot of very tired kids in line with us. When we got into the little holding room that looked like an office, there was a CM in there named Keith who was fantastic with the little kids, talking to them about all the foods Mickey likes because they have cheese in them which was the absolute cutest thing ever, with exchanges such as:

Keith: (to a little boy with a toy bus) Now, do you have a driver’s license to drive that bus?
Boy: (confused look)
Keith: Well, you need a driver’s license to drive that big ol’ bus!
Boy’s Sister: It’s a toy bus!
Keith: Well, then you need a toy driver’s license!

After going in there, we were just a few minutes before being escorted in to see Mickey. But would he talk?
(Spoiler: he did!)

We were both blown away by Talking Mickey. He turned and greeted me by saying, “Great! You’re here!” and Mom and I both had chills. The technology is pretty darn good, even when he asked where I was from he repeated, “Wow! All the way from Canada!” which I didn’t expect. Of course, I was trying to figure out how it worked the whole time, but had to end up chalking it up to good ol’ Disney magic.

I love the Minnie plushes in the gift shop all lined up because they remind me of the Disneyland Fun sing-along video I had when I was little, with all the Mickeys lined up perfectly until Donald came over and replaced them with plushes of himself. Classic.

After we met Mickey, we were close to our SDMT FP. We walked back up Main Street towards Fantasyland once again. You can get a good look at the facade that blocked a good portion of the castle from here. I mean I understand the need for construction, but... yikes.

We had about ten minutes left before our SDMT Fastpass, so we decided to wander up and explore the BatB section of New Fantasyland. This is where we had one of the worst incidents on our entire trip (by that, I mean it made all our other photopass interactions seem wonderful and perfect in comparison). Luckily, all things considered, it wasn’t trip-shatteringly awful. We’ll still go back to Disney and we might even still use Photopass. But this got both of us seriously in a deficit of magic.

So we walked toward the BOG area and the Beast’s Castle while waiting for our SDMT FP to become active. On the way, we saw two Photopass photographers, each speaking to a different pair of guests. There was no line, so we figured we could go over and get a picture, since we hadn’t seen one there earlier. The older PP photographer was taking the picture of a family, while the younger one was talking to two girls around my age, so we figured they were about to take a photo or had just taken one.

We did what we do for Photopass: we stood and waited politely near the PP photographers, making sure to make eye contact so they knew we were waiting. The younger one (whose name we know but will not divulge) kept talking to the girls to the point that we realized that they were not getting a photo, they were his friends.

Finally, the girls walk away and the young man finally addresses us. He put his hand up to stop us from approaching and said, “I’m not taking your picture, and he’s done, so he won’t take your photo either,” in the absolute rudest tone I’ve ever heard on WDW property.

Excuse me…. WHAT??

We both just stared at each other with these horrified looks on our faces. It felt like someone had punched us in the gut and we didn’t even know how to react. Finally, I think we just walked away. We didn’t want to waste our time waiting to see if the other photographer would have a different story. We totally understood that the photographer was going on break, and that you can’t take every family. That’s fine! If we’d been told that politely, we’d have been fine. It was his tone of disgust with the two of us combined with us having to deal with him ignoring us while he chatted up his friends. And as we left, I noted his name tag to take to guest services, and it was marked with his university.

Yep. A DCP cast member.

(This also started us having incredibly rude college program CMs on this trip, but frankly, that’s a whole other can of worms.)

I want to keep the attitude and morale positive for this TR just like we did on the trip, because throughout the trip we really focused on the magical parts, but I had to share this incident in full because a) it happened, so it goes in the report and b) it really set Photopass at a very low standard for the trip, and it’s something we often love and feel the need to be honest about. So in the moment, we just straightened our backs, we banished him to the Seven Dwarfs Whine Train For the Rude and Unmagical, and now that it was time for our Fastpass, headed off to the much more fun Seven Dwarfs Mine Train for our 5-6 PM Fastpass.

And spoiler alert?

We LOVED it!

For a kids coaster, this exceeded all of my expectations. It was smooth, quick, the mine-cart swaying motion really enhanced the ride for me, and the inside-the-mine sections were some of my favourites. The animatronics were really good and the effect of the dwarves’ shadows was delightful. I wouldn’t wait 90 minutes in standby for it, but it was really fun and we were happy we had two more fastpasses for it for the week.

Also, in a story I came very close to not telling online because it's so embarrassing, when we were coming out of the mine into the little dip into the bigger "drop", we were at the back and couldn't see the track, so when we did the little dip, I thought that was the "big" hill. And then we dipped down again and it caught me by surprise.

I feel the need to share the video because it's the funniest way to view this (we're in the very last cart, second pair of seats from the end. You'll know us when you see us.)

It's okay if you laugh. I am still laughing to this day. We got back to the resort that night and viewed our photos, and laughed so hard there were tears streaming down both of our faces and we were gasping for breath from laughter. This is probably one of the greatest ride photos/videos we'd ever had (until we got funnier ones at Dinosaur and Splash later in the week!) From the terrified little boy behind us to my sheer excitement and shock to Mom's hair shooting out to the sides like Bozo the clown, there's such a range of emotions here. So wonderful. There's an even worse Splash picture coming your way later this TR. I am still laughing about it

After our trip in the Mines, we headed to the Philharmagic FP+ kiosks to schedule ourselves another ride. We chose Buzz Lightyear, and despite a bit of a wait, the kiosks we found to be very user-friendly. Since we were already right there, we opted to get a show of Philharmagic in, as it’s one of our first-day traditions.

(Continued in next post... or HERE!)​

 

[princessesandpascal]

Chapter 3, Continued! (Not sure why I broke up the post! Thought we had more pictures! We don't have that many!)​

I noticed this year that Philharmagic seemed a bit blurrier and less sharp than before, but that could be because we somehow ended up in one of the front rows. Everyone was just shoving everyone to get into a row and then sat down and made people climb over them, which I know is standard for Disney shows, but it is so annoying. Luckily, the show was still magical as always!

We came out of Philharmagic and knew our Buzz FP was active, so we headed over to Tomorrowland to go fight evil Emperor Zurg!

Our scores were pretty good, nothing to write home about. For the first game of the trip, at least. I was around the 700,000 mark and Mom was around 200,000. I got really good in 2012 and often get Galactic Hero, so I felt pretty good about 700k after not having played for a few years. Luckily, I’d be back on top a little later in the trip!

We paused to watch the #IncrediblesSuperDancePartyHashtagHashtagExtravaganza for a few minutes (because Mrs. Incredible can really boogie in those heels), and then went to the Stitch FP+ Kiosks to schedule FP+ #5 for the day. We went with Ariel’s ride, simply because we knew exactly where it was and the time was slowly approaching to leave the park for our Chef Mickey’s ADR so we didn’t want to go wandering all over the park. We went by way of the hub back to FL.

Apparently, we also saw some ducks. And Mom tried out the zoom on her camera.

We backtracked over to Ariel and entered the ride. We weren’t wowed. Even me, who loves the Little Mermaid, was not that impressed. Mom later called it a knock-off Nemo Ride and I referred to it as what would happen if Ariel got lost in the Heffalumps and Woozles section of the Pooh ride. It was just… weird?? We could see the lighting and behind the scenes stuff more than any other ride in Disney, the part with Ariel having her human legs was bizarre (because most legs do not bend that way), the fact that she had “real” (by real I mean “cheap wig”) hair half the time and plastic hair the other half, and it just didn’t live up to the expectations I set for it by watching the video on YouTube.

Of course, neither of us wanted to say how much we disliked it because the other was saying they liked it (for the same reason, we found out later). So we both pretended to like the ride for the other’s sake for the next three hours.

After the Journey Into You-Know-Where with The Little Mermaid, we decided to take a quick rest because our feet were not conditioned to so much park wandering. We’d only stuck in two-and-a-bit lands (we were in Liberty Square for all of 10 minutes) and we were getting a bit tired. We went to Gaston’s for some LeFou’s Brew.

We really loved it! It was sweet and flavourful, and Mom really liked the flavour of the foam on top. We sat at a cute little table and chatted about the day while I made some notes in the trip journal. We mentioned rude-photopass-photographer very briefly, but focused on the positives. That’s how we knew we’d get through the trip with smiles if we met more CPs and CMs like him.

After a really nice and relaxing break, we had to head out to our Chef Mickey’s ADR which was at 7:45! It was just after 7 so we made our way out of the park. The CM at the gate also gave me a Baymax fist-bump which of course I loved because I am obsessed with Baymax. Ba-la-la-la-la! Cast Member redemption!

We hopped the monorail and quickly made it here!

Up Next: “Did you just hit yourself in the face with a napkin?”, or, A Review of Dinner at Chef Mickey’s!​