1st trip with 2 princesses and a prince ~ April 2014 ** COMPLETE **

Jennifer84

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jan 21, 2013
We are still here- tomorrow is our last park day, then we are going home on Thursday.

Here's the link to my PTR: http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3226276

I've never done a trip report, so it's not going to be great, but I wanted to document our first family trip to Disney World!

I will introduce my family, in case you haven't read the PTR.

My name is Jennifer. I'm a single mom to 3 amazing kiddos. I have been planning this trip in my head for years, so it's been a dream come true to actually get to finally go!

Then we have Joey, a 9 year old boy who loves Star Wars, thrill rides, and driving his sisters crazy. Keep in mind that before the trip he said he wasn't going to get autographs for take pictures with the characters because "that's for little kids".

Next is Lexi, a 6 year old girl who loves princesses (especially Cinderella), food, and apparently taking naps!

Finally, there's Kaitlyn. She's my littlest princess at 3 years old. She loves everything, and she made lots of new friends on this trip. This child actually cried for close to 20 minutes because we had to leave Baloo. LOL

I will confess now that I had every intention on including dining reviews in this trip report, but we didn't really go too crazy with food- just never really felt very hungry, and the kids usually had the same thing. I took a few pictures, but not many. I will write a review our TS restaurants, though :)

Chapter 1:Arriving at Pop Century

Chapter 2: Animal Kingdom

Chapter 3: We become pirates

Chapter 3: The kids become Padawans

Chapter 4: We got serenaded by Mickey!

Chapter 5: Ok kids, mom's turn!

Chapter 6: The day of the tantrum

Chapter 7: The worst last day EVER!

Chapter 8: Festival of Fantasy parade

Chapter 9: The worst last day EVER continued

Chapter 10: Goodbye Disney World
 
I had planned on leaving our home in Virginia around 4am on Friday to drive the 13ish hours to Orlando. I loaded up the car, woke the kids, and we were ready to go by 3:30! :drive:

The trip itself was pretty uneventful. We stopped in South of the Border, SC for a 30 minute break.







After we had stretched our legs, we got back in the van to finish our journey. I had booked a room online for one night at the Ramada Maingate hotel (about 3 miles from where we would be spending the rest of our trip- Pop Century). To make a long story short, I went down to Florida on a shoestring because of some last minute issues at home. So, when we got to Florida I had about $20 left until my deposit posted on Monday. I wasn't aware of a $35 fee the hotel charged, and they wouldn't waive the fee, or give me a refund for the room. So, I had to drive around from 9pm-2am. Finally I was so tired, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open, so I decided to head over to Pop Century to see if we could hang out there until Animal Kingdom opened. When we got to Pop, we decided to check out the grounds a little bit.









Then we headed into the lobby to get some rest.



Finally, around 5am, a gentleman came over and said they were able to check us in AND they had a room ready for us so we could go get some sleep! I have never wanted to hug someone so much in my life! About 15 minutes later we were in our room!





We slept for a couple hours, then we were up and headed to our first park- Animal Kingdom!!!
 


After a short nap, we were up and headed to our first park…



Originally we had planned on attending a meetup that one of my blogger friends was hosting. But since we were pretty tired, and I wasn’t sure how long we’d last, we decided to just do our own thing. Of course, since this was our first park day of our first visit, we had just one thing we had to do first. We saw Mickey and Minnie!



Then the kids each got a Wilderness Explorer book, and we went to see if we could complete it. The kids found a few Wilderness Explorer CMs. Then we noticed that Kali River Rapids was a 5 minute wait. Who cares if it’s only 9:30am- let’s do it! We got SOAKED! We needed to dry off, so we went on the Maharajah Jungle Trek. The kids got more stickers for their WE books.





After that it was time for a Safari! On our way, we ran into Baloo.



We got his autograph and pictures, then continued on our way to Kilimanjaro Safari. We had a FP for the Safari, so we used it (but I think stand-by was only 15-20 minutes). Here are a few pictures…









Note: my phone was dead since I had left the charger in the car the night before, and my camera battery died halfway through the Safari so I don’t have any more pictures from AK.

Since I have no photos to go by, I will try to remember the best I can. After the Safari, we went out to Rafiki’s planet watch. The kids got a few more stickers for their WE books, and we met Chip n Dale and Rafiki. Rafiki didn’t have a Photopass photographer, so we didn’t get pictures, but here is our PP picture with Chip n Dale.



We took the train back, and stopped for ice cream while my 3 year old slept in the stroller. Since she was sleeping we decided to go to the tree of life and get some magic shots taken for my 6 year old.







Since the little one was still asleep and the rest of us were really tired, we decided to call it a day. We had plans for the evening, and we wanted to get a nap in, so we could enjoy it without being exhausted!

Up next: We become pirates!
 
Just to prove how tired we all were, all 4 of us fell asleep on the bus! LOL The sweet lady beside me woke me up as we were pulling into Pop. We went to our room, I set my alarm for 6:00, and we all went to bed. We had a special event scheduled at 8:00 (or so I thought), and we needed time to get ready for it and get to it. I had kept it a secret from the kids, so they still didn’t know what we were doing. So when my alarm went off, and I slept through it, my son turned it (and my phone) off. He was trying to be nice and let me sleep, but when I woke up it was 7:45! I jumped out of bed, and started freaking out. I threw the kids’ pirate costumes to them and told them to put them on while I hopped in the shower to wake myself up. I got ready, then we left to go to the Contemporary.

I thought I had been told to be there by 8, so I was in a panic the whole way there. I just knew we were going to miss it. But when we got there (a little after 8:30), people were just getting there. Whew! Here’s what I was so excited about…





While we waited, the kids did a puzzle. Then, Patch and Patch opened up the doors, and we were in! There were so many snacks! We grabbed what we wanted, then sat down to eat while we waited for Captain Hook and Mr. Smee to come out.









When they came out, we got autographs and pictures. I took the kids to the bathroom, then we were told to take whatever food we wanted with us, so we each grabbed a couple things.



We were on Captain Hook’s boat, and I must say, we had the best pirate captain! Patch was very funny!



We sang songs, listened to jokes, played some trivia, saw the Electric Water Pageant, and scared some people sitting on the docks. Then, the boat cut off, and we saw Wishes.







When we got back to the dock, we got to meet someone else!



We somehow ended up at Epcot afterwards, and it was closed, so they had to call a bus to come get us. Leave it to me to get lost LOL
 


** Disney found some of our missing PP pictures, so here are the ones from previous posts **





Now on with our regularly scheduled trip report...

We arrived at HS about 30 minutes before it opened, and were about the 3rd or 4th family in our line to get in. We had one thing on our minds this morning- to get the kids signed up for Jedi training!! When they opened the park (one minute late according to my phone), we were ready to run. Nope! I got the blue light. I forgot which finger I had scanned the day before, and it wasn’t the one I was trying to scan now. It took a minute while the CM made sure I was good to go, then off we went! We got to the sign up area, and there was a long line already!!!! We ended up getting into the 12:40 show, and were told to be there at 12:20. Since we didn’t have any plans until breakfast at 10:30, we went and got our pictures taken.





Then we saw Goofy with a very short line, so we hopped in.





We went on Voyage of the Little Mermaid, and the Great Movie Ride before heading to Hollywood & Vine for breakfast. We met Sofia, Doc McStuffins, Jake, and Handy Manny.

Here's the food pictures I got:

My plate


My son's plate


My daughter's plate


And here are our character pictures









After breakfast, we went to see the Lights, Motors, Action stunt show. On our way, we saw the line was pretty short to meet Phineas and Ferb, so we jumped in. We were the last family to see them before they went on break.



Then we continued to the show. I thought my son would LOVE this show, but my daughter actually liked it more. Go figure. We had to leave the show a couple minutes early to get to Jedi training academy. The kids loved fighting Darth Vader!!









We stopped for Mickey ice cream bars, and to plan the rest of our day. We decided to see Indiana Jones since we were close by. That show was the highlight of my son’s trip. He says it’s his favorite attraction! I posted this picture on Facebook.


"Waiting to see Indy!"

Here are a couple more pictures from the show







My little one was getting antsy, so we went to see Disney Jr LIVE next. It was so fun watching her dance around. The older two even got into it (although they won’t admit it now).

After this, we had a very important Fastpass to use… it was time for Toy Story Mania! This turned out to be my 6 year old’s favorite attraction! Apparently Hollywood Studios was a winner for my kids! We had a lunch reservation coming up, so we started to make our way there. We stopped to chat with a couple green army men, and we ran into my daughter’s teacher and her family! It really is a small world. I knew they would be at Disney the same week, but I didn’t know their park days or anything, so it was so crazy running into them.





Funny thing- the man in the blue shirt in this picture kept trying to stick an autograph book in the green army man's face. The green army man shook his head no, and pointed to us. Thank you green army man!

We had time for one more thing before our early dinner ADR, so we went to see One Man’s Dream. I totally teared up.

Finally it was time for our early dinner at 50’s Prime Time Café. I had the fried chicken, and it was so good! The kids had mac n cheese (I told you we aren’t very adventurous!) They brought my daughter a cupcake and card for her birthday.



During the meal, both of my girls started whining. When we were finished eating, it was only 5:00 so I thought we could go back to the hotel for a nap, and come back for Fantasmic later. They had two showings this night, so I thought we could just catch the second one.

We went back to Pop, and the kids took a nap while I uploaded pictures onto my computer and cleaned up the room a little bit. I woke them at 8:30 so we could go back to HS, but all 3 of them asked to just stay at Pop and go swimming instead. So, that’s what we did!

I am bummed that we didn’t see Fantasmic, but this trip was for the kids, so I’m glad they had fun. Besides, I can always watch it on YouTube. (I know- not the same thing. Better than nothing, though!)
 
We had yet to meet a princess (besides Sofia), so we were really excited to go to MK! Today was EMH from 7-8am, so I woke the kids at 5am. I wanted to be on the first bus there. We got to the bus stop at 5:45, but then a CM came over and said buses weren’t running until 6:30. WHAT?! I wanted to be there by then. I decided to drive over instead. We got to the TTC, only to be told that nothing was running until 6:30. No buses, no monorail, NOTHING! GRRRR I wasn’t the only one who was trying to figure out why they weren’t running anything until half an hour before opening. We got to the Magic Kingdom at 6:40, and they started the opening show right at 6:45. And we were the first people there. There were literally MAYBE 50 people there to see the beginning of the opening show (although people started pouring in during it).





We hadn’t had anything to eat, yet, so we stopped by the Main St. Bakery and grabbed a couple things to share. I know I got the lemon bread, and I think the kids got a cinnamon roll. We also got some milk and juice. We sat on the sidewalk and ate while watching people coming in. A really sweet CM came up to us and started chatting with the kids. He seemed genuinely interested in how our trip was going so far, and where we were from, etc. Then he told us to follow him, and he led us up the street just a little ways. He said to sit there and enjoy our breakfast, because there was about to be a show. Sure enough, not even a minute later, the show started! Right in front of us! The performers loved the kids, too.









At this time, it was almost 7:30, and we were losing our EMH! So, we went right to Fantasyland. On the way I took some pictures of how empty the park was... the week before Easter!





We had FPs for Peter Pan and ETWB, but I wanted to see if we could catch them with shorter lines so that we could use our FPs for something else later. We got to Peter Pan, and it had a posted wait time of 10 minutes, so we went in the stand-by line. We walked right on the ride!! Next, we went to It’s a small world since it had a 5 minute wait.







I saw that there was no wait to meet the princesses, so we went in to meet them. We ended up being the 1st family in line for Cinderella and Aurora, then we got back in line for Snow White and Rapunzel. It took us about 15 minutes to meet all four princesses.

















Then, we hopped on the carousel before heading over to ETWB. It had a posted wait time of 40 minutes, but the CM said she didn’t think it would be that long, so I decided to just go stand-by. I was so glad I did!! Once again, we went right in with no wait! My kids each got a part- My little one was Fillipe, my son was Maurice, and my other daughter got to be the Beast!














To be continued...
 




I was so excited with our luck so far, that I decided to keep moving. We wanted to ride Under the Sea, but it was closed, so we went to meet Ariel instead.





Then we headed into Storybook Circus. We rode Dumbo, Barnstormer, and the kids played in the splash area.







Then we went into meet Minnie, Daisy, Donald and Goofy.







Our pictures with Goofy disappeared, somehow. :confused3

We were getting close to our lunch FP for Be Our Guest, so we started going back that way. I noticed Under the Sea was running, but had a posted wait of 30 minutes. We had a lunch FP in 20 minutes, so I got on my phone and went on the MDE app, and grabbed a FP for Under the Sea that started in 3 minutes! SCORE! We went over and immediately got in. Another walk-on!



We arrived at BOG with 7 minutes to spare. We went to check in and they let us go ahead in. I had the crouque monsieur, my son had the turkey sandwich, and the girls both had grilled cheese. I loved the food, but the kids didn’t like it.







After lunch we noticed the park looked PACKED, so we decided to do one more thing before going back to the hotel for a nap. PHILHARMAGIC!!
Here's a picture as we were leaving for our afternoon break

 
Following along. We just got back from our trip this past Saturday and I'm definitely experiencing the Disney Depression! Looks like you and the kids are having a blast!
 
Loving your trip report and your pictures of the kids with the princesses. I am so happy for you and your kids getting to have this experience. I am so thankful you were able to get into POP early and get some sleep. I would have been in tears and scared to death driving around town just me and 3 kids. You are a strong and brave mama! I can't wait to see more. Have a safe trip home!
 
Loving your trip report and your pictures of the kids with the princesses. I am so happy for you and your kids getting to have this experience. I am so thankful you were able to get into POP early and get some sleep. I would have been in tears and scared to death driving around town just me and 3 kids. You are a strong and brave mama! I can't wait to see more. Have a safe trip home!

Aww, thank you! We were very blessed to be able to go to Disney!! I am hoping for another trip in 2016 (fingers crossed!)

I was beyond grateful for the staff at Pop for giving us a room so early! Believe me, I was a train wreck until we got to Pop. I kept calling my mom, which was making her a train wreck. It was so bad. We did have a safe trip home. Next time, though, we are flying! It's not worth the money I saved by driving.

Thanks so much for sharing! beautiful family!

Thank you so much!!!

Following along. We just got back from our trip this past Saturday and I'm definitely experiencing the Disney Depression! Looks like you and the kids are having a blast!

Oh, I know! I keep looking at our pictures, and dreaming about possibly going again. LOL Disney definitely hooks you!
 
When I left off we had gone back to Pop Century for a nap/ pool time. We got up and went back to the park around 6:30. We went right to talking Mickey! He had a 5 minute wait!!! He sang Happy Birthday to all of the kids, which was so cute!



After getting our Mickey fix, we went to Tomorrowland. We went into Cosmic Rays to have some dinner, then we went on Buzz Lightyear and the Carousel of Progress before going to get a spot for Wishes.







After Wishes we went over to Frontierland to get a good spot for the parade. After the parade we went back to the hotel. Don’t know why, but I guess I didn’t take any pictures this night. :confused3

Up next... EPCOT!
 
We had a very important date with some princesses this morning! No, I don’t mean Anna and Elsa. While we all absolutely love FROZEN, there was no way I was going to stand in that line. Besides, why would I go see them when I had plans to see my favorite princess?! We were going to sleep in a little, then just go to EPCOT at 9:30 for our 10:00 ADR. However, we were all up and ready to go, so we got to EPCOT by 9:00. So, before heading to breakfast, we took a few obligatory pictures.

This scared me right off the bat. Up until now, we had pretty good luck with the crowds, but this was a scary sight to walk into







Ahhhhh, so many people!!! :crazy2:

As we made our way to Norway, we kept taking pictures (we had some time to kill after all)









We made it!



Belle is my FAVORITE!!!



Cinderella made my middle daughter feel so special! They both have the same taste in dresses!



Now, I need to point out that other than the entrance picture with Belle, the ONLY princess my son got up to be in the picture with was... SNOW WHITE!



We had the best interactions with Aurora every single time we saw her!



Ariel <3



The birthday girl got a card and a cupcake! She was so excited!



I love this...



To be continued...
 
I found out that I will be going from 25 hours a week to 40 hours a week at work, so I jumped online and priced a quick trip Oct 31- Nov 3 for myself and my older 2 kiddos. With the free dining promo, it will be do-able, so we are going back THIS YEAR!!!! I am not telling the kids this time. It is right before my son's 10th birthday, and we will be going to MNSSHP ON HALLOWEEN!!!!!! My son loves Halloween, so it's perfect!!!

Anyway, more trip updates coming soon :)
 
Ok, I need to finish up this TR because I am starting a PTR for our quickie Halloween trip! :cool1:

After breakfast we made our way back to future world. We had some FPs to use!





Up first- we needed to meet more characters!!!







Our next FP was really close-by, so we went ahead over. We had about 15 minutes to kill, so we grabbed a seat, and I moved around some FPs for the next day (which was really pointless because I will just end up changing them again LOL) I took a picture of this sign, but sadly we didn't ride it because my little DD was too small



Yay, time for our FP! I know I took pictures on the ride, but I can't find them anywhere! :confused3 I have this picture, though



After this, the plan was to go on Spaceship Earth, then head over to World Showcase. However, my little one (and the crowds) changed my mind. After deciding to skip Spaceship Earth because of this



(yes, that's 45 minutes). My 3 year old decided that if we weren't "going in the big ball" she was going to have meltdown. For 20 minutes. In front of all those people. I had mommy meltdown and said we were leaving. I was SO angry!!! The one thing I was looking forward to the MOST on this trip was World Showcase! However, I thought ("thought" being the key word here) that since EPCOT had evening EMHs tonight, we could get some rest, then come back and try again later.

Well, it took forever for my DD to get to sleep, so when she was still asleep when I wanted to go back, I just let her sleep. She didn't wake up until 7:00pm!! We headed back to EPCOT. Well, of course as soon as we walked in, she demanded that we "go in the big ball". Since the wait was 10 minutes this time, we went. I didn't need another tantrum. And.... go figure she hated it! My older kids LOVED it, and both have said it was one of their favorite rides. I wanted to do the Seas with Nemo and Turtle Tak with Crush before we went over to WS, so we did.







And because apparently I was a horrible photographer, these are the only pictures I got. Crush had a funny chat with my son and I, though. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me.

Again, I have some lost pictures. I know I took a bunch of nighttime pictures, but I can't find them. Ugh. Anyway, by the time we got to WS, everything was pretty much closed. We were able to see O Canada, and ride Maelstrom. We also did 3 kidcot stations, and had an American Dream (YUMMY!!!) Other than that, WS was shut down. No EMH there, apparently. I was beyond disappointed, but we walked all the way around anyway. At least I got to see WS at night. It was beautiful.

As soon as we got back to the room, we all collapsed into bed. We were exhausted!!

Up next... our last day at Disney.
 
Today was our last day at Disney, and we decided to spend it at the Magic Kingdom. The only thing we had on our agenda was a breakfast reservation. Other than that, the plan was to just go with the flow. So, when we walked into the Magic Kingdom and saw someone we hadn't seen, yet, with only 1 family in line, we ran to her! We were lucky, because she was getting ready to go on break and we were the last ones to get to see her.





Notice someone missing from this picture?? Do you recall her attitude yesterday at EPCOT? Remember that for later...

While we were standing there chatting about where to go next, we saw someone else we hadn't met yet! His line was a little longer, but we had to see him.





Then we made our way to our breakfast restaurant











We decided to go on the Jungle Cruise next! As we made our way over, we noticed the fairies had hardly any line. Since we hadn't met them yet, in we went.





Funny/Awkward story about Tink. My 3 year old apparently liked the way her outfit felt, because she started rubbing her hands up and down the front of Tink. I was mortified, the PP photographer was laughing hysterically, and poor Tink just said "happens all the time". :rotfl2:

We made it to the Jungle Cruise! Enjoy...

















This skipper was AWESOME!!!



Then we went across the walkway to





After paying a visit to Agrabah (Aladdin and Jasmine had a very long line, so we went to our next ride, Pirates of the Caribbean. My ride photos are very dark, so I won't post them.



Continued in next post....
 
We had a FP for the Festival of Fantasy parade, but when we got to the FP area, we saw that the area right across from it had lots of front row spots, so we sat there instead to save a FP for later. My son took all the parade pictures, and I think he did a great job. The rest of this post will be parade pics. Enjoy!!



















































Continued in next post...
 

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