5 sickos, 4 planes, 3 kids, 2 resorts and 1 crazy vacation!

[BabyHabs]

Welcome to my trip report!! We are recently back from our 2 week vacation (March 2-16) to Disney and have decompressed enough to want to start my trip review. This was our 3rd time to the World and our first staying on site, using Disney transportation, getting the dining plan and completely submersing ourselves in everything Disney. Our last trip was last March and we had a blast but felt 1 week wasn't long enough!
I'm currently uploading my 5000 pictures to photobucket for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, this report will not be food porn heavy as we are hungry people and dove into our food before thinking to snap a pic. Those food pics we did take, well, the food was already half gone.

The WHO:

Let's get right into the stars of my show.

I'm 35 and my DH, Grouchy, just turned 38. We are both IT professionals. I love everything Disney and Grouchy tolerates my love for Disney. I think I may have started converting him though. Towards the end of our vacation, he started spewing out some pretty Disney things. He even broke down and bought a Disney T-Shirt (3 of them, but who's counting). My favourite character is Belle and favourite ride is Splash Mountain.

Next up is Jay-bob. He's 9 and almost as big as me. He is the sensitive and serious one of the bunch. He loves roller coasters, but not fond over the darker rides. He loves everything Star Wars. It seemed the magic was a little lost on Jay-Bob this trip. He wasn't into characters like he was before. His favourite ride is Tower of Terror.

Next is Ry-Ry. He is 7 and the complete opposite of his older brother. He is a mini-me with attitude for days.He is our challenge. Non-stop energy and completely lacking any self control. He really enjoyed the characters this visit and is a dare devil. He will go on anything he is tall enough for. His favourite ride is also Tower of Terror.

And last, but certainly not to be forgotten is our little spitfire, Lulu. She is 2.75. She really warmed up to the characters this trip. Last year, she was very shy with them, but enjoyed them from a safe distance. She LOVES Mickey Mouse and his gang, everything Frozen and Baymax is her absolute favourite. Her favourite ride is the Carousel.​

 

[ALEXandFAB]

Am I first?! I'm in

 

[BabyHabs]

Details about our trip:

So I tried to do a pre-trip report, but failed miserably because life got busy. This last year has been a very trying time for my family. My parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce- after 42 years marriage. And it has been an awful, awful time for us. We are also in the middle of massive house renovations. They have been ongoing for almost a year. I was very much looking forward to this trip to be able to put all of that aside for a while and have some fun with my family.

Every other time we've gone to Disney, we've stayed off site, done other parks and stayed in a timeshare. This year was gonna be different. I wanted the entire Disney experience and I wanted to do it for 2 weeks. 1 week vacations have never seemed long enough to me. My husband finally gave me the go ahead to plan the Disney vacation I've always wanted!

We (I say we to be polite, but it was entirely me) started planning in July. I knew I wanted to stay Deluxe and wanted the dining plan. I also wanted to be on the monorail for easy transportation. I discovered the ability to rent DVC points and eventually decided that due to costs, staying 2 weeks on the monorail was just too $$$. So I decided on 1 week at Bay Lake in a 1 bedroom with lake view and 1 week at Beach Club in a 1 bedroom. I loved the idea of the pool at Beach Club. Our kids LOVE swimming and don't get to do it enough!

So our plans were booked - 1 week at BLT and 1 week at BCV. I also booked the Disney Dining Plan and bought the memory maker in advance!

Up next - Travel Day!​

 

[Kiren]

Yay more Canadians! Can't wait to read your report! And I'm second! Woohoo!

 

[BabyHabs]

TRAVEL DAY

Travelling from our small city on the east coast to Disney is no quick task. Our flights left on day 1 at 11:45 from our hometown and we flew to Toronto, would have a 3 hour layover in Toronto and then fly to Orlando and arrive there at 8pm. It was going to be a long day travelling with 3 kiddos.

Of course, the day before we left, I picked Lulu up from daycare with a running nose and nasty cough. Just what we needed! The boys were also battling colds.

We woke up early to get ready and finish packing. I enjoyed the late flight instead of an early morning flight for sure! We were able to relax and take our time getting ready. Due to our ongoing renovations, I asked the workers not to come by until later in the day so we weren't tripping over them while trying to get out the door. They were going to continue working while we were gone. I somehow had this vision of them getting all the work done while we were in Disney and coming home to an immaculate house. Of course, when we came back, the house was completely written off with 2 inches of dust everywhere. But anyway..

FIL picked us up and home and drove us to the airport about 10 minutes away. We were off!! Almost. Our flight got delayed by an hour, but that is pretty typical for winter travelling around here. At least we had a long layover in Toronto so we wouldn't have to rush. Right? Wrong. So wrong.

We got to Toronto with plenty of time to spare. Before heading through customs/security, we stopped for some lunch at Swiss Chalet at Pearson airport. We THOUGHT we had lots of time! After filling our bellies, we started heading towards customs. They have this new ridiculous system at Pearson where if are you connecting to the US, you have to wait for your name to be posted on the screen before going through security, which means your bags have been cleared. We arrived at this area with 90 minutes to spare before our flight took off. We waited for our name. And waited.. And waited. We were told by airport personnel that we couldn't continue until our names showed up. With 45 minutes to go until our flight, we started throwing a fit because there was a gigantic line we needed to get through and then security and our names STILL hadn't shown up. They directed us to the Air Canada customer service desk, where we waited in another line. Finally getting to the front of the line, we found out there was some error in the system, our bags were cleared. We only had 15 minutes left until our flight took off at this point and I was in full meltdown mood. They rushed us to the front of the checkpoints and security (thank goodness!) and we arrived at our gate just in time. Wow. Easily the most stressful travel situation I've ever been through. And have I mentioned we went through all this with 3 very cranky, tired kiddos?

Ugh.

We finally got in the air and on our way to Disney! What a start to our vacation! As soon as we got on board, this happened..

We had a nice quiet flight and landed at MCO on time.

We picked up our luggage and headed to the 1st floor to check in to the Magical Express!

We were only waiting a few minutes before our bus left and we were headed to Bay Lake Towers!

We watched some TV on the way.. kids were still in good spirits, but we were all pretty exhausted by the day of travelling and stress..

Our resort was the last stop. We got off at Contemporary, checked in and headed over to Bay Lake for our Magicbands. I don't remember the room number, but it was on the 6th floor in the middle facing the lake and pool. I took zero pictures of the resort when we arrived because of exhaustion. It was nearly midnight by the time we finally got into our rooms. I called down to Bell Services and had our Garden Grocer order brought up. We quickly put everything away and climbed in bed. We had an early morning coming up!

Up Next - A Magically Morning!!​

 

[BabyHabs]

First Day - Magic Kingdom - Early Day!

We don't like going commando in the parks. And because we had 2 weeks, we had plenty of time to do everything we wanted to do. And we wanted it to be a relaxing vacation. Because of this, we only planned for half days in the parks. We'd either do rope drop and stay until early afternoon then relax at the resort for the rest of the day, or we'd do mornings at the resort and not head to the park until afternoon.

So our first day was an Early Day at Magic Kingdom. We had 8:25am reservations for Cinderella's Royal Table!

We all got up early. My kids are early risers naturally and with the time difference between home and Disney (we are 1 hour ahead), we had no problems getting out the door for rope drops!

I read somewhere that the Monorail doesn't start going until 8:30am, so we'd planned on walking from Bay Lake to Magic Kingdom on this day because of our early reservations. As we left the hotel, I was finally able to take some pictures!

My cutie all ready to meet some princesses! She was very shy of characters when we went to Disney last year, so I was interested to see if she would be better now.

The walk to Magic Kingdom was VERY quick! About 10 minutes. The weather was beautiful and we were super excited.

We got through the gates quickly and walked down a very empty main street! So cool!

Due to the quick walk to Magic Kingdom, we still had some time before we needed to check in for breakfast. We decided to give the sword a try.

Jay-bob was up first.. No luck for him..

Little Ry-ry was up next.. he got it out!

Grouchy, Lulu and I all gave it a try, but no-go.

Of course, Ry tried again after we'd all tried and he got it out again! Little bugger!

Up Next- Breakfast at CRT!!​

 

[BabyHabs]

Day 2 Continues..

Something I failed to mention in my previous post, but when we got up on this day, Lulu's cold had gotten quite a bit worse. Luckily, we'd packed some children's Advil and a thermometer. Her fever was running around 101 and she still had a nasty cough and her nose was running non-stop. Not a great way to start our day! We gave her some Advil and she was in good spirits. We knew it was probably going to be an early day though since we were all short on sleep and all the kids were nursing colds.

Anywho, picking up where I left off.. Breakfast at CRT! I was soooo looking forward to this ADR. We are big breakfast people. I know the recommendation is not to do a lot of breakfasts while on the dining plan because you don't get the value out of it, but we do a lot of breakfasts.

We checked in with no problems and were soon meeting Cinderella.

Tired and sick kiddos weren't really having it. It was the first meet and greet, Lulu had no idea what was coming. IE. Horrible pictures and very little interaction. This would be a theme throughout breakfast.

I took some pictures on our way up to the restaurant..

We were seated very quickly and given menus. The boys got the plastic swords and Lulu the magic wand. They brought out the pastries..

These were all really good. Good thing they give you these pastries because we found the food portions pretty small.

There is only one choice for the kids, which I believe was bacon, sausage, mickey waffle and eggs. We got the traditional breakfast and since Lulu was too young for the dining plan, they brought her a complimentary mickey waffle.

I found the eggs too runny, but the rest was pretty standard. Probably one of my least favourite meals the entire trip. The princesses were quick coming around and had some good interactions, but my kids weren't yet in the character meeting mood. We were out of here in less than an hour. I think it was some type of record for a character meal.

Overall, I was really disappointed. I think half of it was my fault for booking this early in the morning after our late travel day. Looking back, I wish I'd booked it later in the trip.

After breakfast, we were ready for some rides!

Being that the Carousel is Lulu's favourite, we headed there first. The park was still pretty uncrowded. My plan for the day was to hit as much as Fantasyland as we could and boy did we get a lot accomplished on our first morning.

After the Carousel, which of course was a walk on, we hit It's a Small World, Winnie the Pooh, Mad Tea Party x2, Journey of the Little Mermaid and Dumbo. All with little or no wait. The kids were finally coming around and having a good time. Lulu was LOVING the rides! We also stopped off at the little splash area to cool off. It was already getting pretty hot for us Canadians.

Next it was time for our first fastpass of the trip - Seven Dwarf Minetrain. This was one of our favourite rides from last year. Since Lulu was still too little for this ride, we grabbed a rider swap. Grouchy took the boys on first while I went and changed Lulu's diaper and then I went on with the boys while Grouchy took Lulu on the Carousel again. We are HUGE fans of the rider swap. The boys got to ride all the rides 2x and Grouchy and I both got a turn. It was also a great time to let Lulu unwind a little and sometimes have a nap. She'll be 3 in June and is at the ending stages of napping. Some days she'll nap and others, she doesn't need it. We found during this trip, that she napped in the stroller about 45-60 minutes every day.

Loving 7DMT!

I enjoy this ride so much because it's a very smooth ride. It's great for rides and adults.

I LOVE the ride pictures! This is my favourite all time ride photo.. We are having such a great time! Pure happiness in this picture..

After 7DMT, we hit our second FP which was Peter Pan's Flight. I love this ride! So cute!

It was now lunch time we had a 1pm ADR for Be Our Guest! This was my favourite meal last year and I was really looking forward to it again. We tried to check in 10 minutes early, but they weren't having it. They said we couldn't check in until 5 minutes early. This was the only restaurant the entire trip where we had this problem. Maybe because it's so busy?

We sat around until our ADR time and then checked in. I had pre-ordered our meal, which was a great idea, because we got to bypass all the lines and get right to finding our table.

I didn't get any pictures this meal because as soon as we sat down, Lulu fell right to sleep. On me. So I ate with one hand. We all got the braised pork. Grouchy and I got it with potatoes and the kids with fries. The pork was really, really good and the fries here are EXCELLENT. But the potatoes I found undercooked and lumpy. For desserts, we had the grey stuff (DELICIOUS!), the kids got the chocolate cupcakes and Grouchy got some lemon thing. They were all very good. The food (except potatoes) was very good and the atmosphere excellent. We did have a hard time finding a table for 5 and walked around for about 10 minutes. Our food was very quick coming to the table once we sat down. Overall, it was a good experience.

We left and Lulu was still down for the count. We had one last FP for Barnstormer, but it was getting really hot, Lulu was exhausted and the boys were also getting cranky so we decided to head back to the resort and call it a day. The monorail was down, so we walked back to BLT.

Up Next- the rest of Day 2 and another sick kid!
​

 

[BabyHabs]

The rest of Day 2..

Once we got back to the resort, we relaxed for a little bit. I finally got some unpacking done and took some pictures of our view. We had a nice view of the pool at BLT, but I had gotten an email a few weeks prior that the pool would be under renovations, but we were able to use the pool at Contemporary. So, we had a nice view of the pool, under construction.

So after we relaxed for a bit, we decided to visit the pool for our first swim.

All ready for swimming!

​

Views of the pool..

I took no pictures of the room because it was written off about 5 minutes after we got into it, but here are someone else's pictures of a room that looked just like ours!

The room was very comfortable and I loved that it had sleeping areas for all 5 of us. The boys shared the pull out couch, which was VERY comfortable for a pullout. Lulu had the pullout chair, which again was very comfortable and a good size. I loved that we had 2 bathrooms. We also got lots of towels. I think there was 10 of them, which is great, because I hate reusing wet towels.


We really enjoyed the pool. The boys also liked the slide. I liked that there were lots of life jackets easily accessible and the pool wasn't too deep in most of the areas. Very kid friendly. They also had an area were there were games going on and a dance party.

We hung out here for a while and then decided to head back to the room and get cleaned up for supper. On the way back, we had Lulu all bundled up in towel with her arms tucked into the towel. She was skipping along and tripped on the pavement. She scraped up her knees, lip and forehead pretty good . It was awful. There was a lot of blood. We rushed her up to the room and got her cleaned up and bandaged up. Good thing I packed bandaids! After she was cleaned up, she settled down and we found her wounds weren't too bad. Add this to her fever, cold, lack of sleep the night before.. she wasn't in a great mood.

We showered and cleaned up and decided to head down to the Contempo Cafe for some quick supper and pick up our refillable mugs.

On our way down, Jay-Bob started complaining about an ear ache. He has a lot of problems with his ears on airplanes, so we thought maybe that, combined with swimming, was the problem. We got our supper - burgers all around - ate and headed back up to the room. It was going to be an early night!

Here is the view from the skywalk between BLT and Contemporary. Beautiful at nighttime!

As the night went on, Jay's ear got worse. We gave him some Advil for the pain, but he was up several times through the night crying.

This vacation had to get better, right??!

Up next - Day 3 - Back to Magic Kingdom for a late day and a great surprise for the kids!! Would Jay's ear get better??!?
​

 

[Victoriasmom98]

Awe, between Lulu and Jay you guys are having really tough luck on staying well. I'm hoping it gets better!!

 

[BabyHabs]

Day 3

So morning of Day 3 comes and Jay-Bob's ear is still bothering him. We have 9am ADR at Chef Mickey's and then the plan for the day was to head to MK after lunch, do some rides and then come back to the resort for a surprise for the kids at supper time. Since Jay's ear was still in a lot of pain and he'd started throwing up, I called and got our Chef Mickey ADR changed from 9am to 1pm, hoping that he would feel better.

Grouchy headed down to the Market Place in Contemporary to see if he could find some q-tips to clean out Jay's ear or some gravol to help him feel better. We'd decided that if he didn't feel better soon, we would have to take him to urgent care. I was beginning to think it was an ear infection since he also had a cold and he is prone to ear infections. Grouchy found some q-tips and some drops for swimmer's ear. We gave him those and he had a nap while I took the other kids to look around the resort and do some shopping at the souvenir stores. Contemporary has a couple of really cute stores. We picked up some autograph books which I'd completely forgotten to get the day before. We also took a trip on the monorail, which took us to TTC, Poly, GF and MK and then back to our hotel.

When we got back, we found that Jay was starting to feel a little better and he thought he'd be able to make it to lunch.

We headed down for our 1pm ADR at Chef Mickey's. We'd also done this the year before, but wasn't overly wow'd by it. This is one of the place we do for characters only.. I mean, doesn't everyone??

They had some problems finding our reservation, probably because I'd just switched it this morning, but once I pulled up the confirmation email and showed them, we were seated with no problem.

We filled our plates and soon the characters started coming around. Jay-Bob wasn't eating anything because he still wasn't feeling great. We were starting to get pretty worried about him..

Lulu was starting to really like the characters and LOVED getting them to sign her autograph book.

Overall, the lunch was pretty good. I enjoyed the food much better than the year before. Even at 1pm, they still had a lot of breakfast foods out. The characters were all really good and our waiter was excellent. We gave this meal a thumbs up! (For real)

After lunch, Jay-bob was still feeling pretty crappy, but thought he was well enough to go to the parks. Before heading out, we went back to the room, gave him some more drops and Advil, took Lulu's temp, which was still running high, so we gave her meds too. All kids medicated we headed out!

The monorail was actually working, so we took it.

Some pics of inside of CR and the monorail area..

We never waited very long for the monorail. 5 minutes was probably our longest wait. The only problem with the monorail is half the time, it wasn't working.

We hopped on the monorail and soon we were back in Magic Kingdom.

Since we'd done Fantasyland the day before, the plan this day was to do some rides on the other side of the park.

Up first, we hit the Haunted Mansion. We didn't have a FP for this, but the wait was only about 20 minutes.

After HM, we went to our first FP, Pirates of the Caribbean..

After POTC, we hit our other FPs, Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain. We had never been on Splash Mountain before. We were in line for it last year, but it broke down and we never made it back. I absolutely LOVED this ride. It's not just your traditional log ride, but has some smaller drops and a whole theme. It was my new favourite ride.

While the boys went on Thunder Mountain with Grouchy, Lulu and I took a little walk around. There is a gorgeous place down by the water close the exit of Thunder Mountain. Really nice quiet spot. Turns out it's for smokers . Hung out there for a few minutes while there wasn't many smokers around.


Lulu and I took some memory maker pics while we waited for the boys..

After we were done with our FPs, we decided to head back to the resort and get ready for our night time surprise for the kiddos! What could it be?!?

Up Next - ARRRR You ready for a surprise?!


​

 

[BabyHabs]

Day 3 Night time surprise!

After chilling out for a bit, Jay-bob was starting to come around and act like his old self. His ear was still bothering him, but not as bad and no more throwing up. He still wasn't eating, however.

The kid knew we had something planned for the night, but didn't know what it was. We walked over to the Contemporary and went up to the second floor and found this!

We were doing the Pirates and Pals fireworks cruise! I was so excited.

For those that don't know anything about this cruise, basically, they put you in a room with a whole bunch of junk food and you can eat and store away whatever you want. Captain Hook and Smee are there for a meet and greet. Once this is done, we all go out on a cruise around bay lake and park and watch the fireworks. When we come back to shore, Peter Pan is there for a meet and greet.

We got checked in and the host went over the schedule for the evening with us. We each got a cool bandanna.

We waited for a few minutes and then the doors to the junk food room opened. We hadn't eaten since lunch, so we all stuffed our faces pretty good. There was everything you could imagine. Ice cream, popcicles, chips, cookies, chocolate, popcorn, cotton candy, cake, drinks. It was pretty awesome. We loaded up on food while everyone else got in line to meet Captain Hook and Mr. Smee.

Even Jay-Bob had some food! After the kids were done and cleaned up (what a mess!) we got in line to meet the characters.

It was a really fun time!

After all the kids had met the characters, we met our ship captains for the night. They divided us into two groups and we were off to our "pirate ship".



We took off for our cruise. Our ship captain was VERY entertaining. We all introduced ourselves and where we were from. We sang pirate songs and the captain told some funny stories. It was very interactive and the kids had a great time. Jay-Bob, still not feeling 100% was quiet, but coming around. Ry thoroughly enjoyed himself. When it came time for the fireworks, we dropped anchor and watched them.

The view was actually very good! Much better then I'd expected. After the fireworks, we headed back to shore and the kids got to meet Peter Pan. It was getting pretty late by this time, so I took Lulu up to the room to put her to bed while Grouchy waited with the boys to meeting Peter Pan.

I was told the meet and greet was very good and Peter Pan was excellent! The kids also got a little gift when we returned to land. Jay-bob got a sword, Ry got a hook and Lulu got a pirate rubber ducky. Which she hated and threw on the ground. My girl wanted a sword.

Overall, we had a fantastic time! I would highly recommend doing this cruise. The captain was very entertaining, the junk food was good and the fireworks view was very nice. Well worth the money. There wasn't a boring moment of the night!

Up next - Day 4? Already? Off to Hollywood Studios!

​

 

[BabyHabs]

Awe, between Lulu and Jay you guys are having really tough luck on staying well. I'm hoping it gets better!!

Thanks! It was so stressful being so far from home with sick kiddos! And no health insurance to boot. This will be the last trip I take to the States with no health insurance!

 

[Kiren]

I'm loving your trip report! I'm sorry to hear about your littles ones! It sounds like they are on the mend though!

 

[vicwishes]

Thank you for your entertaining trip report. You sound like a "cup half full" kind of person! Best to go with the flow. What a lovely family and hope everyone is recovered by now. Glad you liked the Pirates and Pals Cruise; I have it booked for a surprise for my DGS and DGD in April! (I think I posted that right grand daughter and grandson- new to posting). Anyway, thanks for your great descriptions.

 

[Wood Nymph]

I just found your trip report. I have been thinking of staying at BLT and your trip report has come at the perfect time. You really got a lot done in only three days.

It seems like it was a good thing you could walk to MK since the monorail was down so often.

 

[BabyHabs]

Day 4 - Hollywood Studios and Fantasmic!

We woke up feeling much better all around! Lulu's temperature had finally broken and I only had to wipe her nose every 2 minutes instead of every 10 seconds, which was awesome! Jay-Bob also woke up feeling much better! His ear was still sore to touch, but the ache was gone. PHEWF! What a load off that was! We were finally adjusting to the time difference and feeling rested and relaxed.
The plan for the day was to head to Hollywood studios around noon. We had an ADR at Hollywood and Vine at 1pm for the Fantasmic Dinner Package.
We relaxed all morning and did a little touring around the resort. Around 11am we headed out to the buses. This would be our first experience with using the buses. Everything went smoothly. We weren't waiting very long before a Hollywood Studios bus arrived. One thing I really like about the bus stop at the Contemporary was the bus board. It listed when all the buses for the parks were due to arrive. We found them pretty accurate. Also, the bus stop is in a great area between Contemporary and BLT so it was very convenient. The pain about the buses is even if they are not full, they make you fold up the stroller. I understand why, but our stroller was always packed with drinks, snacks and Lulu's pillow and blankey which she refused to nap in the stroller without.
Anyway, before long, we had arrived at Hollywood Studios. A lot of people give a lot of flack to Hollywood Studios and say there's not a lot to do here, but we found plenty. I had 2 days planned for this park and there were still things we didn't have time to get to.

The boys both love Tower of Terror here so they were very excited! Also, they are getting to be big Star Wars fans. On our second day at Hollywood Studios, we'd be surprising them with the Jedi Training Academy - or whatever the new name for it is.

We headed into the park and got there fairly quickly and easily. I had a FP for Toy Story Mania booked for noon, but we still have some time to kill before then. We found this Star Wars area, that must have been brand new because I'd never heard of it before. There was a small movie they showed about the making of Star Wars and lots of memorabilia, even items that you could buy like a real Storm Trooper replica. Very cool. Lauryn had fallen asleep, so I took the boys into this area (can't remember the name of it and no desire to look it up right now) while she slept.

Star Wars Launch Bay is what it's called.. I looked it up.

You could buy one of these guys for the low low price of like $9000. Cool, but no thanks.

We really didn't take much time to appreciate all the cool stuff they had in here because we had a FP and ADR to get to. They also had meet and greets here.. I forget who was meeting when we were there. I wanna say Chewy. The wait was like 45 minutes. I wanted to get back here and do it again when we had more time, but we never made it back.

We went back outside to find Lulu had woken up and she was a complete grisly bear. On our way to TSM, we found one of these guys..

I love these guys. So cool. And they play the role so well. The boys had to run after him for about 15 minutes to get an autograph because he was busy hiding behind things and sneaking up on people. This is the stuff that Disney does so well!

We finally made it to TSM and had a great time! I love this ride. My arm always gets sore from shooting though. Grouchy won, of course. But I had Lulu on my lap, so that would be my excuse for losing.

Up next, we took off for Hollywood and Vine for our lunch.

We arrived just on time and was seated just about right away. Our waitress again was fantastic. Lulu is a big fan of Disney Junior, so I knew she would enjoy meeting these characters.

We filled up our plates and the characters came around shortly after.

You can see Lulu is starting to warm up to characters and even smiling for pictures! At the beginning of the trip, she wouldn't get anywhere near anyone without Grouchy or I holding her. Soon, she would be giving them hugs and crying when they left!

Now fun story about Jake. And when I say fun, I mean not fun. You notice Lulu isn't in this picture. As she was giving Jake her autograph book to sign, he somehow smacks her in the face and scared her. She started crying and turned to run to me. When she did, she tripped and fell and hurt herself. So. She didn't like Jake much after that. He felt awful, you could tell and tried to warm up to her and apologize. But she wasn't having it. To this day, she won't watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

We were here about an hour, which is good for a character meal. The food was buffet quality, but they had this sliced turkey thing that was awesome. We got the Fantasmic package so we wouldn't have to worry about getting good seats for the show later that day.

After lunch, we headed over to something I was very much looking forward to and I knew Lulu would LOVE - the Frozen singalong. I love this movie. I think it's great. Definitely in my top favourite Disney movies. Lulu loves it too of course and we all know all the songs. So I knew this would be a hit.

And I was right. We all sung along to the songs and the show was pretty entertaining! The historians were very funny! Even Grouchy really loved the show and said we should do it again on our next HS day.

Covered with "snow" at the end.

This was one of my favourites and definitely a must-do if you have little Frozen fans. Even Ry was singing along to all the songs!

After Frozen, we hit our next FP which was Star Tours. I really enjoy this ride and like any virtual reality rides. The boys also like it. Of course, they got to do it 2x.

Next, we headed to Tower of Terror for our last FP of the day.

Jay-Bob really likes roller coasters and we had never been on Rockin Roller Coaster, so I was trying to find a time when he and I could go on. Grouchy isn't so much a thrill ride type of guy and the other kids weren't tall enough. On our way to ToT, we checked out the wait time and it was something crazy like 2 hours. So it didn't look like we'd be getting on it this day, but would try again later in our vacation.

We took our turns on ToT which was awesome as usual. When I went on, there was this woman behind us with a little girl who hysterically cried the entire time. I felt so bad for her. I don't know why her mom made her go. That couldn't have been fun for anyone.

After we were done, it was approaching supper time. We were a little hungry, but not hungry enough for a meal, so we decided to start using some snack credits, which we hadn't used any of yet.

We got some popcorn and smoothies. The "hot and fresh" popcorn at Disney is delicious! Like seriously, could have eaten an entire box myself. Everyday. But I didn't. Self control. I also got one of these puppies.. I didn't take my own picture, so I had to steal one from the interweb..

They are called Blue Milkshake - Blue Raspberry infused with Cream and I got it from Min and Bills Dockside Diner. Even the name makes my mouth water.

Listen. It was.. I can't even find a word. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. That's what it was. Smooth and creamy. Rich, but not too rich. Yum. I ended up sharing it with the entire family because everyone loved it. Not a drop was wasted. At $4.99, this was a great use of a snack credit. Grouchy got some type of Frozen Lemonade from the same place. It was good, but paled next to my milkshake.

After some snacking, we headed out to Fantasmic. On the way, we did some shopping. I love the shopping at Hollywood Studios! I could spend an entire day walking through the stores. We got some sweaters, because for some reason, I completely forgot to pack any for anyone but Ry. We also grabbed a few t-shirts for some family.

We arrived about 30 minutes early and again filled up on snacks. More popcorn and frozen drinks. Perfect supper for a great day of vacation!

We'd watched Fantasmic last year, but this year was better somehow. Lulu completely loved it. It's a fantastic show. Somehow, these are all the pictures I took of it.

Grouchy recorded the entire thing. Apparently he's never heard of YouTube.

I love the seats they give you for the dining package. Right smack in the middle. We sat about 10 rows back which was perfect because we didn't get wet and it was a chilly night.

After the show, we made our way out of the park. We watched the Star Wars fireworks while loading onto the bus. It was a great day!

Next Up - Our first non-park day - but I had something up my sleeve!!
​

 

[BabyHabs]

I just found your trip report. I have been thinking of staying at BLT and your trip report has come at the perfect time. You really got a lot done in only three days.

It seems like it was a good thing you could walk to MK since the monorail was down so often.

I HIGHLY recommend BLT! It really was the perfect location. The rooms were very modern and spacious. If I can swing it, I'd never stay anywhere else again. The other monorail resorts are also great, since you can also take a boat to MK, but nothing beats the ability to walk to MK. It was also very quiet. We never heard a peep from any neighbours.

 

[aggieland03]

I need more! Where's Day 5!?

 

[Wood Nymph]

I HIGHLY recommend BLT! It really was the perfect location. The rooms were very modern and spacious. If I can swing it, I'd never stay anywhere else again. The other monorail resorts are also great, since you can also take a boat to MK, but nothing beats the ability to walk to MK. It was also very quiet. We never heard a peep from any neighbours.

I tried to get a studio through a DVC rental group but there weren't any available for our October dates. I love Bay Lake and we usually stay at Wilderness Lodge so that we can enjoy the lake. The boat to MK is the best. Anyway, with the construction at WL I thought the next best thing would be BLT. I would ask for lake view, not theme park view. I'll have to find a low crowd period and maybe I can get a studio there.

 

[BabyHabs]

Day 5 is coming.. I'll do it up soon!