"Bow to the all-powerful Birthday Button!"-Dec 12-20 TR (4/9 - FINAL POST MADE!)

[skier_pete]

Monday morning awoke to the start of a new decade. At least for me. I was 40, middle age. Was I sad, not at all. I was going to Magic Kingdom!

After I took a shower, my DW had put out a shirt for me to wear. In fact, she had made shirts for everyone. Now, normally I don't like matching shirts, but I was OK with these. We only got a good picture of us all with the shirts on Photopass, but I don't have those pictures yet, so here's a few shots:

So, in essence, it's a picture of Mickey on the front, looking ready for a Birthday party.

My shirt said on the front - "My Pal Pete is 40!" across the top, and "Birthday Bash 2009" across the bottom. On the back it read "Birthday Boy". The others said "Birthday Bash 2009" on the front, and read "Pete's DW", "Pete's DD" and "Pete's DMIL" on the back.

The only problem with this, is my DW wouldn't let me wear my backpack all day because she wanted everyone to be able to see my shirt. The problem - not only did she have to carry two bags all day, which made me feel very guilty (being a manly man and all - don't let my women do the heavy lifting) and also it meant she had my LGMH - so now I couldn't meet my fellow DIS'ers. Ak!

Oh well, eventually she let me wear it. We headed out early as usual to get to MK in time for rope drop. It was a fairly uncrowded morning, relative to what I've seen in the past. It was also a very foggy morning, which I can't see I've ever seen MK shrouded in fog:

We watched the opening show:
"A Kingdom full of magic for every girl and boy!
Wonderous lands of make-believe that fill your heart with joy!"
and bolted for Fantasyland when the rope dropped....first stop. Dumbo! Rode with DD and we circled high above the fog:

We head for Peter Pan's Flight - and I grad some FP for later in the day. Then, we hit It's a Small World, another classic.

Now, it's getting near 10 AM. So, I head us over to Ariel's grotto. Well, wouldn't you know it, they said it was supposed to open at 10 AM, but they opened it up at 9 AM...so the line was already 30 minutes long. Well, forget it, bub! That's too long for us. DD saw the splash area, and she wanted to get all wet. We said no, we have no change of clothes, and it was still a bit on the cool side. (Maybe 70 at this point in the day.) Well, she threw her first fit of the day...of course for my birthday she's going to be extra cranky...but we stuck to our guns, and headed over to Winnie the Pooh. Well, she didn't want to ride it...so DW and I went on it, while DMIL took her to Pooh's playful spot. (She'd actually never plated there - we had always managed to avoid her seeing it.)

After we came off the ride, I suggested we head over to the Jungle Cruise...but in the meantime, I was eligible for another FP - so I swung round Frontierland to grab a Splash Mountain FP...and met them at JC.

The skipper we had was *terrible*, so bad that DD noticed. "He's not very funny." He did the speil with no side jokes...there's been threads on the DIS here about this happening, and I was appalled. But fear not dear reader, we went again later in the trip, and we had a *Great* skipper - so it's really still all about who you get. (I apologize, this morning pictures are few and far between.)

What's next...will have to wait....I gotta go....more to follow!

 

[luckylady]

Great shirt. Belated happy birthday.

 

[If U Had Wings]

Love the shirts. Looks like you had a crazy foggy morning. I don't think I've ever seen it that foggy.

 

[skier_pete]

Love the shirts. Looks like you had a crazy foggy morning. I don't think I've ever seen it that foggy.

Yeah, as I said I normally don't like matching shirts, but each one was a different color, so I found that more than tolerable. It was very cute of my wife. But I told her when I got home...when am I ever going to wear that shirt again?

The foggy was very weird. I can't recall ever being there in fog. It burned off pretty quickly though, it was gone by 10 AM.

 

[praisehisname]

Joining in and loving it!

 

[wannago2disney]

Great Shirt!! I really like the foggy pictures...makes it mysterious....and I have never seen a foggy Mk either....usually it is all bright colours.

 

[Flossbolna]

Looks like a great start to your birthday, I love the shirts! They look very festive.

I love early morning fog - I hope the sun was able to burn it away during the day?

 

[skier_pete]

Hey all,

Not so much a continuation of the trip report, but some updated pictures. I got my photopass CD in...I was in on a photopass share, set up through another site. A couple of shots from the first three days of the trip, as described so far.

Entering Epcot on Day 1:

Riding Test Track (I always have my videocamera out in ride pictures, and look rather bored. DD looks like she's loving it. DMIL look completely terrified. Both were true.):

A little side note: Don't you think Disney would be smart to get more of the ride photos on Photopass? I bet they would sell a lot more CDs if you could get all your ride photos too. It looks to me like they have no plans for doing this, as the new Space Mountain photo doesn't allow it.

DW and I with Mickey at AK:

I love the Christmas sweater Mickey. When we asked Mickey if he decorated his own tree in the AK character trees he signed that No, it was Minnie that did his tree. Too cute!

Me outside EE (Day 2):

And a shot I love at MK (Day 3) that also shows our birthday shirt and the castle at twilight:

More TR to come!

 

[khertz]

Great PhotoPass shots! Mine should be coming in the next couple of days.

 

[skier_pete]

Well, we had just gotten off the jungle cruise, and were heading over to Pirates...when it turned out the pirate ride was down temporarily. So, we headed over to Haunted Mansion. DD is not ready to ride HM yet, though she *loves* the song ("Grim Grinning ghost come out to socialize.") so DMIL and I rode it first, while DW kept DD occupied. Well, THIS ride had shut down too... they let us through the stretch room, but we got into the hall going to the doombuggies, and it was just wall-to-wall people. It started back up, but took us a good 10 minutes to get on, so by the time we got off it was 11:15. Our lunch ADR was at the WCC at 1 PM, but I knew we wanted to get on the train at Frontierland around noon and I was hoping to squeeze in Splash and Big Thunder Mountains before we were done. (Somewhere in the morning, I had gotten BTMRR fastpasses, too.) This led to our first little round of meltdowns of the trip:

First, DMIL had to go to the bathroom.
Then, while we were waiting, DW decided she wanted to go get a churro.
Then, DMIL came back, and we started walking towards where DW was, but DMIL wanted to stop and eat an orange. I asked if she could wait until we got to Splash Mountain, and then she would have plenty of time, but she wanted to do it NOW!
Then, DD wanted to stop and get a snack. Since DMIL wanted to stop too, I caved in. The DMIL got mad at me because I didn't want to stop for her, but I stopped for DD.
The DD wanted another snack...not to eat, but to feed the storks nearby. I said NO, and had to deal with another temper tantrum.
And all I wanted to do was get to my ride! Ugh!
Really no-ones fault, just a little spat that happens when you spend a week tromping around WDW.

Anyways, eventually everyone was satisfied, and we made it to Splash Mountain about 11:50, so I knew we wouldn't have time to ride both. We HAD to ride Splash, though...cause it's my favorite ride and it is MY birthday. (Sorry, no pictures here...I actually had very few pictures from the morning.)

We got off the ride, met up with DMIL, and hopped on the railroad to go around to the front of the park. I like riding the train at least once a trip, and it's a nice way to skip around the park if the lines aren't too bad.

In toontown, I hopped off to gather another set of FP, this time for Buzz Lightyear. (For those keeping track at home, we've used one set of FP, and I have 3 in my pocket, one for Peter Pan, one for BTMRR and one for Buzz.) and while I was at it, stop at guest services and pick up my "Free Birthday Fun Card"...a $79 value for my birthday!

I met up with them at the dock to Wilderness Lodge...I had *just* missed a boat. (Bummer!) It was a beautiful sunny day, but again it was getting HOT. We waited 15 minutes for the next ferry.

On the boat, DD had gotten it in her head that we were supposed to eat at Crystal Palace, and because we weren't she started another pout fest. I think I would have enjoyed the ferry ride otherwise. We were all hot and ready for a break from a busy morning.

So, we got to the doc, and made our way to the WL. DW and I had been here before, but it is still very impressive. I love the gyser pool, and it was so hot, it would've been great had we been able to jump in the water. But, instead we went to the restaurant. The lobby had another massive christmas tree, which was as beautiful as you would expect:

I had wanted to try Whispering Canyon Cafe for a while. The waiters are supposed to do all kinds of crazy stuff. (Bring you 20 bottles of ketchup when you ask for one....Giant glasses for refills.) Well, nothing like that occurred while we were there. The only exception was they kept throwing straws at us. We had so many straws, we didn't know what to do. DD was having fun at the Lincoln Logs building center, but when she came back she was pouting again, so I decided to have fun with her by sticking as many straws behind my ears as possible. Then, we all started sticking straws behind our ears:

The food was very, very good. DMIL and I had pulled pork sandwhiches, which were great. DW had the ribs which she said were quite good. DD had chicken strips. (I forgot about pictures again, sorry!) And, dinner was on DIsney World...I used my gift card from today to pay for the meal OOP.

Meanwhile, DW had arranged to have a surprise birthday cake. Well, it was a surprise until we got to the restaurant...CM kept coming over and asking her about the cake with me right there! They even once asked me about it! Good job keeping that surprise, dum dums!

Anyways, we got the cake, and the whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday to Me! here's the cake before:

And After:

We couldn't take it with us as we weren't going back to the hotel, and we didn't want to carry it and let it melt, so we ate as much as we could. (It was a pretty small birthday cake, but ugh...can't eat that much.)

We rolled out of WL with full bellies to our next stop....To Be Continued!

 

[wannago2disney]

Great update and pictures. I would love it if they added all the ride photos to the photopass. I think that more people would for sure buy the photopass then.

 

[Flossbolna]

Really no-ones fault, just a little spat that happens when you spend a week tromping around WDW.

Things like that just happen to everyone, I guess. But it would have been nicer if it happened on your actual birthday!

Great to hear that you liked WCC, we are going to eat there on our next trip. I had dinner there before and rather liked it, but here on the boards there is lot of negative reviews about it.

What a shame that they ruined the surprise for you... was the cake blue or purple? It looked very festive!

 

[Nancy for Disney]

Great update. I am glad you enjoyed you WCC meal. I haven't eaten there nor I have I been to WL. Someday......

Can't wait to read about the rest of your big day.

 

[skier_pete]

From WL we headed out to the bus stop. My hours of research on the DIS told me a bus from WL could take us to the Grand Floridian directly...saving us a boat / monorail transfer. We wanted to check out the Gingerbread house.

The Grand Floridian is seriously tres swanky. I noticed they had only one bus stop - perhaps people that stay at the Grand Floridian are above taking the bus? Walking into the lobby they had stations giving out free hot apple cider (it was 85 degrees out, no thanks) and roasted chestnuts. We took some roasted chestnuts...holy moley were they awful tasting! Bitter and kind of mushy...ugh! I'll put that on my list of "Christmas Treats I never want again" right next to Figgy Pudding.

In the lobby they had a pianist playing music and of course another giant tree. The decorations here were absolutely stunning. The gingerbread house was pretty nifty too...though as we were walking around it, a candy cane fell off a gingerbread wall with a huge "Crash". It amused me.

I may have already said this...while it was nice to make these stops, I found myself looking at the decorations, going oooh for 30 seconds, and then thinking "OK, let's go do something else." In fact, the two stops we made today ended up having me cut any more hotel touring out of the rest of our trip...it was busy enough.

So, after a few more minutes and some potty breaks, we took the elevator up to the monorail station and headed back to MK. We then went up to the train station to head back to frontierland.

(It just occurred to me that where other than WDW would you ride the following transportation in a single day: Bus, Train, Boat, Bus, Monorail, Train, Bus.)

Anyways, it was time for a "swing around the park" using up our FPs. We hit BTMRR (a DD favorite), Peter Pan (a whole family favorite), Mickey's Philharmagic (my absolute favorite 3-D film, though DD wouldn't put on the glasses) and Buzz Lightyear (another DD favorite).

By now, it was 5:30 PM, and it was getting near twilight. That's when we headed towards the hub to see the Castle Lighting and got our cool pics with the castle behind.

We staked a spot right in the hub...no one was hungry, so we figure we would wait for all the shows. The Castle Lighting show was at 6:30 PM, Spectro at 7:00 PM (or about 7:10 by the time it gets to the hub) and Wishes at 8:00 PM. Little did we know that at 5:45 PM, they would bring out the "Move it, Shake it, Celebrate it" parade. This is a new parade that happens a few times a day which I compared to a cross between a dance party and a HSM show. (I guess the songs are all "Radio Disney" hits.) The show was actually pretty great. The dancers and some characters come off the floats, and get the crowd to come up and dance with them. (Sort of Block Party Bash style.) It was actually really fun. No pictures though, I mostly took video.

Then, it was time to light up the castle:

Simply awesome! Love, love, love the castle lights. The ceremony was really cute, too. The fab 5 come out and discuss how they should decorate the castle. Donald suggests like a giant present. Then they ask the crowd, I shouted out "A giant pink cake!" but Disney goons came out and roughed me up. (Kidding!) But they let Cinderella pick, cause hey it's her castle. (Technically it isn't, though: The real name is Cinderella Castle...not Cinderella's Castle. Meaning that it is really a castle named after Cinderella, not her actual castle. But I digress.)

Anyways, next up was Spectromagic and Wishes...both great shows, especially when viewed from the hub. (I am a strong believer in "the closer to the fireworks the better".) At one point I had thought we would stay a while and hit some rides, but we were all hungry and tired...so we chose to instead get some food and head back to the hotel. We were going to try Columbia Harbour House, but it closed at 5 PM, so instead w went over to Cosmic Rays. Poor DD passed out in the stroller as we were getting the food.

But, The Power of the Birthday Button reared it's head. As I was picking up my food the entire staff of Cosmic Rays (Bay B) sang "Happy Birthday". You can't get embarassed easily wearing the birthday button, but since I don't, I thought it was great.

Back to the room after two LONG days of park touring. We were beat. It's a good thing we have tomorrow off!

 

[If U Had Wings]

Woo Hoo for a day off. Those park days are so draining, especially when there are so many people around. I always hit the point where if one more person bumps into me I feel like I'm going to scream.

I'm always envious of the kids who get to crash in the strollers!

 

[skier_pete]

Tuesday morning (12/15) we did not set an alarm. A rarity at WDW, I know. But we had had three really busy days at a pace that was unsustainable. Though the rest of the trip would slow down (a bit) we had planned a day off here to recover. But, a day off isn't really a day, is it?

We took our sweet time getting up in the morning, lazing and watching a bit of TV. We did want to go to Downtown Disney (DTD) though, to do some Christmas shopping, and also to meet Santa. It was yet another warm and sunny day, a bit cooler than before but still got up to about 80 by mid-day.

Well, I had heard that Santa is out at 10 AM, so we headed out about ten in hopes of catching him early. Turns out he's at the north pole until noon, so we had a little time first. I wanted to buy some stuff for my parents and my wife, so DW took DD to "once upon a toy" while I hit World of Disney. There were a TON of people there....they had a sale going on where receipts at CS restaurants gave you 20 % off your purchases before noon. It didn't matter to us, because AP holders got 20 % off all day and all stores, a deal that was pretty awesome. I had about an hour to shop and check-out, including shipping stuff to Arizona. In the meantime, DW got in the line for Santa about 11:30 AM, and she was at the front of the line. I finished up just before noon, and went outside. There were about 10 families in line, but they let me hop the fence. (the BIRTHDAY BUTTON again) to join my family. So, DD was the first to see Santa that day.

Showing Santa her list:

After Santa, DW and DMIL did a little more shopping, while DD and I headed over to the lego store, where she had some fun playing with the blocks, but wasn't interested in actually buying anything. We then all headed to Earl of Sandwhich, where the line was HUGE. So, DD and I went back to Pop Century, and ate in the food court instead.

After we ate, we went back to our room and changed into our bathing suits, and spent about two hours in the pool. The air was warm, but the pool still felt a bit cool to me, I was a bit chilled by the time we got out at 4 PM. We went back to the room. DW and DMIL got back from DTD shortly thereafter.

That night was going to be "date night": DW and I going out for a birthday dinner at the California Grill.

But first...have you ever gone spent a park day and only did one attraction? We did...find out which one in the next update.

 

[Flossbolna]

(It just occurred to me that where other than WDW would you ride the following transportation in a single day: Bus, Train, Boat, Bus, Monorail, Train, Bus.)

Here in Germany Berlin (then West-Berlin) used to have a monorail. It was even an experimental magnet engine that propelled it, I think similar to what the TTA uses. And Berlin actually has some regular ferries as part of its public transport system. So in the 80s in West-Berlin you could use bus, train, underground train, boat and bus! And if you would let it count that East-Berlin also still had trams, there is even one more! But since the monorail is no longer I guess you are right, there might not be another place like WDW with regard to transport!

 

[tinkerbells mum]

subbing to your TR, i'm going to be in Disney for my 40th next year so i'm really enjoying hearing all about the power of the birthday button!!!

 

[skier_pete]

Here in Germany Berlin (then West-Berlin) used to have a monorail. It was even an experimental magnet engine that propelled it, I think similar to what the TTA uses. And Berlin actually has some regular ferries as part of its public transport system. So in the 80s in West-Berlin you could use bus, train, underground train, boat and bus! And if you would let it count that East-Berlin also still had trams, there is even one more! But since the monorail is no longer I guess you are right, there might not be another place like WDW with regard to transport!

There are places in the US where you can take a boat, bus, and subway the same day...New York and Boston come to mind...but it is rare in much of the country. There are few monorails here, and train transport is rarely used anymore for passengers except on the east coast.

subbing to your TR, i'm going to be in Disney for my 40th next year so i'm really enjoying hearing all about the power of the birthday button!!!

Awesome! It's a great place to spend your birthday! It totally makes you forget about getting older. Definitely wear your birthday button proudly!

 

[khertz]

Love the photo of you & your wife in front of the castle.

How cute that they sang happy birthday to you at Cosmic Ray's! I would love to go for my birthday, but since it's smack in the middle of June I think I'll pass.

I'm interested to see what one ride you chose on your date night...I don't think I could ever ride JUST one!