Pop, Pop, Poppity-Pop! A November 2014 trip report

[Our 2 Princesses]

I am thoroughly enjoying your trip report. Such great pictures! I miss taking my girls when they were younger!

 

[LindseyJo22]

Finally caught up with this thread!

I am loving the trip report Your daughters are adorable, and I'm sure it's great to have all of these family memories (and great Photopass pictures)! It's just me and my fiance on trips at the moment, but we may end up trying some Agent P missions (we love Phineas and Ferb!), so I am glad to see they looked like lots of fun.

I was also so excited to see all the characters out in Epcot! We are going to be staying close, and I am now on a mission to get a picture with Belle in the blue dress and Mary Poppins

 

[Chicago Mo]

you have me SO EXCITED for the agent P adventure!!!!!!!! what happened at the train station?
my back is going to be killing me carrying my camera all over!!! HA HA
i adore the pictures from the fountain! how special are they?!?!? Great sword fight! they even are all decked out for it! LOVE!

 

[sdomino11]

Just caught up on your whole trip. We're staying at Pop for the first time this May so it's nice to see you had a good time there. We did Agent P. in Norway last trip and were a little disappointed in it, but it looks like we need to give it another try in some of the other countries. Looks like fun!

 

[FantasiaMagic]

Hi! I just wanted to say I found your TR last night and am finally caught up! I am loving it, it is SO much fun! I can't wait to hear about the rest.

-Alison

 

[annegirl]

I love going into the building in America and listening to the Voices of Liberty.

Those photopass pictures are absolutely priceless. Sometimes you get the best shots when you know that the person being photographed has no idea they are being photographed. I can't pick a favorite...they are all great.

Since my husband and I both have German in us (my husband more than me), we love spending time in Germany and all the shops (now for him it could be the apple wine ). The mission there looks like a lot of fun.

And I'm so with you...no one does details like Disney.

I really hope to hear the Voices of Liberty sometime! The girls were just anxious to get back outside!
I have German in me too so I really enjoy it too. (along with Norway, France, and Uk since those are also in my heritage)

So awesome that the photographer took those shots, they came out so great! Especially that last one of them looking at the camera

Yeah I really love them. And even with the last one with them knowing that their picture was being taken, the smiles were so natural because he caught them in such a happy and fun moment.

Wow! I am loving your trip report. I am going in May and I have an 8 year old (almost 9 at time of trip) so it's so fun seeing your daughter in this! Your girls are just gorgeous, what a wonderful family. I also have a 2 year old and 1 year old so my trip will be a bit different but I've been wondering how my 8 year old would like everything. 8 is turning out to be a much different age to deal with than those younger toddler years! Also it funny to see their dining choices because my girls only like those same things too so I know what they will be ordering haha! Also, I love the outfits you made for them! Do you do custom outfits or just for your girls? I am a failure with sewing ha!

Thanks!
We have been twice and our first trip was when Maddy was just barely one year old. It was great!
Thank you! I never have done customs. I have thought about it but what keeps me from doing it is the fact that while I think they look good and everyone compliments them, I know how imperfectly they are made! I was never taught to sew, I just taught myself and I make up a lot of it as I go along when I am doing a pattern and don't understand what it is trying to get me to do.
So the seams are never perfect looking on the insides like a lot of customs I see.
Everything I have made holds up well and I think they turn out good... but if I did them for someone else that was paying me I would feel like they needed to be absolutely perfect.

Yikes sounds like you had a bit of a tense evening last night! Glad everyone was okay!

What a wonderful photopass photographer! And what beautiful photos came from that!

It was crazy. It was great. He was definitely a photographer that you could tell loved his job.

What a scary end of your day--I don't blame you for being tired today!

I love those pp pics of the girls playing in the fountain! They look so cute and happy!

We've never listened to the singers in the America pavilion. I hear that they're great, but it seems like every time we get around to America, we're like "what do we need to stop here for? We live in America!" Clearly that's the time we all must start having our daily meltdowns!

I have felt that way before too. I think I've even said that to my husband. The only states I haven't been to are Alaska, Hawaii, and North Dakota and my mom would take us to all the historical sites when we were kids so I am pretty well versed in the USA.

I am thoroughly enjoying your trip report. Such great pictures! I miss taking my girls when they were younger!

Thank you!!

Finally caught up with this thread!

I am loving the trip report Your daughters are adorable, and I'm sure it's great to have all of these family memories (and great Photopass pictures)! It's just me and my fiance on trips at the moment, but we may end up trying some Agent P missions (we love Phineas and Ferb!), so I am glad to see they looked like lots of fun.

I was also so excited to see all the characters out in Epcot! We are going to be staying close, and I am now on a mission to get a picture with Belle in the blue dress and Mary Poppins

Thank you!!
You should do one just to see if you like it! It doesn't have to be just for kids!
I love your profile pictures by the way.
Oh- and yes I loved getting Belle in the blue dress and Mary is such a fun meet.

you have me SO EXCITED for the agent P adventure!!!!!!!! what happened at the train station?
my back is going to be killing me carrying my camera all over!!! HA HA
i adore the pictures from the fountain! how special are they?!?!? Great sword fight! they even are all decked out for it! LOVE!

I think your kids are really going to enjoy it.
Haha. Yep do not put that thing away! Camera moments abound and a few times I missed cool things that happened because I wasn't prepared.

Just caught up on your whole trip. We're staying at Pop for the first time this May so it's nice to see you had a good time there. We did Agent P. in Norway last trip and were a little disappointed in it, but it looks like we need to give it another try in some of the other countries. Looks like fun!

Welcome! We really do like Pop. It isn't my dream resort because I would love to stay somewhere a little fancier and bigger sometime, but it has everything we need and is so family friendly. And even thought it is small it is CLEAN. And I love that.

Hi! I just wanted to say I found your TR last night and am finally caught up! I am loving it, it is SO much fun! I can't wait to hear about the rest.

-Alison

Thank you!! Hello! and Welcome!!

 

[annegirl]

When we completed the mission we went back to the toy store because Abi had decided what she wanted to spend her money on.

She wanted a Duffy Bear!
Then we went to the ramp to wait for the boat.

Here comes the Friendship!

Abi and her new friend.

We had a couple of fast passes to use and some rides to go on that we hadn't done yet before we left Epcot.
First up was riding Spaceship Earth again.
You can kind of see the girls there underneath it. They love this ride.

No dancing!

Next we decided we had time to ride Ellen's Universe of Energy. We had never done this ride before and knew it was LONG (45 minutes) so we were excited to see what it was all about.

There might be those that love this ride.
That was not us.
It had a few cool parts but mostly the girls were so bored.

The best thing to come out of the ride were some of the things the girls said,.
For example:
At one point the question is asked, "What is the one source of energy that will never run out?"
Abi's answer?
"Love for your family."
Aww.
Then we saw some Pterodactyls.
Maddy asked what they were.
Abi said, "They have a bird beak and legs and bat wings with just a sprinkling of dinosaur."
After this we went to ride Soarin'.
Doug decided he would stay off with Maddy this time and I would just ride since we had done the opposite the day before.

Even with fast passes we had about a 30 minute wait this time so we occupied ourselves with being silly.

To me, the funniest thing happened on this ride.
A family sat down in the row with us. A bunch of adults and one little kid. Really little. Maybe 3?
This kid was FREAKING out.
Crying. Screaming.
He did not want to go on this ride.
The Cast members looked like they didn't know what to do.
I was thinking, "Take the kid out. Don't make him ride it if he doesn't want to."
I was thinking of the times I have taken Maddy out of line because she got creeped out and I didn't want to ruin the ride for everyone else.
The mom kept saying, "He will be fine."
I thought, "Yeah right."
Then we floated up in the air and toward the screen and the ride started.
He was silent the entire ride!
And afterward was saying "Again!"
Haha. I thought, "Okay. Mom was right. I am sorry for judging your situation!" My bad.
We caught up with Doug and Maddy outside.

​

 

[annegirl]

After Soarin' we went straight for Figment!
They both liked this ride a lot.

Especially Maddy. She loved it.
I really wished we had gone on it earlier in our trip so that we could have gone on it more than once. Maddy would have really liked going on it again.

And we let them play for a while.

Then Abi needed a bathroom and it took us forever to find one.
We had to run back over to the beginning of Figment and to the side of the building.
By the time we got back over to Doug and Maddy we had missed the start of Captain EO.
It is Doug's thing. He has good memories of that show and wanted to go.
We were going to wait for it but he was worried it would make us rushed to get to dinner.
I told him we could wait and he said, "No, it's okay. Let's just go."
So we made our way out of the park.

We stopped for some nighttime Spaceship Earth pictures.

And we sadly said goodbye to Epcot.
Hopefully it won't be too long until our next trip!

​

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Gotta Love figment! Its one of our favorites! (Or rather its one of mine. I'm sure Little Miss is going to love it as well.)

 

[STLMickeyMom]

Sounds like a great ending to your Epcot day!

 

[missangelalexis]

I like Abi's souvenir choice

Sounds like a good end to the Epcot day, except for the boring Ellen's Universe of Energy..I don't think I'll ever have the urge to go on that!

Love the nighttime PP pics, looks so pretty!

 

[Chicago Mo]

Great choice! DUFFY!!!

You guys are all so cute! Love the pp pictures!!!! Sorry you didn't do Captain Eo! sad i bet the girls would have liked it.

I DO HOPE YOU HAVE ANOTHER TRIP PLANED!!!

 

[annegirl]

Gotta Love figment! Its one of our favorites! (Or rather its one of mine. I'm sure Little Miss is going to love it as well.)

Yeah. It is a fun ride. Maddy would have loved to go on it a few more times.

Sounds like a great ending to your Epcot day!

We had a great Epcot day!

I like Abi's souvenir choice

Sounds like a good end to the Epcot day, except for the boring Ellen's Universe of Energy..I don't think I'll ever have the urge to go on that!

Love the nighttime PP pics, looks so pretty!

Yes. She loves that bear. She still sleeps with it every night. It is so sweet. I am really glad she got it. It has a lot of special Duffy memories attached to it.
Yeah. I really like Ellen so I thought it would be fun. But I don't think I will ever be tempted to go on that again.

Great choice! DUFFY!!!

You guys are all so cute! Love the pp pictures!!!! Sorry you didn't do Captain Eo! sad i bet the girls would have liked it.

I DO HOPE YOU HAVE ANOTHER TRIP PLANED!!![/
QUOTE]

Yes! Duffy is so sweet. Such a fun stuffie.
Thanks! I loved so many of our pictures from this day. It was a really great day.
I don't have any Disney trips planned yet. I know for sure we won't be able to go back to Disney World until at least late 2016 but probably not until 2017 because of my trip to Europe. We might be able to swing a couple of days to Disney land since we could drive to it or use Doug's free miles (maybe) but I am just not sure if that will happen either. It's sad because you definitely get a few months out from your trip and start itching to get back!
Our last trips were 4 years apart so hopefully we can get back there before 4 years have passed again!

 

[annegirl]

Leaving Epcot we had about an hour and a half until our reservation for dinner. We wanted to leave that much time since we knew we would be taking two monorails to get there. We were so lucky we did.

We rode the monorail from Epcot (had a little bit of a wait but not too bad) back over to the TTC and then got in line for the monorail that goes to the Contemporary resort.

We were about halfway up the ramp when the line stopped and we were stuck there for about 40 minutes.

Finally the line started moving.. but slowly.
Apparently a monorail had broken down on the way around.
We finally got on one and started toward the contemporary.
And then we got stuck.
After a while (15-20 minutes) it started moving again.
Everyone was so relieved.
And then we stopped again.
This time for probably about 20 minutes.
FINALLY it got going again and this time we made it all the way to the resort.
We got to Chef Mickey's with just minutes to spare before our reservation.
Doug went to check in while I took the girls to the bathroom to change their clothes.

They took our picture.

We got a nice window table.
I don't remember why Maddy was sad.

Oh- that's right. It was because she wasn't sad. She was pretending. Goof ball.

Our waitress told us we could go get our food and the characters would be coming by soon.
It was really hard to go get food because I would leave the table to go get it and then I would see someone was coming toward our table and run back so we wouldn't have to wait for them again.

In fact, Maddy and I did miss Goofy when he first came by.

We pretty much got a little of everything that looked okay and then ate about a fourth of it.
It was okay but not great.
I don't know if it was an off day or what but the last time we were here for dinner it was much better.

Donald came by next.

​

 

[annegirl]

Soon Mickey Mouse made his way to our table!

Pluto

The girls' favorite part of the place was the never ending soft serve bar.

Minnie was next.

Then we waited for Goofy to come back around again.

Our waitress was really nice but we never saw her. We had to hunt her down to ask for our bill (it just was a statement since this was paid on the dining plan) .

The place seemed more chaotic than usual.

Someone puked in the food line right before we left.


You could say it wasn't our favorite meal experience of the trip.

I felt bad since we had changed our Epcot dining plans to this tonight because it was Doug's favorite last time and this time when we left he said he didn't care if we ever ate there again.

Plus if you are not on the dining plan- this was our most expensive meal of the trip. So, if we had been paying out of pocket we would not have been happy.

When we finally got out of there it was after 9:30 and we were all tired and ready for bed!

We did stop to look at the Gingerbread creations though.

So cute.
We went to get back on the monorail

Luckily this time there were no issues with it and we were soon at Magic Kingdom to catch our bus to Pop.

It was, however, really crowded so it took a while to get a bus.
Once we were on one and sitting down, both girls fell asleep on us within seconds.
By the time we were back at Pop it was 11pm.
Doug took the girls back to the room to get them in bed while I went into the store to pick up some packages we had delivered.
Then when I got to the room I started packing knowing we would need to leave our luggage with the luggage service the next morning before getting over to Magic Kingdom for our last day.
I couldn't do anymore by 1am and decided to finish in the morning and I crashed.
​

 

[missangelalexis]

ugh, sounds like the monorail situation was a nightmare! Thanks goodness you left such a big chunk of time to get there. The pics at the entrance of CM came out adorable, nice family photo! I'm sorry overall that dinner wasn't the best. At least you got some cute character pictures out of it, and the soft serve bar for the girls Booo to the last day coming up!!

 

[karatemomky]

I found your TR a few days ago and have loved reading it! My kids and I are planning on making our second trip in early 2016 and we have talked about doing so many of the things you did on your trip. I have loved getting a sneak peek, especially the character meals Love the outfits you made for your adorable girls!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Someone puked in the food line right before we left.

Ewwww....... and I'm reading this while fighting off the stomach bug little miss so "lovingly" shared.

Sorry to here one of your most looked forward to meals was such a bad experience. I always here how hit or miss Chef Mickey's is.

 

[therealdisney01]

Oh My Gosh! That poor kid! Abi and Maddie are SO cute! Me and my family are going to Disney in a week. Do you have any suggestions?

 

[STLMickeyMom]

Oh, I'm so bummed out that the monorail AND dinner were disappointing! I guess it's no surprise that the monorail broke down--good planning expecting that to happen--but that's surprising about chef mickeys. We don't ever expect awesome food, go more for the characters, but we'd expect it to be better then that. And the throw up....I know if you're sick you can't help it,but still....
At least it looks like the girls had fun meeting the characters, but I don't blame them for falling asleep on the bus. I'd do the same thing if I could--disney wears you out!