Tut, Tut, It Looks Like Rain, A Very Merry Thanksgiving TR Updated 4/28!!

We headed back toward Adventureland next and took a ride with some pirates. You might know them, they are from the Caribbean?

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At this point I seem to be slacking on my photo taking responsibilities, which is a theme late at night. Photos just don’t come out as well, and since most rides don’t have waits, there isn’t a lot of down time.

Sadly, these this is the last time I will take photos of the kids playing with the toy guns in the drop shop of Pirates.

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We quickly headed over to the Jingle Cruise, where the queue was so fast, this is my only photographic proof we were there:

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And I didn’t take one photo on the ride, because it was dark, and I knew we would be riding again in the daylight. FINALLY!

After escaping from the Jungle we were all ready for a treat… and as per usual Lorelai wanted popcorn (yes, I know it is a no-no with braces, but I let it slide) and Ethan only had eyes for a Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich. I think Erik got a Diet Coke and I got a water… and maybe some popcorn.

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We ended up having to go to two different carts because the first cart we stopped at, didn’t have popcorn and all of their ice cream was melted. I think I only got my water there. I don’t have my receipt for the other treats…

After our treats we were close to Tomorrowland, so that is where we headed. The kids were insistent that we ride Space Mt., Erik wasn’t go close to it, I wasn’t comfortable letting them ride alone, so I went. After riding DL’s version, I really have no interest in WDW’s. Even the kids said that it had lost it’s appeal after DL.

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We took some bio breaks, picked up Erik, and headed toward Fantasyland, our destination was the Barnstormer, but we got side tracked by:

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Ethan was insistent, and there was no wait, and you know how long of a wait it can get to for not a great pay off, so we agreed.

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We ended up riding twice in a row, because there was no wait.

After the Speedway, there really wasn’t much time left. We headed toward the Barnstormer, but when we got there it was down. So what would be our last ride of the night?

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A private ride on Dumbo of course!

We each got our own elephant and the rest of the ride was empty, we were the last ride of the night as it was actually 12:01am when I took the photos.

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We took our time making it to Main Street and took some photos of the castle.

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We stopped to have some Photopass photos taken. The photographer heard me say I wanted the castle lit up, and at that moment they started the goodbye spiel and the castle started changing colors. She had us stand there in the same position forever to wait for the castle lights to come back on. I wanted to tell her that this was only our first day, and we had many more nights to get the photo but she was so insistent she was going to get the photo.

I give you our family standing in one pose for 3 minutes, now I know that does not feel like a lot of time. But you try standing in the middle of Main Street with a line of people behind the photographer shooting daggers at you from their tired eyes!

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We finally made it to the bus stop at 12:30am, and we were met with this sight:

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YIKES!

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I wish I was a child and could sit on the ground as easily as they can!

We finally made it on a bus, which was beyond packed and there were some grumpy people on the bus. Lorelai was one of them. Standing on a crowded bus at nearly 1am, is not her idea of fun!

Luckily we were the first bus stop and we were in bed very quickly! I wasn’t too worried about waking up the next day, as we had the morning off in anticipation of our Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party night!
 
Wow.... you guys had an action-packed night! Very cool that you were able to hit up all of those rides and be awake enough to do so :thumbsup2 We always have good intentions to stay until closing to take advantage of "walk-on" status, but are always too pooped to do so... hee hee. Konya Café looks super YUM! We have an ADR planned for our trip at the end of the month for breakfast there -- can't wait to finally taste the Tonga Toast :)
 
Michelle, just so you know while I was taking these photos, you posted a very similar photo at the same time on Facebook… from the other side, over on “cool people” fast pass side…. We were sooo close, yet so far away from meeting!

GET OUT!!! You got to be kidding me!!! I wish you would have said something we would have waited for you!!!
your right we are the cool people! BAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA

The One Where I Learn Where All the Lost & Founds Are.

This is to funny!!!! Yet i have to agree with him!

I had forgotten to pick up ponchos for the kids at Epcot that morning, which I had been planning to do!

Ya know you could have grabbed them from the resort store too...

and we were rewarded with this:

ouch

You might know them, they are from the Caribbean?

Never heard of em....

Even the kids said that it had lost it’s appeal after DL.

No... say it isn't so!!!!

We took our time making it to Main Street and took some photos of the castle.

Because you must take at least 5967049587602458670245867 pictures of the castle.. it's an unwritten law

Standing on a crowded bus at nearly 1am, is not her idea of fun!

Mine either!
 


Wow.... you guys had an action-packed night! Very cool that you were able to hit up all of those rides and be awake enough to do so :thumbsup2 We always have good intentions to stay until closing to take advantage of "walk-on" status, but are always too pooped to do so... hee hee. Konya Café looks super YUM! We have an ADR planned for our trip at the end of the month for breakfast there -- can't wait to finally taste the Tonga Toast :)

Late at night is our favorite time at the Magic Kingdom, it is so peaceful and the waits are non-existent most of the time. As this week went on, and the Thanksgiving crowds descended, it was the only time you could breath in the Magic Kingdom to be honest!

We still haven't made it to breakfast there, we had one scheduled for this trip, but cancelled it in favor of then new Chef Mickey's Brunch. I think we should have kept Kona!

GET OUT!!! You got to be kidding me!!! I wish you would have said something we would have waited for you!!!
your right we are the cool people! BAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA

Next time! It is always my motto at Disney! We live so close at home, and yet Disney is where we were feet away from each other! Kathy and I met in line at Tower of Terror, by absolute chance, and we live less than 10 minutes away from each other!

This is to funny!!!! Yet i have to agree with him!

It gets worse...

Ya know you could have grabbed them from the resort store too...

Funny, that story is forthcoming...

No... say it isn't so!!!!

Space Mountain is AMAZING in Disneyland. I am a WDW purist, but there are rides at DL that just blow WDW out of the park. Space is one of them, as is Pirates.

Because you must take at least 5967049587602458670245867 pictures of the castle.. it's an unwritten law

:love: Castle Photos :love:

Mine either!

Ethan could keep going all night long, if there were no waits for rides. Lorelai hits a wall and could care less if the waits are 0, she wants to sleep! LOL This was new on this trip...

Great trip report! Following along!

:welcome: Glad to have you!

Just want you to know that I am loving your trip report.

:welcome: Thanks!!
 
After our very late night, and with no real reason to wake up early, I slept in to the crazy time of 8:15am! That is late for me at Disney, I must have been really exhausted! Since the rest of my family was still sound asleep, I did my morning routine of walking to El Centro alone.

I did have an important mission this morning, which brings me to a story that I forgot on our trip to Kona Café. I had heard many stories about people having problems charging tips or any purchases on their magic bands, but it had never happened to us before. Well I was prepared, and I made sure to pack our credit card, ID and gift card in our park bag for the first day. Turns out this was a good idea because when the server at Kona tried to charge our tip and Ethan’s meal to our room, it didn’t work.

I headed to the front desk to fix the problem, with the same CM as the day before, and it turns out our spending limit on our room had been entered in as $0. She quickly fixed it and I was on my way across the lobby to the concierge to ask about when I would be able to pick up our tickets for the Hoop dee doo Revue. After going 10 rounds with the CM of this conversation:

Her: You can’t pick them up this early, they haven’t assigned the seats this early.

Me: Ok, do you have an idea of how soon before I should pick them up?

Her: You can’t pick them up this early, they haven’t assigned the seats this early.

Me: I understand, how many days before should they be ready?

Her: You can’t pick them up this early, they haven’t assigned the seats this early.

Me: Nevermind.

I decided to just come back another time to ask…

I really wanted to look around the gift shop, and take photos, but it looks like I only took one:

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I wasn’t particularly looking for anything to buy, but I did want to purchase something to test out charging to the room. I found a small zipper pouch that had an Aztec design on it that would hold my credit card and ID in whatever bag I was carrying. I wasn’t taking any chances!

I headed over to fill up my cup with some coffee and went outside to sit at a table along the lake.

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It was very peaceful and not many people were around. I finished my coffee and filled it back up with cold caffeine, filled up Erik’s coffee and headed back to the room where everyone was starting to stir.

We took our time getting up and eating breakfast.

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The kids had fallen in LOVE with a station on the TV that played Mickey Mouse cartoons 24/7, I can’t remember what channel it is now. But it is a modern take on Mickey and the gang and I can’t say that I am a big fan, AT ALL. But the kids LOVED them. There was about ten, 15 minute cartoons that played in a loop. By the end of the vacation we had seen all of them about a dozen times each!

After breakfast we headed over to the main pool, The Dig Site.

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Although it didn’t look like a long walk to get there, it was! It took about 10-15 minutes to walk around the lake to get there, but the kids loved the pool so it was worth it.

I give you our morning at the pool:

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And Ethan recording himself going down the slide, LOL! He is a goof!



We basically had the entire pool to ourselves! We spent a bit of time in the hot tub as well, which of course Ethan really enjoyed.

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One day he will get some meat on him!

After having enough fun at the pool we refilled our mugs and head back on the long walk to the room…

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Tonight we had tickets to a very special Christmas party, and we needed to get ready for our pre-celebration brunch. We all got cleaned up and changed into our matching Christmas shirts and headed out to the bus stop. I am assuming we got there at 1:06pm, but this is the only proof of that:

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We headed to the MK, and jumped on the Monorail for the first time this trip and headed over to the Contemporary Resort.

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It is amazing how long it takes to get from place to place at times, then at other times you are there in no time whatsoever!

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This was one of those times. We were actually EARLY for our ADR time. We decided to look around at the Christmas decorations.

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Lorelai and I also took a trip down the escalators to check out where the entrance for the California Grill was for later in the trip. The elevator/escalator system at the Contemporary is a bit nutty.

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She was feeling silly!

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Finally it was time to check in.

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We took our obligatory photo behind cardboard Mickey (which actually turned out pretty good) and headed in.


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Our server was Ruth Ann and she was a sweetheart, pretty sure she said she had been working at WDW since it opened. Now we didn’t have any high hopes for the food here, actually the last time we ate here Erik and I both got horribly ill. But it is iconic and we wanted to give it another chance, the good news, no one got sick! But I’m not going to lie, the food is average a best and they didn’t keep things like Mickey Waffles stocked.

Ruth Ann was great though and brought us out an entire plate of Mickey Waffles! The best thing that we ate, beside the waffles was the cheesy potatoes, which were much better than I remembered.

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Ruth Ann brought us some cupcakes to celebrate our anniversary:

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And of course you can’t leave Chef Mickey’s without having a Mickey Oreo.

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Funny story about the Oreos, when I went up to get my dessert there was a mom and a child standing at the Mickey Oreos so I waited. The kid, who was about 4, was holding a dessert plate. The mom kept taking Oreos with the tongs and dropping them on his plate, a good 2 feet above the plate, and each one kept falling to the floor. She did this about 7 times. I am not kidding, 7 Mickey Oreos were surrounding the kids feet. I was amazed! One finally stayed on his plate and they walked away… STRANGE!

It was here where we first started thinking that we are finished with the dining plan, and buffets. Ethan does not eat enough to warrant the kid’s price, let alone the adult price that we now have to pay for him. To be honest, the kids really ate close to nothing, which if we had been paying OOP would have been rough. We paid our tip and left.
 
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Just kidding, of course there is more! The characters of course! That is really the main draw of eating at Chef Mickey’s!

First up was Pluto:

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Then we got a little Goofy:

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The character handler was interested in our stuffed Mickey’s:

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Next up was everyone’s favorite #1 duck, Donald:

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Then Pluto missed us, so he came back to see us and compare his ears to Ethan’s.

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He’s either really upset that Ethan’s ears are longer than his… or he realized he missed Lorelai here:

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But Lorelai made it back in time.

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Minnie made her way to visit us and she loved Lorelai’s skirt.

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Finally the Big Cheese himself stopped by and Ethan ask him to sign the bottom of his stuffed Mickey, which both Ethan and Mickey thought was pretty funny.

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I had to get in on the action:

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After meeting the Fab 5, we headed over to shop a bit.

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Erik loved this watch:

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We didn’t end up buying anything but ponchos for the kids, but those were definitely needed later! We made a pit stop at the bathrooms before you head up to the Monorail and Erik and Lorelai took some grumpy selfies…

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We all sat and waited for Ethan, because that boy takes a long time on bio breaks!

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Finally when Ethan joined us, we headed upstairs to the Monorail and it came pretty quickly, we jumped on.

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Right before the door closed I realized we were missing the shopping bag that had the ponchos in it! Can you believe it? Probably, because at this point it is a little annoying to even those who weren’t on our trip! Can you imagine how my family felt?

We jumped off and downstairs, and there it was waiting on the bench. Back up the escalator and finally on our way!

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The bright side was that the second Monorail we caught was practically empty, compared to the first one, which was packed. Silver lining people! We were finally off to our party!
 
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Although it didn’t look like a long walk to get there, it was! It took about 10-15 minutes to walk around the lake to get there, but the kids loved the pool so it was worth it.
When we were there in Casitas, we walked to the Dig Site ONCE. My lazy kids enjoyed it and loved the slide but decided the just couldn't handle the walk, so the rest of the week they swam in the Casitas quiet pool. I didn't complain! But like you said, the walk really isn't that bad.

Lorelai and I also took a trip down the escalators to check out where the entrance for the California Grill was for later in the trip. The elevator/escalator system at the Contemporary is a bit nutty.
Ha! DH and I ate at Cali Grill for the first time in Jan. and had a little trouble figuring out how to get there......:scratchin Good idea looking for it ahead of time!

I love the pictures of the Christmas décor over at the Contemporary. We really just focused on the Epcot resorts since that's where we were staying. We did go over to the GF and a few years ago when we were there at the same time we visited the WL and Poly, but somehow skipped Contemporary both times! I'll have to make it a priority this year :thumbsup2
 
I slept in to the crazy time of 8:15am!

That is late for Disney!! Y'all were tired!

10 rounds with the CM of this conversation:

:sad2:

We took our time getting up and eating breakfast.

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Love your mani!

I can’t say that I am a big fan, AT ALL.

Do you remember Ren and Stimpy? The new Mickey cartoons remind me of those. It's very odd!

We basically had the entire pool to ourselves! We spent a bit of time in the hot tub as well, which of course Ethan really enjoyed.

Looks like a fun pool visit! And a super cool pool!

We took our obligatory photo behind cardboard Mickey (which actually turned out pretty good) and headed in.

These are great!

the good news, no one got sick! But I’m not going to lie, the food is average a best and they didn’t keep things like Mickey Waffles stocked.

Man, I go back and forth in this one. I always read that the food is meh, but where else can you dine with the fab 5?!

Ruth Ann brought us some cupcakes to celebrate our anniversary:

Adorable!

She did this about 7 times. I am not kidding, 7 Mickey Oreos were surrounding the kids feet. I was amazed! One finally stayed on his plate and they walked away… STRANGE!

What the what?

After meeting the Fab 5, we headed over to shop a bit.

These photos of the kiddos and the fab 5 are too cute. Love the one of you, L and the main mouse!

Can you believe it? Probably, because at this point it a little annoying to even those who weren’t on our trip! Can you imagine how my family felt?

Lol!:rotfl2:

Silver lining people! We were finally off to our party!

:thumbsup2
 
We do the same thing on Party nights. POOL DAY! and relax until party time.
I do like Chef Mickey's and those OREOS! Good Gracious are they amazing.. I haven't seen them anywhere else?!?! Might have to go back there again just for them.
I tried to make the potatoes at home from a recipe i found on line and they sucked.

I think we need a meet up with everyone around the area.
 
When we were there in Casitas, we walked to the Dig Site ONCE. My lazy kids enjoyed it and loved the slide but decided the just couldn't handle the walk, so the rest of the week they swam in the Casitas quiet pool. I didn't complain! But like you said, the walk really isn't that bad.

With the amount of walking we did in the parks, a walk to the pool was the least of it! LOL

Even though the quiet pool was right outside our door, they only used it twice the entire trip. I was surprised they wanted to walk to be honest, but Ethan will do a lot to be in a hot tub!

Ha! DH and I ate at Cali Grill for the first time in Jan. and had a little trouble figuring out how to get there......:scratchin Good idea looking for it ahead of time!

I love the pictures of the Christmas décor over at the Contemporary. We really just focused on the Epcot resorts since that's where we were staying. We did go over to the GF and a few years ago when we were there at the same time we visited the WL and Poly, but somehow skipped Contemporary both times! I'll have to make it a priority this year :thumbsup2

I am the opposite, we never made it over to the Epcot resorts, which really bummed me out. After our trip last time I fell in love with that area. No matter how much I have to save, we are staying there again on our next trip! We ate at Tattoria al Forno, but we never went in to see the Boardwalk lobby.

That is late for Disney!! Y'all were tired!

No sleeping at Disney!! :goodvibes


I walked away shaking my head as well.

Love your mani!

Jamberry! At the time they didn't have Disney stickers, so I made due with the pokadots, but they do now! I haven't gotten them yet, but I need to!

Do you remember Ren and Stimpy? The new Mickey cartoons remind me of those. It's very odd!

YES! They are very much in that style. I thought they were awful, but the kids were so excited about them. Apparently they have saw some of them on Disney XD. They were so excited that there was a channel devoted to them.

Looks like a fun pool visit! And a super cool pool!

The pool was probably our favorite part of the resort.

These are great!

Thanks!

Man, I go back and forth in this one. I always read that the food is meh, but where else can you dine with the fab 5?!

I would recommend Cape May Cafe and Tusker House over this one, but you don't get the exact Fab 5 at either. :(

Adorable!

Thanks!

What the what?

Exactly!

These photos of the kiddos and the fab 5 are too cute. Love the one of you, L and the main mouse!

Gotta get a photo with The Mouse! I just love the un-posed hug photos with characters, but unfortunately it seems that this trip I only got them with Lorelai. Ethan is growing out of characters, I am heartbroken!


It was bad!


Party! :jumping1:

We do the same thing on Party nights. POOL DAY! and relax until party time.
I do like Chef Mickey's and those OREOS! Good Gracious are they amazing.. I haven't seen them anywhere else?!?! Might have to go back there again just for them.
I tried to make the potatoes at home from a recipe i found on line and they sucked.

I think we need a meet up with everyone around the area.

You were actually doing the same thing at the same time then! LOL Again we were so close but so far at the party! :wave2:

Chicago Meetup ::yes::!



********************************

So I added a ticker to my signature and I am :jumping1:! I officially found out last week that I don't have to take any math courses to finish my degree, my duel credit classes from high school over 15 years ago transferred. This is a huge deal because even though I finished Triginometry and Calculus, there is no way I could pass the placement test into Algebra at this point, and it would have taken me an additional semester or more to take all the additional math classes I would need to get one class at the correct level.

All of this boils down to the point that I will officially be graduating next Spring. It feels like I have been going to school forever, which is what happens when you work full time and have a family! Soooo to celebrate my graduation I have decided that a trip to Disney is in order, and to save the extra money and apply it to our trip next year, we canceled our trip to Cancun this year.

I haven't officially booked anything yet, since 1. there are no deals out yet and 2. we are thinking about renting points for DVC with the hopes of getting a one bedroom at the Beach Club or the Boardwalk. We really like being within walking distance to Epcot.

Since Ethan begins Middle School next year, taking him out of school is much harder, BUT if we schedule it for the very end of the school year, I don't feel guilty for taking him out the last week.

I am also toying with the idea of doing a land and sea trip, I really want to cruise and it is my graduation trip after all. There are a few 3 & 4 day cruises that are leaving around that time that I am thinking about... but the combining the cost with a trip at WDW...:earseek:. We'll see...
 
I will officially be graduating next Spring

Oh MY Goodness!!! that is amazing news!! party:Congrats!!

we are thinking about renting points for DVC with the hopes of getting a one bedroom at the Beach Club or the Boardwalk. We really like being within walking distance to Epcot.

OO, I hope you'll share your experience, I have always wondered about renting DVC points, but I don't have the patience to read through all the details.

I am also toying with the idea of doing a land and sea trip, I really want to cruise and it is my graduation trip after all.

FUN!!! Land and sea is my dream vacation, but there is no way i can get my honey on a ship for more than about 30 minutes. Can't wait to see your plans!!
 
Quick intermission update: I had planned on finishing our MVMCP update today and posting it... but when I was walking into work this morning I trip on something and down I went. I of course was juggling my computer bag, purse, keys, lunch box and my Starbucks iced green tea in my hands... miracle of all miracles it didn't crash open and spill, but I had no extra hand to protect myself and I hit both of my knees... hard. Luckily I did not hit my head. But the jar of it all did give me a terrible headache and I just can't concentrate on adding photos to my posts today.

But before I forget I did want to add a cute story that I forgot to tell about our first night in the MK. I mentioned that we took a ride on PotC, a favorite, but not as good as DL of course. I knew that they had just came back from a rehab and that certain things were updated, like the redhead having a new dress, but I didn't say anything to my family. Because who else cares about things like that but me? Well we made it to the scene with the redhead, and to be honest her dress looked the same to me. I kid you not, Lorelai leaned over to me pointing at her and said "Mommy, she has a new dress!!" I was floored that she noticed! She is much more observant than I give her credit for! I think I have a Disney Nut in the making...

Oh and this was my email conversation with my husband this morning....

Him: sends me an email of multiple Disney ecards about being obsessed with Disney, including one of a little girl standing with PUSH.

Me: Lol, I bet you don't know why she is posing with a trash can.

Him: I was going to ask you…because I really don’t know.

Me: It is "PUSH" the talking trash can. It was a robot, that disney contracted from the guy who invented it. It would randomly talk to people in Tomorrowland. When the contract came up for renewal about a couple years ago, Disney didn't renew it. People were really upset with them over it. What are they going to eliminate next?

Him: And this……is why you are a Disney nut!
 
Love your pics from Chef Mickey's! That place has such tasty breakfast choices. I do think they need to jazz up the obligatory the photo op scene when entering -- it has so much potential..... hee! Sorry to hear about your fall... yikes! Hope those knees are feeling better. Take care!
 
If you look in the last photos of the post, you can see that there were some ominous clouds that were hanging over us as we left the Contemporary… we didn’t pay any attention to them, but we would soon! We were in our own little Christmas Party bubble, and nothing could pop it, we thought.

We arrived at the MK and headed to the entrance that was being used for MVMCP ticket holders, we felt very special! We were given our wristbands by these very festively dressed CM’s:

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How cute are they?

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Then we stepped around the rope and got some photo pass pictures taken. I love them, they ended up being on our Christmas cards that I got printed, and then got too busy to send out.

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We did have a fast passes scheduled for between 4 and 7, but since we had gotten so many rides done the night before the kids really just wanted to play their Scorcer’s of the Magic Kingdom games. So our first stop, like many other days, was here:

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And we began our game…

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And then the sky opened up and the water poured down. It was NOT just a Florida shower, this was serious rain, which had no intention of letting up. Luckily we made it under the train station, where our next SotMK portal was, but it was not working because this was happening…

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Not going to lie, I cried a bit. Very moving. I might be tearing up a bit right now to be honest. My family has quite a bit of military loyalty. My sister and brother-in-law were/are Navy, my brother was a Marine. In my extended family of cousins and uncles we have Air Force, Army, more Navy, and Coast Guard. Both of my grandfathers served and were active in WW2, one as an Army medic and one as a tail gunner. Seeing the WDW flag retreat ceremony with a veteran was on my bucket list and it did not disappoint, even in the pouring rain.

At the time we didn’t know why the portal wasn’t working, but we found out later when we went to ask for help. We tried to wait out the worst of the rain, but it wasn’t getting any better, so with Ethan BEGGING to go to his next portal, we put on our ponchos and headed out.

We did see a bit of the wet weather parade.

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So cute!

While we were waiting out the rain, and the kids were doing their portal. We ran into a photo pass photographer who was under the awning doing the same. But he was making the best of it as well, and had set his camera back up and ask if we wanted to take some photos. Why not!

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The rain really wasn’t stopping and time was a wasting away. I can say that trying to play SotMK in the pouring rain on very crowded Main Street, is the worst memory of the trip for all of us. Erik and I were not happy about the rain, or the walking from spot to spot in the rain. Ethan was upset because he didn’t get to play more of the game. And Lorelai was upset because her game wasn’t working correctly. It was a bust all around.

We decided that since the rain wasn’t going anywhere and neither were we, we had to buck up and head into the park already! We somehow ended up at the Tea Cups of all things and decided that it was time to get a ride under our belts, well the kids and I did, and Erik doesn’t do well with spinning rides. But as simple as it is, it is a favorite of the kids and I. I am almost certain that we rode it twice in a row, and the second time I was a bit woozy!

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After the Tea Cups we decided to use our last FP+, so we headed across Fantasyland. Here is Erik taking a photo of Lorelai:

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And here is that photo. LOL

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