1/11/25-1/25/25: 2 weeks, 5 people, a million “it’s cold”s: our freezing but amazing trip

[disneydreamer1980]

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We headed into Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. We got good seats-2nd row from the front, all the way to the right.




It was awesome as always. We had a good view of everything that was happening on our side of the stage.



It was awesome, except there was a group sitting behind us who were constantly kicking us through the opening at the bottom of the back of the seats. We put up with it for a while until I couldn’t take it anymore and turned around and asked them to stop. They didn’t speak English but I guess they understood me because they stopped. One woman behind me in this same group also kept leaning forward and coughing right on us. She was coughing so hard at one point she left the theater during the show. I thought for sure we’d get sick, and Gabe and Emma both came down with the flu a few days after we got home. I can’t say it was her, but it very well could’ve been.

After the show it was time for ToT. So we headed back that way.



On the way there, a lady in a scooter ran into DH really hard. And afterwards she gave him a dirty look! He was just walking along when she came up behind him and ran into him full speed. We had to stop walking for a minute because his ankle was really hurting. When he checked there was even a mark where the skin had come off.



You can see it by his finger.

After being run down, we continued to ToT


Gabe was being silly. He was nervous because he decided to ride. He had avoided it all trip so far, but he was feeling brave and wanted to ride.


So we waited in line.



We got on ToT, for the last time this trip.

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[disneydreamer1980]

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After DH and Gabes only ToT ride if the trip, we decided to head out. The lines were really long, we still had to get to MK and we’d done our favorites. So we headed towards the exit.





Then on to the bus





We walked under the skyliner on the way out.


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[disneydreamer1980]

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We got on the bus. It was the Moana bus again!



We shared with the Contemporary again but we got off first. We were off the bus at 6:10


We headed to the room for warmer clothes before we went to MK


Love these elevators

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[Psymonds]

We hung out a bit, checking out the antique machines they have there


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Then we saw the train had come and we got on. Off to Fantasyland!


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We passed Big Thunder Mtn along the way and were sad that we would t get to ride it this trip.
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The train ride was very nice! We’ll have to not neglect it anymore. We arrived in Fantasyland and headed to 7DMT. We all rode and it was fun as usual.


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After that we saw the Teacups had a very short line so we headed there. I sat out because even though I was taking Bonine every day this was still too much for my motion sickness.



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While they rode that I used my magic band to interact with the Cheshire Cat gold statue.

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That was cute and we always tried to stop when we passed one all trip.

They got off the teacups and we headed over to Pooh.
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Cute as always.

We decided to head over to Tomorrowland. We visited one of my favorite attractions, Carousel of progress! I love that show.
After that, they all rode space mountain while I sat out and got a slushie.

Next we all rode Buzz. I had the lowest points for our group, as per usual. After they all gloated and picked on me for a few minutes, Emma and Gabe decided to ride Astro Orbiters. It was being closed the next day for renovations I think and they wanted to ride before it did.

Next, came People Mover. Always a favorite.View attachment 936619View attachment 936620

Such a nice relaxing ride. After enjoying the People Mover we got a walk up reservation for…Liberty Tree Tavern! A lot of our plans changed on the fly and this was a place I was not expecting to eat at, but the kids really wanted it. Where were they when I was booking places 2 months ago?! We had about an hour to wait so we decided to head over to Liberty Square, for one haunted ride before dinner!

we were in MK on 1/12 for DW's birthday! I'm looking at the people in the background to see if I see us! like the report!

 

[disneydreamer1980]

we were in MK on 1/12 for DW's birthday! I'm looking at the people in the background to see if I see us! like the report!

That was an awesome day. Crowds weren’t bad at all

 

[Paulaparm]

Your last day was our first day in the parks. We were also in HS (with our winter coats). I looked very closely in all of the pictures you posted, but didn’t see us!

 

[disneydreamer1980]

Your last day was our first day in the parks. We were also in HS (with our winter coats). I looked very closely in all of the pictures you posted, but didn’t see us!

That was a good day to start your trip, the weather was getting better. Still chilly but at least not freezing and rainy

 

[Paulaparm]

That was a good day to start your trip, the weather was getting better. Still chilly but at least not freezing and rainy

Yes, it was chilly the first couple days, but then got nice and warm for the rest of our trip!

 

[disneydreamer1980]

We grabbed some jackets and headed towards the bus stop.



We arrived at the bus stop at 6:28. It was 52 degrees, cold but balmy compared to recent days.



MK bus arrived at 6:29. We took the bus because it was too cold to take the boat.



The bus said “now is the best time of our lives”.


They loaded 2 scooters which took a while, then we were let on. We were at MK at 6:52.
We knew we wouldn’t have too much time there, we just wanted one last goodbye.

It was crazy crowded for this time of night.



We decided to watch CoP one last time. I could watch that show a million times. I hope they never get rid of it or change it too much, it would really kill me.



For some reason everything seemed to be “temporarily closed”.




We decided since we were already in Tomorrowland, we’d ride Buzz.




After that we headed over to another favorite, the Peoplemover. We boarded the ride, and right after we sat down all the ride vehicles stopped. They had us get off while they tried to figure out what was going on. I’m not sure when it restarted, but we waited around for a bit to see if we could get on again, then we gave up.

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[disneydreamer1980]

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After having to get off the Peoplemover, we were trying to decide what to do. Several of the rides were closed, lines were long, and we had to get up early the next day. So we decided to head out.

We said goodbye to the park and headed to the boat. Even though it was cold, I wanted one last boat ride. We walked up just as a boat for WL was pulling away from the dock. While we were waiting for the next boat, we were entertained by a bold duck.


There’s lots of these brave ducks in Disney.

A few minutes later, our boat pulled up. It was packed to the gills. Every seat was filled. We arrived at WL dock at 8:39pm.

We headed into the main lobby. We placed a mobile order at Roaring Fork, and went into the gift shop while we waited. We bought some more souvenirs, and I bought a suitcase to carry souvenirs home in.

When our order was ready we headed over to get our food.



I love all the details you find in this resort




We picked up our food. I got the chicken dinner, which was pretty good. Gabe and Emma got Mac-n-cheese, Isabella grilled cheese and soup, and DH got nothing.

When we were waiting on our food I grabbed a few Disney themed candy packages to take home. When the CM tried to ring them up, something kept happening and it just wouldn’t ring up, so finally she just told me I could have them free of charge, as a little bit of pixie dust! $40 worth of candy! That was awesome.

We took our food up to our room.

















When we got to the room, the Electrical Water Pageant started. It was the perfect way to end the last night of our trip. The only other time this trip we saw it from our room was our first night at WL. So it’s fitting we watched it on our last night too.


I wish I knew how to put videos on here, but I don’t so I only have a not so great picture.

We ate our food, and finished packing whatever we didn’t get to pack that morning.

We were in bed by 11.

Stay tuned for our departure day.

 

[jo-jo]

Yes, I agree,,Electrical Water Pageant timing was meant to be.

So sad your wonderful freezing rainy trip is over. I loved reading and viewing all the pictures. Seeing the many many faces of Gabe. Cute Gabe, silly Gabe, sly Gabe.......... Wondering how your DH coped without a jacket for so long. When and where will your daughters show up.

Thanks again for taking the time to write this.

tomorrow, the saddest day of all. sniff sniff.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

Yes, I agree,,Electrical Water Pageant timing was meant to be.

So sad your wonderful freezing rainy trip is over. I loved reading and viewing all the pictures. Seeing the many many faces of Gabe. Cute Gabe, silly Gabe, sly Gabe.......... Wondering how your DH coped without a jacket for so long. When and where will your daughter show up.

Thanks again for taking the time to write this.

tomorrow, the saddest day of all. sniff sniff.

Thank you so much! Yes, Gabe’s quite the character. He asks me daily “how long til our next Disney trip?” Lol. He was just at the Nickelodeon indoor theme park in the American Dream mall in New Jersey this weekend and he compared everything to Disney World. Our departure day was a sad day, and I’m sad that the trip reports almost over too. It’s nice to relive it. I’m not the best photographer by far, and we never posed for any photopass pics this trip, despite having memory maker, because there always seems to be a line. So I don’t have the best pictures, so I was hesitant at first to post a trip report, but I’m so glad I did. I’m thinking about doing another one for our next trip.

 

[jo-jo]

Thank you so much! Yes, Gabe’s quite the character. He asks me daily “how long til our next Disney trip?” Lol. He was just at the Nickelodeon indoor theme park in the American Dream mall in New Jersey this weekend and he compared everything to Disney World. Our departure day was a sad day, and I’m sad that the trip reports almost over too. It’s nice to relive it. I’m not the best photographer by far, and we never posed for any photopass pics this trip, despite having memory maker, because there always seems to be a line. So I don’t have the best pictures, so I was hesitant at first to post a trip report, but I’m so glad I did. I’m thinking about doing another one for our next trip.

Definitely plan on posting more trips in the future. I couldn't tell you one thing to change. Your writing to pictures ratio was great, details on point, and posting were frequent.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

Saturday 1/25/25: Departure day

When I booked our flights home, there were only very early flights or very late flights. The earlier flights were a bit cheaper, and I was thinking if we got home early that DH and the kids would have pretty much all weekend to get used to being home before getting back to work and school on Monday. Boy did I regret that decision when we had to wake up at 3am lol. Our flight wasn’t til 7:50 but Mears was scheduled to pick us up at 4:05. The day before this I had looked into changing our flight to a later one, but it would’ve been an extra $700 and I just didn’t think it was worth it. We considered it though lol. We did not want to leave, let alone that early.

So, we woke up at 3:15 am. We finished getting stuff together, and packing up. We had a ton of leftover unopened food and drinks (what didn’t fit in the fridge we kept under the sink) that we took down to the laundry room. We had several soda bottles, 2 cases of water, and much much more. Clearly we overestimated how much we’d need lol. We left it in the laundry room.

We had so much more than this. Lots of sealed, unopened stuff. Hopefully someone used it and it didn’t get thrown away.


It was so sad saying goodbye to our room-our home for the past two weeks. I walked around, taking pictures of some of the art work and other details.



See Mickey and Minnie in the one above?


We folded up the bed, although I know they’ll have to open it to change the linens, I felt bad leaving it open and a mess.

I even took a pic of this lol


Then I went out on the balcony for one last look at our view. It was dark out, but it was still beautiful.



Once we went around and checked to make sure we got everything, DH went to the front desk and grabbed a luggage cart. We didn’t want to bother Bell Services so early.

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[disneydreamer1980]

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When DH came back with the luggage cart, we loaded everything up and said goodbye to our room. It was sad. It always is, but for some reason more so this trip. I don’t know why.

I looked at our door for the last time.



DH started pushing the luggage cart. It was a long, sad walk.



I admired the tapestry by the elevator one last time.





Don’t worry, that’s not Gabes coke lol. He very rarely gets soda (more on vacation than at home) and never at 4 in the morning lol.

Once we were on the first floor, I wanted to check everything out down there one more time.




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[disneydreamer1980]

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We walked around for a minute, checking everything out one more time.




This is the pic on the right side wall in the above picture.

I love the Carolwood Pacific room. It’s like a mini museum, there’s so much in there to see.



Walt’s real mini train








Isabella took these two pictures, of the Painting Walt’s Magical Barn and its description. It’s pretty cool.

The theming is so incredible here. In addition to all the cool things to see, the music is awesome. This mix of native American and frontier type music. And the smell of this place is amazing. I bought a candle with the same scent as soon as we came back.

After saying goodbye to everything down there, we headed out towards the main building.



We pushed the cart across the walkway, into the main WL building.



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[disneydreamer1980]

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We walked into the main lodge. Gabe wanted to pose with the totem pole.



Then we walked across an empty WL




There was no one in there. Only a few CMs. It was really cool to see it empty like that,



We walked out of the main entrance to meet the Mears bus



When we walked out side the Mears bus was already waiting, despite us being a little early.



There were 10 or so depressed looking people already on board.

The driver put our luggage on the bus and we got on and sat in the back, as we always do on busses here.



The bus stopped at FW first, then onto MCO airport.

We were dropped off at terminal B after a
25-30 minute ride. We unloaded our luggage and tipped the driver



We went inside and checked in on a kiosk.



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[disneydreamer1980]

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We had to walk to terminal A. When we arrived 2 weeks before, this screen was full of Christmas Disney scenes, now it was back to normal.



Each scene had Gabe excited, saying “we did that!”.

We sat on a bench for a little bit while everyone used the bathroom.



After everyone was done, we headed through security. No issues there, it went pretty fast. Because Gabes little still they always let me go through the normal metal detector with him so I don’t have to take my shoes off and go thru the big scanner. That’s nice, I’ll miss that when he’s older lol.

We headed to gate 103 and sat down.
Everyone was hungry so they went to McDonald’s near us and got breakfast.



DH let Gabe get a slushie since it was the last meal of the trip.



We had paid to pre-board, and we picked seats near the wings. I sat in one row with Emma and Gabe, and DH and Isabella were in the other row with an empty seat between them.



They figured no one would want to sit between two strangers, and they were right. The seat stayed open.

We sat on the runway for a short while, waiting to take off



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[disneydreamer1980]

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The plane took off without incident, unlike the trip to Disney which was absolutely terrifying.
It was smooth sailing.



The kids kept themselves occupied with either looking out the windows or playing on their phones



It was a short flight, only about an hour snd 45 minutes. It was longer on the way to Florida than it was on the way home, I guess tailwinds were different.

We arrived at Reagan airport and were off the plane close to 10:00.



We had to figure out how to get to the shuttle that would take us to our car.



DH and I went to wait for the shuttle.



The girls were sitting with Gabe and the luggage while we got the car.

After a short wait, the bus came. Our last bus trip of the trip I guess.



We sat in the back as we always do, and after a short ride we were at our lot. On the way in, the gate arm would t open for the bus driver, so he couldn’t get in the lot. We sat there a few minutes, before the gate attendant came out and manually opened both the entrance and exit gates because apparently they weren’t working. We finally got into the lot and off the bus. We got in the car and headed towards the gate. We were supposed to pay around $400 on the way out for our having the car parked there for 2 weeks. When we went to leave, the gate was still wide open and there was no one around to pay. We waited a few minutes, and looked around for an attendant. We left without paying because there was no way to even do so. So we lucked out and saved $400! DH figured we may get a bill in the mail or something but nothings come so far, and I doubt it will.

We took the car back to the airport and met up with the girls, and loaded up the luggage, then we were on the road towards home.


Note the Washington monument and Jefferson Memorial in the background to the right of the picture.

It was an uneventful drive home.

The first picture of this trip report was of our luggage in front of our hutch/China cabinet, so when I saw that I had snapped a pic of some of our luggage in the same place right after we got home, it’d be a fitting picture to end with.



I will be doing a wrap up post, with some thoughts, extra information and some pics I stole off my family’s phones. So this trip reports not totally over yet, I hope you all will join me for the wrap up post.