My Trip report.

[figmentaholic]

I hope the moderators don't mind, but I am going to put this in a couple of posts. I am not trying to pad posts or anything, I just don't want one post that is so long that no one will get through it.

I went to Disney from February 10th through 18th, though the first and last days were obviously travel days, since my husband Paul and I had to drive about 8 hours from SC to Florida.

It is really long, but I tried to cut out what I could. Sorry if I am long winded.


So here we go!



Tuesday 02/10-
I Woke up about 7:15, showered, got dressed and checked mail, then went to work.
Worked from 8:30-12:30. Then I headed home, changed clothes, and threw a few last items in the car, and we started off about 1:00 PM.
We stopped about 30 minutes down the road to get gas and food.
I drove until about 5:30, when we were a bit outside of Jacksonville. Paul took over and drove us through Jax, then I took back over driving again and we got into our friend's apartment about 9:30 PM.
We hung out with them and thier 9 month old daughter for a while, just talking about a little bit of everything, caught up on old times, and we settled down to get at least a couple of hours of sleep.


Wednesday 02/11-
Paul and I headed out of thier place about 9:30 AM and called our friend who were going to meet us at Disney. They were still in Tampa- they had been there a day or two visiting friends and parks- Paul and I went to Downtown Disney and went to the Virgin Megastore, then we headed to Port Orleans French Quarter.
Paul and I colored at the kid's table while waiting- he did Simba and I did Mushu. We eventually found them and checked in and got settled in our room.
After a bit we returned thier car at the place on Disney property, then took the shuttle to Epcot.
We rode Spaceship Earth, then had an early dinner at Le Cellier. We all had the Cheddar Cheese Soup. It was the first time one of our friends had had it, and we all loved it. I also had some great grilled salmon over some chick peas, and the maple creme brulee. It was all so wonderful, but I ate way too much.
We had all eaten too much, and we were tired. We only made it to England before we decided that to call it a night and get going early tomorrow. We left about 6:30 PM and got back to the room about 7:30 PM. It wasn't long before we were all sleeping soundly.


Thursday 02/12-
We woke up about 5:30 AM, got ready, then we went out to the bus stop for Magic Kingdom.
We queued up for breakfast inside the entrance. As they let us in, I got some neat pics of a nearly deserted Magic Kingdom. That was neat to see. So rare!
We had a great breakfast at the Crystal Palace. The food, as usual, is great, and the characters were fun. Tigger has always been a favorite, so I got some serious Tigger hugs!
Afterwards, Paul and one friend headed out back to the car to pick up another friend of ours who was going to hang out with us. In the mean time, the other friend and I hopped over to Epcot.
We got Fastpasses for Soarin', but since the line wasn't bad, we went in. We got to ride in the top row for his first ever ride. Cool.
After that, we rode Journey into Imagination, and I of course got a lot of Figment stuff and sent it to the hotel- yay for not having to lug it around! After that, we went to Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.
We went back to the Land and used our Soarin' Fastpasses- top row again!! Then we went on Living With the Land- always a favorite of mine. We got some chocolate and caffiene at The Sunshine Cafe to recharge.
We went to The Living Seas after that, where we unexpectedly met up with the rest of the group. We saw Turtle Talk with Crush. The performer was AWESOME, even though the audience was unenthusiastic.
After that we walked around Innoventions. I made me a Velcro frog. Afterwards we went to The Art of Disney to oogle the expensive stuff, and then to Mouse Gear to oogle the less expensive stuff.
Then we went back to The Land for our late character lunch. The characters were great! Paul was wearing a Dale hat, so Chip shunned him and Dale loved it of course. Dale loved me, giving me kisses up my arm! I was blushing bad!
Afterwards we went back into the room where we watched some movies until we fell asleep about 11:30 PM.


Friday 02/13-
We got ready and headed to the Polynesian, for breakfast at O'hana. We have a friend who works there, so he visited us, and later we got "special" attention from Pluto, which was great. I also got some Stitch hugs. He is my second favorite character behind Figment.
We hopped the monorail and headed to the Magic Kingdom. We did the Jungle Cruise first. The guy was funny, but he had long pauses between spiels which was a little awkward.
Afterwards, we went to the Enchanted Tiki Room- Under New Management. As usual, it was pretty fun. Then we went to Pirates of the Caribbean.
Since they rest of them wanted to go on Big Thunder Mountain and I didn't, we broke up- they rode Big Thunder while I rode Pirates again and looked around some shops.
Three of us did Haunted Mansion while the other two went off somewhere. I always love that ride.
We all met up close to the Carousel, where we got to see our O'hana friend again for a few minutes, then afterwards we went to Mickey's Philharmagic. I love the rides that use all of your senses!
We stopped for drinks, then rode Stitch's Great Escape, where some of our speakers weren't working, and not all of us got blasted with the chili dog smell. Maybe that isn't a bad thing.
We got a tip from our O'hana friend that Meeko was out, so we headed back to Adventureland, and got some quality time with Meeko and Rafiki. we got tons of pics and video. That was fun.
Afterwards we headed back to Tomorrowland and rode the TTA- another one of my favorite things to do. I love the view and the relaxation time. Then we rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. Since we got stopped right where the shooting begins, Paul, who was in the car in front of me, was able to max out his score- 999,999. Goofball.
We went to Downtown Disney and met up with yet another friend who works at the parks. We had a nice dinner at the Earl of Sandwich. We sat and talked for a long time. I actually napped a tiny bit.
We all went to Once Upon a Toy and The World of Disney. I stopped at the Lego store, then our Disney friend headed off and we went back to our room and made it an early evening.
I guess Friday the 13th was pretty lucky.



Continued in next post....

[figmentaholic]

This is the second half of the trip.



Saturday 02/14-
I woke up and I headed out by myself- the rest of them were asleep. I called at the bus stop while waiting and surprisingly got reservations the same day- Valentine's Day- for 1 person at the Sci-Fi Drive In at 11:40. It was just in time. I made the reservation right as the bus pulled up!
I saw Muppet Vision 3-D show- my favorite attraction in DHS. I didn't have time for another show, so I walked around some shops until lunchtime.
At the Sci-Fi, I was a "hitchhiker" in the third seat of the car/tables. A family of four had the first two rows. As usual, the stuff on the big screen was awesome- still one of my favorite things. I had a burger, fries, and a strawberry shake instead of soda. Yum!
After that I hopped a bus to the Animal Kingdom to meet up with the group. They were going into the Festival of the Lion King, so I watched the otters while waiting.
We met up, and forced Paul to get pics with his "favorite" character, Turk. Then we went on Kilamanjaro Safaris. We got some nice pics of hippos, giraffes, some cattle, Thompson's Gazelles, rhinos, and others I can't think of. It was kind of freaky at the hippo pool- it was infested with buzzards, perching everywhere.
After that, we went to Conversation Station, but unfortunatly by the time we got there, they were kicking people out and closing it. We stoppd long enough to have ice cream and sit down and relax for a few minutes.
We left Conversation Station and Animal Kingdom and went back to our hotel room. A little later another friend of ours arrived, and we got to hang out with him for a bit. He came down from a gig in Daytona- He was working at the Daytona 500 and had to go back.
I fell asleep before he left. I vaguely remeber waking up enough to say goodbye and then I was back asleep.
It was not a romantic Valentine's Day, but I still had a very good time.


Sunday 02/15-
I woke up about 7:45 and headed out by myself to DHS. Unfortunatly I got there before it opened, but not early enough to get a good place in line. So it took a while to get in. I immediatly went to get a Fast Pass for Toy Story Mania. It was already at 10:40-11:40 by the time I got one.
I needed to occupy 90 minutes, so I had breakfast at the Commessary, watched some interesting TV and had a bowl of cereal and a container of yogurt.
I almost walked onto Star Tours (right behind Muppet Vision 3-D as my favorite ride). I almost hate walking on because it has the best queue of any ride.
Afterwards, I rode the Great Movie Ride. The tour guide was good and the "Bugsy" character wasn't bad.
It was time to ride Toy Story by then. I got in touch with the rest of the group while in line to set up a meeting place afterwards. I *LOVE* that ride, though I am not good at it. I only got 109,500. Not bad but not great. The rest of the group were in line for The Great Movie Ride, so I met up with them as they exited.
We went to Hollywood and Vine, and were quite surprised to walk right in to the character lunch. That is the best food in all of DHS, perhaps in all of Disney, which is wierd for little kids' character lunch. We got to see Jo Jo and the adorable Goliath, as well as a couple of characters I didn't know.
Afterwards we accidentally got into the wrong line at the Prince Caspian attraction. We found out the line was for a meet a greet for Prince Caspian. It ended up being fun. The guy was THE MOST "on character" face character that I have ever seen! They let in one group at a time, so we got a private audience with him, which as far as I know doesn't happen anywhere else.
We saw the attraction aftwards, I was surprised the short film gave away the whole plot of the movie. The props and costumes were cool.
We went to the Magic of Disney Animation after that. The preshow where the guy "talks" to Mushu and we get some background about his history was really neat. Then we went in the main area and three of us got our pictures with Bolt and Rhino- they are so cute! We were almost the character drawing, but the wait was too long and we were tired.
We broke up after that. Two of us went back to the room to get some rest- our local friend who we had picked up a few days before had to work that night and I had to be awake enough to drive him home. We traded the pics and videos we had taken so far, then we slept, waking when they rest of the group came back.
The local friend and I left about 10:30 PM and drove to his place. He and his roommate went to work, and I finally got online and got rid of the massive amounts of email that had piled up since I left, then I finally went to sleep.


Monday 02/16-
It was President's Day, and I was worried every park would be very crowded.
My friend came home and woke me up. We got ready, stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a bagel with cream cheese and coffee, then we headed towards Universal with comp passes from a friend.
There was a huge bottleneck at the parking area, and despite driving to Universal before the rest of the group, and being closer, the group who had taken a cab got there before us.
We met up at The Endangered Species Store in City Walk and I bought stuff. The rest of the group headed towards IOA, and I went to Universal for The Simpsons ride.
As I was heading towards The Simpsons ride, I passed by a truck with the Madagascar characters on it. Since that is what one of our friends really wanted to see, I called them and said to get over to this park.
I rode The Simpsons ride. Anyone who rode Back to the Future would notice that they used the same technology- multiple levels of motion simulators all looking at one huge screen. The queue line was awesome. You got clips from the show, plus new clips which explained the story as you went along. The Simpsons went to Krustyland (a Disney knockoff). Sideshow Bob escapes from jail and goes on a rampage.
The motion sim ride is very smooth, not jerky like Star Tours at Disney. During the ride you are on a simulated rollercoaster that goes all over the place. But I won't say too much.
They give a lot of warnings about enclosed spaces. Since I am claustrophobic I was worried, but it really wasn't bad, maybe because I was in the front row. And even though I hate real rollercoasters I quite enjoyed this.
The Bart and Lisa characters were outside, beside the Kwik-E-Mart (the gift shop). Bart was being bad and annoying his handler. Hilarious.
I ate lunch at the restaurant next to the Kwik-E-Mart- a burger and fries and soda- and I watched trailers for Universal movies in various languages. Dante's Peak in Japaneese- wierd.
Afterwards, I met up with the group and saw the characters from Madagascar again- Alex and three penguins. The characters were pretty good and very cute!
Two people went to ride The Mummy, and the rest of us had lunch at the same place I had. We walked towards the exit after that, stopping to take pics of Homer and Marge, and shop a little. We met back up at the exit.
After we left, we dropped our local friend at his place and said our goodbyes, and headed back to the hotel.
There was a gathering of local friends at Downtown Disney. We walked around a bit, then hung out with the group for a short time. We were tired, it was cold, and we needed to get dinner. So we did a bit more shopping, got some food at the hotel food court, then took it back to the room and ate and hung out until we all went to sleep.


Tuesday 02/17-
We all woke up late and hung around the room. It was the last day and we were all tired and had no plans, so we took it easy and slowly got ready. Eventually, we went to Epcot because hadn't gone around the World Showcase yet.
First, we went to The Electric Umbrella to have lunch. It was packed and it took a long time to get our food. I had a burger, fries, and a soda. We didn't rush, just sat and enjoyed our food.
After eating we headed to the World showcase. We rode the Gran Fiesta tour. It's nothing too special, but I REALLY like the Three Amigos. We continued on, getting pics of Mushu and Mulan in China. We walked through the China shop as well.
We continued around- Paul got that AWESOME cookie in Germany that has HUGE hunks of chocolate in it. YUMMY! A couple of us got chocolate in Italy, and I got my Italian father a souveneir. I had also got my parents a pirate rubber duck from Downtown Disney. They have a hot tub and they always have a rubber duck in it.
We made it to Japan, my favorite pavilion. I always get sushi rice there. Oddly enough it is the cheapest place to get this particular rice. I also got some of those awesome gummy candies-lychee, peach, grape, and mango, and a cool sushi mousepad! I also got one of the Japaneese shaved ice snacks outside. We got to Impressions de France. I love the show but got ticked off because the people behind us kept talking!
Afterwards, two people went to Mission Space we other two leisurly strolled towards the front of the park, taking the boat across from Morocco. We took a break and I did some shopping close to Spaceship Earth (I found a Figment plush left over from Christmas- cool!) and by the time I got back, we were all one group again.
We hopped the monorail to see if we could have dinner at the Polynesian- but our meal luck had run out. So we took a cab back to the hotel.
This time we sat at the food court. I had a really good mufaletta with some chips, and for desert some begniets and some coffee with milk- it wasn't the real cafe au lait from the Big Easy, but it was good nonetheless.
When we got back to the room, we were tired and depressed. We packed up and took some stuff down to the car because my hubby and I intended to leave at 5:30 AM to beat the morning rush hour We talked and hung out for our last night together and eventually went to sleep.




So there ya go. Sorry it is so long, but we did stay a while and do a whole lot.
I hope you guys enjoy, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reply!!

[horizons1]

Great story. Thanks!

You said that you were worried about it being crowded at Universal on President's day but besides the bottleneck in the parking area how was the park?

[elizabethswann]

Holy cow you guys were very productive. Glad you had a fun trip!

[Len90]

Wow you guys did not waste a single moment of the trip. Glad to see you made the most of it and had a blast.

[jenjolt]

Wow Great trip report!! Thank you so much for sharing!! Sounds like you guys had a great time.

[figmentaholic]

Great story. Thanks!

You said that you were worried about it being crowded at Universal on President's day but besides the bottleneck in the parking area how was the park?

At first, it was not too bad. The only ride I actually did that day was The Simpsons, and since I went right back to it when we got there it was 15-20 min I would guess.

But by the time my friends got there and wanted to ride it a bit later, it had jumped up to 70 minutes.

The line times for the rides were kinda bad, but walking around the park was deceptivly easy. I guess everyone was in line, so the roads and shops were not that crowded, which was a bit odd.

[wdwannabe]

Thanks for sharing your trip! Sounds like you had a great time!

[figmentaholic]

Thanks for sharing your trip! Sounds like you had a great time!

Thanks to everyone here. I did have a great time, and while we were there we were already planning what to do for next year.

I think even though our friend's b-day is in mid February, we are going to go a week or two earlier next year to avoid President's Day and Valentine's Day. The crowds should be MUCH smaller then, which will make me happy!!!

We are also planning on trying to get more people, so if that happens, we will most likely be back in the Cabins, which would be good for me. Being close to the Food Court was nice, but I LOVE the Cabins, with thier kitchen and all that!!

[Sleepy90]

Thought I would give you a heads up Figmentaholic.

First weekend in February is National Dance Championship they usually arrive Wednesday and leave the following Monday.

Then that Wednesday the Cheerleaders arrive for the National Cheerleading Championship that weekend and they go on Monday.

So the parks are quite busy with the teams but not as busy as presidents day I would think, it has got to be worse as I know this year we could not stay both weeks at riverside because it was full second week. They blamed it on the holiday.

[figmentaholic]

Oh, thanks a ton Sleepy... I will tell my friend... This may be bad... February is not looking too good... I will have to look into that.


Thank you a million times over for the warning. I will see what we can do.

[emnbensdad]

Definitely a great report. I never thought about logging events on our trip but I think I will start doing that. We had some neat things happen during last year's visit. So, I think I will keep some sort of log/diary for our big trip in July.

[figmentaholic]

Definitely a great report. I never thought about logging events on our trip but I think I will start doing that. We had some neat things happen during last year's visit. So, I think I will keep some sort of log/diary for our big trip in July.

I would love to hear your trip reports.. What I did was every night, I sat in my hotel room on my bed and just wrote it all down so I would remember- there was actually more but I shortened it up here cause I didn't want it to be overwhelmingly long.
I would definatly reccomend taking a notebook with you and taking about 30 min an evening to do this- maybe less depending on how detailed you are and how much you remember.

[emnbensdad]

Definitely a great report. I never thought about logging events on our trip but I think I will start doing that. We had some neat things happen during last year's visit. So, I think I will keep some sort of log/diary for our big trip in July.

I would love to hear your trip reports.. What I did was every night, I sat in my hotel room on my bed and just wrote it all down so I would remember- there was actually more but I shortened it up here cause I didn't want it to be overwhelmingly long.
I would definatly reccomend taking a notebook with you and taking about 30 min an evening to do this- maybe less depending on how detailed you are and how much you remember.

That's about the only down time we seem to have.

One incident last summer happened one morning as we were headed to DHS. Our son was drinking some bottled water as we were walking to the busses. We were beside the pool at All-Star Music. He was walking toward the main building and another guest was walking toward him. They collided and the bottle busted his lip. Great way to start the day (crying and bleeding). Almost immediately, one of the lifeguards by the main pool said it was time to wake the Three Caballeros (sp?). So he came over to our son and daughter, gave them straw hats (to keep!!) and maracas to "wake them up" so to speak. They also gave them whistles to blow but my son was in no shape to blow anything with the busted lip. However, it did take his mind off the fact that he was bleeding. It immediately turned the morning from disaster to success!!!

Only at Disney!

[Future Guy]

Thanks for the account of your trip. Sounds like you had a great time!