I've been a bit AWOL from here but have posted a few things on the facebook group during the trip and since we returned home.
Here's a summary of our trip:
Flights went very well. Everything was on time and the service was good with Delta. DME was fast and got our bags to us quickly as well. Checking in to come home wasn't very fast, but we did get all checked in at the hotel and didn't have to mess around at the airport. Had a couple of snafus with our connection coming home but they were caused by me. I left a bag on the previous flight and had to go back to get it and then left the boarding passes on that flight and had to get them reprinted. Delta was great with taking care of us though.
We started the trip with a dinner at Chef Mickey's. We had a great time with the characters and great service and food. We were too tired to watch Wishes from the Poly though and just went back to our room and went to bed. We had been up since about 3am though so it's understandable. We all agreed that starting with Chef Mickey's on our arrival day was something we want to do again.
Our first park day was at MK. We had a pre-RD ADR at Crystal Palace and even though our time wasn't until 8:40 we were let in at 8am and got to eating fast. We had to wait a bit for the characters to come out though since they weren't quite awake yet. We left there and went to see Merida. I got Peter Pan FP while the family was in line. The day was very productive. We had originally planned on taking a midday break back to the hotel but when we mentioned it the girls wanted no part of it. Since they seemed a bit tired and cranky we had lunch at Cosmic Rays and then did COP and the People Mover, which were both a lot of fun. That was enough of a low key rest to continue and we cleared most of Fantasyland and Tomorrowland and got a few things done in Adventureland before it started raining and we went into Gaston's Tavern for dinner. We had the Pork Shank and some LeFou's Brew (they need to have an alcoholic version of this btw) and while we were eating the sky opened up. Rain coming down in buckets and of course this was the day we opted to leave the ponchos at the hotel. With no other choice we hid the electronics in our backpacks and made our way to the front of the park to get the bus back to AoA. We made the most of it though and we all had fun splashing in the puddles. Who needs a water park right?
Our next day we went to DHS. I noticed a few things about this park that I hadn't really noticed before. It's not really laid out well for touring. I love the attractions, shows, etc that are there, but to tour effectively you need to criss cross the park a bit. There's also very few large rides, which causes the lines to get very long at the few they do have. Case in point was about an hour after park open RnRC went down for a bit. The queues for that an ToT had been at 20 minutes each. ToT jumped to 80 minutes quickly while RnRC was down. It eventually got back down to 40 minutes long after RnRC came back up, but the backup was felt through the day. I ducked out of breakfast at H&V to grab FP at TSMM. I got there at 9:10 and my time was for 1:30!
I couldn't believe it. I knew then we would probably only get to ride it once that day. The standby line was already at 40 minutes at that point too. It's a fun ride, don't get me wrong, but I'm not waiting that long for it. The peak for TSMM was 120 minutes that day. We tried to get into Jedi Academy but by the time we got up to register the times were for the last show, which was when we wanted to see Fantasmic!, which we didn't wind up seeing because it filled up quickly that day and we were too tired to wait until the second show. We hit all of the rides that day though but did miss out on LMA, BatB and Disney Jr. DD1 loved RnRC and DD2 didn't care much for ToT now that she's tall enough to ride it. We also didn't stand in line for Mike and Sully but we did for Phineas and Ferb.
The next day was our rest day. We slept in, hit the Cozy Cone Pool, went to DTD for a bit then went to 1900 PF for dinner with Cinderella. Again there was some good food there and I'm always in awe of the Grand Floridian. One of these days I'll hit the lottery and get to stay there.
It was now time for Epcot. I've had issues with Epcot on each of my trips where we visited. In 99 it rained on our Epcot day, shutting down pretty much everything. When we went last year it was our first day and we hadn't studied how to tour Epcot well. We missed a lot as a result and were disappointed. The kids were cranky and it took us a bit to get into the groove. This year we were better prepared and got to hit most of the attractions but like DHS, missed the shows. We started with breakfast at Akershus, which is a hike if you want to FP Soarin first thing! I think Epcot might be a day and a half to two day park, splitting up World Showcase and Future World. We did pick a pearl in Japan and DD1 got twin 6.5mm pearls and DD2 got a 7.5mm pearl! That was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. We had dinner at Katsura Grill in Japan and that was delicious. That's a great QS option in my opinion. We also got to have the Grand Marnier Slushie while in the French Pavillion. They were awesome. We were able to FP Soarin twice and I finally got to ride Test Track. One of the highlights of the day was when we visited the Character Spot and I proposed to Minnie. She took me over to where Mickey was and a big scene was made about it. We all had a good laugh about that.
Now it was back to MK after having breakfast at Ohana. We had a bit of a late breakfast, 8:40am, but it was EMH morning hours at MK so when we got to the park it was already a bit crowded. Breakfast was fun and delicious but it took a while and we were starting to get a bit antsy about getting to the park. We got to the park and started to hit up some of the things we had missed on our other MK day. We got to ride Space Mountain this time after it had been closed the previous day and DD2 rode BTMMR for the first time and loved it. We skipped Splash Mountain because the girls all got made over as mermaids at the Pirates League and they told us the water would make the makeup wash off. Something for next time though! We did ETWB and I was a guard again. DD1 & DD2 were Ms. Potts and Chip. It was a fun experience and I marvel at the technology behind Lumiere and Wardrobe. We missed the Tiki Room and Wishes throughout the trip but again, that leaves something to do next time.
The girls got their backpacks autographed by the characters and they came out really well. I think next year I'll opt for a completely black backpack though with no designs on it.
We ran into some friends from our town that had planned out a nearly identical itinerary to ours. They were staying at Pop and joined us at the pool at AoA and intermittently throughout the trip. They had the MagicBands and were regulars at Disney and loved the bands. They really liked being able to schedule things and not have to go based solely on what was available. We didn't have the MagicBands obviously but found the RFID tap-to-pay and to enter very fast and easy. I think having MB & FP+ next summer will be nice. Literally EVERYONE that I talked to that had the bands loved them. Many of them were return guests who loved not having to run across the park for FP while they were in the middle of a meal or having to separate from their group as well as being able to pick the times they wanted to do something. My friend regularly rescheduled his FP options to accommodate the times we got with our regular FP so we could ride together. I did notice a lot of guests who didn't have them were questioning how to get them at various attractions and CMs were telling them about FP+ testing and that it wasn't fully rolled out yet. A lot of interest was there though.
We had a Cars suite at AoA. It was amazing. We were very close to the food court and buses, had a great view of the lake and Pop on the ground floor and it was very comfortable. Having two bathrooms helped with all of the girls we had and the separate bedroom meant my wife and I could have a little bit of separation from the kids. We asked when we checked in if we could be moved to Nemo but there wasn't availability for the whole week. We were still quite happy with it and if given the option we would probably do it again.
On our last day we packed up, checked our bags, hit the food court for breakfast to go and then went off to Animal Kingdom. We saw FOTLK and Nemo, rode EE, had lunch at Flame Tree, did some shopping and then went back to AoA. From there we did some more shopping and then caught the DME bus back to MCO. It was sad to leave this time for sure. We had a great trip and can't wait to get back.
One last thing. We encountered many wonderful CMs and had pixie dust throughout the trip. The character interactions with my kids and our friend were priceless and I feel like many people went out of their way to make our trip better.
June 2014 is our next stop. The BB offer didn't work for us but we're counting the days until we return.
. We did have Blanca one day, and she rearranged the kids' toys in the window and left a sweet note. Not a big thing.
I finally got those shrivelled prunes to bed. 
First up though we're renting a surrey bike and going around CBR for our photo ops. Lol. Have a great day everyone!
