New 8/22! NO. SLEEP. IN. DISNEY. My 24-Hour Birthday Shortest/Longest Trip 5/22-5/26

[budafam]

and going and going...





















Once the parade finished up everyone was allowed to go up to the stage. DS got to pose with Chopper... sort of.



I was most excited about seeing Warwick Davis. I really wanted to meet him but there's no way we could've made it up that early to get in line.



The stage show was cute.

 

[budafam]

After the parade we headed over to the Animation building to cool off. The line for the drawing class was out the door so we gave up on that. DS played for awhile as I got to relax a bit. We had to wait for our FP time for Rocknrollercoaster.



After about 30 minutes we headed over to the ride. Seeing as how DS has always been scared of rides, I figured this would be a no go but when I scheduled the FP's he told me that he wanted to do it.





We entered the line and DS was still willing to ride. I asked him a couple times while we walked through the line to make sure and he really seemed to be ready for it. The ride was GREAT! I forgot how fast take off was. I told DS to keep his head back and somehow in the picture he has his head down. I have no clue how he managed that with the force that the ride takes off at... lol. He ended up loving it. He said he will go on again.



We checked out some shops on our way back and ran into these two:



They were a riot! The lady was yelling about snakes in the store and the officer took her out to "punch" her with some "Sour Punch" candy. DS got a kick out of it all. These actors are really the ones that make Hollywood Studios so much fun.

We made our way back over towards Star Tours and saw some characters on the way.





We stood in line for about 20 minutes so that DS could make his own lightsaber.







Of course he chose the double... they do tape them up so that you can walk through the park with it.



It was now time for Jedi Training!!!

 

[budafam]

DS was really excited for Jedi Training. Since it was during SWW, we knew there would be another special guest from the dark side but who??? We were really hoping for Darth Maul. We arrived and DS got ready for training...





The kids were brought out to the stage area. The upper stage would be where Vader would fight and then the bottom would be the "special guest".



DS got to stay on the ground (yay!)





Vader came out and then a little bit later the music started and smoke started rolling in... the doors opened and...



I could hardly contain my excitement!!! Exactly who we wanted!!! Yay! The master made a comment about how it was "bring your friend to work day".. great... lol





He was very scary looking. Two of the kids backed out of fighting him because he looked so scary. At the end, one of the kids (a young girl) came out to give it a shot and everyone cheered for her. It was such a great moment!









It was time for us to make our way over to the Beach Club for dinner... on our way out we saw Ashley meeting people so I snapped a pic.



We waited a bit for the boat and enjoyed the ride.





We stopped off at Hurricane Hanna's for a slushie. It was soooo good. We had some time before the restaurant opened so we took our time checking everything out.



DS spent some serious time on Candy Crush while I put my feet up for a bit. He tried to lift my backpack... which proved to be difficult.. lol.



It was nice to take a break, recharge & cool off.

 

[budafam]

Cape May was fantastic as usual. I think I had 3 or 4 glasses of milk... you can tell I'm a Wisconsin girl







I was brought out this dessert for my birthday:



DS spent the meal drawing every Star Wars character he could think of. Our waitress tried to make the Chewbacca sound and then she had the other workers do the same... so funny! She spent quite some time guessing every single character that he drew. Excellent customer service as always



When we left the Beach Club, the skies started looking dark.



We took the boat back to Hollywood Studios and entered the park.



Shortly after that it started to pour. We ran to Darth's Maul and got in line. We were told it was only a 15 minute wait.





Gotta love the tablets in line while waiting to shop...



The maul was cool.. lots to look at.



I stopped in to get a drink (mainly for the glowing death star).





DS wanted to buy the sticker for daddy's car... ummm, no. lol



We felt like we were being watched the whole time.





DS ended up buying a Chewbacca and the CM's checking us out were all trying to make his noise.. haha.

 

[budafam]

It was nearing time for the Feel the Force Premium Package dessert party. Since there was still a slight drizzle, they moved the location of the party from in front of the hat to the Disney Junior building. We got in line and waited around 10 minutes till they opened the door. The first thing everyone did was run to the food to get pictures... I was joking with another guy about how we had to get pics first before trying the food.. haha.















We grabbed our plates and got a table. Luckily there were some benches along the wall... I was glad this dessert party had been moved indoors so we had a chance to cool down and stay dry, now we even had chairs





They had music playing and lights going... it looked a lot different than the last time I was in there watching Jake & the Neverland Pirates.



DS enjoyed a frozen treat.



It came time to go out to the fireworks viewing area. There was a very light mist coming down. The stage show began within a few minutes and the fireworks followed.





These fireworks were amazing! So worth spending the whole day here. We had a blast. Afterwards we did a little shopping for DD (a Sofia doll). We had no wait for the bus and got right back to the resort... our last night in Disney

 

[luvdumbo]

Love all the pictures! I am always in fear of those parties because I heard the crowds are awful!

 

[Suziannie]

Love the photos from the Pirate Cruise! I've got it booked for my next trip and I'm really excited about it!

 

[Dazcat]

Your little man is such a cutiepie, I just loved the reaction in the video when the realization hit him that he was going with you. I'm glad to read he braved the coasters that he was afraid of before!

Loved the pictures from the Star Wars festivities. It looks like so much fun! And all those desserts.. mmmm

 

[budafam]

Love all the pictures! I am always in fear of those parties because I heard the crowds are awful!

Yes the crowds are crazy... I either try to be ahead of the crowds on our way out or wait it out and do some shopping.

Love the photos from the Pirate Cruise! I've got it booked for my next trip and I'm really excited about it!

It was SO much fun!!! My son laughed so hard at all of the jokes... really worth it IMO.

Your little man is such a cutiepie, I just loved the reaction in the video when the realization hit him that he was going with you. I'm glad to read he braved the coasters that he was afraid of before!

Loved the pictures from the Star Wars festivities. It looks like so much fun! And all those desserts.. mmmm

Thank you!!! He is definitely my go-to Disney guy. He loves everything about it... no one else I would've rather been with on this trip

 

[budafam]

We got up fairly early again (it was our last day after all...) We headed over to the bus stop at Pop. DS snapped this quick pic with the golf cart.



There was a hot air balloon out for an early morning ride.



We arrived at Animal Kingdom just after opening. We made our way to the safari.





The ride does not start running right when the park opens... we had to wait about 10 minutes in this line for it to start moving.



We got a couple of good pics during the safari. Lots of animals were up and moving around this time.









After the safari we stopped to get some quick breakfast... it was a croissant filled with lemon I think and a lemonade. We finished that up in no time.



DS apparently thought gang symbols were appropriate in Harambe



We took some pics in front of the tree.





and on the giant sculpture thingy...



Then we were off to Everest.



DS chickened out at the last minute so I went by myself.



I can't seem to find my on-ride photo for some reason... hmmm...

Next we decided to give Kali River Rapids a try... we had never done this ride before in fear of being wet all day long but it was pretty warm this day so why not? Of course, we ended up on the bottom when we went down the big hill and we got soaked!



DS loved it!

We headed to Dinoland after this... DS wanted to ride Triceratop Spin so we got on that. We ended up getting a dino that was broken and didn't go up or down

 

[budafam]

We took a pic by some old gas pumps for grandpa



and this guy of course...



We had a lovely ride on Dinosaur... (as lovely as it can be)



DS played in the store for awhile...



We headed over to It's Tough to Be a Bug. Luckily, the wait was not too long till the next show.



On our way out of the park we got some pictures taken...





We ran into DeVine just as we were exiting the park.



We had an empty bus on our way over to Kidani for lunch.



It felt good to walk through these doors again... we were just there in December so this felt like "home".









We enjoyed the resort before going down to Sanaa to check in.





This was our first time at Sanaa. We were the first ones to have our buzzer go off.

 

[budafam]

We were seated next to a window which was GREAT!



Niles joined us for the majority of our meal..



I ordered a mango margarita (this was awesome!)



and the bread service with all of the dips



That was amazing. I really enjoyed the cucumber the most but I did try the hottest and wow... I can't wait to eat this again!

DS got a cheese pizza which he said was amazing as well. He ate every bit of it.



Always good to know this is another place I can take DH when we visit together.

I ordered the Butter Chicken & the Spicy Durban Shrimp. The chicken was unbelievable. So very good. The spicy shrimp was definitely spicy. There was a lot though and it filled me up!



DS got the make your own cookie for dessert.



I was given this as a birthday surprise:



It had white chocolate and raspberry compote in the middle... very, very good!

I also ordered the The Godiva Liquor infused Strawberry Flight... chocolate, caramel & white chocolate. These were great! Very strong but went good with the strawberries.



There was a table of 6 people seated next to us and when I started taking pictures of my food I could hear them snickering and making comments. Really? lol... some people

We really enjoyed our meal here and can't wait to return in October with our whole family.

 

[budafam]

After that amazing meal, we headed back to AK and switched buses to Art of Animation. We wanted to take a look around for the rest of the afternoon before heading back to Pop to catch our Magical Express ride home

We arrived at Art of Animation and walked in through the gift shop. The setup is very similar to Pop Century so in a way, we felt at home.



The lobby had a lot to look at.









Radiator Springs was our first stop... this was the best out of everything there (I thought at least). Being able to take pics with all the cars in the movie was so neat.





















My favorite pic:





There was a woman going into the building so we followed her in (you need a key to gain access to the building).

 

[budafam]

Next up was the Little Mermaid area.







This picture seemed fitting... Ursula brewing a storm...







and the Lion King area..













We took the bridge over to Pop Century.









We took a break in Pop's food court and enjoyed some refills with our mug. We were beat. It was time to go home.



The storm had moved in and so did the CM's playing charades with the kids. We waited there for Magical Express to come.



We had a GREAT trip. It was really short but with the little sleep we got, it felt much longer. DS had the best time ever and said it was his favorite trip yet. Within the 4 nights we were in Disney, I got a total of 16 hours sleep... DS got a bit more thankfully. I would do this again in a heartbeat. It was so much fun. DS would have to go with me though. He's the only one that could make it through the 24 hours (and keep me going!)

Thanks for following along! I'll soon have 2 new trip reports to take care of along with our very first cruise and lots of dining as well.

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Great fun! I loved seeing all your pictures of AoA and Pop. I spent one night at AoA last year before staying at Pop for about a week. That was my 3rd time at Pop, so Pop Century feels like home to me.

I'd love to be able to 'pop' down for a trip sometime soon, but I haven't even edited my last trips pictures yet, and the school year has started, so I guess I can't. LOL