What's your favorite? All of it! From the mouth of a 4 year old Update: 10/4

sock2you

sock2you

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jan 19, 2013
I've tried time and time again to start this report.

All through the trip I was taking mental notes, but not actual notes, because you know I was planning on coming right back on here after our trip and write this trip report, my first ever. And then it hit me, the Disney Depression that everyone talks about. It's real ya'll, the fog is real! I'd read dozens of threads and comments about Disney Depression, but thought it wouldn't happen to me. I've been to Disneyland multiple times and while I missed it and all the fun times had it wasn't this cloud hanging over me. Of course that was all before the boards, before I became immersed in the DIS universe, before I spent two years planning, making spreadsheets, agonizing over dining and fastpass+.
Before our first vacation as a family. No family to see, no friends to schedule time with, no waiting on others schedules, just us.....is was bliss.

Now I find myself 81 days on since the start of our vacation, just now being able to sit down and try and write this all out. I have forgotten some of the smaller details, and admittedly there are less photos as the trip goes on. we completely abandoned taking food photos towards the end and just started focusing on spending the time together. Don't be fooled though, there are many many photos to come.

Enough rambling, on with the intros:

Well there's me, Melissa


Wow I really hope that's not too big, please bear with me as I learn all the stuff.
Favorite Ride: Tower of Terror, Everest and Splash Mountain
Favorite Snack: Dole Whip Float
Favorite Park: Ummmm....all of them, can't pick just one

It's really hard for me to pick just one favorite of anything, DD takes after me in that sense. I've been to Disneyland multiple times but this was only my second time at WDW, the first of which we stayed off property. While I've always loved Disneyland and it will always hold a special place in my heart as that is where DH proposed and we had our honeymoon WDW has won me over. Not much else to say, I grew up in Northern Idaho, moved to Vegas where I met DH and then we moved to hotter then heck Texas. I'm a cold kinda girl, I like the temperature low, DH on the other hand freezes his buns off if it dips below 60, so the heat on this trip was, well lets just say an adventure. I am the planner in the family, I like spreadsheets and everything laid out so I did most of the planning and plotting for the trip.

Next up, DH (Steve)


Favorite Ride: Big Thunder Mountain and Dinosaur
Favorite Snack: Churro
Favorite Park: Disneyland
Favorite Character(s): Genie, Chernabog, Oswald, Villains, Stitch

DH much prefers Disneyland over WDW, it's where Walt walked and dreamed. His ultimate goal is to work for Pixar and see his name on the big screen. Currently he's about to start his last year of school for Video Game Design and Artwork, so who knows maybe California is in our future. While he appreciates WDW he thinks it's too big, while I like the immersive quality of WDW. He's a huge Disney nerd and has been since he was small, loves his video games though not the first person shooter types, think more story board and RPG. He's one giant goofball, loves to mess with DD and makes us laugh constantly.


The star of the show, DD (Soph)


Favorite Ride: All of them! Though she rode Splash and 7DMT the most
Favorite Snack: All of them! Popcorn
Favorite Park: All of them!Magic Kingdom
Favorite Character(s): All of them!
Do you see a pattern?
She has been indoctrinated to Disney since in the womb, she had no chance to escape the magic. She's my little goofball (takes after Daddy), ballerina, Princess, Doc Mcstuffins, all things Disney lover. DD is constantly bring a smile to our faces, and loves to just bust out some ballet dances no matter where she is, even if it is to her own music. She was a bit over 4 1/2 on this trip, her first to WDW. When she was 2 almost 3 we took her to Disneyland with DH's family, we thought it only fair to show her WDW to round her out. Also I'm hoping to swing her to the WDW side over DH's Disneyland, but since she doesn't remember much of so we'll be back to Disneyland in a couple of years, ya know just to make sure she remembers all the details before she picks a side.


Posting for now, will update in another section the breakdown of our cost for the trip and our timeline as lunch in calling my name or rather my stomachs name ;)
 
Last edited:
Prepare yourself for words, lots and lots of words. If words bore you and you are only here for pictures please scroll down or wait for the next update that will actually have pictures. You have been warned.

The Planning

I did most of the planning for this trip, though I did constantly check in with DH to make sure we were on the same page. DD was a to choose one character meal, as I wanted her to have some input in the planning, well as much as a 4 year old can. I narrowed it down to the 3 I thought she would enjoy the most and had her choose, her choice.....well you'll just have read on.

Breakdown
2 Adults
1 Child

6 Day Magic you way ticket
9 Day Hotel stay @ Pop Century (no upgrades)
3 Non-Stop flights via Southwest to Orlando
1 Memory Maker package

Package was-$1919.88
Flights -$798.60
Pre-Purchased MM-$149

For a Grand Total -$2867.48.

We interrupt this programming to inform you that I Just Had A Heart Attack...no really. I have multiple windows open at the moment and am working on a touch screen. I must have clicked something on the bottom of my screen and it took me to another page, I thought it was a page I didn't need anymore and closed it not realizing I was closing my update. :headache::scared::sad: Seriously thought this thing was a goner but thanks to some Pixie dust I was able to open all my old tabs and back track, it was miraculously still here! :worship:

Now back to your program.

We saved for over 2 years to be able to go on this trip, we could have gone sooner or starting saving later but we wanted to make sure that we weren't worried about how much we were spending too much while there, basically be wanted a big buffer. I got the Disney Visa to rack up points and gift cards and for Christmas and Birthdays each year we received more gift cards and Disney Dollars.

We decides to stay 9 days as we didn't want to go to the parks on our arrival (foreshadowing) or departure day. Knowing that it was going to be hot and we would be walking all day while in the parks we took a day off in the middle to just chill (more foreshadowing).

I was going to post how our days were laid out but I figured your eyes might be bleeding from too many words and not enough pictures so I'll leave it here. Besides it will make it more fun to have some surprise to our days.

Travel Day is up next, though probably not till tomorrow...ok ok I am a huge procrastinator so lets say by the end of next week.
 
Last edited:


Oh Wow

Hi Guys :wave: Welcome!

Thanks for joining :D The next update will most likely be Wednesday as I have to upload the rest of the pictures and get photobucket sorted out. I may or may not have made the rookie mistake of uploading my entire facebook album :faint:. It'll take me a few days to go through and clean it up, then I'll post our travel day.
 


Joining in - sounds like a fun trip. I like how you included your daughter in the planning. Definitely agree on having a buffer as last thing you want is to be worried/upset that spending too much or regret a purchase, etc
 
How easy it is to fall to the 3rd page....or farther between updates.

So I have some Housekeeping.
Anyone get the reference? Anyone?

First, while I stated the length of our stay I forgot to include the dates of our stay, which might come in handy for all you planners out there.
May 19th-27th, see how much of wimp I am, it wasn't even the hottest part of the summer and I was already complaining about the heat.

Second, I'm changing the intro just a bit. DH will now be Steve and DD will now be Soph. Also I forgot one of Steve's favorite characters, Stitch.

Third, I forgot to add into the total the cost of our rental stroller, we got it on our arrival day and dropped it off on departure day. Soph may have been 4 1/2 but she has no endurance and there was no way I was carrying around an extra 30lbs all day when "My feet are tired" came out of her mouth, plus storage which is always a bonus.

So new numbers are:
Package was-$1919.88
Flights -$798.60
Pre-Purchased MM-$149
Stroller Rental-$100.60

Grand Total:$2968.08

Which is still under $3000 so I think we did good.

Also needed to add that photobucket is a pain >_< I spent the last two days uploading all the photos from Steve's and my phone (photopass to come later as I forgot, oops). Log in this morning all set to do an update and then waste 4 hours trying to find, sort (didn't happen) and make sense of the giant mess that photobucket is, oh and it kept crashing on my computer. In it's defense I am working on an older computer, with a lot of files on it and not so many upgrades and there may be over 1000 pictures uploaded already. The good news though is I believe I found all of the ones for the first few updates.

Fourth I need to share some of our pre-trip pictures.

Soph and I had to have a Mommy/Daughter pedicure day to get all set for our trip, because who doesn't need to be pampered before going to Disney.





The girl that did Soph's nails did her hands for free so that was super nice.

Then we have our 5 day countdown




3 is gone, I don't know where it is as it's been lost to the oblivion. I know exactly what it looks like but cannot find it, I even resorted to logging in Steve's facebook as I know...I KNOW he posted it but alas it's not there either.





And the morning of


This was our countdown chart. After hearing "how many more days?" from Soph for the bajillionth time I created this. Each day she got to move a rock from one jar to the other and change the number, it helped a lot for her to have a visual and she helped me pick out and decorate everything so we got a fun craft day out of it as well.

Wanted to say a quick Hi to all the followers, I honestly didn't think anyone but me and maybe a friend would this.
 
Last edited:
Travel Day

I know you didn't think it would ever get here but finally as promised travel day ;)

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:05a putting us in Orlando at 12:35p.

We woke up bright an early around 6a I believe. The car had been loaded with most of the bags the night before so it was mostly just toiletries and and such to pack up that morning. We did pretty well and were in bed and asleep by 10:30p the night before so we were full of energy and ready to go.

But first we had to drive down to work. Are you confused? Why were we heading to work on Disney Day? Well you see Southwest flies out of a smaller airport in Dallas, and they are currently doing construction on a new garage so not only is it hard to get around it's also really really expensive to park there. Normally we would have a friend drop us off and pick us up but we weren't able to coordinate anything this time and our work building is only a little over 3 miles from the airport. After talking to our managers we got the approval to park our car in the garage for the time we were gone, then we took an Uber to the airport. I was hoping to avoid this step as I didn't want to bring Sophs carseat as this was the only time we'd be using it but there was no way around it.

All said and done we arrived at the airport 2 hours before our flight, no problems with check in and only a small wait for security.



Steve and I lug everything to our gate only to find out we've been delayed 2 hours!:sad: There was a lot of fog (which I swear wasn't there when we were driving in), and it had been storming in the area for a few days and the flight coming in had gotten delayed. So with 2 extra hours to kill :bored: we got some over priced breakfast and found the kids area to let Soph play for a bit. Eventually we made it back to the gate and started chatting up some other folks that were headed to WDW. They were super nice and I felt bad for them, they were heading to the park that day and had a fastpass+ they needed to get to, their window was closing fast with the delay. Glad we hadn't planned on going to the park our arrival day or this would have been us as well.

Finally after 2 hours on the dot we get to board :D




2 1/2 hours flew by and we found ourselves on the fake monorail, Soph's first ride of the trip.








I know people say that MCO isn't confusing and there are signs everywhere directing you where to find MDE but we still had to stop and ask for directions. Soon enough we found ourselves at MDE check-in and were directed to line 5.


Impatiently waiting for our bus


After a short wait of maybe 10 minutes we get to board our magic coach.


We may have been a little goofy tired


The magic arch approaches


We had a great bus driver who had us laughing the whole way, I'm going to try and add the video Steve took as we drove under the arch. The voice you hear talking and squealing with excitement is Soph.

First stop was Art of Animation second stop


We had finally arrived!

Next post will be about our resort I'm off to try and learn how to link up the posts so you don't have to scroll through all the pages, well not unless you want to anyways.
 
Last edited:
Glad you have gotten underway! Tough luck about the delay though, but you seemed to remain in good spirits. What time did you eventually land, and then arrive at the resort?
 
Following along with you as we will be taking our 5yo granddaughter in Dec and staying at Pop also. I'm glad you mentioned about the flight delay, I hadn't thought of that for our first night, but we should still be ok with the time of our ADR. I can't wait for more updates!
 
I_Luv_Stitch said:
Joining in, looking forward to reading more! :)
Click to expand...

TheMaxRebo said:
Joining in - sounds like a fun trip. I like how you included your daughter in the planning. Definitely agree on having a buffer as last thing you want is to be worried/upset that spending too much or regret a purchase, etc
Click to expand...

Gabisgramma said:
Following along with you as we will be taking our 5yo granddaughter in Dec and staying at Pop also. I'm glad you mentioned about the flight delay, I hadn't thought of that for our first night, but we should still be ok with the time of our ADR. I can't wait for more updates!
Click to expand...
Welcome :wave:

Sailormoon2 said:
Glad you have gotten underway! Tough luck about the delay though, but you seemed to remain in good spirits. What time did you eventually land, and then arrive at the resort?
Click to expand...

So I'm horrible and didn't take notes, but our pictures are timestamped. Looks like we loaded the bus at 2:04p, passed under the arch at 2:43p and were in line to check in by 2:55p.
 
Pop Century




After getting off the bus we hit the bell stand to drop off Soph's car seat, there was no way we were gonna lug that thing any farther than we had to. We'd pick it up at the end of our trip and it kept it from taking up space in the room so that was nice.

I had done online check in, and had received our room number while on the bus but still wanted to stop by front desk for a map and such as it was our first stay. While doing the online check in I had two requests, to be close to transportation and on a lower floor. I know most people like the higher floors as the rooms are quieter but after looking at the layout of the Pop buildings I realized all the elevators were in the middle of the buildings. So I figured if we got an end room, instead of walking all the way to the middle we could use the stairs.

While I went to the desk to check in Steve took some pictures of the displays in the lobby, and Soph played on the hop scotch rug they had set out.





Closer look at some of his favorites




Who doesn't love Mickey heads in the carpet


Our room number was (please imagine a drum roll) 8260, in the 90's section. The lovely front desk agent informed me that we had both of our requests honored. We would be on the second floor and close to transportation (cough, cough). Excited I looked at the map while she showed me where our room was located and how to get there, then how to open the door with our Magic Bands. She informed us to all place our MB up to the door lock (I believe she said twice but I can't remember for sure) before opening the door for the first time so that all our MB would register. I'm not sure if this is standard or actually how it works, I've never seen anyone else mention it before but wanted to put it out there.

Now close to transportation (cough, cough) is a matter of opinion, and my opinion is it's a bit far to room 8260. Now if you don't have stroller you can cut through the parking lot, which gets creepy late at night. If you're like us though and will have a stroller you have to walk around the perimeter, there is no room to push a stroller bigger than an umbrella one through the parking lot, the cars are parked too close together.

Car and little playground we passed on our way to the room



Our staircase we took to get to the room


Front of the building


Ok now don't be mad, I don't have pictures to post of our room or the view. I swear there is a tiny black hole in my photos folder that is quietly and discreetly sucking random photos our of my memory card. I know for a fact I took them as Steve gave me an odd look while doing so and I had to explain why I was taking pictures (you know for the trip report, silly man). The only picture left is of the Mickey Head towel that greeted us on one of the beds. Which would be the only cute thing that housekeeping did for our entire stay, there were no more towel animals after this one, no being creative with Soph's stuffed animals or tsum tsums we purchased on the trip. Not gonna lie, I was kinda bummed but the room was clean and we were always restocked on anything we needed so no complaints.



Next post: What will they do now?
 
Time to eat, before the Hangry's get a hold of us.

Housekeeping: After we got into our room I called and ordered a fan and bed rails for Sophs bed. The room was a great size for our little family of 3, plenty of space to store our stuff and luggage, lots of hangers but little actual drawer space. It was closer to the corner of the building and backed up to a bunch of foliage so it was nice and quiet. We never had a problem hearing anyone above us or below, though sometimes we could hear the kids running up and down the walkway outside the room, but always during the day.


Now if you remember back to the Travel Day, we had been up since 6a and while we had packed trail mix and granola bars we hadn't really eaten since the overpriced breakfast that morning. My family suffers from LBSCBD or Low Blood Sugar Cranky Butt Disorder, the minute the blood sugar starts to go down the higher the crabby level goes. I may suffer a bit more from this affliction than my family, though Soph is not far behind in the level of crankiness she can achieve, while Steve merely becomes moody. So I was on a mission, unload our travel bags into the room, a swap of clothes for me since I was a sweaty mess already and then out the door for dinner before I hit meltdown mode. We were headed to Downtown Disney for our reservation @6:45p

I'd heard horror stories about the traffic trying to get into DTD so I didn't want to risk the bus and get stuck, we opted for a more roundabout route.
We hit the buss stop at Pop @3:59p and took the bus to Epcot



Then hopped on another bus to Port Orleans Riverside-French Quarter where we were taking a boat to DTD.


Time stamp says we go to the dock @4:37p, there was a boat waiting.



Let me say we loved PORFQ, and really want to stay there next time. The theming was awesome, and the pool looked like tons of fun.
We had a lovely ride, and the breeze was most welcome. Even though we hadn't eaten for most of the day LBSCBD was being kept at bay by just being at Disney. We met some very nice people on the boatride to DTD, and they offered to take our picture.



After our ride we were greeted by the great and elusive Crane, I hear you can find them year round, but they hop from place to place ;)



At this point I was on a mission, get to dinner, check in and hopefully they would seat us early. DTD wasn't too packed and we had a general idea of which direction we were heading, after a short walk and our bellies grumbling we had finally arrived and checked in @5:14 for our 6:45 reservation


The hostess was a bit hesitant to check us in that early but gave us a buzzer and said it could possibly be awhile before we were seated. Now here is where I admit I am not good in small places or big crowds. Go ahead, say it, I'm crazy, who in their right mind would go to Disney World when they are not good in crowds, well I would. Most other places I would be a big ol mess with that many people, but Disney can usually keep it at bay, must be all the magic. ;) I tried to occupy and distract the family from their rumbly tummies by looking in the gift shop but it was packed. :crowded: so we opted to wait at the outside tables and get some cold water from the bar. With nothing to distract them I could see the LBSCBD speeding to catch up to us, so I took pictures and tried to lighten the mood.



It worked...somewhat


Then I was saved, there is a small stage off to the left of the bar outside and some of the dancers had come out to perform. They were very friendly and tried to chat up Soph, she was having none of it and was playing shy. They gave her a nice card which they had signed and some stickers, it was the only thing she talked about for the rest of the night. pixiedust:


Much to our surprise a mere 16 minutes later our buzzer went off. We were sat in a small room to the right of the stage, behind the bar, it had maybe 4 tables in it and it was difficult to see the stage as people tended to stand in front of the doorway to watch, and there was no view of the center stage.




Food Time

Sorry we were hungry and the bread didn't last long


We are not big eaters so you'll see a common thread throughout the report about our ordering style. It usually went like this, Soph would order her own meal, I would order an appetizer and Steve would order an entree, then we would share. It worked out perfect, as the portion sizes are huge and it helped with the budget, no one ever left hungry from a meal.

Soph ordered the kids fish and chips

Sorry it's blurry it was really dark in there.

Steve ordered the adult portion of fish and chips which we split


I ordered the Dalkey Duo, deep fried sausage how could I go wrong


Steve wound up eating most of mine while I polished off most of the fish. Bellies finally full we were very happy, but couldn't leave without trying one more thing. Something I had seen over and over again on the boards and had been drooling over for months, the famous Bread Pudding


Sooooo good, I'm drooling at my computer right now just thinking about it. Our server was nice, but seemed really busy as our whole section was basically sat at once
Here is Steve after eating, in a much better mood.



After Dinner we took a slow stroll back through DTD, then a bus back to the hotel. We had plans to get up early the next morning and were tired from our day of travel so we didn't stick around the shops for too long.








We were back at the hotel and ready for bed by 9:33p, our luggage had been delivered along with the fan and bed rails.

Next up our first day at the park!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page


GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!


New DISboards Threads

Summer2018
May 2024 WISH Thread
Replies
0
Views
30
Summer2018
Summer2018
Neapolitan Ice Cream
[Mobster voice]
Replies
0
Views
28
Neapolitan Ice Cream
Neapolitan Ice Cream
Kevin O'Brien
Disney cruise line transportation from Disney's All star music hotel
Replies
0
Views
41
Kevin O'Brien
Kevin O'Brien
S
What is your least favorite beverage?
Replies
10
Views
106
lilmc
lilmc
JackosinDIS
Anyone else unable to log in to DVC?
Replies
1
Views
47
Genie+
Genie+
A
Uber from MCO
Replies
4
Views
87
Amydisneyfan
A
NEWS & UPDATES



Latest posts







facebook twitter
Top