"Anythings possible, for a Possible!" - Oct 15-25 TR(Final thoughts 5/25-Post 249!)

[skier_pete]

Think I am sticking with Boma after seeing Sanaa's menu. I really want Chris to see Jambo house since we stayed at Kidani.

Have to get good use out of the AP's! Sadly, I think this will be our last trip for awhile. I think December of next year will be the earliest we will get back. I hope I can last that long!

Boma is good too - but it does have some odd foods as well. Don't forget to try the Zebra Domes, their pretty yummy. (Personally, I think they taste a lot like Taramisu.

Yeah, after this upcoming trip, we won't have one in 2012, so will probably be close to 2 years between trips....NOT looking forward to that stretch.

Hey Pete,

It has been forever since I've checked your TR. I loved, loved, loved your dds experience with Jasmine and Aladdin!

Your wife looked really nice in the pictures with Lightning McQueen and again in front of SSE.

Thanks for posting the videos and the scanned in pictures from your dds journal.

Oh - I think your links on the first page are a little messed up - for example on the review of AK all 3 installment links link to part 1. I'd want to know (I'll also tell you if you spill mustard on your shirt, I'm one of THOSE people!)

Thanks for taking the time to write this entertaining TR.

I think we might venture out and try a waterpark or 2 on our June trip. I just wish my conference would release the schedule of session, so I'll kow when I'm avaiable to have some fun!

Julie

Thanks for checking in! I am fairly slow to post, so every few weeks is probably good enough. I'm glad you are finding it entertaining. Sometimes I worry it is too dry - a tendency for us engineers to write that way.

Didn't know you have a June trip coming up...is it going to be just you and DD again...I wouldn't think so if for a conference. Definitely take the time to check out a water park!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Just catching up....

Your day at HS sounds fantastic. And I love your PP shots.

Dinner at Le Cellier looks great. I've never eaten there...never been able to get an ADR at a time that I'm prepared to go. But it's interesting to see the pendulum swinging the other way, isn't it?

 

[skier_pete]

Just catching up....

Your day at HS sounds fantastic. And I love your PP shots.

Dinner at Le Cellier looks great. I've never eaten there...never been able to get an ADR at a time that I'm prepared to go. But it's interesting to see the pendulum swinging the other way, isn't it?

Hey, glad you made it home safe and sound...at least it wasn't a two-day trip this time..huh?

 

[PrincessInOz]

Hey, glad you made it home safe and sound...at least it wasn't a two-day trip this time..huh?

Thanks Pete. Yes, I'm home safe and sound. And it wasn't a 2-day trip this time round. It was ONE day at DLR ...but I tacked on 9 other days in California.

 

[skier_pete]

Thanks Pete. Yes, I'm home safe and sound. And it wasn't a 2-day trip this time round. It was ONE day at DLR ...but I tacked on 9 other days in California.

Well, c'mon, it wasn't really a Disney trip was it? You just tacked on a Disney visit because you *could*, right?

 

[PrincessInOz]

Well, c'mon, it wasn't really a Disney trip was it? You just tacked on a Disney visit because you *could*, right?

Shuhhh....Are you trying to get me banned???

It was always a trip to NorCal...I just convinced DH to go 5 days earlier so that we could add DLR to the trip...

No one really understands me at all....

 

[skier_pete]

Shuhhh....Are you trying to get me banned???

It was always a trip to NorCal...I just convinced DH to go 5 days earlier so that we could add DLR to the trip...

No one really understands me at all....

That's my point: you made a Disney-trip out of non-Disney one! There's nothing more Disney-fan-ish than that! Yeah Princess!

 

[skier_pete]

We have now reached Thursday, October 21st, the sixth full day of our trip. Today, we had tickets for MNSSHP. Because we knew it would be a late night, we also planned the day off. We planned to arrive at MK for our dinner reservations at 5 PM. Otherwise, we would spend the day hanging at the hotel. DW, who wanted to go to DTD for a bit, would get that chance as well. We started out the day with some annoyance, as mentioned previously, when cleaning up the room we discovered one of DD stuffed animals was missing. I won’t go into details here – you can refer back to my review of the AKL – suffice it to say that a few hours of the morning were mis-spent. I had DD do some of her homework. DW left for DTD, and the two of us went down to the pool for a while. We spent a few hours by the pool, getting lunch from Mara, and eventually made our way back up to the room. I was a bit disappointed that DD didn’t want to spend any time doing any of the resort activities, but we still had a fun and relaxing day.


After a while, it was time to get ready for the party. Our costumes were based on the characters of Kim Possible (DD’s costume). DD had wanted us to be characters from Kim Possible as well. At first, we were going to go as Mary Poppins and Bert, but ended up rejecting the idea because of the Florida heat….DD wanted us to dress as Dr. Drakken and Shego, two of the villains from the show…but I thought the costumes were too hard. Then DD asked if we would be Kim Possible parents, who are both Doctors. Dr. James Timothy Possible the rocket scientist, and Dr. Anne Possible, the neurosurgeon. These didn’t seem that hard, so we went with that.

It’s funny that although not too many people recognized our costumes, the ones that DID were generally the Cast Members, and a lot of them told us they were really cool. I suppose if you work for Disney, you still remember when Kim Possible was big a few years ago.

So, we got to the park and checked in after picking up our tickets from Guest Services. I went and got a FP for Jungle Cruise, while DD and DW waited at Crystal Palace for our table. We were called to sit shortly after I got back.

Crystal Palace is one of the few “traditions” our family has. We have eaten there every trip going all the way back to 1997, before it was a character Buffet…with the exception of the April 2010 trip – which was on a tight budget. Though we have done Breakfast and Lunch, we had never eaten dinner there. I assumed that the dinner menu was the same as the lunch menu. It was for the most part – however, it was missing one of my favorite dishes…the Crystal Palace Fritatta. I was afraid they had taken it off the menu, but the CM who served us said it is only available at Breakfast and Lunch. While I was kinda bummed…it didn’t ruin our meal for certain.

For the first time also, we were seated on the “left” as you came into the building. We just love the design and structure of the crystal palace, and also enjoy the character interaction. While DD doesn’t seem to ever want to ride the Pooh ride, she loves Pooh and his friends, and is always happy to get pictures with them here at the CP.

Eeyore wanted to borrow our Trick or Treat bucket:

We asked each of the characters if they were going trick or treating later, then asked what they were going to be dressed as. Each one pantomimed to us their “costume”…I can’t remember what they all said, but Piglet said he was going to be a butterfly.

Tigger is always very animated. Little know fact: He is also the first animated creature to use “Texting” language! (TTFN!)

No pictures of the food, but the food was great, the service (what little there was) was excellent…we had like three glasses of lemonade at our table, and the character interaction was great too. Crystal Palace was as usual a home run for our family.

Up next, Let’s get this party started.

 

[skier_pete]

So, by the time we finished up at CP it was close to 6:30. I had wanted to see the seven dwarves since you can only get your pictures at the party, so I decided that I would go get us a place in line, and DW would take DD on the Jungle Cruise with our FP. There was probably about 120 people in line in front of me. I also saw fellow DIS-er LAAshley in line up ahead of me, and another DIS-er next to her. (Sorry – I forgot the name!) Also chatted a lot with the families around us, a lot of people were holding spots for a larger group. I had no problem with this, since I was doing it to. Most people waiting in this line seemed to be real Disney Die-hards. There were two guys (perhaps gay, but not a couple) in front of me that were giving us advice for the characters. One of them wanted to go get FP with the Halloween tickets, and offered to take mine. I didn’t think they gave out FP for the party, but he seemed to think they did sometimes. I figured we already had our wristbands, so what could be the harm. In the end, he didn’t get any FP…

The best costumes we saw that night were a group that were dressed up as the Wizard Of Oz cast, 6 or 7 really good costumes. I also saw a spot-on Captain Jack, and another favorite was a family dressed up as the batteries that Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin uses. (Big points for originality!) We were the only KP & Family group, though!

DW and DD came back a few minutes to 7 PM, having found out that It’s a Small World had re-opened. (It had been shut down to refurb the queue, and was schedule to re-open on Saturday, but obviously opened a few days early.) I told them to go on it, that I would be in line a long time.

Well, at 7 PM the dwarves came out, and the line started moving. It actually moved surprisingly fast, and by 7:20 when DW and DD weren’t back, I was worried that they wouldn’t make it. Well, they got back RIGHT as I was coming up to the front of the queue, and we got our pictures.

We headed across FL – stopping at the trick or treat stations. We were going to ride Peter Pan, but the line was very long, we decided to head towards the Woody’s dance party – but got detoured first to look at Cinderella’s coach:

And then we decided to get our picture in front of the ultimate Halloween location:

The line for the “ghost” shot was not really long, maybe 10 minutes, but there were a ton of people in line for the ride.

They told us to look scared. DD didn’t get it, but DW and I pulled off “scared” pretty well I think!

Overall, the park seemed really, really, crowded to me. Probably the most crowded I’ve seen since we’ve been taking trips with DD, with the exception of the Saturday before Christmas, 2009. It sort of turned me off to the Halloween party – paying lots of extra money so that I could be around bigger crowds sort of steamed me.

So, by the time we were done with this, it was approaching time for the first parade. We had decided we would go see the characters in toon town during the parade, as supposedly the lines are shorter. (Another mistake.)

So, we cut across FL again to toontown. Notice I haven’t ridden a single ride yet! We saw Donald and Daisy on the way into Toontown with a HUGE line, the heck with that. We did want to check out Mickey’s house since the rumor was it would be closing soon. (Turned out to be true.) First, we took a ride on Barnstormer – the shortest rollercoaster in the world.

Then, on to Mickey’s house:

I apologize, I don’t have a ton of pictures. I DID take a lot of video, but not a lot of pictures…after walking through Mickey’s house, we went to the judges tent. The line was pretty short, and the M&G was nice. DD loves meeting Mickey and Minnie, and since you rarely get to see them together, this was a good one:

Note this is now the FOURTH outfit we’ve seen Mickey wearing…of course, he’s seen us in four different outfits too. Does he ever think: “Why does this family keep coming to see me, and why are they always wearing different clothes?”

 

[Chelley00]

and another DIS-er next to her. (Sorry – I forgot the name!) ”

It was me!

 

[PrincessInOz]

WOW! You did well with photos at MNSSHP. I concentrated on getting candy, the rides, the fireworks and the parade. Missed out on the characters....

For a moment, I had to count the number of dwarves. Sure seem to be a whole more of them...but then the dwarves are a lot taller in real life than in the movie.

 

[skier_pete]

It was me!

Oops - I knew you were following along! Sorry, didn't mean to have forgotten you! Not that I forgot ABOUT you, just your name! I wanted to find an excuse to move up with you guys, but thought it would be to rude. Not so much to cut in line, but just to be able to talk. Turned out the people around me were nice enough, though.

WOW! You did well with photos at MNSSHP. I concentrated on getting candy, the rides, the fireworks and the parade. Missed out on the characters....

For a moment, I had to count the number of dwarves. Sure seem to be a whole more of them...but then the dwarves are a lot taller in real life than in the movie.

Yeah, those dwarves are rather large, aren't they. Of course, they are about 30 % head and hat, so I guess their bodies are pretty short. I forgot to mention, I asked Doc if I could take one of those Gems with me. (They came out carrying buckets of them....I always thought Disney was a gold mine, but didn't know it was also a Diamond mine!)

Our trip was very character oriented...we had decided on a target of 50 characters for the trip. I still haven't sat down to figure out if we made it...but we did get 19 characters this night alone (Dwarves, Pooh and gang, Mcikey and Minnie, and the Princesses...) The fact is, while I like meeting characters, I HATE waiting in line for Characters. With DD anti-character routine from this trip, I swore that next trip we are going to skip any character that DD doesn't want to see.

While DD enjoyed getting the Candy, I could've cared less. As it is, we have Halloween candy in our house for months!

 

[laashley]

DD anti-character routine from this trip, I swore that next trip we are going to skip any character that DD doesn't want to see.

You took the words right out of my mouth. That's exactly what I said for the december trip and then the kids wanted to meet every character. Of course, this time I decided NOT to do the photopass prepay. Those darn kids are always changing their ways.

Great update. It definitely felt like most people were going the same route as I was, not just the wonderful disers. It seemed like all the secrets were out and we were out of luck. Maybe the parties are less crowded earlier in the month?

 

[laashley]

It was me!

Just wanted to say hi!

 

[skier_pete]

You took the words right out of my mouth. That's exactly what I said for the december trip and then the kids wanted to meet every character. Of course, this time I decided NOT to do the photopass prepay. Those darn kids are always changing their ways.

Great update. It definitely felt like most people were going the same route as I was, not just the wonderful disers. It seemed like all the secrets were out and we were out of luck. Maybe the parties are less crowded earlier in the month?

I'm glad you agreed! This party was WAY too crowded. We even stayed for the late parade, and STILL had to stake a spot 30 minutes ahead to be in the front. Ugh.

 

[skier_pete]

After visiting with Mickey and Minnie, we wanted to check out the Princesses/Princes, but the wait was over an HOUR! (Remember, this was during the parade!) So, we headed out for the Mad Hatter's treat trail. While there were lots of treat stations out there, our candy bags were not filled to overflowing by the CM - just a few treats each. The treat variety was actually pretty good I thought - though I am not a big candy person. Once we got through this treat trail, we were over by Tomorrowland and checked out the Dance Party. DD again was being ornery and didn't get out of her stroller. (She was starting to get tired, too.) But DW and I dance with Goofy, Chip and Dale.

Chip saw someone with a big balloon, and he grabbed it and started chewing on it....I yelled at him "Chip, that's not a nut!" and he stopped.

We were getting a little beat, and decided to hit the TTA - that's TWO rides! Then we made our way to the hub to watch the 9:30 PM fireworks. We ran into LAAshley and her family again here...and sort of hung out before the fireworks. (We should've talked more, though - I think we were all tired.)

I didn't take any pictures of the fireworks (or the parade), but I have to say that while I liked them, I like Wishes better.

We then moved over to the Castle to see the 10 PM villians show. DD seemed to enjoy this, I just thought it was OK. (Seems out of character to me - dancing villians?) DW stayed with DD while I tried to M&G some villians, again the lines were MASSIVE, I only had time to meet one.

Nope, not her...I was hoping to get Maleficent, but I picked the wrong line...instead I got to meet Dr. Facilier (sp?), which is OK because I really liked P&tF.

Oops, I missed him in our total, so actually met 20 characters today! I then got in line for Cruella, but again it was so long that she went out before I got to the front. I did get pretty up close to the Queen of Hearts, who was more wandering around. Why exactly isn't she a face character??

We then sat back down to wait for the parade. Poor DD was so tired by this point that she fell asleep. We DID manage to wake her up for the parade. Again, no pictures, I videotaped and forgot to snap pix.

The parade was my favorite part of the night though, a really nice parade fit very very well with the halloween theme.

With the parade over, it was now approaching 11 PM. We again took the hints from the DIS with "Meet the characters late, the lines are much shorter", and decided to head to toontown. Again - WRONG - the wait was about 20 minutes for the Princesses, but 45 minutes for the Fairies. DD did NOT want to meet the Princesses! She practically threw a fit going in...we actually let her sit in the corner away from view so they wouldn't know she was there.

We also chatted with a nice CM who was here on her off-time dressed up as (I think) the Queen of Hearts. We ended up meeting her again at work a couple of days later. Anyways, here's the pix:

By the time we got out of there, it was quarter to midnight. Again, we tried the tricks of the DIS - "At the end of the party they give out big handfuls of candy". NOT the case at all...we went back through the Alice/Mad Hatter treat trail, and they gave out the same amount. We also stopped at the trick-or-treat stations in Tomorrowland. We headed out of the park as the crowds were winding down. We were all beat, especially DD, who was about 3 hours past bed-time at this point.

So - to summarize for our Halloween money we got:

Two rides. (4 for DW and DD)
Four photo-ops.
Fireworks.
Castle Show.
Parade.
Candy (that as of February we still haven't eaten.)

While we all enjoyed ourselves, this was probably the biggest disappointment of an otherwise very pleasant week. The crowds were big, spent probably 3 of the 5 hours we were there waiting, either in lines or for shows to start. These are all things we NEVER do. (We spent the day on Tuesday at MK and in about 7 hours did about 20 things - whereas here in 6 hours we did about 8. While I am glad we did it, I am also not in a hurry to go back. (Next time it would have to be earlier in the fall.) I also have NO desire to go to the Christmas party on our upcoming trip. I would much rather spend that $50 a person on a nice dinner or something. Now, to each his own, there are people that LOVE the parties. Us...not so much.

 

[laashley]

I will again say that I completely agree. It was way crowded and everyone seemed to know the tricks! I would like to go again, but to one that is further away from Halloween. The kids had a blast though midnight was really late for them!

 

[Chelley00]

We did 2 parties that week, Sunday and then the Thursday with you guys. The Sunday party was SO MUCH LESS crowded. The Thursday night we only accomplished half of what we did on Sunday.

I should really pick my trip report back up again. I spent all of Nov-Jan sick and having surgery and kinda let the report fall apart

 

[skier_pete]

I will again say that I completely agree. It was way crowded and everyone seemed to know the tricks! I would like to go again, but to one that is further away from Halloween. The kids had a blast though midnight was really late for them!

Totally agree - it felt like a park full of DISers! Damn you internets!!!

We did 2 parties that week, Sunday and then the Thursday with you guys. The Sunday party was SO MUCH LESS crowded. The Thursday night we only accomplished half of what we did on Sunday.

I should really pick my trip report back up again. I spent all of Nov-Jan sick and having surgery and kinda let the report fall apart

Sorry to hear you've been having health problems? Hope things are starting to look up for you. Interesting to know that Sunday was less crowded. I had waffled between Thursday and Tuesday, and landed on Thursday, thinking it would be less crowded than Friday or Sunday. Maybe not the case. Oh well. I agree with LAAshlley, if I was ever going to try and Halloween party again, it would likely be earlier in the year.

I'm still not upset that we did it, just can't say I loved it.

 

[onescgirl]

Great updates! I love the 7 dwarfs pictures. And, that you were able to get a picture with both Mickey & Minnie.
DD Kim Possible costume was very cute & original. I wish they still aired the KP shows!