The Troublets take on Disney!

[JulieC]

We are home, safe and sound. I'm at work, caught up on my e-mail messages. A very small upside to hosed up IT merging with our new parent company is that people aren't communicating with e-mail like they usually do, so it didn't take me long to go through it. :-b

Saturday, we RD's Epcot ... almost. Morgan decided she'd rather stay at the townhouse and Patrick stayed with her. MIL, Chelsea, and Sydney started off to Epcot, but I realized I forgot my phone as soon as I got onto 192, so I turned around and got it. We were just entering the line for bag check when RD actually happened about 8:45. We were through bag check and the turnstiles right at 9:00.

PSA: If you son invites you to go on an active vacation with his family and you accept, please take appropriate measures to not be a complete bear by the end of the trip. If you have Type II Diabetes, this means don't take a vacation from eating sensibily. Your DIL will probably be thinking not so nice things about you when you are biting the heads off of her children repeatedly after watching you eat almost exclusively carbs, including bags of taffy, gummy bears, and circus peanuts for 10 days.

C & I dropped off S & MIL at Character Spot, as Sydney wanted to see all the characters again and wasn't tall enough for Sum of All Thrills. C wanted to do SoaT. I gave MIL instructions to give the PhotoPass card I gave her to the photographers and meet us at Club Cool afterwards. C and I got FPs for Soarin' (pulled at 9:09 for 10:25-11:25), then went to SoaT. There was no line at all, we just had to wait for the group ahead of us to finish their training segment. The design time was far too short for Chelsea, but the computer finished and fixed the ride at the end for her. She chose a Bobsled. She remarked during the training (where they talk about what engineers do, I am an engineer) that I don't do anything cool like they were describing. Nope, no I don't, I make tools that low level electronics manufacturers and physicists use to improve and test semi-conductors, which someone farther down the line does something cool with. I can do cool stuff, it just isn't my current lot. I've been wanting to get into Android development, maybe I'll actually do it. Anyway, she liked the ride very much. I handed her the cards this morning with the website address, so I'm guessing she is playing with that now.

It was about 9:30 when we walked over to Club Cool to meet up with S & MIL. I found out then that Club Cool doesn't open until 11:00. S & MIL were nowhere to be found. #PanicAttackStart So, C and I started doing a fast walk of the surrounding areas, sped-walked through Innovations West, went back to Club Cool, sped-walked the fountain area, and found them coming out of a gift-shop, with yet more candy. #PanicAttackOver I would find out 36 hours later, that either MIL did NOT hand the PhotoPass card to the photographers as she said she did, or the photogs screwed up somehow, as there were no pics on the PhotoPass site. I checked this morning, and the pics are there! I didn't get an e-mail, so maybe it took extra long to upload the pics? Ok, hopefully I'll be able to ditch some lingering annoyance. I didn't mention, but MIL only let Sydney see Minnie and Pluto because we'd met Mickey, Goofy, and Donald at TH. S didn't seem upset, but she wanted to see them all again.

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More PhotoPass screen shots. I was concerned I wouldn't be able to do any pic editing ... or downloading ... with as poorly as the site was working at the townhouse. It turns out the internet connection there was just reeeeeallllly slow, it's been responding acceptably from both my home network and here when I just checked for those Character Connection pics.

We rode MS:Orange standby, then, the wait was just a bit longer than walk-on. We did the Seas, rode Nemo, looked at aquariums, did Turtle Talk, looked at aquariums and took pics in the Bruce the Shark room. Went to Soarin', used the FPs. Went to Club Cool again, S had only tried one soda the first time and really wanted to try more, so she did. Went to WS about 12:00, starting at Canada. Just did the KidCot station, moved onto UK. Got some long awaited fish and chips from Yorkshire, yummy! Kids did the KidCot, moved onto France. I will mention it was overcast and rain spitting occassionally, it wasn't all that hot this day.

We did the KidCot station, had a chocolate croissant and chocolate mousse from Le Patisserie while we watched Serveur Amuseant. I noticed kids walking around doing Agent P missions, so I went in search of the starting station. These were NOT marked on the park map, probably because they are still in soft opening. Finally found someone that knew, left MIL to rest by the fountain, took the girls to get their phone, returned. MIL bit Chelsea's head off a few times because C was working on the mission. I was listening in as well as I could being 1.5 feet taller than the girls, they were doing what they were supposed to do. I was about ready to drop kick extra-crabby MIL into the Seven Seas Lagoon. They finished their mission. We watched Impressions de France, I was hoping a sit down in the AC would help MILs mood. I think it did for a bit for a short while, but she was just a bear throughout the rest of the day. Chelsea really wanted to finish her Duffy passport, I wanted to finish Morgan's for her, so we went through the countries about as fast as we could walk. We spent a little time in the Japan gift shop because they had a HUGE selection of Hello Kitty things and Morgan is an uber-fan. I knew we didn't have room for much else, and I didn't want to spend much more money, but C found a plastic Hello Kitty stamper ring, so we got that. We kept going, picky C found food she wanted at the USA (funnel cake), so we had that. The 3:45 American Adventure show was starting in a couple minutes, I went for the sit down in the AC plan again. Unfortunately, it didn't have the desired effect. Kept going, spent a while in Germany waiting for the passport stamp (only Kidcot line of the trip), were walking out of the Epcot turnstiles before 5:00. Got back to the townhouse. Morgan and Patrick had been swimming a couple times, I took all three swimming. Fished them out of the pool, did some packing, ate dinner, did some more packing, went to bed.

[pfalcioni]

I love her puppy dog purse, so cute!!

My mom goes into that general crankiness, nit-picky at the grandkids mode sometimes when she is tired. It drives me nuts. I don't know how my SIL handles it (they are her super-awesome kids) but she does much better than I do and they're not even my kids!

We're all spending a long weekend at the coast together in August, and I know mom is going to be all fussy and picky with the boys because she'll be out of her element and won't have total control of the situation. I wish she could just relax and enjoy the moment already.

Sounds like you guys had a really good time, in spite of some hiccups in the road, that's cool!

[JulieC]

I love her puppy dog purse, so cute!!

It's a water bottle holder. I found a pattern and asked MIL to make them for the girls (she likes to sew). These were useful, I'm sure they will use them again on day trips to the zoo, Cedar Point, etc. http://www.pat-e-patterns.com/BottleInaPuppy.htm

Overall, we had a very good trip. There are a few things I would change if I had a crystal ball, but really, it was an awesome trip!

[Bernie2003]

Your diabetic Mil was carb loading on vacation, huh? Uh, oh. I can only imagine her attitude! I give you credit for not snapping at her!!!

[pfalcioni]

Oh, that's even cooler than a purse! What a neat idea.

Good thing they have the bottle facing the front.

[JulieC]

Good thing they have the bottle facing the front.

*** SPIT *** LOL! It never crossed my mind, but yes, drinking out of a dog's butt would be wrong. Just wrong!

[beachta1]

Thanks for the great TR. I'm sorry to hear about the hiccups along the way, but it sounds like you had a great time overall! Your daughters make for very adorable princesses :)

[jillyb]

*** SPIT *** LOL! It never crossed my mind, but yes, drinking out of a dog's butt would be wrong. Just wrong!

[JulieC]

As promised, the start of more thorough reports after I returned. I'm going to start with my Cliff Note's versions, editing and adding, so if you've read all you want, you've been warned! ;)

Thursday, June 14: The flight arrived at MCO as scheduled, everything went as smoothly as could be. At Budget, I had a choice between a Ford Flex and a Dodge Durango. I own a Flex and it works very well for my family, so for the next week and a half I drove silver instead of red.

The plan upon arrival was to have something to eat somewhere, then head to one of the Disney waterparks. Initially, I had been thinking Typhoon Lagoon because I really like the tropical theming. Then there was the little matter of Blizzard Beach having EMH on our arrival day. This wasn't a huge consideration as we would be arriving in the afternoon, but it did cross my mind. Then my kids found pics of both waterparks and decided they preferred BB. I only ever said that we were going to a waterpark, I didn't mention which one. This turned out to be a good thing, because just before we left I tripped across this news story (http://www.wdwinfo.com/news/General_...g_Lesson.htm): "Blizzard Beach to Host World's Largest Swimming Lesson". Um, no thanks! TL it would be!

I didn't have any particular restaurant in mind for our brunch. The girls have been bugging me to take them to IHOP (blame television advertizing), so when I saw that sign on the way to TL, I headed that way. It was about 10:00am, and though we had to wait for a table, it seems we arrived just before the morning rush. We were unfortunately seated at the closest table to the doors, and this restaurant didn't really have a lobby. We were visited by a few small children that nobody was paying attention to and people were huddled right up against the back of our chairs. The food was totally adequate, I don't think any of us will be hurrying back to IHOP.

We went Typhoon Lagoon immediately after this. It was busy, but not absurdly so. We got everyone changed and rented one large locker, which was just large enough for two well stuffed backpacks. I know what I carried in my backpack all week (rain ponchos for 5 or 6, a couple water bottles, first aid supplies, snacks, sunblock, character autograph supplies). I'm not sure what MIL all had in her backpack, but carry it around all week she did. To each their own. A CM kindly pointed out that I should be wearing my locker key looped through the strap of my swimsuit rather than on my wrist as I had it as I was leaving the area, which was a good call on her part.
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DH went ahead and bought two refillable mugs for $11 each. These were insulated and pretty good at keeping the drinks inside cold for a good while. There is a sticker that came with these specific to the day purchased. To refill, you hold the sticker up to the bar code reader, then the ice and fountain drinks are available. It would be nice if they would make these refill locations dispense ice for anyone, but they do not. There are water fountains located reasonably accessible.

We took the girls to the wave pool first. The waves really knock around a 45 lb. child, which M & C liked and S did not. S and MIL hung out in the shallower part while the twins swam for a bit and we took pics. M ended up getting scraped up some on the skid-resistant bottom despite my warning her about it. She whined about it some, but it didn't really slow her down any.

Then we headed to KetchaKiddee Creek. The girls had a good time here. I would say they were towards the upper end of where this area would be fun for them, but not beyond it.
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DH wanted to just sit in a swimming pool, so we headed to the pool near Crush-n-Gusher. The girls played for a bit while the grown-ups lazed in the sittable depths of the pool for a while. This pool is zero-depth entry and tops out at about 3'6". I think the intent is to give the little ones too short to go on Crush-n-Gusher and their care takers something to do while others rode the coaster. After a while, the girls wanted to be measured, so I took them over. Only C was tall enough in bare feet. I returned the littles to DH & MIL and took Chelsea on Crush-n-Gusher. She chose the "Banana Blaster". The wait wasn't too long, maybe 10 minutes. It was fun! I've been on tube slides before, but this is an actual coaster that shoots you UP hills in places. There are some PhotoPASS photogs at the bottom, but those pics were horrible, so I'm not sharing!

We went to Shark Reef next. The girls got life jackets at the check-in inside the queue and we all got snorkels and masks. Though the posted wait was 20 minutes, the line looked much shorter. It was not. They only let a small number of people into the tank at once (about 12), so it took a while. We got adopted by some boy that was maybe 11 or 12. He talked DH's ear off the entire time we were waiting. It was his fifth or sixth time for Shark Reef that day, he knew all sorts of stuff about it. His mom wouldn't go in it, she was waiting for him somewhere outside. We finally got our turn, each of us paired up with a kid. I was paired up with C. Though I am a certified diver, I was caught off guard by the temperature of the tank (so I was told). Though I'm sure some people are scared by the very small sharks, in my case I just started hyperventilating as soon as I was immersed in the water. I thought maybe I had forgotten how to use a snorkel (I went right in), but after I went the few feet back to the starting platform with help from the lifeguard, I was still breathing hard and fast. I had to get out and was embarassed to have held my group back. No worries there, the other two girls and MIL had chickened out and didn't even get onto the loading platform. DH took Chelsea across while I gathered up our stuff and exited. It turns out there is a dry underwater viewing area for those that don't want to do the snorkeling. We all ended up down there and saw what there was to see. It would be awesome if Disney would add a few step-stools in there for the little ones as the port-hole windows were all placed very high. I had to lift the girls up to see. We met up with DH & C afterwards. DH said it was difficult for him with the temperature, holding onto C, not being allowed to kick (you aren't allowed to kick yourself across), and trying to take pics. C wanted to quit halfway through, but at the halfway point, you pretty much had to finish. We didn't get another chance at this, but C asked if she could do it again a few times afterwards. I think if I'd gotten myself a life jacket to help with the bouyancy and not tried to hold a child's hand, I could have sucked it up and done it. I Googled later and as the lifeguard said, I'm not the only person to struggle with the cold water. If only they had wetsuits ... perhaps on our future girls' trip, I'll take my own advice so C doesn't have to go on this by herself.
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We went over to the tube slide area. We were in line for Teamboat Springs when it went down for the thunderstorm. Darn it, that would have been a nice ending to the day, we were going to leave after that anyway. It was the expected crowd rush trying to get out, but as long as it seemed, we were on our way to the vacation house after about 20 minutes of clogged up foot then auto traffic.
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[msmissy]

Would love to read more!

[pfalcioni]

I agree, if you ever have time to finish this, I'd love to see it!

[JulieC]

I have a certification exam I'm not sure I even need anymore that I have been cramming for. I will fail it over lunch time today, then I will have more time. :-b

[pfalcioni]

Oh noes, you won't fail! No worries about the TR, it'll still be here when you are bored and looking for something to do (like that will happen with those three active girls!)

[JulieC]

Oh wow, I passed. I was seriously concerned. I still feel nauseous.

It is likely I will have time to write more trip report next week. DH is off to Canada for a fishing trip, the babysitter and her family are going on vacation, so my girls will be doing a 1.5 week Tour of Grandmas. For the first time ever, they will be visiting DH's dad and step-mom for an overnight visit, and that will actually be a couple overnights. I'm still calling it "Grandmas" as both of the other Grandmas are widowed.

[gorsh]

Enjoying your report very much! I can't imagine what you went through when your DD was sick. I am so glad she is well and hope she continues along this path!

I would have a really hard time handling a cranky anyone on my Disney vacation, let alone a cranky person whom I was relying on to help out with the kids. Sounds like you have the patience of a saint! When we have done trips with my parents/siblings we split up quite a bit. We are all together for some attractions, apart for others, together for some meals, apart for others. People come and go when they want to and it works out REALLY nicely. Your MIL probably wasn't able to just drive back to the house though. You know how they have the baby care centers? Well, maybe they should have an adult care center too--a few lounge chairs in a darkened, cool, room with relaxing music...

[pfalcioni]

They have adult care centers already, they're called bars Well, everywhere but MK!

[gorsh]

They have adult care centers already, they're called bars Well, everywhere but MK!

[JulieC]

6/15: Our first full day, we RD'd Animal Kingdom. It rained off and on in the afternoon, but it wasn't as hot as expected. Crowd level 7, recommended park.

I didn't note the exact time we arrived, but it was before RD. We were very far back in a line, past the ticket booths. I noticed the line on the farthest right turnstile was shorter, so we jumped there. It was also right next to the TH breakfast turnstiles. I wasn't up for chancing they wouldn't open these (neither was anyone else), but as soon as a CM appeared, we jumped over and were about the third group in line. Once the turnstiles opened, we were near the front of the pack, hanging out about 10-15' from the rope at the far end of the Oasis. DH was smack talking my over-planning, but those around us commented things about "my husband is the FastPass runner" and such. I don't think he got the point that the people that are there at RD are the people who plan this stuff out!

I was the FPV (the entire trip), I couldn't see sending touring plan reluctant DH to grab FPs, plus I think that is a big job unless you pretty much have the maps memorized. At RD, I sent my family to Dinoland and I did the fast march with half of everyone else to EE for FPs. I was second in line at the FP machine I used, I pulled the first available RT of 9:40-10:40, then power walked to Dinoland.

I met up with my family a 9:05. We walked onto Triceratops Spin, only waiting long enough for the current spin to end.
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Next we rode Primeval Whirl. Sydney managed to get measured in at 48", but I thought the CM might have been a little generous. This was proven out later in the trip ... with the thicker soled shoes I bought her, it seems she was really about 47.8" tall. She wasn't way off, but enough to be denied the other 48" rides. It took longer to walk through the queue with no switchbacks open than waiting for all 7 or 8 people in front of us to board.
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We proceeded on to Dinosaur. We were first in line for the pre-show, which I'm guessing meant that we just missed the previous batch. Two out of three girls (the 8yo twins) hated it and never want to ride it again. This is interesting, as I'm pretty sure both of them rode this as 4yos and weren't scared. Go figure.

We reported to EE at 9:49, used our FPs, and were on our way to FotLK by 10:00. I really liked EE, I thought it was a great roller coaster ... wild enough to be fun, but not so much as to be uncomfortable in my old age. I was the only one that knew it went backwards at some point, so that was fun to talk about afterwards! FWIW, that was my first time riding backwards on a roller coaster. Well, that is if you don't count rollbacks on the Gemini lift hill. (Gemini is a roller coaster at Cedar Point, I used to work there. We had to test ride every morning a few times ... easier to make college aged ride hosts get in than load up weighted dummies).

We took a restroom break on the way to FotLK and were walking in to the theater at 10:17 for the 10:30 show. It was on the way to this show that it became apparent that commando style touring wasn't going to work for us, our group walking speed just wasn't going to make any of the closer time changes. When we arrived at the theater were plenty of seats left. I have to say this was THE BEST show we saw our entire trip. The girls absolutely loved it! They all take gymnastics and I call them all monkeys, so the show had a little side joke for us.

My family got in line for our 11:10 Tusker House ADR at 11:09. I ran to grab FP's for Safari. Despite what Touring Plans will tell you, the walk from TH to Safari is not 10 minutes, assuming you are reasonably able bodied. Even having to wade through the crowd gathered for Tam Tams of the Congo, it was maybe 2-3 minutes. It's all cool to base custom touring plan timing on data, but you need good data!

When I returned, the line hadn't moved an inch. There were two CMs checking people in. I'm not sure what the hold-up was, but we didn't even get up to the desk until about 11:20. In my opinion, that is a long time to wait to check in for a reservation. We got our pager, waited in line to get our picture taken with Donald, and then sat and waited until 11:45 for a table. This was my first ever ADR at Disney and I have to say the waiting was very off-putting. In hindsight, after all the planning around the few ADRs we had and shows, and given our experiences, I will probably make very few ADRs for future trips. I learned there are plenty of good CS meals to be had, and I'd rather enjoy the parks than sit around waiting to eat. That said, the food was good. I find buffets to be difficult with three children, as they all need assistance getting their food. Well, IMO, they need assistance getting their food, and there were a few unattended kids running around the buffet area that could have at least used some adult guidance. I wanted to try the Jamba Juice others had mentioned, but when asked, the server gave a blank stare. I would very much like the recipes for the roast sirloin and horseradish cream sauce, and that is coming from someone that eats a primarily vegetarian diet. I'm so glad I indulged in having some meat here! I probably won't eat here again because the waiting for this character meal was very time consuming, especially now that I know about Character Spot at Epcot, as my primary motivation for eating here was for my girls to meet up with Mickey Mouse with little waiting.
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Our Safari FPs were ready by the time we were done eating. We showed up and there was a posted 80 minute wait for standby, and a huge line for FP returners. By the time we found the end of it, the CM holding the sign said the standby wait was more like 2 hours, and that this wait was about 20 minutes. It seemed like a whole lot of people to pump through in 20 minutes, but that was pretty accurate. It started raining lightly mid-safari. We were seated in the last two rows of our truck, I let DH and his camera sit in the last row for less obstructed photos.

Though I had FoW and ITTBaB scheduled next, the girls really wanted to go to Boneyard. We were just getting off of Safari (1:29) when the FoW I was aiming at started, so we were off the plan anyway. I hadn't anticipated all the waiting at TH, nor waiting 20 minutes to use a FP. We got them settled in Boneyard, it stopped raining on the walk there. I let DH and MIL supervise while I FPV'd Kali at 1:50 for RT 3:30-4:30, which was perfect. I really enjoyed the stroll through Asia there and back, the theming in this area is really, really good. Though we had walked through there on our way to FotLK earlier, I was focused on getting through there and didn't fully pick up on how well it is done. The girls played in Boneyard until 2:15, they really like the Dinosaur dig. They liked it at 4/4/3 and I didn't think they'd like it as much at 8/8/6, but they did! I've got a mold set that creates a concrete dinosaur skeleton for a sandbox pinned over at Pinterest, I might have to get that done!
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We got ice cream for the girls, went to 3:00 Nemo. Though we enjoyed it, and the staging was very good, it wasn't nearly as good at FotLK IMO.

When we got out, we used our Kali freshly mature FPs. We went around once, but then our raft didn't latch to the platform upon return. The CM asked if we all would like to ride again, we all did, so went again without getting off, and exited ride about 4:20. The theming of Kali is great, but the similar ride at Cedar Point (Thunder Canyon) is about twice as long and you get much wetter.
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We went to gift shop, the girls spent money their other Grandma gave them, then we went back to Windsor Hills for the day (about 4:45).

[pfalcioni]

Yea for the update!!



Love this pic!!

[JulieC]

Evening of 6/15: Back at Windsor Hills

DH and MIL took naps, I took the girls to check out the playground at the resort. I figured this was a good opportunity to show pics of the theme rooms that made the decision about what townhouse to choose!

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[Dennis]

Loving your TR, despite you pan of Nemo . Looking forward to more! Agree with Pam on the great picture.

[JulieC]

Day 2: Saturday, June 16: RD MK, BBB @ 10:10, CRT @ 12:00.

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We got inside the corral before RD, but we were just inside the turnstiles. The girls were fascinated by the opening show, and I have to say it was a really nice way to rev up the magic before hitting the park. It took us until 9:20 to get back to Dumbo. As I mentioned, our crew was just not able to walk quickly. We rode Dumbo after about a 10 minute wait, including about 5 minutes of downtime the CMs told us about when it happened. The walls for the second spinner were taken down the day before, but it wasn't running. I'm looking forward to not have to RD Dumbo on future trips!

Next up: Barnstormer. Barnstormer was offline. We proceeded to Mad Tea Party, we got on the next spin. We went to Winnie the Pooh, it was offline as well. It was about then I was really glad I over-learned how to do Magic Kingdom, as I had to start re-spinning the touring plan on the fly. I had everyone head toward the carousel while I FPV'd PP @ 9:39 for 10:15-11:15 and got the bonus FPs for Mickey's Philharmagic. We rode the Carousel. We entered Philmarmagic at 9:50, were out at 10:11. That was a bad choice as our BBB appointments were at 10:10, oops.
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We checked into BBB and waited a bit. It became clear that we weren't going to be able to use that first set of PP FP's as weweren't going to be out of the Boutique in time. I grabbed a second set of PP FP's about 10:20, RT 11:20-12:20. NOTE: I only got 5 when I needed 6, despite inserting all tickets. I wasn't watching closely that time, so I did watch closely on the next two pulls ... one ticket insert definitely did NOT work the first time. The moral of the story is to make sure that each ticket inserted spits out its FP.

We did the BBB thing, Sydney was obviously tired and grumpy. I probably should have skipped the playground tour the night before, but she also doesn't sit still well as she is an extreme sensory seeker. The fact she was on a "I hate pretty" roll for months probably didn't help either! It was one of those situations where she said she didn't want to do BBB, but I thought if she got left out while her sisters were becoming princesses that there would be a major meltdown. Oh, how to figure out these sometimes fickle children! He sisters absolutely loved it! I knew Morgan would ... this and eating with Cinderella were her number one priorities. I was surprised how much Chelsea liked it, but she loved it as well. Sydney had said she wanted to do Pirate League rather than BBB. I'm not sure she would have liked it, as it still would have meant sitting still. I had said previously that BBB would be a once-in-a-lifetime, but Morgan has already asked to go back for our theoretical 2015 Girl's Trip, and Chelsea wants to go back as well. They will be 11 then, at the end of their BBB possible days. I might have to give in. What I would do over: I had originally made the appointments for 8:00am, pre-RD. I got freaked out by advice that MK might open at 8:00am, as that type of change had been known to be made. I should have ignored that advice. We'd have an extra hour of prime touring doing BBB before RD, plus the girls would have had a couple extra hours as princesses. Should I do this the next time, I'll do the pre-RD thing if possible. If Sydney still hates pretty, I might her to Pirate's League if that is what she wants, while her sisters do the BBB thing. I don't really want to spend 2 hours getting the girls made up, I think a pair of 11yos would be fine.

I revived Sydney with some fruit snacks I brought with when she was done. She really likes to eat, so food is always good! Seriously, she wants to eat something about every hour, so I just tossed a few snacks in the backpack to appease her in between when the rest of us wanted to eat. We checked into PP about 11:25 using the 5 newer FPs and 1 from the first batch. Neither CM that checked the FPs checked the whole stack, but it would have been within the theoretical 15 minute grace period even if they had checked the sixth FP.

We got in line to check into CRT, the line to check in was around the corner, half-way through the castle, and not moving at all. Figuring the situation was about the same as Tusker House had been the day before, I FPV'd Splash for 12:40-1:40 at 12:00. I took a bit longer than I anticipated because the park was pretty crowded by then. I made it back, and it turned out the CRT line moved quickly right after I left. Apparently just a couple very large groups comprised the huge line. DH was annoyed that he waited 10 minutes for me to return. Le sigh. In hindsight, I'd have been better off sending the family to the castle from PP while I did the FPV trot.

We got pictures and autographs with Cindy, just as we were finished, they were calling our name upstairs. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing we wouldn't have been seated any faster without my FPV delay. All the same, I didn't like feeling like I was holding up the show. The meal was very nice, it is so much easier to deal with kids the ages of mine at a sit-down restaurant rather than a buffet. The food was very good, the character interaction was excellent, and we were visited by all princesses in attendance in an orderly fashion (Aurora, Belle, Ariel, Snow White), autographs, pics. Snow White liked my t-shirt (she was featured) and I think it was Belle that addressed me as "Your Majesty".
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We went to Splash for RT. Grandma sat with the kids, DH went to the restroom, and I FPV'd BTMRR. That was more painful than it should have been ... only 3 of 7 FP terminals were working when I got there with backed up lines, then 1 of those 3 broke while I was there. I seriously wouldn't have wanted to be one of the CMs standing there explaining, there were a lot of grumpy people. I got FPs at 1:35 for 3:00-4:00 RT. I had the princesses remove their dresses and put on shower caps to protect their 'dos. Grandma sat out Splash while we rode, cute ride. The girls put their dresses back on and returned to true princess form.

Since the touring plan was shot well before lunch, and the girls wanted to ride IASW, we did. There was a posted 20 minute wait, but actual wait 11 minutes. I got to be a person they handed a timing card to at the entrance to hand to the CM when we were boarding. If you ever wondered how they do their wait times, there you go, at least one of the ways. As much as I think my daughters ignore me, it turns out that they've been paying attention to someone sometime, as they were calling out the countries represented all through the ride, which was really cool. They were pretty good at figuring out what country! We exited IASW about 2:40.

We rode Aladdin with posted 5 minute wait that was about right, then sought out a parade spot along trail to Frontierland about 2:55. We waited and wallowed, but the girls were melting and falling asleep, despite sitting spot in the shade. Seeing as I was the only one wanted to see the parade, we bailed about 3:15, which was when CM's were finally clearing the street for the parade.

Grandma sat out BTMRR, we used our FPs with minimal waiting. I took my melty children to Castle Couture for BBB studio pictures, which came out really cute. Those totally made the PhotoPass I pre-purchased worth it. We took them to the Brave "gift shop" (cart outside Merida M&G), the twins both chose the Merida bow and arrow set, Sydney got the stuffed bear, then we headed out.

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Yes, they are lovey-dovey twins almost all the time. I can't imagine one without the other!

I was going to grab Sorcerer's of MK cards on the way out at the Firehouse. We stood in a short but non-moving line for a few minutes (seriously, I just wanted the cards for souvenirs). I asked the girls if they cared, they did not, so we just left. Now, nap time for all, well, I figured it would be nap time. Either DH or MIL took the girls swimming in our plunge pool. While it was nice having a plunge pool right outside our door, it was deeper than I would have liked for my children. It had a sitting shelf, then sloped from about 3.5' to 4.5' deep. Great for adults, not awesome for 4' tall children. One of us always had to be in the pool with the girls because of this.

[JulieC]

Loving your TR, despite you pan of Nemo . Looking forward to more! Agree with Pam on the great picture.

Hey, I said it was good ... I just really loved FotLK. It's not like I compared it to Stitch!

[Dennis]

Hey, I said it was good ... I just really loved FotLK. It's not like I compared it to Stitch!

At least we can agree on Stitch. You know I'm just kidding. I like FotLK too and it is a great show, but for me nothing in WDW compares to Nemo. I actually like the musical better than the movie.

[wgwtgb]

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Wow! Those rooms look awesome!!!