A Disney Geek-tastic Trip to the World Updated 3/27!

[Missyrose]

We weren’t done singing, so we headed for Little Mermaid so we could belt out a few more of our favorite tunes.

As we came out of the ride…

… we noticed a whole tour group going in. Excellent timing on our part.

We were in the mood for a little snack. Maurice’s popping corn, maybe?

Gaston’s Tavern?

No, not what we were in the mood for. So we went behind the castle…

… and ended up at Sleepy Hollow. It was funnel cake time! We have a very specific requirement for our funnel cake: Lots of sugar on Franklin’s half, none on mine!

​

 

[Missyrose]

Freaking crane, ruining an otherwise beautiful set of photos.

Franklin decided he wanted a Buzz rematch, so off we went.

How did he do in the rematch? Bwahahahaha, Missy wins AGAIN!

You could say we were having some fun.

I did a little pin trading on the way out of the ride.

You see, I’d found myself on a mission to trade for Orange Bird pins on this trip. And I did pretty darn well.

We then wanted to try something new, Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor. We’d never done it before!

What did we think? We LOVED it! It was super funny and amazingly charming. Definitely worth your time!

That’s where we’ll leave off for now, but there’s still plenty of nighttime MK fun ahead on our last full day at Disney!​

 

[khertz]

​

STOP IT! Y'all are just too cute!!

What a beautiful morning in MK! The only tragic things I'm seeing are a dry Space Mountain and that hideous crane behind the castle. Other than that, it looks like a really perfect day! Oh yeah, and those tour groups, but it looks like y'all were pretty adept at avoiding them, and that's ALWAYS a good thing!

 

[teekathepony]

Wow, great day at MK! Love your orange bird pins. Can't believe you had never done Monsters Inc before, I love that attraction!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

wow - you guys got a lot done, even if it meant back-tracking a bit to avoid tour groups!

Those are some great Peter Pan pics! I love that ride and was very bummed that it was closed our last trip.

Oh, and I know it is just something with the light or the wavy nature of the 3D glasses "lens" but in this pic it looks like your left eye is having a Salvadore Dahli moment:

 

[sunfun94]

Yea!! All caught up for this trip report! As per usual, LOVE LOVE it... You two would be such a blast to tour with!! You definitely have me super excited to try so many new things, find new park details, new foods (which my DH is excited about! Lol..) and OMG, I have to go and do the KTTK tour!

Ok so here is a dumb question but when you are a guest of wdw, do you get free parking at the parks? Resorts? I can see the plus in having a car as a time saver...but does it cost to park everywhere?

Cant wait to read about the rest of your trip!

 

[natebenma]

Getting caught up. I'm at your final park of your 4-in-a-day.

Congrats!

I love the Mine Train float in ELP.

What a great position you had for Celebrate the Magic. We LOVED that show!

You and Franklin have had many interesting and unique spots for viewing Wishes, but nothing compares to the full-on frontal view of the castle from Main Street!


Can you review how you did your transportation between parks?

You monorailed back to EP from MK (loved the pictures of the empty attractions as you did the loop). Was your car in the EP lot, or were you able to enter EP and walk through to the BW after EP was closed?

Staying at an EPCOT resort really makes it easier to accomplish the 3 or 4 parks in a day.

I have done 3 parks in a day many times, including the during the Wicked Awesome/Epic Fail teen trip.

I did 4 parks in day once, but not the 4 theme parks

AK EMH-BB-Boma-HS-EP for Illuminations

 

[natebenma]

Caught up!



WOW! You arrived around noon and still got all that done?!?

I love that first picture in COP, where you can see through the window and see the white picket fence and the neighbor's house.

Congrats on your double win on Buzz!!!



How the heck did you get onto Peter Pan in the middle of the day? What was the wait like?

Franklin is a photography genius (you know that, I know that), but I continue to be blown away by the photos he gets inside of Peter Pan.



Who knew there are jacks on the bedside table?

I am surprised to learn that is your first time on Monster's Inc. I can't remember. Have you ever been on Stitch, or the previous Alien Escape? (spoiler alert: I DON'T recommend it)

But back to MI: What is your favorite Disney joke?

Mine, which I am proud to say I wrote, is

"What is Darth Vader's favorite Disney Song?"

I guess it is more like a riddle. Should I reveal or take guesses?

 

[Missyrose]

STOP IT! Y'all are just too cute!!

What a beautiful morning in MK! The only tragic things I'm seeing are a dry Space Mountain and that hideous crane behind the castle. Other than that, it looks like a really perfect day! Oh yeah, and those tour groups, but it looks like y'all were pretty adept at avoiding them, and that's ALWAYS a good thing!

Thank you!

Splash was a freaking mess on that trip. But they had avoided closing Splash the previous winter because Big Thunder was under refurb. So Splash was definitely due at that point.

Wow, great day at MK! Love your orange bird pins. Can't believe you had never done Monsters Inc before, I love that attraction!

The Orange Bird pin thing kind of happened organically. I love all things retro Disney, so when I saw the first Orange Bird pin, I knew I had to have it. Then I realized there was a whole set and my pin trading then had clear purpose on that trip.

wow - you guys got a lot done, even if it meant back-tracking a bit to avoid tour groups!

Those are some great Peter Pan pics! I love that ride and was very bummed that it was closed our last trip.

Oh, and I know it is just something with the light or the wavy nature of the 3D glasses "lens" but in this pic it looks like your left eye is having a Salvadore Dahli moment:

We definitely missed riding PP in October, looking forward to a couple of spins in May to make up for it.

Cool observation about the glasses!

Yea!! All caught up for this trip report! As per usual, LOVE LOVE it... You two would be such a blast to tour with!! You definitely have me super excited to try so many new things, find new park details, new foods (which my DH is excited about! Lol..) and OMG, I have to go and do the KTTK tour!

Ok so here is a dumb question but when you are a guest of wdw, do you get free parking at the parks? Resorts? I can see the plus in having a car as a time saver...but does it cost to park everywhere?

Cant wait to read about the rest of your trip!

I'm sure you'd be just as much a blast to tour with! We love discovering the details of Disney, it's what keeps us coming back!

You can park for free at any resort or park if you're a Disney resort guest. But you can't use another resort's self-park lot for theme park parking. This may get us flamed here on the Dis, but we valet our rental car at our resort and you only pay the valet price once per day. So since we're paying the valet fee anyway, we valet the car at nearby resorts if we're going to eat there or need to make a quick getaway after our park time.

Getting caught up. I'm at your final park of your 4-in-a-day.

Congrats!

I love the Mine Train float in ELP.

What a great position you had for Celebrate the Magic. We LOVED that show!

You and Franklin have had many interesting and unique spots for viewing Wishes, but nothing compares to the full-on frontal view of the castle from Main Street!


Can you review how you did your transportation between parks?

You monorailed back to EP from MK (loved the pictures of the empty attractions as you did the loop). Was your car in the EP lot, or were you able to enter EP and walk through to the BW after EP was closed?

Staying at an EPCOT resort really makes it easier to accomplish the 3 or 4 parks in a day.

I have done 3 parks in a day many times, including the during the Wicked Awesome/Epic Fail teen trip.

I did 4 parks in day once, but not the 4 theme parks

AK EMH-BB-Boma-HS-EP for Illuminations

Okay, four park transportation:

Drove from BW to AKL for Boma breakfast.
Drove from AKL to AK (we had a AAA Diamond Parking Pass that gave us great parking).
Drove from AK to DHS.
Drove from DHS to Epcot and left the car.
Monorail Epcot to MK, then back to Epcot.

I don't think we'd be able to accomplish what we did if we were using Disney transportation the whole day, driving saves so much time!

And you're totally right, there's nothing that compares to Wishes from Main Street.

Caught up!



WOW! You arrived around noon and still got all that done?!?

I love that first picture in COP, where you can see through the window and see the white picket fence and the neighbor's house.

Congrats on your double win on Buzz!!!



How the heck did you get onto Peter Pan in the middle of the day? What was the wait like?

Franklin is a photography genius (you know that, I know that), but I continue to be blown away by the photos he gets inside of Peter Pan.



Who knew there are jacks on the bedside table?

I am surprised to learn that is your first time on Monster's Inc. I can't remember. Have you ever been on Stitch, or the previous Alien Escape? (spoiler alert: I DON'T recommend it)

But back to MI: What is your favorite Disney joke?

Mine, which I am proud to say I wrote, is

"What is Darth Vader's favorite Disney Song?"

I guess it is more like a riddle. Should I reveal or take guesses?

I was pretty proud of my Buzz wins (we can just ignore that Franklin clearly stops playing to shoot photos during the game, right?)

PP was a FP. The standby wait time was about an hour, so we grabbed a FP.

I've been on Stitch once (and never again, and I mean EVER).

Franklin and I couldn't come up with an answer to the riddle, we're dying to know what it is!
​

 

[Missyrose]

Welcome back friends! We last left off with a day full of Magic Kingdom fun… and we’re not done yet!

We came out of Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor and realized it was almost time for the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party. We hadn’t stopped to see it in a while. We’d just typically get a glance of it while moving from one place to another. So this seemed like as good a time as any to stop and watch. We turned up Main Street to find a spot. And Franklin took this amazing balloon photo (he tries to take one of the balloons with the castle in the background on each trip because they’re my favorite!).

We ended up with a lovely curbside spot just across from the Emporium.

The sun had begun to set on MK, it was that perfect twilight light that makes the park so picturesque.

We had a little bit of time to kill before the night time entertainment, so we headed for a spin on Franklin’s favorite flying elephant!

Have I mentioned how much I adore the big top tent for this queue, the theming is perfect (and spectacular)!

​

 

[Missyrose]

It was time for Franklin to go set up his tripod in his chosen spot for Celebrate the Magic and Wishes. I was a few minutes behind him, I was making a quick stop at Cheshire Cafe for hot chocolate (Franklin) and hot tea (me), it was chilly out! So which spot had Franklin chosen?

Over near Crystal Palace. This spot seems a little bittersweet now, because the moat has since been drained, so there is no more pretty reflections of the castle.

And then it was time for Wishes. Cue the music and the tears from Missy.

​

 

[Missyrose]

It was a truly lovely spot to watch the fireworks. It was kind of out of the way, so there weren’t many people around. And the best part of winter hours at the parks? Early fireworks + early closings = perfect timing for a post-fireworks meal at ‘Ohana!

After a quick monorail ride, we were at the Poly. And before I had even checked in at the host stand, Franklin had a tasty beverage and was chilling in the waiting area.

Since the fireworks were long over, the restaurant had cleared out. So we didn’t have much of a wait at all.

The bread and salad came out quickly, almost too quickly. So we mentioned to our “cousin” that we weren’t in a rush. The rest of the meal was paced very nicely.

Next came the potstickers and wings. I took one look at that bowl and said we were going to need more potstickers.

So they brought out another bowl!

Next came the noodles and veggies.

We must have been really hungry, because we were terrible about getting pictures of the steak, chicken, pork and shrimp.

Franklin enjoyed the shrimp most that evening. With my extra bowl of peanut sauce, I was tossed between the chicken and steak.

And finally, the best part of any ‘Ohana meal, the bread pudding. Let’s all just admire this for a second.

So. Incredibly. Delicious.

Sigh.

We paid our bill and headed back to Boardwalk, we had packing to do. But before we packed all our stuff, we had to decorate our Owner’s Locker, “Gadgets and Gizmos Aplenty.”

And that’s where we’ll leave off for now, another fabulous Disney day in the books. Our flight the next day wasn’t until later in the day, so we still have plenty of Disney fun ahead!
​

 

[annie170]

That appeared to be a perfect spot to view and photograph the fireworks. Amazing pictures, as usual!

I guess I was picturing the owner's lockers to be larger than that. What do most people put in their lockers?

 

[sunfun94]

fantastic update! beautiful pics per norm!! Are the lockers for DVC members? What are they typically for?

oh and Franklin, would you mind horribly if I used a couple of your pics for my desktop background? promise, no selling or anything weird just my own use

 

[DisneyFreak06]

Wow! Great shots. I am always admiring all your Disney knowledge (and great spots for watching Wishes!) and Franklin's photography skills.

You know, I've never been on Dumbo at WDW and only once at DL, so I guess that is on my must do list for this summer!

 

[Missyrose]

That appeared to be a perfect spot to view and photograph the fireworks. Amazing pictures, as usual!

I guess I was picturing the owner's lockers to be larger than that. What do most people put in their lockers?

We keep things in the Owner's Locker that we don't want to lug back and forth between trips. We have full-sized toiletries, sunscreen, chargers for all our devices, ponchos, ziploc bags, laundry detergent, Advil, Aleve, a bottle of Jack Daniels.

We also have our stuff that we only use at Disney in there: Hidden Mickey book, Imagineers Guides to the parks, my pin lanyard, filtered water bottles for the parks, old refillable mugs to take drinks from our room to the pool, full-sized beach towels, a beach bag, an extra set of Minnie ears.

Owner's Locker is easily one of the best decisions we've ever made, it's so nice to not have to remember to pack all those things, they will just be waiting for us at our resort!

fantastic update! beautiful pics per norm!! Are the lockers for DVC members? What are they typically for?

oh and Franklin, would you mind horribly if I used a couple of your pics for my desktop background? promise, no selling or anything weird just my own use

Anyone can use Owner's Locker, not just DVC members. DVC members tend to make up a fair number of the users though because many take multiple trips per year and really see their villas as a "home away from home."

Go ahead and use any of the pictures you'd like! I have one of his Boardwalk photos as my desktop photo here at work!

Wow! Great shots. I am always admiring all your Disney knowledge (and great spots for watching Wishes!) and Franklin's photography skills.

You know, I've never been on Dumbo at WDW and only once at DL, so I guess that is on my must do list for this summer!

Dumbo is such a lovely ride. And though the scenery is still good, the scenery over in its old spot was truly fabulous! Though it is much easier to get on the ride now that there's two spinners at once. ​

 

[natebenma]

But back to MI: What is your favorite Disney joke?

Mine, which I am proud to say I wrote, is

"What is Darth Vader's favorite Disney Song?"

I guess it is more like a riddle. Should I reveal or take guesses?

Franklin and I couldn't come up with an answer to the riddle, we're dying to know what it is!
​

Oh, shoot! I didn't mean to leave you hanging. I was going to wait a post or two and then give the answer



"When You Wish Upon A DeathStar"




.

 

[mom2rtk]

The Wishes shots from CP are fantastic! I shot from there once last year and love that spot. I hadn't even considered the impact of the Hub construction on the reflections there. Aren't they paving some of that in? So I wonder if similar shots will ever be possible again?

 

[natebenma]

​

Oh, I could have fun with this sign pointing to members of my family!

What beautiful pictures of the Celebrate the Magic show! I love being able to see all of the great details and how the projections "fit" onto the various fixtures of the castle.

Amazing Wishes photos, once again! I love that spot! Nice view, almost centered, low crowds- must put that in mental notebook for future trips!

Keep posting those Ohana pictures! You may tempt us to give it another shot!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

what a great spot to view Celebrate the Magic and Wishes! I especially love the Celebrate pictures - so clear .... actually, clearer that watching it live