February Girls Trip - 4 crazy, busy but fantastic days!

Erin M

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 12, 2018
This report is a bit delayed, in fact I wasn't going to do it, but now I've got 75 days until my next trip and I find myself with that DL itch. I've planned all I can for November so I spent some time looking back at my last trip and thought, maybe I should organize that into a trip report. My very first one!

Just to introduce myself, I'm Erin. I live in Oregon with my husband S, nearly five year old daughter R, and our two dogs. I grew up in the Bay Area before moving to Oregon and took many visits to DL over the years. Some day I'm going to dig though all my mom's photos and find all of our trips. R has only been to DL once when she was 3, but she is a planner and she has big plans for our November trip. She asks to watch POV vids on YouTube all the time. She gets magic. She creates it, soaks it in, giggles and shines. I really can't wait until our next trip to watch her experience it all again. She has already picked out her first ride, HM. This makes me love her just a little bit more. S, my husband doesn't really get it but he goes along with it. This is a pic from our trip in 2016 when R was three.
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She was in her element and I will never forget her joy in this moment.

Alas this trip neither of them would be joining me. Instead a coworker and friend, Allison would come down with me and we'd kinda celebrate my 40th. At least that's what I told S when I started planning the whole thing. I had been wanting to do an adult only trip for a long time but it just hadn't happened. Allison and I started to concoct a plan a few month prior and voila! We made it work! Allison is a DL pro, better than I am and she was a great person to visit with. We planned way in advance, we had goals (mostly food ones) and set our sights on 4 days, hoppers with MaxPass.

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Food Goals! We made some good progress, but more to tackle in future trips! I forgot to
take a pic of our completed list darn it!

Because this was so many months ago, and my brain lacks the ability to remember full days and the order in which they happened, let alone what I had for lunch yesterday I'm going to break this up into a few sections. Thanks for coming along with me!

1. The Trip Details in General
2.The Food We Devoured
3. Ride Photo Game on Lock
 
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1. The Trip Details in General

We left work early on Friday the 23rd and caught a flight from PDX -> SNA. We got checked into our hotel, the Kings Inn. It was clean and easy. Nothing fancy but we had plans to run until we dropped so we didn't need anything except a comfy bed and we got that. In fact I'd stay there again if I didn't have a kiddo on the next trip. The walk was easy for adults, and it was very affordable.

We had dinner at the ESPN Zone (RIP) and then a drink at Trader Sam's. We'd read reports of a Dole Whip Adult Beverage and we really wanted to try that out. Our server talked us out of it though, explaining it wasn't all that good. She recommended another tropical option that was like the Dole Whip drink but not quite. I don't honestly know the difference. It had rum in it, lots! We were lucky enough to get a spot outside by a heater and the live music that night. Two brother playing and singing. What great extra luck when another guest got up and did traditional hula dance for us while they sang. It was so beautiful and just the right relaxing magic before our crazy days ahead. I wish I had a pic of the woman dancing but I didn't want to impose.

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Our drinks!

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Us enjoying our drinks! I'm the brunette!
We then went back to the hotel and crashed. We were getting up early the next day. Park was opening at 8am and we were going to be in line early at 7am.

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The next day! Up an at 'em!
I know that our first ride was HM, and I think that's because Indy was already down right after rope drop. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. This was my first ever rope drop. All previous trips have included travelers just not dedicated enough to getting up that early. I now know that they can just meet me later, because I will be at rope drop from here on out.

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Let the adventure begin!

The rest of that day we made very good use of our MaxPass and rode a total of 19 attractions, a few more than once. Neither of had used MaxPass before and we quickly realized it's worth it's weight in gold. Our walking decreased but our ride intake increased. It was so easy to navigate and once we linked our tickets we were golden! I will definitely use it again when we go in November.

I'm pretty sure we did POTC next but I have no photos. I think I was just soaking it all in. My recollection of the sequence of events takes a sharp dive from here on out. I have a tracker for what rides we rode each day, but it's my only guide along with photos. So from here on out I'm just going to post some highlights.


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The band! Allison was in the UW marching band, so she's got a soft spot for them. I love the show
so we stood and watched with the crowd for a few songs. They did the Star Wars theme
and it was so fun to watch everyone around get excited.


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I've never paid for one of these but I sure do love how pretty they all look in a bundle. Maybe we'll
splurge the next trip.



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Space! We had a bit of magic on our first ride. They sent us through twice without making us get out
of our seats. I don't know why, I wasn't going to ask any questions. It was just awesome to get to
do it two times in a row!
After this I'll just say we rode lots of rides over the next for days. 86 in fact. We spent 56 hours in the parks and walked 42 miles. It was nuts. I was exhausted. It was probably some of the best fun I've had in my life. Having an equally DL crazy travel partner is the way to go!

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DCA the next day!

We went with our favorite droid ears for day two. People kept stopping to ask where we had got them. Well, Allison made them. They were awesome and I plan to wear them again. They did create one awkward CM moment. Bless his heart he was trying to be awesome but we were clearly not the Star Wars fans we appeared to be and he wanted us to be.

Here's the sitch, we stopped to ask a CM at a kiosk a MP question. He noticed our ears and asked us if we knew what kind of droid R2 was. I did not know, so he schooled us. Then he asked if we knew what kind of droid C3PO was, and I answered "An anxious one!". Which I thought was hilarious. CM dude didn't even bat an eye, just corrected me. Oh well... We can't all be super Star Wars experts! :) The rest of the trip we kept having conversations about how maybe we were impostor SW fans if we don't even know droid types.

Alright this has gotten pretty long so I'm going to pick up tomorrow for the rest of our trip.

To be continued!
 
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Ok, I'm back and I want to talk about GotG. I love the movies, I love the music. I love Groot. I knew I was going to like this ride, but I didn't really understand just how much. I'd been on ToT at WDW, really enjoyed it. Allison was a huge ToT fan and was sure she wasn't going to like GotG because it had taken away her beloved ToT. She took some solace in finding the old TOT items in the queue. More than once we kind of hung back after Rocket asks us to scan our hands to look at the things in the holding room. On one occasion a CM chatted us up about the hidden Minnie and also the photo tucked into the locker. He said it's a CM's senior photo from way back when. I can't find anything online that verifies this but he had been a CM for a very long time so I like to think he knew what he was talking about.

In total we rode GotG 11 times over 4 days. That's how much we loved it. Having our MPs made that possible. GotG is my favorite newish ride now. I will always reserve favorite spots for my nostalgic classics HM and IASM though.

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Pure magic!

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First in line one morning! Headed to the ride!
I'll post our ride photos in a bit. We had some fun with those!

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Just a super pretty pic of the castle. I never get tired of it.
We also took in the WoC Dessert Party. It's my favorite splurge on any DL trip. This time did not disappoint. We were sat with a lovely couple visiting from Canada. They visit the park fairly often and this time it was just the two of them, sans the kiddos so they were having a great night! We spent the time before the show talking about all the food we'd been trying. They were very impressed with how much we had eaten. :) More on that later! Then it was time for the show and I just sat back and loved every single moment of it. I always cry a little too, and this time was no different. I get goosebumps too. These sorts of things are what I love most about DL. I love the rides and the food, but it's this level of magic and feeling that really do it for me.

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It's just so dang pretty. I wish I had a better shot but I was too busy enjoying it.


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On our last morning we started off at PP then ran over to Matterhorn. It's just lovely at the start of a day. The sunlight, the crisp air. It feels like you're on a real mountain.
Plus we're pretty cute if I do say so myself.
I wish I had more photos, but I just didn't have my act together. I was too busy! But one last one in this category, it's our ride tracker. It's a bit messy, got messier as time went on but I think you can still see what we were doing. It tracks all 86 of our rides. I was very impressed with our planning, prep and execution. I know I won't be able to replicate this in November with my daughter so I'm glad we went balls to the wall these four days! My feet were tiiiiiiiiired though.

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The ride tracker in all it's glory. The record of our crazy pace and dedication!

And now, on to the food portion of this trip. Mmmmmmmmmm.
 
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I'm enjoying reading about your trip so far! Friend trips are the best! But your pictures aren't showing up for me! GOTG is my favorite, too. I always enjoyed TOT, but it was a little spooky for me, haha. GOTG is like a big party. I'm excited to see if my daughter likes it when she and I go in a little over a week. She did NOT enjoy ToT, but I think it was mostly the "scary" factor. She's also almost 2 years older now, so hoping...
 


I'm enjoying reading about your trip so far! Friend trips are the best! But your pictures aren't showing up for me! GOTG is my favorite, too. I always enjoyed TOT, but it was a little spooky for me, haha. GOTG is like a big party. I'm excited to see if my daughter likes it when she and I go in a little over a week. She did NOT enjoy ToT, but I think it was mostly the "scary" factor. She's also almost 2 years older now, so hoping...

Thank you! I didn't realize there was an issue! It's much less fun without the pics! Hopefully I just fixed the problem.
 
The Food We Devoured!

Food glorious food! Often when I'm talking to people who have never been to DL (gasp!) or who haven't been in a very long time I find myself describing the food. One of my coworkers now even wants to plan a trip, mostly to just run around to all the restaurants. Prior to this trip I hadn't done much table service. I am always with kids who don't handle that well, or we were always on a budget that didn't handle it well. But this trip was special, so we did it up right!

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Behold, the Matterhorn Macaroon - our first treat!
They are just so soft and chewy and sweet and perfect!

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No trip is complete without the corn dog. I like to get mine at the Little Red Wagon when I can. Take a seat at the hub,
soak in the park and all the other people enjoying themselves!

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Next up, fried pickles at Carnation Cafe. I'd never had them. They are amazing. They can hurt the roof of your mouth
if you've had a few too many churros... still worth it!

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Chicken Fried Chicken at Carnation Cafe. It's one of Walt's Favorites, with good reason. It's not healthy at all
but it is a good filling meal for those times when you're running on empty from running around all day. I loved
everything about eating at Carnation Cafe so we will do it again in November.


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My favorite treat of all time. We had it three times this trip and I almost feel like we should have had more. I am
a soft serve purist, the floats are a bit too much for me, but I do love that they have a few options.


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OMG. I wish this existed in other places, because I would eat it all the time.
We actually went back another day and I had another one. When you hit the queso at the bottom...
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASS!


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Time to recharge and re-hydrate with my favorite Starbucks refresher, add vanilla please. The cups
here are just so much more fun than the ones in real life.

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A churro for you! A churro for me! We got these in DCA over by Soarin'. I think we were doing light sabers because
we had our droid ears on.


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We did the RB F! dining package and this was my meal. I forgot to get a pick of the corn chowder which was
amazing. I'd do this over again in heartbeat if I was sans child and had the money to spend. The ribs were great, the dessert was
delicious. Allison ordered something different and I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but her dessert
is in the back of that pic. It was so pretty!

Aaaaand I just hit my photo allotment for this post, so I'll have to do another post with more!
 



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