Who/When/Where:

Who: Jillian (25) – Disney Vet, Trip Planner Extraordinaire
Mandy aka Wifey (25) – Best Friend (I call her Wifey because we were roommates in college and took care of eachother like wives haha)
Dates: May 19 – 24, 2008
Travel Method: Jet Blue from Newburgh, NY to Orlando & Magical Express
Resort: Pop Century
Experience: Jillian – At least once a year, every year since I was 5 years old
Wifey – Only twice before

Introduction:
This trip is kind of a last minute decision. I recently inked a huge deal at work and decided that to celebrate I should take a vacation before the season starts (I work for a Short Season Minor League Baseball Team in NY). Originally, I had discussed with my friends a Memorial Day Weekend trip to Vegas. Looked into pricing and NO WAY!! So then I thought, hmm, I should see what Disney looks like for the week leading up to Memorial Day. My Aunt is a cast member at the Once Upon a Toy store in Downtown Disney. So I sent her an email to check and see what discounts she could get for me at Pop Century. Well, between amazingly cheap air fare on Jet Blue and her discount, 6 days and 5 nights at Disney was going to cost me HALF of what a 4 day weekend in Vegas would. SCORE!!
So on April 3rd I booked our air fare and told the boss I’m taking a vacation.

Wifey and I are getting together this Sunday to discuss what kind of tickets we’re going to buy, if we’re going to do the Disney Dining Plan, and basically to just start planning out our days. I’m sooo super excited cause I did not think I was going to get back to Disney before our season started. I’m also a first time trip report writer so please bear with me haha. I will update more as we make plans.

Looking forward to sharing my trip with all of you! :D
Jillian

My family and I are arriving May 18th. We are flying in from Los Angeles on a red eye. Our trip consist of myself, my hubby, my 22 month old, my mother, younger brother (10) and sis (18) graduating high school this June. We're staying at the Wildersness Lodge. So exciting!!!

How exciting!! OMG you'll love the Wilderness Lodge!! I stayed there this past August in the villas and enjoyed it tremendously!! One tip I can give you. The bus to the Magic Kingdom is much quicker than the boat. However, the boat on a nice evening with the sunset is absolutely beautiful. Enjoy and maybe we'll cross paths while we're down there!! :D

We are there at the same time as you illybeaner21 (may 17-24)

What a fun trip!!!! Can't wait to see the details. I went down with one my girl friends 2 years in a row. It was GREAT! Our favorite thing to do was go to the board walk and take pictures of ourselves in the mini old fashioned picture booth. GREAT for scrapbooks!!!:

I'm so jealous! Y'all are making me regret waiting a whole summer before our next trip to Disney! Still trying to figure out if we are doing WDW or DLR. Either way, there is no place like Disney!

Have fun and I can't wait to hear about your trips!

Hi Everyone!!

I love reading all your messages! It's getting me soo excited to go. I LOVE the idea of taking all those silly pictures on the Boardwalk. I want to make a scrapbook and I think those will be fantastic. Well I promised everyone updates as I was making plans so here goes:

Day 1 Plans:
Our flight arrives at Orlando at around 8:30am. I just booked Magical Express for us so we're hoping to get to Pop Century around 10:30ish the latest (fingers crossed). After taking Magical Express for the first time on my last trip in August, I'm now fully aware to PACK A CARRY-ON haha.

We've decided to make this more than likely a park day. Animal Kingdom has evening EMH so we may try and take advantage of that. Who knows how tired we're going to be from such an early morning flight, so basically we plan on winging most of the first day.

Day 2 Plans:

*Just a side note, I'm usually the big planner with the OMG we have to go to this park on this day and do this this and this. Well for some reason, I haven't been able to really decide much in the way of what park to go to on which day! Crazy I know!*

No idea which park we're going to start out in, but it is evening EMH at EPCOT so we'll probably spend the evening there cause we wanted to take 1 night to eat (& drink) our way around the world. We are not using our park hoppers the next day so we figure we can do that late night with drinking then sleep in. We'll probably also end up at the Boardwalk that night for some drinking at the ESPN Club.

Day 3 Plans:

Sleep in after our long night. We have and ADR at 1900 Park Fare at 10:30am. We probably will shop our way around the Monorail resorts then head back to Pop Century for Pool Day.

We purchased tickets for the Pirates & Princess Party that night. We're going to try to get to the park around 5:00 so we can eat a quick dinner and pick up fast passes for later in the evening.

Day 4 Plans:

We are definately going to a park. No clue yet as to which haha. I know terrible. I promise I'm gonna plan this out before we leave.

Day 5 plans:

This will also be a park day. No clue where we're going to start but we do have a 5:30 ADR at Restaurant Marakesh. A little nervous about this one. I let Wifey pick the restaurant since she's never been to Epcot. She wanted to try something totally different so she picked Morocco. If anyone has been, suggestions on what to get or if it's worth it to keep the ADR or not would be extremely helpful.

Day 6 (Last Day Plans):

Early morning shopping at Downtown Disney (we gotta beat those Memorial Day Weekend crowds). Probably lunch at either Earl of Sandwich or Wolfgang Puck Express. Back to Pop Century to lounge by the pool until we have to leave for our 8:45pm flight out of Orlando.


That's about as far as I've gotten in the planning. It's tough to plan cause I really don't want to do it without Wifey. She's only ever been once before and only to the Magic Kingdom so I really want her to pick what she wants to see and do.

Any suggestions on what to do with a first-timer or any fun things 2 best friends could do together would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading everyone!!! :)

These pre-trip reports are great and it just got me to book a September trip (10th-14th) with the free dinning offer. Sadly could not get reservations for dinner at Coral Reef and Le Cellier. I did get a lunch at Coral Reef. We’ll eat at Artist Point and Boma as well.

This will be my 8th trip. My first trip was in 1990 when I was 29 years old -and then didn’t get there again till I was 37 with an ex-girl friend.

After I met Kelli I’ve been there 5 times since Dec 2002. It’s no wonder we had our honeymoon there last year. Better late then never! (Both on getting married and becoming a Disney nut.)

Have a great time on your May trip!

Wow! I have no advice on what to do, besides DO EVERYTHING! lol. I spent alot of my nights in Downtown Disney...ever been to the adventures club? You should defiantly visit there! Your trip sounds excellent so far!!

Just got back from the trip and it was sooooooooooooo much fun!!!!!!! i'll hopefully start writing the full trip report tomorrow.

Pre-Trip ReCap:
Jillian (Disney Vet) & her best friend Mandy (Disney Amateur) planned a 5 night, 6 day stay at the world staying at Pop Century.


Day Before:
To make things kind of crazy, both myself and Mandy had some special events we had to attend. I had my younger brothers graduation from Villanova University and Mandy had an engagement party. Both of us basically packed everything on Saturday night because of our events on Sunday. The plan was to pick up Mandy half-way between her house and mine after we were done with our events. I myself was late getting home. Villanova is a 2 1/2 hour drive for us from NY to begin with so of course because I had a trip to go to the next day, it rained and caused us and almost 5 hour trip home because of traffic. UGHHH. And then Mandy's party went much longer than expected so we ended up not meeting until almost 10:30 at night and our flight was at 6:10 am the next morning. We went to sleep as fast as we could the moment we got home. But of course we were soo excited because the next day we were going to DISNEY!!!!!



Day 1

Plan:
Travel by JetBlue from Newburgh, NY to Orlando, Magical Express to Pop Century, Animal Kingdom

Actual:
We woke up at the horrible time of 3:45 am. We left the house by 4:15 and were pulling into the airport at around 4:40am. (what a loving Daddy I have to drive us to the airport sooo early in the morning). We had no problems checking in but WARNING FOR THOSE TAKING JET BLUE AFTER JUNE 1ST starting on 6/1 you are only allowed 1 free checked bag, the 2nd bag is $25 and if your 1st bag is overweight the new fee is $50. YUCK! We got through security with only a minor delay (Mandy forgot to remove her asthma machine from her bag), got some breakfast and boarded right on time. We slept most of the plane ride cause we knew we had a long day ahead of us. But when we landed we were pretty psyched!
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We found Magical Express no problem and in about 10 mins we were on a bus on our way to Pop Century!!

We checked in with no problem but our room wasn't ready. No big, we had planned on it not being ready. We then went over to concierge to get our park tickets. Long story short, Mandy had some left over tickets from a previous trip (like I mentioned in the pre-trip report, she's been to Fort Wilderness but not the parks...the reason she had the leftover unused tickets haha). Well she somehow was able to add 2 extra park hopper days for only $20....SCORE! haha We don't know how that happened but it worked out great for her.

At this point we hadn't had anything to eat since 5 this morning and were starving so we decided to get some food first before changing and heading to the parks. We had completely lost track of time and were shocked to find that they were still serving breakfast!! So i got my coveted Mickey Waffles, Mandy got chocolate chip pancakes, and we both got the souvenir mug (this turned out to be a great deal for us, we filled it everytime we walked through the food court).

After we finished eating we took over the biggest stall in the bathroom and changed for the parks. We dropped off our bags with luggage assistance and were off to the Animal Kingdom by around 12:30.

We were first had some PhotoPass pictures done in front of the tree then headed off to get fastpasses for Everest. We were able to get some for around 2 so we decided to go over and watch the Finding Nemo stage show. Mandy had seen this on the Magical Express Video and couldn't wait to see it. She was not disappointed. She walked out shocked and amazed!! What a great start to our disney trip.
As we walked out of the show, it started to rain, so we ran over to the gift shop at Everest and bought a poncho for Mandy and an umbrella for myself (i brought my poncho from a previous trip but of course left it in my carry-on bag). It lightened up a bit so we decided to walk through the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I just love those tigers!!
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After that it was time for Everest fastpass. We were on in just few minutes and of course loved it!
We then headed over to Africa to do Kilimanjaro Safari. The Stand-By time said 50 mins, but we decided to do it anyway cause it was starting to rain again and line there is all covered. Well our luck, the rain stopped just as we were boarding and the sun was shining away. We saw tonssss of animals out
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After the safari it was just about time for our ADRs at Yak & Yeti with my Aunt, Uncle, and baby cousin Robert. We walked over, met them and were seated right away. The food was EXCELLENT!! I highly recommend the Ahi Tuna appetizer! Robert was being his cute self and flirting with the waitress everytime she walked by...
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After dinner we walked over to watch Festival of the Lion King. Well Robert did not make it haha. He was super tired and couldn't sit still so we said our goodbyes and Mandy and I enjoyed the show. We then went and got our wristbands for evening extra magic hours. We were able to walk right on Dinosaur then wait only 5 mins for Primevil Whirl. As we were coming off that, Mandy said she wanted to end our first night with fireworks soooo off to the Magic Kingdom we went!!

In all my years of going to Disney I never bought a pair of Mickey Ears so right to Sir Mickey's we went where I got my classic Mouseka-ears. We then hopped on Pooh then over to see the changes in the Haunted Mansion. Soooo cool, what a great update! And our luck, we came out just as they were about to rope off a crosswalk for Spectromagic, so we grabbed a front seat for that.
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After the parade we made our way over to the castle for Wishes.
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I love these fireworks, I always cry at the end. What a beautiful way to end our first day at Disney.

Oh and to make things even more "magical," when we got into our room finally at 11:15 all of our bags were already in our room! Even our carry-ons that we had dropped off with luggage service!! I love Disney!!


Coming Soon:
DAY 2!! Tower of Terror and tons of drinks in Epcot

Great trip report so far! Thanks for sharing. I'm looking forward to the next post & can't wait to read more.:)

yeah!!!! I'm so excited!!! I can't wait to read more on your trip. We're doing AK first too...what a great idea to head over to the magic kingdom for fireworks...we may have to do that too!!!:D

Thank you to everyone who's reading so far! Sorry it's taking me so long to post...things have been super crazy at work since I got back from the trip. Enjoy Day 2

Day 2

Plan: Hollywood Studios in the morning, Epcot in the evening for drinking and eating around the world

Actual:

We were up pretty early considering the long day we had yesterday. After we were showered and ready it was down to Everything Pop for breakfast around 8ish. I gotta tell you, I love my breakfast in the morning, but really don't want too much at that hour of the morning. So Mandy and myself, the kids portions were perfect for us...and reallllyyyy afforadable.

After breakfast we hopped a bus over to the Studios. We got there right at opening and the crowds were very light. We first took some photopass pictures on the main rd. They also had a streetmosphere guy there directing everyone as they were walking by. We stopped to watch him for a few minutes, he was hilarious.

We then went over to Rock N' Roller Coaster to get fastpasses. They were for just an hour away so we got online for Tower of Terror. Since it was still so close to opening, once you got in the basement they only were running 2 elevators so surprisingly we waited about 25 minutes. Non the less a fantastic ride. Mandy had no idea that there was a whole story and that it did more than just go up and down. She really enjoyed this one

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After that we stopped at the hat to shop a little for pins. I'm not into the whole pin trading thing, I think they cost too much to trade lol. But I do think some of them are absolutely adorable so I only really buy the ones that I really like. I found a few cute ones and then it was on to the Great Movie Ride. We waited only about 10 mins and were right on. This was one of the best times I've had on this ride. Our guide (Erynn from Manlius, NY) was FANTASTIC!! She really was into it and was really nice. We had the gangster scene and the gangster had a really funny NY accent. The whole ride was a lot of fun. As we were exiting it started to rain a little so we ran right over to Star Tours. Only about a 10 minute wait. They really do need to update this ride, it's sooo 80s, but still cute. I loved shopping in the store afterwards though. My younger brother is a huge Star Wars fan and I still needed to get him something for his graduation so I ended up getting him the special edition book of the first 3 episodes (or last 3 really) and I got him the Luke Frywalker Mr. Potato Head. (When I gave it to him at home he couldn't stop laughing over it).

After that it was on to Muppets 3D. All morning Mandy had been talking about all the pre-shows on all the rides so on the walk over I was telling her about how funny the Muppets one is and that I think it's one of the best pre-shows. Well don't you know that when we got there, the pre-show had just ended and we walked right into the theater haha. Oh well!

After Muppets we decided we had done alot already and wanted to get back to the resort to lounge by the pool since the sun was coming out. It took us forever to get back though, this turned out to be one of the longest waits for a bus the whole trip. And what was sooo frustrating was that we could see a Pop Century bus just sitting in the parking lot the whole time we were waiting. Sure enough, that was the bus that ended up picking us up. It must have been lunch or something. Well anywho, we get back to the resort, change into our bathing suits, stop in Everything Pop for a small lunch then head out to the hippy dippy pool. What a gorgeous day it turned out to be!! It was hot, but there was a strong wind so you never felt hot. We layed out and swam a bit for over 2 hours!! (Bad idea on my part, I got a bit burned on my chest). We then went up to the room to shower and head out to Epcot for the night.

All we really were going to do at Epcot was World Showcase. Once we got in though, there was no wait for Spaceship Earth so we decided to do that first. I love all the updates!! Especially the video at the end, we couldn't stop laughing at it. Then Mandy wanted to go on the Nemo ride (she became such a huge Nemo fan after the show at Animal Kingdom). No wait at all and it's such a cute ride. I just think it's soo cool how they make it look like the characters are swimming with the real fish.

After that it was on to World Showcase. We started out in Mexico. We looked around the shops a bit, took pictures by the water fountain and rode Gran Fiesta.

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After that it was time to start our eating and drinking tour. Everything on the cantina menu seemed so heavy so we just decided to start with a Churro and Fiesta Margaritas. YUMMY! I love thos margaritas. We then went into Norway. Didn't find anything we wanted to eat and we still had full margaritas so we ended up not getting food or drinks. We walked around the shop though. Let me tell you, one of these times I'm actually going to buy that perfume, everytime I go I say how pretty it smells but I never get it. I did however take a picture with one of those viking hats haha.

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Then it was on to China. We shopped around first then decided to eat. We shared a really delicioud Vegetable Stir-Fry dish. I don't know how the Chinese do it but they make tofu taste good hahaha. We then stopped at the outpost to watch this man from Africa do really beautiful wood carvings. I ended up buying one of an owl for my grandma. While paying, Mandy and I met the nicest cast members, Lori & Jeff. Mandy was wearing her 1st Trip button so they were asking her about her trip. We had encountered some pretty grumpy cast members yesterday at AK so she happened to mention that. Well they proved to her that not everyone is that way. They shared some fun stories with us, told Mandy where she could find some hidden mickeys in Epcot (she's fascinated by the hidden mickeys) and then let her pick out any free pin she wanted. They were sooo nice and really made our night.

After the Outpost it was on to Germany. We shopped around a bit and I bought this beautiful Hummel ornament for my other grandma. We then had some really delicious red wine. I forgot to write down what it was called, sorry. We decided to skip the food here as well because it would have been tooo filling and we had plenty more countries to get to. We stopped in Italy and Mandy ended up buying the most gorgeous handpainted mask! The gentleman helping her was very nice as well. While here we got some sparkling red wine that was delicious. We walked through America promising to return at some point to get Mandy a funnel cake (the line was just tooo long at that point). It was then onto Japan. We weren't feeling sushi but we thought we could do for some japanese and saki. Well almost everything on the menu seemed to be chicken thighs which neither of us wanted and they only had hot sake so we just decided to skip it. In Moracco we skipped food and drinks since we would be eating here on friday night. But we did get henna tattoos haha. Then it was on to France. I got the Grand Marnier Orange Slush and Mandy got the Grey Goose Limon Slush. Oh My Goodness were they delicious!! I wanted another one but was already feeling a little tipsy and we still had the UK and Canada to get through haha.

After France we made a direct bee line to get fish and chips! MMMM did they hit the spot. We washed them down with some Strongbows and watched Illuminations from the UK. At this point I'd say we were good and drunk (I promise we were not like those obnoxious drunks that you can't believe would act that way, we were giddy but pretty much kept to ourselves haha). We then walked into the UK stores. We stopped to chat with this really cute cast member about the trivia questions. He was pretty impressed that I got almost all of them right. I have family in England and go once a year so I know quite a bit about it, and I have a weak spot for boys with British accents hehe. We then walked across to the store that sells all the teas and low and behold....they had Walkers Crisps. If you have never had Walker's Crisps get your bottoms over to the UK pavilion and get some. They are the best potato chips on the planet!!! But you can't just get regular, I highly recommend the Prawn Cocktail or Salt & Vinegar.

It was evening EMH at this point so when we tried to go to Canada it was already closed. Oh well, we were stuffed and had had enough to drink anyway haha. We felt that since we stuck around for EMH we should at least try to get on one ride. Well boy did we pick the wrong ride to go on after a night a drinking. I'm sure you've guessed it now, we went on Mission Space. And the intense side to boot. haha We didn't get sick or anything, but we were definately ready to leave after that.


Once back in the room we crashed big time haha. This turned out to be one of our favorite days of the whole trip! Laying by the pool was sooo relaxing and then exploring the World Showcase and drinking was just tons of fun!

Stay tuned soon to hear about all the swashbuckling good time at the Pirates & Princess Party...

i promise i haven't forgotten the rest of the trip report. i work for a minor league baseball team in NY and our season opener is tuesday so things have been really crazy. i'm hoping to get up another day or two in the next few days.

Thanks to everyone who's still reading :)

Sounds like you had a great time. I agree with you about the pins. Don't care a thing about trading them, but I have bought one or two that I really like.

Thanks for posting. I'm enjoying reading it. :)

Thanks for the trip report... hope work isnt too hectic and you'll get to write
another day soon... cant wait to read!

In addition to loving your trip report and being eager to hear more, I'd also love to know what you do for that minor league baseball team. What a great sounding job. How did you get into that line of work, etc. Just really curious.

Hi Everyone!! Sorry it took me so long to write more. Things with opening week at the ballpark was crazy and then just this week we had to put our beloved 12 year old dog to sleep. So suffice to say, I haven't had time to write about the trip.

For Petesimac who was interested in what I do...
I am the director of Merchandise & Community Relations for the Hudson Valley Renegades, Class A Affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. Basically everything you see in our gift shop and on our online store, I'm responsible for! I get to shop for a living so that's pretty cool haha. I also work with local non-profits to provide any assistance we can. We really try to do alot for the community cause they've been some of the best fans a team could ask for. I got into working in baseball through college. My major was Sport Managment. It's one of the fastest growing majors on college campuses. Basically you're getting a business degree, just with a concentration in the sports business. It was awesome and I love that I get to go to work at a baseball stadium everyday!!

Now onto the trip report!!

Day 3:

Plan: Brunch at 1900 park fare, pool, Pirates & Princess Party at night

Actual:

We took our time getting ready and were on a bus by 9:30 am to get to the Magic Kingdom. From there we took a monorail over to the Grand Floridian. Check in was no problem and we only waited about 5 minutes. HOWEVER, in front of us was a group of probably around 15, 2 adults and all young kids. By far the rudest, most unbehaved children I have ever seen. There were jumping off benches, running up the walls, stepping on other peoples toes, etc. AND to top it off, the mother did nothing!!! I'm sorry but that I just don't understand.

After that it was in for brunch. Like Stacy says in the top 7 show, Yummy, Yummy, Yummy!! That brunch is just delicious! And it was very cute to have all the characters around. Of course I had to take my picture with Pooh bear since he's my favorite!!

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Even though Pooh is my favorite, the best pictures were the ones with took with the Mad Hatter, his faces were hilarious!

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After brunch we decided that we wanted to head over to the boardwalk for shopping and ice cream at Beaches & Cream. I love the boardwalk, I just think it's one of the prettiest areas in WDW. So we shopped around and then we couldn't leave without getting ice cream at Beaches & Cream.

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After ice cream we decided we were tired and wanted to nap before our long night at Pirates & Princess. Well since there's no direct bus back to Pop Century, we decided we would just hop on the first bus that came. That happened to be an Animal Kingdom bus. Now here's where we made a stupid decision. Instead of staying on the whole way to Animal Kingdom, we got off at Blizzard Beach. Dumb move, a Pop Century bus didn't come through for 45 mins. Soooo not cool. Oh well, you live and you learn right?!

We both were exhausted and took a lonnnggg 2 hour nap. We showered, got ready, then headed out to the Pirates & Princess Party. I was a princess and mandy was a mickey pirate

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We both were a little hungry so decided to stop at Casey's for a snack. We shared the yummy corn dog nuggets and each got a bottle of water. From there we went on to ride Pirates (come on you have to, it's Pirates & Princess night!), then we went over to Big Thunder Mountain and got to ride the train twice without getting off! That was awesome! We then stopped to have our picture taken in front of Cinderellla's carriage (sorry I don't have this pic, we did it on the photopass), then we did It's A Small World

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From there we went over to Snow White's Scary Ride, the onto the teacups!!

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After the tea cups we were starving. We decided just to go to Cosmic Rays since we were right there. We tried going into the first door and the CM told us it was closed. But on the P&P party map it said it was one of the places to get food. So now we thought maybe he was wrong, so we walked around to the other side and low and behold we were let right in. We told the CM at this entrance that she might want to let the other guy know to let the people wearing wristbands in. Well anywho, we had delicious burgers then headed out for more rides. We on the speedway...and this is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. Mandy interpreting the keep your arms inside the vehicle picture

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From there it was onto Space Mountain, then Buzz then it was time for the parade. I love this parade!! The song is soo cute and catchy. And we had great seats right on the curb and only waited about 20 min. After the parade we decided on a quick trip on the TTA and then it was time for treasure hunting. We ran around like little kids to all the X spots to get our beads and gems! It was sooo much fun!

Then it was time to get our spot for what I think is the best fireworks in all of Disney. If you ever have the chance, get your patooties to the Pirates & Princess Party and see these fireworks, they are just incredible!!! After the fireworks we headed over to toontown to do some shopping in the judges tent, then it was onto Peter Pan. From there, Mandy was on her quest for funnel cake. As we were waiting for funnel cake we met 2 of the nicest dream squad members. Wes & Megann! They hung with us for almost and hour and we just had blast! We laughed alot, they let us know when Pocahontas and Captain John were coming out so we could take pictures, and then walked with us over the adventureland to get dole whips! They were so much and made our night that much better. After that we watched the final show of Captain Jack's Pirate Tutorial then called it a night!

I absolutely love the Pirates & Princess Party. I highly recommend it!!

Coming Soon: Soarin, Fantasmis, and a whole cheese pizza...just for us

be still my 50ish heart you looked good with pooh::p
glad you & your friend had a great trip. looking foward to more.

Love the Mad Hatter pics.

Thanks for the great post, can't wait to read more.

Great trip report so far. Enjoying the pics. :)

Oh, it sounds as though you guys had a great, great time!! Looking forward to more whenever you have time to get to it.

BTW, your job sounds terrific!!

Great trip report so far! :) I never knew they made a Luke Frywalker. That sounds really really cute!

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful comments. I'm so happy you all are enjoying my report! It's a little tough finding time to get them up because we are in season here at the ballpark. But i'm almost done!!:D

Day 4

Plan: Epcot in the morning then play the rest of the day by ear (haha or should i say mouse ear?)

Actual:[B]

Got up around 7:30ish. Breakfast at Pop. I have to say, I LOVE the kids breakfast platters at Pop. They are just the right portion and I even get a little water bottle or juice to take with me to the parks in the morning. And at $4 and change they are definately the right price.

From there it was on to Epcot. I can't stress enough getting to the parks right when then open. Mandy I barely had waits for anything! We went right to Soarin' and walked right to the loading area. I love doing this ride with people who have never riden it before. The look on their faces is just priceless. From there we walked over to Test Track and it was another walk-on! From there we went over to the Seas with Nemo & friends (i know alot of criss-crossing back and forth but we actually enjoyed it because for us it was exercise on the trip without going to a gym). We started to wait for Turtle Talk with Crush but we just missed getting into a show and as we were waiting a school group showed up. Well they kept pushing us and were so loud and obnoxious that we couldn't wait it out any longer. We left without seeing Turtle Talk. Oh well, next time right?! From there we did Imagination. As a figment fan, I know this is no where near as good as the original, but I still think it's cute and there's never a line to get on it. We then decided to walk around the world and enjoy the gorgeous day.

We stopped for a snack at Mexico (Yummy Yummy nachos, highly recommend them). Then it was back to the hotel to rest up. By the time we got back to Pop, then clouds came and it looked like rain. Darn, we really wanted to lay by the pool. Oh well, we settled for a nap. Well that quick nap turned into a 4 hour nap haha. I guess all that walking really was taking a lot out of us. After we got up and refreshed ourselves, we decided to head out to the Studios for the night cause Mandy really wanted to see Fantasmic.

The first thing we did when we got there was head directly over to Toy Story Mania. It was in soft openings this week and we were hoping to catch a ride. And lucky stars...it was running!!! And we only waited about 20 mins. The Mr. Potato Head was hilarious!!

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http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c389/jillybeaner21/disney%2008/DSC00879.jpg

He even picked on me once. Well anywho onto the ride. I'm not going to spoil it for anyone who hasn't riden it yet but BEST RIDE OF THE TRIP!!!! It is sooo much fun, we absolutely loved it!!! From there we went over to Tower of Terror. We tried to get on Rock n Roller Coaster but the line was too long. So we stopped to get some McDonalds fries to snack on and headed on back to Toy Story Mania. Mandy beat me yet again but we just totally loved this ride.

After that it was about half hour until Fantasmic so we headed towards the theater. We stopped to get ice cream then went in to grab seats. For getting there really only 20 mins before, we had great seats. Center right in the middle of the section. Perfect viewing. The only thing that stunk is that it started to lightly rain while we were waiting

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But luckily, it stopped by the time Fantasmic started. And like usual, it was a great show!

From there we realized we hadn't eaten a real meal since breakfast, so we decided to head over to Downtown Disney for a bite to eat. Now this is where relying on Disney buses can really be tough sometimes. From the Studios there is no direct bus to Downtown Disney. There were 3 options, get a bus to Pop then transfer, get a but to the Transportation and Ticket center then transfer, or walk to the Boardwalk & take a bus. We took option 3. Bad idea! It started raining as we were walking and then it took almost 20 minutes for a DD bus to arrive. By the time it got to DD, everything was closing up. We didn't want to sit down and eat, so we just did some quick shopping and headed back to Pop. Well to make matters even worse, it started to pour as we were waiting for the bus, so when it finally came it was SUPER crowded. We were worried that we wouldn't make it back to Pop in time to get food.

Luckily though we did and our eyes were wayyyyy bigger than our stomaches. We got an entire cheese pizza for the 2 of us instead of the small individual ones. Well we both only ate 2 pieces and called it a night.

[B]Coming Soon: Henna tattoos and odd bus drivers