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DangerMouse
09-06-2005, 10:45 AM
Sunday, 9/4 - Dangermouse, dh, dd(8), ds(5), dd(3)

Stayed at the HoJo. Got a premium disney view room for $64 with our Entertainment card. Thanks Willie! Room was great, as usual. HoJo rocks!

Sunday morning we were second in line at the gates and opened the park with a surprisingly small crowd of people. It was cool and overcast. Lovely! I grabbed fast passes for Space while dh took the three kids to Peter Pan. I caught up with them and walked on Pan a second time. Then we were the only family on Casey Jr. The following rides were all walk on in this order: Dumbo, Pinnochio, BTMRR (twice), HM, Splash (twice) and PoTC. My dd was thrilled that the owl at the end of Splash was actually talking!! Sure wish they could get the photo part of it working again. That was always fun. It was only after we were heading back to the hub and grabbing fast passes along the way that we noticed the crowds were arriving. I LOVE Sunday mornings at DL. Every Sunday opening I have ever done has been this way. Very nice and quiet. We did a few more rides (Matterhorn, Space, Indy). After we got off the Matterhorn, my dd spoted Mary Poppins and Bert! We've been looking for them all year! We had to follow them over to FL and spent some time chatting and singing with them. They are sooooo charming! Bert was especially friendly and kind to all my kids. We took some quick pictures but there were a lot of other kids pushing in, so we knew we would need to find them again later for a better photo op. It was my ds's first time on Indy. He's 5 and just finally hit 46". He loved it and declared it his new favorite ride. Dd8 and I both prefer to skip it, not our cup of tea. We watched Billy Hill as we ate lunch and got to sit on the stage. Very fun, but you miss out on catching a lot of Kirk's expressions if you aren't on the floor.

It was getting crazy busy and hot after this, so we took a long hotel break and napped. Headed back to the park at 6 pm and rode IASW. They overloaded our boat and we had to actually push ourselves through the whole attraction. It was hilarious and frustrating at the same time. It took us about 30 minutes to get through. After we got off, I made a beeline for the castle to get seats for Remember. The PoD was going on, so there was still some great space right in the seating area to the left of the castle. Dh took kids to Toon Town while I held space. Remember was fabulous as usual and totally worth the wait. We cut through Carnation Plaza and Rancho de Z to get our spot for the 10:30 showing of F! We grabbed the spot right behind the central light tower. Great viewing spot. We were all thrilled to see that Pinocchio is back! After F! we hit Splash with FP (dd3 did Pooh 3 times with dh), Space, and Buzz before park closing.

Oh, I just have to say I LOVE SPACE MT! I love the new effects at the beginning and end. The music is fun, too! I can't wait to see what they do for RockIt Mt! Both my 8 and 5 year old love Space, too! It was a great day at the park. All three kids stayed awake past midnight and were happy and rested because of our long break at the hotel.

Got back to the hotel at 12:45 and crashed HARD! Morning would come too quickly, or for me, not quickly enough! I was really looking forward to another day at the parks!

DangerMouse
09-06-2005, 11:04 AM
I wanted to put this in a separate post because I wanted to thank Hydroguy for all his FP advice. We were able to do so much at the parks because of his recent posts regarding the use of FP. By combining fastpasses and child swap passes, we were able to hold FPs for 5-6 rides and use them later in the day. We did all the low que rides in the morning, and saved all our FP for the afternoon/evening when the ques were much longer.

Here's how it worked for us. We used our APs to obtain 2 fastpasses to each ride that we wanted the four adults to go on. Two of us would go on using the FP and at the que entrance obtain a child switch pass. Then the other two would get to use either the exit or the FP que to get on the ride. We were able to double up on FPs for rides this way. So, for example, I get two FPs for Space. I only need to use two of them because I can use the child swap at that time and all four adults get to ride not using the stand-by que. I can save my other FPs for another ride (like Autopia or Buzz).

Anyway, using this technique and Hydroguy's advice, we did not wait in one stand-by que when a FP was offered. My new DL mantra is I don't to stand-by!

ToursbabeC3po
09-06-2005, 11:09 AM
Except Child switch passes are for people waiting out with children that are unable to ride or don't want to ride so you were cheating the system. But I guess that is a question of ethics.

DangerMouse
09-06-2005, 11:16 AM
Except Child switch passes are for people waiting out with children that are unable to ride or don't want to ride so you were cheating the system. But I guess that is a question of ethics.

Ummm, did you read that I have a 3 year old that has to stay off these rides? I don't consider it cheating. Someone had to stay with our 3 year old, and she enjoyed having a brother or sister stay behind with her as well. :rolleyes:

DangerMouse
09-06-2005, 12:25 PM
I may post day #2 tomorrow if there is any interest in reading it. I've been feeling awfully attacked here lately, and am not sure anyone is even interested. . . :(

TowerofTerror
09-06-2005, 12:31 PM
i like t o hear iM very intrested in hearing the report

rfaljean
09-06-2005, 12:51 PM
Me, too. Please post day #2. My family and I have used the fastpass/child switch
passes the same way. Both my sister and I have youngin's that can't ride the
Mountains and Indy yet, so we'd get fastpasses for all 4 adults (us and our hubbies), then they would ride Indy and we'd watch their son, then we would swap and go on. Then, we'd use our fastpasses and ride, then they would swap and ride again. We just didn't use our fastpasses past the end window time.

stan4d_steph
09-06-2005, 01:28 PM
Yes please share. Also, where did you eat? I enjoy hearing what people thought of the food at DL. Plus I can eat vicariously. :)

DangerMouse
09-06-2005, 01:39 PM
Yes please share. Also, where did you eat? I enjoy hearing what people thought of the food at DL. Plus I can eat vicariously. :)

Oh, you won't like my tr much then, we do DL on the cheap! We eat breakfast in the hotel room (cold cereal/fruit), and I pack a lunch. We ate at Mimi's once because I love their corn chowder. We do budget for one meal in the park per visit, and this time we had lunch/dinner at White Water Snacks. I had my traditional tuna sandwich, dd and dh split a nachos with beef (which we were shocked at, because it was steak on top!) It was so yummy, lots of sour cream/guacamole and peppers. YUM! The littlest just split a hot dog/fries. Although I have to say that WWS' french fries are exceptionally good. We also had churros, cotton candy and frozen lemonade for treats. It was so hot on Monday that I HAD to have that frozen lemonade!

amarvel
09-06-2005, 03:13 PM
Yes please post. I was at the park these days too and i love hearing about peoples experiences the same days i was there. I agree Sunday was very nice in the morning. Sunday morning is my favorite time to go to the park. And I also saw Mary poppins and Bert, was quite surprised and made sure to get a picture. :)

angela

DangerMouse
09-07-2005, 07:15 AM
Monday, 9/5

Despite my efforts, we didn't make it to the rope drop. Had to pack up and check out of the HoJo and it was a late night! We were in line to enter at 9:15, and it was HOT! Not a cloud in the sky and the sun was intense! My plan was to head straight to Autopia, but we noticed Alice had a very small line, so we jumped on. Then grabbed fp for Autopia because the que was already at 30 min. We were going to go to HISTA, but it was down.

So we ran over to FL. Saw that Aurora, my dd3's favorite, was out and got pictures. Then got on Pinocchio. As we were exiting, we just happened to notice Prince Phillip was cleaning the lamps on the walls outside the ride. No one else had noticed him! So we had a great visit with him and he kissed my three year old on the lips! Swoon! After this I went to check the Princess story schedule and found out that Aurora was going to be first at 11:30! Perfect! We jumped on King Arthur's carousel after the kids spent some time trying to pull that sword out of the stone. We ran over and used our Autopia FPs and we thrilled when my son got a winning license! I was just thinking I might like this ride after all, until we got on and dd started driving. Ouch! What a headache. Bumping and jarring city! Plus my legs got so tired trying to hold down that darn petal. Well, at least we got a free toy car!

After Autopia, we split up and I headed back to the castle with dd3 to catch the storytime with Aurora. After storytime with Aurora, we saw Belle outside and then saw Mary and Bert again at the Carnation Plaza. Dh watched HISTA with the older kids and grabbed FPs for Indy. As I was waiting for Mary and Bert I called dh to find out where they were, he said they were in FL and that my son was picked for the Sword in the Stone Ceremony and I was missing it! My dh said the expression on my son's face was priceless as he was pulling that sword up (he had never seen this show before, and was just tugging on that sword earlier in the day). He loved getting his special medal and scroll. What a fantastic morning we were having! All the character interactions were just magical!

We met up after all the greets and then headed over to let dh and ds use the FP's for Indy. We caught Woody and Jessie on the way and had a quick greet with them. The girls and I went on PoTC to get out of the heat and kill some time. Then we jumped on the DLRR to head out of DL so we could spend the afternoon at DCA.

I made a plan with dh that he would take the kids to White Water Snacks and order while I did the run for FP's. I grabbed two for ToT, two for Soarin, and four for GRR, and then got to WWS before the nachos even arrived! After a nice lunch at WWS, we went and did Soarin using the child switch pass and then headed to ToT to get the child switch. Ds decided he didn't want to do ToT this time so dd got to go twice. We spent time in the Animation Studio after this. I still had a huge headache from Autopia and the heat (it never went away that day) and really enjoyed the cool, relaxing atmosphere of the Animation Studio. We got to do a character close-up with Cinderella, Sorcerer Mickey and Woody, and then caught Turtle Talk with Crush. The kids really enjoyed that. Crush is very quick and witty with his responses, even though his accent may be a bit off. ;)

Had just enough time to get a spot for BPB. Unfortunately, all the shady spots were taken and we were sitting in the full, beating sun. I feel so bad for those performers doing that show in the heat. It's gotta just be miserable, especially the fully costumed characters. Ouch! It's just amazing that they keep up their smiles and energy even though the sweat is just flying! We sat right in front of Mr. Potato Head and the kids enjoyed the show as I shoveled frozen lemonade into their mouths to keep them cool.

Hit GRR next. Both kids got to go twice using the fp/child switch combo. We sat next to a really fun Australian family and got the perfect amount of wet - ahhhhh, evap cooling! We had time to kill before our beloved EP, which was running its final show this night. This is the real reason we made this trip to begin with. So we headed to Bug's Land. Against our better judgment, we did It's Tough to Be a Bug, and all the kids said NEVER AGAIN! They hate that show. Walked into Bug's Land and walked onto Flick's Fliers and Heimlich's Choo Choo. We stayed on for a second loop to smell the watermelon and animal crackers. Mmmmmmm. Headed back out to see that the park was virtually empty! Walked down to do the Zephyr and MM, which my son had never done before. He loved it. My littlest loved the Zephyr and the CM's there encouraged us to just stay on because there was no one going on it!!

We finally decided we better get our spot for the EP. We sat right across from the winery. We had some great boulders to lean against and met a lovely family from Virginia. As the EP started, my son started crying (very predictable, he always gets choked up and cries when the music starts). Tears kept running down his face through the whole parade as he was saying "Why? Why? Why are they taking my parade away?" We said goodbye to each float as it went by. Sniff! And then followed the parade up the street to the exit. Did the slow walk back to the HoJo to get in our van and start the long drive back to Phoenix. Made record time and got back home at 2 am. The kids slept the entire way.

Here's a link to our photo gallery from this trip. I definitely enjoyed Monday the most because of all the character interaction. It was a magical trip and we're looking forward to going back in December!

http://members.cox.net/siraks/index.html

ima_mickeyfan
09-07-2005, 07:36 AM
how cute...loved the pictures looks like you all had a wonderful time!

Crazy4DL
09-07-2005, 04:29 PM
DangerMouse! what a fun report!

I am just now getting a chance to read it. How fun.

That was a smart use of the Fastpasses and baby switches. We combined them too when we were just there and had babies in our parties. Not quite as cleverly as you did though. We will have to remember that.

What little cutie puties you have! :)

Thanks for sharing. Sounded so magical. :sigh: I am ready to go again.

SuefromRI
09-07-2005, 04:44 PM
Great report and pics-I'm surprised you were so successful for a holiday weekend, even with FP and BS. So many character meetings. Maybe everyone left early on Monday return home.