Mimi's 2nd Birthday Party Trip Report **Updated 12/4** About This Page:

[disneydani]

Thanks for adding more pics....you guys are sure packing in some great time with the characters!

danielle

[POOH]

Loving your pictures. Your children so absolutely adorable. Very cute how Roo was holding Daisy's hand.

[DyanKJ130]

Great update, Amy!! Roo's facial expressions!! They stay it all! Looking forward to more

[ariel14]

Super cute pics!!

[Jookiba]

I've said it before & will say it again.....I just the pictures of your beautiful babies-I could just pinch those chubby little cheeks on Mimi!! I'm glad she started to come around with some of the characters & participated in the little music parade.

I would have wanted to scream had I waited 30 minutes to pay a dining bill. Your DH must have the patience of a saint. I would have had to flag down a manager & hand him $$ then walk out. I hope for the server's sake she gets it together or she'll find herself out of a job.

On a personal note, I'm going to kick you in the rear if you call yourself a heavy hot mess again!!! No more of the negativity.....okies? I love ya just the way ya are!!

Hurry back when you have the chance please---I've got my eyes on the Wilderness Lodge & can never see too many pictures (or read too many reviews) of the place.

[Principessa_di_Fata]

This is awesome! I'm bookmarking it so I can keep checking back! How fun!

[akleos]

Well, I started to look at the pictures of the characters with the kids, and seemed like every day had a story to tell, which lit the fire under me to start the actual TR. Prepare yourself. It's going to be a big report. With more pictures. Lots of pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Lucky for you I am a woman of few(ish) words so it shouldn't take you long to get through it!

LET'S BEGIN, SHALL WE????

It’s arrival day! WOO HOO! We had to get up early even though our flight was at noon. So here we are, tired but excited, on the drive to Newark Liberty airport!

Dave looking anxious about the weight of our near-empty bags. He worries too much:


Here is Mimi singing along to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride soundtrack that we had playing in the car that morning:


Roo is comforting himself by sticking a piece of Blankie in his ear and swirling it around. He couldn't decide what he was more thrilled about; flying in the airplane, or landing in Walt Disney World:


Here I am after a frantic night and morning of last minute laundry/packing/sleeplessness/dish washing/breakfast making etc. etc. etc. I just wanted to GET THERE!!!! Please note that I was still sick - the red nose from so much sneezing, nose blowing, etc becomes me, no?


Roo made sure that I didn't forget to take a picture of Blankie. Apparently Blankie was just as excited as we were to go to Walt Disney World:


Dave dropped me off with Mimi and the checked luggage at Sky Cap, as he and Roo took the car to the economy parking lot. We were very pleased, by the way, with the economy lot bus service to the terminal and back again. They didn't have to wait more than five minutes for a bus in either direction. Although on the way to the terminal, the bus driver struck a pole while turning and didn't care as he just scratched and dented the side of his bus. WELCOME TO JERSEY! Anyway! This photo was taken as he and Roo waited for the bus to bring them to the terminal. Roo is very proud to be carrying his luggage:


Already the wallet bleeding begins as Ronan shows off his new airplane toy. Mimi is eating a Finding Nemo fruit snack:


NOW THAT IS WHAT I LIKE TO SEE:


Fighting off the boredom by walking around the terminal while we wait for the plane to arrive:


There it is:


Since we're a family of four and the airplane row seats three, Dave sat with Ronan on one side, while Mimi and I sat across the aisle. It was an uneventful flight for the boys - Ronan was so interested in flying that he hardly made a peep. But me? Mimi wouldn't nap and she was squirmy, and squealing, and general a pain in the behind. My apologies to the poor woman that was sitting beside us where ever she is! By the time we got off the airplace I was already spent, and just wanted to let Mimi run herself ragged so she would nap. Did she? No... of course not! Ei yi yi. I have no idea how that girl does it. Here she is with quite a look on her face while running around MCO like a mad woman:


And here is Ronan in a wonderfully familiar and thrilling sight you ought to know yourself:

THE MCO AIRPORT SHUTTLE!

We don't do DME anymore. We've tried it enough times and have had enough problems on each of those times that from now on we hire a car or rent a car. This time we decided to hire Quicksilver car service and take the grocery store stop along the way. We Quicksilver and highly recommend them to anyone unsatisfied with the DME service.

We paid a little extra for a water view room at POR and were placed in room 8426 in the Acadian House (Disney's Port Orleans Riverside map - wdwinfo.com). We asked for a quiet room and we got it! We loved the location and were we staying there again (which I doubt we will for the reasons you will read about below), would probably ask for the same. Here is the view from our door:


There were two stairwells within steps of our resort room, and this was the view of one of them:


We originally decided to stay at POR. We usually stay at Deluxe resorts, but since we had invited family members on the trip, we wanted to make it more affordable and arranged to give a moderate a try. We picked POR based on our walking tour of it in December '07, and because we had read that they offer extra-long double beds. In case you need reminding, Dave is 6' 6" tall. If anyone needs an extra long bed, it's him. However... when we arrived, the beds were so small that he and I could not sleep together. He needed an entire bed to himself. So Roo and I ended up bunking together in one bed, while Dave took the other. However, Disney had washed all the room carpets on the day of our arrival and they were still damp when we arrived. It is my suspicion that it was either the dampness or the scent used in the carpet shampoo but something in that room woke Mimi up in the middle of the night with a stuffy nose and tears tears tears tears tears! The poor little thing (and I) slept only a handful of hours on the first two nights, as she kept waking up unable to breathe. That sealed it for us... between having to bunk with Ronan (who is notorious for pushing bunk mates off the bed in his sleep) and Mimi's sleepless nights, we decided to move to Wilderness Lodge after our mothers' departed in four days. I won't tell you the hassel it was to get the switch done, but it was well worth it. We weren't able to make the breakfast Passporter meet because we were so exhausted that we slept in several mornings in a row. We missed park openings and the advantages of getting to the busiest attractions before the heavy crowds. It was really disappointing. Happily, you'll see a decrease in dark circles under my eyes in the photos after we switched resorts! Going back to WL was a like a gigantic sigh of relief. We were so happy to be there and had a much more positive experience than we had on our first stay there. But I will tell you more about WL in good time.

Here is Mimi in her WDW-issued crib before the stuffy, sniffly, sneezey set in:



My final thoughts on the subject: I don't think that unless I go on a solo trip that we will ever have the option to stay at a moderate or value resort because they can't accomodate my husbands needs. Sure, we could get adjoining rooms - one with a king size bed for us and one with doubles for the kids, but by the time you add up that expense it's a wash between two adjoining rooms or one room at a deluxe. And we'd rather stay in the deluxe for the vicinity to the parks. Lesson learned - anyone of greater height should reconsider when booking a room at a moderate. If you can't get a king size bed, you might regret your choice to stay there. The beds, while "extra-long", are still incredibly small when you've got to pull up your knees in order to keep your feet on the bed. And equally uncomfortable for person trying to sleep beside.

After we had arrived, we headed over to Epcot, but we decided not to take the camera with us since we were only going to be there a short while. I do not have any photos to share, but Roo rode Test Track for the first time with Daddy (and got two TT car toys), had a late dinner at San Angel Inn, rode Gran Fiesta Tour, and then I rode Test Track with Roo. We have the Photpass pics of those two Test Track rides, and I will download them once our CD arrives.

Wow. And I thought I was short on talk! HA! But that'll do it for our arrival day! More photos and fun to come! Thanks for reading!!!!

[akleos]

HOORAY! Our first full day but awwwww... we didn't get much sleep. Still, we managed to pull ourselves out of bed. Roo was the only person in the family that got any rest, and here he is bright and sunny and ready to start a day full of Magic Kingdom attractions. Please note the two test Track cars in his hand. We still hear him saying "Keep your hands, arms, feet and legs inside the vehicle. And parents, supervise your children":


Here is Mimi, looking a bit puffy and tired. She was NOT happy about Daddy sticking the camera in her face at such an early hour. Sounds like someone else I know :


We got to the North Depot and our bus was right there to greet us(BTW - I hear a lot of folks on the PP boards who say you should always catch the depot at the lobby, but honestly, I disagree entirely. It might make a difference if you're there during the busiest times of year, but it was actually faster and easier for us to get the bus at the North Depot.) The buses were fine from POR, really. Better than some of the service we've had from the Deluxe resorts. I really couldn't complain about the transportation. Here are some anxious kids waiting as patiently as possible to get to Magic Kingdom:


The very first thing we did was get in line for the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which has been Mimi's favorite video to watch online. She loved the pictures of the Pooh characters on the giant pages in the queue:


Mimi was so excited to ride the ride she refused to sit still in my arms. It was next to impossible to hold her and it finally took a full-body-hug kind of grip to keep her still:

NICE FACE, MEEMS!!!!

Needless to say, she Pooh! She squealed in happiness, and danced in her seat to the Huffalump and Woozle song. She tried to sing along with the Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down chorus, too. That was adorable. But after that we could no longer ignore the needs of our boy... mostly because he was barking at us. And off we went to ride the Speedway cars. Here's Dave holding Little Miss Squirms-a-lot:


This is Roo's favorite thing to do at Magic Kingdom. He would be content if you just let him ride the cars over and over and over again. I think we have a future race car driver on our hands:


He wanted a green car and every time I rode with him, that stoopid green car was the car in FRONT of us and no amount of asking would A. get us assigned to another green car, or B. convince the person with the green car to swap with us. =sigh= Not as magical as I would have hoped, but at least Roo didn't complain about getting a color other than green:


Dave and Mimi were behind us, and luckily he didn't bump us:


The green car ahead of us kept stopping for some reason. So while we waited for the driver to get some distance ahead of us, I snapped this picture. Roo's face is priceless - I don't think I've ever seen the man-cub more happy:


After some tears (and bribery with ice cream) we left the Speedway and headed over to Toontown Fair to meet Mickey. The line was surprisingly long to meet him, but it was the last thing we had planned to do before heading back to the resort for naps, so we didn't mind. Here is Mimi running to her first glimpse of "mee-kee-mouw" as she darted toward the sign with total giddy abandon:


If you remember the beginning of the TR, this is where the famous run-away-hug occurred:


After a little shopping (=ahem= who over bought at Walt Disney World? Me? That's crazy talk! ) we did go back to the resort for some down time and naps. This is Roo thanking his Daddy for the monorail purchase for the ride back to the resort:


Here is a series I like to call Two-Tired-Ladies:






Mimi and I slept while Roo and Daddy swam at Old Man Island (I never did swim in that pool - darn it!) Here is our birthday girl post-nap. She managed to sleep a little better during the day, but her naps were not their usual length. Ahhh... juice... manna from Heaven:


Roo decided he was finally ready to wear his favorite hat, which we bought for him on our December '07 vacation. He wore it for the rest of the day:


Back on the bus to MK. This time I was smart and brought Mimi some toys to keep her occupied instead of trying to contain her in my arms:


First Mickey had to sit in the seat just like she was sitting:


But then my little love-bug decided that Mickey and Minnie needed some smoochie-time:


We rode on Pirates and then got stuck by the parade on our way to Splash Mountain. Mimi sat on Dave's shoulders and while I am certain that I took a photo of it, I can't seem to locate it now. If I come across it later, I'll post it. I held up Roo as best I could, but he stood up in the stroller for the first portion of it. I took this picture when we spotted Mickey Mouse. He CLEARLY didn't want me to interrupt his parade watching - look at how annoyed he is with me! :


I was the lucky one who got to take Roo on Splash Mountain for the first time ever! I was so excited to share this special moment with him! But to preserve the camera lens, I only took a few pictures:




He really enjoyed Splash Mountain, but I wasn't able to see his face in the photopass photo! Darn! I bet his eyes were saucers. He wasn't so sure about the drop right after it happened, but everyone on the boat (including me) was laughing and having a good time, so he thought it was pretty great, too. It is his third favorite attraction in MK.

We joined with Dave and Mimi after this and headed over the Fantasyland for some pre-schooler fun in the name of it's a small world. Mimi knows all the words:


After we got off the boat, she raced up the ramp and got into line. Huh. I guess she liked it. Who knew?


We went to eat at the Grand Floridian Cafe (sorry, no pictures). We liked it alright, but were kind of miffed at the lack of variety on the menu. I'm glad we tried it, but I'm not sure we'll go back any time soon. We went back to MK after dinner and rode some other rides... don't ask me which ones because I was too tired to write them down in my PP. By the end of the night I was so exhausted I could barely see, and we got stuck behind the parade! ARGH! So we wasted time in the Emporium. Here are the kids trying to hats:


Yep - that is Mimi under Minnie's witch hat:


And that was the end of our first day! HOORAY! Whew! This TR writing business is WORK! I'm ready to take a break! Thanks for reading!!

[DyanKJ130]

Holy Moly, Amy! I can't believe how much stuff you got accomplished on so little sleep!! AMAZING! Glad to hear you will be able to switch to WL in a few days. Looking forward to more!

[disneydani]

Wowie....you guys are tearing it up at WDW! I am sorry about the room issue and POR, I am glad you were able to switch midway through. Kiddos are simply adorable!

danielle

[travismom]

WOW!!! That's alot in one day!! Sounds like all is having a good time.
Can't wait for more.

[POOH]

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience at POR, but glad you were able to switch to WL. You guys sure packed a lot in at MK.

[mcc0313]

Poor Mimi...so sorry that you first few days were uncomfortable ones for everyone (well except Ronan who looks like he was well rested). Glad you were able to switch resorts and get a better nights rest. For someone who did not get much sleep boy to you guys get a lot done on your first park day...

Can't wait to see more....

[chezp]

Wow, that was a busy first day - you certainly crammed a lot in there.

[akleos]

I think it's funny you are all surprised how much we got done, because we thought we had very few things done on our first day! Between the low crowds and our commando style, you'll be shocked at what we're able to do after the grandma's leave... our days are crammed with stuff. And I've run on five hours sleep before, that wasn't anything new to me. Plus I managed to eek in an hour nap during the day so I was able to keep going. We all crashed at around 9:30 pm, but we up and down the very next night. In the matter of tiredness, the second day was by the far worse than the first.

I had expected the crowds to be heavier than they were. Even with the F&W Festival going on, the parks felt more like a low season than a moderate season. The economy, by the way, was falling to pieces while we were there. From the time of our arrival to the move to WL (which was 1/2 way through the trip) 5 banks were seized or bought or collapsed. Every morning and every night after the kids went to bed, Dave and I were in this surreal world of Fantasy meets a world market landslide. All the while we were sinking money into the black hole of Disney retail!