Grand Duo Birthday Trip: COMPLETE 2/5/09 About This Page:

[Colexis Mom]

Great update Dawn! Love the pictures of Spectro, the Castle, and Wishes!! Glad you met up with Tiff and Eric!! Sorry about the rude people!!

More please!!

[iamgrumpy]

Great update well minus the rude people!!! I just don't understand why people insist on getting into other people's personal space and then acting like they don't understand the problem with it.

I'm glad Chuck knew how to communicate with them!

I can't wait to hear more!

[DyanKJ130]

Great update, Dawn!! And, there goes that rude family again! They must live at WDW! We saw them at least once last week! your photos! Looking forward to more

[wayneava81]

Great update! I love your new sig pic! Rude people are the worst and then when they can't understand you makes it even more frustrating. Way to go for CHuck being bilingual!

[SuperKate]

All caught up! Love the report. Can't wait to read more.

[disneydani]

You took some stunning pics, Dawn! Glad Chuck held firm and got his piece of cement rightfully back. How fun to meet up with Tiff and Eric for a bit.

danielle

[KMB733]

Another awesome update! The pictures are awesome too! Hurry back with more!

[lindawdw]

Sounds like you had a nice evening at MK (with the exception of the seat taker at the parade) but I was glad to hear that Chuck could speak the language and get his seat back!!! I love the signature picture. It made for a beautiful Christmas card I'm sure.

[chezp]

Great update. What beautiful photos of Spectro and Wishes.

[Two4Disney]

[quote=DawnDenise;2438987]Day 0: My Actual Birthday

Let me tell you, I soooooooooooooooooo do not miss the office environment. Let me say that again, I soooooooooo do not miss it.

Just started reading your TR - love how the idea came about. And I sooooo agree with you about the office environment. Unfortunately, after being away from it for several years (at least full-time), I'm back it for the short-term and I can't wait until it's over.

Just caught up on your TR. What a wonderful trip. In fact, you've inspired us to see if we can possibly do WDW this year. Thanks to that day job, we may be able to pull it off. Rich is having a milestone birthday this year but his birthday is in August so we wouldn't want to go on the actual birthday (lived there for a couple of years so we know what August is like). But we'd love to stay at the GF - especially after seeing your photos. Want to do the photopass, too.

Loved your ring and meals and all of the fun you two had. What a great celebration!

Kathy

[DawnDenise]

Mad Hatter Being Serious and 7 Rides in the First 2 Hours

We got up the next morning quite quickly and easily. Once we finished getting ready and remembering to set out the Mousekeeping envelope, we headed over to the main building for our breakfast ADR. I had been to 1900 Park Fare for breakfast back in 2005 with my mom but this was Chuck’s first time here for breakfast. We got checked in and waited about 10 minutes before being escorted to our table.



We were on the side nearest the buffet which was good and bad. Good because we could easily make a quick run up to the buffet if we wanted something. Bad because people were always coming by our table on the way to the buffet and had a habit of hitting our chairs. It really wasn’t a big deal overall but just not the best place. Our server came over, and she was not really cheery but amicable. She did ask if today was my actual birthday and not wanting to lie, I told her no and she kind of gave me a harrumph and went to get our drinks. I just shrugged it off but it rubbed chuck the wrong way (or so he told me as we were waiting for the bus to DHS). She returned with our drinks and invited us to go ahead and partake in the buffet. We were just about to head on up when Tigger and Pooh made their arrival at the table next to us so we stuck around and waited for them to visit us. Great interaction, as always, and Tigger gave me an extra birthday hug and dance.





Once Tigger and Pooh left, we went and attacked the buffet. I went with my usual fare and added some extra carbs just because. Chuck came back with two plates and a huge smile. My man loves breakfast buffets. We hit a dry spell of characters so we had plenty of time to enjoy the food and get refills if we wanted. I had just finished up with my plate when Mary Poppins and Alice soon after came by our table. I don’t know what it is but I always get real proper and have a hard time talking to Mary and Alice. Every single time. I just can’t figure it out. Anywho, they came by and we had some small talk but nothing memorable because of my apparent stage fright with the two of them.





So as we were finishing up our breakfast goodies and the Mad Hatter made a very loud arrival out our table which had me laughing. He was giving Chuck a hard time from the moment he got there because he had such a serious look on his face. As I was getting up to get a picture with him, he noticed my birthday button and asked it was my birthday or un-birthday. I told him officially it was my un-birthday, and he LOVED that. He though un-birthdays were more fun because you had 364 of those. Loved it! The best part was the picture of the Mad Hatter and Chuck. He wanted to be serious like Chuck. OK, so he failed miserably but it was hilarious.



After our fun meeting with the Mad Hatter, we finished up our breakfast and tried to flag down our server to settle the bill. I ran to the bathroom and when I came back, I had a placemat, crown, and cupcake waiting for me. Chuck informed me that the hostess came by to drop it off. Our server came by to get our KTTW card to settle the bill. Chuck took a picture of me with my crown and cupcake as I was too full to eat the cupcake yet again.



Once the bill was taken care of, I headed back up to the room to drop off the crown and placemat while Chuck had a smoke break. I met up with him and we headed over to the bus stops. We made a game plan of what we wanted to do at DHS and were on a bus within 10 minutes. We got through security and the turnstiles easily (so loving bagless touring) and headed straight to Sunset Blvd as the Tower of Terror and Rock-n-Roller Coaster were calling our names. Stand-by was showing 13 minutes on ToT so that meant total walk-on. I sent a message to Eileen to tell her of our luck., and we walked onto an elevator after the pre-show. After our first drop, we exited and headed right back into line as it was still showing 13 minutes. Second drop just as successful. I did grab a picture of our ride photo on our way back out.



We took one more drop on the Tower. We waited maybe five minutes before being assigned an elevator. No complaints at all. We decided to head on over to RnRC at this point. Stand-by was showing 20 minutes, so we grabbed a FP and went into the stand-by line. The time was pretty accurate, and the CM directing people to lines gave me a little birthday present and gave us the front row. Chuck was more excited than I was. I absolutely love this coaster and after the ride, Chuck really wanted the ride photo. We purchased it and had it sent back to the resort to keep our hands free. With being in the front row, it is a pretty cool picture.



We had about an hour before our FP time opened up so we went to see if we could get a couple more drops on ToT. My thinking was that we weren’t going to be back down by these rides for the rest of the day, so we might as well get our fill. For fourth drop we waited about 15 minutes. For the fifth drop, we waited 10 minutes. We took some potty breaks and grabbed something to drink to share while we waited for our FP time to open up. We also got some Photopass pictures to pass the time.





Finally, our FP time opened up and we were off once again racing through the streets of LA. With our thrill ride quota more than filled, we decided to venture out into other areas of the park. I mean, come on, we HAD to go back to TSMM at some point. We made our way up Hollywood Blvd and over to Pixar Place to grab a FP for TSMM as we knew it would be for later in the day. After successfully getting the FP, we headed over to the Magic of Disney Animation.



Coming Up: An Unexpected PP Meet, Characters Everywhere, Block Party Bash

[travismom]

Great update, Dawn! I love the picture of the Mad Hatter and Chuck! Too funny!!More Please...

[chezp]

What a great breakfast at 1900 Park Fare - and how cool to be able to get that many rides in so quickly.

[wayneava81]

That picture of the Mad Hatter and Chuck is hilarious!

[SuperKate]

LOVE the pictures w/ Mad Hatter. He is always such a crack up. Great update Dawn. Can't wait for more!