Back from Disney....exhausted, but had a great time!! :)

egpitt22 · October 2013

*yawn* I should have taken today off as a recovery day after that week!! We had a blast...I'll do a full review at some point, but I'm happy to answer questions for anyone with a trip coming up. I will say that the kids were great ages to go (5.5 and 2.5); they were both enthralled with the characters, the shows, everything! We dealt with a few meltdowns, but I guess that's par for the course.

We had beautiful weather, in the low-mid 70's for the first few days, then low 80's the last 2 days, no rain at all. I was glad to miss the snow while we were gone!

AmandaJLewis · October 2013

welcome back! I am glad the trip was such fun for both of your boys!

Meghan&Rich · October 2013

Welcome back! I'm glad you all enjoyed your trip! I can't wait to hear more about it and see pictures!

BethieB · October 2013

Welcome back! Can't wait to hear about the trip and see pics!

Question - Did Jake use the stroller at all or did he resist? And did you use it in Downtown Disney that first day, or just in the parks?

What would you do differently for next time (other than take a day off post trip!)

egpitt22 · October 2013

Beth: Jake used the stroller more than Liam!! (although Liam napped in it every day, so thank goodness we had it!) Jake hopped in it all the time though, no issues there (and he hasn't used a stroller in years)

We didn't use it in Downtown Disney the first day, mainly because we knew we wouldn't be there very long. We had dinner reservations at t-rex cafe at 5:30pm, so by the time we got off the plane, checked into the resort, got our luggage, etc....we pretty much went right to the restaurant. We walked around for just a bit after, but we were all tired & ready to head back to the hotel so we didn't do much at downtown disney.

hmm....anything I'd do differently. I probably wouldn't stay for Fantasmic at Hollywood Studios. Not that I didn't enjoy the show, but I wasn't blown away by it and the kids were just done by the time it rolled around. We had been there since 7:30am that day, so it was a looooong day for them and I felt bad. Jake lost it around 4pm and cried that he wanted to go back to the hotel to swim. Mommy mistake there, I should have just taken it as a cue and said let's go, but I wanted to check out the show. He was ok once we got him some dinner, and he was fine at the show, but it probably would have been better to call it a day!

Beth, remind me, did you get be our guest for dinner? it was our favorite meal of the whole trip! We really enjoyed breakfast at chef mickey's too.

lishie · October 2013

I'm jealous of your weather! I just looked on weather.com for our trip, and it has 90s a few days!

BethieB · October 2013

thanks Emmy! Yes, we are a BOG for dinner (for a girls' only dinner since I could only get reservations for 3 and not 5). What did you eat there that you liked? I think we're going to try to do Chef Mickey's the last morning before we fly home at noon.

And I'm so happy it didn't rain for you! I know you were worried about the weather prior.

Were the bus lines bad to go back to the hotel at the end of the day? Was it a pain to load and unload the stroller? Can it collapse with stuff in it (other than kids - ha ha) or do you need to empty it prior to folding it?

Did you use the Fast Pass photo thingy? I haven't done any research about that....

egpitt22 · October 2013

I had the steak at BoG, which was delicious. My FIL and dad had salmon & they both loved it, everyone else ate steak

and honestly, just being in the restaurant was really cool. You can take pictures with the Beast after dinner, but Liam was getting antsy while waiting for food so I was up & walking him around the restaurant. He was just staring at the Beast from outside of his "study" where he was greeting guests...a cast member came up & started talking to Liam, and Liam said "May I pwease meet the beast? Pwease?" and the guy was like, "how can I resist that??" and let us go in for a little private meeting, just Liam! It was too cute. Then the cast member came back over to check on Liam during dinner, then came back at the end of our meal to walk him back to the beast. I jotted down his name so that I could send a nice email about him, it really made Liam's night. Liam referred to the cast member as his new friend after that & kept asking about him

Bus lines weren't bad; after Fantasmic was probably the worst night just because everyone was leaving the park and we had to wait for about 20 minutes to get a bus. Both kids had fallen asleep in the stroller, and thankfully people got up for us so that we could have a seat with the sleeping kids because it was packed. other than that, we usually got lucky and a bus was either there when we walked up, or one came within just a few minutes.

You do have to take everything out of the stroller to collapse it; i'm sure you could leave sweatshirts or something in the basket underneath, but nothing you wouldn't want to get squashed. I had a large tote bag under the stroller, so we would just take that out, stuff everything in and I'd carry the bag, the grandparents would help get the kids on the bus & Brian would collapse the stroller and get on last. If it was crowded, he would stand with it in the back doorway so he wasn't blocking an aisle, but if there was plenty of room, he'd just sit with it right in front of him.

Didn't do the photo pass thing, couldn't justify the extra cost. it will take me weeks to sort out all of my own pictures as it is, haha! We did do the fast pass plus for rides, and we loved it!! we had no problems with the magic bands.

BethieB · October 2013

That is awesome that Liam got such special treatment! (And how nice of you to recognize the employee!)

Was it hard to do diaper changes on Liam? Did you always go to the baby center or did you kind of just plop him down on a bench and quickly change him?

And how was security to get into the park? With all the bags and such people take in, I imagine it can be a long process. Are there size limitations on what you can take in, and are there restrictions on food & beverage?

egpitt22 · October 2013

I didn't use a baby care center at all actually! seemed like whenever we needed to do a diaper change, we weren't near one. We just went to the nearest restroom, they have changing tables in all of them.

Security wasn't bad; we got there before the parks opened every day so we were able to get through security, scan our bands, and get in line before they opened. They had a lot of people checking bags, so I was usually only behind 2 or 3 people at the most. No limitations that I could tell, we brought in snacks and bottled water every day.

4EvR&4AlWz · October 2013

Ah, I so wanted to get BOG for dinner but there was nothing! Next time we go, I'm making a reservation for 2 weeks (a week earlier) so I can get the reservations I want and then rebook my reservation for just the week we are going. I've heard from others that's how they get their BOG reservations.

How were the AofA shuttles?

amyjoy18 · October 2013

I'm hijacking with answers--since we just got back on Friday :-)

DD is 4.5 and there were times she was begging to sit in the stroller, so one of us would put DS on our shoulders and let her ride for awhile.

If I were to do it over again I'd schedule things a bit differently.

Our first few days we went to the park early, stayed a bit passed our normal nap time (usually to around 2) and went back to the hotel to nap and then swim. But, we found that the kids responded better when they could take an early nap at the hotel and then we would head to the parks around 1:00 or 2:00 and stay later into the evening.

Maybe my kids just aren't morning people, but DD had a mid-morning pout each day we started out early.

We had great luck with lines, and barely needed to use our fast passes. Even so, our pace with the kiddos was slower than I expected. We ended up doing 2 days at Magic Kingdom and never made it to Frontierland. And 2 days at Epcot (instead of Downtown Disney and Hollywood Studios)--which the kids actually really enjoyed,

ryanthegirl · October 2013

Welcome home! I'm glad you guys had a good time!

egpitt22 · October 2013

Amy--I was wondering if you were around!! Glad to hear you had fun, too!

I was thinking about you when we first got there!

egpitt22 · October 2013

4EvR&4AlWz said:

Ah, I so wanted to get BOG for dinner but there was nothing! Next time we go, I'm making a reservation for 2 weeks (a week earlier) so I can get the reservations I want and then rebook my reservation for just the week we are going. I've heard from others that's how they get their BOG reservations. How were the AofA shuttles?

Shuttles were fine, they ran often, but they were crowded sometimes. The trips to the parks were pretty quick; MK took the longest, it was probably 20 minutes or so. Hollywood studios was super short, I think it was only 10 minutes.

northhillsbride · October 2013

Welcome back, ladies - I'm so glad you all had a great time!

amyjoy18 · October 2013

egpitt22 said:

Amy--I was wondering if you were around!! Glad to hear you had fun, too! I was thinking about you when we first got there!

In our final days I was wondering if we'd run into each other! We had great weather too. Did you eat at the foodcourt at AOA? DH and I were split on it. I liked things that I had, but he ordered a burger the first day and said it was dry and then it turned him off for the entire trip.

Our favorite meal was Akershaus in Epoct. We didn't make it to BOG for lunch like I had planned. It seemed easier for us to eat the quick service meals at the resort instead of at one of the parks.

egpitt22 · October 2013

We ate at AoA food court a few times, once for breakfast (on our departure day....it was around 8:30am, it was a madhouse!), once for lunch & once for dinner. we were happy with the food, I loved the build your own pasta bar. Jake was the only one who wasn't pleased, but he's picky.

BethieB · October 2013

Emmy did you feel that the regular dining plan was enough?

egpitt22 · October 2013

Beth-more than enough! It was so much food. Liam wasn't on the plan, but there was always enough food for him to share, he just ate off of everyone's plates (which was his dream come true, ha!) We had ordered snacks, breakfast foods, bottled water, and diapers to have delivered to the room and it was nice having those since we only had one breakfast reservation. And my kids are starving the minute they wake up, so it was nice to let them eat in the room while we got ready. I brought some zip lock baggies wtih me & packed a few things of snacks each day (pretzels, cheez its, etc...) and the kids would munch on those between meals, but even that probably wasn't necessary since you get a snack in the park every day too.

amyjoy18 · October 2013

We thought the dining plan was plenty of food as well. We also had a few snacks and breakfast things in the room (bagels, cereal, sausage). On our last day in epcot we had a bunch of snack credits left to use (like 10) so we got some pastries for breakfast, then we ordered some snacks from the food and wine festival--which was a great deal--since some things that were considered snacks were $7.00 (lobster rolls, bouef bourg). We had reservations on that day in downtown disney--but opted to stay at Epcot instead. So that meant we had to burn a table service dinner on a quick service restaurant, since we couldn't get a reservation anywhere, but it was no biggie.

Luckystar2 · October 2013

So fun Emmy! Welcome back!

Luckystar2 · October 2013

BethieB said:
thanks Emmy! Yes, we are a BOG for dinner (for a girls' only dinner since I could only get reservations for 3 and not 5). What did you eat there that you liked? I think we're going to try to do Chef Mickey's the last morning before we fly home at noon.

And I'm so happy it didn't rain for you! I know you were worried about the weather prior.

Were the bus lines bad to go back to the hotel at the end of the day? Was it a pain to load and unload the stroller? Can it collapse with stuff in it (other than kids - ha ha) or do you need to empty it prior to folding it?

Did you use the Fast Pass photo thingy? I haven't done any research about that....

Chiming in...we had a stroller when we went. It is only a small pain if your kid is sound asleep at the end of the night. Gotta take them out, fold up stroller and carry them.

We did the photo pass...that's just the card thing that you give the photographers and they scan right? It was easy enough to do. I took a ton of pics of dd, but we had hardly any of the 3 of us. I was able to have a photographer take a pic here and there of us with our camera. But whenever I could I did the photo pass to have them take a pic with their camera.
It was fun to see all the pics online. Most of the ones with just dd and princesses I already had but I ended up buying 2 of the 3 of us. They were great family pics. One was in front of the Epcot globe (whatever that is called!) at night all lit up. Such a cool pic!

Anyways it doesn't cost anything (at least when we went) to have them scan and take the pics, its only if you want to buy. So I figured why not.

Luckystar2 · October 2013

BethieB said:
Emmy did you feel that the regular dining plan was enough?

Oh my goodness YES! My pants were snug by the end of the trip from eating so much!!!

sarahandtim · October 2013

So glad to hear you had a great trip! Next time we need to plan this better, because between you, me, Amy and Lisa we were all there within a week or two of each other!

Back from Disney....exhausted, but had a great time!! :)

Re: Back from Disney....exhausted, but had a great time!! :)

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