Grand Rapids Nesties
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Tigers
How was your trip?!
Re: Tigers
It went AWESOME!!! I am so happy we went and will definitely go back again at some point. They are opening up a whole new wing at Magic Kingdom in 2012 so we definitely have to check that out!
I am going to do a writeup on facebook at some point so this my first draft:
The trip went really fast and was very tiring. We got up in the morning, early and went to our scheduled breakfasts with the characters for photos and autographs. Walked around for the entire day and then had a long busride home where we didn't always get to sit. Then, we'd jump in the pool and go to bed between 10 and midnight depending on how things went. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside and the pools were really nice and I LOVED that we could take a boat to and from downtown Disney if we wanted to.
J was in the stroller most of the time and Pete and Maria walked. They were able to keep up and didn't complain about their feet hurting at all and didn't fight over the stroller that much.
From all of the advice we got, I made a little spreadsheet in google docs of the rides/attractions we HAD to do and then went from there. I think we probably got through about 80% of them in 7 days. We spent two days at Magic Kingdom, 1 at Animal Kingdom (which I loved and wished we had more time at), 1.5 days at Hollywood Studios, and 1.5 days at Epcot. The rest of the time was at Downtown Disney for the most part. There was something to see and do EVERYWHERE. I am afraid the kids will be bored with anything else now since Disney is on such a grand scale. You see why you pay so much to go there!
I downloaded the Disney World app and that was nice to see the wait times and if a fast pass was available. You could also make meal reservations from there and a map with navigation of where you were. Problem is, my battery kept running low and there were no available plugs to recharge so I couldn't use the app a ton!
Maria and Pete went on all of the thrill rides for their height. There was only one that Maria and Pete couldn't go on due to height (Rock n' Roll rollercoaster). They really liked all of the rides and Maria's favorite was the Tower of Terror at Hollywood studios as well as Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom. Then, there were the rides like small world where you just sit in a cart and they take you through various scenes. Maria's favorite was the Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom. They also really liked the 3-D movies that we watched - A Bug's Life, Philharmagic, and Muppets. If there was water involved, it would spray you or if food was out, you'd smell the food, or if there was a burst of activity they'd blast you with air. J was able to do everything but the thrill rides and loved all of them and didn't get scared once. The only problem was during the fireworks/light shows, Pete would cry because of the loud bangs and Maria had to plug her ears. J had no problems with that. I find it ironic that Pete had an issue with the loudness since he is always loud anyway. Maria also got into the educational stuff there. She wanted to watch the Presidents show at Magic Kingdom, the history of Walt Disney, and a handful of other things at Epcot. LOVED walking through all of the countries at Epcot and wish we had more time to spend at each one and try the restaurants. But, I think if you want reservations at an idealt ime, you had to make them a year in advance!
Jason had checked out a library book about Disney World written by kids so Maria was really liking that book. I told her she should write up her own reviews of everything.
We barely had any snafus while we were there. Only a couple of rides were out of order and while we got a burst of rain almost everyday, it didn't last a long time. The hurricane barely affected us.
I think the one thing I wasn't forewarned about was the long and cramped bus rides. If you left the park at the end of the day with everyone else, you were waiting in line for awhile even though the buses came every 20 minutes. Then, you weren't always guranteed a seat. I was a bit surprised at the lack of men giving up seats for women or women with small children. Plus, the different parks are not right next to each other so there was a bit of a drive at times. I guess Disney owns the entire county like 43 square miles or something? Anyways, it was a small price to pay for the great time we had.
The things I was impressed with were the clean restrooms almost all of the time. If I pulled out a map, there was always some worker coming up to me asking me if I needed help. for all of the parks except Hollywood Studios, they really managed the heat well. There was almost always available shade. If you were waiting in line, it was either part indoors or if outdoors, there were fans blowing on you under a roof so you had shade. I was so thankful for that. Plus, the workers were just cheerful in general and excited for you to be there.
The food was meh but I wasn't there for the food. We did go to the German restaurant at the Epcot countries and that was pretty good. Wish I liked German food though! Of course the Italian place was booked by the time we wanted to go there. We were on a meal plan and I thought they gave you more than enough food and didn't feel limited at all.
Oh, wow, it sounds like you had a great trip! And defintely made the most of your time there. I'm impressed that your kids kept up with the all-day schedule. I can't even get my husband to do that!
Glad to hear that it was such a success!
Your daughter is way braver than I am!
I'm so happy you guys got to do this. What a fun time.