Introducing Queen P to Orlando the highs, lows and everything in between Day 7

[col2501]

Tuesday 24 June 2014 – Disney! Animal Kingdom & Magic Kingdom

I was awake just after 6am this morning with Poppy but I was so excited I was bouncing off every surface – our Disney day!
When this trip was originally booked I said I could do without Disney to keep the cost down and show Chris that Florida was achievable every couple of years if we cut back in some areas. Then we decided to expand our family and now we realise there’s no going back after a couple of years due to the expense and other things we need to do (like make sure the house doesn’t fall down..you know what it’s like…life gets in the way…)
So I needed desperately to get my Disney fix and bought a 1 day Disney ticket in 2012 before the prices went up. I bought a hopper ticket because I knew I wanted to do at least 2 parks! I got it from Disney USA site and paid the shipping price to have it delivered which meant I could link the tickets on My Disney Experience and book Fast passes at 30 days out.
Disney is my thing, I adore it, My family lean more to universal and IOA, which is okay, I like those too but I am Disney obsessed.
I put my Animal Kingdom hoody on with my giraffe ears and ran round the villa shouting it’s Disney day! Nobody flinched so I ran in each bedroom and shouted it again, Poppy loved it, everyone else looked at me like I should be committed.
I still didn’t take those ears off.
Shameless selfie alert, me basking in all things Disney….

We’re off! The traffic seemed worse than usual on the 192 but I think it was cos I was so desperate to get there. Our Iggy vs Katy music competition is in full flow – I won today, Katy was on first each time we got back in the car – It’s just my day!
Have I mentioned I love Disney? Not only that I love Animal Kingdom, it’s my favourite Park. I think that it may have something to do with the fact that it was the park on our first day of our first trip in 2009 and you don’t get more magical than that!

ooohhh I'm almost there..!

Straight in at park opening and got our first photopass photo. We were in a share which worked out great and so amazingly cost effective!

Our first ride was Kilimanjaro Safari – a firm family favourite.

In the line!
We had no fP’s for this park either as I had pre-booked all 3 for Magic Kingdom later. But wait time was only 10mins. Poppy loved this ride, she clapped, pointed, waved, cheered. It was lovely to see the ride through her eyes, and our driver was really really good too, very informative and easy to listen too.
Tons of photos on this ride, as always

All Poppy said every time we left an animal was more – look!



We went straight round to experdition Everest with the older kids and did child swap.



I went on first and after riding I got bck to Chris to see that he had let Poppy find some soil on the ground and dig in it – really? Then used nearly all the wetwipes we had (unsuccessfully cleaning her up! ) gggrrr!
So to add to the muck, I got her first mickey ice cream, and she promptly looked like she’d bathed in the stuff.

We wandered around for ages, looking at animals, sampling various snacks – see Here and I just drank the atmosphere in – I LOVE it here, did you get that? I know we didn’t do the whole park and to be honest we probably didn’t do it justice, but I don’t care – we made it and that’s important to me!

We laughed at the monkeys and the kids had fun on the African drums (I ‘m sure that’s not what they are called, I’m being lazy)

then headed over to Dino land so we could ride Dinosaur, I’ve never been on this before and it’s fab. We were going to take Poppy to the play area here but she fell asleep in the pram so we left her to sleep. After Child swap I noticed the time and it was almost 1pm.

The first FP for Magic Kingdom kicked in at 2.30pm and we didn’t have much time so we headed back to the villa for dinner, but not before getting this

Love it!

We chose McDonalds drive thru on the 192 for ease – Here for details

Continued in the next post for our Afternoon at Magic Kingdom

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After dinner we showered and changed and at this point I knew that we wouldn’t make it in time for our FP and they were for SPLASH MOUNTAIN!
Any of you that may have seen my last report knows that it is centred around SM as it is Jess’ favourite ride in the whole world, I knew we had to get on it, and prayed there would be FP left when we got to MK (there wasn’t..gutted and wait time 60mins…)



aaahhh the monorail, that voice, I'm here!
Poppy thought the monorail was a ride, she had a great time, it was very cute to watch

On the way in we had to have our tickets changed to the new ones so we could you FP facility, should have been straightforward, the cast member was lovely and chatty, wrote all our names in black marker on the tickets and then promptly relaised she had written the wrong names on the wrong tickets so she scribbled it out and wrote them again - inside I was screaming what are you doing to my beloved Disney tickets you stupid girl...
On the outside I was the perfectly polite brit who daren't say a word.

As I had lost a bit of faith, we went to the town hall to check our tickets and FP choices were still there. They were, but the silly girl had still got our tickets wrong and our names were wrong again. I'm sure the cast member sensed my fury as she picked the black marker up as she promptly put it down again - I pointed out that as long as we had 3 adult tickets and a child (which we did) it didn't really matter whose names were on the tickets..and she agreed (so with no more defacing of my disney tickets, we were on our way...

On the way down main street we got some photopass photo’s – some wonderful ones with Tink, even though Poppy looks like a Victorian child who’s been instructed not to smile. She looks so stern..! (and having seen the fab photos from our family photo session you all now know she has a beautiful smile when you do see it! )




and I love love love this one - Look at Miss P copying Jessica,




We concentrated on the new area of fantasyland as we’ve not seen it before and I had FP for 7 dwarfs Mine Train and Journey of the Little Mermaid (my favourite Disney Princess ever, if you didn’t already know!)
We headed straight to Dumbo, a MUST if you have small children (or even if you are Disney obsessed like me ha!) Dumbo is the ride that makes me think of Disney from watching the adverts as a child. They’ve changed this ride, it’s so popular, there are now 2 and the queing area is one where you get a pager and the kids ca go play in the play area until the pager goes off and you rejoin the line to get on the ride next.
This is great in theory – but honestly, once Poppy was in there she didn’t want to come out and she is too young to understand that we are off to do more fun things, but for slightly older kids it is a great alternative to standing in line the whole time.




Next up was the 7 dwarfs, lovely, typically MK ride I think. I’m glad we’ve done it, I wouldn’t stand for 90mins in the standby Queue (I wouldn’t wait for any ride for that long ha! I’m too impatient) but I’m glad we have done it. Brandon sat in front of me & Jess and shared his cart with an older American Teenage girl who had been on it before, she was really sweet, chatting to him, asking if he had a preference on where he wanted to sit and generally being lovely to him. I wish I could say he was lovely back, but he’s a teenage boy who grunts out one word answers when he really has too. Shortly after we had all been on it, using child swap, they closed it – so we were lucky really.
I went to a FP kiosk to get another FP and chose Buzz Lightyear, we love this ride, so much fun!
We went past the all important Be our Guest Restaurant, I feel no desperation to eat here I have to say, I’m don’t feel disappointed that we haven’t managed this restaurant yet. I love the actual area surrounding it tho and took some photos,

As usual Poppy looks thrilled!


including in the shop – How gorgeous is this? Need a lottery win to buy it and get it home though!

Brandon bought some plastic tat – a bow and arrow set that he will never look at again but for some reason had to have it that day (he used his own money)
Little Mermaid ride next, I was in my element, totally predicable but fabulous all the same but I am biased! The girls loved it , Poppy blew kisses to Ariel, the boys tolerated it. Chris swears he didn’t blow kisses to Ariel...(whatever… she’s a babe!)

I could post a frame by frame version of this ride, but I will let you experience it for yourself!


We wandered up past Peter Pan – 90 mins wait time, I’ve said it before and will say it again, I don’t get the massive wait times for this ride. must be nostalgia or something, Don’t get me wrong I like it, I just don’t like it enough to wait for 90mins!
It’s a small world was showing 10mins wait time and it was baking hot outside so in we went! This is another ride that I saw in a different light again – Poppy adored it, luckily we were in the front of the boat so her view was perfect and she was transfixed the whole time, I spent most of it watching her!

We headed over to tomorrow land for Buzz and as usual we all loved it, I had Poppy on my knee so my score wasn’t as healthy as usual but Chris is so competitive he always wins anyway! I was disappointed that the ride photos weren’t working here, I’d have loved an official ride photo with us all on!
We wandered over to Adventure land collecting more photopass photos as we went,

We had fun in the shops!


it was 7.30pm now and Poppy was exhausted. Brandon was desperate to do Pirates of the Carribean, the rest of us were not, wait time was 20 mins. Brandon begged to go on and said he’s happy to ride alone. Eventually I said yes, gave him one of the mobiles and I waited at the tables opposite the POTC shop.

In equal measure Jess was desperate to go on Splash Mountain – obviously, wait time was still 60mins but Chris said no, I told him to go wait with her as it’s the only opportunity she’d have to ride it for a long time (god I’m going to cry…!) and he agreed and took Jess off. I agreed to wait for Brandon then we would walk round to Pecos Bill and he would meet us there later
See details here if you are a foodie.

With full tummys it was gone half 8 and we needed to make tracks, there was a parade about to start so they wouldn’t let us walk up main street, we were allowed out the back way which felt strange! But quick so not complaining. I was devastated that I hadn’t made it to the Christmas shop as I wanted a 2014 Christmas Tree decoration, I need one for each year we’ve been to WDW. SO I told Chris we’d simply have to go to downtown Disney another day (more shopping yipppeee! )
We left the park via the monorail and there was a villains tram waiting as we got there. It is the quickest I remember us getting out of MK ever!

On the way home I ‘popped’ to Walmart for beer for Chris OH MY WORD! As I was making my way to the cashier I heard a tannoy for all 10pm cashiers to start. Oh god I thought, errrmmm no! Who knew that that the whole of Orlando choose to go to Walmart and do their monthly shop for a family of eight at 10pm? 3 lines later I was no nearer the till. A lovely older gentleman turned round to tell me it’s his fault, he’s the one that always goes through a toll in the longest line possible. I almost cried. It had been the longest day ever, I thought about abandoning the trolley but as it was only Chris Beer I figured I’d be walking home if I left without it…. I could go on and on about the goings on while I was in each of my 3 lines but I won’t… I’ve rambled far too much for today
We were home at 11pm, My Walmart experience left behind I was drunk on Disney once more as I wrote some notes (with my ears on..)
We were meant to be at Busch Gardens tomorrow but we decided against it and chose to have a rest day after 10 hours in Disney Parks – we thought BG would be a bit much
Fabulous Fabulous day!

[JoJo88]

What a wonderful day Colette, I'm so glad you got to go to your beloved Disney.

You definitely did the right thing letting Jess ride Splash Mountain, you'd only have regretted it once you got home if you didn't - remember, you barely regret the 'yeses'!

Must have been so cute to see everything through Poppy's eyes. I'm now waiting until I can go with grandchildren No rush mind!

Lovely day Colette, really looking forward to more x

[Milner]

Excellent day.

[beck_loz]

Great pictures x

[emma4g63]

another great day- poppy is just adorable and i love the piccie of her stood there in her little hat!

[NatsyNoo]

Fab day Colette. Savoured every moment of your one day!

[WileyCoyote]

Truly fab day, apart from the Walmart lines. Love your park time, you did loads and love the pics . A Disney day with style x

[disney owl]

a lovely Disney day

[Fortytwo]

A fantastic day, I am impressed with how much you got done! Love the taco salads at peco bills xx