Disney Trip 2016 - Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!

This is the 4th post of my Disney trip report! To start from the beginning, click here!

Our day dawned bright and sunny, which made me happy. Today was the day we were going to go to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and I didn't want it to rain. I've been to the party twice and had good weather, but I had heard horror stories about trying to do the party in torrential rain. In fact, that had happened earlier this Halloween season. This was what Emily was most looking forward to so I wanted it to go well.

But the party wasn't until the evening. We slept in a bit and then headed back over to Ohana for our breakfast with Lilo and Stitch, since this is the only place you can meet Lilo. It took us a while to get seated but we were pretty much in the same spot we were when we had dinner a few nights previously.

The food was very yummy, and we had a chance to eat before the characters arrived at our table. It took them a while to make their way around. Emily was very excited to meet Lilo and Stitch. Mickey and Pluto were also there in their finest Hawaiian attire.

After we had eaten our fill and met all four characters, we headed back to the resort. Emily swam a bit and then we both took a nap. She tried to tell me that she didn't need a nap but I knew she wouldn't make it halfway through the party without some sleep.

I dressed up in my Tightrope Girl costume and Emily put on her Jasmine costume, then we headed off to the bus stop. We had to wait a bit, but then we were on our way. We got into the Magic Kingdom a little before 4 pm and got our wristbands for the party!

We got our picture taken with the Castle behind us, and then used our Fastpass to meet Tinkerbell who was really sweet. We also went to get our special party Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom card.

After watching some of the castle stage show, we went to Fantasyland. We rode on the Teacups, which made me very dizzy, and then went on the Pooh ride.

Then it was time to go to the Haunted Mansion. I had Emily take pictures of me outside of it while I was Tightrope-d up. I got compliments on my costume all night which annoyed Emily a little. She had gotten used to get all the attention!

It was nearing party time but Emily wanted to ride on Dumbo. It's one of her favorite rides and I love the view as we soared way up high. The music tolled while we were in that area of the park to let us know the party had officially begun. The gift shop right by Dumbo was the one that was selling the pins you could only get at the party.

They had several to pick from, but I chose the Hocus Pocus one. It's really awesome! We headed to the hub to get a spot for the parade. We nabbed a really close one that was right in front of the castle. Emily held our place and I went to get us a snack.

Thankfully the weather held out and we got to see the Headless Horseman take his ride in front of the parade. Emily loved the parade even though Dr. Facilier talked to her and freaked her out. I thought it was interesting since he's from one of her favorite Disney movies.

We didn't have to wait too long before the Hocus Pocus stage show started up. Even though I'm pretty short, I could see fine. Sadly, Emily is still a kid and she couldn't see very well. So I had to pick her up. My kid is eight and she's heavy! But I managed to hold her for most of the show (I had to take some breaks), so all that weight training I did paid off in a big way!

There was some time before the fireworks were going to start, so we went to Tomorrowland to have some dinner. When we had entered the park, we had been directed to a treat or trick spot and we got a special bag that already had candy in it. So Emily wanted to check out her loot as well.

After we ate, we had a bit of time left so we went on the Tomorrowland Speedway. Those cars are really hard to get in and out of when wearing a hoop skirt and a corset. Emily is a very poor driver, though she started getting the hang of it. She had a blast being able to drive, though I had to push the pedal because she's too short.

We got back to the hub right as the castle projection show started. It was really awesome, and neither

Emily  nor I had seen it before. Then it was time for Hallowishes, the fireworks show. This is my all-time favorite fireworks show ever, and Emily loved it as well.

I had wanted to ride the Haunted Mansion but Emily said that it would be too scary. So we pretty much hung out in Tomorrowland. We hit some trick or treat spots, a couple of them several times. At one, the cast members gave her several big handfuls of candy because she was wearing her birthday button.

We did pretty much all the rides we wanted to in Tomorrowland. We went on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, which seemed dated to me, but Emily loved it. Partly because she ended up kicking my butt by a large margin.

I wanted to ride the PeopleMover but Emily wasn't too sure. Once we were on it, she loved it! PeopleMover is really really relaxing, and the views of Tomorrowland are really great especially that late at night. We got to see the dance party from up high, which was fun, though Emily didn't want to go and dance with the characters from Monster's Inc.

The last thing we did was the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, which was funny. Emily thought it was much funnier than I did but it was enjoyable. There was about a half hour left of the party at that point but Emily was tired and wanted to go back to the resort.

I was actually surprised at how well she had done because it was well past her bedtime. The party was wonderful, and we didn't get rained on at all. I'm really thankful that I had picked that party because the ones later that week got canceled because of the hurricane.

Up Next - Rest Day!

Disney Trip 2016 - Traveling and 45th Anniversary of the Magic Kingdom

 It's been nearly a week since Emily and I returned from our girl's only Disney World trip. It was very interesting, in part because of Hurricane Matthew. I'll take you through each day of our trip through this trip report!

Though this first post is going to to include two days. Because I have never made the drive down to Disney without Todd, I opted to take two days to make the trip. I'm not a great driver and being in the car makes me sleepy. Plus we left on Friday, September 30th, and I wanted to make sure Emily was in school for the majority of that day.

I packed up the car in the morning, and then worked for a few hours. I picked Emily up from school a half hour early, mostly so I wouldn't have to deal with the car rider line of doom.

I had made reservations at a Ramada Inn in GA that was about 6 hours into the trip for that night. By the time we got there, I was pooped. The guy at the front desk was nice, but he kept telling me that there were other

hotels close by that were better. It was odd because he kept putting down his place of work which is a huge no-no usually.

I opted to stay there because I was pooped. The room was a bit musty but it was fine. Emily passed out right away and I got a decent amount of sleep. We were only there about 8 hours, just to sleep, because I had wanted to get on the road early.

Emily woke up around 6 am and her waking up woke me up. We were on the road again before 7 am. The reminder of the drive was easy and I was happy that we didn't run into a ton of traffic once we got to Orlando.

Like last trip, we stayed at the new Art of Animation resort. Since it was just me and Emily this time, we stayed in the Little Mermaid section which is the only part of the resort that has regular rooms instead of suites. We checked in and even though it was before noon, our room was ready! I'm really glad it was - that way we unloaded

the car before we headed to the park.

We had a great room. It was on the top floor of the Ursula building and we had a pool view! The room was nice. Not huge, but plenty of room because it was just the two of us. It made for a nice home for the week.

Emily had requested that we ride the monorail this trip so I decided that we would spend a little time at the Magic Kingdom before we used the monorail to go to dinner. 

It was also the exact date of Magic Kingdom's 45th anniversary. It seemed fitting that we go there. We got a free button for the 45th anniversary which was a cool souvenir. Since we weren't there for the park opening we didn't see anything else that was specific for the anniversary.

We used a fastpass to do Enchanted Tales with Belle. This was one of Emily's favorite things from last trip. It's not really a ride or a character meet - it's an experience. You are transported to the day that Belle and Beast fell in love. We meet up with Belle before she has dinner with the Beast and people are picked to act out Belle's story (to that point). After that, the actors get their picture with Belle, but no autographs.

Emily got picked to be Belle's father, Maurice. She was thrilled to have a part more than a dish. I didn't have a part but I just sat in the back taking pictures. There was a family there who got really

upset with the cast member who was working the show when they were told that Belle doesn't sign autographs here. They actually stormed out in the middle of it with their small kid in tow.

After that, we found a spot to see the new Festival of Fantasy Parade which was amazing! We had to leave after that, though we got stuck on Main Street by the parade before we could exit the park and use the monorail to head to the Polynesian Resort.

We had dinner at Ohana, which is my favorite table service restaurant in Disney World. We had a castle view, and I'm pretty sure we were seated pretty close to where Todd and I were 9 years ago on our honeymoon.

The food was delicious as always, and the bread pudding for dessert was so excellent I may have stuffed myself too much. We waddled our way back to Magic Kingdom where we rode

"It's A Small World.".

Our original plan was to stay in the Magic Kingdom to see the Main Street Electrical Parade, but after we got done with Small World the sky opened up and it started pouring! I had forgotten to put my umbrella in my bag so we got soaked. We made our way up Main Street, to our Fastpass with Talking Mickey.

Meeting Mickey and talking with him was magical but it was still pouring when we got done so we opted to head back to the resort for the night. I have no idea if the parade went on that night but I was soaked and I just wanted to take a hot shower. Plus we had an early day the next day.

Up next - Epcot!

Disney Trip 2013 - Animal Kingdom

This is the second post of my Disney Trip report – click here for post #1.

When we were planning our trip, we decided to skip Epcot. We felt that Emily would enjoy Animal Kingdom more this time. Since both Todd and I feel that Animal Kingdom is a half day park, we thought it would be a good starting park.

We met my in-laws in the lobby at 8:30 so we could all ride to the Animal Kingdom together. Emily was a little grumpy; we don’t think she slept a lot on the drive down. But she looked adorable in her Alice costume.

The bus ride was short and we were soon at the Animal Kingdom. My mother-in-law and I went through bag check while Todd and his dad went to get the tickets. I had ordered the tickets from Disney’s website a few months before and it was really easy to pick them up.

Our entry into the Animal Kingdom was the first chance we got to use our Magic Bands as a park ticket. It was cool to see the Mickey head light up. We got our maps and headed toward the Kilimanjaro Safari. The wait was pretty short and soon we were seeing a lot of cool animals. Emily was very excited to get to see a

Waiting for Festival of the Lion King

baby giraffe.

After we were done with the Safari we were walking by the Festival of the Lion King. The first show was starting soon so we decided to all go do that. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this show but we never got a chance to see it on our honeymoon. It was an amazing show though! Definitely a must see from now on!

An aside here – we got Emily some Disney gift cards so she could have her own spending money. She wanted to get one thing when we got into the park and she picked a baby Simba stuffed animal.

We tried to keep her from going to hog wild because we knew she’d burn through her money fast that way.

Since we were already in Camp Minnie-Mickey, we decided to go see Donald Duck. Donald was awesome – he asked for Emily’s Simba and then he lifted Simba over his head like from the beginning of the Lion King. It was so funny!

From there, Emily was getting worn out already. So we stopped for a snack which was the Mickey bar that she had been talking about eating for months. It made quite the mess and ended up with a trip to the bathroom. Luckily she didn’t get a lot of it on her dress.

We headed over to Chester and Hester’s Dino-Rama in Dinoland so we could play in the Boneyard. Emily liked going down all the slides and wanted me to go down some slides too. In the process of going down the slide, I lost my phone. This lead to a freak out

but Todd went to talk to the cast members at the front of the play area and thankfully someone had turned it in.

From there we went to Triceratops Spin, which is basically a Dumbo clone with dinosaurs. Emily enjoyed it but was getting crankier as her normal naptime approached. There wasn’t a long wait for the Primeval Whirl roller coaster so Todd rode that while Emily and I shopped. I got some pins and she got some princess gummy candies.

Todd was kind enough to volunteer to take Emily back to the hotel for a nap so I could stay and ride some more rides. I walked with them on the way out and we passed by where Pooh and Tigger were meeting. We asked Emily if she wanted to meet them and she did.

I love Pooh Bear in part because of my own bear. He was one of the only characters I went out of my way to meet. Pooh and Tigger were really sweet. But it was extra awesome because Pooh came over to give me and then Todd a big hug. The Photopass photographer got

the shot so I was very happy with that.

From there, we went to see Mickey and Minnie in their safari clothes. Emily was happy to see them again, but really didn’t have any desire to stand in line to meet them again at the other parks we went to.

I walked Todd and Emily to the front of the park and then went back to Dinoland so I could ride Dinosaur. This was the longest line of the day for me – about 40 minutes. I played on my phone a little but I didn’t get great signal and my phone was dying.

Dinosaur was a lot scarier than I remembered! But it was still a lot of fun. I thought briefly about riding Expedition Everest, but chickened out. I headed to the only other ride I wanted to do at Animal Kingdom - Kali River Rapids, which is a whitewater raft ride.

The post wait time for Kali River Rapids was 20 minutes but I walked right on. The ride was fun and I didn’t get too wet. Since I hadn’t waited at all, I decided to ride it again. This time I got soaked! So I thought it was time to go back to the resort. At the bus stop, I met up with my in-laws who were heading back

After I got changed and Emily got up from her nap we met the in-laws in the lobby again. We got Emily’s

carseat into their car and all rode over to the Polynesian to have dinner at Ohana. This is my all-time favorite Disney restaurant from our honeymoon. We got there early since we had to wait a long time for a table on our previous trip.

We got checked and want went over to the gift shop. We had made one pressed penny and then our buzzer went off! It was so fast! We were seated near the window, which you could make out Cinderella Castle through the trees.

When I gave my information to my travel agent, I had her notate that I am allergic to shellfish and to tree nuts. Nearly every table service restaurant we ate at, the chef would come out and advise me what the safe dishes to eat were. It was very nice to know which ones could cause my issues. Thankfully the only thing I couldn't eat at Ohana was the shrimp.

There was course after course of meat on skewers that had been freshly cooked on a huge fire pit on the other side of the room. It was so good, and even Emily liked it, though she mostly ate the noodles that were

part of the side dishes.

There were games for the kids (though Emily opted not to play) and a lady who roamed around the room singing songs and giving out leis. Once we were done, I took Emily over to the lady so she could get some leis. The lady saw Emily’s birthday button and gave her extra leis in the form a lei crown. 

We made one more stop to the gift shop. There was a Minnie Mouse dress up toy set that Emily had seen and decided she wanted. The price was pretty good, especially since we were at Disney, so she got it with her gift cards. It was a great purchase because she still plays with it daily.

It was time to turn in for the night so we headed back to the resort. Emily got a bath and went right to sleep. I didn’t stay up too long either because we had to be up early the next day.

Up next post – The Magic Kingdom, Part 1