Disney World Trip Report 2012 Part 14

 

When we left off, the girls had just finished princess make-overs at the Bippity Boppity Boutique.  They were very tired.  Kara in particular probably should have taken a nap.  But we were locked into reservations I had made 180 days before the trip and had to work around those. 

That meant that dinner was fast approaching.  We had dinner scheduled at the Liberty Tree Tavern at 5:20.  The idea was to make sure we had time to finish our meal and get a spot to watch the Main Street Electrical Parade at 7:00.  Unfortunately, no one was hungry.  At all.

The park was starting to get busy.  It was the start of Jersey Week and the crowds were beginning to reflect that.

Josie really wanted to pull the sword from the stone and Kara wanted to ride the carousel.  So we killed a little time letting them do those things. 

I kept an eye on the gates to the Fantasyland Expansion.  I thought about blowing off dinner to go see the Beauty and the Beast part of the expansion.  But it looked like they were turning people away.  So we decided to keep our dinner appointment instead.

While we were waiting for our table, Kara fell asleep on my lap.  She slept through dinner.  I had to eat with her balanced on me.  Which meant I was basically eating one-handed.  Fortunately, I wasn’t really hungry.  I sampled most everything, but wasn’t all that impressed.  Perhaps if I was hungrier, the food would have been more appetizing.

We blew through our meal pretty quickly.  No one was eating much.  A server offered to box up what was left of our food since we had barely touched it.  We agreed figuring that if Kara or mom was hungry, we could heat it up back at the room.

After dinner, I tried to put Kara in the stroller.  My hope was that she would sleep in the stroller until the parade started.  But she couldn’t get comfortable in the stroller and soon woke up.  She was cranky and complained that her “hair hurt”.  Mindy loosened it and removed some pins.

We had a pretty good spot to view the parade in Liberty Square.  But since we had eaten so fast, the parade was still almost an hour away.  Josie wasn’t patient enough to wait that long.  So we decided to head back to Fantasyland to kill some time.

When we got there, Fantasyland was mobbed.  We rode the carousel at Kara’s insistence.  Afterwards, we decided we had better find our parade viewing spot.  We walked around towards the hub and could get no further.  With about a half hour to go, the hub was jam-packed.

We found the best position we could.  We were close to the curb, but we would have to lift the kids up for them to see.  The parade was especially important to Kara, so I really wanted to get a better viewing spot.  Fortunately, I saw an opening right on the curb.  We couldn’t stand or we would be blocking people.  But if we sat, the kids would have an unobstructed view.

I grabbed the kids and pulled them up to the curb.  It wasn’t especially comfortable sitting cross-legged on the curb with two girls on my lap.  They were both tired and kind of cranky.  But frankly, they were better behaved than some of the kids nearby.  I think our parade spot opened up as a result of a nearby melt-down.

It quickly became clear to me that we needed to leave right after the parade.  I had hoped to stay for Wishes, but the girls didn’t have it in them.  They were exhausted.

Finally, the Main Street Electrical Parade started.  It had been an uncomfortable wait, but it was worth it.  The girls enjoyed the show.  Kara in particular loved it.  She waved non-stop and loved it when a character waved back at her.  Both girls started calling out the names of the characters as soon as they could identify them.

After the parade was over, we made a bee-line for the main gates.  I would have loved to have stayed later, but there was no gas in the tank.  On top of that, the park was crowded.  I figured we’d be better off getting a good night’s sleep and coming back in the morning when the park wasn’t so busy.

I had hoped that since we were leaving before the fireworks, the bus ride home wouldn’t be so bad.  But it was by far the worst of the trip.  The buses had been standing-room-only every time.  We were used to that.  But so far, someone had always been willing to give up a seat so Kara could sit down.  This time, that didn’t happen.

Mindy had been holding Kara.  I had hoped that would make someone more likely to offer them a seat.  But when I realized no one was going to, I took Kara myself.  She was sound asleep again.  Dead weight.  It was a long bus ride home, I was carrying a sleeping 40 lb kid and holding on for dear life with one hand.

At one point, we took a sharp curve and I lost my balance.  I fell over on to a healthy adult male who had up until then been sitting comfortably.  Maybe next time, he’ll give up his seat to the mom holding the sleeping kid?  Fortunately, everyone was okay.

When we got home, Mom was feeling better.  She didn’t want to risk eating, so the left-overs from Liberty Tree Tavern went into the fridge.

This was the end of the last full day of our trip.  And I was okay with that.  I was ready to go home.  It had been a blast, but we were tired and had done pretty much everything we had set out to do.

The next morning, we had breakfast at Cinderella’s Table at 9:00.  In 2010, we had a hard time making it to the park in time for our 8:00 breakfast, so I scheduled it a little later to give us some breathing room.  We got to the bus stop early just in case.  Mom was feeling better, so she came along.

As it turns out, this is one of the few times we didn’t have a long wait for the bus.  So we got to the park almost an hour before our reservations.  Up until this point, we had perfect weather.  Not so much as a drop of rain.  But this morning, it was raining lightly.

We didn’t have a stroller this morning.  We weren’t going to be in the park long.  And most of that time would be spent at breakfast.  So I figured there was no point shelling out top dollar for a stroller rental.  Instead, I picked up Kara and we headed for the castle.  Fortunately, they were able to seat us early.

This was great news.  Not only were we able to get in out of the rain, but we would have more time to enjoy the park after breakfast.  Our final morning was off to a good start.

We were seated in a remote corner of the restaurant.  The princesses had all passed, so we had a wait before they would arrive at our table.  On the upside, that meant we would have time to eat before being interrupted. 

At the suggestion of our server, I ordered the steak and eggs.  It was okay.  I finished it so I wouldn’t be hungry again right away.  No one was overly fond of the food.  But Josie just flat-out didn’t like her french toast and sausage.  Fortunately, our server was able to bring out some cereal and fresh fruit which she liked better.

As we finished our meals, the princesses started coming around to our table.  We met with them in rapid succession.

This was our third time meeting Aurora, Cinderella and Ariel this trip.  And the second time each for Snow Whit and Jasmin.  But the thrill was still there.

This Jasmin was the same one we had met in Adventureland the day before.  She was terrific.

Kara asked her where Raja was and Jasmin explained that Raja kept an eye on Abu while she was away from the palace.

After breakfast, we had a few hours to explore the Magic Kingdom before we had to head back to the resort.  We had completed all of our must-dos.  But there were still a few things we wanted to do before we left.  Specifically, Dumbo and Mickey’s Philharmagic.

Kara loved Peter Pan’s Flight.  Since it was early and there was no wait, we rode it again.  We also re-rode the carousel and the Mad Tea Party.  Before we went to see Mickey’s Philharmagic, I grabbed FastPasses for Winnie the Pooh.  We got surprise FastPasses for Dumbo.  So, the rest of our morning was set.

Everyone enjoyed Mickey’s Philharmagic as always.  We had a few minutes before our FastPasses kicked in.  So we walked over to Dumbo.  By the time we got there, we were ready to roll.

With Dumbo down, we had completed the spinner trifecta.

Kara has a tendency not to look at the camera when you take her picture.  So, to get her attention, I would shout out “Say <insert the name of the character you are getting your picture taken with>.”  That worked most of the time.

This is how that worked out for Dumbo.

You can just barely make out the rabbit ears over Kara’s hair extensions.

After Dumbo, we doubled back to Pooh which was the final ride of our trip.  We had plenty of time to make it back to the resort, but figured we would leave anyway.  Better safe than sorry.

On our way out, we passed these two.

I figured we had time for one more meet and greet.  There was no line at all.  The sisters were about to go on break, but they had time to meet us before they left.

They spent quite a bit of time talking to the girls.  They bickered over whether or not they flossed their teeth and complained about Cinderella.  I told Kara to tell them we had breakfast with Cinderella.  But Drizella corrected me.  She said, “I bet she waited in the throne room while you ate.  She does that to everybody.”  They were hysterical.  The girls had a great time chatting with them.

On our way out of the park, we stopped by the Main Street Confectionary.  We still had 9 unused snack credits left on our dining plan.  This is why I will never pay for the dining plan out-of-pocket.  We used our remaining snack credits on sweets which would travel home well.  Mindy and the girls also got some chocolate covered strawberries which are not snack credits.

While we were getting our treats, the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It parade came by.  Mom and Kara watched that for a while before it was time to go.  The kids didn’t want to leave, but we grown-ups were ready.

We got back to the bus station and miracle of miracles a bus was waiting for us.  But then it closed its doors without admitting any passengers and drove away.  We had the usual 20 minute wait for another bus to arrive.

Even with the bus delay, we made it back to our room with time to spare.  Mom and I took the bags down to bag check just before 1:00.  She had some last-minute shopping to do at the gift shop.  Then we all headed down to the lobby to wait for our Magical Express bus.

We still had a counter service credit that was unused.  I redeemed it quickly.  The pizza line was short, so I got a pizza meal.  The main point was to get Mindy a Coke zero and an eclair she had been eyeing.  The girls were watching cartoons in the lobby and playing around.  We split the meal.

Soon the bus pulled up and it was time to go.  Our trip back was relatively uneventful.  So I won’t bore you with the details.

On the whole, it was a great trip.  There were very few hiccups.  The weather was perfect with the exception of a brief sprinkle on our last day.  And the crowds were almost non-existent.  We barely waited in line for anything.  It was everything you could reasonably hope for.

It will probably be a long while before we go back again.  I look forward to revisiting Disney World when Kara is older.  Strollers and height restrictions should no longer be a factor on our next visit.  We probably won’t spend so much time hugging princesses and signing autographs.  But I’m glad we had this trip to enjoy those things while the kids were the right age for it.

It was our “very princess” Disney World Trip.  And I’ll never forget it.

More Disney World 

More Magic Kingdom

More Trip Report

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admin
Admin
admin
11 years ago

Sounds like a great trip! Things really seemed to fall into place through most of it. Always great when that happens! Many of the photos are excellent and the girls look to be having a great time.

Sorry Liberty Tree Tavern was not up to snuff. I hear and read stuff about some Disney restaurants that “used to be good” before cutbacks. Maybe that has happened there. Or maybe it was just an off day.

admin
Admin
admin
11 years ago
Reply to  admin

Yeah, I really couldn’t have hoped for more. My biggest complaint is the bus service. It seems to be getting worse every time. I am seriously considering staying off property next time largely due to the bus situation. But other than that, it was about as hassle-free as a trip with two young kids could possibly be. I will be the first to say I don’t think we gave LTT a fair chance. We were tired and not hungry. We only showed up because the meal had been scheduled and paid for months in advance. And even then, we considered… Read more »

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