3 kids, 1 mom, let's do it all- A picture trip report- FOP rope drop details added!

Thanks so much! Always looking for cute and modest suits for the littles in our family.

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Day 2- Animal Kingdom 9am park open with plans to rope drop Flight of Passage aggressively!

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We were out in front of the condo at 7:18 waiting for our uber- do we look tired yet?

I took this photo at 7:48. We were there for 20 mins by then I’d say.
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You can see my kids sitting in the first line talking to the guy in front of us. We had actually been about ten people back in the line adjacent and that guy was sitting in his own line on his phone in front of his own tapstile and he caught my eye and I asked- should we be behind you? And he was like YES. So we got in line with him- he was spending his last day of his college program doing his faves in each park before he left for Brazil- such a great guy to chat with!!

Anyhow, they let us in at 8am and everyone ran to the bridge. My kids held hands and tried to not run/but keep up with the people around us. And then we were on the bridge for maybe 20 mins? Pic in front and behind at 8:15.

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And then they let us go again and again MORE RUNNING from those around us. Not necessary! But we made friends with the guys behind us and they said they were going to stick with us until we got in line as my kiddos were the smallest ones around at that point and they didn’t want us trampled.

I have a picture of us off the ride at about 9:02, we went to get in line for Navi and it extended wayyyyy out, so I hoped for a FP+ or an end of day ride and we headed to Africa, but the shortcut was closed so we took the long way and had about a 20 min wait for a Safari which I was surprised at. (In line at 9:10 and on the ride at 9:30ish) We saw lots of activity, include them feeding the hippos and the lions wrestling which was great. It was also VERY cold this morning, I was miserable, having forgotten my sweater at the condo. I was debating if it was worth it to Uber back and forth or to find a sweatshirt at the park to buy at this point.

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We then did the gorilla falls trail and I continued to not have fun bc I was so cold!! Decision time, after our Everest Fast Pass, we’d go to the front of the park and get a shirt. But the kids loved it. We hadn’t done this trail the last time and now I regret that I didn’t have them do the Wilderness Explorer badges- but again, I was freezing and couldn’t deal. :frowning:
We had a quick snack that we brought along in the empty Harambe Market before going to Everest and found the most beautiful wall.
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Back to everest, we all rode once, My youngest will do it, but she doesn’t love it. I’m pretty sure it is because she is scared of the yeti :woman_shrugging: I think at this point, Peter and Emi actually did the single rider line once? We came back later in the day and they did it two more times.

Then, SWEATER SHOPPING. I actually found a hoodie that my friend’s son wanted and offered to transport it for the small fee of letting me use it all day. DONE DEAL. I was much happier from this point onward.

At this point it was 11:30, so we grabbed a few things from Flame Tree- pulled pork fries, mac and cheese, etc… to share QUICKLY (god bless mobile ordering!) and then off to Nemo. We had fastpasses to see Mickey and Minnie but the kids decided to pass since we’d seen them the day before. LOVE the Nemo show, all three of my kids sat with huge smiles on their faces and we were all humming the songs for the rest of the day.
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From here we went to dino-land. I had hoped we could talk little sis onto Dinosaur (she calls it the Hungry Dinosaur) but to her luck, it was down. Instead we rode “the Happy Dinosaur”


And then went and met Chip and Dale and Daisy. Chip and Dale were GREAT. Danced with each of the kids, took selfies with them all and the photographers were also amazing. This was the first (and one of the only) times that we didn’t feel rushed meeting characters.

Then we went into the boneyard- in here, I refreshed my fastpasses and got a set of Flight of Passage and then continued to refresh and got two more that overlapped! Once I finally had all three of my kids in arm’s reach (much harder in there than you’d think) we went back to Africa. I think we got ice cream? Fries? and then went to Lion King. We were rushing there, barely going to squeeze into the show on time, when a cast member in the street quietly asked me if we were going to the Lion King. I was sure he was going to tell me that the show was full and to find a new plan, but instead, he said come with me- and we were led to FRONT ROW SEATS! I have always loved this show, but I think I have almost always been in the very back row. Sitting up front was amazing. My kids all got to participate and the dancers were right up in our faces. AMAZING. Maybe my favorite part of the trip!! ( I didn’t take many pictures, just wanted to enjoy it!)

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From there, I think we did Tough to be a Bug, which my youngest doesn’t like, but she was using her free pass for Dinosaur, and then The UP! show and then to our fast pass for FoP. That order might be slightly different, but I do know we squeeze the UP! show in and while I wasn’t that impressed with it and thought the “hosts” were all too much, my kids all liked it a lot for the birds- we’ve never seen the movie.

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We had dinner at Satuli Canteen- which everyone actually just thought was OK. I’ve eaten here before and loved it, but maybe we were just tired at that point? I wasn’t sure what sounded good food wise. At this point, I had fastpasses for three of us for Navi River and was working on another. Meanwhile, we went to the Dinoland Dance party- can’t say enough about that! They LOVED it- specifically the girls- but who knew dancing with a chipmunk would be so much fun??! We also went back to Everest and the bigs rode Everest two more times in the single rider line while Lainey crawled on the rocks- this would sure be a great place for a little playground!!

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I scored the one last FP+, we went and rode Navi- I was so curious to know if 3/4 of us had them, would they let the last of us sneak on? Any experiences with that? and by that time, it was near to Rivers of Light. We danced with the chipmunks some more, the big kids rode Primevial Whirl (Lainey was too short), we rode the “happy dinosaur” again and then went back for the final showing. I’m so glad we stayed! We loved the show, I know it gets some poor reviews, but my kids loved all of the animals, music and effects. We would stay again for sure. We were there duing low crowd levels and the amphitheater was probably only 1/3 full.

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We ubered home, I was looking for another tent/shelter to wait under and walked part way down and found the shades of green/other shuttles tent. Well, the ubers just line up, RIGHT in front of the exit of Animal Kingdom. So, don’t go walking too far looking for your car, it is just there in the lineup.

We took 26,925 steps (10.7 miles) today! Lots more back and forth than I had planned/intended, but the kids were all for it and happy to walk to get to the next thing they wanted to do.

Things I wished we had done: we didn’t do the maharajah jungle trek, which we had done last year, but I would have liked to have done that and then had the kids do wilderness explorers, but I was too cold to do that in the morning unfortunately.

I felt like we had a pretty good full day here and got most everything done. Anything that you can think of that we shoud have done to add to the must do list next time?

Best things: Front row seating for Lion King, Dance party with Chip and Dale and then everything Pandora, of course.

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Thanks for sharing, I’ve enjoyed reading about your trip

This happened to us on our trip and it was seriously one of the biggest highlights!! My daughter was 5 at the time and she loved being able to be involved in the show! I love that they do this.

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This is so true. Great report.

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Yes. I just sat there amazed and blinking back tears watching them out there. Once in a lifetime!

Great report! Looking forward to hearing about the rest of the trip!

Day 3 of Disney!
This was to be a resort/pool/rest day. At one point, I was considering adding a 4th park day to the ticket- they had that promotion of 4 parks/4 days and it was going to be less thatn $100 for all of us to go, but I KNEW we’d need a day to chill and the kids were all excited to swim too. I’m glad we took the day off, plus that gives us a reason to go back- to see hollywood studios, maybe in October, before Star Wars opens and all hell breaks loose there.

I had made an ADR for 1900 Park Fare just in case, and I’m glad I did. It was a cold morning- even for us Minnesotans- to go to the pool. So, we slept in til almost 9!! and then got dressed and went to brunch! Driving there and Parking was easy, it was towards the DVC area, so we accidentally ended up in that lobby first. The Penguin fountain is SO CUTE!!
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Food was good, my kids needed just a little help with the buffet, but as we were seated the hostess told us we either needed to rush and get food or just sit and wait b/c the characters were going to be there soon. So we rushed and got tiny plates to start, we should have just taken our time and had them bring them back around as needed. Everyone came around one time, and spent time with the kids, but I did feel a little rushed yet. Or maybe it just felt CROWDED in there. We did the bon voyage breakfast last year, and I thought that was much nicer.

My older daughter brought her instax camera and the person at the table next to ours suggested (after they had all gone by) and the server brought the pics back and came back with them signed. We continued to do these pics through the rest of the trip, and while they are SO cute, it was HARD for them to sign them.

Tigger was on the way out, and he was the BEST out of all the characters. There was no line behind us so we had lots of time for hugs, bouncing and goofing around.

After eating, we went up to Basin, my girls make bath bombs, and I knew they’d love it there. We all scrubbed our hands, picked a few prizes and then headed out to the monorail loop to ride for a bit.
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After this, we thought about downtown Disney, but passed in favor of swimming at the pools- there are 5 or 6? at Wyndham Bonnet Creek! We swam for a while, and then just about when my kids needed to go back to the room for group nap time (we are all past napping, but things were getting dicey) a wonderful grandmother came up and read the sitaution and told us to follow her-- that gatorland was going to be doing a presentation! The guy was awesome, AND we all got to hold the crocodile. Such a good break in the afternoon. Thank you to that lady!!
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After gatorland, I think we just went back to the room, kids finished up some homework, did some laundry, ate a frozen lasagna type meal, and PACKED. We were checking out first thing tomorrow morning and would sleep in a hotel closer to the airport (Sanford) for our last night.

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Final day!! Magic Kingdom, here we come!

We were all packed up and checked out of the condo- realized that we left two magic bands up in the room WITH the rooms keys, had to call security to let us back in. Got that taken care of and off we were headed to MK! We had a 8:10 Be our guest reservation and I was determined to be at the gates by 7:30! I wanted to take our time walking down main street, and get some great photos. I almost got us an Uber and walked from Contemporary, but I figured I had given us PLENTY of time… Nope. We actually parked before the parking people were there and saved the $25, but once we got to the monorail/ferry station, BOTH were down and no busses running yet! :sob:

They had us running back and forth from the three stations and finally said to just wait for a bus. BEYOND frusterating. I actually had a Minnie Van ordered and then they said a bus was going to be there in a minute, so I cancelled it and waited for another 15 -20 mins.

We were still at the end of Main Street by 8:00. So, all ended up working out. Just was not the laid back morning I had hoped for!

One of the BEST moments of the day, was watching my youngest skip through an empty fantasyland!
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We had pre-ordered at BOG, so we were sent through quickly and able to pick a seat- the west wing was totally full, and the main room was nearly, but the library wasn’t open yet. We found a seat and enjoyed breakfast!
We were out of there by 8:40ish and in line for Mine Train and ON Mine train by 8:58! Even with the snafu of there being NO way to Magic Kingdom that morning, once we were in the parks, everything was totally fine. Next time, I will just Uber to the contemporary and WALK myself there!

We made a quick top at the Tangled Bathrooms to just take a few pictures before it was full of strollers! And then, we went to Haunted Mansion and walked on and then went over to Big Thunder Mountain, which ended up being our longest wait of the day! They were just running one side, so I think we waited about 25 mins.

Working off of pictures, I think we did the Jungle Cruise with FP next, (I had hoped to fit in Splash Mountain as well, but no time before our fastpasses expired!) and then right onto Pirates with our next FP. By then it was 10:50 and we were RIGHT by the Hub (if you cut through), so we headed over to see the Birthday Celebration Parade! SUPER CUTE!! The dancers were awesome, music was so fun and fun to dance with the chipmunks again! It seemed like they were told to not dance with one specific kid- unlike the Dinoland dance party- but kids still loved it and worth it!


We still had a little while to wait for our space mountain fastpass and were right by the tea cups, so we waited for those- maybe 5 mins?

From here, we were goign to go and have early lunch (that we had in backpacks) on the People Mover, but it seemed like they were having problems with it ALL day and it was backed up. So instead we grabbed snacks and went on the Carousel of Progress- new to the kids- and THEY LOVED IT. Later on, we’d end up with an any experience fastpass and they asked if we could use it at CoP!

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I think you’re a brave lady tackling Disney by yourself with 3 kiddos! Sounds like you had a great time. If you don’t mind me asking, what about the CoP did they like so much? I get that adults enjoy it for the nostalgia factor, but I had pretty much decided not to take my 10 and 13 y/o sons because I didn’t think they’d like it. Maybe I should add it back?

My DD7 Loves CoP too! It surprised me so much.

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I don’t know what they liked for sure? I think they just thought all of the stories were cute, they liked the idea of us moving and the dog! And they are! It’s also a good break and such a classic attraction! My kids are easily amused… but I say to keep it. But DON’T take the people mover off to put it in place!.

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Let’s try to finish up this trip report today!

I had left off and we had been snacking in CoP and loving life. We went from here and did Space Mtn with a fast pass. Last year, my 5 year old, then 4, hated it. Loved it this year!! From there we found some snacks in FantasyLand (can’t remember what- I feel like we just snacked our way through the way instead of having a real meal!) and then did Pete’s Silly Side Show. From the time stamps on pictures, it looks like it took us 50 mins to do both meet and greets. Probably more than I would have wanted to wait, but they were into it, so I went along. While in there, I got FP for Dumbo, so that was the next stop.

They didn’t all ride together, but I did have them hop in for a quick photo on our way out of the ride. Love this picture!! (there was plenty of time for me to grab it before the next people came to load up!)

Next we did Small World with a FP and then had a Winnie the Pooh FP, but the ride was down- so ANYTIME Fastpass!! We were hoping for one of those! I was also holding my breath, because we had overlapping fastpasses for WtP and I was worried that one of the sets wouldn’t convert, but they all did. (I think I got a Buzz FP for after the parade at this point)

We saw the Fairy Godmother at this time and that was my best moment of the day. She was absolutely amazing and I had tears in my eyes the whole time she was with us. She took her time with each of my kids, told me how beatiful my princesses were- they didn’t need any magic! and she loved my older daughter’s shirt and they talked about that for a long time. (I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it now!) She is truly a treasure that disney has- if you see her out- stop and meet her. You won’t regret it!

By this time, it was 2:25 and we were making our way to Frontierland for a ride but I think instead we just got a snack (see a theme??) and waited for the parade. I actually just let my two oldest save us a spot and then Lainey and I ran off and got popcorn and ice cream for us all. This was the ONLY point in the whole trip that I think we were a little warm!

So next, BACK around the park again, over to buzz and the kids did the swiss family tree house, not once, but twice! My son went through and then said he was ready to give us a tour of it. I wish I had taped it!! He would choose to live in that treehouse if he had the chance! (I might too!)

Made it to tomorrowland and did Buzz, People Mover (FINALLY!) and then the monster’s laugh floor. So funny and a great break.

Snacks on the People Mover ALWAYS

While waiting for Monster’s, we scored FP for Splash Mountain, we were planning to use our anytime FP for that, so we were thrilled to save them! On the way to Splash, we stopped at the Tangled garden and spent some time looking for Pascal, we found maybe 4-5 Of them? I didn’t realize the others were on the signs, but my kids LOVED it. My son is a history buff, so we also stopped and watched a Muppet’s History show, whcih he thought was hilarious, totally matched his sense of humor.

Splash Mountain was up next. This ended up being my youngest’s favorite ride and she would have done it 20 times if we had had time and we weren’t starting to get COLD. They had the water turned down, so we didn’t really get wet, just damp. She picked a Brer Rabbit stuffie as her souvenier and lucky for us, we were walking out of the ride and who should walk past??? He was so happy to see someone with his stuffed animal that he stopped walking backstage and spent a good amount of time with her.

We had supper at Pecos Bills- in the past I have enjoyed it, not so much this time, we will try something new next time!! Where else is the good counter service in MK for dinner??

I think we had a Pirates FP and then went to Enchanted Tales. This was new to us and my kids had no idea of what to expect! My older daughter ended up being the beast and my youngest Mrs. Potts. It was really amazing and my older daughter’s fave of the trip. (Only because she was the beast, if she hadn’t been she would have picked something else I think.)

We had a FP for Winnie the Pooh, rode the carousel and then tried to use our anytime for Mine Train (we knew it prob wouldn’t work and it didn’t) and then made the last minute decision to hustle across the park to try and ride Big Thunder Mtn during the fireworks.

It worked and it was pretty awesome! The kids loved the adventure of getting there on time and hoping that it would work out! Coming up to the end of the night here. Fireworks were at 8 and park closed at 9, so we had time for a few more things. We did a tiki room show (it is dad’s favorite and since he wasn’t there, we HAD to do it for him) and then went and did a final Buzz ride and then one spin on the people mover to close out the trip. We took our time walking out of the park and the kids each picked out a souvenir- my son got a pin and my daughter a goofy stuffie.

I had totallyl forgotten that I wanted to have their silhouettes cut out and as we were walking out, we saw the artist still open! I still haven’t done anything with ours- I would love to see where you all display yours!!

Didn’t they turn out so nice? I love the bow detail and my youngest’s braid!
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We got a few last pictures on Main Street, and then said good bye to Disney :frowning:

We took 29,000 steps that day! The kids were troopers and I and so thankful for how great they were on this trip! My 5 year old did all of this with no stroller and my son helped and carried a backpack the whole time! I do not regret leaving the stroller at home at ALL!

Best things: Meeting Fairy Godmother, the parade and Splash Mountain (it was closed the last time we were there) Oh. And the pre-park opening breakfast. Not for the food, but just to see my kids in fantasyland all alone.

Things I wished we had done: I know my kids would love doing Sorceror’s of the Magic Kingdom, but we didn’t even have close to a minute to spend on that. Next time, we are making time for it- I have questions though- how much time shoudl we allow? AND then are the cards they give you enough? Or should I be buying some on ebay? Does that make it more fun to have special cards?

Other things I wish we’d done: Meet Mickey and Minnie in bday outfits- too long of lines and we weren’t up in the front of the park, spent more time on Main Street in general seeing performers and such, and gotten that Minnie Van that morning. I will not be going back to the TTC anytime soon!! I also wish that we had done DAH on Monday night-- it ended up that it woudln’t have worked because that fishing trip got pushed back a day-- but I think it would have freed up a lot of our time at MK that day. Next time we will do a night time event OR two days at MK. :slight_smile:

Thanks for reading along! I really enjoyed going back through my pics and will definitely do one of these on our next trip as well! I had told my hubby that it would be a while before I needed to go back, but I’m not sure that’s true… Maybe early June 2020? My mother in law wants to go with us, so that trip might look a little different, but disney is disney!

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Awesome trip report. Your kids are such troopers. Your daughter’s Micky overalls might be the greatest thing ever. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you- it was the best time and I can’t wait to go back! I loved the overalls too-- wish I had a pair in MY size!!

Yes, a great report - and beautiful family! Thank you.

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I meant to come back and tell you- we cooked the fish a while ago and they were delish!! Such a fun dinner and way to remember our trip. :slight_smile:

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I went and caught 20-30 a few years ago and came back to my in-laws and cooked them up. Now half of them cried “I don’t like fish”. I say fish is like cheese many different types and they all taste different. Some I love, some I like, others no way will I eat again (I’m talking about you eel):nauseated_face: Everyone had seconds or thirds.

MN is home for me, too. I’m SO SO jealous that you got out of here during the polar vortex… and to Disney, even! We didn’t have school for 4 days, and it’s not like we could be outside during that time. It was miserable. Even the national guard tanks (sent out to save stranded motorists) got stuck in the cold.

What a Wonderful trip report! Your kiddos were troopers! :smiley: