What we all need right now is a TRIP REPORT! From October 2019, before the apocalypse started

Anyway, MOVING FORWARD.

Dumbo was next. We rode standby, which took us to the indoor playground. The line was short enough they weren’t handing out pagers at all, so I think we took a good half hour in there at least. My son needed to stretch his legs, and my girls had fun climbing all the things. The ride itself was lovely. I can see why it’s so popular.

After that we used our last pre-booked FPP on Peter Pan. This one is fun, but use a FPP. It’s not worth an hour wait.

Finally, it made sense to send the younger girls on Tomorrowland Speedway. This was a particular request of my 4yo (who was sorely disappointed — she couldn’t reach the pedals). DH and my mom took 4yo and 6yo, and I settled down to wait with the sleeping 1yo and the two older kids. I fiddled with my TP, booked four FPPs on Mad Tea Party, and asked the girls if they wouldn’t mind pushing the stroller so we could head over to the Liberty Square ticket office and I could pick up my MagicBand. They hated sitting still, so off we went. We refilled our popcorn bucket on the way back (when did we buy a popcorn bucket? I have no idea) and the other half of our group still hadn’t finished on the Speedway.

My mom adores the idea of skipping the line, so she was hilariously thrilled when I said I’d gotten some fastpasses. I don’t know how it happened, but before I could say anything more, I was sitting with the baby while six of my family members got in the FPP line at MTP. Two of them were people who don’t like spinny rides. Whatever. The CM let them all in.

At this point it was past 5:30, with the park closing at 6 for MNSSHP, so I told the kids we had time for one more ride. I expected to hear Space Mountain, or Seven Dwarfs, but they unanimously cheered “Barnstormer!” Uh, whatever. So I sat out with the baby again. I thought I took pictures of him climbing in the landscaping, but I can’t find them. Clearly, I have a contentious relationship with photography.

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Things in our TP that we didn’t get to: Let the Magic Begin, Space Mountain, Move It Shake It whatever party, Liberty Square Riverboat, Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire, IaSW, 7DMT. Most of these things were expendable, but I was sad we didn’t get to a single show on the castle steps — it’s just such an iconic Disney thing. Yes, we arrived late. Also, our walking times and wait times were consistently longer than predicted. TP could use a super-slow walking speed for people who are constantly having to double back for the stroller/ECV. It’s also a lot harder to navigate WDW than other parks I’ve been to. All the buildings are tall enough to block your line of sight to whatever’s behind them — great for theming, terrible for orienting yourself. This day was a bit of a letdown for me, as I had to keep removing things from our TP. Looking back, I did spend most of the afternoon sitting out with the baby, so I can see why the rest of the family enjoyed it more than I did.

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Following. I like that people are doing trip reports now! I still need to do mine from Thanksgiving. :slight_smile:

Me too!

Thanks to all your love on this thread, I’ve just earned the “Respected” badge. I can’t even tell you how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel!

I’m trying to get the next section up, but THOSE photos are on a different cell phone, and I’m failing to move/copy them . . . anywhere. My IT guy is working late at his actual job, so we will all have to wait until he gets home and gives the gadgets a stern look to make them behave.

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Thank you so much for sharing this!!!your family is adorable!!! Everyone else out there please send in some trip reports!!!

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Thank you so much. You have been great with details which make it fun to read.

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Really enjoying reading a trip report again! Thinking about trying one out myself from our Oct-Nov trip if I can get the time.

We made our way out of the park with the rest of the un-costumed crowd, and onto the resort ferry for our dinner at 1900 Park Fare. If you are in an ECV, don’t do this to yourself. Just take the monorail.

1900 Park Fare was fun. I asked Anastasia if she was the nice sister or the mean sister, and she said, “You’ve already met the mean sister! This tall, blonde, blue dress, dancing with the prince over there?” One of my kids curtsied to Lady Tremaine, who was charmed. “Finally! Someone gives me the respect I deserve!” Drusilla said how awful it must be to have to dress like your sisters.

As we left, we were taking a moment in the cool evening air to figure out how to find our way to the monorail to get back to the TTC and our car, when the electrical water pageant floated by! I couldn’t have planned that, but it was magical.

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Everything is a logistical workout with a big group and an ECV and a double stroller and kids in every height category. Now we’re getting on the monorail, and I’m driving an ECV and just hoping for clear instructions. The CM tells me to drive until my front wheels are on the second black line, so I bump right up the ramp and almost to the line when my ECV stops. I don’t stop it, it just jerks to a stop. When I look down, the CM is fiddling with a lever in the back of my ECV, so I’m guessing she did it? I don’t know, but once we’re moving, my ECV wants to slide around the train. Yikes! Sure enough, when we get there, I can’t start it. The battery indicator turns on and says I still have a full charge, but I can’t go forwards or backwards. DH shoves it off the train, fiddles with the lever and the controls, and then has to push it all the way out the gate so they can keep running the monorail. Eventually a nice young CM comes over and says something about that lever and how it disengages the whatever . . . I don’t know. Mechanical words. It makes sense to DH, and he does the lever and the key in a specific order and gets it working again. No other transportation CM touched my ECV during the trip, so I never did figure out what that first one was trying to accomplish.

We survived the long walk/roll back to the car. Curse you, TTC. Should have parked at the Grand Floridian. More logistics. This vacation is work and I’m tired. I tell everyone we’re spending the next morning at Animal Kingdom and heading to Epcot for lunch. This is important, so I say it more than once. Is anybody listening? These people whom I loved and brought on this lovely vacation that I’ve been planning for months?

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This perfectly describes what happens when my family does a big family trip (and we are all over the age of 18!). Actually, you made it to MK before 9 am (and with staying offsite!) so you are all well ahead of us. I’m thrilled if I get my crew into the park before 9:30 am. :crazy_face:

Is there a market for families who do approx 4 attractions per day and at least 2 sit-down dining options? If there is, I will write up mine from last May.

I’m seriously wondering. I never thought our trip reports would be helpful to anyone on these forums. We tour less efficiently than most families with 3 kids under 4 yo despite being composed of completely mobile adults.

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Trip reports don’t have to be helpful! It’s always interesting to read how other people tour.

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Yes! It’s fun to read about everyone’s adventures!

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Its fun to just read about adventures. Plus when we have those Disney days when DH is grumpy and my 2 DD’s just want to argue so we accomplish very little it makes me feel more normal.

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I think you should go for it! Everyone vacations differently, and you probably did or saw some things the rest of us didn’t. Even if you didn’t, it’s another welcome chance to think about being there again.

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Tuesday, Part One:
We’re spending the morning in Animal Kingdom and hopping over to Epcot for lunch. This is important, so I remind everyone over breakfast, and again in the car on the way to AK.

We’re not doing Pandora, so I took the advice of various friends and considered this a half day park. If you have more time, you could spend a peaceful day wandering and watching the animals. I’d originally intended to spend the morning in HS, but as our FPP day approached I observed that we weren’t going to get any FPPs we wanted and it would have been a day of standing in line. Animal Kingdom it is!

Our plan was to RD Kilimanjaro Safaris, which doesn’t even open as early as the rest of the park, so we didn’t aim to get there before opening. I think we arrived at the gate right at 8:00, and didn’t have to wait at all to get through bag check and everything.

Everything was going great until we crossed the bridge into Africa and my ECV stopped. No warning, all the lights still on. DH fiddled with the key and the lever and got it going again. We were maybe halfway through the queue at Kilimanjaro when it stopped again, and there was no getting it going. We called Buena Vista Rentals and at least fifty people passed us while we figured out our next step. DH ended up pushing the ECV back out to the queue entrance while the rest of us went on ahead. He waited with the ECV and missed the safari. :frowning: A replacement was delivered by the time we finished the ride. It was newer and shinier and didn’t give me any trouble the rest of the week. I know WDW is changing the way they handle vendor relationships, but I chose a preferred vendor specifically so they could come into the parks if anything went wrong, and that’s exactly what happened. We would have lost the whole morning if we’d had to meet at the front gate.

The safari was great, though! We got there right after rhino feeding time, so we got to see them all in one place. My mom mentioned several times that this was her favorite ride of the trip.

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Buena Vista have such good customer service, it’s a shame they aren’t preferred vendors anymore.

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By the time we finished, we were late for our EE fastpasses, but they let us on anyway. Our 9yo started screaming the moment the train started moving, while we were still close enough to touch the loading platform. The operator was worried enough that he stopped the ride and started it again. I don’t know what was going on with her, but the rest of the riders started off with a good laugh. I loved this ride! 5yo and 8yo also loved it — 9yo was not crazy about the backwards in the dark bit. I know I warned her that it went backwards, but I’m not sure I even knew it would be dark for that part. Oops.

DH and DD5 in the back row:

Me, random dude, DD8 and DD9 in the last car:

Next we fastpassed KRR, and the 4yo woke up in time to join us. I warned my mom that this was a ride where you might get wet, and said she could choose to come along or wait with the baby. She chose the baby. We didn’t get very wet, but it was a really fun ride.

We had lost enough time to the ECV that it would be impossible to finish our TP and make our lunch reservation in Epcot. Remember, everyone, we’re going over to Epcot for lunch? Good, you all understand me. So let’s take a vote. We can take the train and go to the animation class (this is our third FPP), or we can go to Dinoland. One kid wants to go to the animation class, and that was one of her top requests for this whole trip. Everybody else wants rides. I can’t ride Dinosaur anyway (or I think I shouldn’t — not recommended for back problems), so rather than crush my daughter’s hopes and dreams, we split up the group. DD and I head for the train station and everybody else goes the other way, agreeing to meet up at Nomad Lounge afterwards for gluten free churros.

My mom took the youngest on Triceratops Spin, and DH took the other kids on Dinosaur. Dinosaur gave us the funniest ride photo of the whole trip.


But my 8yo said she didn’t like it because it was too scary. She’s never said that about any ride ever. Woah.

Meanwhile, DD and I had a lovely train ride. I didn’t realize that the Wildlife Express train seats are sideways! The cars are all open on one side, with bleacher-style seats facing the opening, so everyone has plenty of breeze and view. They had me back the ECV in, so I was facing the same direction as everyone else. Easy peasy. This train was probably the most pleasant, efficient experience I had with Disney transportation.

We got all the way to the back of the park a bit early for our class, so we got to see the petting zoo (goats and whatever — similar to every other petting zoo in America) and the indoor exhibits (frogs, chameleons, salamanders, lizards, snakes, bugs) before our class. Our FPP expired, and I discovered the one hour window does not apply to this attraction. It was for a specific class, and I was supposed to magically know that. But there were plenty of seats and we got in. We loved this class!

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