Disney Halloween Trip, Day 6

Today was Princess day! We had reservations later for Casey to have a makeover at Bibbiti Bobbiti Boutique and then go to dinner in Cinderella's castle, but first...off to the Polynesian Resort for brunch!

The Polynesian is a South Pacific style resort set amidst lush gardens. It is truly a tropical paradise, with waterfalls and a huge volcano in the main pool! This is a resort we would love to stay at sometime - it is connected via monorail to Magic Kingdom, and a quick transfer can get you to EPCOT via the monorail. There is a white sand beach from which you can watch the Electrical Water Pageant (a water parade of barges with lighted floats that makes its way around Bay Lake and the Seven Seas Lagoon every evening) and you can even catch a glimpse of the fireworks high over Cinderella's castle.

We ate brunch at Ohana - a buffet style breakfast with Lilo, Stitch, Pluto and Mickey. It was great fun with the Polynesian themes - we had our picture taken out front with leis on - Casey loved that! I also got to meet Mickey - I had never taken the time to meet a character before, I just always let Casey have the fun. This was a nice treat!

After brunch hopped on the monorail over to Magic Kingdom. It was very busy already at 12 noon. We spent some time in Tomorrowland doing a few rides we had never tried before. The Astro Orbiter was a fun ride - well worth it for the views of Magic Kingdom from up so high. We also sat through Stitch's Great Escape. I had heard this could be scary for young kids, so I asked a cast member outside and he said it was fine, "Like a movie." A movie in the pitch dark! It was a lot of fun, and Casey didn't get scared, but we were literally sitting in inky blackness while Stitch "ran" around the room. Can definitely be scary for younger kids if they are not prepared in advance.

We spent some time in Adventureland next - the Silly Jungle Cruise is always a favorite ride, but you definitely need a Fast Pass for this one. It is a relaxing cruise through a jungle, but the line ups are as long as the thrill rides. We also took in the Enchanted Tiki Room (Now Under New Management) show - kind of cute, and fun for kids. Then it was time to get Casey all princessed-up!

We headed up to Cinderella's castle to the Bibbiti Bobbiti Boutique. I had often seen little girls walking around the parks dressed as princesses, but this was the first year Casey was interested in it. Reservations are required for this experience, and they book up well in advance. We checked in and they gave us a dressing room to get Casey into her Princess Tiana dress. Then they called her name and her Fairy Godmother-in-Training came to do her hair. What a great time! The lady was so sweet and chatted with Casey the whole time. They really make it a magical experience for the kids.

Casey got to take home her make-up, extra decal stickers for her cheeks, and some stickers in a gift bag. She also had a sash and of course the crown, wand, gloves that we had purchased. We purchased the basic package for about $50. There are other packages available as well. They also offer photo sessions in the Castle Coture shop across from the castle. This is not included in the base package, but they will allow you to store these photos on your Disney Photo Pass. We had already made the decision to purchase a DVD of our Photo Pass, so we were happy to have her portraits taken and stored on our card.

After this we headed into Cinderella's Castle again for our dinner reservations at Cinderella's Royal Table. Dining in the castle in a magical experience any day, but having Casey all dressed up made it lots of fun. The meal was delicious too - one of the best we had all week. They perform a cute wishing ceremony with the kids where lights sparkle on the ceiling at the end. We had done this for breakfast before, but of course it was too bright to see the sparkling ceiling lights. I highly recommend planning yoru reservation for after sunset to take advantage of this special touch.

As wel left the castle, the Main Street Electrical Parade was just beginning. We were able to grab a spot right near the Magic Kingdom exit to watch the parade. This was nice since I had seen this parage back in 1990. Disney had since replaced it with the SpectroMagic parade, which is beautiful, but it was nice to show Casey something I had seen before. We headed back to our resort after this - a long, but enjoyable day :)

Disney Halloween Trip, Day 2

Peet peeve...people who leave the alarm on when they check out of a hotel! We were woken up at 7 by an alarm from the day before. Yawn! We got an early start though, and were at Magic Kingdom just after the opening at 9 AM.

We did one of our favorite rides from last year first - Splash Mountain. I like rides that take a little longer and let you relax while enjoying them, plus there is a nice thrill at the end (and you get wet!) so this ride is perfect. We headed up to Liberty Square to meet Princess Tiana and Prince Neveen from Princess and the Frog. Casey is in love with Tiana and wanted to buy a dress like hers so we were estatic to find a short line up for these characters. They spent extra time with Casey chatting to her which was really special as well.

We spent some time in Fantasyland which is perfect for young kids. Then we headed over to Tomorrowland, stopping to watch the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! parade in front of the castle. The floats stop in the circlular road in front of the castle and you can walk and dance among the floats. The characters come down to interact with the kids - tons of fun.

We shopped a bit and headed back to our hotel to relax in the pool. We wanted to have a relaxing afternoon before our big Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party that night. We even got to enjoy some authentic New Orleans beignets (a feature in the Princess and the Frog movie) - delicious!

That evening we headed back to Magic Kingdom around 5 PM. We got our special wristbands for the Halloween party and picked up our trick-or-treating bags. People were in costumes throughout the park, adults included, it was a great atmosphere. We had supper, and by 6:40 we were waiting in line to meet the Disney Fairies at 7. This was a must do as Casey was dressed as Tinkerbelle for Halloween. It is a great experience getting "shrunk" down to fairy size before you meet them.

There were games throughout Magic Kingdom for kids to play, and treat or treating stations everywhere. Lots of candy for everyone! We visited a special set up of Cinderella's carriage to have our photo taken, then headed to the Haunted Mansion. Too scary for Casey, but we had our photo taken near the hearse outside - a surprise was waiting for us when we saw our Disney photo online...a ghost driver! Cool trick!

There are two dance parties in MK that night where you can interact with the characters. Once featured Stitch, with the other having Jessie and Woody from Toy Story. We danced for a while with the Toy Story characters - the kids were really loving it. We got to see the parade from Frontierland with the featured the Headless Horseman riding by. Great to see the detail Disney puts into Halloween.

We spent some more time in Adventureland seeing the characters from Alladin, and doing a few rides. Then we watched the fireworks before trying to call it a night. Casey wanted to do a few more things before we left - she had more energy that we did! We finally made it back to our room after 10:30 to eat some candy and sleep. Great way to enjoy Disney - I can't wait to try this event another year.

Disney Summer '09 Trip, Day 5

Today was supposed to be Animal Kingdom day, but when we got up Casey said she wanted to go back to Magic Kingdom. We had a table service reservation in Animal Kingdom that afternoon, but we decided to cancel it and see if we could pick up another table service meal somewhere else during our trip. I am a meticulous planner—this was spontaneity for a change!

We made sure to head to Tomorrowland and ride Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin first thing. When we walked out of the ride we saw Buzz himself standing by the Astro Orbiter—what a great character meet! We also had a close run-in with Zurg—aah!
We ate lunch at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe. Sonny Eclipse, an animatronic lounge singer that entertains you while you eat, was a fun attraction. We picked up fast passes for Splash Mountain but had some time to spare, so we went into the Country Bear Jamboree. What a blast from the past! I remember seeing this show back in 1990, so it was a real treat for me to see what had changed…and what hadn't!

Just as we were getting in the fast pass line-up for Splash Mountain, I noticed the note on the bottom of our tickets that said "Eligible for another fast pass at XX:XX time". It was that time now, so I ran over to Big Thunder Mountain and grabbed fast passes for one hour after our Splash Mountain ride. Great decision, because by the time we got off Splash Mountain, the fast pass return time was as additional hour and a half later—whew!

Splash Mountain was so much fun. We still had to wait for a long time, but there were people waiting in line (in the hot sun) for over two hours for this ride. Those are some dedicated riders! We were prepared to get wet at the end when you splash down into the br'er patch, but we didn't realize that as we were climbing up the steep roller coaster hill, the car plunging down by the side of us would send up a huge splash—we got soaked! It was a great ride though—very enjoyable and a must-do for next time for sure.

Big Thunder Mountain was also a fun ride. We had watched videos of this online before we travelled, so Casey was particularly looking forward to riding through the dinosaur bones. We rode the Funny Jungle Cruise—the kitschy humor is another fav. Then we found Rafiki just standing by in Adventureland—a real treat.

After cooling off in the pool back at our resort, and grabbing some dinner in the food court, we felt rested enough to try EPCOT in the evening. We headed straight to England in the World Showcase where we knew you could meet Winnie the Pooh characters in the back of the toy store.

Then we walked up towards the fountains, had some treats and did some shopping, and watched Illuminations: Reflections of the Earth. This was a really nice show, with an interesting story. We stayed back towards the entrance of the park as much as possible so that we could be among the first group headed out to the buses. You could still see most of the show and it was a great night.

Disney Summer '09 Trip, Day 2

We always like to start our vacation at Magic Kingdom. Even though we had squeezed in a visit to Animal Kingdom the night before, we were up early and ready to hit Magic Kingdom for the opening. The opening at any park is always a special experience. Unfortunately we just missed most of the opening ceremony at MK, arriving just as the train was leaving the Main Street station. We didn't mind—we caught the first show on the castle main stage at 9:30 instead. All of the princesses, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Peter Pan, Captain Hook, even Malificent, make an appearance. It ends with fireworks (hard to see in the daytime though) above the castle. It's a must see at least once in every vacation.

We were ready for 'Dollies'! That is It's a Small World—Casey's favorite ride in all the parks, so we headed up to Fantasy Land and rode all of our favorites. We always get Fast Passes for Peter Pan's Flight since they usually are for within the hour, and the line-up can talk 30 minutes or more on its own.

We headed over to Mickey's Toontown Fair and tried to line-up to meet Tinkerbell. The sign outside said the wait was 75 minutes from this point—no thank you! I know a lot of people braved that line-up, but Casey wasn't as interested in meeting Tinkerbell as she was in getting on Goofy's Barnstormer—we have a real thrill rider in the making!

We had an early lunch at Peco's Bills Café around 11:30. We have learned the hard way that if you wait until 12:00 or later, you will have a long wait to get your food, and seating can be problematic, especially when you have a small child and are trying to juggle a tray full of drinks! The atmosphere was really nice here and it was the first time we had eaten here.

Later we headed over to Tomorrowland to pick up fast passes for Buzz Lightyear. Then we went down to AdventureLand to get on Pirates of the Caribbean. Just outside we saw a pirate setting up to do some sort of show. We had seen him packing up during our last trip, and didn't pay much attention to it. This time we stopped and watched for a while, and then he called out for Captain Jack Sparrow to join him. What a treat! This show was really great for the kids. Captain Jack called up 4 children to be his special pirate apprentices and had each of them enact a small scene with him. Then he got all of the kids to form a circle and made them all honorary Pirate Apprentices. Casey was delighted!

We headed straight to Pirates of the Caribbean afterwards. This ride seems like it has a long line, but it is constantly moving. It's another of our favorites.
We had dinner reservations at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian Resort at 4:30. This resort if just a short monorail ride away from MK, but we had planned on heading back to Caribbean Beach to rest and clean up, before coming back to MK that night. We were having too much fun that day though, and decided to just push through. We walked back up to Fantasyland and stumbled upon Celebrate! A Dream Come True Parade. This was a nice treat as you get to see the characters in their true outfits, unlike SpectroMagic (which is still my fav by far).

We rode a few more rides, and headed back to Tomorrowland to use our fast passes for Buzz, but the fast pass line was at least an hour long! I have never seen this happen before (other than at Toy Story Mania in Hollywood Studios where you will always have a long wait). We decided to just skip this ride as we were coming back to MK at least 2 more times during this trip.

Finally we took the monorail to the Grand Floridian Resort. What an elegant property! It seemed targeted towards an older age group, but even families with young children will appreciate the little touches for kids set among the opulence.

1900 Park Fare—Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner is a character meal featuring Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremaine (the Wicked Stepmother), and Anastasia and Drisella (the Wicked Stepsisters). We had our picture taken outside, which they brought to our table while we were dining. We had the option of paying for this picture, or simply refusing. Normally I prefer the meals where the picture is included (like at Princess Storybook Dining at The Royal Akerhaus Banquet Hall in EPCOT), but this was a really nice picture, so we opted to purchase it.

The dining is buffet style, and available for 1 Table Service credit on the dining plan, or at a cost of $38.33/adult and $19.16/child. The food was fine, but I wasn't overly impressed. We were seated in a small room off of the mail dining hall, so this dampened the experience for me. We were the second group to be seated, so I initially felt it unfair that they would seat these tables first; however, this is likely due to seating a party of 3, and the order in which you make your advance dining reservations.

The character interactions were amazing—Drisella was one of the best I have seen! Prince Charming and Cinderella were standard, but Lady Tremaine, Anastasia, and Drisella were hilarious. Very in character. In particular, I walked by a table where Drisella was visiting, and overheard her ask, "Are there any eligible bachelors here?" A young boy, about 7 or 8, said, "Me!" Drisella looked him up and down, and then said dryly, "Are you wealthy?" Very fun!

We took the monorail back to MK, and then the bus to Caribbean Beach. Later, we sat on the beach outside Jamaica, building a sand castle and watching the very top of the fireworks show from EPCOT. I had heard that you could watch the fireworks from the beach, but it doesn't beat seeing them in person—more on that on Day 5!