Thursday, November 12: After a long night of flying, our plane landed with a pretty rough jerk, (Amanda only screeched a little) due to the fog in Orlando, and we were on our way to gather up our bags (gratefully, all of the checked bags made the trip) and hunt for the Magic Express. Everyone was excited to use their Disney Magic-bands for the first time as we checked into Disney Magic Express and boarded the bus for our trip to Pop Century, our resort for our vacation stay! As we arrived at the hotel, John and I went and checked in while Amanda took the girls to change clothes and freshen up. There was a cute little waiting area with colorful couches/cushions and Mickey cartoons playing. Everyone was geared up and ready to go!! Our rooms were not ready yet; we parked all our bags with the attendant and hopped the bus to Magic Kingdom – our first kingdom to visit! We arrived at the gates about 8:30 and after clearing security and passing through the gates with our magic bands, we entered the Magic Kingdom. Rope drop was a little before 9:00 and we headed to Fantasyland. The girls wanted to ride the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Adventure. The line was not too long and everyone enjoyed the games and things to do in the line. The ride was really fun and lots and lots of cute things to see. Our Memory Maker created a video for us and we had the pictures of the ride as souvenirs of how much fun it was for our initial ride!! The girls had not ridden A Small World for several years and we all enjoyed the music and sites. We had fast passes for Mickey’s Philharmonic, Splash Mountain, and Space Mountain and Preslee loved the Philharmonic and couldn’t wait to go back again. Splash Mountain was great and we rode twice. The first time, Grandma had Amanda’s
shirt over her head to not get wet, so in the photo, it looks like she disappeared! The weather was about 86 degrees and none of the kids minded getting wet! We had Mickey pretzels/cheese and Churros for a snack that morning and everyone had more than they could eat. We had lunch at Cosmic Ray’s and it was busy, busy! We found that Disney serves way too much food for anyone to eat it all. After the first day, we began to share Quick Service meals and save them for other treats. Other favorite rides for the day included Thunder Mountain Railroad, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Pirates (which Amanda didn’t like quite as well as the one at Disneyland), and The Tiki Room (which Grandma wanted to see). Buz Lightyear is always a hit and we all enjoyed the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor. We laughed at all the jokes and fun made at the expense of some of the audience members. Stitch’s Big Escape was not a real hit and certainly a one-time ride! It was pretty smelly and a lot was done in the dark, besides getting sprayed in the face a couple of times! We wrapped up the day about 6:30 and headed back to Pop Century. Our bags had been delivered to our rooms and everyone freshened up for dinner after unpacking. Brilynn and Maycie stayed in Grandma’s room and picked the bed by the wall since grandma had the temperature turned down to 69 degrees! After getting our room settled, we headed back to Magic Kingdom to go to the Contemporary Resort for dinner at Chef Mickey’s. After getting lost on the way to the Contemporary, John finally stopped and talked to a police officer who gave us directions how to avoid the busy street with all the buses coming and going. We arrived at the Contemporary all in one piece! After a short wait and photos with Pluto, we were seated and directed to the buffet. This was probably the least of our favorite table service dinners. It was fun for the kids to have photos with Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy, but the food was so-so, except for the desserts. Brilynn was in heaven! She ate several of the small desserts that were offered and had lots of favorites! We shopped in the shops for a few minutes after dinner and then went looking for the Monorail back to Magic Kingdom. The girls had fun “stretching pennies” in the machines and we finally found the Monorail. We had a nice, relaxing ride back to the Magic Kingdom, and then took the bus back to Pop Century and our rooms. We arrived back about 10:45 and looked at the developing blisters on grandma and a couple of the girls ankles. We implemented the use of mole skin and it help considerable. Grandma carried it in her purse every day and we added it to sore spots in the mornings before going to the parks. When we returned to the rooms, Amanda gave all the girls new pjs. She took lots of photos; however, Brilynn was not too hot on posing, since she felt her jammies were too “young” for her. All of the pjs were so cute and the girls took some fun photos. In the meantime, grandma dove for the bed and was asleep in no time! Operating on a couple hours of sleep and running at least 10 miles in the park all day, she was worn out! The first night, Maycie slept with Brilynn in Grandmas room and every night after that, she shared with grandma and gave Brilynn the full bed. She loved it! Everyone went to bed as soon as possible and morning came again way too fast.
Monday, November 16th: Up early again, but change of pace today. We went to breakfast about 7:15 a.m.at “All Things Pop” in the resort. Our shuttle, the Happy Limousine, picked us up in front of the resort and we all had comfortable seats to sit in – it was wonderful!! After a twenty-minute ride to Universal Studios, we went up the escalators and through City Walk (kind of like Downtown Disney) and picked up our tickets at the will-call window. We entered the “Islands of Adventure” park and first thing we did was take the girls on the Cat in the Hat ride in Dr. Seuss Land! It was so cute and really fun for all! After this, we headed down to the Harry Potter area and it was totally amazing! The entire Hogsmead area was just incredible as we walked past the Hogwarts Express, all the shops, the Three Broomsticks, and other areas. They were selling Butter Beer and Pumpkin Juice on carts and we decided we would need to try some after some riding. We jumped on the Dragon Challenge. Lines were not bad at all, but the twins were too short to ride, so Amanda stayed with them while John and Grandma took Bri and Maycie. However, John had to run through the line twice because we didn’t realize he couldn’t take his cell phone and he had to take it back down to Amanda. It was a crazy roller-coaster ride and so much fun. Not only upside-down and around, but corkscrews that really messed with your head! After the Dragon, Challenge, we changed Payge’s shoes and all were able to get on Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Forbidden Journey! The walk through Hogwarts prior to loading the ride was pretty awesome! We saw the school hallways and paintings on the wall that talk to each other and to visitors. We passed through Dumbledore’s office with the Pensive, saw the House Points, passed through the Gryffindor common room, and others areas. When we loaded for the ride, it was incredible as we followed Harry Potter through the Hogwarts grounds, chased by a dragon, through the Quiddich playing field with Harry & Ron, and over the mountains. What a rush! It was just like flying! Great like Soarin’, but 100 times better! After we got off the Forbidden Journey, we had a Butterbeer, which Maycie wouldn’t try because she didn’t want anyone to thing she was drinking Beer. What a sweetheart! We sat down while the girls rode the Hippogriff, a smaller roller coaster (which didn’t satisfy Preslee & Payge much). They were still unhappy they could not ride the Dragon Challenge. However, mom made them all very happy when they agreed to give them some money toward an interactive wand to be used while in Hogwarts and Diagon Alley. The girls were so excited as they picked out their “magic wands” and they each found a favorite. In two days, only one was broken and it was taken to the “Repair Shop” and completely fixed! Preslee was very happy! The girls all had so much fun going to the different markers and practicing their “spells” that would make interactive things work like skeletons dancing and books opening, even a toilet flushing! All four girls were in Seventh Heaven! They even made up spells and pretended to do them on each other and the hexed person would have to do what was spelled! What a special thing to do for them, Mom! Thanks! And Preslee was very excited because she told her mom that morning that she wanted to “waste” the rest of her money! As we continued throughout Islands of Adventure, John was a good sport and took the twins and Maycie on the Dudley’s Doright’s Ripsaw Falls and they all got drenched! Bri, Amanda and Grandma passed! However, we all tried the Jurassic Park ride, first without John while he stayed with the “stuff” and then Amanda and grandma waited while John took the girls again! It was fun and we didn’t get to wet (well, maybe John did!). Other favorites for the day were The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, a three-D wild ride that was a lot of fun, and Dr. Doom’s Fearfall which Grandma, Bri and the twins waited while the others went (they were too short and Bri and Grandma did not want to go on it!). While waiting, Storm from the X-Men came by and visited with the twins for quite a while! It was pretty cool and they got a few pictures with her. We also saw the Sinbad Adventure, but Maycie was not impressed with the Princesses outfit (it was a Haram Girl costume and was not nearly modest enough for Miss Maycie!). The show was fun, but not outstanding! There were a few other rides, but we passed on the “really wet” ones and one was not open yet. Lunch at Circus McGurkus and it was pretty good and nice to sit and relax for a few minutes. The Happy Limousine picked us up about 7:00 p.m. and delivered us to Disney Spring (Downtown Disney) for dinner at the Rain Forest T-Rex Café! We had quite a little walk, but finally located the restaurant. After waiting for a few minutes, while the kids looked at the fish tanks with various salt water fish, we were seated, below the Teradactyl and with the T-Rex at our backs! Everyone 15 minutes or so, it got very loud at the dinosaurs would roar and howl and move throughout the restaurant and a storm would thunder through. The ice cave, a little away from our table, also looked pretty cool with it’s beautiful blue walls! We had a great dinner, but everyone was pretty worn out! The girls really wanted to go to the Disney Store, but it was located further away than we really wanted to walk and, we thought, in the wrong direction from the resort busses. We walked and walked to the end of Disney Springs, but then found out these were the wrong busses that we were looking at one the map and we needed to be clear at the other end of Disney Springs, which seemed like miles! Thanks to a kindly gentleman by the bus area, we were guided to the ferry that would take us to the other end of Disney Springs. It was a nice relief to set for a little bit and gave us the energy to do a little more shopping. Amanda, John and the girls went to the large Disney store and grandma went to the other Rain Forest Café to buy a couple of T-shirts. We all met up a while later, caught the bus back to Pop Century and hit the sack!!
Tuesday, November 17th: The girls ate breakfast again at Pop Century – they love the fruit and John was fond of the pastries. Grandma just loved it all! The Happy Limousine picked us up again at 8:00 a.m. and delivered us to Universal Studios for our second day. The girls all brought their wands and were prepared to cast as many spells as possible!. We headed straight for the Diagon Alley area, which was not real easy to spot. We entered through the bricks and there it was in front of us with several awesome stores and at the end of the street was Gringotts – the Goblin owned bank with the escaped Dragon sitting on top! What an awesome site! By now, we had learned to use the free lockers to lock our stuff up prior to the ride. (We only forgot the locker numbers a couple of time – but all is good!) We headed into Gringotts and the walk through was really awesome, except that you couldn’t take any photos because they will not let you have any cameras with you on the ride. Darn, it would have been fun to have photos of the goblins. They looked just like in the movie and they are watching you as you walk through the lobby. Bill Weasley (Ron’s brother) works at the bank and he is kind of our guide. We also see Harry, Ron, and Herminie in various roles. The roller coaster was really fun as we entered the caverns to the vaults and it gave us all a pretty great ride! We also see Dumbledore who is speaking with characters and the paintings are talking. We escaped with our lives and even lived to ride a second time! What fun! The girls were so excited to begin casting spells with their wands and they hit all the spots to do so. Grandma did a little shopping and even went to Bourgan & Burks in Knockturn Alley (the dodgy area of Diagon Alley). They had a cool hourglass, but it didn’t come in a box. Also found a large tarantula in crystal that she almost bought for grandpa, but $125 was a little steep, so she kept looking. The girls found a copy of markers in Knockturn Alley to practice their spells, as well! We looked in several shops – Quiddich supplies, chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans, and saw the Leaky Cauldron! After spending some time there, we took the Hogwarts Express back to ride the Forbidden Journey again, before the lines got too long. The ride was again just excellent! However, Amanda couldn’t do it twice, her tummy wouldn’t allow. She did ride the Dragon coaster this time; however, and it made her very, very sick. In the meantime, grandma bought some pumpkin juice and frozen butter beer while waiting for Bri, John, and Amanda. The twins and Maycie and grandma enjoyed a few quiet minutes. The it was on the Hogwarts Express again and back to Diagon Alley (loved the train!!) We had our own private compartment and saw Dementors outside the door, as well as Harry, Ron, and Herminie talking in the hallway. Maycie got a little upset with her mom for taking photos they argued whether it was ok before the doors closed! The seats were very comfortable and we could almost have had a nap! (Too many early mornings!) There were lots of rides to see in Universal Studios and it was a full day! We hopped on the Minions Ride, which was three-D and wild. We were turned into little minions! We also did the Men in Black ride which was a lot of fun and we wanted to ride a second time once we understood the scoring system for shooting, but it broke down and we didn’t get to experience it again. However, we hung around long enough to get an express pass to something! Maycie was dying to rid the Hollywood Rip Tide Rocket roller coaster and it was fun, but not as good as anticipated! We also did ET and it was ok, but not spectacular. Everyone loved the Revenge of the Mummy ride and it was wild. We had to do it at least twice. Payge hurried up too fast and didn’t have her high heels on so was denied entrance. Amanda was brave enough to ask if she could ride if she was tall enough with her shoes. Sure enough, she got in and rode it twice! It was a scary, but really fun 3-D 4-D ride. Another one of grandma’s favorites was the Transformer’s Ride. Talk about full of action: falling from building and transformers chasing and pounding on us! Wow! Shreck was okay, but not show-stopping! One of the experiences that the girls loved was the Fear Factor Experience. We actually did this one twice. Maycie and then Amanda wanted to try to get on, but Maycie was too young and we were too late for Amanda to tryout. However, the twins were chosen twice to help out and Brilynn was chosen once. She really squealed when someone threw a rotten squid her way. It almost hit her and she said it stunk so bad! The twins got to help shoot balls at the contestants and Brilynn helped shoot the water canyon while they were trying to climb. It was pretty cool. The challenges were good, but the crazy part was when they put cockroaches on one girls head and scorpions on another! Yuch! Then the ultimate was when they ground up sour milk (with lumps) ground earthworms, and some other disgusting stuff and three people raced to see who could win downing it. Gross!!! Another favorite of the girls was the Horror Make-up Show. They picked a young girl out of the audience to help and she was really jumpy. She was the perfect participant and it was probably a good thing they got her off the stage before the werewolf came after the host. She would have probably died on the spot!! After a long day of riding, several headaches, sick tummies from the motion in so many rides, we took our last trip in the Happy Limosine and they delivered us to the Wilderness Lodge, a deluxe resort. It was like a huge cabin and was really beautiful. The pool was so pretty and had a river running into it. When we were called to dinner, we were told we could choose to “play or not play” as it would get a little rowdy! We chose to play and the next thing we knew, we had a waiter come up, throw napkins and straws at us and holler “Howdy!” It only got crazier from there!! He was really a hoot! The table next to us requested more catsup (there were four people) and he hollered across the restaurant “These people need catsup” Before you knew what happened, they had 23 bottles of catsup on their table! I leaned over to Bri and said, “Don’t you dare ask for anything!” When he came for our order, the girls ordered bottomless milk shakes (served in pint jars). We ordered family style (as he stuck straws in the girls pony-tails!) and they brought: a basket of cornbread, a skillet with green beans (they were so yummy) and the best mashed potatoes! Then he brought a huge skillet with BBQ ribs, BBQ chicken, Spicy Sausage links, roast beef, and I don’t remember what else! It was heaping full and we hardy ate even ½ of it, then it was time for dessert! Amanda ordered cheesecakes to go for everyone! They made good breakfast and snacks for the next couple of days! Back on the bus and to Pop Century and BED! We were all so exhausted. Bri said the best part was she didn’t have to worry if she would be able to get to sleep. She just crawled in bed and closed her eyes and it was morning again!! Everyone slept so solid that even grandma’s snoring didn’t bother anyone.
Wednesday, November 18th:Day Seven!! Can’t believe it is almost over! We chose to spend the day at Magic Kingdom, arriving at the kingdom about 8:30 a.m. We actually saw the pre-show up on the Railroad Station with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and others. Amanda was back in her photo element and stopping at all of the photo-ops that she could. We really got some fun photos! We had fast passes for Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, and Seven Dwarfs Mine for today. But first on the agenda was breakfast at “Be Our Guest” the new Beauty and the Beast Restaurant. It was huge and beautiful! First we were ushered into a fancy room to place our order in a kiosk and then told to get our drink and our breakfast would find us when it was ready. This was pretty amazing because there were hundreds of people! We picked up our drinks and soon our food arrived. There were various pastries and other fancy foods (after all, it is a French restaurant!) We filled up and then headed for the rides. We rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine and hit all of our favorites, as well! Preslee wanted to do Mickey’s Philharmonic again and John liked the Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor. It was a day crammed with rides and some shopping. John took Brian, Preslee, and Payge back to the hotel for a few hours to rest, while Amanda, Maycie and Grandma stayed to do some shopping and have some fun! Amanda got some darling photos of her and Maycie and we went up to Gaston’s Tavern where we had the best cinnamon rolls ever! They were big enough for two people! After John and the girls returned, we rode more rides. This was the only day that we were rained on for a little while, probably not more than 15-20 minutes. Preslee wanted to do Small World again and Bri wanted to do Peter Pan. It was really fun since the line to get to the ride was in much more detail than the ride in Disneyland. We went to our last Character Dinner at the Crystal Palace and all the kids enjoyed seeing Winnie the Pooh, Eyore, and others. Dinner was very good and while John waited with the girls to finish with the characters, Amanda and I went looking for a spot to see the Electrical Parade and the Fireworks for the evening. The Electrical parade is always a favorite and the fireworks were beautiful! The park didn’t close for awhile, so we shopped some more. John took Payge back to the hotel with him. They were both worn out! We shopped a little longer with Amanda working her magic to use our quick service meals for snacks. She ended up with about 49 bags of candy that we would use for gifts when we returned to Utah! We rode a few more rides, then went to catch the bus back to the resort! The lines were insane and it was about midnight before we got back. We all crashed and decided we didn’t need to be up too early since we were going to Hollywood Studios the next day where we had some fastpasses for our last day.
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