I asked for extra toiletries at both hotels and got quite a lot! This is from Portofino Bay at Universal:
And from Disney:
Clothes and such: I got the ears and the bag from the Outlet - the ears were $7.99!
Sam the Eagle sipper in this next batch!
These are the big pieces I caved and bought - the Sleeping Beauty one is my favorite. :) The Marie thing in the middle is a calendar.
Trevor liked this piece, but he wasn't gonna buy it ('cause its in the big size) but then the artist was there so he ended up getting it and the artist was super nice and personalized it and drew a little spider with Mickey ears!
Pins! Ones I bought and ones I traded for. :)
Got these two Haunted Mansion pieces from Larry Dotson in Norway. I love them!
I like buying the postcards cause they're small and don't take up as much wall space...of which I'm running out!
Love the Ducktales one here, as well as the paper cut art prints.
The Jungle Cruise one we got signed - he drew us a toucan!
At Be Our Guest, you now get this cute little card with the Beast's signature.
Magnets for the car - also Trevor's galactic hero sticker!
Gideon's also now gives out trading cards, and you can buy a little card binder for them.
Kind of neat!
With Splash Mountain out of commission, ziploc seems to have moved on to sponsoring Jungle Cruise!
Universal souvenirs! Almost all these are for Trevor :D
Treats! I brought all these back in my carryon...so good!
The Gideon's pride cake! So pretty...so delicious. :)
Ok, that's the haul! Overall, it was a great trip - Thad and Erika are definitely not as in to Disney as we are, but we're comfortable enough with each other that we're good splitting up. I think I still prefer trips with just Trevor and me, but it was fun. We also ended up liking Universal more than I thought...Trevor's gonna end up going back at least for one day on all our upcoming trips, I think! LOL. The weather was fantastic, and the Boardwalk is amazing. Just a super fun FARTS trip. :D
EPIC Fun with Metrics:
Steps Walked: 186,175 steps (80.1 miles)
Video Playlist: https://youtu.be/GDZGC8UAY-M?list=PLLD2n0Bq57wktnR-I-SKOyGyUxwxkQJaJ
Our last day! Sadness. :( Thad and Erika were tired out and didn't want to do a park today, so Trevor and I decided to head over to Magic Kingdom. But first we had to pack up and get all ready to go. :( We packed up pretty quickly and then dropped our stuff off at the lobby of the Boardwalk. While we were waiting at Bell Services, I finally noticed the pictures above the check in desk -
It's of all the castles! Seriously, I'm so great at paying attention lol. But I spent a fun few minutes looking at them all while Trevor dropped our stuff off.
Then it was time to head to Magic Kingdom! We were on the bus by 8:30 am and got there just in time to rope drop Adventureland/Frontierland. I'd bought Genie+ that morning at 7 and tried to get a Jungle Cruise fastpass right away, but it was already at 11:35 am! Bonkers. I had been trying to modify it earlier and got lucky with 10:20, so we decided to just take advantage of rope drop before that, and the best place to start? Big Thunder! We waited at the Adventureland gate, managing to get pretty close to the front.
Not too bad of a crowd!
When it hit 9 am, they started walking us through Adventureland, with some people peeling off for Jungle Cruise, and then we ducked through the little gateway and I guess the Adventureland walk is a shorter walk because we ended up joining the *very front* of the rope drop crowd for Frontierland.
Like literally - we were right behind the CMs,
We were first on Big Thunder!
So pretty this morning - not a cloud in the sky.
This is the only time we ever walk through the Big Thunder queue, so had to get a picture of this map. I like maps.
We waited for the back row, and were on the first train out!
Best way to start a Magic Kingdom morning. 10 out of 10, would recommend.
Next up, we decided to head to Haunted Mansion and get an early ride in on that. I mean, we had to - we were all decked out in our Haunted Mansion gear. :) On our way, we saw some CMs cleaning the water fountain, and I realize it's weird that I took a picture but I so appreciate the work that they do to make it all pretty and clean. Thank you CMs!
Ok, back to Haunted Mansion! It was a walk on (at about 9:15).
Love this queue...I'm just never willing to actually wait in it! If they had it open this morning I totally would have wandered through and played with it, but oh well.
I took various video clips over the days and put them all together-
Also fun fact - the magic band+ lights up red in the entrance and exit - like the bride's beating heart. Neat!
As we exited they had a photographer there, so of course we had to stop.
At this point it was about 9:30, so we decided to wander up through Fantasyland. First a stop at the Tangled toilets. I've never really noticed all the details in there, so yes, I did have to stop and take a picture. :)
So cute!
We kept moving on, and as we passed Peter Pan, it said 40 minute wait but we couldn't see anyone in the queue, and I was like...no way it's 40 minutes if we can't see anyone in the queue. So we decided to jump in line, just to see the nursery really. But as we got in there was NO ONE in the queue until we got to the nursery, so I was taking my time taking pictures of the paintings they have in the hallway.
I love this Second Star to the Right picture.
Also London!
The line ending was in the middle of the nursery, so we had fun looking and playing around in there for 5 min or so - so many fun details, like Tink getting caught in the drawer!
Then we were on the ride! It was a 16 minute wait, including 5 minutes of us putzing around in the nursery. So......a 10 minute wait. For Peter Pan! Crazy!
High off our Peter Pan good fortune, we kept going and decided to hop on the Carousel, since it was a walkon and I love the Carousel.
I love the Carousel music!
At this point it was a little after 10, so we decided to start heading back for our Jungle Cruise fastpass. But we saw a photographer in front of the sword in the stone, so decided to try our luck!
We were not lucky...not the queen or king of fantasyland for us today!
We took that little side path by Sleepy Hollow and got some more pictures with the castle.
And with Orange Bird right by the Adventureland sign!
Then it was time for Jungle Cruise! We got a seat right up front, and had a great skipper. :D
I also snagged a picture of the gift shop. :)
Love Jungle Cruise so much. :)
Afterwards I think I snagged a Space Mountain fastpass? I didn't take good notes, but something over there. But first, breakfast! We stopped at the Friar's Nook and got the Breakfast Sandwich: Bacon, Egg, and Cheddar served on a Multigrain Croissant with Tots and the Wild Ride slushie: Frozen Wild Sour Cherry, Blue Raspberry, and Sour Apple topped with Whipped Cream and a Black Licorice Wheel
We sat out on one of the short walls and just ate our breakfast, and it was awesome. I love just sitting and watching the Magic Kingdom go by around me. The food was surprisingly good - Friar's Nook is a hidden gem! The slushie was fun too, except for the black licorice. Gross.
Afterwards, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train! I must have bought the lightning lane, but I don't have an email receipt for it...so that's weird. Anyways, we rode it, and had a great time. We waited for the back row, cause that's the best. :)
Then, you'd think we'd be full, but we weren't too full for a cinnamon roll as big as your head! Over to Gaston's we went and got the cinnamon roll I'd been waiting for. :)
Including the extra frosting, cause that's important. :)
While we were eating, we saw Belle in her town dress out wandering around, which was fun.
Pleasantly full, we headed over to Space Mountain!
We had a great ride.
Then we were going to to Buzz Lightyear again, but we saw the man himself on the way over to our ride!!
Looking very dapper and cool. :)
So our goal here was for me to get galactic hero...we started with such optimism!!
This is my "intense" face.
And the final score...I got 823100, Trevor got 344100. So close! but no cigar. I'll just have to try again next time!
We got off a little after 12, so it was time to head back to the resort and then to the airport. :( So we slowly made our way to the front of the park, though of course stopping for pictures.
We ran into the parade as we headed out, so that was fun. It's a cute parade. :)
We essentially walked with the parade all down Main Street. A nice send off! We headed out of the park, but I had to get one last shot of the train station. It's so pretty!
We got lucky - a bus was there waiting for us right as we got up to the bus stop. Huzzah! We were back at the Boardwalk picking up our stuff by 12:45. I took more pictures of the castles for you, since they're awesome!
Trevor waiting for our bags and expressing his opinion of how we tour. :)
We got our bags and walked over to the Swan to meet up with Thad and Erika and get picked up for our ride back to the airport. Away We Go was great - they were prompt and we were on our way by 1:20.
Poor Trevor, all tuckered out. :) Something about cars and sun makes him very sleepy. Nothing at all to do with the exhaustion of a Disney vacation. :D
The security lines were long, but we had a bit of good luck getting pulled into newly-open lines, and they didn't even check all my treats that I was bringing back as a carryon (cake, cookies, etc). We were all through by 2:45. Huzzah!
Our flight was at 4:30, and we left on time. I even got a picture of one of our bags being loaded onto the plane!
It's that black one in the center...I recognized the "mine mine mine" luggage tag on it. :D
The flight home was uneventful, but back at our home airport we realized one of Thad and Erika's bags had gotten lost! The baggage drop off at MCO was crazy (like instead of handing them over the counter and them getting put on the belt, we had to take them to a little room off to the side? it was weird), and this was the casualty. Bummer. :( They did get it delivered the next day, but still, no fun.
We got home, and despite being tired, we still had some work to do -
prep the Gideons cookies! Wrapped them all up in foil and put them in bags for freezing. We had to label which ones were which.
Our haul!
And we treated ourselves to the coffee cake cookie as a a reward. :D
Ending the day with a Gideon's cookie is the best way to end a travel day. :D
One more post to show our souvenir haul and do a final wrap up!
Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 13616 steps (5.9 miles)
Rides: 8 (Big Thunder, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Carousel, Jungle Cruise, Seven Dwarfs, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear)
