Noah took his first trip to disney the first week in november. Here is our recap for future reference and ALOT of pictures :-)
Where: Wilderness Lodge
Who: us, pop pop, aunt peggy, uncle ed, mikey.... jon and kenny and the Arzonicos were also there at the same time.
When: November 3rd-8th
Why: 1) Disney is awesome 2) This was one of my moms "goals" when she was sick... to take Noah to disney for the first time. When she passed away we said we would all go together.
Monday November 3rd
We woke up noah at 4:30am... he was a little sleepy but when i said we are going to disney he said "now?" and perked up. This was also his first ever airplane ride! We got to Atlantic City airport with no problems, checked in, got thru security (he asked everyone what their favorite football team was) and we went to our gate and waited. Noah was excited to look at the airplanes. We went to the gift shop at bought a 3.99 Mickey toy where you push the button a propeller goes and it entertained him the ENTIRE time! We boarded the plane and Noah dove into his snacks... we went thru 3 lollipops (first one fell, second one he didnt like the brown kind, and then finally the 3rd was ok). Some fruit snacks, cheese crackers, etc. Take off was no problem. He watched some shows on iPad, played with some play doh, played with new mickey toy. He did get a little antsy and he complained his ears hurt once we started the decent. But we got over it. We eventually landed, got on the magical express, and headed to Wilderness Lodge! Check in was no problem and my dad and birdsalls arrived shortly after. We had lunch in the QS and then Noah brian and i went to my dads room cause i was ready and we all took a nap!
That night we had reservations for Chef Mickey at the Contemporary. We got over there by boat, got our picture taken by the big plate, and went to our table. Now Noah is usually very hesitant about characters, even though we have been prepping him that we are gonna see a lot of characters on our trip he still wasn't sure. He likes them from afar but doesn't like when they come up close or touch him. The characters were great! The first couple only took pictures with the adults, signed our picture frame mat that i got, and waved at Noah. Eventually Noah started giving High Fives, and would pose for pictures if i was holding him. The food was good and everyone had fun! After dinner we decided to take a loop not he monorail before taking the boat back to our room.
Memorable Moments: giving high fives for the first time!
Tuesday November 4th
This was our Magic Kingdom day and i had it all planned out. I used Touring Plans and they pretty much told me in what order to go. It worked out great! We were flying thru rides! We got the first 5 rides done in about 45 minutes! Noah seemed a little out of it this morning but we figured he was overwhelmed and a little tired. He perked up and really loved all the rides. Here is what we did:
Tea Cups - Barnstormer - Dumbo - winnie the pooh - Ariel ride (all with NO LINES). We then used our fast pass for mine train, Gastons Tavern for a snack, Small world (noah was in aw), our second fast pass for Peter Pan, We saw some of the Move it Shake it parade but Noah was wanting to go on rides instead. Big thunder roller coaster (we did this twice since there was hardly a line). We then had lunch at Peso Bills, Got our silhouette done, Magic Carpet Ride, and our final Fast Pass for Splash Mountain. All of this was done by 1:30! We then left the park to go home for naps :-) Noah woke up from nap with a little fever and we had been noticing his eyes were red all day. At dinner (whispering Canyon) the waitress told us about a centra care clinic and if we made reservations they would take us right in. So after dinner by dad drove us over. Yup Noah had pink eye and the dr gave us drops and antibiotics
Memorable Moments: EVERYTHING haha. noah loved the rides! Getting his silhouette done. "12 rides before 12"
Wednesday November 5th
This was our Animal Kingdom day. This day i wasn't planning every ride because there isn't as much to do here for little guys. We got into the park (after waiting a long time because for some reason they only had a few turn styles open and everyone had to wait to go thru. We went to dino land first and noah road a ride, then we walked over to the safari. We got our picture taken by tree, the adults got some beverages, and we met jon and kenny and we all did the safari. This one everyone really liked. After the safari we got more drinks :-) and headed over to Exploration Everest. Brian Jon and I went on (twice) while the adults hung with Noah. We then tried the bugs life show but noah got scared half way thru so i took him out while everyone else watched. We then hand lunch at Flame Tree BBQ (very good quick service). We were then gonna do the Kali River Rapids but it was closed.. so they gave us a FP for any ride in any park. We headed out and decided to just go right to epcot instead of trying to get back to hotel to nap to just leave again. We figured there wouldn't be a lot of down time by the time the busses get back, everyone got settled and then had to get back on the bus to go to epcot since our dinner was early that night. Soooo we headed over to epcot, got our pics taken, met pluto, Noah played in a piggy bank play area while we got some Fast Passes. We then used our "free" fp to ride Soarin, and then headed to the Nemo Ride. After that we walked around the world, got some espresso, beer, etc. Noah watched the gymnasts in China, and everyone enjoyed sitting at the Rose and Crown for a little downtime before heading back over to The Seas for our dinner at Coral Reef. By this time we had been going all day, Noah was getting tired and antsy and not listening great. We waited for our table and brian took him to do Nemo again and to walk around aquarium. Although it took awhile for our table to be ready we were really happy with the restaurant. Noah could see the aquarium and loved watching the scuba divers, sharks, turtles, etc. We got him a special drink with a light up buzz lightyear and he stayed entertained the entire dinner pretty much. Brian and i loved our Mahi Mahi! We then headed home to bed :-)
Memorable Moments: Noah wanting to share lollipops with everyone, getting his first souvenir "bouncy" the elephant,
Thursday November 6th
This was our Hollywood Studios day. We got there before rope drop again. This time no problems entering. We headed to Rock n Roller coaster since we didn't have a fast pass. BUT turns out it was broken. So we went over to Pixar Place. Met Daisy on the way, then went over to Toy Story FP. Of course everyone loved it. After ride Noah picked out a souvenir... Mickey Ears with a Woody design! We then headed over to Disney Jr Live. We met Jake and ran into the Arzonicos! Then we found out the show we had FP for as having technical difficulties so that wasn't going to happen. Again, they gave us a FP to any ride in that tier. Soo i took Noah to play in the Honey i Shrunk the Kids play area and brian and mike rode Star Tours. While i was talking to a cast member about the free fast pass brian took noah to visit a Green Army man from toy story... Noah actually walked up to the guy BY HIMSELF and asked him to sign our matt and posed for an adorable pic with him! The play area was insane.. and at one point i think kelly jeff and i lost all 3 kids... so we didn't stay long but noah had fun and got to burn off some energy. We then walked over to see Sully and Mike but noah didn't want to wait to meet them so we headed over to the Frozen play area. The rest of the family met us over here after Star Tours was done. We got some pics taken and noah played in the snow. * this was the hottest day we had so it was nice for everyone to sit in the cold and rest a minute or two. After Frozen we went to meet McQueen and Mator. Then headed to Pizza Planet for lunch and ate with the Arzonicos. After lunch Brian Mike and I did Tower of Terror and then we all headed home. Before we left the park we saw Goofy and this was the first time Noah has ever taken a picture with a character by himself!! There was a lot we didn't do at this park but the times of the shows weren't working out for us. Maybe next time, but Noah still enjoyed this morning. We all took naps and then headed over to Polynesian for dinner at Ohana. This was delicious! We had great seats by the window and saw the sunset and castle. We tried the drinks in the pineapples, Noah played the coconut hockey game with Blake and Brooklyn. Aunt peggy got up and had Happy Birthday sang to her. The food was really good! Noah entertained himself with some glow sticks and it was a very successful night!
Memorable Moments: Green Army guy pictures, picture with Goofy.
Friday November 7th
Our last day we went back to Magic Kingdom. We had early breakfast reservations so that meant we got into the park early. HOWEVER when they let us in they said we couldn't go on main street cause they were filming, Everyone was upset and complaining. We still got pictures by the castle and we got to see Belle and Beast on a parade float waiting for their filming. But it would have been nice to get the pics with the empty Main Street in background.
Breakfast was great! Food was delicious and we met Winnie the Pooh, piglet, tigger, eeyore. After breakfast we went over to Adventureland and did Jungle Cruise, Big thunder again, it was colder this morning so even though Splash Mt had no wait no one wanted to do it yet. We went over to do small world again, buzz light year, met Buzz himself, did the race cars, Mike and Brian did Space Mountain while the rest of us did the People Mover. Noah went up to meet Stitch and actually let Stitch HUG him!!! We then did Buzz again with our fast pass, then did Mine Train with a Fast Pass. Stopped for snacks. We did Pirates of Carribean and then Splash Mountain one last time. At this point we were going to leave but we ended up seeing the parade. BUT then it took FOREVER to exit the park since we had to walk slowly from Frotier land all the way to the main entrance. We went back to hotel but didn't have a lot of time for nap. Noah ended up falling asleep at 5pm and we had to leave hotel at 5;30 ugh! We got on bus to go to Epcot and we were running late for our reservation. Turns out it wasn't a big deal because the restaurant was backed up and we actually had to wait an HOUR for dinner. EVERYONE was cranky and tired at this point. The manager came over and apologized, gave us all free drinks and took the gratuity off our check. Unfortunately at this point no one was really happy or excited. It was close to 8pm and noah wasn't going to eat anything. Even the characters weren't interesting him. He was tired and cranky! It was not the best way to end our vacation and because of our experice i would not eat at Garden Grill again. The food was OK, nothing special. The characters would have been great if we saw them earlier. Farmer Mickey and Pluto and Chip and Dale. We kept saying how it was a shame this was our last night and no one really enjoyed it that much.
Saturday November 8th
We woke up around 7.. finished packing up our room.. and we had our last meal at the QS breakfast. My dad drove us to the airport instead of taking Magical Express cause it saved us over an hour! Once we got to airport everything was great. Noah did so much better on this flight. We laid down and watched iPad. Ate jellybeans to clear his ears haha and was really such a good boy the whole trip back home.
We had such a great trip and we were all really depressed when it ended. We are already planning our next trip!
Next time:
- we want to stay in walking distance to Magic Kingdom since thats our favorite park and we used a lot of time on transportation. We want to rent points at Bay Lake Tower.
- We would not go to animal kingdom until noah is older to do more rides. IF anything we would go there for maybe a character breakfast one morning and then make it a pool day or something. Even then its a lot of waiting and traveling.
- Epcot we would only really do again for dinner and not a whole day. We would do Coral Reef again but not Garden Grill
- Bring decongestants! Brian ended up with a cold and pink eye too.
- We really liked the dining plan. It made decisions easy and i liked having everything planned out instead of being like "where do you want to eat?"or having to find a place that would seat us
- I want to look into Hoop De Do Review or Mickeys Backyard BBQ next time. These would also be good ones to do on our pool day
- Speaking of.. next time go longer so we have a day of recovery!
- Spend 3 days at least in Magic Kingdom. We thought 2 days were good because we really did do mostly everything. But we could spread it out even more. Try different places to eat, more snacks, see more shows or just wander around at a relaxed rate after the morning touring hours are over. I feel like since we had such good experiences the first 2 hours each morning i liked being able to bang out a bunch of rides and then not feel rushed to do more if we didn't want to. More days also mean more fast passes so we are guaranteed to do rides without waiting in line!
- I loved the fast passes... i couldn't imagine doing the parks without them!
- Now that noah likes characters more we would continue to do Chef Mickeys... i thought it was a great dinner for the arrival day since we didn't have park passes that day and it really started off the vacation. I will also look into other character meals as well.
- We rented a stroller and would definitely do that again. We brought our own thing that connected to stroller for added storage and really didn't even need the backpack we brought with us. The last couple days we didn't even bring that. We felt we had no need for the stroller at airport and it would have just been another thing to drag along and worry about.
- Memory Maker.. we thought it was great for this trip because of all the people and it being noahs first time. We got a ton of pictures, ride pictures, character pictures etc. We don't have a fancy camera so the pics are way nicer than the iPhone pictures. I think depending on who we go with next time i would get this again.
