Do I Dare? A Non-Fort Report by a Lurker!

[lklasing 16]

Tuesday, May 31

This morning, two of the kids did something entirely different than any of us have ever done at WDW before. Danielle and Katherine both got up at 6:00 a.m. (which is really a feat for two fourteen-year-olds) and met on beach to watch the sun rise. Ray bet Danielle and me each $10 that she wouldn’t do it, so it was an expensive morning for him. :raspberry: Anyway, they both got up, watched sun rise and then went back to sleep on one of the hammocks on the beach. They had a great time. I saw them once from our window and it looked like a lot of fun, even if they did look like a couple of homeless girls in their jammies and blankets wrapped around them. It was very cute and something I wish I had had such a good idea to do.

They eventually made it back to our room, where we had breakfast. Given that we leave tomorrow , we were definitely now in the mode of trying to eat all the leftover food. We did better this time than we have on some trips – at least we don’t have several unopened bottles of wine and bags of chips like we did one trip to FW where we overbought on groceries terribly.

Around breakfast time, I got word from Dave that Michele and Dave Jr. weren’t going to make it up as early as we had hoped and they would just catch up with us later in the morning, so we were happy to have Katherine with us for a trip back to AK, hoping to make it by rope drop.

We didn’t quite make rope drop, but did get there around 9:05. Despite me running straight for EE to get FPs, our return time still wasn’t until 10:25. I could tell it was going to be another busy day. I met everyone at Dinosaur, which once again scared the pee out of me.

What is that Dumbo-type ride called in Dinoland? I can’t remember the name, but the girls decided to ride it when we got out of Dinosaur while we waited on the rest of the Smiths to arrive.

At this point, we were already hot so we stopped for a frozen lemonade break (amazingly, we couldn’t find any ice cream at 10:00!). While the kids lingered over their snacks, I ran to get FPs for Kali. Happily, Dave, Michele and Dave Jr. had arrived and met us at EE.

Sadly, when we got to EE, the ride had just gone down. Everyone who had been in line was now pouring out of the entrance. I’ve never seen such a mass of humanity there! We headed to Kali and let the kids ride with the six FPs we had while the adults hid in this tiny bit of shade near the exit. Claire and her husband had arrived by now and met up with us, so we headed back to EE to see if it was opened again yet. Thankfully, we caught it just when it was about to open. The kids got in line with their FPs and Claire and I jumped in the single rider line. The lines were moving quickly since they had just opened back up, so everyone rode again by hitting the single rider.

Side note – anyone ever done the parks with two 14 year old girls? Want to know what they look like to you 90% of the time that you’re all touring “together”? Here you go:

This was our view through park after park as those two charged to the next destination every time.

When we were done with EE, Ray and I decided we were ready to head back to the resort. Jodi was looking beat too, so the three of us left while Dave volunteered to take all the kids to Dinosaur – first time on that ride for some this morning, second for others.

Claire walked out with us:

On the bus back to BLT, Jodi completely passed out. I haven’t had a kid fall asleep like that on one of the busses in years, but it sure was cute. By the time we got back to the resort, she was feeling better but wanted to head back to our room to relax, but only with the text message promise by Dave that he would let her know when he and the rest of the kids returned. So, Jodi headed up to the room to rest and eat more leftovers, while Ray and I hit one of our favorite spots - the Wave.

The Wave catches a bad rap sometimes, but we have yet to have a meal there that we’re not completely satisfied with. I’m not sure what is happening with other people, but each time we get good food and good service. I don’t remember what we had but I do remember that the beer was excellent.

We caught up with Jodi on the beach, but around that time everyone else was returning from the AK. The kids wound up splitting up into two groups based on everyone’s interests for the last afternoon of our trip. Jodi, Katherine and Dave Jr. headed back to the MK while Danielle, Michele and Lynn went to the Community Room at BLT to do crafts. (They each made a pillow to bring home – very cute.)

Meanwhile, Ray, Dave and I found a shady spot by the pool and again enjoyed alternating between people watching, reading and napping. It was a very nice way to spend our last afternoon. Finally, though, I bailed to go start the sad task of packing, folding laundry, etc.

Eventually, Danielle, Michelle and Lynn hit the MK too.

All the kids spent the rest of the evening there till we finally called them all home to pack. :'(

But before that sad call happened, all the grownups went to California Grill for dinner! :) Everything was great as always. Ray had sushi and salad, I had flatbread, and I have no idea what Dave had, but it was all wonderful. I definitely won the dessert contest with my very smart order of the warm chocolate yummy thing.

When we got back to our room, Ray and I found Jodi, Katherine and Dave Jr. again looking like they were enjoying having no parents around.

I have no idea what they were up to, but it looked fun.

After more packing and ordering kids around, it was time to go to bad so we could get up early, drop bags at the airport check-in, and then go see some princesses. The only issue is that we have 6 kids, plus me, and only have an ADR for 5. Will we make it in??

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

Another great installment. It is just great how well all the kids got along together. Sounds like they all looked out for one another. :banana:

[kampfirekim 260]

:banana: This TR is even more fun than a dancing banana.

[mgsmom 9]

Gosh, you guys really did a great job of splitting up, meeting up, and re-splitting up. I'm sure it helped that it looks like you all have a really GREAT group of kiddos! Sounds like everyone had a good time! :dance:

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

The trip does look like fun!!!!

[rdancemom... Pam 113]

I absolutely love the pics... especially the views from BLT... OMG even with my fear of heights, that's a view to die for... :heart:

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

Thanks for sharing with us. It looks like y'all had tons of fun.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

This TR has been a blast - thanks for sharing!!

[lklasing 16]

Hey guys! Thanks for y'all's sweet comments! We really did have a fabulous trip. The kids all got along so well and did great with their newfound freedom, and the adults had a blast, both being with them and when they weren't around.

I was hoping to have another installment up tonight, but that's looking doubtful at this point. Work is driving me crazy. :comeback: Hopefully by tomorrow night I'll have it up.

Thanks again!

[Lil Lisa 53]

Waiting patiently! :popcorn:

[AuburnJen 771]

I'm in! Plus, I am also happy that someone else will be posting a non-Fort TR so that I won't get flamed as bad when I try posting my non-Fort TR later this summer. Great photos so far, looks like a fun group.

Why would you be flamed? No one said that trip reports HAD to be from the Fort. I posted one from Crystal River, and plan to do so again this summer! I just never end up finishing them! :rofl2:

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

Why would you be flamed? No one said that trip reports HAD to be from the Fort. I posted one from Crystal River, and plan to do so again this summer! I just never end up finishing them! :rofl2:

That's true you don't finish them. What's the deal it's not like you have other things occupying your time :rofl2:

[liv luvs disney 2]

Why would you be flamed? No one said that trip reports HAD to be from the Fort. I posted one from Crystal River, and plan to do so again this summer! I just never end up finishing them! :rofl2:

You can always finish it! My first FW TR was never completed and my last FW TR took at least 2 months (possibly 3)to complete. I'm planning on sending this year's pics to Lisa and have her do it all for me.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Leslie-

Wow!

You have done a great job so far with this report.

I was out of town for the past week, and just now had a chance to catch up.

My comments/questions/concerns in no particular order:

1. Put me on the list of folks who love the Rhino faces. We have a thing called the Bear Smile in the TCD gang. It has a story to go with it too. I'll be sure to point out a Bear Smile the next time I post a photo of one.

2. Good job on the pool-hopping. Although, technically, I think BLT guests are allowed to use the Contemporary pool, but Contemporary guests aren't allowed to use the BLT pool. So maybe you weren't really pool hopping.

3. I see a Tampa Bay Ray's hat on Claire! ( Take that Magicbus!)

4. Please don't tell me that no one hopped a boat over to the Fort.

5. Not to be greedy, but where are the fake photopass photos?

6. Thanks for rubbing in the fact that the Contemporary Resort still has hammocks, while the Fort's have been removed.

7. I love the matching T-shirts!

8. You have mad White-Out skills!

9. I love the lock-out story!

10. How about sharing the recipe for Sausage Things?

11. The Dumbo-like ride at AK is called Triceratops Spin.

12. Your photos are great. I agree with those who have said that they really show a family having the time of their lives.

13. Your niece looks just like one of your daughters. If I remember right, you brought some other nieces/nephews on a previous trip. That is a really, really awesome thing for you to do!

I think that covers everything.

Thanks for taking the time to post your trip report.

And extra thanks for posting it here!

I am giving you an A+!

TCD

[anolefan 8]

This report is, as many have already stated, AWESOME!

I love how the photos capture the amount of fun you all had during your trip.

I'm glad you "dared" to post this report, we would have missed out on something very special indeed!

[AuburnJen 771]

Ok doodle, I will finish my last report while I am at the fort!

[doodlebug....Cherie 461]

Ok doodle, I will finish my last report while I am at the fort!

i will believe it when I see it. :rofl2: You're even busier when you're on vacation :rofl2:

[lklasing 16]

Y'all all rock!

I haven't been doing individual replies as it's all I can do to get this report finished before I forget everything that happened on this trip, but I feel like I have to respond to a few of TCD's comments:

1. Yes, please share the Bear Smile with us!

3. Claire is a big TB fan, along with the Braves, Alabama football, and who knows what else.

4. I'm so ashamed...

5. Help me out on this one - what are the fake photopass photos? (I'm sure I'm just being dense, but I have no idea. )

8. I'm awesome at the white dots!

10. Y'all want the recipe? It's the easiest thing ever and goes over like gang busters everytime.

13. Yup, we love having cousins at WDW. So far, we've had 6 different cousins with us on various trips, and will have at least 2 new ones over spring break. :banana:

Thanks for the great grade! More coming up shortly!

[lklasing 16]

Wednesday, June 1

For the first time ever, I actually slept through my watch alarm this morning. Nothing like being good and tired, but in a good way, from such a fun trip. Thankfully, I still managed to wake up in time to get Ray and the girls moving and packing on time.

I looked out the window today and was so happy to see this:

Can you see them? How about this?

It was balloons! They were far off in the distance, but it was very fun getting to see them.

We still had a good bit of groceries left over, but we did a lot better this trip than on most prior trips. We at least ate some of all the different things we bought, even if we didn’t eat all of each one. We certainly didn’t need the loaf of bread and we overbought on Uncrustables and a few other things, but not too bad. (I don’t know why I always care about this part of the trip – whether I spent $25 more on groceries than I should have when we are spending sooooooo much on everything else, but somehow it seems important!)

We got all packed up and said goodbye to our wonderful room. We then dragged our bags down to the airline check-in area, where we had to divide everything into three batches – our bags to check through for the flight, our carry-ons, and then Lynn’s bags on a separate ticket. Sadly, we were losing our wonderful Lynn today, as she was being picked up by her mom around lunchtime to drive her back home. :-[

(Lynn’s mom had actually arrived in town late Monday evening, but had thankfully understood what a fun experience we were all having together. If her mom had come around, Lynn would have definitely moved in with her into her offsite hotel, and that would have been the end of our fun with Lynn and her fun with us. Plus, her mom was tired from the drive and really enjoyed getting to have a complete day off without her husband or kids at her resort, so it really worked out perfectly.)

The big news of today is that it was Katherine’s birthday! So, our girls were in their room by 7:30 to shower her with whatever treasures they had gotten her while in WDW. Ray and I showed up to say hey to Dave (and Ray was going to see if Dave wanted to go to breakfast), but it was evident from the state of the room that Dave had a long packing experience ahead of him, so Ray went downstairs for breakfast at Contempo Cafe (again).

While Ray had a breakfast he enjoyed, he didn't enjoy his nearly as much as we did ours - Cinderella plus princesses, plus 6 kids and me getting to be with them = a good time. Of course, one of the main reasons I love going to CRT for breakfast is making an early ADR and getting in before the park opens for fun pictures with no one around:

Of course, the rhinos couldn’t help themselves on their last day:

As I mentioned in the last installment, we definitely had more people for breakfast than we had reserved on the ADR. When I first made the ADR, we had no idea the Smiths might join us, so I only made it for 5 people. When the Smiths decided to come, I knew all the girls would want to go but of course Dave Jr. didn’t want to be left out, so that made 6. I figured I’d go in with them and try to make sure they all got in, and then of course secretly hoped I’d even make it in.

So, did it work?

Yup! They would have used a table for 6 for our party of 5, so we just squished an extra person on the booth side to get all 7 of us in. We all had a great time, but I think the Smith girls really enjoyed it. Katherine enjoyed it as she got special attention for her birthday, and Michele just seemed to be in heaven, repeating “It’s so pretty!” several times. :heart: So cute.

Dave Jr. was a great sport. Princesses are clearly not his interest (to put it mildly), but he hung in there very well and even posed for pictures every time they came around. It was a good time, and the food was good too!

Katherine and Danielle were in the local production of Beauty and the Beast last year, so they were very excited about getting to meet Belle:

When they brought Katherine a birthday cupcake, she was sweet enough to want to share it with everyone. Even though she didn’t have a knife, she was resourceful with Dave Jr.’s sword:

[lklasing 16]

We made it out of CRT just before rope drop. We were heading to Tomorrowland first, of course planning to hit Space Mountain, so we went out the front of the castle toward the bridge. On our way, we saw the hoardes of people coming from the entrance heading our way. I died laughing when Jodi ran, yelling "Charge!", with her CRT sword pointed in front of her like she was heading into battle (she opted for the sword over the wand), until she met up with the rope drop CMs.

I was going to take a picture of the very empty street heading into Tomorrowland:

when Phil made it very clear that he wanted me to take his picture, even while he was lecturing us about walking, not running, to Space Mountain.

We were walked to Space Mountain, which was sadly shut down for the moment, so we grabbed FPs and then headed to Buzz and the People Mover. (Don't get me started about spending time on the People Mover instead of hitting big attractions when the park first opened, but I've learned to go with the flow on what the kids are wanting to do, since at this point I'm just along for the ride as far as attractions go.) Once we were done with those, we headed back to Space Mountain, where we (including Ray who had joined us by then) walked on since they had just opened it back. The kids managed to ride it at least twice with the FPs we had gotten earlier.

Ray and I only rode it once, so we had a chance to get pictures of our own.

Michele had been hoping to see Chip and Dale this trip (I had really wanted to take a group over to the campfire at FW one night, but we could never make that work), so we were thrilled when we saw these guys!

This guy tried to steal the show:

While we had been waiting in line, we saw something I have never seen in all my trips – Push! :D

It was so much fun! And, even though it wasn’t hard to see how everything worked with Push, the girls were totally clueless and really had fun trying (in vain) to figure it out.

We were heading toward Splash, when we figured out that no one could take another step without a break from the heat with a cool drink.

After break time, Ray went to the Hall of Presidents, which I really regret not doing with him. He loved it. Meanwhile, the rest of us headed toward Splash and BTMRR. We grabbed FPs for BTMRR and then the kids headed into line for Splash while I waited with Dave, who had finally caught up with us by then. It had started really clouding up by then and then sure enough, while they were still stuck in line in the outside part of Splash, the bottom fell out. Dave and I just watched them all looking like dogs without enough sense to come in from the rain just standing there, waiting in a line that wasn’t even moving since they shut down the ride due to lightening.

Finally, they gave up and sought shelter under the train tracks with us. Unfortunately, around then it dawned on me that it was time to get Lynn back to the CR to get picked up by her mom to head back home. :-[ We really didn’t want her to go!

Final shot of all the girls together:

So, our family walked back (through the pouring rain, mind you) to the monorail and then caught up with Lynn’s mom back at the resort.

We hated to say goodbye!

Did I tell you at the beginning of this report how Lynn cried briefly when her mom left us at our house before we went to the airport? Well, after she left us at the CR with her mom, she cried a little again! What a sweetie! We just absolutely love her.

After we said our goodbyes to Lynn, we headed up for lunch at (wait for it...) Contempo Café. I can’t believe we ate there so many times! By now, everyone was exhausted and no one was interested in heading back to the MK except me. So, Ray read, the girls went back to the arcade and then relaxed, while I walked to MK and shopped Main Street for a while. I managed to get rained on at least 3 times before I made it back to the resort. (So much for not riding Splash to avoid getting soaked on travel day.)

Finally, I made it back to the CR, where I hooked up with Ray and the girls and then all the Smiths, and we just waited for our ride.

And then it was over. Somehow you get to WDW, blink, and then you’re waiting on your ride back to the airport. I can’t believe how fast 6 days and 5 nights can fly by. Such a sad moment in every trip.

The trip back was uneventful, which is always a good thing. The towncar was perfect for both families, the plane ride easy, and then we were home.

Up next – final thoughts on a wonderful trip, including a comparison of the BLT and FW!

[AuburnJen 771]

Y'all all rock!

I haven't been doing individual replies as it's all I can do to get this report finished before I forget everything that happened on this trip, but I feel like I have to respond to a few of TCD's comments:

1. Yes, please share the Bear Smile with us!

3. Claire is a big TB fan, along with the Braves, Alabama football, and who knows what else.

4. I'm so ashamed...

5. Help me out on this one - what are the fake photopass photos? (I'm sure I'm just being dense, but I have no idea. )

8. I'm awesome at the white dots!

10. Y'all want the recipe? It's the easiest thing ever and goes over like gang busters everytime.

13. Yup, we love having cousins at WDW. So far, we've had 6 different cousins with us on various trips, and will have at least 2 new ones over spring break. :banana:

Thanks for the great grade! More coming up shortly!

I will have to excuse her for her bad taste in football, but otherwise, great report!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

5. Help me out on this one - what are the fake photopass photos? (I'm sure I'm just being dense, but I have no idea. )

Duh!

I am referring to where your group would make a photopass pose somewhere like on a bus, or somewhere else. I remember several photos from your prior reports where your girls were pretending to hold Tinkerbell in their hands on a bus, or some other such foolishness. Those were some funny photos!

I guess you don't have any of those for us this time.

But the Rhino photos make up for this lapse.

If you forget next time, I'm going to have to subtract points from your grade.

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Oh, Leslie.

Leslie, Leslie, Leslie.

You were doing such a great job with this report. I was so enjoying reading about the awesome trip your families had. I was right there with you. I was feeling it!

And then, you blew it. Big time.

You allowed "her" to creep into your report.

What am I gonna do with you?? :rofl2:

Oh, what the heck. Just kidding. Loving the report!!

[GOBA Mom Lynn 18]

Such a great trip and trip report! It' definitely a sad time when it's time to leave....

Love how you got so many great group photos. Were they taken with your camera, or are they photopass photos? We've never done photopass and always wonder if it's worth it or not. If those are photopass, then I'd have to seriously consider paying for photopass....

[kampfirekim 260]

Your hubby's "rhino" picture cracked me up big time! :rofl2: Leslie, you did such a great job capturing the fun loving nature of your family..... I absolutely loved every minute. :heart: