The Anderson’s Go to Disney… the Happiest (and Rainiest) Place on Earth

Everyone says that Disney is the happiest place on Earth. After going for the first time in my life, I can certainly see how you could make the arguement for it. I don’t think I ever really missed the fact that we didn’t go to Disney as a kid, but there’s no doubt that I was looking forward to it myself.

For those of you that know Korey, when she gets an idea in her head that we need to do something, it’s usually just a matter of time before that becomes a reality. So when she started asking what I “thought” about going, I might as well bought a set of Mickey ears. But I love that about her, and I’m blessed to say she has a lot of great ideas for our family. She also did all the research on what to do, how long we were going for, flights etc.

We ended up settling on essentially a long weekend at Disneyworld. We found cheap direct flights on Allegiant, and accepted a gracious invitation from some friends to stay with them since they lived really close to the parks. It was a whirlwind of a trip though, since we were going to be gone less than 72 hours.

We started our adventure on a Friday afternoon, and sought off for the Austin South Terminal. Flying Allegiant isn’t glorious, but it does get you from A to B. We got to the airport with enough time to check the car seats, but not much else after the line to do so. We usually opt out of picking seats which meant that this time we didn’t all sit together, but the kids and Korey had a row to themselves so it still worked out.

The flight itself was uneventful until it came time for landing. I had a window seat, so I started to watch as we began our descent — only for us to pull up not long after. We ended up circling the airport twice as they went through some safety checks on something or another. I guess that’s built into the cost of the flight. One interesting thing that the loop around really allowed me to see were all the screened in porches on nearly all the houses in the area.

The other slightly non-standard piece was that they only fly into Stanford Beach airport instead of the main Orlando airport. That meant that it was a little over an hour drive after we landed to get to Gary and Joe Anna’s house, but it went by pretty quickly once we got going. Our priceline rental worked out great since we could go wherever we needed to throughout the weekend — and in this case — it was picking up Pei Wei for everyone on the way to the house.

When we got to the door and knocked, you could just hear little girls screaming on the other side, “They’re here! They’re here!” And granted even though it was from the kids, it was a really great feeling to know that we weren’t barging in, but truly were being welcomed. It had been a few years since we’d see the Haydon’s, but they are the type of friends that you really can just pick up right where you left off.

The first night, the adults all ate dinner together, and just caught up on what was new in everyone’s life, and we also got some extremely useful inside information about how to make the most out of a visit to the parks. Gary and I also got a chance to experience their screened in patio a bit over a couple of Yeunglings. We never quite made it into the pool since it started raining, but we still had fun. The four kids took no time in getting to hang out a bit as well.

We hung out for awhile, but also knew it was going to be an early morning, so we didn’t make it a super late night, and headed up to the bonus room for a good night’s rest.

Morning came way to quickly, but we wanted to get to the Magic Kingdom as soon as it opened. I grabbed some quick breakfast at McDonald’s for everyone, and soon after that we were off to, and soon at the park.

We certainly weren’t the very first ones to get there, but we did do a good job at being there pretty soon after opening. We were able to get a few pictures with the famous castle in the background without loads of other people being in them. The other great part about getting there early was the fact that there were very few lines we were walking to our first reserved ride, we saw that they was no wait at the Haunted Mansion, and figured we’d give that a try. Poor Carlyn was not a fan and despite it not being very spooky, she just started wailing. It’s safe to say we didn’t go back to that one.

We then set off to do some of the other rides we pre-booked through FastPass like Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh. We also saw that there was virtually no wait at “It’s a Small World,” the carousel, the Little Mermaid ride, and meeting Ariel, so we went on all of those. Carlyn loved both of those and we’d end up going back to both later in the day.

Our last fast pass was for Goofy’s Barnstormer roller coaster.. which was a first for Carlyn. Crosby’s been on it a bunch of times at Sea World, and loves them. Everyone did great and wanted to do it again, but now the lines were building and it would have taken 30 minutes to wait to ride it again. It was also getting pretty hot, and standing in the sun didn’t sound good to anyone.

Instead, we went to go visit with some more characters starting with Minnie and Daisy. The kids both loved it so much, that we decided to go right back to it and visit Donald, and Goofy this time. It was really cute to see them giving them hugs and interacting with them. As we were waiting in the relatively short line to meet them, that gave me some time to start llining up our next FastPasses using the tips Gary gave us. I kept getting new reservations (and was able to do so throughout the day) to make sure we virtually never had to wait in line. We rode Dumbo’s elephants, and then went over to the other side of the park.

We rode Alladin’s flying carpets, and the kids loved the spitting camels which at this point in the day started to feel pretty good. We then went on one of my favorite things all day which turned out to be the Jungle Safari. The ride itself was just a big boat that went down a river, but our skipper (Captain Eugene) was hilarious. He had puns, music lyrics, funny one-liners, and stories mixed in about his ex-girlfriend and being alone. A lot were cheesy, but that didn’t make the whole bit any less funny.

After that we walked through the treehouse Crosby had been begging to go on — which was pretty neat. By that time the natives were getting hungry, so we again took advantage of the app to order lunch and skip even more lines. The meals were actually not ridiculously overpriced, and the kids actually ate them — which was a nice surprise. While we were at lunch, I lined up our next fast pass for the Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor.

When we made it over there for it, it started to sprinkle a bit which was good timing to do something inside (and park the stroller out of the rain). I was really impressed with the show itself. The comedian was really funny and the tie ins with the actual audience were really good. Carlyn on the other hand was freaking out a bit. I’m not sure if it was the fact that it was loud or if she was scared by the monsters but she was not happy.

When the show wrapped up, we went to go back outside and it was absolutely pouring. We fortunately had the cheap plastic ponchos that Korey bought in the backpack with us, but it was still coming down like crazy. As that was happening, I looked for our next Fast Pass and found some Buzz Lightyear rides that popped up as available so we skirted the line yet again and basically walked right in. I thought this one was pretty fun, and Crosby certainly enjoyed shooting all the targets as we went through.

I must say that I was impressed with the setup of so many of the rides that allow the continuous flow of people to be on them. I can’t imagine how bad the waits would be if they all had to completely stop every time you went through them.

After Buzz, it was still pouring down rain, so we knew we wanted to do some more inside rides. Carlyn really liked both It’s a Small World and the Little Mermaid rides, so rode both of those again by swooping up some more Fast Passes. It was also about that point that I found some passes for Splash mountain. Crosby didn’t seem to care that it was raining with our oversized ponchos on, and so we walked over there — only to find out that it had just been closed for lightning. That was definitely a bummer, but what that did allow us to do was to use those same fast passes somewhere else.

We hadn’t yet gone on Space Mountain, so we said let’s give that a try. We hiked all the way back to the other side of the park, and decided to go in. This was one of the rides that Crosby was going to be really close on height for, but we decided to give it a go. At the beginning, they said it was going to be close, but they let us on through. Then as we got to the very top, they did another height check. Crosby was standing really tall and had ever so slightly raised up on his toes and they let him on through. We hopped on the ride and he loved it!

By this time, Carlyn had fallen asleep, so Korey was just hanging out with her outside under some cover to stay out of the rain. We swapped and the two of them went back in to use the rider swap. Unfortunately, Crosby was not as lucky the second time, and they came out without being able to ride the ride. Apparently he was really exaggerating the tippy toes this time and they caught him.

We debated about what we were going to do next, and Carlyn this time picked the Pirates ride. I scored yet another set of Fast Passes so we again didn’t need to wait. She loved the singing parts and was really cute copying, “Yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me!”

Splash mountain had since opened, but this time Korey and Crosby went first while Carlyn and I hung out under cover again. The rain had finally slowed a bit, but it was still sprinkling. About half an hour later, they came back and we did a kid swap, so that Crosby and I could ride Splash Mountain again. He was hilarious in telling me all about how the ride was going to work, and when the big drop was coming. I was expecting just a short ride with a big drop, but was again impressed by the various dips and turns before the big drop.

There were only a few rides left that we hadn’t gone to yet (outside of two of the big ones Mine Train and one of the other rollercoasters), so we wanted to check those off the list. We of course had to ride the teacups, because it wouldn’t be a trip to Disney without spinning teacups. We also were able to do the go cart like ride which Crosby got a big charge out of. One of the last things we did was ride on the people mover. It was surprisingly slammed earlier when the rain started, but we could walk right on later in the day. We used that to zip around the park and catch a bit of a rainbow and a nice sunset over the castle.

It had finally cleared up after nearly eight hours of rain. That was very welcomed though since it was about time for the fireworks show. We walked over there about 30 minutes in advance to get a good spot and wait for things to start. Crosby also insisted on getting some over priced popcorn, but what the heck, we were on vacation.

The fireworks show itself was good, but the laser light show / massive projectors that drastically changed how the castle looked were amazing. It was really cool to see how they integrated the whole show together with the music and visuals. I loved when they had one of the princesses shoot an arrow that then turned into a firework coming out the side of the castle. Needless to say, we were all impressed.

There was one last surprise I had up my sleeve at the end of the day though. I worked my Fast Pass magic one last time and scored a set to go see the main man, none other than Mr. Mickey Mouse. We didn’t tell the kids who were going to see, but once they figured it out, they were literally hopping up and down with excitement which probably would have made the trip in and of itself. When it was our turn, we got our hugs and pictures and then had to say goodbye.

We made our way back to the car, and decided to grab some pizzas to eat as a late dinner on the way home. The kids didn’t last long before crashing which was totally understandable given the full day and the fact that it was almost 10 o’clock.

When we got back, we got a chance to hang out more with Gary and Joe Anna which was again a lot of fun. We told them about our adventures and successes, and then got some more great insight about what to do the next day. We had originally planned on doing Magic Kingdom again, but that was before we knew how much we were going to be able to squeeze into a single day. After settling on Epcot and lining up a few Fast Passes, we too were exhausted and hit the hay ourselves.

 

Rainy Disney Round 2

For our second day at Disney (first day recap here), the weatherman was unfortunately right for once and we woke up to more rain. We had debated between going back to the Magic Kingdom or venturing to somewhere new like Animal Kingdom or Epcot. Looking back, we definitely made the right choice to go to Epcot. Some people would say that it’s not as friendly to younger kids, but I personally thought it worked out great. There were a few rides that Carlyn couldn’t ride, but it was definitely still the right decision.

We didn’t get to the park quite as early as the previous day, but were still parked and inside about 25 minutes after the park opened. Then we were at it with our Fast Passes again, and were able to score three passes for one of the harder ones to get on Soarin’. Carlyn was too small for this one, so Crosby and I went on first. It was a really cool experience. Imagine a huge movie screen in front of you and being suspended and moved up and down as you glide through the air on a hang glider with some 4D effects to go along with it. You see the Great Wall, the Eiffel Tower along with many other wonders of the world.

We also only needed to use two of the three FastPasses since I could get a Rider Swap for Korey. Crosby immediately wanted to go on it again, so the two of them went right back on it. As we were waiting, I took Carlyn to go on the Living with the Land ride on a small boat which was pretty neat as well. The exhibit parts were ok, but not amazing, but the trip through the actual greenhouse was really cool. They had all sorts of odd planting arrangements. Some of them were designed to conserve water, others were vertical plantings, others still were interesting ways to increase the output of a single plant. The tomato trees are something that stick out in my mind as being pretty interesting. They also had some aqua-culture or something like that where, the water from a large fish tank was cycled through the plants and then drained back into the fish tanks. Carlyn really liked the greenhouse part as well.

Next we went over to see the Crush interactive exhibit from Finding Nemo. This was similar to the setup to Monster’s Inc where a live comedian would tell jokes and interact with the audience — except this was a much more intimate setting. This guy was pretty funny as well. Lots of dudes, and awesome, and talking about people’s shells. Carlyn was again skeptical about this one, but Crosby seemed to really enjoy it.

After that we spent some time in the aquirium itself in Nemo-land. Both kids loved looking around at the tanks, but probably enjoyed the little sharkplayground thing inside even more. I can’t say that I blame them though. I mean, who wouldn’t want to take a picture from inside the shark’s mouth?

After that we sort of snuck through the Fast Pass line with only two valid ones, but we managed to make it on the Nemo ride. This one was similar to the other continuous slow rides that we went on the day prior at the Magic Kingdom. This one was a lot more modern given that Nemo is a newer movie. There were lots of screens built into the ride as opposed to just having simple motorized actors. Regardless of that, it was still fun.

We then got another chance to see the main man, Mickey Mouse. We had Fast Passes (of course) so the wait was again minimal. They weren’t quite as excited the second time around, but they both definitely liked seeing Mickey.

It had been raining most of the morning, but it started letting up about that time. We then went over to Mission Space. I don’t quite remember why, but I went first and did the more aggressive version of it. I can’t quite remember all the details, but for some reason Korey then went by herself as I watched the kids. She was not a big fan of the confined space and spinning, so when it was time for Crosby to start going, we decided to split up.

I also only had one Fast Pass for Frozen which was the big driver, so Crosby and I hung out at mission space for a couple of back-to-back rides while the girls went to the Frozen ride. When we wrapped those two things up, we caught up with Gary and Joe Anna and their kiddos.

They were gracious enough to do a swap with us so that I could take the kids on Frozen again. Carlyn was super excited to go on it again, but when the big snow monster came out, she was literally shaking and squeezing the heck out of my leg. Two other things stand out about the Frozen ride: the fact that all the people that worked there were actually from Norway and that it was really cool for the boat to turn around and go backwards down the mini waterfall.

After that, the three of us trekked across the park to check out some of the things in one of the areas we hadn’t been to yet. We started off with the science ride that talked about all of your senses. All four kids then spent some time running around the exploratory play area at the end of that when the main ride finished. There were musical exhibits, light exhibits, and a few other things they enjoyed doing. They were all really cute together.

We then checked out a 3D show of several different shorts. Even the waiting area was pretty interesting. They were showing behind the scenes footage of some of the Pixar studios including how they came up with their now-famous lamp. The shorts inside the theater were pretty entertaining as well.

The first short showed the interaction of some old Mickey characters that then burst through the old screen and were running around on a virtual stage. The second short was about a little bird on a beach who learned how to hunt little crabs by ducking under the water from a friend. Then the last was about a man, his dog, and the progression of their newfound relationship. All three were funny and cute.

Later in the day we started to make our way through the remaining rides that we hadn’t yet been to (and several others that we had). The eight of us all went back over and rode the living with the land together. Then I was able to get another Fast Pass which turned into a ride for each of us and Crosby twice to Soaring which worked out well — as we traded off watching Carlyn as we ate dinner. We then hit the second to last ride in the Epcot ball itself. While the ride is a bit dated, it was really interesting to see how the progression of knowledge grew over time from no communication, to spoken language, written language, the printing press, all the way up through semi-modern tech. On the other hand, the speed of change is also alarming. Where will we be 50 years from now? I hope to be able to find out.

It was about that time that a Fast Pass popped up for Fast Track — one of the last rides that we hadn’t ridden. It had been closed off and on most of the day because of the rain, but I saw that they opened it up. After the issues with Space Mountain the day before, I suggested that Korey go first. That left time for me and the kids to go over and ride the little boat ride in Mexico. That one was cute, but nothing crazy. It was funny to chase Donald around various sites around the virtual country and the kids both enjoyed it.

We started walking back to meet Korey so that Crosby and I could use the rider swap to ride on it. I could tell that the weather was about to turn again, so we really hustled over to the entrance only to find out that they had just closed the ride again. Needless to say, Crosby was really upset not being able to go. The workers kept saying that they weren’t sure when or if it would open, and I certainly had my doubts given that it was still raining with more coming that way on the radar. They also stated that it not only needed to stop raining, but that the track also needed to dry. I kept trying to tell Crosby that we should go to another ride so we could at least do something.

But my stubborn little man persisted for nearly 45 minutes. At that point, I finally convinced him to go back to Mission Space so we could at least do something. There was no wait, and so we did walk right up and get to ride one last time. Korey and Carlyn had come over to meet us after going to see Elsa, so that we could all watch the fireworks together. It was 8:59 and we came out and I saw it. The were letting in people to Fast Track!

I grabbed Crosby out of the stroller and took off running! It wasn’t too far, but we made it to the back of the line just as they were letting in the last group that had been waiting. I’m guessing that there were about 50 people total that made it in, and we were two of them. They definitely didn’t need to since it was closing time, but I guess they felt sorry for everyone. Regardless of any of that, I’ll take it!

They had us all design our cars in pairs (which we would have done in any case), and shortly after that we were ushered into the racing cars. We buckled on up and then zoomed around the track — supposedly at speeds of up to 60 miles an hour. We didn’t have much time to look at the scores after the fact, but of the dozen or so we did see, ours was the fastest. And really to Crosby’s credit, he did make the vast majority of the design decisions.

By the time we made it out, the fireworks were well over, but neither of us cared. We met back up with the girls and headed back to the find the rental. That proved to be a bit harder than it should have, but we did find it after a little of extra walking. After another long day, the kids were exhausted! I don’t think they made it out of the parking lot before they were both asleep.

When we got back to the Haydon’s, we took advantage of the last little time that we had to spend together and shared some stories from the day as well as some last minute catching up. We were so blessed to be able to stay, catch up with, and learn all the trips from the experts. We also polished off the rest of our leftover pizza, before knowing that it was time for us to bed… because we had an eaaaaarly flight back home.

We left the following morning with plenty of time, but were again stuck without Pre-Check. The check in line was really long so we opted to just fight with carrying the stroller and car seats through regular security to make sure we caught our flight. It was definitely a hassle to do so, but it paid off a bit on the other side since all our bags were just sitting there as we got off the plane in Austin.

It was a crazy 72 hours, but we certainly made the most of it! Looking back, there’s no doubt that it was worth whatever it cost. The kids — both young and old — definitely had a great time. And while we can always go back again in the future, the kids will never be like they are now. So, I’ll finish with, “Well done Korey!” Here’s to another successful (albeit random decision) vacation!

What is your best Disney tip? Using the Fast Pass app to the fullest extent was definitely ours. Let me know @TalkToErik.