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[Masamune]

:shock: I've been so busy since getting back, I can't believe I'm only now getting round to typing up a trip report. I was originally going to do a day by day one, but since that would probably take me forever to type up, I'm going to do it in sections. This will make it much easier for me to say everything I want to say! I hope you like it!

Pictures will be added once they've been sent off and then recieved.

Getting There

I had really bad anxiety on the morning of our flight, as I always do whenever I'm going on holiday. By the time we actually got through check-in though, there wasn't much time left to worry as we had a long way to go to get to our gate. We had never been to a gate like this one before, where you had to go downstairs to get to it and then get a bus to the plane.

When we got on the plane, we realised something really sucky; me and my mum had not been seated together, even though my mum had asked for it and the check-in lady had said it was fine. Mum's seat was on the row in front of mine, which was just ridiculous.

I was preparing myself for an extremely long and boring flight, whilst my mum took action and went to ask the stewards about getting us moved. Just as the seatbelt sign came on and we had to face the reality of what had happened, a steward came to us and said there was two empty seats together near the front. Yay for Craig the steward! So in the end, we were sat together. Not only that, we were on seats that were right in front of the cabin crew area, meaning no one was sat behind us and we could lean our seats back.

On the way there I watched Beowulf and Alvin and the Chipmunks, as well as Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children on my PSP. This really made the time fly by, along with chatting excitedly about WDW with my mum. The in-flight food was pretty OK. :lol: I've never been on a flight where the food has been great.

When we arrived at Orlando (International) Airport, it took us a while to figure out where we were supposed to go after we had claimed our baggage. We had the choice of just getting it sent straight to the hotel, but we decided we would rather have peace of mind and keep it with us. When we finally reached the Disney Express desk, the excitement really kicked in. We were soon directed towards a small que, and only ended up waiting 5 minutes for our coach to arrive.

The video they played on the coach was brilliant. It showed a bunch of Disney characters leaving the airport to get on the buses to their hotels, then for each step in the guide, they used different characters. EG, in the family section, they showed Donald, Daisy, Scrooge, Hewy, Dewy and Louie checking in. It was really awesome, and it totally brought all my excitement to a head.

When we got to the hotel (Disney's All Star Movies Resort), I dealt with the bags while mum went to check in. Originally we weren't staying in the Fantasia building, but after my mum told them it was my birthday during our stay, we got moved to it because Fantasia is one of my fave Disney films. I was so chuffed!

The room was really gorgeous. It was very clean, and I loved how it was decorated. It was also bigger than what we thought it would be. Outside our window, we had a pretty view of some trees, which was actually really nice because there's a lot of beautiful wild birds flying around WDW (the best one we saw was a stunning red Cardinal).

Neither of us couldn't have been happier. We were finally there, the hotel was awesome and we were going to be visiting the Magic Kingdom park the next day.

And that's all for now! Next, I'll most likely do a report on the Magic Kingdom!

[davewasbaloo]

Glad you had a good time. You made the right choice taking your baggage with you, no doubt.

[Masamune]

I think so. It's always better to be safe than sorry! We both felt that it was safer to keep our bags with us than letting them join the rest of the bags getting transported to the hotels.

[Owain]

Originally we weren't staying in the Fantasia building, but after my mum told them it was my birthday during our stay, we got moved to it because Fantasia is one of my fave Disney films. I was so chuffed!

This was the complete opposite to me, we were put in the fantasia hotel but i wanted to stey in my favourite film hotel, to story  
Hope you had a great time masamune and cant wait to read the rest of your report !  

[davewasbaloo]

I think so. It's always better to be safe than sorry! We both felt that it was safer to keep our bags with us than letting them join the rest of the bags getting transported to the hotels.

Yep, with ME, we let them take our luggage as we packed PJs for the kids in our hand luggage. We arrived at about 5pm, but our luggage did not get to our room until 1am.  Being jetlagged (as you well know) and waiting so long for the luggage, was not fun.

If they told us it would be longer than 4 hours, we would have gone to bed and got it the next morning.

[Masamune]

@ Owain - I think Toy Story would've been my 3rd choice after the two different Fantasia buildings and the 101 Dalmatian building. :lol: As long as I wasn't put in the Herbie building (being reminded of Lindsay Lohan is not fun), I would've been happy. ^^ It's nice that they were willing to move us to the building I wanted.

@ Dave - :shock: Eek, that would've drove me and my mum mad. We read somewhere (probably in the Disney Express leaflet) that the luggage could take a while to arrive at the hotel, so I'm really glad that we just kept it with us.

[Nala_84]

These first impressions really made me curious !

I'm already looking forward to hearing more of your report, and to seeing the pics of course !

[Javey74]

The long awaited report... :lol: Well the start of it anyway  

Nice start though, you were very lucky on the plane, other wise you would have been well and truly apart for about 9 hours  

It was nice of the Hotel to move you aswell, they seem really friendly.  

I await your continuation...  :wink:

[The Butlin Boy]

Great start to the report Mas, I cannot wait for the rest

[Masamune]

I'm not in work until 5pm tomorrow, so I should hopefully be able to type up some of my Magic Kingdom report. I say 'some of', because I know I'll end up typing up tonnes. There was a whole bunch of highlights, brilliant attractions and magical moments.

[Masamune]

Good news everyone, I have a few pictures to show! At Walt Disney World, they have this system called Photopass. Basically, it's a free pass that allows you to get pictures taken by professional Disney photographers. When your holiday is over, you can take the pass home and view/buy your best pics! You can also share previews of them, which is what I'm going to be doing with you guys! On days when I don't have time to post a proper update, I'll post once of these lovely pictures.

Fortunatly, I do have time to post an update today, but you're getting a pic anyway.



This picture of me and Stitch was taken outside Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, a rather strange attraction that talks about progress (duh). It was a bit weird, but enjoyable regardless.

Stitch was absolutely flippin' adorable. When it was my turn, he grabbed hold of my Cheshire Cat bag and started looking through it, until the Cast Member told him to stop being naughty. He then kissed me on the cheek (he had to stand on his tip-toes to achieve this) and was then ready to pose for pictures. I really love this picture, and I love Stitch more than ever now!

The Magic Kingdom - Part 1

The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World is a truely magical place. We ended up spending two full days there, as well as a few half days, making it the park we visited the most. There's just SO much to do there! There's many brilliant attractions, tonnes of characters to meet and greet and magic around every corner.

On our first visit there, we arrived before the park had opened. They had an opening ceremony on the balcony over-looking where everyone had gathered waiting to go in. Mickey and friends were there, as well as other characters like Mary Poppins and Stitch. It was really lovely, and it was the first time (of many) that I was easily as excited as any child there. Counting down with Mickey and everyone else was really fun.

When we got into the park on that first day, there were already characters out. Chip and Dale, Clarabelle and Horace (aww!), Pluto, Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio. I immediatly noticed that there were ques for the characters, organised by cast members. I was really shocked by this, having gotten used to the 'every man for himself' attitude that is rampant at Disneyland Resort Paris.

Whilst I considered which character to go and meet first, one of the very awesome Main Street cars pulled up. We had been given badges at our hotel that said "1st Visit!" on them, which ended up getting us loads of special attention. The driver asked if we would like to take a ride to the castle, which we decided to do.

The castle is amaaaazing. I didn't think I would like it more than the Sleeping Beauty's castle, but I think I did. The best word I can use to describe it is epic. It's just incredible.

:lol: Since I can't remember from this point in what order we did things, I'm just going to list some of my fave rides and attractions. I'll also do a section on all the characters I met in the Magic Kingdom.

Rides and Attractions

The Enchanted Tiki Room - Under New Management - This show just kicked ass. It involved a huge bunch of animatronic birds, all singing these really catchy songs, some of which I actually knew! The new management were Iago and Zazu (or Zero, which is what Iago first thought Zazu was called). It was just brilliant how it all worked, and the climax with all the pretty white female birds was just awesome. I would've happily seen this show more than once, because I really enjoyed it.

Splash Mountain - :mrgreen: Now I know why we need one of these at DLRP. Splash Mountain wasn't just a ride, it was an experience. I got on it thinking that it would just go up the big hill and then down again, but I was so wrong. It was a full ride, telling the story of Brer Rabbit and featuring animatronics much like you see in the Snow White and Pinocchio rides at DLRP. If it didn't have that giant drop at the end, it would be the kind of thing my mum (who hates roller coasters but loves things like Peter Pan's Flight) would love. And I didn't get too soaked, which was a good thing because I actually ended up going on that ride on the one and only day that it rained. :roll:

:lol: The on-ride photo of me on this was so funny. I was sat on the back row, and was the only one with my arms up. I looked like a maniac! Unfortunatly I couldn't buy it because I had left my bag (with my money in it) with my mum, who was waiting a fair distance away from the ride's exit. I'm sure you can all picture me looking like a maniac on Splash Mountain though.

The Haunted Mansion - :shock: HUH? WHAT? Masa has The Haunted Mansion listed as one of her fave rides? :x She's an imposter!

:lol: That's what some of you may be thinking, considering I've always said that I don't like The Phantom Manor at DLRP. Well, this isn't The Phantom Manor, and it's awesome! This ride is really different to TPM in that it seemed much longer, the animatronics seemed better and it just generally had a better feel to it. Also, it really enhances the ride when the narrator is speaking a language you understand. I seriously enjoyed this ride, to a point where I started looking for Haunted Mansion pins before the end of our trip.

Tomorrowland Transit Authority - This ride is absolutely fascinating. It's a monorail that takes you all around Tomorrowland, even taking you behind the scenes of some of the rides and one of the shops. It looked boring from below, so we only ended up going on it just so we could rest our feet, but it turned out to be one of our fave rides. We got to see Space Mountain from the inside, where we could see the neon carriages whizzing around in the dark. We also got to see the Buzz Lightyear ride from above. It was just so unusual and enjoyable. We ended up doing it about 3 times, because there was never a large que for it.

And now I need breakfast, so I'll finish up my fave rides/attractions later on, then decide what to type up next (most likely Magic Kingdom characters, and magical moments that I experienced). I spent half of my birthday in the Magic Kingdom as well, but I'll most likely just do a full section about my birthday at some point.

I hope you're all enjoying this so far!

[davewasbaloo]

If you like the MK, I suspect you would LOVE Disneyland - they have even more attractions than the MK, more entertainment, characters, and fireworks.

[Masamune]

I've actually been to Disneyland California, but it was a good few years ago so I don't really remember it. I think I most likely will have prefered WDW.

[Masamune]

Another cute Stitch pic.

[Javey74]

I hope you're all enjoying this so far!

I'm enjoying it very much  /  

Actually... that photo with you and Stitch is the first photo I've seen with you on it, come to think of it.  :wink:

Looking forward to the rest of your report as it comes.  :mrgreen: