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[lovedonaldduck]

There will either be a Pop update later tonight or in the morning.

I am stressing about our September trip and plans and was hoping someone could help. Is the Princess Breakfast in Norway a family style/buffet combo? I'm thinking, from what I've read, that there is a cold buffet with some of the more exotic/Norwegian foods and that hot American style breakfast food is served family style. Is that accurate?

We did a breakfast at Tusker House a few months ago, and for some reason a character buffet isn't working so well for us right now. Charlotte isn't particularly into meeting the characters, although she's not the least bit scared of them. But, she doesn't have a very long attention span for dining out so, right now, a buffet is stressful. I felt like I barely had time to eat and certainly no time to relax and I don't want to repeat that experience, especially not at Princess prices. If it's a family style combo, I think that will work better until she's a little older.

If anyone has been, please let me know how it works and your thoughts on the experience. Thanks!

 

[Poolrat]

There will either be a Pop update later tonight or in the morning.

I am stressing about our September trip and plans and was hoping someone could help. Is the Princess Breakfast in Norway a family style/buffet combo? I'm thinking, from what I've read, that there is a cold buffet with some of the more exotic/Norwegian foods and that hot American style breakfast food is served family style. Is that accurate?

We did a breakfast at Tusker House a few months ago, and for some reason a character buffet isn't working so well for us right now. Charlotte isn't particularly into meeting the characters, although she's not the least bit scared of them. But, she doesn't have a very long attention span for dining out so, right now, a buffet is stressful. I felt like I barely had time to eat and certainly no time to relax and I don't want to repeat that experience, especially not at Princess prices. If it's a family style combo, I think that will work better until she's a little older.

If anyone has been, please let me know how it works and your thoughts on the experience. Thanks!

You are correct- Norway is a family style hot brought to the table and the cold items are in the buffet. There is a Princess parade during breakfast where they all gather the kids and parade around.

Servers were attentive and a picture with Belle is when you enter. Other Princess come around to the tables.

 

[LookinUp]

We haven't done Akershus, but I have a thought. Maybe you could do (late?) lunch with just Peyton while Daddy takes Charlotte back to the resort for her nap. Next time, you could switch, so you get to put your feet up and watch ESPN for a coupla hours. OK, so it's not ideal, with the family split up, but maybe a good compromise while Charlotte still needs a nap and gets antsy at buffets. It could give both your princesses what they need.

Just my two cents. Good luck deciding!

 

[lovedonaldduck]

You are correct- Norway is a family style hot brought to the table and the cold items are in the buffet. There is a Princess parade during breakfast where they all gather the kids and parade around.

Servers were attentive and a picture with Belle is when you enter. Other Princess come around to the tables.

Thanks! I'm thinking this may work for us. I can stay with Charlotte and feed her the hot food and I can just have everyone bring me my requests from the cold buffet Charlotte is several months older now, so maybe it will go better than I expect.

We haven't done Akershus, but I have a thought. Maybe you could do (late?) lunch with just Peyton while Daddy takes Charlotte back to the resort for her nap. Next time, you could switch, so you get to put your feet up and watch ESPN for a coupla hours. OK, so it's not ideal, with the family split up, but maybe a good compromise while Charlotte still needs a nap and gets antsy at buffets. It could give both your princesses what they need.

Just my two cents. Good luck deciding!

Thanks for the suggestion. I am definitely going to keep my options open. My parents will be with us on this trip, so we could possibly make it a girls meal for the big girls and the boys can take Charlotte for a nap or for some other fun. We are okay with splitting up for rides and stuff - it's just part of having 2 so far apart in age - but we haven't really split up for meals yet. It's something to consider though.

Selfishly, I wish Peyton could see the wisdom in waiting a year of two to do the Princess meal so we could all enjoy it more - I hate to spend that much money for a less than ideal experience. DH is probably going to have to weigh in on this one, I'm so indecisive.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

Although we did go directly to the pool and spent a good deal of time there, I have zero pool pictures. We started off with drinks from the pool bar, found chairs together (quite a feat in August in the middle of the afternoon). Charlotte and I made several trips back and forth between the kiddie pool and the big pool. Peyton participated in some of the pool party activities. Charlotte decided she had enough swimming so we found a table near the kiddie pool in the shade and had a little snack before rounding up Peyton and Daddy and heading back to the room.

When we got back to the room, the Pack n Play and working refrigerator had been delivered. Of course, we got a Pack n Play where one of the sides wouldn’t latch so we had to request another one. DH was a little aggravated that instead of switching out the fridges, they just put the second one on the floor next to the table. With the four of us, the stroller, the Pack n Play, and the fridge we were a little bit cramped. I was thinking we might need to wait a few years before staying at another value resort – until we are rid of the Pack n Play and/or the stroller so it doesn’t feel so cramped. DH said he’d be willing to give Pop another try sooner – he feels like the fridge on the floor is what did it for him.

Once we got a fully functional Pack n Play and got it set up, Charlotte decided to give it a try.









She's not at all spoiled, I line the bottom of the Pack n Play with all the spare pillows in the room and cover those with the sheet. That way she doesn't have to sleep on what amounts to a piece of foam on top of a piece of cardboard

We decided to head over to Art of Animation for some dinner. Here are some pictures along the way.















Charlotte loves that Donald Duck. She has a matching Goofy who is at school with her today. We have a Disney outlet in St. Augustine where I found them for $10 each! The only way to buy Disney plush. They have Mickey and Minnie too but I'm holding out because we do not need another stuffed animal at our house. The outlet is awesome, it is where I do most of my Disney shopping, unless I hit a good sale at the Disney Store.





Notice Peyton's pink Magic Band. I am so excited to use Fastpass+ on our upcoming trip! Since we didn't head to the parks on our August trip, all we were able to use them for was to get into the room and charge stuff at the food court and the gift shop.

We really enjoyed the food at Art of Animation – I had Mongolian Beef, DH had a salad, Peyton devoured a chicken parmesan, and Charlotte had some pizza. I was very impressed with my dinner and Peyton was with hers. I think for DH and Charlotte it was pretty standard. I’d loved the variety they offered and the fact that they had stuff you don’t usually see at Disney food courts.

After dinner we walked around AoA – I’ll have those pictures next time. 

 

[MotherandDaughter]

Great update!
We went to St. Augustine this past summer and went to the Disney Outlets.
I agree, those Disney outlets have amazing prices.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

We are so spoiled with the outlet in St. Augustine (it's probably about 30 minutes from our house). The only problem is that it's hit or miss. Sometimes they have great stuff at great prices and sometimes they have nothing. It has totally changed my perspective on Disney shirts - I have a super hard time paying more than $15 for something for an adult and $8 is pretty much the max for the girls.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

Advice please - I am trying to finalize plans for our upcoming trip and I'm wondering which would be better crowd wise - rope drop or mid afternoon to close at MK for a MNSSHP day? We're not going to the party, so we'll either get there at open and stay through lunch or get there around 3 and stay until the park "closes" at 7. Any advice?

Other things you might want to know - If we opt for rope drop, this will be our second RD at MK. To complicate matters further, we are using Fastpass+ so we can ensure that we can do at least 4 rides with FP regardless of our arrival time.

All thoughts are appreciated. I feel like once I get this day worked out the rest of the week will fall in place.

Thanks for your help.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

i just came up with a 3rd option - maybe arrive mid afternoon and stay til around 5.

I'm thinking 9-1, 1-5, or 3-7

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm joining! I love the idea of Disney every month.

I would definitely suggest going to MK from 9-1. I am an advocate of early morning, because you will get the most done in a short period of time. Less crowds.

 

[caralyn817]

Found you from MeMom's. We live in Florida to about 3 hours away. We don't get to go every month, but we try to go every few months. Our passes expire this weekend, but won't be going this weekend. Instead, we are going to the Vero Beach Resort. We'll be back in March, which is a long haul for us. I have a trip booked for October, but we may not be able to go due to trainings for work.

 

[MeMom]

I am a wannabe DVCer, too. Maybe someday I will have a small batch of points.

Lovin' the Pop and AoA pictures. Wish I was close enough to slip over for a visit on a whim.

Just curious as to how you close to WDW people feel about the new mug stuff. Will you be purchasing 1-2 day mugs very often for your quick trips, or will you just go with paper cups? I really don't drink soda unless I am in WDW, so it's a vacation treat for me. I'm looking forward to a new color, at least, but I wish they would have changed the design. I'd be better off to just forget it all and continue drinking all water like I do at home, though, so maybe they did me a favor by not changing the design and making it less tempting to buy one.

Good luck to all for a wonderful school year!

I think the majority are going with 9-1 for your Magic Kingdom time slot.

Cara, have fun at Vero!

 

[lovedonaldduck]

I'm joining! I love the idea of Disney every month.

I would definitely suggest going to MK from 9-1. I am an advocate of early morning, because you will get the most done in a short period of time. Less crowds.

I know 9-1 is the best option as far as MK is concerned. I'm going to go with that and finish up the rest of the plans.

Found you from MeMom's. We live in Florida to about 3 hours away. We don't get to go every month, but we try to go every few months. Our passes expire this weekend, but won't be going this weekend. Instead, we are going to the Vero Beach Resort. We'll be back in March, which is a long haul for us. I have a trip booked for October, but we may not be able to go due to trainings for work.

Thanks for coming over from MeMom's! She is the best!

I don't know if we'll ever do every month again, but so far it has worked out this year. The problem is, I'd go every weekend if we didn't have something going on, so for me, going once a month is showing restraint.

Have you been to Vero before? After MeMom's trip, it is on my radar, although we really aren't beach people. All of our family vacations have been to Disney so it might be time to change it up with something relaxing.

I hope you can make October work! March is such a long way off. We took almost a year and a half off when we had Charlotte and it was a long time to go without Disney.

I am a wannabe DVCer, too. Maybe someday I will have a small batch of points.

Lovin' the Pop and AoA pictures. Wish I was close enough to slip over for a visit on a whim.

Just curious as to how you close to WDW people feel about the new mug stuff. Will you be purchasing 1-2 day mugs very often for your quick trips, or will you just go with paper cups? I really don't drink soda unless I am in WDW, so it's a vacation treat for me. I'm looking forward to a new color, at least, but I wish they would have changed the design. I'd be better off to just forget it all and continue drinking all water like I do at home, though, so maybe they did me a favor by not changing the design and making it less tempting to buy one.

Good luck to all for a wonderful school year!

I think the majority are going with 9-1 for your Magic Kingdom time slot.

Cara, have fun at Vero!

I'm seriously thinking about saving pennies and buying the cheapest resale DVC contract I can find, just to get my foot in the door. We usually rent points for most of our trips (although I still want to stay at all the non-DVC resorts too) and I'd love to be a member just so I could check my own availability and options. I hate to ask someone I'm renting from a million questions, but since we're so close, we can often be more flexible.

We are spoiled living so close! I'm going to try and be more like you, MeMom, and do a better job of sharing our experiences for those that aren't close enough to pop in once a month.

To be perfectly honest on the mug situation - we are rule breakers and usually refill our mugs from past trips when we go. We will comply with the new rules without complaining, but we probably won't get mugs for everyone. Peyton and I will get the most use out of them and I imagine either my mom or dad will get one but DH doesn't drink soda and my parents don't drink enough to justify 2 mugs. On future trips, we will probably "renew" it each time, I'm a soda drinker so I'd order one with each meal anyways so it usually works out for me. I also tend to drink more soda when I have the mug - love to get a bargain!

Peyton is doing great with school, although we are having homework battles. She is super smart but she also likes to look for short cuts so we've been fighting about that. Hopefully she'll learn, in a not too painful way, that taking the easy route isn't always the best option.

Charlotte is still crying at drop off and mostly refusing to eat at school but other than that, she's doing fine. I know it's got to be a huge adjustment for her and I'm confident it will get better with time.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

After dinner, I drug everyone around AoA to take pictures and explore.








I apologize for the odd glare on a bunch of these pictures. It was my first outing with my new camera, clearly I need to work out some kinks 







Ursula is my mom’s favorite!



It’s a little hard to take pictures of tiny kids in front of large statues, but I did it anyway 







Giant statue, no kids –



At this point, no one was really as interested in taking pictures as I was, so the rest are from a distance or as we were walking.







With that, I decided to conclude our walk around Art of Animation. We didn’t look at the Cars section at all but my family was over the wandering and picture taking so I will save it for another trip. While walking around AoA, DH mentioned staying there at some point. I reminded him that the Little Mermaid rooms were the same size as our Pop room, which he thought was too small, and a family suite is way too much space and money for our family of 4. I think we decided we’d try a family suite on a short trip with my parents, I’m not sure it will be quite enough space for the 6 of us, but a couple of night stay would let us figure that out.

I think, at this point we decided to call it a night. Sunday morning we finished out our short Pop stay. Tons of Pop pictures for the next update!

 

[micandminforever]

I love all the pictures of AOA . I would love to stay at a family suite, but I can't justify the cost for two people. I do love the thought of two bathrooms and the extra room when DH gets up at 5:00am even at Disney.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

I love all the pictures of AOA . I would love to stay at a family suite, but I can't justify the cost for two people. I do love the thought of two bathrooms and the extra room when DH gets up at 5:00am even at Disney.

I feel the same way - too much space and too much money for our needs right now. Maybe for a short trip with my parents just to try them out, and then maybe when the girls get older and want to bring a friend along on a trip, but for now, I just can't justify it.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

Finally, some good news on the daycare front - today at drop off Charlotte did not cry!

Also, she said the cutest thing in the car today. I am probably not the best mommy, talking to a not quite 2 year old about an upcoming Disney trip, since she has no concept of when next Saturday is... This morning, Charlotte told me, "Mommy, want to ride Dumbo - purple one!" I promised her we would ride Dumbo first thing at Magic Kingdom next Sunday, and that we would try to ride the purple one!

 

[lovedonaldduck]

There might be something wrong with me, but I am ready to wrap up this short trip to Pop so I can start sharing my plans for our September trip! I don’t know why the plans are more exciting to me? Hopefully just because this is a longer trip.

We were up somewhat early.

Charlotte greeting the day.



The order that we did things is a little confused in my brain idea:add trip journal to packing list for next week) but I know we had breakfast at the food court and DH and Peyton had some daddy-daughter time at the arcade while Charlotte and I got packed up. At some point we decided that we didn’t want to deal with the hassle of swimming before we left, so we packed up the car and toured around Pop Century.







We had told Peyton that we would get a drink at the pool bar, but every time we walked by it was still closed.

















Did we miss a section of the resort or are Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head no longer at Pop?



At this point, the pool bar was still closed, and sweat was dripping down my back (ewww!). We headed into the gift shop. I rarely buy Disney souvenirs – most stuff I fall in love with at the parks shows up at our outlet for 50% or more off eventually - but I had prepared DH ahead of time that we would be buying stuff on this trip. I had decided we each needed to accessorize our new Magic Bands! I’ll take pictures of them this week and post them with our plans since I didn’t take pictures at the time. DH got a Pirate wrap for his, I got the 4 park icon set, Peyton chose blinged out Mickey Heads in pink, purple, and “diamond”, and Charlotte got a Tinker Bell set.

At this point the pool bar still hadn’t opened so I told Peyton we could go into the food court and get a treat there, but she of course threw a fit that they didn’t have the special drink she wanted from the pool bar. We finally talked her into it. Peyton got Worms and Dirt, I got Tie Dyed Cheesecake, Charlotte got apples, and I don’t remember what DH got. I knew that Tie Dyed Cheesecake existed, and I knew I wanted it (I love cheesecake) but I somehow had missed that it had red velvet cake as the base. I liked it just fine, but I feel like it’s a Disney snack that I’ve checked off my list at this point. When we were done with our snacks, we broke out our new Magic Band accessories. I was a little disappointed – when wearing the band comfortably, I only really have 3 spots available for the 4 charms I got. I can wear the Magic Band looser but the 4 charms are each pretty large and don’t fit all that well together. I think I’ll add a new set of charms on our next trip and just wear the icon for the park we are visiting that day plus one or two from my new set.

While we were playing with our accessories, Charlotte managed to drop one of her Tinker Bell charms in between the booth and the wall. She was having a complete melt down, more because she was tired, but a very nice CM came over, took the booth apart, found and cleaned Tinker Bell and returned her to Charlotte. This is why we love Disney, going above and beyond is just what the CMs (usually) do.

When we left, the pool bar was finally open, and after Charlotte’s melt down, DH thought I could use a drink before the ride home. We ordered our drinks and headed to the playground.



Me and my girls – you can see, even the park hadn’t much helped Charlotte.



Peyton and I



A happy, but tear-stained Charlotte



Happiness over



And with that we headed to the car! Charlotte was asleep before we got to I-4 which was about the time Peyton started complaining. She complained that she was going to be sick – which used to happen all the time, but rarely does now, now Charlotte is our car sick girl. I told her to grab a plastic bag and be sure to use it if she needed to. She was mad about that, but I refused to stop because she thought she might get sick. She complained off and on and then decided she was starving (completely forgetting about breakfast and her worms and dirt). We travel to Disney frequently and have a basket that sits between the girls’ car seats full of snacks. Well, Peyton decided that those snacks wouldn’t help, but stopping for lunch would . I didn’t have any intention of stopping while Charlotte was sleeping – she can get very cranky in the car if she is awake. Then DH chimed in that he could really use a bathroom break. Against my better judgment, we stopped at the Pig Stand in Daytona for lunch. I tried to be pleasant to my family, even though I was so aggravated to be stopping but then I kinda had my last straw when there was no changing table in the restroom . If you are a restaurant and you have a kid’s menu, booster seats, and high chairs, you should have a changing table. I was proud of myself for not taking my bad mood out on my family and even happier that I may have lost the battle when we stopped that day, but I have won the war, as we will not be stopping there again until Charlotte is potty trained!

The remaining hour drive home was uneventful and then came the unpacking, laundry, and settling in.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

Somebody please tell me how to resize my pictures? I hate when they cause you to scroll to the right to read everything.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

If we leave according to plan, one week from today, we should be arriving at the Publix in Celebration so we can stock our fridge when we arrive at Kidani!

Knowing us, we'll get on the road 30-45 minutes late, so one week from today, we will be driving towards our destination on I-4.

The official plan for Saturday is -

Leave the house at 8
Arrive at Publix in Celebration by 11
Arrive at Kidani by 12
Unload, unpack, and head to the bus stop by 1
Arrive at Animal Kingdom by 2
Close Animal Kingdom at 5
Dine at Boma at 5:45
Turn in for an early night

I have some cushion time built into the plan, it should only take us 2.5 hours to get to Publix and I don't know that we'll need a full hour to shop or unpack. I plan on using that cushion to grab lunch, either at Mara or one of the counter service locations at AK. When I told Peyton we didn't have a meal planned at AK, she was very disappointed that she wasn't going to get to eat at Yak and Yeti.

If our room isn't ready when we get there at 12, fingers crossed that it will be ready, we'll head to the pool and play the afternoon by ear, depending on when the room is ready.

All of my carefully laid out plans are still yet to be approved by DH and my parents so things are still subject to change. We have Fastpass+ scheduled at AK between 2-5, so I am hoping we can use those.