Disney 2015 ~ Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney)

(Thurs, Sep 17, 2015)

Thursday was a day of flexibility and change.  We had originally planned to go to Animal Kingdom (AK) but woke up to the 1 rainy day of our trip.  Since Hannah had requested that we skip AK this trip and the weather wasn’t cooperating we decided to do some other things.  Dave and Trish had a ‘down day’ planned so these changes also gave us an opportunity to spend some time together since we’d spent the majority of the previous couple of days apart.

We started with breakfast at our resort then a swim in the Hippy Dippy pool.

After this we boarded a bus and made our way to Disney Springs (DS)which was in it’s final days as Downtown Disney as it was formerly renamed to Disney Springs last week.  Our families each set off in different directions with plans to meet for lunch a couple of hours later.  Since it was still raining Hannah and I headed to the Lego Store and hung out there in the ‘create’ area for an hour or so.  My girl was in her glory and I was determined to build something other than the only thing I knew how to build….a rectangle house with possibly a window and door.  This was Hannah’s final creation which I thought was neat with all the clear blocks.

This is Mommy’s flower garden…minus a rectangle house.  Woot!

On our way to lunch we noticed that many of the signs had already been changed to ‘Disney Springs.’

This picture was taken on a new walking bridge that saved us a lot of steps.  For those familiar with DS/DD it goes from the area near Rainforest Cafe and goes over to the Lego Store.   We used this bridge often while we were there.

Although a little blurry I like imagining what was happening while the girls played together.  They are the best of friends and I am so thankful for how close they are!

After lunch it was time to browse around some of the stores as well as pick up a few souvenirs but first it was picture time at our traditional spot.  I can’t begin to count the number of pictures we’ve taken in this exact location!

Here are but a few….

Apr 2010

Feb 2011

Aug 2012

Aug 2013 with my Aunt Chris, Uncle Tim, Cousin Bridget and her 6 kids.

Feb 2014 with Nana before our first Disney Cruise

Aug 2014

Back to this year’s trip.  After an afternoon of shopping fun with my girl we boarded a bus back to Disney’s Beach Club Resort.  We had a supper reservation at a new to us restaurant called the Beaches and Cream Soda Shop.   It’s a cute little shop with just 10 tables and 10 more spots at the soda bar.  Reservations are a must although there is a walk up counter for those without a reservation.  Hannah and I hoped to see someone order ‘The Kitchen Sink’ but they didn’t so we’ll have to go back again.

It too a lot of no effort to convince Hannah that tonight’s supper would be nothing but ice cream!!

Oh yes!  We’ll return here another year for sure!

One of the ‘extras’ Hannah enjoys doing to Disney that we don’t often get to do elsewhere is to play mini golf.  We asked and were told that the mini golfing was ‘less than a mile away’ so we set off.  Can I tell you how thankful I was for the stroller that pushed so easily since ‘less than a mile’ was a good hike!  We made it but oh my, with a tummy full of ice cream it was a workout!  Guess it was a good way to wear off some of my peanut butter and chocolate sundae.

The theme of this mini golf location was the movie Fantasia.  Other than one hole that was in a cave, Hannah enjoyed it.  To skip the ‘scary’ hole we walked back from hole 8 to hole 1 and then backwards from 18 to 10. 

I have no idea what our scores were but it would not be wrong to say we were well over 150 each! LOL!

We left mini golfing around 9pm which meant shortly into our walk Hannah was sound asleep.  (I love how safe I feel around Disney and was quite comfortable walking back to the Swan and Dolphin to begin our travels back to our resort.  I learned A LOT about Disney transportation and different routes this trip!!) 

So pretty at night!

This one’s for you Auntie Deb.

We took a boat from the Swan and Dolphin to Disney’s Hollywood Studios  and then a bus back to our resort from there.  My sleepy girl.  We go hard at Disney and one of the reasons we can is because she sleeps when she needs to.  Sweet ice cream dreams my love.

Tomorrow….back to Epcot!

Disney 2014, Day 7, Part II (Downtown Disney)

(Friday, September 26, 2014)
After we dried off from our day of fun at Blizzard Beach  we contacted Uncle Dave and Auntie Trish to see if they might like to meet for supper at Downtown Disney.   We were glad to hear they were thinking of heading there too and would like to meet at Wolfgang Puck’s Cafe for supper.
Hannah and Pascal on the bus
While we waited for our meet-up time we took our traditional pics at the Winnie the Pooh statue.


By this point in our trip I realized that we had quick service credits in abundance and the fun of sharing was in full swing!   Sharing our extra credits is one of our favourite ways of sharing Disney Magic with those around us.  (Last year we’d had enough credits left to buy lunch for my cousin and her 6 kiddos who were just starting their vacation.)  At lunch we’d bought lunch for a teen boy who was in line behind us.  He was so thankful and as we ate our lunch he even brought his mom over to us to say thank you. So sweet!
At supper we still had some sharing to do so as we waited in line I began to approach people around us to see if they were on the Disney Dining Plan.  I came across this group of 3 who were preparing to pay cash for their suppers.  It was a treat to offer to buy their meals for them including a drink and dessert.  They were so excited!  It ends up the one gal has just started working for Disney and the 2 in the pic below were friends of hers who had arrived at Disney that day for their very first trip to Disney.  What fun to be able to bless them in this way!  They asked if we could take a picture together so I snapped one too.
After a long week of Disney adventures the kids were pooped and by the end of the meal all 3 were asleep at the table!
One of Hannah’s favourite stores at DD is Goofy’s Candy Store.  I had to snap this pic to show her she’d been there even though she slept through it.
We were glad to share this meal with Dave and Trish as Saturday we had plans that took us in separate directions and we weren’t going to see much more of one another before heading home.
Hannah and I had 2 more park days in front of us and after this day at Blizzard Beach and Downtown Disney we were ready to visit Epcot the next day!

Disembarkation Day and Homeward Bound

(Saturday, March 1, 2014)

We were up bright and early Saturday morning preparing to disembark early.  As with everything else during our cruise, Disney has disembarkation down to a find ‘T’!

Each family dines at the restaurant that they did the last night of their cruise, at their normal table.  Our family was at Enchanted Garden which was neat as this was the restaurant we’d started our cruise at 1 week earlier.  We’d had early seating for dinner so we needed to leave our stateroom for the final time and be in our dining room at 6:45am.    As each family entered the dining room they walked between 2 lines of servers who applauded.  A simple but special touch on a difficult, emotional morning!  (Who ever wants a great vacation to end??) 

There was a set menu for us to select from and we were in and out in only 45 minutes but without feeling rushed.  It was great to see our tablemates one last time (for now ) as well as our servers Tina and Ari. 

We left the restaurant around 7:40 so that they could seat the next group at 8am.  (Can you believe the entire process of disembarking all guests, cleaning all staterooms and restocking the ship would take mere hours?  The next group of guests would begin boarding at 10:30am!!  A fun fact that we learned during our galley tour is that they load every single bit of food that will be eaten during a cruise each Saturday when they ship is in Port Canaveral.  For example, each week they load 100,000 eggs!!!  I cannot begin to imagine the storage area this ship must have!)

We were totally impressed with how quickly and efficiently we disembarked the ship.  We lined up around 7:45 and waited a brief time to scan our Key to the World cards one final time.  From there we went down an escalator where we requested a porter at the suggestion of Tonya and her family.  Wow – what a great suggestion that was!!  He asked us where our luggage was and we said, ‘Tinkerbell Green’.  He took us there, we quickly found our luggage and he loaded up his cart and took us to the customs line.  We fairly flew through customs and were quickly outside awaiting our shuttle to the car rental place.  It arrived within minutes and we made our way there.  Sharon and I were shocked when we  realized that at 9:15 we were already in our rental car with luggage loaded and headed back to Orlando!!  Not bad for a ship that was disembarking 4000 passengers!!

Hannah was pooped and within minutes this was what we saw in the rear-view mirror. 

(Can you tell that i took A LOT of clean clothes home for Hannah?  Once she had her Rapunzel dress it was near impossible to talk her into wearing anything else.  So I didn’t.  This phase will pass soon enough so for now she wears it and her other princesses dresses wherever she wants to!)

Our flight wasn’t leaving until after 6pm so about a month before our cruise I cancelled our Disney transportation to the airport (couldn’t fathom sitting in the airport for 8 hours with our luggage!) and instead we headed here.  Heh…no surprise to anyone I’m sure!

We made our way to Downtown Disney and shared some wonderful final moments there.  SO much better than sitting in an airport!!  We visited the Disney store where Hannah stood in front of a Magic Mirror that tried a number of different princess dresses on her.  So cool!

For lunch we ran okay, walked quickly to Goofy’s Candy Store and ended our trip the way it began, with a caramel peanut apple.  Mmmmm!  We never tire of these!!

We spent most of the morning outside soaking up as much sun as was humanly possible as we knew we were headed back to frigid temps!

We all declared that we didn’t want to go home!  Let’s just call Papa, Grandma and Grandpa and tell them to come down and let’s just stay!  This is Hannah’s ‘We don’t want to go home’ look. 

Sadly we had no choice so we called Papa on Skype to tell him we were on our way home and made our way to the airport.

We arrived in Buffalo late that night but as you can see my rock star traveller was still in great shape!  She made a little luggage fort for herself while we waited for our shuttle to pick us up.

We spent the night in Buffalo and then headed home to Papa first thing the next morning.  (At this time Grandma and Grandpa were still on their Hawaiian cruise so it would be a few more days before we saw them.)

We’re home Papa!  We missed you!!!

What an amazing, wonderful, awesome, great, spectacular cruise we shared together!  We can’t wait to go back!!!

Thank you for sharing this time with us Nana!  We love you and the trip was extra special because you were there!!!