Penny's First Trip to Disney World - Trip Report COMPLETED

According to Disney's website: Gosling's 151 Black Seal Rum, Appleton Estate Reserve Rum, Bacardi 8 yr Rum, Tropical Juices, Falernum, and Cinnamon

Saturday, December 25th " Part Two

Done with Soarin' and having obtained our obligatory Brandon photo, we called Jimm and Karen to see where they were at. They said they were still in the World Showcase and Penny had just woken up, so we told them to come meet us at the big Christmas tree at the entrance of the World Showcase. We waited...and waited...and waited....and eventually started a game to see who could spot them first. Guess who won?

We also found out later that Grandma and Grandpa had gotten some PhotoPass pictures done while Penny was sleeping.

We grabbed some pictures with all of us in front of the Christmas tree in World Showcase.

While we had been in the Land pavilion we saw that Living With the Land's wait had been shortened to 15 min, so we headed back over that way and waited in what was actually about a 5 min line. Karen and Jimm are avid gardeners so they loved the ride, and Penny enjoyed pointing out all of the vegetables that she spotted.

It was around 4:00 when we got off so we decided to go catch a bus to Saratoga Springs, pick up our luggage, and go unpack before our 6:30pm Turf Club reservation. Our straight to room check-in hadn't worked here either, so when we arrived at Saratoga, Karen took Penny to explore the gift shop while Jon, Tom, Jimm, and I went to the front desk to get our room assignment and link our credit cards to our Magic Bands. Low and behold, we got our room request! Congress Park, about as close as you could be to the walkway to Disney Springs! This is the first time that I have EVER had my room request granted so I was pretty excited.

We went and got our refillable mugs and filled them up before going over to the luggage claim desk. We explained to Scott, the cast member working, about the encounter with Magical Express and told him that because of this, our luggage may have come in two separate trips. He looked at us like we were crazy and then went in the back for a bit before coming up to tell us that NONE of our luggage was there. Um, what? We had half expected that some of our bags would be missing with the Magical Express transfer confusion, but the other half of our luggage had just done a normal transfer from All Star Sports and we had been told that it would be at Saratoga Springs by 4pm. Scott told us that he was going to make some calls and assured us that he would find all of the luggage. He then called up a cart to drive us over to our room.

Once in our room we explored a bit before I called Scott to see if he had found anything else out. He told me that they still hadn't found them but he promised that he was working on it and took my cell phone number so that he could call as soon as they knew anything. It was getting close to our reservation by this point so we hopped on the first bus that came and rode it over to the main building. As we walked in the Carriage House we walked past Scott and we could hear him yelling (ok maybe not yelling, but talking sternly) to someone on the phone about our missing luggage. Good job, Scott!

We checked in for our reservation and were given a pager. We played a little bit of pool while we waited and then Jon ran back over to the luggage claim to see if there had been any update. Scott was on the phone, still talking about our luggage, when Jon approached. He quickly said that he would have to call the person on the other line back and hung up to give Jon a full update on what he had found out so far. They still didn't have our luggage but Scott was working tirelessly to try and find out anything he could.

Just as Jon got back to the lounge area, our buzzer went off. We were seated just inside the door which was a bit of a bummer because I didn't get to see much of the restaurant, but oh well. Karen got the salmon with a subbed side of the mac and cheese and Jon, Jimm, Tom, and I all got the New York strip with the asparagus and lobster fondue. My steak was delicious, if not slightly overdone, but that lobster fondue was incredible! I'm drooling just thinking about it. It was difficult to enjoy our meals though because I was freaking out so much over our luggage. We could go to the gift shop and buy new clothes for the next day, but medications couldn't be replaced and Penny's entire suitcase of princess dresses was gone and tomorrow would be our first day at Magic Kingdom! The girl needed her princess dresses!

Our waitress (who was fantastic by the way, darn it that I can't remember her name though) had brought out Jon, Tom, and my dessert with our meals because we were in a bit of rush to make sure we made it out front in time to get picked up by our bus to Universal Studios at 8pm. I believe Tom and Jon both got the cheesecake and I got the chocolate espresso tort with port wine ice cream that was fantastic. As we were about to start in on our desserts, Scott called to let us know that the Magical Express luggage had finally shown up (we still don't know where it had been all this time) but they still hadn't found the All Star Sport transfer. How weird that the ones that should have been the most simple were the hardest to find! At least we had some of it, though! Jon and Tom scarfed their desserts and then ran over to luggage claim to bring the bags that we did have over to our room and hopefully figure out where the rest was.

I finished my dessert and helped Penny pick out what she was going to order for dessert, kissed her goodbye, and was just going to go over to meet Jon and Tom, when Jon called to say that they had found the other half of our luggage! YAY! It had apparently been setup accidentally as a hold instead of a transfer and the bags had been at All Star Sports the entire time. Scott, knowing that Penny was close to needing to go to bed and that the bags still at Sports included her playpen and pajamas, even went and asked his boss if he personally could drive over to go get the bags. What a guy! Jon and I sat and chatted with Scott for a while (Tom was still taking our ME bags to the room) and he told us how frustrating working with All Star Sports was on this because he had asked several times earlier if they still had the bags in their storage room and they basically refused to go check or would fake that they were checking and then would come back two seconds later saying they weren't in there. What kind of customer service is that? Seriously, All Star Sports put a really bad taste in our mouths.

Jimm, Karen, and Penny came out of the restaurant and over to the luggage area a couple of minutes before our bus pulled up. Seeing Penny, Scott stopped mid-sentence to say "Hello there Princess, can I get you a sticker?" He told Jimm and Karen to go back to the room with Penny and that he would bring the remaining luggage over as soon as he arrived. Scott made a really crappy experience really awesome by being such a great cast member. We did make sure to leave a note at the front desk for his supervisor as he truly went above and beyond.

Relieved knowing that everything was turning out ok, Jon, Tom, and I boarded the bus to Universal that would take us to Diagon Alley. Now for a little background on this, the DISUnplugged was hosting a private event this night that the three of us purchased tickets for. There were less than 1,000 people there which sounds like a lot but the place felt virtually empty and we never waited in line for anything besides the all-you-can drink butterbeer and the all-you-can eat ice cream at Florean Fortescue's.

When we got dropped off we had to wait in line until they opened the park back up for the event. We were then escorted back to Diagon Alley (none of the rest of the park was available), where we then waited for about half an hour before they allowed us into the event. They did have a cash bar setup to serve drinks while we waited. I ordered a Vodka Collins which the bartender clearly didn't know how to make. He got very flustered and then ended up filling about an 1/8th of the cup with vodka and then filled it up the rest of the way with lime juice. I didn't fully realize what had happened until we had fought our way back through the crowd, so I didn't go back and say anything. It was pretty horrendous, though.

When we were finally let in we looked around, watched Stan outside the Knight Bus, bypassed the line to meet the DISUnplugged hosts, and got in line for butterbeer. Jon and I had had both the frozen and the regular before, but we'd never had the hot, so each of us ordered one kind and we all tried each others. The frozen and regular both came in souvineer mugs that we got to keep, while the hot came in a paper coffee cup. The frozen was tasteless, the regular was good, but the hot was by far my favorite so I was happy that I had chosen that one. We looked around in the shops some more, checked out the Money Exchange (though we didn't do it), explored Knockturn Alley, and then rode the Hogwarts Express over to Hogsmeade where we then had to stay on the train and ride it straight back since Hogsmeade wasn't open. The train ride was cute but I was pretty disappointed in Platform 9 3/4. The Enchanted Tales with Belle entrance for example is a way that they could have made it pretty cool. I also realize they have to move more volumes of people through quicker on this attraction, but I still thought they could have come up with something better.

Oh, and we also did the Ollivanders show, too. Jon and I had seen it before over on the Hogsmeade side, but I really liked how much better this queue area was done. It was also neat to be one of only 6 people in there and the girl who was chosen was really excited which was cute.

Gringotts was the only big thing we had left, so we checked our bags and mugs and went on. We had absolutely no line in front or behind us so we took our time exploring the queue which was pretty awesome. I was really excited for the ride from all of the hype I had heard, however I was once again disappointed. I don't know if it was because I had heard so much hype beforehand or if it was because I LOVED the Hogwarts ride so much and expected this one to be even bigger and better, but I thought it was just ok. The Hogwarts ride in Hogsmeade is 10x better in my opinion. I was definitely happy that we got to ride it with no wait though because I don't think it is worth anywhere near the 3+ hour waits it has been getting.

With Gringotts done we had quite a bit of time left, so we decided to get in the long line we had been avoiding for ice cream. It moved pretty quickly though which was nice and we each got to pick out two flavors in either a cone or a dish. I got a cone with chocolate chili and strawberry peanut butter, but I was still so full from dinner that I barely made it down past the chocolate chili scoop to try the strawberry peanut butter and I had to throw it away because I couldn't eat anymore. I'm really regretting that decision as it sounds amazing and I would love to be eating it right now, but I felt like I was going to burst that night!

At this point we were pretty much out of stuff to do so we stopped by a butterbeer location one more time so that Tom could fill out his now set of 4 souvineer mugs, and then we went out and talked to Stan and took pictures on the Knight Bus before slowly making our way back to the front of the park. We waited out front until we were allowed back onto the bus back to the hotel, where we then had to wait another hour or so until the party was over and the park had been cleared out. We were SO tired at this point so we got really silly for a while and couldn't stop laughing, and then out of nowhere we just crashed and all slept hard on the way back to Saratoga.

Final Thoughts on WWOHP Diagon Alley: It was cool and I'm glad we got the opportunity to go. I love Harry Potter and I know I would have regretted not going. However, much like the Hogsmeade side of the park, I was pretty underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, the theming was beautiful. But other than that I just wasn't as blown away as I expected to be. And the whole time I just kept thinking, "This is cool, but Disney would have done it better." I still recommend going if you're a Harry Potter fan, I just wouldn't set your expectations as high as I did and don't plan on it taking a whole lot of time to explore unless there are high crowds. The park was open for us from 9:30pm to 12:00am and I thought we'd be rushing to fit everything in, but we ran out of stuff to do by around 11pm.

Up Next: Penny's first day in the Magic Kingdom! AKA Mommy cries tears of joy pretty much all day.

Agreed! It is super strong but super delicious!

Thanks Ken and Miss Mikki! The luggage incident was pretty stressful, but Scott more then made up for it. I love encountering great cast members so it almost made it worth it in a weird way.

Agreed. I would definitely say still go but I don't think you need more then a day, especially if you are only doing Harry Potter and especially if you've already done Hogsmeade and Hogwarts.

Sunday, December 6th

Today was to be Penny's first trip to the Magic Kingdom (yay!) so we woke up bright and early and got Penny's Rapunzel dress on. She loves dressing up and LOVES Rapunzel so she was pretty enamored with herself this morning.

First stop once we were in the park, before Penny even saw the castle, was the Harmony Barbershop. I was really hoping to get Penny's first haircut done here, however I hadn't been able to get a reservation when I called a couple of months out. We went in and asked how long of a wait it would be and were told that we had come at the perfect time and that they could get us right in! Score! We stepped off to the side while they cleaned up the chair that had just been worked on. While we were waiting we saw a tour group doing some sort of scavenger hunt which was pretty neat. Penny got seated in the furthest chair to the left and our barber gave her a spinning Elsa and spinning Rapunzel doll to play with while she did her work. Our barber did a fabulous job and, after lots of glitter and lots of tears (only from Mommy though) we were in and out within 15 minutes. She also got Mickey ears embroidered with "My First Haircut", a ton of stickers, a certificate, and a little memento bag with a bit of her hair all wrapped up. It was a really great experience and I totally recommend this to anyone. In fact I'm pretty sure we'll be stopping there in April for her second haircut!

Notice me crying in the reflection

Look at all that glitter! I kid you not, I'm still finding that on her scalp!

After Penny was all cleaned up and beautified, the moment had finally come for her to see the castle. We had been teaching her what Cinderella's Castle is for quite a while before we came, and she always points it out on her Disney movies, so we were excited to see her reaction. She was mesmerized from the second we turned the corner. All the way up Main Street she kept saying, "Do you see it?! It's Cinderella's CASTLE! It's amazing!" It was a pretty spectacular moment. After snapping some PhotoPass pictures on Main Street, we let her run around for a bit right in front of the castle so that she could admire it awhile longer. We then headed left around the back of the castle to go to our Cinderella and Rapunzel Meet & Greet FastPass+

This is another one I had been highly anticipating as Rapunzel is one of her favorites. Well after this Meet I will no longer question which princess is THE favorite. Penny's interaction with her was so magical, it really can't be described so just watch the video below. I sobbed the entire time.

Cinderella did a good job too but unfortunately for her we were still just in the Rapunzel afterglow.

We made our way further into Fantasyland but pretty much everything had a long wait. Under the Sea was one of the shortest with only a 20 min wait, so we hopped in line to kill time until our Ariel Meet & Greet FastPass. Everyone loved the ride, especially Penny who was in awe the entire time.

We got off just in time for our FastPass to open which was perfect timing or I'm pretty sure Penny would have gotten upset that we weren't going directly back onto Under the Sea. Ariel was great but Penny was a little shy and just kept murmuring "Ariel...Ariel....Ariel!" under her breath as Ariel talked to her and asked her questions.

After Ariel we decided that it was time to eat, so I listed off some nearby menu options and we decided on Cosmic Rays. I can't remember what everyone else got, but I got the pulled pork sandwich, Jon got a burger, and Penny got chicken tenders. Jon and I had to take turns going up to get our toppings so that one of us could stay with Penny, and somehow Jon didn't see the giant toppings bar at all when he went up! He thought that I had just meant the sauce packets by the silverware! Ha! I loved the toppings bar though and we will probably be going back just for that.

By the time we were done eating our Peter Pan FastPass had opened up, but I knew that today was the only day of our trip that we'd get to ride PeopleMover (it was down for refurb after today) so we headed further into Tomorrowland only to find that it was down. So we backtracked to Fantasyland and hopped in line for Peter Pan and got right on. I don't think I've ever been through the queue for this ride! I just won't wait in a long line for this attraction so we always FastPass it.

We decided to brave the Enchanted Tales with Belle line since it was only at 25 minutes, but it ended up being MUCH longer than that, more like 40+ min. It was a nice break for Penny though who spent some time spread out on the floor playing on the phone.

Jimm got picked to be one of the knights and Penny got to be a salt shaker. I'm not sure she really understood that she was in the show, but she had a good time and was excited to meet Belle at the end.

After the excitement of Belle, we had a decent fight with Penny to try and get her into her stroller to lay down for a nap. I circled the stroller around by Rapunzel's tower for a bit while everyone else used the restroom, then we staked out a spot for Festival of Fantasy and I rocked the stroller for awhile longer until she fell asleep. I was bummed that she'd be napping during this parade because I know she would love it, but she ended up sleeping through the entire LOUD parade so she clearly needed it! I'm crossing my fingers that by the time our April trip comes around her nap schedule will have changed slightly so that she can see it.

Once the parade was over, Jon, Tom, and I beelined over to Splash Mountain to try and get on before the post-parade crowd got there. We were on within 10 minutes so our timing was right on. This is one of my favorite rides, but the experience was dampered a bit since my hat flew off right after this picture was taken and hit the guy behind us right in the face! Luckily the guy was really nice about it and even apologized for not catching it! I told him of course he shouldn't be sorry, I was sorry it had hit him!

We wandered around the shops for a bit, particularly the Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe. Jon ran over to the pavilion behind the store to see what times Tiana was meeting since that is where we had met her last time, but there wasn't any indication that she even did meets there anymore. He asked a cast member and was told that she now met in the Heritage House. Jon checked over there and found out she would be doing her last meet of the day at 5pm so we made a mental note to stop back over once Penny was awake.

Around this time Penny did wake up so we headed back over to Fantasyland. She spotted Rapunzel's tower which she was really excited about and she then asked to go see Rapunzel again. We told her that Rapunzel was gone for the day and she cried and cried which broke my heart, but she was quickly distracted with the carousel. We have tried to take her on carousels before to no avail, but this time she was pretty excited by the horses and sat on one with no problem. I rode with her while Jon, Tom, Karen, and Jimm watched. She had trouble spotting them the first couple of times around, but when she finally did she would lean off her horse and scream "Daddy! I'm riding a horse!!!" every time we came around.

Next up was Phillharmagic since we were nearby. I LOVE this show and, while she only kept the 3D glasses on for the first few minutes, Penny enjoyed it too. It was getting close to 5pm so we made our way back to the Heritage House to get in line. Penny loves Tiana so she was super excited and kept chatting away about Tiana and Prince Naveen the entire time we were in line. We tried to get her to say who Naveen was once she was up with him as we bet that Naveen didn't often get people, especially little girls, who remembered his name, but of course she was too shy.

It was getting late and close to our Tony's Town Square reservations, but I had to ride PeopleMover once on this trip so we headed over to Tomorrowland again. It was back up and running now but had a line that wound over by the Astro Orbiters line! I've never ever seen a line for this! Fortunately it moved pretty quickly and we all squeezed into one car which I tried to explain was a bad idea but no one listened, and by the time that they realized I was right the door shut! So we were pretty cramped but at least we were on! Penny enjoyed this one too as I think she liked relaxing for a bit. I ended up having my sunglasses fly off my head in the Space Mountain part, though! ARGH! I've NEVER lost anything on a ride before and twice in one day!

We must have just missed the castle lighting show while we were on the PeopleMover because when we got off the castle was all lit up and looking gorgeous. We snapped some pictures before heading up Main Street for our Tony's reservation.

We didn't have to wait long to get in as we were one of the last reservations of the day since it was a Christmas Party night. We were seated in the large windowed area overlooking the courtyard and Main Street so we could see the snow coming down once the party officially started. It was a great view. Penny got the wheat spaghetti with turkey meatballs, I got the steak, Jon got the chicken parmigiana, Tom got the spaghetti and meatballs, and Jimm and Karen both got items with red sauce but I don't remember what they were. I thought all of the "Italian" food was pretty bland and mediocre, however everyone else enjoyed it and Jimm and Karen declared it their favorite meal of the trip. Go figure. My steak was surprisingly good though, cooked to perfection and almost no fat. With the exception of the lobster fondue sauce, I actually enjoyed my steak at Tony's more than I had enjoyed the one at the Turf Club the previous night. *Gasp*Shock*Horror*

For dessert I think Karen and Jimm got the gelato, Tom may have gotten the cheesecake or whatever the chef's special dessert was that night, while Jon and I split the tiramisu and the chocolate cake. The tiramisu was just ok and not like any other tiramisu I'd ever had before, but the chocolate cake was tasty.

I had purposely made this reservation so that we would still be in the park at the time of the Christmas Party so that we could go out into the fake snow on Main Street for a bit, but for some reason it had stopped blowing when we left the restaurant so we missed actually standing in it Next up on our agenda though was to go over to check out the Osbourne Lights, so I was looking forward to at least seeing some "snow" there.

We hopped on a bus to Hollywood Studios and, once there, stopped inside for some of us to use the bathroom. Penny was quite taken with the Mickey on top of the globe just inside of the gates and was very worried about him falling down.

Once everyone was out of the restroom and ready to go, we headed straight back to the Osbourne Lights. They did NOT disappoint! Every one of us enjoyed them, especially Penny. There was not much "snow" happening though but oh well. We wandered around, danced to the music, and took in as much as we could. The plan had been for Tom, Jon, and I to stay afterward for EMH and ride some of the bigger attractions, but we were all beat so we gave in and all headed back to Saratoga where we collapsed into bed.

Up Next: A tired day at Animal Kingdom, I learn to hate gum and just about everyone that chews it, and dinner with the princesses.

"Be careful!" was another one that kept getting repeated that wasn't caught in the video. Things I wouldn't have thought twice about before having a toddler.

Thanks all! We think she's pretty cute, too

Thanks everyone!

It really was super magical!

Thanks, JoAnn!

We LOVED Saratoga. Granted it was our first deluxe, but every single cast member we encountered there was exceptional. It makes me a little nervous staying at Pop our entire upcoming trip since the one night at All Star Sports is our only Value experience to date, but I've heard better things about Pop then I have the All Stars so here's hoping we have better luck this time!

It was definitely exhausting and Penny got really worn down by the end. It was a great learning experience though and we're planning on taking it a lot easier when we're there in April.