Tag Archives: Disney

In January before our cruise, Trent got his very first haircut at the Harmony Barber Shop in Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.

The Harmony Barber Shop is tucked away in a little corner to the left after you enter the park.

They perform haircuts for children and adults, and while it says it’s on a “first-come, first-served” basis, we were able to get a reservation for the 1st Haircut Package. The 1st Haircut Package includes a cut, a certificate and Mickey Ears that say “My 1st Haircut”. They even place some of the locks in a satchel with Pixie Dust (glitter) and stickers and the cash register receipt even says “1st Haircut”.

Prices are $19 for adults and $15 for children. The 1st Haircut Package is $19, which is a completely reasonable price for all of that, if you ask me. They probably put $19 worth of stickers on him to keep him occupied during the haircut.

We wanted to show up early so we could get let in to take some “Before” photos before the massive opening crowds plowed through the parks. Although the park opened earlier than usual, we were able to at least get a few photos since no one was in the Barber Shop area.

We were both sick and unable to breathe through our noses. Fun, right?

While we waited for them to open, they opened the doors to where the horse and trolley was about to walk out and we got to spend some time watching the horse get prepared for a day of work.

When we first walked into the barber shop, I immediately knew this was going to be an adventure…that place is TINY! At the time, Trent wasn’t fond of strangers, but add to the fact there are 10 strangers and they are all within 10 feet of him, including one touching him with scissors on the head, and that makes for one interesting haircut.

From the get-go we messed up the plan, I went to hang our coats and bags on the wall and Brett had already started seating him the chair, causing him to reach out for me to “save him”. So I quickly ran over there (all of 3 feet) and started playing and talking. She placed Mickey stickers all over him and handed us a light-up spinning toy to grab his attention. He didn’t really care for that one so she handed us another one, which he liked.

While his eyes fixated on the swirling, flashy plane, it seemed like he almost forgot there was someone touching him, until she came around to his side to cut his little sideburns.

Luckily, the front of his hair didn’t need to be cut, it was the back that was a mess, and she was done in about 5 minutes. We had expected him to completely flip out during the entire thing, but he really only cried for part of it and mostly just wanted to get out of the chair and away from the people. It also didn’t help that he was sick, so he had to keep getting his little nose wiped, which pisses him off even more. (Is it bad that I want to cry while writing this and looking at these photos? Poor little guy)

Once she was done cutting, we took him out of the seat and paid. While paying, the barber gathered up some of his cut hair (which she very nicely placed on her workstation while cutting it, instead of letting it drop to the floor), put it in the satchel with some glitter and stickers and gave us his certificate and Mickey Ears.

She held up a mirror to show him how handsome he was, but he was not interested.

After it was done, Brett and I both agreed that he did much better than we expected. She was able to cut his hair without having to stop, so that must mean he wasn’t moving all that much, I suppose.

Happy to be done!!

I would definitely recommend using the Harmony Barber Shop for a first haircut. They really try to make the child happy during the entire process and they give you the mementos to keep forever. The price isn’t bad and baby gets to say he got his first haircut in Walt Disney World. How cool is that?!

You can read more about the Harmony Barber Shop at the official WDW site here: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/magic-kingdom/harmony-barber-shop/

 

Check out some of our other Disney reviews here!

 

Your Thoughts:

Do you know where your first haircut was or have any locks of hair from it? Or if you have kids, did you do anything special for their first haircut? Tell me in the comments!

Raglan Road is an Irish restaurant in Downtown Disney in Walt Disney World in Florida. Their most popular dessert is Ger’s Bread & Butter Pudding. This recipe was featured in the February issue of WDW Magazine, since Raglan Road was the featured restaurant in that issue.

 

Ger’s Bread & Butter Pudding from Raglan Road

Ingredients (serves 8):

12 slices white bread
1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar

First, grease a 2-quart ovenproof dish. Then, cut the crust off of all the slices of bread.

Spread the butter over both sides of each piece of bread and then cut each piece into 4 smaller pieces.

Arrange 1/3 of the bread pieces in the bottom of the dish.

Sprinkle the raisins on top.

Lay out another layer of buttered bread on top of the raisins. Set aside.

To make the custard, heat cream and milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat until it almost comes to a boil. Remove from heat.

Fill another medium saucepan halfway with water and place over high heat. Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, separate eggs and combine yolks with sugar in a large heatproof bowl.

Once water in saucepan is boiling, turn heat down to medium and place heatproof bowl over the simmering water.

Whisk egg yolk mixture until whisk leaves a clear path behind it.

Then remove from heat and add cream mixture. Beat until well combined.

Pour two thirds of the custard over the layered bread and leave to stand for 30 minutes or until bread has soaked up all the custard.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour remaining custard over the soaked bread and arrange the remaining bread pieces on top. Press down gently with a spatula so that the top layer of bread absorbs some of the custard.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the custard is set and the top is golden brown.

Cut up and serve immediately…

…preferably with caramel sauce and ice cream

 

This recipe was derived from the recipe book: Chef Mickey Treasures from the Vault & Delicious New Favorites…

 

…and was also featured in the February Issue of WDW Magazine (learn more here).

To see more Disney posts, check out our Disney page here!

 

Be Our Guest is a restaurant that opened in 2012 with New Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in Florida. It has French-inspired cuisine…lunch is fast casual and dinner is table service.

It is one of the main new additions to the park as part of the New Fantasyland expansion. The theming is absolutely breathtaking.

Since dinner is table service, advanced dining reservations can be made on the WDW website…but lunch is a different story. At lunch, you order and pay at the cashier’s stand and then take your number into the dining room and your food is brought out to you when it’s ready. Due to it’s incredible popularity, the line outside to get in is often extraordinarily long…so long that we had never eaten there because we don’t do lines that long. So long that cast members bring out a stand with water and cups for you to “enjoy” while you wait.

Brett has wanted photos from the inside since it opened, but you can only go in if you have a reservation and because we haven’t wanted to stand in line or eat dinner there (Brett is beyond picky and nothing stood out to him on the menu) he has gone without any photos of the inside, just lovely photos of the outside.

Well, one day, I noticed a blog post from another Disney blog I follow that said she got a Fastpass for lunch! What the WHAT?!

She said there was a special link for Be Our Guest Fastpass reservations and it did not count towards your regular ride/attraction Fastpass+ selections for that day. So I tested the link and whad’ya know…there were times available for when we would be there in January. So I scooped up a time slot for us and then had to make the hard decision of whether we wanted to pre-order. You have 2 options when making your selection:

FastPass+ Direct To Table

You select your time, select your entire meal and pay for it, then when you arrive at the restaurant, you check in and go find a seat and wait for your food to be brought to you. You skip the line outside and the cashier part.

FastPass+ Expedited Arrival

You select your time and that’s it. When you arrive at the restaurant, you check in and get to bypass the line outside, but still have to stand in line to order and pay from the cashier.

I really liked the idea of ordering and paying ahead of time, but we NEVER know how hungry we’ll be at any point in the day, nor do we know if Trent will eat. I almost did the pre-ordering, but decided against it.

When we arrived at Be Our Guest, we were somewhat disappointed that the line wasn’t as long as we’re used to. I mean, isn’t that part of the fun of having a Fastpass? To be able to laugh on the inside at the people waiting in line as you rush past them? Hehe.

We checked in at the counter to the left of the line, where they simply asked us my name and then said to go right in. We had Magic Bands on, so they didn’t need to give us a “Rose tracker” as they use our signal from the Magic Bands to find us. Pretty neat and scary at the same time, huh?

Once you get inside, there is still a short line before reaching the cashiers. There are several digital menus along the way so that “hopefully” you’ll know what you want by the time you reach the cashier.

At the end of the line, a cast member directs you to the next available cashier station.

Even though standing in line for the cashier added another 10 or so minutes to the waiting, I was happy I hadn’t ordered because I wasn’t that hungry and knew Trent wouldn’t eat very much, so we sort of split our meals. Brett even ordered an impromptu dessert.

Once we ordered, We walked through 2 of the dining rooms to take in the magnificent decor. I mean, this place is done to the nines. Everything is so beautiful. We settled on the middle room, while Brett went and took photos of everything.

The “Rose” room is popular among guests.

Here is another room.

But we ultimately decided on the main room, it was the largest of the three, well lit and had tables available that were convenient just in case we had a toddler meltdown for some reason or another (we have to plan for these things now).

Our food was wheeled out to us by a cast member. Brett got the turkey sandwich with pommes frites (fries). It was really disappointing because when he ordered, the sandwich comes with turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion. But Brett doesn’t eat onions, so he asked for no onions, but the cashier cast member said it’s basically all or nothing and if he didn’t want onions, the entire cheese/lettuce/tomato/onion would be left off. They wouldn’t even put it on the side. So he had turkey on bread…for $14.

I had the French onion soup and it was delicious. It was better than the much-raved-about Belle’s Onion Soup in the Royal Palace restaurant on the Disney Dream. Yup, I said it.

On another note, isn’t it funny how much Brett hates onions and then I go and order onion soup. No wonder he never kisses me haha j/k!

We got the Mickey Turkey Meatloaf and fries for Trent. After cutting up the meatloaf, I tested a piece and it was cold. Yuck! So we called a cast member over and she offered to take the meatloaf and “warm it up” - making us move the fries off the plate so she could take it. She brought it back and said “That should be ok” and put her hand a half an inch above the meatloaf to show she was feeling the warmth. I tested another piece and it was barely warm. There are so many things wrong with what she did. First, you don’t make the customer scoop their fries off of the plate to another plate so you can go place the meat under a heat lamp for a minute. You offer to bring another meatloaf. For a $10 kids’ meal, trust me you would not have lost any money on bringing us another one. I wasn’t trying to get a free meal, but Trent is picky enough that we were already taking a chance on him even eating the meatloaf in the first place, but COLD meatloaf? Forget about it, he wouldn’t touch it. Then, you definitely don’t put your entire hand over the food like that. I know she didn’t actually touch it, but by her doing that, it makes me wonder if she moved it around with her hands to test it while she had it in the back and we couldn’t see. She wasn’t a chef…she was the floor supervisor, so I don’t necessarily trust that she washed her hands before doing any of that. I was just surprised at the terrible customer service coming from a new, popular and expensive restaurant at Walt Disney World. It definitely took us off guard and was very unfortunate.

Well, after all that…Trent didn’t eat any of the meatloaf. Go figure. I helped him finish his fries and then Brett and I split the dessert because Trent didn’t want any. What a weird kid.

Overall, Brett was glad he got to take photos of Be Our Guest, but we probably won’t be going back anytime soon. Between the inability to customize anything on the menu, the questionable service, and the above-average (for WDW) prices make this a less than desirable lunch option for us. We’d rather take advantage of the toppings bar at Cosmic Rays or the delicious seafood options at Columbia Harbour House instead.

 

Your Thoughts…

Have you been to Be Our Guest? Lunch or dinner? How do you like it compared to other places in WDW? Tell us in the comments!

 

Art of Animation is a resort in Walt Disney World located in Florida.

We have stayed at AOA twice since it opened in 2012 (during Trent’s first trip to WDW in April 2013 and once in October 2013). The location and buildings of AOA were originally intended to be the 2nd half of the Pop Century resort, which is located on the other side of Hourglass Lake. Pop Century’s buildings are themed by decades and the first section that was built and that you know of today as Pop Century is the Classic Years. The other side was intended to be decades 1900 to 1940, and known as the Legendary Years. The building skeletons were built and sat empty for several years, until Disney scrapped the original idea and instead decided to go with an entirely new theme.

It was fun watching the transformation from across the lake over the course of a few trips.

We were definitely excited to be able to finally take in the view from the other side of the bridge!

There is a central building that contains the Check-in and Concierge desks, the gift shop, the arcade and the food court.

The check-in and concierge area is large, so as to accommodate the large crowds that descend upon it during peak check-in times. It’s also very colorful with lots of interesting drawings from the Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, Lion King and Cars movies located along the opposite wall. They progress from basic sketches all the way to the full color final drawings that you’ve seen in the movies.

The Ink & Paint Shop is the place to get souvenirs and various sundries.

Definitely don’t go into the arcade if you are prone to epileptic seizures…lots of bright flashy lights!

The food court is called Landscape of Flavors and offers several stations to order various types of food off of a digital menu. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are offered, and there is also a gelato station and several cold cases to choose from. Here, you’ll also find the refillable mug stations.

Right outside the food court doors is our favorite pool of WDW, the Big Blue pool. Sure, we haven’t experienced every pool on property, but so far, this one is our favorite…and Trent especially loves it. It is large and wide open, but the best part is the zero entry side with jellyfish that spray water down. The zero entry is perfect for little kids. This is the single largest pool on WDW property and is also the first to have underwater speakers playing…what else…Disney music!

Right behind the pool is the splash area. Trent can’t get enough of this area, although he has usually been the youngest and we have to constantly keep an eye out for older kids that run into him. Luckily, it’s padded, so a minor collision won’t put an end to your vacation

There is also a playground behind the splash area for some non-water action. If you are located in one of the farther buildings or if you are searching for a more layed-back (i.e. not as crowded) pool, fear not, there is also a pool located in the Little Mermaid Section and in the Cars section that are both often less crowded because they lack those extra features that pull in the kids to the Big Blue pool.

Disney has three main categories for their hotels…Deluxe, Moderate and Value. AOA falls into the Value category, but offers two types of rooms: Standard rooms that can sleep up to 4 people, and Family Suites that can sleep up to 6 people. Having both options in a Value resort means more people can experience this amazing hotel. There are 4 themed areas: Little Mermaid, Lion King, Finding Nemo and Cars. Let’s take a look at the room types and the locations.

 

Standard room

All of the standard rooms are located in the Little Mermaid section. Standard rooms have a single bathroom and either a King Bed or two double beds. There isn’t a whole lot of room to move around, but if you don’t spend much time in your room during your Disney vacation, then that shouldn’t necessarily matter.

Our biggest complaint about being in the Little Mermaid section is the distance from all of the amenities, such as the food court and main pool/splash area. Sure, there’s a pool right in the middle of the 3 Little Mermaid buildings, but as a family with a toddler, we prefer the Finding Nemo pool since it has more for him to do. The walk is just so far…and it seems even farther during a hot Florida day.

Here are some photos of a Little Mermaid standard room with 2 double beds.

 

Family Suites

The Family Suites are located in the Lion King, Finding Nemo and Cars sections. The layout of most of the rooms, no matter their location, are basically the same, they are just themed differently. They have multiple rooms and bathrooms and PLENTY of room to move around. The doors to the rooms are located on the inside of buildings, with temperature-controlled hallways (as opposed to the Little Mermaid section, where the doors are located outside), making the trek to your room after a long day much more comfortable.

These rooms have one full bedroom with an attached bathroom, 2 sitting areas with pull out beds, a mini kitchen area and a separate bathroom.

We stayed in the Lion King Suites during one of our visits. We may have had a handicap-accessible room, so keep in mind that our room layout may look slightly different from the regular rooms, but should be almost identical.

Photos of a Lion King Family Suite

-First sitting area with tv and a couch that pulls out to a bed.

Second sitting area with a desk and a bed that pulls down from the wall.

The Lion King Section is where you can catch movie night…and if your room is in the right location, you can watch it out of your window since they open up!

 

Theme

Some people find the theming of Value resorts to be a little cheesy, with their giant icon statues scattered throughout the property. I can see where that thought is coming from, but I think that Disney did much better with AOA as compared to the other Value resorts. It’s just the right level of Disney, without going over the top. Kids will probably find AOA much more fun than many of the other hotels that lack an obvious Disney theme and there are some great photo opportunities throughout the entire property.

 

Cars Section

Don’t wait in long lines at the parks to get photos with Cars characters….take them at AOA!

 

Finding Nemo Section

 

Lion King Section

 

Little Mermaid Section

In regards to it’s location on WDW property, Art of Animation is closest to Epcot and Hollywood Studios, then Animal Kingdom, with Magic Kingdom being the furthest away. We drive our own vehicle on property, so we can’t vouch for timing of buses, but we feel like it is in a convenient location and never took us more than 10 minutes to get to any of the parks or Downtown Disney.

Since we are only a family of 3, we find the standard rooms to be fine enough for us, but when we crave a more convenient location or when our family grows (in both numbers and age/stature) we will most likely be switching to the Family Suites. As far as discounts go, Disney offers numerous room discounts throughout the year, but the Little Mermaid rooms have always been excluded so far. Maybe when AOA isn’t so “new” they will add them to the list for available discounts, but the Family Suites have been included so far.

 

Want to see more of our Disney posts, trip reports and photos? Check out our Disney page here!

 

We’ve been on 3 cruises now, which hardly makes us veterans (or does it?), but it’s enough that we’ve really started to learn what we like and don’t like. Unfortunately, those cruises were on 3 different cruise lines, so you can’t necessarily apply everything you like/dislike from a cruise over to a new cruise line, but you can apply quite a bit to help make decisions about the next cruise.

One of those things is that we have always selected our actual room. We have never risked it by booking a guarantee…and trust us, the discount has most certainly enticed us, but we would be so disappointed to book say a guarantee balcony and then get stuck with a balcony that has a severely obstructed view on the 2nd deck. Because, let’s face it, that’s our luck.

We had balconies on our first 2 cruises. After not using it much on the first cruise, we didn’t think we needed it….but Brett convinced me on our second cruise and we used it so much that we thought we would be “Balcony Snobs” from then on. But funny how having a toddler makes you rethink, well, just about everything.

When I first thought about booking a cruise for my birthday, Disney wasn’t even on the radar, let alone anything more than an inside room. Just call me el Cheapo. But, just as he usually does, Brett talked me up to Disney and at least something with a view. Salesman, that sneaky Brett is.

We considered getting a balcony, but Trent was going to be 19 months old at that time…smack dab in the middle of his “I do what I want, climb on everything and throw whatever I can get my hands on” phase. We didn’t need to pay for remotes being thrown overboard, let alone not needing to be a worried mom the entire time, so we opted for an Oceanview.

We were really intrigued by the Category 08A rooms. Category 08A rooms are one category below the balcony rooms, but still considered Oceanview because it’s a “porthole” room. However, we didn’t get just one porthole, we got two very large portholes! These were large enough to sit in and enjoy the view without the worries of a balcony I mentioned above.

Another major benefit of these rooms is the amount of SPACE they have. There was plenty of room for Trent to run around, which is so important at his age…because if they can’t run around and release that energy, it comes out in the form of a tantrum…usually at dinner. So we had plenty of space for storage (all of our suitcases and clothes were completely out of view) and plenty of running-room for Trent. There were also 2 tvs…one for adults and one for Trent

And the final major benefit I’m going to mention is the bathroom. Although it’s not the split bathroom I’ve heard so many people like that Disney offers, it had an actual tub. The shower and tub were just like at home, just smaller….not one of those stand-up only showers in most cruise bathrooms that hardly allow any wiggle room. There would be no way to give Trent a bath if we didn’t have the tub.

Location: Room 5522 was on Deck 5, Forward Starboard Side. It wasn’t as close to elevators as we would have liked and it definitely took us a day to figure out how to get to our room depending on which elevator we took, since we were near the theater and one of the hallways leading from the mid-elevators to our room was non-existent, so we had to go around the theater to get anywhere on our floor. We could take the forward elevators up to Deck 11 and we would be near the ice cream machines, but everything else required us to walk all the way to the Aft, including Cabana’s, Flo’s and all 3 dining rooms. While we absolutely loved our room, we didn’t like the amount of walking to get to the places we used most…with a toddler. Although, Trent was delighted to press the elevator buttons every time.

You can view the layout for Deck 5 (as well as all the decks on the Disney Dream) on Cruise Critic here.

Well, that’s enough talking, how about some photos?

This first one was taken by the door/bathroom. To the right is the desk/sitting area with 2 chairs and the couch that turns into a single bed. To the far right and not pictured is the very large closet, where each of us had our own section.

This next photo was taken over by the closet. Just look at all that floor space! SOOO much bigger than a typical stateroom. The door on the left is the bathroom and the door by the bed is a connecting door if you had friends/family staying in the connecting room. The fridge is located in that cabinet directly underneath the tv.

If you want the couch made up into a bed at night, just tell your stateroom attendant and he will make sure it is done every night and then made back into a couch for during the day. Also, that little ottoman-like table opens up for more storage.

The next photo gives you a good picture of the entire layout and of how HUGE those portholes are!

Here, you can kind of see the padding on the bottom of the porthole that is supposed to make it comfy to sit on. However, maybe my butt is too wide because I found the width of the “seat” to be a little on the small side to where I couldn’t lay down and relax. There’s lots of storage room underneath the bed for suitcases and such.

Cruise ship bathrooms aren’t known for their spacious luxury (unless you’ve spent the big bucks), but we were pretty happy with this one. The tub/shower combo was perfect for a toddler and us adults had room to move…although Brett said he was about an inch from his head hitting the ceiling, so if you are over 6 feet tall, you may find yourself leaning over for your shower.

You can read my full trip report from this cruise by clicking here, but I wanted to share this post for anyone out there that might be searching for photos and opinions about this room. We looked up forum posts, photos, videos and anything we could find while trying to decide on a room and all of it helped so much…so I hope this helps someone else out there too.

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