Trip Report May 2017 Caribbean Beach Resort/ Flower & Garden Trip **COMPLETED**

We're back already!! As always, it went far too fast!

A little intro: We are myhappyplace (Amber) and Mrhappyplace (David). This was our 4th trip to the World as married folks (I've gone over 10 times prior to meeting DH, and he went on one day trips several times as a child).

(from our last trip)



Our Pre-Trip thread for this vacation can be found here: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...-pin-code-spring-caribbean-beach-trip.921077/ . Also, if you care to, searching will bring up past trip reports: our Disneymoon/WL trip, our Boardwalk/ F &W trip, and our Christmastime BLT trip.


On to this trip!


When: Saturday, April 29th- Saturday May 6th
(Even through 2 of our days were technically in April, I still referred to this as our 'May trip')

Where: Caribbean Beach Resort (our first moderate!)
Previous to meeting DH, I had only stayed in Value resorts. For our Disneymoon, we splurged (with the help of wedding gift money) and stayed at a Deluxe....well, and got spoiled. Now having stayed at 3 Deluxes, we weren't sure how our stay at a Moderate would go. I was fairly sure that as long as I had a shower and a bed and was at Disney, I was good. DH's main concern was transportation, as we really enjoy those resorts that have choices (boat & bus, monorail & walking, etc). Would we like CBR???

Why: sort of silly, because...why not?? Truthfully, we were going to take a bit of a break after our December trip, but we ended up getting a pin code in the mail, and after price checking, found we could swing a trip to enjoy Epcot's Flower & Garden Festival- a time of year we hadn't ever visited. Booking THIS trip then made us realize that we should upgrade to an Annual Pass in December, which THEN made us book a September and probably December trip to get the most use of the AP. So, thank you pin code!

Here we go!

 

[myhappyplace]

I am waaayyyyy behind on my trip report reading.....thanks for bearing with me!
Excited to see you were the proud recipient of the elusive red card!
Back to reading.....

We understand
This wouldn't be my only time, either!!

 

[Tuvalu]

I warned DH but this is mostly what he thought...


As usual, Ariel was a wonderful singer, but overall I think this show could be much better.


Upon exiting, we noticed that the line was much shorter for the Photopass photographer who is nearest the arch, so we had him take some shots for us, which I thought turned out pretty well




After this, we still had some time before we needed to head to Fantasmic!, so we did something which I'm fairly certain I still owe DH for...he hates "Let it Go"


I just love it, I think those historians are hoots! And I love the way the jokes are different each time...the male historian ripped on the Falcons losing the Super Bowl


Our next plan was a Peanut Butter & Jelly milkshake from the Tune-In Lounge to take into Fantasmic!, and while there, we saw Phil!! We loved Phil when he seated us on our trip in 2015. He's just so sweet, I even got a picture with him back then. I didn't do that here, but I did go up and tell him that I remember him from 2015, and he seemed so surprised. Don't go by his expression in the photo (he's calling some kids in for dinner)


Milkshakes to go!


Next up, and onslaught of Fantasmic! pictures...

Never noticed the derby lamps in the Brown Derby.
We saw the same historians later in the week and heard the same Falcons joke.
Phil from 50s Prime Time reminds me so much of my late grandfather. Phil has worked there for a long time.....and was working last week when we were there.

 

[Tuvalu]

Forgot to add......the pictures with the chocolate Derby hat are a hoot!!!

 

[myhappyplace]

Never noticed the derby lamps in the Brown Derby.
We saw the same historians later in the week and heard the same Falcons joke.
Phil from 50s Prime Time reminds me so much of my late grandfather. Phil has worked there for a long time.....and was working last week when we were there.

I didn't notice them myself, until we were done with our meal, and DH said that on the way out we should get a pic of them. I literally still didn't even see them until I was standing under one
That's funny about the historians! There were 2 different ones in February.

Forgot to add......the pictures with the chocolate Derby hat are a hoot!!!

They are still quite entertaining to me too!!

 

[PacNWTigger]

I really enjoyed your tree pics at AK. I'm sure you could be at that tree all day and still not find all of the animals. I am finally all caught up though, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your great pics!

 

[myhappyplace]

I really enjoyed your tree pics at AK. I'm sure you could be at that tree all day and still not find all of the animals. I am finally all caught up though, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your great pics!

Thank you, that was a group effort as well! I absolutely agree, I mean we were looking 3 separate times, and still didn't see them all-it's such an amazing work of art!

More coming up!

 

[myhappyplace]

Wednesday, May 3rd- Magic Kingdom!! (finally!)

It seemed so odd to me that it wasn't until Day 5 really, if you count arrival day, that we were going to MK, my favorite park! Definitely not DH's. MK had evening EMH this night- we weren't sure how late we would stay though.

On the way to the bus stop this morning, there was lots of things going on. Carrying things up the stairs, unloading trucks, etc.


These items were piled by the trash can, so I wondered if they were trash. I briefly entertained taking them!!


I think these were murphy beds?


As we continued our walk to Jamaica's bus stop, we saw the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol2 bus. DH's latest pasttime has been to tease me about ToT turning into a GotG ride...


As we traveled around the resort to pick up at other bus stops, we could see the fences going up, and indeed Barbados island bus stop was closed.


Soon enough, though, we were at my happy place!! And can I say how GLORIOUS it is to be able to see the Mickey face and not 1002 people in front of the train station at arrival?! I was so happy with the security change!! Made for a nice easy entrance, and a beautiful view!


DH capturing me taking the above photo


We walked down Main Street, which wasn't very busy yet, though it was just a bit after opening. I liked this bird sitting so blatantly in front of the sign


It was shaping up to be a beautiful day! Though we could tell it would be quite warm, like the forecast said.




We enjoyed a nice leisurely stroll, taking pictures of details we could see, as we turned left right after Casey's. We always turn left!


I don't think I'd ever noticed these skulls before! DH found them




I took a picture of the Tiki Room, even though we wouldn't get there today.


This is where we were heading


The wait was short!


Since it was so short, they told us to go in either direction. When we got down to the boat, we were the only ones there, and the CM put us in the front row. So we sat. Then he said "actually, I'm going to give you guys your own boat, so I'll need you to change to row 3" No problem. DH said he thought that meant the CM wanted us to be "amorous".

The CM apologized and seemed to feel bad that he had us move, when it was really no issue whatsoever. So he gave us these:


According to DH, these were an "awful" thing to get because it was too much pressure to figure out what to use it on and when! He didn't want to use it on something that didn't have a really long wait. We didn't use them today, but would by week's end.

We had a nice boat ride, though I did get splashed pretty significantly by a cannonball. We did keep checking all of the Captain Jack animatronics to see if any were really Johnny Depp. They weren't.

 

[myhappyplace]

Next up, we had a FP for the Mine Train. We passed through Frontierland, and noticed that only Chip was meeting at the moment. (Later we would see both chipmunks out)


I also demanded pics at the stockade.






We mentioned how neither of us has ridden the Liberty Belle, and that we should. We never did end up doing it.


We arrived at 7DMT, and look what I got in the FP queue!


We talked about what we should do for the on ride photos, and I said I would be happy with just a smile because in our last trip's Mine Train Photo, DH looked very unhappy (he wasn't) so he started early. Like before the train even took off.


Apparently it didn't stick


After the ride, we went back over to Liberty Square-I wanted to see if the Great Moments in American History with the Muppets was the other show that I haven't seen. We caught the second half, but it wasn't. So DH took some pics while I watched anyway. Someday I will see that Paul Revere one!




We had a little time before our next FP at Splash, so we wandered around and in the Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe.


I was inside looking at ornaments, when DH got my attention and called me outside behind the store. I was surprised to find Mary Poppins, by herself except for a handler. She told me to hold the umbrella handle, if you're wondering. And she asked if DH was a gentleman, and I told her most of the time.






It was so special! When we walked away, there was still no one else coming back there, and we could hear Mary talking with her handler, perfectly in character even when no one was really around. It made me smile- Disney magic at its best



We enjoyed our next ride, Splash, which we used a FP for. We didn't get too wet; and where we did, it was just in our face, and on our upper bodies, so we were okay with that. I just didn't really want it to run along the back of the seat and get our butts wet.

 

[littleroo]

One of my goals at the F&G Festival was the Butterfly House
























We spent quite some time photographing the butterflies




We especially liked trying to capture photos containing more than one butterfly in it at a time...there are 4 in this picture, can you spot them?

Beautiful pictures!!! I Truly!!

 

[myhappyplace]

What little wet we did get, we were dry by the time we walked back to Liberty Square for lunch, our first time ever at Liberty Tree Tavern!!


The themeing is right up my alley, I love reading books set in this era!






I like the wavy glass windowpanes


We also really liked the triangular plates for some reason


We went with the Patriot's Platter. We started with a salad and rolls, both yummy. I always make the mistake of eating so much of both, and that still was the case, but I really liked both.


My plate (turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes, mac & cheese, pot roast, and pork.


DH's plate (plus corn, minus pork)


The pot roast was delicious!! I'm not quite prepared to say it is as good as 50s Prime Time Cafe, I do believe further testing may be required I also really loved the potatoes! All in all, there wasn't anything I didn't like (other than corn, which I don't like)

And FINALLY, I got to have Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake, and it lived up to any hype I've heard!


All in all, I was really pleased with LTT, and would definitely eat here again, as would DH. We decided to head out of the park for a bit for a break, though we meandered slowly out.

My shirt pretty much summed it up








Near the Fire Station, we encountered the Dapper Dans, so of course we had to watch! We enjoyed their set!






Just some shots on the way out (for now)







This would be one of our longer waits for the bus, but we were entertained by an older woman on a scooter who thought she was entering the queue for CBR, but was actually one away. No big deal, except when she tried to exit the queue and come over to the right one, she ran into the post and under the chain and was sort of stuck, so DH went over to help her out.

Will pick up again tomorrow, with the remainder of our Magic Kingdom day. Thanks for reading!

 

[myhappyplace]

Beautiful pictures!!! I Truly!!

Thank you! It was beautiful in there!

 

[Tuvalu]

The CM at Pirates made you move from the first row to the third row (middle) in order to "balance" the boat with weight. The same thing happened to Em and me on one of our Pirate rides.

You have a better chance of seeing the Paul Revere sketch at the 10:55 am show or in the afternoon.

Told ya Ooey Gooey Cake rocks!

 

[MRGEFF]

Day 1, continued- Disney Springs & Morimoto Asia

I forgot to post this in the last post, but when we were walking toward World of Disney earlier, we passed by a family: the man was pushing a stroller, and a woman was following behind him, and we heard her very clearly say to the man "but the difference is I hate you", and she wasn't playing. Gotta love the Disney attitude some people have!

DH loooooves Asian foods, so Morimoto Asia was one of his 2 dining requests for this trip. We checked in and were told they would text us when our table was ready. We went out to sit on a bench outside. We entertained ourselves by watching a man who I thought was a dead-ringer for the character Kevin Garvey Sr from the HBO show The Leftovers. Coulda been twins, I swear. Anyway, it only took about 5 minutes until I received our table-ready text.

We were a little disappointed in our table, only because it was so little! It was a two-top, but so small, and we planned on ordering several dishes. We voiced our concerns to our hostess, not really to be moved, but more to check whether she thought it would work, and she said that it wouldn't be a problem. We were planning on bringing leftovers back to the room for DH to snack on.

The decor was really interesting, though we wished we would have booked a later meal to see it more at night. Oh well!




We liked the "jellyfish" lighting!



Our server was Paul, and he was excellent. I let DH handle all of the ordering for this meal. We split everything but the shrimp, as I don't do a lot of shellfish.
While we waited for our food, I walked around and took some pictures. This is the downstairs bar area:


On the way up the stairs, looking down into the dining area:


Looking out over the balcony/ second floor:


I spy DH!


I saw this giant connect-4 thing upstairs


This was above the second-floor sushi bar


Soon enough, our food started coming out. DH had the Rock Shrimp Tempura, which he thought was good not great.


We shared the Morimoto's Spare Ribs (appetizer portion) and these were INCREDIBLE. So melt-in-your-mouth! I would definitely get these again.


Kanikama Rangoon, which was good.


Pork Egg Rolls, also good. I really liked the dipping sauce, which DH says was typical sauce but I never use it in everyday asian food ordering, so it was new to me.


Morimoto Gomoku Fried Rice...we liked it but we weren't really used to that style. It was interesting, but we've had rice we like better


For dessert, we had the Chocolate Cream & Crunch. That is a tempura fried oreo...though all the pictures DH had seen leading up to this showed 2 oreos being served with this. So we were kinda sad about that because it, and the whole dessert was yummy.


I made a trip to the restroom. I waked into the ladies, and did a double-take. There were framed photos of men on the wall. I instantly thought I was in the wrong restroom, so I walked back out the door, looked at the door and the skirted female image on the door, and went back in, and saw another woman in there. She said something like "I know, confusing". As soon as I walked back to the table and said "I was so confused!", DH said "the pictures?" He knew from reading reviews online.

The walls in the stall (yes I know it's weird to take photos in the restroom but it was pretty!)


DH then took this picture in the men's room



Before we left Disney Springs, DH wanted to visit the Morimoto Street Food booth to get something he loves to take back- Cold Sesame Noodles




Still not completely dark, but it was pretty lit up


We had quite a walk to our stop, but before long, we were back home and ready for bed, and our first full day tomorrow!!

No, I don't think it's at all weird to take pix in the ladies room ( simply because I've done too ). Some of them are too pretty and very nicely decorated not to. Enjoying the TR and I'm only on the first day.

 

[Tiggerish]

DH informed me after this pic that I shouldn't have been standing on the butterfly's wing...I think we took a better one later in the week

But it looks like you're riding on the butterfly while it's in flight! That's cool!

One of my goals at the F&G Festival was the Butterfly House

I'm really glad this was one of your goals--the photos are fantastic! I love the butterfly house and have been known to spend a lot of time there.

On the way, we encountered the least-shy squirrel I've seen on Disney property

I think I've met that guy, too, near a bench in the UK where I was eating French fries, and he seemed to think "one for you, one for me"!

 

[21stamps]

Day 1, continued

I returned to the room, and found DH ready to get up. We still had plenty of time before we needed to head to our dinner, and after I told him about my wanderings, we decided to hit up the quiet pool for a bit, then we would shower and get ready. I don't have pictures from the pool, but we spent about 15-20 minutes just standing in the cool pool water, aahhh.

We showered, then decided that instead of going to our island's bus stop, that I would show DH where I walked, and catch the bus from the Old Port Royale stop. We are amateur pin traders, and stopped to look at the pins. We tend to collect pins that have some significance to the current trip --where we are staying, any festivals or special times of year we are there, etc. Well, turns out that all Caribbean Beach Resort pins are sold out, property-wide. (we ended up buying one on ebay on the drive home)



Shutters was still open, but would close on Monday the 1st as well.


We headed to the bus stop, to head where?


Disney Springs!








I SO could not get a sense of direction now that everythings redone!
It's so beautifully done, though I will still probably only ever really go in a couple stores, and eat there. I did find my hat here!


Where were we eating? Here?


Nope (though I did loooove my meal there a few trips ago!) We were eating here!!

Following!!! The lights are beautiful!! I'm thankful for these reports, even when friends post FB photos you don't really see too many details of the resorts. Great photos!!

 

[joshsprincess921]

Your pictures are so pretty!

 

[PrincessNelly_NJ]

Im really enjoying your trip report! Following along!

 

[myhappyplace]

The CM at Pirates made you move from the first row to the third row (middle) in order to "balance" the boat with weight. The same thing happened to Em and me on one of our Pirate rides.

You have a better chance of seeing the Paul Revere sketch at the 10:55 am show or in the afternoon.

Told ya Ooey Gooey Cake rocks!

We figured it had to do with weight distribution, it was just so funny (to me) that he really thought he was putting us out by having us move, and to give us the FP when it was no trouble at all to move. Not that we didn't appreciate them of course!

Ah, I will make note of this.

Yes it surely does! I could definitely see myself going back for lunch again sometime.

No, I don't think it's at all weird to take pix in the ladies room ( simply because I've done too ). Some of them are too pretty and very nicely decorated not to. Enjoying the TR and I'm only on the first day.

Good!! I've taken them a time or two in the past, myself, if they especially fit the theme. Thank you for reading!

But it looks like you're riding on the butterfly while it's in flight! That's cool!



I'm really glad this was one of your goals--the photos are fantastic! I love the butterfly house and have been known to spend a lot of time there.



I think I've met that guy, too, near a bench in the UK where I was eating French fries, and he seemed to think "one for you, one for me"!

Well, that was our goal, except DH didn't think that turned out as well as it could because I was standing on the butterfly's wing and not his body.

Thanks for the compliments!

I was even narrating the little "you have anything for me, huh, huh, do ya? How 'bout you? You gotta have something for me! No, okay, I'll ask this guy..."

Following!!! The lights are beautiful!! I'm thankful for these reports, even when friends post FB photos you don't really see too many details of the resorts. Great photos!!

Thank you much!

Your pictures are so pretty!

Thank you!

Im really enjoying your trip report! Following along!

Glad to have you, thank you!

 

[myhappyplace]

Magic Kingdom, continued

When we returned, it dawned on me that I had wanted to try to meet Merida, but we were too late. No worries, it just goes on my "next time" list. We did do another thing next that I hadn't done in awhile: Teacups! We got in a very short standby queue, but quite a line formed right behind us, so the CM needed to change the chains to reconfigure the queue. This took several minutes and several tries. I can't say much, I'd never be able to figure it out, but it was like a challenging puzzle for this poor girl. Finally she got it, so we had to walk a long queue even though we were first in line. No worries, was just amusing.






I was in charge of spinning at first. I didn't want to go too fast because I didn't know how DH would like it, but after awhile he said "lemme show you how to spin" and...


Next up was a FP for Peter Pan...and mind you, I'm not complaining but I do miss that when you have a FP you miss out on the queue through the Darlings' bedroom. This was the only pic I took, just to remind me what we did when.


We did have a major goal this evening, and this was to get our photo made with the Tangled lantern. Might be silly to some, but this movie holds a special place in my heart, as I saw it for the first time on one of my first visits with DH, before I moved in, and "I See the Light" was our wedding song. We sat in the area we thought it would be in, and then overheard someone ask a passing CM, so found the exact line. There were some people already waiting, so we hopped in line. They began photos at 8:00, and it took us only 15-20 minutes.

Here is an obligatory shot of the area while we waited, because I can never have too many of these beauties!


And, my most favoritest picture of DH and I EVER

*sigh*

The photos appeared on my app right away, and I couldn't have been happier!
We decided next to join the throngs of people on Main Street for Wishes. Crazy, yes, but I thought it was going to be my last time seeing them. It was crazy crazy busy. We found a standing spot for 2 near the Plaza Ice Cream. We watched one tiny little older lady wheedle her way through the crowd several times looking for her family. She stepped over top of people, moved people's bags and things to get by, you name it.



I really like how this turned out (idea stolen from Pinterest):

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Such a nice picture of you and your hubs in the Tangled picture.