Trip Report The Cold, Rainy, and First Ever Trip Report

Disneydreamer23 · Feb 17, 2014

Great trip report!!

PMC0849 · Feb 17, 2014

Day 5 - Continued

After arriving back at AKL from Universal, everyone was tired, and wanted to nap. Not me, I went back to the room and changed out of some wet clothes and went to MK by myself. I made a few FPs on the bus. It was nice to get away from the big group, but I wish I would have been able to convince Ian or Cara to come along with me.

This may be my favorite picture I took the whole trip

My first FP was for "The Little Mermaid" ride, I am sure they get a ton of 30 year old guys riding this by themselves.

Why did King Triton have real hair and nobody else did?

I enjoyed this ride, I am biased though. In case you didn't notice I picked up an Ariel pin while there, and she is visible in some of my pictures. I actually had another one, someone gave me for my birthday that fell off during this trip. I was singing along quietly to all the songs during this ride. Anyway after LM I was supposed to have a space mountain FP, but it broke so I was able to use it on Big Thunder Mountain. After that I went to see if SM was back up and running before heading to dinner but it was not. We had ADR at Todd English's Bluezoo at the Dolphin. I had pushed the time a bit but there was a bus arriving when I got there. Of course it was shift change time and the new driver was not there yet. After about 15 minutes the new guy showed up and we got going. After walking through the Dolphin to get to Bluezoo I decided I never want to stay there; it was a madhouse of drunk convention people. The rest of my family had some trouble getting there, Disney just doesn't make travel between resorts simple. Anyway after a bit the rest of my family arrived, we sat for a little since they were so busy with the convention goers, but were sat in a reasonable time. We ordered a few cocktails

We started off having the raw bar selection, and some shrimp and grits. I had the salmon, someone else had swordfish, and most people had different versions of the simply fish, I cannot remember which fish they actually had that night though.

Ian ordered this lobster stuffed potato, which was really good.

Everyone loved this place, I think it may have been everyone's favorite overall. Funny story, Bluezoo is where i first met my future in laws 7 years prior. At the time my mother-in-law did not like me, but we get along very well now. I didn't seem to take any pictures of dessert, so I can't remember if we had any or not. After dinner Ian wanted to try and go bowling. Cara, him, and, I went to DTD, Trevor and Brittany were going to meet us but never did, while my parents went back to AKL.

I loved this lego display

We walked into a store at DTD and Cara found the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shirt that had eluded her so far during the trip. We made it over to the bowling alley, it was very busy, they had one person helping the people just coming in, we waited 10-15 minutes, the first people in line when we got there were still being helped. We gave up, went outside and got a couple drinks. There was a band playing and it was a nice consolation prize. I had wanted to see the Art of Disney store, but it was nowhere near where we were so we skipped it. There is a comic book artist that does some Disney art J. Scott Campbell, I wanted to see if they had anything there by him, but it was no big deal. We went back to AKL, day 6 was going to bring us maybe the best thing we did the whole trip, the wild Africa trek!

FlaggNL · Feb 18, 2014

Great report! Love the universal pics.... during our October '14 trip we will do Universal for 2 days also

PMC0849 · Feb 18, 2014

FlaggNL said:
Great report! Love the universal pics.... during our October '14 trip we will do Universal for 2 days also

I want to go back when the weather is nice, in a smaller party, to try and take full advantage of it.

PMC0849 · Feb 25, 2014

Day 6 - WILD AFRICA TREK!!! plus more rain...

We awoke fairly early this morning for our Wild Africa Trek, the AK bus was awaiting and it was only a short bus ride before we got to the park.

We got checked in, and the CMs asked if we would want to go on the earlier trek, which of course we said yes to. The earlier trek only had one other girl on it, and we were early enough that it hadn't started yet. This is amazing, Cara and I are chronically late for things, so are Brittany and Trevor. I could not believe it. We got to walk through AK before it opened, which was really neat. There were only CMs, us and people going to Tusker House.

Could barely see the tree through the fog.

We got all geared up for the WAT and off we went. First stop was the hippos.

After the hippos there are two bridges you have to cross, that you have to be attached to. The whole time we were crossing them I was thinking of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" since the crocodiles were right below us at the time.

Aww, they're cuddling

You get really pretty close to the crocs and hippos, they strap you to some wire so you can get right up on the edge near them and not worry about becoming lunch. After the crocs we got to take off our harnesses and move on to a truck. As soon as we got in the truck it started raining, thank god we made it to the truck at least which had a roof. They gave us some ponchos too which helped. Now in the truck you are on the same road as the Kilimanjaro safari, but they stop a lot, and go into a lot more detail, it is a more in depth, and less disney-fied version of the safari.

A little ways into the tour there is a little station you get to have a meal at. It is a nice little meal, nothing remarkable but pleasant. Plus you get to look out at the animals, and they have binoculars there for you to use. It also stopped raining once we got in this little area.

After the trek was over Ian, dad, Trevor, and Brittany were a little tired, so they went back to the hotel to rest a little. Cara, Mom, and I were going to see what AK had to offer. One of the first things we saw was a character meet for Pooh and Tigger, so we did that, and were 2nd in line, with only a few minutes before the characters came out.

After this we went over to Dinoland USA, there was a10 minute posted wait for Dinosaur, and it was about a 30 second wait. I enjoy Dinosaur, but I don't remember it being that dark. I could not see a damn thing. I do wish it was based off a better Disney movie, there are so many movies better than "Dinosaur", that are not represented in the parks.

We walked over to the Primeval Whirl next. Cara and I skipped this on our last trip, it is a lot more fun than it should be, I would definitely ride it on future trips. The one thing I don't like about this area is it has those crappy sideshow games, I know that is part of the theme of this area, but I hate those, they really cheapen the atmosphere of the park. After this we went to everest!!!

There was about a 45 minute wait, but we were told to go to single rider lines whenever possible, they are often shorter than FP lines. This was true, its not as much fun riding with a stranger, but it got us on the ride really fast. But guess what, as soon as the train took off it started raining, rain + rollercoaster = bad. It wasn't too bad, but still. I really enjoy everest, I think it is the best coaster I have been on in Orlando. The Yeti actually worked last time we were there, now it is pretty sad, and it does take a bit away from this awesome ride. We met back up with my Mom, and took cover from the rain as it started to pour. Mom was sick of the rain and decided to go back to the hotel. Cara wished I would have wanted to leave, but oh no, I was determined to stay. The rain went way and we headed back into the park. We did a quick stroll through Rafiki's planet watch, then came back and checked out It's tough to be a bug. We had watched "A Bug's Life" a few nights before we left, so all these character were fresh in our mind. This and Philharmagic, blow Captain EO and Muppets out of the water right now. I really enjoyed it.

We can see the tree now!

The rest of day 6 to come soon, more AK, a treat I have wanted since day 1, a night at epcot, and a disappointing dinner.

Duckberg · Mar 2, 2014

Talk about character meet & greets WOW :jawdrop:

now that's what I call getting into it

PMC0849 · Mar 6, 2014

Duckberg said:
Talk about character meet & greets WOW now that's what I call getting into it

Last time we didn't do any! I always regretted not meeting Launchpad when I had the chance, and now I will never get too :cry:

PMC0849 · Mar 13, 2014

Day 6, Continued

Okay, sorry for the long layoff, I got distracted. Cara and I decided to get a turkey leg, this was the first thing we ate last time we came and we knew we just had to get one. So, we wandered over to the flametree BBQ, it smelled really good. We got a couple of adult beverages, a turkey leg to share, coleslaw, and onion rings.

After lunch we wanted to go see the gorillas, so we headed to that walk, I forget the name. On the way we saw the ice cream carts. The thing I wanted most, since before we arrived, was a Mickey ice cream sandwich. The first 2 days I put it off, thinking I have plenty of time, than we got hit with the cold and rain, and who wants ice cream in that. Finally it was time.

I can't remember the last time I had an ice cream sandwich, but this was marvelous. I should have had one every day I was there. Sigh, who wants to go back with me? We'll eat a ton of ice cream sandwiches. We continued our journey to see the gorillas, a lot of this are we saw on our way to the Wild Africa Trek, but we didn't really get to stop and enjoy it.

I didn't get any good pictures of the gorillas, they were too far back, or in not very photogenic positions. We headed over to Everest for one last go, I think we had FP for this one.

Love the view from atop Everest

We got back to the hotel, and Cara wanted to rest. I met Ian, and my Mom in the bar. My Mom, wanted to do several of the things at epcot she hadn't had a chance to do yet, so we headed over there for a little before dinner. First, we went on spaceship earth since it was right there, which was like my 3rd or 4th time riding it this trip... Next we went to Mission: Space, since she had really wanted to ride that one. Unfortunately, Cara, and Brittany had convinced her to do the tamer side. Afterwards she agreed she should have tried the more intense version, but she enjoyed the ride anyway.

There was too long of a line for TT after this, even single riders was about 50 minutes, so we started walking to the WS, we stopped by in Canada, just in time for the circlevision movie. It was funny, but very corny. After this we had to head over to Swan and Dolphin for dinner. We took the friend ship from the back entrance to Epcot. We met my Dad, Trevor, Cara, and Brittany, at Shula's. We all ordered various cuts of steak, I think mostly ribeye and strip steaks. A few of us had some salad or soup to start, and we ordered some sides as well.

Souffle for desert

Overall I found Shula's to be a disappointment. My least favorite of our fancy meals. The steaks at Le Cellier were better, as were the sides and service. We all headed back to the hotel, and had to rest up for our last day, which happened to be Superbowl Sunday.

PMC0849 · Jul 22, 2014

Hello, after a brief 4 month absence I decided to finish this trip report. Better late than never, right? I was inspired, Cara and I as I have mentioned, live in New York, this past weekend we saw "Aladdin" on Broadway. It is certainly not the best Broadway show I have ever seen, and there were several moments *cough* Iago *cough* that made caused to look at each other and roll our eyes. The show is worth it however, for the fantastic, "Friend Like Me" sequence. All I can say is that Genie earned the Tony award he won. The bad thing about it is, nothing before or after that moment matched, this was the first musical I have been to with a standing ovation in the middle of the show. The rest of the show was good, don't get me wrong, although I did miss Abu. Anyway we walked out of the theater, and Cara says, "I want to go back to Disney World." Well, long story short, we booked a spontaneous trip for the end of September. More on that later, let's finish this trip report.

Day 7 - The Superbowl (which, most of us skipped)

Ian, and my parents wanted to do a character breakfast, we also wanted to do our last day at Magic Kingdom. We were able to get reservations at 'Ohana for the character breakfast for that morning the night before. It was early, I want to say 7:30, but I cannot remember. At this point my dad was sick of taking the buses to other resorts, so he insisted on paying for a cab, which was fine with us, we got to sleep later. Now when were little, we the 2 or 3 times we went, we stayed at the Polynesian, I think it was a very nice stroll down memory lane for my parents. My Mom, talking about what parts she remembered, and didn't remember. My dad pretty much just nodded in agreement, as he was focused on food. We checked in at 'Ohana and waited maybe five minutes before we were seated, and it wasn't long before a platter of bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits, came, plus the juice, which was very good.

I remember liking the sausage, and biscuits quite a lot, not that the other things were bad. I will say bacon at Disney seems to be an after thought. Don't get me wrong, I love bacon, and this was good, but nothing special, just typical thin, and inconsistently cooked bacon. Is there a place that does thick cut bacon at WDW? Well, not long after we got our food, we noticed the characters coming out.

Stitch is one of Cara's favorites

Ian looks like he does not trust that mouse...

All of character interactions this trip went really well, with one exception, Pluto. Everyone at this breakfast spent some time with us, we all took pictures with them, talked with them, had fun. Pluto came by put his hands on my dad's and Ian's chairs, and walked away, as my mom was asking for a picture, oh well. Like I said everyone else was fantastic. So we finished up breakfast, and headed over to Magic Kingdom.

It was not raining, all though, as you can tell from the above picture it looked like it was, which is par for the course for this week. It actually turned out to be a really nice day, and I kind of like the castle in the fog shot, even though there is the crane, the shot isn't level, and I really don't know how to us my camera well. Since it is now several months from the trip, I will not remember all of the details, I have to go by the pictures I took. So, next we rode Small World, and after that, Ian wanted to meet Rapunzel, her and Flynn were the characters he kept mentioning this trip, so we got in line to meet her and Snow White. Sadly Flynn is not with Rapunzel anymore. The line was deceptively long, but it was interesting as my mom started talking with the family in front of us, who had driven down from Wisconsin.

Rapunzel was a lot of fun, and we ended up talking her for longer than we should have, with such a long line of actual children behind us. Snow White was fun too, I just didn't have anything to say to here, so most of the interactions were with Cara and Ian. I noticed Gaston as we left the princess hall, but the line was massive, and we didn't want to do another long character line right away. I did stop to here him talk with some of the guests, it was pretty funny, I wish there were more villains you could meet, as these seem like they could be the most fun. It really seemed like the guy playing Gaston was really loving being so openly sexist.

How have I never ridden this, oh yeah it was closed...

My mom had talked about Hall of Presidents all week, and really wanted to make sure we did it tonight as we failed to see it the other day. It's not the most entertaining, or memorable show, but it does feel like a necessary attraction for any trip. This was the first time I have seen since Obama was added.

After Hall, we did a Pirates and Jungle Cruise. My dad kept talking about two things the whole time, well three if you count how much he hated the Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, and Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, the corny jokes are right up his alley. Sadly our skipper this time around was not as good as the previous one, she did get better towards the end, but for most of the ride she was fighting with a family who would not sit down, she was very visibly annoyed by this and it had an affect on the ride. We split up briefly after this, Cara and I wanted to ride Tea Cups, but we also wanted Dole whips, the line for Tea Cups was nothing, but the Dole whip line was huge. My mom volunteered to get the Dole whips while we road the tea cups.

This is one of those iconic rides, that I wouldn't be upset if I missed, but just seems like I have to do it every trip. I want to do the one in Disneyland, as it just looks nicer. We met up with the rest of our crew, speaking of which, Trevor and Brittany were at the Grand Floridian doing a spa day today. Ian, dad, and mom, were watching a show in front of the castle, I do not know what was caused, and they had some delicious looking treats waiting for us, even though they were slightly melted. The Dole whip was very refreshing, I don't know if I would wait in line for one, but, I could see really craving one on a 100 degree day. Cara and I only caught the tale end of the show, with the heroes dancing and celebrating having defeated Maleficent or something.

As you can see, it cleared up significantly since our arrival

The entire trip, Cara kept asking when she could meet Merida. She is her favorite princess, and when Cinderella told her earlier in the week that she looked like her friend Merida, it only made Cara want to meet Merida more.

Merida was a lot of fun, she really spent a lot of time talking to us, thinking back on it, this may have been the best character interaction we had. Now, I thought Merida was flirting with Ian, Cara says it was Rapunzel, most likely we are both delusional. After this we went and met Ariel, yeah we went overboard on the meet and greets this trip. To be fair when we went several years ago we met 0 characters, and I am still haunted by not meeting Launchpad McQuack when I had the chance, that will possibly be the biggest regret of my life, as I lie on my death bed. In case you don't know "The Little Mermaid" is my favorite Disney movie, and Ariel my favorite character. Having met princess Ariel earlier, I had to meet mermaid Ariel too.

By this point my parents had left, to go rest at the hotel. Ian, had yet to go on Big Thunder Mountain, it seemed to be down a lot during this trip. We had fast pass which, and coincidentally a girl Cara used to work with was there with her family and husband. Now when ever we hung out with this couple in New York, this girl's husband and I never had anything to talk about, we had nothing in common, for some reason we spoke more in this line, than every time we hung out in New York combined. I also struck up a conversation with a CM close to the ride, I don't remember what about, but I think baseball. Anyway as we moved away he handed me a bunch of paper fast passes for BTMR. We went right back on, and still had a few FPs left.

PMC0849 · Jul 22, 2014

Day 7 - Continued

We decided to head back to the room to take a break, and get ready for dinner, while the rest of the family went looking for a place to watch the Superbowl. My dad decided he didn't want to watch the game, and asked if he could join us for dinner that night, we said yes, even though we were hoping for a dinner alone, but it was fun regardless (and he insisted on paying too). Dinner the night was at Monsieur Paul, I have read a lot of mixed things about this place, mostly regarding the service. We all loved it, our waiter was great, maybe because Cara is fluent in French, and has been there several times, and I think the waiter enjoyed chatting with her in his native language.

I cannot remember exactly what all of this was, or who had which appetizer, I think my dad had the asparagus and ham salad, and Cara and I shared the Gorgonzola walnut and pear salad (it may have been apple). For the entree Cara had fish, which fish I don't recall, I want to say snapper with potato scales, I had duck, and my dad had scallops. For desert Cara and I shared profiteroles with pistachio ice cream. Everything was very good, from top to bottom, service food, ambiance. Maybe they have worked out the kinks, maybe we got lucky, I don't know, but I would recommend Monsieur Paul. We found out that the Superbowl was a bust, as Seattle was destroying Denver, my mom and Ian had quit watching early and were at Magic Kingdom watching wishes, which I thought started and hour later, I thought we had time to get to MK in time to see it, D'oh!!! MK had EMH that night, closing at either 12:00 or 1:00, Dad went back to the hotel, and we met Ian and my Mom at MK. My mom said goodbye and went back to AKL lodge herself. They explained, they ended up trying to watch the game somewhere on the Boardwalk, but it wasn't very good, and found a giant inflatable screen on the beach near the Beach Club. Trevor and Brittany were sticking it out apparently. They also couldn't stop raving about Wishes. How the hell did Cara and I not find time to see this? Probably because we kept having dinner reservations when it was on, once again D'oh!! Oh, I forgot before we met Ian and my mom we caught the beginning of the Electric lights parade.

I really enjoyed this parade, it was much better than the daytime parade, which was a lot shorter, and really wasn't anything special in my opinion. I am glad we stumbled into this, even though we missed wishes. We went on several rides with Ian, Space Mountain, BTMRR (Our FP tickets were useless at this point as the FP line was roped off), pirates again, HM again. Ian and Cara were ready to go, there wasn't much else they wanted to do. I however convinced them to go to the Story Time With Belle, I kept seeing the wait times for this, and had to see why it was so popular. I am glad we did it, but probably don't have to do it again, two 30 year olds and a 26 year old are not this attractions target demographic. However, the animatronics here are incredible, I could have sworn Lumiere was real! It was also fun how the kids reacted, the kid who played beast roared real loud during "casting" and than got stage fright once the show started. I might do this again, if there was no wait, but otherwise I would wait until I had kids of my own.

This thing was incredible!

I agreed to return back to the hotel. Of course I would have stayed until they kicked me out, but oh well, some people just don't have the stamina. We got home and packed, and got ready for the sad ride home.

Day 8 - Great Breakfast and Hours of Airport!

They say the saddest thing in the world is when a parent outlives a child, but I think it's when you board the magical express and head back to MCO. We still had a while before our flights, so we went and had breakfast at Boma Flavors of Africa, let me tell you, this was hands down the best breakfast we had here, maybe even one of the best overall meals. I had left my camera with bell services, so didn't take any pictures here, so I can't remember everything there was. I know it is a buffet with a mix of traditional American breakfast and African cuisine, everyone really liked it, I do remember getting an omelet, I am a sucker for omelet bars. There was also a french toast bread pudding thing that was amazing. It would be worth the long trek to AKL to eat here, even if you were staying somewhere else. After breakfast everyone had to board the bus to the airport, except for me and Cara, we had a little over an hour to kill. We kind of just wondered the AKL grounds, played a few arcade games. I wish I would have brought my camera, I could have gotten some good animal shots, I did get one with my phone.

Now, the resort arcades, does anyone ever use them? We were the only people in there when we went in, and we only did so since we had time to kill. We sadly board the (un)magical express and headed to the airport. Remember all that rain we had? Well guess what, it moved to New York, and delayed our flight several hours, we both said we could have spent another day in the parks. Oh well, we did not realize the flight would be delayed 6 months out. We watched a plethora of Simpsons episodes, wondered around the various stores at the airport, and were very lucky to actually get out of Orlando that day, almost all of the flights to New York were cancelled that day. Well I hope you enjoyed my first ever trip report, if anyone has any camera tips they would like to share, please feel free to DM me or whatever. Our next trip is during Food and Wine festival so I really want to get better at photo taking by then. I suppose I can do a "pre-trip" report for that soon.

prfctlyximprct · Jul 22, 2014

Enjoyed reading your report, your food pics made me so hungry!! I have always been to disney in the warmer months, so it was neat to see your family in more winter type clothing. I sometimes forgets disney can be cold! I would love to go one day in December or January, I'm sure it'd be a totally different experience. Thanks so much for sharing.. You made me even more excited for my upcoming trip, which I didn't think was possible!

Oh and I must see Aladdin on Broadway! Recently saw the lion king and LOVED it.

PMC0849 · Jul 22, 2014

prfctlyximprct said:
Enjoyed reading your report, your food pics made me so hungry!! I have always been to disney in the warmer months, so it was neat to see your family in more winter type clothing. I sometimes forgets disney can be cold! I would love to go one day in December or January, I'm sure it'd be a totally different experience. Thanks so much for sharing.. You made me even more excited for my upcoming trip, which I didn't think was possible!

Oh and I must see Aladdin on Broadway! Recently saw the lion king and LOVED it.

Thank you! Seeing those food pictures made me hungry too, and I just ate a bunch of pizza. I don't know if I could handle the summer months, they are hard enough in New York! But this winter trip had some horrible weather. I hope you have a great trip in 26 days!! I can't wait to go back.

mrdrift · Jul 22, 2014

Fantastic trip report, all the pictures are really great, especially the food ones which is making quite hungry reading your report. The family seems to be having a wonderful time. Thank you for sharing your memories with us, will be watching for the coming pre trip report.

emh1960 · Jul 24, 2014

I loved reading your report! Great pictures too! Looks like you were there the week after us. We were lucky and had great weather. We had another trip last week and stayed at AKL, and loved it. We were expecting the heat, and it was not bad at all. There is so much A/C in Florida, it is sometimes way too cold. I actually carried a sweater one day. Enjoy your next trip!

Trip Report The Cold, Rainy, and First Ever Trip Report

Disneydreamer23

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