Trip Report Been Back for 10 Months, what better time to write the TR...

Hey oh! I'm back on the boards! There was a long time when I was just too exhausted from working 14 hour days/not being at a computer at work for said 14 hours where I wasn't on these boards much, if at all. The combination of the work hours + not knowing when we'll be back in WDW meant I had to keep away or else I'd find myself longing for the lost World... Disney World (lost because I won't be there for a while). Well, I'm back at a desk job since February and slowly started reintegrating myself into the boards since. After much reading, and much more reading, and some talking with my gf about how "I should really write that trip report" it's finally time that I really DO write THIS trip report.

For those of you who don't know (or remember since it's been so long), I'm AJ and my travel partner/gf is Alex (Lexi on the boards). Here I am bothering her before we enter Animal Kingdom:

Nice necklace she has there right? Yeah, I found that on the street outside a restaurant after we had dinner one night. BOOM!

Our dates down in the World were October 9, 2013 (yikes) to October 16, 2013. A nice eight down jaunt during the Food and Wine Fest (a triumphant return, we'd been during 2010, but skipped it our next trip).

Any way, her and I teamed up to work on the PTR for this trip about, oh... 16 months ago. For all the things I don't remember being written by the two of us you can click this link. I hope you enjoy gratuitous food photos and a lot of digression because it is now time for what you actually came for, a Trip Report!

Day 1, October 9:

After a disappointing night of staying up late to watch the Rangers get dismantled by the by the SJ Sharks in San Jose (of course the game started at 10 PM) it was an early wake up call to catch the first flight out of JFK on JetBlue down to MCO (who on these boards really doesn't know what MCO is? We're all obsessed, we all know the airport code). We always end up getting the cheapest flight down there from JFK, it helps that Alex's parents live a 15 minute drive from the airport and that JetBlue gives the "one free checked bag per person" since our trips to WDW are the only time I'll travel with a suitcase.

We landed at MCO a little before 10 AM and were on our way to the DME bus. I won't get over how great DME is, I just throw a pair of shorts and a few other essentials in my carry-on in case our bags take longer to get to the hotel than expected. By 11 AM we were at our resort and in our room. We were thrilled that our room was ready when we got there (we've yet to have an issue with this, fingers crossed, knock on wood, whatever you want to say about that). We were staying at Pop Century and we're pretty impressed with the room to be honest. We had stayed at All-Star Movies back in 2010 and weren't too sure what to expect from Pop. All told, we were happy with it. Growing up in the 90's I wasn't too pumped when I found out our room number:

I was hoping for the 50's, 60's or 80's (even though I was born in the 80's, maybe that's why I have an affinity for the decade). Any who, here's a shot of our room:

Not too shabby eh? We prefer the two beds because we like to live as if we're in an episode of I Love Lucy. That's actually not true, the second bed always end up being something or a souvenir/park maps space.

I don't remember where I spotted this (there might be more of this in this TR considering it was 10 months since we were there), but I'm glad I got a shot of it:

Is it me or is 1986 the easiest year on this to spot? Maybe because it's the best year ever, without it, you wouldn't be so lucky to have this awesome TR to read. Also, without it, there'd be some serious funny business going on in the space time continuum.

Enough of this resort business, we didn't come here to spend time in the room (which is why we booked a value). We were in WDW and it was time to hit the parks! What better way to get yourself in the Disney spirit on your first day in the World than by making your first stop Magic Kingdom? Is there a better way? There really isn't.

Hello beautiful, you big lush green bush you. Oh, wait, I mean you back there! Isn't she a sight for sore eyes? (That's a phrase I've never understood, if my eyes are sore I don't want to be seeing any sights, I want to close my eyes. Depending on how sore maybe with a bag of ice on them.) Anyway! We wasted no time heading over to Tomorrowland (because it's the best) and hit up Space Mountain (because it's the best). You can't tell it's us in this photo, but I know it is. We're like shadow people (except much less horrifying):

Having gotten the momentous "First Ride" taken care of it was time for the (to me, in this case) less momentous "First Meal." For this we went over to Cosmic Ray's. It's something of a habit for us to get some QS meal when it comes to the first meal of the trip, something about being up since 5 AM and being on a plane for a few hours doesn't lend itself kindly to an elaborate sit down meal the first time I eat while I'm in WDW. (One or both of us would probably fall asleep at the table.) So what did this delicious first meal consist of? Alex decided on the kid's chicken nugget meal (because WDW has some awesome chicken nuggets, and lets not even get into the fries, they're the best) and I went with a plain old hot dog. Plain. Old. Hot Dog. Except when I hit up that sweet fixins' bar! Plain old hot dog? NAY! More like AMAZING CHEESE DOG WITH DICED ONIONS!

This is not really the type of meal that lends itself to a review in this space, it gets the job done. It's very good (I like hot dogs more than any normal person should, and WDW has some good dogs) and after being up rather early and on a plane it's good enough to supplement the adrenaline we work on on our first day in the World. After lunch we decided to grab a pair of Fast Passes to Buzz because, well because we could still. We knew that this would most likely be our last chance to get legit paper Fast Passes, so we got as many as we could. Look at these beauties:

Don't get me wrong, I think the Magic Band is pretty awesome. We only had one or two little hiccups while using ours on this trip when it came to Fast Pass usage, getting in the room the only reason it wouldn't work at the end of long days would probably be user error/laziness/exhaustion. There is something about those little paper tickets getting spit out of those Fast Pass machines though that I will miss. Oh well, onward and upward, or whatever they say.

To be honest, from what I remember there wasn't much of a line for a lot of the rides we got paper Fast Passes for. We did it more for a little collection of our own, when we did need to use the we would, but for the most part, we still have them. Back to Buzz, basically every on ride photo we have from Buzz throughout our three trips Alex and I have the same general look on our faces. That look is something like this:

I get very, very into this ride. Very into it. After such an intense spin on Buzz we decided to relax a bit on the PeopleMover.

 

[Allym146]

You two look like you know how to do F&W right! We were at the world a month before you. I will have to try the sparkling sake, my husband and I are both sake fans. I saw a bit of your gfs nails, is that a Mickey head on them? Cute! Can't wait to read more.

 

[ArtieJim]

You two look like you know how to do F&W right! We were at the world a month before you. I will have to try the sparkling sake, my husband and I are both sake fans. I saw a bit of your gfs nails, is that a Mickey head on them? Cute! Can't wait to read more.

It certainly was a Mickey. I believe it was on the ring finger of each hand.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 2 - Part 1:

Today was an Animal Kingdom day. The only Animal Kingdom day, I might add. Alex is a big fan of zoos and the like, but one day (really half a day) is enough for us in Animal Kingdom. Battling the type of crowds AK sees on any given day are tough to maneuver around as it is, and even though AK is the "biggest park" in WDW, something tells me that the majority of that is the areas where the animals are. The pathways, for the most part, don't even seem that wide in most parts of this park, so we try and keep it to a one day affair. But, we were there, an we were enjoying it:

Always first on our list is at AK is the Kilimanjaro Safari, it's Alex's favorite, and really the main reason we come to AK to begin with. And we always enjoy our walk over, Alex does especially:

All that talk about how we only go to AK once a trip (although very true) doesn't mean that we don't love the views and the all around design and decor of this park:

When we got to the Safari we got on... a line. We weren't quite sure which line we had gotten on and neither did any one else. This was one of the few things that bothered me on this trip (the heat, which is uncontrollable and the crowds, which are to be expected, although much larger than I thought they'd be, were two of the other things). We had the FastPass+ for this ride and made sure to get there about five minutes after our time slot opened. Like I said, no one was quite sure which line they were on and the main issue is there was only one CM there to help people figure it out. Unfortunately, she seemed like the most helpful person there could be but all her attention was being taken by (any guesses?) A TOUR GROUP! Three plenipotentiaries were talking this girl's ear off while about twenty other people in their group stood about three feet away, BLOCKING THE ENTIRE WALKWAY. Alex and I must have gone from the FastPass line, to the stand by line, back to the FastPass line before any one had any clue which line they were on. Only reason this happened is because another CM came over to help the poor girl doing her best to give these fellas an answer (which she had done, the same answer, four times). Sorry for the rant, but it just bothers me when that stuff happens, and working in Manhattan, my biggest pet peeve is people walking four and five deep across the side walk and not bothering to move out of the way when someone is walking.

Once we saw our Magic Bands light that beautiful circle green we were on our way up the line, breezing through that long looooong standby line. We did find time to stop and get a shot of this though:

I won't bore you with the same animal pictures you see in every TR, I will post just one, and with good reason and (I think, good story). This young elephant:

Here's the story. On our last trip, when we were on safari we saw a family of elephant down by the pond/river they have by their space. It seemed like a little baby elephant was stuck in the mud and couldn't get out on his own, so there were two other larger elephant helping, to the point where the baby elephant and one of the larger elephants locked trunks and got him the heck out of the mud! That link will take you directly to the page in my last TR where there are pictures of this. When we saw this elephant, the smallest of all the elephants there, we had to get a few pictures. I'm not saying it was the baby elephant that was stuck in the mud on our last trip, but there was a fine chance that it may have been.

Once we got off our journey (not hunting poachers, just a journey), we went straight to our favorite place in this park... THE DAWA BAR! This was originally just supposed to be a quick pit stop where we got a few drinks and then kept going, but for some reason or other, the heat really was getting to me today (this happens maybe once or twice every five years, I guess this was one of those times unfortunately), I didn't feel well when I moved, and the crowds weren't helping, that's for sure.

Either way, we wanted to try each of the "African Beers" they had on their menu, and the heat wasn't going to stop me from having some cold ones. That's why they're called cold ones. So that's exactly what we did:

Having had the Casa probably a few too many times the night before compliments of Morocco, I decided to go with the Harar (on the right) and Alex went with the St. George (the left). To me, they tasted like almost any other lager, to which Alex was happy about since she's exclusively a Bud girl (as mentioned prior). I do have to give it to her for at least trying something different, and she was happy too, she liked it. Although, not enough to get another, as she switched to Bud Light after her first. That's ok with me, I still had Tusker to try out. Before I did, Alex wanted to get some nice pictures of each of us enjoying the Dawa Bar individually:

Well, it didn't quite work out exactly as she had wanted.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 2 - Part 2:

And lets not forget about our buddy, he had had a few as well, and definitely got me on a great photobomb.

And hello Tusker Lager:

I liked this one much more than the other two. As you can tell by the photo it has a much darker color than your typical lager. It didn't fail to keep with the typical "dark color = richer flavor" that most beers follow. Very refreshing, definitely hit the spot. A fun label on the bottle as well, always a plus:

Any one interested in the label for St. George, here's that as well. Another solid label:

We ended up staying at Dawa Bar much longer than we expected to. This was partially because every time we got up to go we saw huge crowds and I still wasn't 100% so we'd sit back down. On top of that Pleepleus also made a friend!

A gentleman and her daughter (who was celebrating her 40th birthday with her father) pulled in the stools next to us and when she saw Pleepleus she was thrilled! She didn't know Pleepleus for Pleepleus, but she told us all about her travel buddy. Unfortunately I've forgotten his name, but she told us that he has his own Facebook AND Twitter AND he's been all over the world. You see, she's a flight attendant and she takes him every where she goes. She was able to get some time off for her birthday and decided she wanted to spend it no where else but Disney World! How awesome is that? Even more crazy, we got to talking and found out that she's originally from NJ, and an area not far from where I spent half my life. Her daughter was even at Rutgers as we spoke, they kept texting back and forth and the daughter was incredibly jealous. I love meeting people at WDW, and it's so crazy when you meet someone that's from an area so close to where you (for the most part) grew up.

A quick time check, after our long conversation, revealed that it was time for us to head out of the Dawa Bar and move over to Yak & Yeti for our lunch ADR. We rarely book an ADR for lunch, but we were sure glad we did, especially here:

Alex was a big fan of this place, and I was very pleased as well.

We needed a little something to help us decide on our meals while perusing the menu, so we got ourselves some drinks. Alex played it safe with (guesses?) another Bud Light, but you know what they say... When at Yak and Yeti, order the Yak Attack. You don't have to twist my arm.

It is fruity and it is frozen. Every now and then (this being one of those those 'thens') my disdain for blended drinks is pushed to the side. You're looking at white rum, mango puree and wildberry syrup. So you're looking at a liquor made from cane sugar, fruit that's been pureed to tasting like mango flavored sugar that's been thickened with more sugar and syrup. If you can find a way to get more sugar into a drink, I don't suggest you try. After we had mulled over the menu long enough we decided on splitting an order of Pot Stickers for an appetizer (no picture because we hadn't eaten all day, just spent a few hours at Dawa and really wanted to eat). As for entrees, Alex went with the Crispy Honey Chicken with chicken fried rice instead of the brown or jasmin (which was half eaten before she took a picture of it), and was "amazing":

It was delicious. We even ended up taking some to go (that was unfinished) which I went to town on late one night after a long day at the F&W, man it hit the spot, big time. For my lunch I decided to go with the Lo Mein with Shrimp and a side of Chicken Fried Rice:

This place was fantastic. Good thing for Alex, who was taking the food pictures today, that I always separate the vegetables from my regular food because by the time she took that picture above I hadn't eaten a bite. That bottle of Sriracha sauce that's to the right of the food in the above picture was full when our waiter brought it over. By the time I was finished using it, there was only about 3/4 of the bottle left. Also, our waiter by the way, was awesome. It's kind of cheap to say that considering I don't remember his name, but I do remember that he was from Milwaukee. Just a funny, nice guy. It's always great to be able to tell who is really enjoying themselves while working as a CM, it's unfortunate when one is having a rough day and they let it show, but hey, that's the way it is sometimes. It's not always easy, I'm sure, but the good CMs are always a lot of fun to interact with.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 2 - Part 2(a):

I have to be honest, I don't have enough to write about the rest of our time at AK to fill much of an entry (hence this is Part 2(a)). I was able to finish my entree, but that side of fried rice and Alex's leftovers needed a to go box. And what a to go box it was!

Once we settled up we decided to head on out for some quality pool time in our "Computer Pool." No pictures here, because it was our time to just unwind before we made our way back to Magic Kingdom for the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party! I'm getting ahead of myself, I won't be writing about that tonight (sorry, but if I get started, I won't stop until I finish day 2 and that could take a few more hours, and I need my sleep. Although The Simpsons, Every Episode Ever Marathon would definitely help me stay awake for that, but tonight is not the night, sorry). Back to the Computer Pool, this is just a big square shaped pool. It was nice and fairly unoccupied (maybe five people besides us). Kind of small, but quite refreshing. Got me ready to go for our big night!

That's it for now, this weekend should see some major updating (but don't hold me to that). Until next time, thanks again for reading!

 

[Mom@disney]

I think Pleepeus is so cute. On our trip to DisneyWorld, my youngest carried around Coconut, her monkey. Coconut photo bombed almost every picture I took and met all the characters ..it was so cute.

 

[TaraWdopeyfan]

Really enjoying your trip. Can't wait for the rest.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 2 - Part 3:

After we finished up at the pool and were all cleaned up and got ourselves ready, we headed to the bus stop for MK. We were pretty excited as it was, but seeing how many people were dressed up in costumes (and these costumes were nothing to sneeze at) we got even more excited. Alex and I were in our costumes but we decided that we wanted to still be comfortable (like, be able to incorporate jeans). Finally, we arrived and were happy to see this sign:

I will let you all know now that we have zero pictures of the NSSHP parade. We were trying to time it so that when we walked into the park we'd be able to catch the first parade as it was finishing up (like, see everything). We caught the first parade as it was finishing up all right. Turns out we were about seven minutes late for the parade, but we did get to see the Headless Horseman galloping down Main St. and around by the flag pole. That was really cool. How do they do that?! I was upset we missed the HM ushers though, I was really looking forward to them. Oh well. I'm getting ahead of myself because I haven't even posted the pictures of us in front the spooking fog!

Well, you can't actually see the fog here, it had already blown past us. But, it did make for a fun affect. Oh, and that's right, we were Buzz and Woody (save your gripes, Alex was wearing jeans, we know Buzz doesn't have blue pants, deal with it). Those wings were inflatable! They took about fifteen minutes to blow up, and I almost passed out. My lungs can't handle that kind of activity anymore, just don't have the power they had when fifteen years ago, go figure. Into to the park we went!

There are few things better to see at WDW than the Castle at night. See all those people standing around just starring at the Castle? That's about a crowd about six deep waiting for the fireworks. Granted, the fireworks weren't set to start for another hour or so, they were just standing around, starring ahead. This little lass was looking the other way:

We had some time to kill, so we decided to hit up Pirates, most likely because the fireworks were happening "soon" (I guess), this was a walk on. Perfect. Pirates, walk on, outstanding.

There was barely even any one in the area, it was like we had Adventureland all to ourselves, it was pretty awesome. We hadn't seen certain parts of the park that empty since we were there are 3 AM during EMH on Christmas Day (technically 12/26, but you get it). Here's our favorite part of Pirates since they decided to add Jack Sparrow:

Seriously, enough Jack Sparrow already. It's been eleven years since the first Pirates movie came out, and it was the only good one (pretend that any of them after the first were easy to sit through for almost three hours run time each). Once off the ride I suggested another spin since it was still a walk on but a look at the time made us realize that that wasn't the best idea if we wanted to see the fireworks, especially since we wanted to eat first. We browsed the special map we got for the event and saw that the Seven Dwarfs were at a photo spot until a certain time and that time was a little before the fireworks started. Alex said if there was one thing she wanted to do, it was get a picture with the Dwarfs. Deal. On the line we went. And on the line we waited. I think there was only about forty-five more minutes of time to get a picture taken with the Dwarfs before they went away for the night. We were on that line for a solid thirty-five of those minutes. That wait paid off quite handsomely, if I do say so myself:

Pretty, pretty, pretty good. Not more than ten minutes after that photo was taken we took a seat BEHIND the Castle (which is where the Dwarfs were set up, and where we stayed, we didn't have enough time to try and get to the front of the Castle AND get a spot to watch the fireworks). To be honest, we really didn't have time to go anywhere in the park that we'd be able to watch the fireworks before they started (HM, Splash) and once we heard that sweet, sweet voice of the host of the night, THE GHOST HOST, we decided to just flop down and deal. We were treated to the following:

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 2 - Part 4:

That was about it for us when it came to the fireworks. We were sitting almost directly under the point where they were exploding so our necks were wrenched after about ten minutes. Once we'd had our fill of the fireworks it was time for some eats. We weren't looking for anything too serious since we'd had our fill at Yak and Yeti we decided on Cosmic Ray's... again. We usually try to avoid eating on the same place twice on our trips but Cosmic Ray's was seriously empty when we walked past, and something about the thought of Pecos Bill's just wasn't doing it for us this trip (which is strange, considering we usually love that place).

Alex decided to switch things up a bit and go with the kids' chicken nugget meal and... oh wait, did I say she switched things up? I meant, she ordered the exact same thing as when we were here for lunch the day before. Hey, she knows what she likes. I, on the other hand, did switch things up, and I went with the BBQ Pork Sandwich. I enjoyed it, and wouldn't hesitate to order it again. I don't think any one that orders this expects a gourmet pulled pork sandwich, so for what it was, it hit the spot. The pork didn't have any of that "left out too long" hardness to it (which is disgusting) and I know they're not using any special BBQ sauce (I think just Heinz, actually), but the amount that they put on was just enough, since it wasn't doused. I still maintain that the buns they use down in WDW are too big for things like this and their burgers (I can't stand the burger/bun combination they use now).

After our meal we decided to head on over to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. On our way over to Cosmic Ray's we passed by Pooh and saw Pooh and all his friends (I'm a big fan of Eeyore) but Alex convinced me that they'd be there when we finished eating. Her convincing was a lie! I was so excited to get a picture with Eeyore, and just Eeyore (Tigger and Piglet and get lost as far as I'm concerned), but when we went back to Pooh they were no where to be seen! I was so bummed. "I'm sure they'll be back by the time we're off the ride," she tells me. But they were no where to be found the rest of the night. It was so upsetting. I just need to get a picture with Eeyore and I'll be happy. Maybe he'd be happy too... for once. At least we enjoyed our spin on Eeyore's buddy Pooh's many adventures:

I can't remember if that's a picture we took on the ride of if that's a picture that was taken of us the night before while we were at Epcot. Once off the ride I had to double check that Eeyore wasn't back for pictures, he wasn't =(. So we decided to head on over to Haunted Mansion and hope that it hadn't gotten too crowded yet. Luckily, it hadn't. We couldn't have been on the line for more than ten minutes, and that's with going through the interactive line (which is always so much fun). Oh, and we stopped to chat with Lady Renata for a few.

She was great! She definitely knew what she could and could not say to her audience. I'll put it this way, when Alex and I walked by, she made some not so veiled adult comments about cowboys, what she likes to do to them and that I should come with her. I love when CMs can read the park patrons and will make the conversation a little more adult oriented, Disney trips don't always have to be completely kid friendly. All the better for it. Haunted Mansion is such a great ride, it'll never get old. Are all these rumors about a Haunted Mansion movie true? Wasn't the lesson learned after the 2003 classic of the same name starring Eddie Murphy? I just hope if they do make a Haunted Mansion movie (that I'd imagine has nothing to do with the first one) they don't tie it into the ride, at all. No need to fix what ain't broke, isn't that a saying? Although I'm sure someone is willing to tell me how this or that doesn't work on HM. I get it. On our way out of HM Alex managed to get this shot:

And of course we had to stop for the Photo Pass, how could we not?

What a great picture of the lovely couple... wait a minute? What's that? Is that a g-g-g-ghost!?

He was looking to make us numbers 100 and 101 AND 102! Pleepleus wasn't having any of that. We weren't about to take that ride! After we were able to get away from this ghoul (and Lady Renata's cat calls when she saw us) we decided we should take a load of by having a spin on the People Mover, because, why not? Any excuse, or any non-excuse, to ride the People Mover will be taken advantage of. And who can resist the views it provides when riding at night?

I love Adventureland at night. The neon combined with the regular color scheme, to me it can't be beat in MK (aside from the Castle, of course). Onward and upward my good fellows, godspeed, to infinity and beyond! And all that!

Now, we realized, clearly, that Space Mountain was down when we passed this point in the ride. I mean, look at how bright it is in there, the ride was completely shut down, lights up, no two ways about it. This is the point on the People Mover where Alex got... (reader's choice A) really upset, B) really worried that People Mover would stop, C) really friggin excited? The answer is C) really friggin excited. And why is that? Because she was able to get these photos:

One more in Part 5...

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 2 - Part 5:

It was really cool to see Space Mountain with all the lights on. We were lucky that when we hit this point on the People Mover that it slowed down incredibly. While we were on the People Mover we spotted Buzz doing a meet and greet with all his adoring fans (but no Woody) and we decided that we wanted to get our picture taken with Buzz! Alas, when we were off the People Mover, he was gone (theme of the night), but that's ok, we decided to take a spin on Buzz, and that's when things got intense:

At least one of us was having fun, probably because she was kicking my butt...

The score you can't see on the left is "76,900" there's photo evidence of it, but I'm not posting two shots of two scores on the same Buzz ride. I got spanked. Once off the ride, we saw the main himself!

He was quite smitten with Alex, and a big fan of her get up!

I think he was checking out my woman!

Only I get away with stealing looks back there Buzz!

I guess she didn't appreciate the stares. It was great meeting Buzz, although he was a little upset I didn't have a string to pull on my back!

After the photo shoot with Buzz we were able to get a shot of these great signs (they look so much better at night, when you can't see the walls surrounding them):

I wish I could buy prints of these old timey posters. Well, I'm sure I could somewhere, I just don't look hard enough. This was about it for us, we decided to call it a night after all that excitement, however...

There was a great popcorn bucket that we saw when we first got in the park that we decided we definitely had to buy on our way out. It was a coffin, it was so cool! Well, unfortunately they were either sold out, or decided to put their stock away early because we were leaving fairly early (11?) and we could not find them ANYWHERE We stopped at every cart (that was still open) and all the shops. NOT A ONE! I was so bummed.

At least we ended up with some good pictures for the road on the way out...

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 2 - Part 6:

Well, maybe they're not that great, but we sure like them! This next one is a master piece though, if you ask me:

If there's one thing I don't appreciate, it's the cold shoulder! Well, this gentleman gave it and he gave it well! That was it for us for Day 2! There was much more to be seen today than told, especially since we missed all the good stuff that came with the NSSHP. I would say though, if you have the chance to go to one, DEFINITELY DO IT! It's well worth the cost, it's a ton of fun and the costumes you'll see on fellow guests are incredible.

Once again, until next time, thanks for reading!

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 3 - Part 1:

Being in no real rush to get any where today because of a late-lunch ADR we decided to take our time getting ready before heading over to MGM (oh, I'm sure I mentioned in my PTR and my previous trip reports that I still call Hollywood Studios MGM, so there you go). We decided to get ourselves some breakfast at Everything Pop! food court. Since we had booked this hotel I had my eyes (and stomach) set on a Pop waffle. Seeing has how we were there early enough that they were still serving breakfast a Pop waffle it was!

You can see star shape in the middle of the waffle, but by the time Alex realized that you couldn't really see that it was Pop waffle I had already dressed up the waffle with plenty of syrup and the fruit. All in all, this was a great deal. It comes with the bacon AND sausage, plus the fruit on the side. This is good, especially for people who don't want/like fruit on their waffles. My only gripe with this was that there was so little fruit. With the size of that waffle (you can tell in that photo, the thing takes up the entire plate, it's a big waffle) the amount of fruit they give barely covered half the waffle. Either way, if you're staying at Pop and looking for some breakfast I highly suggest the Pop waffle. Since it was closer to noon than early morning and Alex wasn't really in the mood for breakfast food so she decided to go with something a little more... Italian:

That up there is the Chicken Cavatappi. This was really good, not sure what it is about the marinara sauce at these value resorts but I really like it (this coming from a person who only eats sauce that we make ourselves at home, that hates jarred sauce). Not to mention those breadsticks, oh man, we always put aside a little extra money for our trips just for these breadsticks, we usually end up picking up several orders of these throughout our trips when we stay at the value resorts. They're so darn good, I can't get enough of them. As for Alex's meal, she liked it, it was quite a lot of food given the size of that piece of chicken. Our meals definitely hit the spot and we were ready for the day ahead of us. On to the line we went for the MGM bus, and on that line we waited... quite a while. We must've waited on this line for a good twenty minutes. Isn't that always how it goes? Unless the bus you're looking for comes right away, you're waiting a while.

Well, we finally made it. They had an awesome Monsters University topiary set up outside the entrance (where the Christmas tree normally is during that season):

What was really cool was what was on the back side of this set up:

One through the gates we decided to take advantage of the photopass photographers since we hadn't seen too many in our first couple days.

We ended up seeing a lot of this on our trip, the photographers had these frames and were asking the people if they wanted to hold them up for their photos. It wasn't every photopass person that had them, and some of the locations it wasn't really necessary for them. We liked this one, so we ended up doing it for this photo. It ended up working well, we think, for this spot. I have to say, of all the times that we've been to MGM, we'd never seen the umbrella. We always knew it was there, but never went to the where it was. We took care of this first thing though:

As you can see, they had already started putting up the lights for Christmas. Can't blame them, since there are millions of them. Those lights are awesome, I can't wait to see them again, but that wouldn't happen this time around. We got lucky that as we were walking to see the Muppets through the back way we saw that they were doing the photos with Lightning McQueen and Mater and that there was hardly any line!

Then it was on to the Muppets! For some reason or other, we didn't see this show the last time we were at WDW (which is odd, considering we were there for ten days), so we made sure that it was the first thing we did at MGM this time around. And how could we go and not get a shot of the fountain?

Everything about this fountain is wonderful. How could any one not like this fountain? It's beyond me. After this brief stop we moved on over to Studio 3D.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 3 - Part 2:

We only had to wait in the first room a little while. We were surprised at how lucky we got when it came to that. We couldn't have been in there for more than a minute or two. And when you're in there, never forget to look up:

This is such a fun show, I hope this never changes. And this is a nice little touch above the exit sign as well:

I guess there's no better place to hang a laundry line.

Next up was Star Tours! It had to be, because I'm obsessed with Star Wars, we usually ride this at least three times when we're at MGM (at least, I did, Alex's stomach doesn't do so well on these simulator rides).

Love seeing R2:

This is such a fun ride, although I always end up with the same two experiences. A little curious if you ask me. On our way out we saw the Sith lord himself:

Man, I love Star Wars. I was pretty excited to hear that Disney had bought the Star Wars franchise, and I can't wait for the new movie to come out. After watching some Padawans do battle with Vader we decided to keep on moving. We had some FastPasses to use, so we made our way over to the Toy Story (AKA The Best Ride Ever). On our way we caught a glimpse have the Tower of Terror, we could see it all the way from the other side of the park.

And the dino! Look at that guy, he's great. After a short walk, we made it to the best place in the park!

OK, maybe it's not the "best place in the park," or maybe it is, that's an opinion. I really wish they would do more with this. They've gotta put another ride or something in there.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 3 - Part 3:

Always good to receive a tip.

Despite having the using one of our FastPass+ reservations on this ride, we were amazed to see how empty it was. If you look behind the giant etch-a-sketch you can see there's no one in any of those line sections. The stand-by line was only about 45 minutes when we got on the ride, we couldn't believe it. We always get super excited on this line because we know we're about to have a ton of fun, it's such a great ride.

Nice glasses! We always take a photo of our ride vehicle, we like to know which character we had, it's a fun little thing to do. We had Bo-Peep:

I don't know what was wrong with my this day, I just did have it in me. My accuracy was better, but I was bested. Not by much though, but it didn't happen for me this go around. It wouldn't be our only time on this ride though, I would have my revenge!

There was one thing that Alex really wanted to do on this visit to MGM that we hadn't done before. It took some convincing for me to agree, but I was glad we did. So we took the short walk over to...

I'm terrible at art, it was one of those classes in school that they made us take (unfairly) that I was terrible at and was lucky to pass. In the end though, I'm glad we did this, it was fun and interesting. And look how cool these light tables are:

Of course they're shaped like Mickey heads! Why wouldn't they be?

Unfortunately, we didn't get one of these seats, they really pack this place full. We just had over sized clipboards. Oh well. The woman that was running the class put the drawing subject to a vote. She said it was up to Eeyore or Minnie Mouse, because she said those are the two she does the least. It came down to one vote, and lucky (for me) Eeyore won! We drew Eeyore! I was so excited. Granted, mine didn't come out so great, because, like I said, I'm terrible at art, but it was fun to see a Disney illustrator draw Eeyore and get direction from her on how to do it myself. Next up was the Great Movie Ride! I've loved this ride ever since I first rode it. It's so great, I could ride this one hundred times and not tire of it.

I had never noticed this on the queue before, but I was thrilled to see it:

If you don't know what this is, or can't read the little sign below, this is a set piece from the Millennium Falcon. So cool!

 

[Lexi]

AJ forgot to post the photo of our Eeyore drawings. Mine is in top, his is on the bottom.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 3 Part 4:

I don't know how they decide if they're going to do the "wild west" scene or the "gangster" scene, but we always have the wild west scene. Don't know why, but it happens. This time, however, we finally had the gangster scene.

That's what his face actually looked like, it had nothing to do with him moving or anything when we took that photo. Weird face if you ask me. And are all the guides on this ride women? I don't think I can ever recall having a man, not that I really care, but just something I realized now as I'm writing this report. Hello, Indy!

And to my favorite part of the ride:

What a great film. If I wasn't invested in this Every Simpsons Ever marathon, I'd probably pop in the disc and watch that movie right now. But, y'know, priorities. Hm, I don't think she should have been standing there when that house was falling out of the sky:

On our way out, Alex spotted this:

Pretty nice, if you ask me. We wanted to get ourselves a pretzel just to tide us over for a little while since we had no real meal plans today and hadn't eaten since braekfast. And not just any pretzel, we went with a Mickey pretzel, of course!

You better believe we got ourselves a cheese cup. What's a pretzel without a cheese cup? We also grabbed a couple beers (nothing special a Bud Light and a Sam Adams for me), because why not. Man, this pretzel was delicious. And the fact that it was shaped like Mickey made it taste even better (even though the shape of something really has nothing to do with its taste). While we were eating we noticed this little guy creeping up on us.

I don't care how cute he was, he wasn't getting any of our pretzel, that's for sure. Once we got ourselves moving again it was time to move on over to the Tower of Terror so we could use our next two FastPasses, we took the long way since we wanted to get to ToT as close to the end of the the FastPass+ time since as soon as that ended, our FastPass+ time for Rock N Rollercoaster started. On our way, we caught a glimpse of this sign, which always makes us laugh:

Being from Brooklyn, we think it's hilarious because we've come into contact with loads of people that actually do talk like this. We find it tough not to take a ridiculous amount of pictures of the Hollywood Tower Hotel. How could you not? It's so awesome:

Everything about this ride is just great if you ask me. The fact that the Twilight Zone is one of my favorite shows helps, but the decor in the lobby is great. I wish I could just explore this lobby unencumbered for twenty minutes. That would make my day.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 3 - Part 5:

I know what Alex likes about this lobby, and ride all together:

Yeah... lookin' real good. I don't know why I like this photo so much, I was looking at every one else on the ride and each one made me laugh because of something else:

Especially the couple in the front row (yellow and pink shirts). What a great shot this is. We also caught sight of these mugs in the shop on the way out. I'm kind of upset I didn't get the Donald Duck one, I do love me some Donald and I also enjoy a good mug.

Oh well, there's always a next time when it comes to WDW, hopefully the mugs are still there whenever that "next time" is for us. Alex found a hat she liked:

Too bad she didn't get it. It's a Minnie sorceress hat. How fun! She also spotted something else she was fond of...

I gotta say, that is a really cool light fixture. After our spin on Rock-n-Rollercoaster we decided to have one more go at Toy Story Midway Mania. If the stand by was anything like it was when we first rode, we'd be on in no time. Here I am, intrepidly leading the way:

Those monkeys are great. I never understood the game Barrel of Monkeys but, yeah, giant Monkeys, I'll take it. I do however, enjoy a good game of Chutes and Ladders:

I wish one of my ceilings was something awesome like this. I'd prefer the Clue board.

 

[ArtieJim]

Day 3 - Part 6:

We had Hamm on this go around! We love Hamm! To me, Hamm is second only to Potato Head, and that's just because I think Don Rickles' voice is hilarious ("What're you lookin' at, ya hockey puck?"):

As I said earlier, I would have my revenge, and have it I did!

My accuracy may have gone done but the score went up and that's what counts! I think every other time we're on this ride we get stuck at some point, it's usually right before we enter the actual ride itself (while we're sitting in the vehicles) or right when we get out of the ride part, just before we get off. This time around we got stuck IN the ride. Unfortunately there's no fun little thing to do while you're stuck on that ride. Just pull that cord and hear the popping noise, which, I do plenty. Although, we did get stuck right before we got off the ride too, again:

These 3D glasses have nothing on the Star Tours glasses, now those things are cool! I was happy to finally get a shot of one of these puzzle pieces on our way out:

I don't know what was going on this particular day, but TSMM was empty (for the most part, stand by was less than an hour both times we went by), but that's nothing I'm going to complain about.

I know the sign says "85 minutes" but it definitely wasn't. And I don't think I ever noticed these spoons across the way at Woody's Roundup.

I guess I'm always looking at what souvenir popcorn buckets they have. On our last trip I had gotten an R2-D2 popcorn bucket, and we ended up with one of those Mickey buckets you see there. He's holding a jack-o-lantern. It's pretty cool. That was it for us at MGM today, so we decided to take the walk over to Epcot so we could enjoy the Food and Wine Festival some more (which is something we would do plenty of come the end of this trip). We love this walk, I don't know why more people don't do it. It's so nice to just walk along the water, the only little weird part is when you walk under a bridge, eh, aside from that it's so peaceful. Also, coming up on the Boardwalk is nice too.

At last, we had arrived:

Unfortunately this is where I end the writing for the day. Come back tomorrow night for posts full of F&W info. Thanks again for reading!

 

[Mom@disney]

Great day at Hollywood Studios or MGM as you would call it. We were there a week before you and I looked all over the world for those Mickey popcorn buckets. Couldn't find them and no CM even knew what they were. I'm so jealous you got one. Their is something about the Disney buckets that make popcorn taste so much better. Patiently waiting to read more.

 

[FlaggNL]

Still a great TR with great and good pictures!! Thanks for sharing!!