Trip Report COMPLETED: The “Let’s see if this dumb thing works” Treat Yo Self Christmas trip report!

All the PTR funtivities can be had here, including who we are,:
The Treat Yo Self Christmas pre-trip report

Friday the 18th 11ish o’clock
The DW and I decide to ditch work a little early and check the DD out of school early today to make sure we have plenty of time for our Star Wars showing in McDonough at 3:40. So we check the DD out and make our way for some to-go lunch. A relatively short pit at Zaxsby’s and we’re finally on the road and soon cruising down GA400 towards McDonough. Our last few trips through the ATL on the way to The Bubble have been nightmares which is why we left a little early today. Well, surprisingly, today was the exception! We cruised right through town and my worries of being late for the movie became concerns of “what are we going to do when we arrive two hours early?!” Thankfully, I guess, Henry county helped me out by having the worst traffic of the trip…FOR NO REASON AT ALL! Anyway, The delays we faced there offset the great time we made but we still had an hour to kill. This worked to our advantage as the DW forgot her sunglasses at home and we needed a few toiletries for the trip so we popped into Super Target for a bit, made our purchases and enjoyed a SB coffee before making our way to the theater.
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Finally, it was time!
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We happened to be in a theater full of some fanatics so there was much cheering and applause throughout the movie. I personally really enjoyed it despite the many similarities it had to New Hope. The movie even brought the DW and DD to tears! I won’t spoil it for anyone as to why. So with The Force Awakens under our belt we made for Tifton, about another two hours. Henry County did its best to squeeze the last bit of traffic tolerance out of us as we left town. Soon we were in Tifton checking in to the Hilton Garden Inn, great place BTW! I was immediately sent on a dinner run to try out Marcos Pizza for some subs. What was supposed to be a 10 minute drive turned into a hobbits tail of which I thought I may never return. Long story short about an hour later I’m back at the hotel with dinner for the ladies tired and ready to eat. After some discussion as to when the ladies want to arrive at the Bubble, as that will dictate when we should leave, we hit the hay with visions of Siths and BB-8s dancing through our heads…ok, my head.

Saturday the 19th 05:30
Up and at’em! Time to get our Disney on!!! We make quick work of getting to the car, hitting Starbucks again for breakfast and make for The Mouse House! A few hours later and we’re crossing the state line most uneventfully and before you know it where on the turnpike! Have I mentioned how much I love the SunPass? Seriously, if you go at least once a year it is worth not having to stop and deal with your coin tossing skills. Soon we had arrived!!
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The enjoyment was short lived, though, as it was realized the DW only packed one pair of jeans for the trip and she was worried she would need more since the temp outside was high 50’s. We look probably the longest route EVER to Walmart to pick up some emergency jeans for the trip. It was not so refreshing to see that the Walmarts of Orlando are much like the Walmarts of Dahlonega….Anyway, after that detour we were back in The Bubble ready to get our BCV on!
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It was here where we met Guard Shack Joe from New York! As we approach I’m ready with my MB and ID for him to scan and review. Joe blesses us with what might be the quote of the trip, and on the first day too!

[ThickNewYawkAccent]
Oh, you’ve got your band ready. Stupidest idea Disney ever had. Let’s see if this dumb thing works…
[/ThickNewYawkAccent]

I think Joe is awesome BTW. Wouldn’t ya know that stupid little thing did work! The light went green and we were on our way to self-parking! We grabbed our overnight bags and made for bell services as our room was not quite ready yet.
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Cape May had not yet ruined the smell of the lobby as it was still early. The beautiful gingerbread display helped too!
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So with our bags checked we were off to Epcot by foot to test out the waters for lunch!
 
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RebeccaMcK

Member
Oh well. At least I could see it in your pic, lol. BTW we did go ahead and add two extra days to our December trip so now we'll get there on the 19th instead of the 21st, yay!
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Wednesday December 23rd: Moving DAY!
Well it was time to make our jump from SSR to Jambo house. I had already packed most of the car the night before so we slept in a bit and made a leisurely drive over to AKL. Today was a “take it easy” day. We intentionally planned to hang out at the pool and room until dinner then hit up MK at night. Soon we were pulling in and dropped off our bags with bell service. We kept a bag with our swim gear so we could hang at the pool for a while until our room was ready, oh yeah, our room wasn’t ready.
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@Tuvalu and I will have to disagree on the better lobby. I’ll conceded WL is nice but I’ll still take AKL!
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Although the gingerbread displays leave something to be desired :D
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There was, of course, come friends to keep us company by the pool while we waited, look closely in the background of the first few pics.
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Around midday we sampled some food from Mara. We shared the felafel pita and the chicken pita with a couple of Kona Longboards. I can’t believe I neglected to grab a picture!! After a few more hours of swimming and relaxing I got the text around 3:00 that our room was ready so we made for 5328! Sadly, when we arrived our MBs didn’t work! So I left the ladies near the room and made for the front desk with all our bands in hand. Alex at the front desk was most helpful in resolving our issue. It turns out that, despite it being well after checkout, SSR still showed us as being checked in! This apparently causes a conflict in the system, according to Alex, and they don’t want you having access to two rooms at the same time on the same band. He worked his magic, tossed some extra FP+ on our account, and escorted me to the room to make sure all was good. It was! It was soon after that that we realized we scored an awesome standard view room! Here is a little teaser:
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Still to come: Baby zebras, Sanaa, and MK
 

MinnieM123

Premium Member
So we attempt to order, the DD had a great grilled shrimp pasta dish last time but we were quickly told the restaurant no longer sells shrimp dishes…

Good grief. No more shrimp, either? :confused: From the rest of your review as well, it sounds like they cut both the quality of offerings and the quantity of portions. That's lousey.

Loved the panoramics of the Osborne lights. :happy:

The Christmas tree in AKL was so impressive. It's amazing how many gorgeous trees there are all over WDW. I think this is the first time I've seen a photo of the one at AKL.
 

Cesar R M

Well-Known Member
Well, you may or may not have notice my snail’s pace in completing this TR. I apologize about that. Work and wrestling have been keeping me very busy lately but I’m happy to say this is the last week of wrestling and Im looking forward to a break. Also, you may have noticed that countdown in my sig, yeah we’ve got 52 days til our next trip and I’d really like to have this wrapped up before the next PTR!! So lets push on! We last left with a short stint in Colortopia and it is now time for dinner! Last summer we had an AMAZING experience at Trattoria al Forno and just had to go back!
Sadly, as good as the food and service was last visit we received the opposite this time. I could not believe the extreme difference in just a few months! Firstly, we were real excited to get a bottle of Amarcord Bruna again. The beer is very good and hard to get locally. Whelp, according to our two waitresses they have not had that beer for months and don’t know why it is still on the menu…So we choose another beer, guess what, they haven’t had that for a while either… 2 waters please. So we attempt to order, the DD had a great grilled shrimp pasta dish last time but we were quickly told the restaurant no longer sells shrimp dishes…Oh my, well a pizza for her then. Thankfully they still had the seasonal risotto, fresh mozzarella and meat board but something was off about them too. Take a look:
Seasonal risotto from July
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Seasonal risotto from Decemeber, same plate mind you! And no, the price of the risotto wasn’t half of what it was over summer.
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Mozzarella from July, mozzarella is larger than the tomatoes
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mozzarella from December, about 30% smaller than before
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Finally, the meat board from July
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Finally, the meat board from December
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If I didn’t have the pictures from before I probably wouldn’t have believed it. In addition to the food fails our TWO waitresses left us with empty glasses of water most of the night, very disappointing. We had hoped this was going to be our new “go-to” restaurant but it left us not wanting to go back ever again. The DD didn’t even want to deal with asking if they had Cannoli as she was so over the place, and I cant blame her, her pizza looked pitiful.

So with that, we made for more pleasant things. A short walk later and we were heading downtown
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We spent a few minutes taking Osborne in at least on last time
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And finally, my favorite part of the Osborne lights, Look, it’s a major award!! I got my hand slapped two years ago for scaling the steps to get a close up, this year I just zoomed in.
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So that closes out HS for us tonight, we will be back soon to take in the ST fireworks show so stay tuned for that. Tomorrow morning we move from SSR to AKL, Jambo, with a standard view room that has more animals than you can shake a baby zebra at!

Still to come: Jambo house, Savanna Animals, and a kid free Sanaa night!
what a shame the quality went downhill in that restaurant.
I suppose the new "cost cuts" is affecting everything.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
23rd continued..
So after a short hiccup we were in.
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So we were settling down a bit and relaxing before our late evening when we noticed dazzle of zebra :D, turns out that’s what you call a group of zebra. It was soon after the DW noticed that amongst the dazzle was a little one!
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Now I’m a cat person by nature but I gotta say this little guy was cute, and very playful!
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In this pick here the little guy was biting the tail of the other zebra and this is the moment as the other zebra is raising his leg to kick the little guy. The baby was very excitable and was constantly trying to play with the others but they weren’t really having it.
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Still to come: Kidani’s lobby, Sanna sans kid, and MK
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
23rd continued…
So after some R&R it was getting close to dinner time. The DD decided she’d rather borrow a DVD from the DVC book in the gift shop and have soup rather than hang with her folks at Sanaa. I won’t lie, a little parent’s dinner sounded great so we made our way to the gift shop so she could pick out some movies and get her soup. We parted ways here and made the walk to Kidani but not before listening to some carolers in the Jambo lobby
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A short walk later and were I Kidani’s lobby. The tree here is noticeably smaller but well decorated. There just so happened to be a special guest that night too.
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Kidani also had some carolers entertaining the guests
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After taking in the lobby we headed downstairs to Sanaa where we were quickly and introduced to our waiter, Pedro.
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We knew right away that bread service was a must so we ordered that right away and then expressed our desire to have a wine, Red Jasper, we had at Jiko in September. We were told that was a Jiko exclusive but he brought out some samples of wine he thought were good and comparable to the Jasper. We really liked the Warwick blend and went with a bottle of that.
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DW and I each went with the samplers. I had butter chicken and spicy chicken, DW went with sort rib and shrimp.
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Thankfully this place still amazes! I could eat here 3+ times each trip I think. The food and service is excellent!

Still to come: MK, ‘Ohana breakfast, and Tepan Edo
 

RebeccaMcK

Member
Great zebra pics! The food at Sanaa looks great and I must try it some day (haven't yet because my DH and DD are very fussy eaters - they were happy enough with Boma when we stayed at AKL a couple years ago). The carolers are a nice touch in the lobbies. I had a MB that didn't work on my ASMo room door last year, but they didn't give me any FPs....maybe because I didn't have a long walk to the front desk and I had other MBs that did work, lol. Looking forward to reading more.
 
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lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Wow, professor busy over here! Sorry for the delay, another crazy busy week but things should be slowing up now that wrestling is over. I really need to wrap this bundle up so we can get on the next PTR.

So, we last left with dinner at Sanaa. We messaged the DD and told her to head down to the buses and wait for us. After a short wait the MK bus arrived and we made our way to Jumbo where the DD was waiting and got on. We had a few FPs for tonight and made use of them. Up first was Jingle Cruise. Sadly, tonight’s Psychic Cruise was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances…
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Hope you like turkey!
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Even the monkeys got into it!
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Next it was a quick tour through the mansion
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Then an amazing thing happened! We all came to the realization that none of us had EVER ridden the carousel here!!! I racked my brain trying to disprove this but could not! This is our FIRST time on the carousel!!
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Next we made for SM followed by Buzz when another first occurred!
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To my surprise this one really ticked off the ladies!! I won’t lie, I researched years ago which targets where the “money targets” were but some are difficult to hit from the right side of the car and I always sit on that side. The ladies felt I didn’t earn this and pretty much shunned me for about 10 minutes… That’s ok, I still have the button!

So with a Galactic hero in the crew we made for main street to do a little shopping before we headed back to AKL. DW went with a new purse:
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With that we made for home. True story, on the way back to AKL when we were between Kindai and Jambo there was an adult riding their rental scooter down the middle of the road!!! The bus driver said it was a first for him. CRAZY!!!

Still to come: ‘Ohana breakfast, A little EC, and some pool time.
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Sean full on cheated to get that score! He just sat back and gloated. At first I was genuinely surprised, but then…I realized shenanigans were afoot!

I love the purse! I didn’t want anything that screamed Disney. This one is clearly Disney, but when you first glance at the pattern, it just seems as though it’s a pattern and that’s it. I was worried the embroidery threads would loosen up, but they’ve stayed in place and I carry this purse everywhere. I’m pretty rough with it. Well worth the $$.
 

RebeccaMcK

Member
Congrats on the high score and the button! I don't think I've ever ridden the carousel either - and it has to have been many, many years since I've ridden the one in Disneyland, too. That's a lovely purse. I hope the scooter-road hog was not the same person who mowed down the stroller earlier....or a descendant.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Up and at ’em, its Poly time! I don’t know if it is something new but the Poly lobby smelled awesome!
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After a short wait our time was up. We were walked to our seat and I was surprised to see over half of the restaurant empty. I was even more surprised how slow our service was considering how slow the place was! Still, the food was what you would expect it to be and we had a good time.
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It wasn’t long and our cousins were making their rounds
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The waffle arsenal:
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After breakfast we drove over to EC to get in a TT ride but then decided to get another first in too. UOE is a ride that had evaded us for the longest of times. I equate it to good nap ride….
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We also enjoyed this crew on the way back to AKL
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Still to come: Pool time, Savanna animals, and Teppan edo.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Upon returning to our room the savanna was mostly quiet except for a few animals
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DW and I decided to head down to the pool for a while to relax
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A grand Margarita and a Sunken Treasure to aid in the relaxing process…
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LOOK!! Everywhere you turn, more wildlife!
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After a couple hours we made our way back to the room. This place is just AMAZING inside and out!!
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Back at our room and these guys were still snoozing!!! They must be on vacation to..
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Still to come: MORE savanna animals, Teppan edo, and EC on Christmas Eve
 

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