Trip Report Another "work" trip is in the bag!! August 2016

Hi guys! It's me again! I decided to go on another "work" trip this year to book the free dining bounceback offer! For those of you that don't know me, I'm Amy, and I lied to my kids last year and told them I had a work trip, when I really went and spent the weekend at Pop Century to book the free dining bounceback offer for this years trip! Brian invited himself along this year, so we didn't really call it a "work" trip! Instead, we told the the kids that we were going to spend the weekend in Columbus shopping, since we've done that in the past! Here we are in June:

This time our flight left Columbus at 7:10am, so we left the house before 5am. I'm not sure how the kids didn't think that was odd, but they never asked about it! We landed well before our expected arrival time of 9:30am. We stopped in the Universal and Seaworld stores to pick up maps and brochures to share with the kids whenever we decide to tell them about our June trip. We were in line for the Magical Express by about 9:25. I know this, because we had to check in for our return flight at 9:35, and they started loading us right before that time! Luckily, we were seated on the bus by the time we had to hit the check in button and we got B2 and 4 boarding positions for Southwest. We were staying at All Star Music this time because that was the cheapest room on property. We have stayed at Movies before, but never Music. It was fine, I have no desire to stay there again, but there was nothing wrong with it.

We dropped our carry on bag at Bell Services and caught a bus to Disney Springs.

Loved this on the MK bus:
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Once we arrived at Disney Springs, we headed right for lunch. Our breakfast we ate at 4:30am was no longer with us and we were starving!!


We decided to split a burger and fries to save room for our dinner.




We had the whole patio to ourselves while we ate.

Our view:





Our lunch was delicious!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We had received a text at about 1:00 that our room was ready, so we headed back to the resort after the Coke store.






We walked through the main building, but the check-in line was really long, so we just went directly to the room.


We were in the Calypso section. We had been "upgraded" to a preferred king room.



I then called to make our reservation for June with the free dining bounceback offer. It took forever this year! At first she took all my info, then asked if I wanted to add dining. I wasn't sure what to say at first since I was there to book the free dining. She realized her mistake and told me some Disney "magic" had been happening and she needed to start over!?! We finally got that straightened out, then before she could give me a confirmation number, she had to put me on hold and call customer service. I was getting a little worried, but it looks like everything is correct on MDE and on my confirmation email. After we got home, I realized she never offered me Memory Maker, so now I have to call back and add it.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After that was all sorted out, we decided to head out to dinner with a stop at the Grand Floridian first.



We grabbed a bus to MK.

Then a boat to the Grand Floridian.

Unfortunately, it didn't stay empty! In fact, the captain kept squeezing people on to the point that we were all sitting on top of each other!


The one and only picture of us (to prove we were actually there!):







The beach looked so lonely!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The walk over was beautiful! A little hot, but beautiful!





The dreaded crane:

We were finally there:

We had a few minutes before we needed to check in, so we went in to the Bou-Tiki. I'm not a huge Stitch fan, but I was drawn to these:


The lobby is so pretty, not the same, but still pretty!


 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We were seated right on time for dinner.


Our view wasn't the greatest this time, but good enough! Brian could see Space Mountain and the castle if he leaned out of his chair far enough!

I had an Island Sunset! It was delicious!!





It was all delicious! The noodles even tasted like I remembered them from previous trips, unlike the ones we had in June.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We had never been to the Wilderness Lodge before. Brian decided we must stay there sometime! I told him that I have been saying that for years!





Brian called me out for taking a pic of a trash can!








 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
More Wilderness Lodge:









We hopped on the boat that would go to Fort Wilderness, then on to the Contemporary.
New DVC construction:


River Country:



Another lonely beach:
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Then we were off to the Contemporary.





The 4th floor observation deck was closed, so we went out on the bridge to BLT to get some pics.




We took the monorail to the TTC, and then transferred to the Epcot monorail.

 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We caught a bus back to All Star Music. We bought a chocolate croissant and a cherry turnover for breakfast and dropped them in the room. We then returned to the main building because we never received the DME packet with our info for the next morning. The CM who helped us was very nice. He couldn't believe we had flown down for one day to book the in room offer! He actually seemed pretty impressed that we would think to do it!

We then wandered around the resort to see the different sections.

















We are now booked at CBR from Monday, June 5- Saturday, June 17 with free dining and 8 day park hopper/water parks and more tickets. We plan to go to each water park once without visiting one of the other parks in the evening (learned that the hard way this June!). We will also be spending one of those days at Seaworld. We will drive down on Friday, June 2 and then start our trip on Saturday, June 3 at Universal Studios, most likely at Royal Pacific.

Thanks for following along! We had a nice time away by ourselves!
 

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