Trip Report Back so soon? LIVE

I may have just finished my last TR (The Big Fat Liars Thanksgiving Report!) but our next trip is fast approaching so I'd better make a PTR! This will be another short, non-parks trip.

Background: Our dear friend S is getting married! The official engagement has been very short (and no, it's not a shotgun wedding before anyone chimes in ) so we had to make our plans quickly. S's fiance is in the military and is being transferred to Japan very soon so it was important for them to make things official before he leaves. She's an elementary school teacher so she will finish the school year before following him to live in Japan for the next three years. Since it was relatively short notice, they picked a holiday weekend so as many friends and family could attend as possible.

ANNNNNDDDD since it's a holiday weekend, of course we will do a little Disney while we're in Florida!!

Friday, February 17
Afternoon flight to JAX
Overnight with M's parents

Saturday, February 18
Late morning wedding and brunch
Celebrations! And packing!
Overnight with M's parents

Sunday, February 19
Drive to MCO
DME to CSR
Check in to CSR
Resort hopping
8:10 Dinner at Beaches and Cream
More resort hopping and maybe some fireworks viewing?
Overnight at CSR

Monday, February 20
10:15 Breakfast at Las Ventanas
DME to MCO
Afternoon flight to EWR

That's it for now. The Disney part, as you can see, will be very short, so instead of doing a full TR I'll probably do a live or semi-live trip while we're down there.

 

[bee]

Las Ventanas

Press pot

My huevos divorciados

M's sourdough French toast with side of eggs instead of meat

We liked Las Ventanas. Our server was Jonas and he was great. The food was very flavorful and both ate EVERY BITE on our plates. The atmosphere was modern but colorful and the small size of the restaurant made for a quiet, relaxing meal. We wouldn't go out of our way to eat there again but if we were staying at CSR again we would definitely go there.

Pretty flowers

 

[bee]

We're now on the Tragical Express. We picked up from two of the All Stars and now we're headed to MCO. Yesterday I was kind of bummed that we were only spending about 20 hours in the World. But I shifted my perspective when I remembered that the main purpose of the trip to Florida was to celebrate the marriage of a dear friend, and the day/night in Disney was just a bonus.

And hey, we tried two new TS restaurants, saw Wishes for the last time before it ends, saw the Water Pageant, tried new drinks at Trader Sam's, and had an overall relaxing time.

 

[Tuvalu]

We're now on the Tragical Express. We picked up from two of the All Stars and now we're headed to MCO. Yesterday I was kind of bummed that we were only spending about 20 hours in the World. But I shifted my perspective when I remembered that the main purpose of the trip to Florida was to celebrate the marriage of a dear friend, and the day/night in Disney was just a bonus.

And hey, we tried two new TS restaurants, saw Wishes for the last time before it ends, saw the Water Pageant, tried new drinks at Trader Sam's, and had an overall relaxing time.

I'm with you. Em and I are driving home.
M's breakfast looked delish!!

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

Single digit dance!

(I picked Snow White just for you, @Tuvalu!)

Not much to update in terms on the Disney part of the trip except that we are thinking about WCC for lunch on Sunday. We won't book until we get to Orlando because we don't know how long it will take to return the car, catch the DME, etc., and don't want to risk missing it. The quinoa cakes and fancy lunch grilled cheese look delightful.

M and I each bought a new dress for the wedding.
View attachment 188568
Blue for M

View attachment 188569
Black and white for me

Friday we're going shopping for shoes for the wedding. We both have pretty casual dress codes for work (except me when I'm in costume haha) so we haven't bought non-casual shoes in a long time.

Only seven days of teaching and one day of church singing for me until we go!

Beautiful dresses. I love both of them!

 

[Figgy1]

We're now on the Tragical Express. We picked up from two of the All Stars and now we're headed to MCO. Yesterday I was kind of bummed that we were only spending about 20 hours in the World. But I shifted my perspective when I remembered that the main purpose of the trip to Florida was to celebrate the marriage of a dear friend, and the day/night in Disney was just a bonus.

And hey, we tried two new TS restaurants, saw Wishes for the last time before it ends, saw the Water Pageant, tried new drinks at Trader Sam's, and had an overall relaxing time.

Sympathy like.

 

[bee]

I'm with you. Em and I are driving home.
M's breakfast looked delish!!

Have a safe drive! I'm so bummed we missed each other by minutes.

I tried her French toast and it was really tasty!

Beautiful dresses. I love both of them!

Thank you! We had fun wearing them and got several compliments.

Sympathy like.

Thanks you!

 

[MinnieM123]

Tragical Express . . . all good things must come to an end, as the expression goes. I always wanted to smack whomever created that expression!! Why can't people just have fun all the time??!! Sigh . . .

Anyway, glad that you did have a good time, and enjoyed some really delicious looking food!!

 

[bee]

Tragical Express . . . all good things must come to an end, as the expression goes. I always wanted to smack whomever created that expression!! Why can't people just have fun all the time??!! Sigh . . .

Anyway, glad that you did have a good time, and enjoyed some really delicious looking food!!

Thank you! We did have a great time and can't wait to get back!

We are home and ordered some burritos for delivery since we hardly have any groceries. The plane sat on the runway for about ten minutes before pulling into the gate and it was the longest ten minutes of the whole trip. The flight was 100% full and there were LOTS of children and babies onboard. It was like they were all in a contest to see who could cry/scream the loudest.

Besides the crying kids (which I know you can't predict or prevent!) there were several other instances of bad or at least annoying behavior by passengers. The guy who ended up sitting next to me in the back kept taking up way too much space and jabbing his elbows into me and resting his arm on my leg.

There was a woman who wouldn't stop complaining about the Southwest boarding procedure. "This is chaos!" "Why don't they have assigned seating?" "I can't sit with my family!" "I'm never flying this airline again!" "JetBlue was cheaper!" Like it would make a difference in her current situation.

My favorite ( ) passenger may have been the one who, despite the announcement from flight attendants about using headphones for electronic devices that make noise, had her phone playing some loud video at full volume, WHILE SHE WAS PLAYING WITH HER TABLET AND NOT EVEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE PHONE. If I'd been sitting closer to her (she was across and a couple rows ahead) I would have asked her to use headphones. Luckily a flight attendant noticed and asked her to turn it off...and then she proceeded to turn it back on after the FA left the area.

After we landed but before we pulled into the gate a girl started having a FULL ON MELTDOWN. Her mom told her they were going to Abuela's house but the girl DID NOT WANT TO GO TO ABUELA'S HOUSE. The mom tried to calmly explain that Abuela had made dinner for them but the girl DID NOT WANT DINNER WITH ABUELA. She WANTED MOM TO ORDER CHINESE FOOD AND GO HOME. The poor mom told her they were going to Abuela's and that was that but the girl proclaimed she WOULD NOT EAT AT ABUELA'S! So the mom told her that was fine but she would starve as she would go straight to bed when they got home.

But once we were off the plane (only slightly after our scheduled arrival time) we were able to get a Lyft ride pretty quickly and were home before 7:00!

I'll post some more photos in the next few days probably and add some final thoughts (if I have any haha!).

Thanks to everyone who followed along!

 

[bee]

New MagicBand:

Despite the complaints I've read from others about the new band design, I don't mind it and think it's kind of cute. I saw some blog about unscrewing the center part and swapping them with different colored bands to get different looks. I may need to try that!

Some more pics from the walk between the Poly and GF:

A REALLY sad attempt at a sideways panorama of the GF lobby, haha!

A SLIGHTLY more successful attempt.

 

[bee]

Some more Wishes pics. Some of these may be duplicates from earlier, sorry:

(I like the boat in this one!)

 

[bee]

From the morning walk to breakfast at CSR:

Taking off from MCO:

M had the window seat so she took all of these with my phone.

We were delayed taking off for a bit because someone had to bring the FAs boxes of snacks. During the flight as they were distributing these bags, a passenger requested peanuts and a FA informed them that someone on the flight had an allergy so they couldn't have peanuts on the plane. M and I liked our toasted chips.

During our descent into Newark:

We think this is Philly? Maybe someone can confirm/correct me on this? @HolleBolleGijs ?

We were on the right side of the plane and would have had some spectacular Manhattan views...if it hadn't been for this wing!

 

[bee]

Final thoughts and miscellaneous notes:

• While we had a lot of fun resort-hopping and relaxing on our last two trips, I was itching to get into the parks by the end of this trip. I'm hoping things will work out so that we can get APs later this year and do a couple of longer trips and maybe a long weekend trip here and there to taking advantage of the APs. We'll have so many new rides and attractions to experience by the time we get to go back (Soarin', Frozen, new MK fireworks/castle show, Pandora, Rivers of Light...).
• Coronado Springs was lovely as always. I'm glad we got to stay one last time before the major construction begins. We could only tell construction was happening during our stay because when the DME pulled up we could see the partial demolition of building 9B that has already occurred. Keep in mind the view from DME is higher than the view from just walking around the resort due to the level of the seats inside the bus.
• Speaking of DME, I didn't hate our experience this time. We didn't spend as much time waiting on line as we have before, though we did sit and wait on the bus for awhile. That said, we're not sure the perk of DME (and the other perks of Disney resorts) will be worth the cost of staying on-site for future trips. We're thinking the next trip may be off-site with a rental car, or at the Swolphin and car service to/from the airport.
• I made a note of this in my phone but forgot to post during the actual TR. The family waiting to check in for DME in front of us consisted of a mom, a dad, and three kids who seemed to range from about 4-8. When the mom saw all the people on line in front of us she said, "This is NOT going to be express." I guess she thought she was making a joke? But then she kept saying variations of the same sentence and it was really annoying. I just don't get people that complain out loud to no one in particular...as if that's going to help their situation or get the attention of someone who can change things??
  
• We loved trying two new TS restaurants and adding a new signature to our list of restaurants we've tried. So far the signature list includes California Grill (x2 and M's favorite), Jiko (my favorite), and Narcoossee's. (Plus Le Cellier if you count that.) My wish list includes Artist Point, Flying Fish (after hearing so many great things from @Tony the Tigger-and apparently they have a separate veg menu!), and Tiffins.
• Guess who forgot to transfer our Disney Dollars from our Chase account to an actual card? ME! It wasn't a big deal because it was less than $100 and we budgeted enough for the trip that it didn't make a difference to have to use our credit card. And you KNOW we'll be back to use them again
• Live Trip Reporting is hard! I'm glad I tried it out on a short trip and I don't think I'd do it again because it took me out of just enjoying the moments with my wife. Plus I like to relive the vacation by writing the report after the fact. I also like to sort through my photos and upload them to my Disney Tumblr and see how they look on a computer screen (as opposed to an iPhone screen) before posting. Speaking of photos, I'm obviously nowhere near a professional photographer but I'm pretty decent at using my iPhone camera and sometimes get some nice shots. I often take multiple photos of the same thing and it amazes me how often the first photo turns out to be the best; in other words, my instincts are usually right and I doubt myself and try to keep taking a better photo when it's not going to get any better.

I am sure I'll think of other things to say and if I do I'll post them here. Thanks to everyone who followed along! I hope to be posting a new thread in this forum in the not-too-distant future!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Nice report, I applaud you for being able to stay at Disney and not give into the temptation to go to the parks. I don't know if I could do it! It sounds like you had a great time though!

 

[MinnieM123]

Thanks for sharing another one of your TRs with us. I always like reading different people's comments, because everyone has their own spin. I also enjoyed your photos.

I think you're right about holding off until you return from your next vacation, to do a TR. I can only imagine how trying to do a "live" report must have interrupted the flow of conversation between the two of you. So at least you tried with a briefer vacation, but I agree--you may be better off doing a post-TR next time. Either way, I think it will always be pleasurable reading!

 

[HolleBolleGijs]

From the morning walk to breakfast at CSR:

Taking off from MCO:

M had the window seat so she took all of these with my phone.

We were delayed taking off for a bit because someone had to bring the FAs boxes of snacks. During the flight as they were distributing these bags, a passenger requested peanuts and a FA informed them that someone on the flight had an allergy so they couldn't have peanuts on the plane. M and I liked our toasted chips.

During our descent into Newark:

We think this is Philly? Maybe someone can confirm/correct me on this? @HolleBolleGijs ?

We were on the right side of the plane and would have had some spectacular Manhattan views...if it hadn't been for this wing!

Yep, that's Philly I spy the Comcast Center! (also I appreciate the presence of Norm Lewis in your TR!)

 

[Tony the Tigger]

My wish list includes Artist Point, Flying Fish (after hearing so many great things from @Tony the Tigger-and apparently they have a separate veg menu!), and Tiffins.

Just for the sake of accuracy - I adore Flying Fish and always will. I think the new chef is as capable as the previous chef. I'm just not as jazzed about the dishes he put on the menu. If you're going all veg, I'm betting it will be good. But the other dishes just haven't been as inspired or unique as the previous menu.

I'm more excited about Tiffins right now and making that a priority to go back and revisit.

Guess who forgot to transfer our Disney Dollars from our Chase account to an actual card? ME!

I always do that! Just call the phone number on the back of your card while you're at the park, and they transfer it immediately to your card. If you forgot your gift card, go to guest services and they give you another one. Very easy!

 

[bee]

Just for the sake of accuracy - I adore Flying Fish and always will. I think the new chef is as capable as the previous chef. I'm just not as jazzed about the dishes he put on the menu. If you're going all veg, I'm betting it will be good. But the other dishes just haven't been as inspired or unique as the previous menu.

I'm more excited about Tiffins right now and making that a priority to go back and revisit.

Thank you for the clarification. We'll still go and try it out. Tiffins opened RIGHT after our last parks trip so I've been excited to try it for awhile now!

I always do that! Just call the phone number on the back of your card while you're at the park, and they transfer it immediately to your card. If you forgot your gift card, go to gift services and they give you another one. Very easy!

UGH I knew there was a way to do this but my brain just couldn't figure it out! Thanks for the reminder. Maybe I'll remember next time I need to do it.