Trip Report Live from Orlando! A post as we go August trip report

Welcome to my August 2013 trip report! Thanks for reading! This will be my first trip report, so comment what you think! This will also be a live trip report where I will try to post at night. And one more thing before I start. Sadly, most of my pictures will be taken with my iPhone since my camera decided to not work when I got to Disney . So, sorry for some crappy quality pics...
So anyways, I checked in August 18th (today) and check out August 27th. I drove all the way down from New York, so it was quite the drive!
Getting closer...

Finally here!!

We then drove over to the Port Orleans French Quarter resort, which would be our resort for the stay. Thanks to online check in, we got our room instantly! This was the first time with the new way to enter the rooms (by tapping the mickey with your KTTW) so it was pretty cool for the first time. We unpacked, checked out our room then decided to go get some breakfast.
For some reason it's not letting me add photos, so I'll try again later

 

[afar28]

Day 1 August 18th, part 2:
I love this painting in my room!

So we went over to the French Quarter food court for breakfast, and I really liked the Mardi Gras theme. I didnt get any pics but will try to later. And of course I got the Disney classic mickey waffles Good start to the vacation so far! After that, we decided to head over to the Magic Kingdom. It's always been a tradition of ours to head over to MK on our first day. We drove over to the TTC then took a monorail to the park. And what a view to be welcomed by!

So after thinking about what to do, we got fast passes for Splash Mountain. Most rides had a long wait (40 mins plus) so we decided to check out new fantasyland. We didn't see it yet, and we knew the new Mermaid ride would have a long wait so we just decided to look around since we haven't seen it yet. And I personally thought it was beautiful. I thought It would look nicer without the mine train construction, so I'm excited to check that out when it's done.

We considered getting lunch at Be Our Guest, but the line was so incredibly long, it just wasnt worth it. The line went out of the entrance and wrapped all the way around to mermaid. It was absurd! Next up we were going to Gastons Tavern

Oh gaston

We decided to go into the gift shop (I completely forgot what it's called ) next to Gastons statue, and it sold some great stuff. It had some generic park merch sadly, but the majority was some cool unique stuff.
I really liked this picture for example

1000 piece puzzle?! Ain't nobody got time fo dat!

After looking through that store some more, we went over to the Little Mermaid ride to see if we could ride it. After seeing a 65 minute wait, we turned right back around.

Hopefully we will see you again Ariel, but next time on the ride!
Up next: Storybook Circus, a trip with Tom Morrow, and Space Mountain..with the lights on?

 

[afar28]

Day 1 August 18th part 3:
After that, we went to Storybook circus.

We saw the 2 dumbos and Casey JR's on my last trip but didnt see the rest of Storybook circus so we went in and decided to explore. Big top Souvenirs was the first thing that caught our eye.

Wow do those look delicious

Once again it isn't letting me upload files. I'll have to try again in a different post

 

[afar28]

Day 1 August 18 part 3 (continued)
Up next we were going to go over to Tomorrowland, but first we looked at the mine train construction

Next up would be Tommowland. Space mountain was sadly down

So we went on one of my favorites, the People Mover!

I love the views you get on the ride.

As we progressed throughout the ride, we got up to the space mountain part. And I forgot the ride was down so all the lights were on!

Right as I was snapping more pics, the lights all went right back out :/
When we got off, we ran to see if space mountain had a short wait since it just came back up. But it was still down even though the lights went out. Instead of that we went on one of my favorites the Carousel of Progress.

 

[FlaggNL]

We decided to go into the gift shop (I completely forgot what it's called ) next to Gastons statue, and it sold some great stuff. It had some generic park merch sadly, but the majority was some cool unique stuff.
I really liked this picture for example
View attachment 30041
View attachment 30043
1000 piece puzzle?! Ain't nobody got time fo dat!
View attachment 30042

WOW what a marvelous puzzle!! Wish we had like this in Paris!!! Whats the USD price of the 1000 piece puzzle?? And nice report! Love to read more

 

[afar28]

WOW what a marvelous puzzle!! Wish we had like this in Paris!!! Whats the USD price of the 1000 piece puzzle?? And nice report! Love to read more

It was around 65 dollars I believe, and thanks for the positive feedback

 

[WDW_Princess24]

Loving the live updates.
POFQ is a great resort, I stayed on my last trip and loved it!! Hope the crowds die down for you, most schools in the south started today.

 

[fractal]

Great start! Wow, over an hour wait for LM. That's crazy. I hope you made it on Space Mountain.

 

[Zipadeelady]

I'm following along!!

 

[afar28]

Day 1 August 18th

Carousel of Progress was awesome as usual. Over our past few visits, some of the effects such as the tv at the end were not working. On this trip, everything seemed like it worked unless I missed something, which was pretty awesome. When we got off, we saw that Space Mountain had a 70 minute wait so it must've came back on while we were on COP. We decided to go back to it later to get a fastpass after we used our Splash ones. We then decided to go on MILF, and I'm glad we did. The show was great! The crowd was awesome and it was overall a great show of the Laugh Floor the best I've ever seen. We then strolled over to fantasyland and saw a show of Philharmagic.

It was a great thing we did, because it poured when we were in the show. Everything was soaked. It was then finally time to use our Splash Mountain fastpasses. On the way though, I saw one of the nicest bathrooms.

It was funny, my mother (this trip was a family reunion trip since I haven't been to the world with my parents in a while) didnt know it was a bathroom.
"Anthony whats in there, is it a new ride?"
"No mom, it's a bathroom"
*chuckles for a second* "no seriously, what is it?"
"I'm being serious, it's a bathroom. Go check for yourself"
You should've seen the reactions on my parents face. The fact that a building like that was a bathroom blowed their mind. The inside was just as nice. I considered taking pictures but it would look pretty weird taking pictures in a bathroom
It was now finally time to ride Splash! We walked all the way over to Splash, and then realized we were going to get Space Mountain fastpasses but completely forgot. Instead of walking all the way back, we got fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain instead. We were going back to MK during this trip so it wouldnt be a big deal if we didnt ride it this day. It was now finally time to ride my favoriteMK ride, and head down to the Briar Patch.

After that ride through all I could say was WOW! It was amazing. Last year many of the effects and animatronics were non functional/limited and this time almost everything was working, except for the jumping fountains and one of the hanging opossums was down. It was great. After a little shopping, it was time for the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness! BTMRR was great as usual. Dinner reservations were coming up in 30 minutes for Tonys, so we took a quick spin on Pirates before going over to Tonys. We were happy since we were seated in 5 minutes. After looking at the menu, I decided to get cannelloni, and it was amazing. I was definately satisfied. After some gelato for dessert, we decided to head back to the hotel since it was 7. We wanted to ride Space Mountain, but we just got off 20 hours of driving and then going to a park so we were exhausted. With our bellies full, we took a nice relaxing boat ride back to the TTC then drove to our resort. It was a great day one. We went to Universal the next day (which was today as I write this) so I hope you all don't mind a little universal report
Up next: The Boy who Lived, soaked at Toon Lagoon, and minion mayhem! A great day at Uni and IOA.

 

[afar28]

Forgot to add these pics to the last post and it won't let me edit it to add them in for some weird reason.

Thought this was cool at Tonys.

I love this topiary

 

[cba]

A lot better than mine so far, it's awesome!

 

[Zipadeelady]

Im just as excited to hear about your day at Uni. We are taking a day to go there and visit the boy who lived. For the past 5 months I've been reading all 7 books. I figure if i'm going there I need to know what i'm looking at.

 

[afar28]

Loving the live updates.
POFQ is a great resort, I stayed on my last trip and loved it!! Hope the crowds die down for you, most schools in the south started today.

I agree, I've loved POFQ so far. And today crowds were much lighter at Universal, so hopefully it'll be the same at Disney.

Great start! Wow, over an hour wait for LM. That's crazy. I hope you made it on Space Mountain.

Thanks, and yeah I was surprised too. It seemed packed Sunday, probably because of school starting the next day.

I'm following along!!

Thanks!

A lot better than mine so far, it's awesome!

Yours is just as good too!

Im just as excited to hear about your day at Uni. We are taking a day to go there and visit the boy who lived. For the past 5 months I've been reading all 7 books. I figure if i'm going there I need to know what i'm looking at.

I'll post that part either later tonight or tomorrow morning

 

[Goofnut1980]

love the report!!

 

[afar28]

love the report!!

Thank you!

 

[afar28]

Day 2 August 19th.
This day would be spent at Universal! I haven't been their in 2 years, and a lot has been built since then so I was excited to go back. After waking up early, we grabbed a quick breakfast then drove down to Uni. We arrived 5 minutes before the gates opened, so we thought Potter would have a quick wait. Since Forbidden Journey doesn't have express pass, we had to arrive pretty early. The park finally opened! Going into the Port of Entry gives you great views, and it's an amazing entry. I couldn't get any pics since I was hustling over to Potter, but I did get some later one. The wait time was posted at 75 minutes, but we went on anyway.

Finally into the nice air conditioned castle

It's not letting me add pics :S I'll try again in a different post

 

[afar28]

I love the theming of this queue a lot.

Why hello professor Dumbledore

It's not letting me add photos again.. Whenever I press more options on accident it doesn't work, so I'll try not to press that.

 

[afar28]

The Sorting Hat!

Despite a 75 minute wait being posted, we got on in about 45. It was an awesome ride, as usual. The only downside was that during one part, the film on the screen froze but the ride kept on going. It wasnt a big deal but it would've been better if that didnt happen. Up next we went on flight of the Hippogriff, and thanks to express pass we went right through the 35 minute wait. After that we went shopping for a bit in Hogsmeade Village.

I love the candy shop.

I love the theming in this land. Everything from the snow on the buildings, all the way to the window displays.

After baking in the hot sun for a whole, I felt a butterbeer would help cool me down. But that was more of an excuse to go get one . And they are still amazing, no surprise.

I've never seen the singing frogs before. After finishing up exploring Hogsmeade, we made our way over toJurassic Park.

After still being hot, JP River Adventure seemed like a ride choice. We blew right through the line with express pass. We got in the last row, so we thought we wouldn't get that wet. Boy were we wrong. We got absolutely drenched! It did feel great though, since it was very hot. Up next would be Toon Lagoon.

I know a lot of people tend to bash on this section of IoA, but I actually really enjoy it! I love the rides and the theming has grown on me. Since we were already soaked, we decided to get the other water rides out of the way.

"Welcome to Canada!" It was time to conquer Dudley Do Rights, one of my favorite rides. It ain't no Splash Mountain, but I still really like it. Once again we were in the back seats, but it didnt matter. Got soaked again. While we were already walking in our own pools of water, we decided to finish off the water rides by heading on Popeyes. I've never been on the ride before, so it was going to be a first time for me. And boy I was not expecting this. We got absolutely soaked. It was crazy! I was not thinking it would be this wet! It was enjoyable though. With all the water rides down, we were very wet obviously. We tried walking around in the heat and sunlight to dry off.
I have a 10 picture cap per post when I upload a file, so I'll continue in the next post.

 

[afar28]

After looking around Toon Lagoon, it was time for Marvel Super Hero Island, including one of my favorite rides-The Amazing Adventures of Spider Man!

It was an awesome ride of course. I felt bad for the people behind us. We were soaked still so we got the seat all wet for the people behind us
After that, we considered doing the Hulk coaster but ultimately decided not to. We had dinner reservations at 8, and it was noon so we would rather do other things. And I did hulk last time in Uni and it was pretty rough on me. So we decided to skip over that and move on. I'm getting really tired, so I'll continue tomorrow.
Up next: returning to our childhood with Dr Seuss, a road trip to Springfield, and Minion Mayhem!