Trip Report *COMPLETED* Allll the fun...and other musings - an August trip report

Some preamble
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Burnett Family Trip Report – Summer Edition. Before you commit to reading this, be warned that it may take a bit of time to complete this as I have 10 days to cover with something like 900 pictures to pick from and a busy next few weeks.

Some trip info
I could direct you to our epic pre-trip report found here: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...the-fun-august-20-29-ptr.915198/#post-7298480
but I’ll save you the trouble and recap the important stuff here.

Who's travelling

From left to right there is my wife Tammy, Myself (Graham), our daughter Steph (Stephanie) and our son Liam.

When
August 20th – August 29th

Where
Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village in a studio

Anything else
The only other kind of interesting/problematic thing is that Steph has been having some foot problems for the past few months. She’s been off karate and has been going to physio, acupuncture and chiro, but at the end of two months her foot is still sore. This may come into play during our trip…

So……Let’s get started

August 18th-19th – some pre-trip stuff

We had some pre-trip stuff to take care of before we could get our vacation started.

Step 1: Take the feline members of our family to my Mom and Dad’s. We have two cats that we rescued from the SPCA when they were kittens.

We have Zoey who is 7

and we have Pyper (the torty) who is 5. They typically like being at my parents place as it is quiet and they don’t have to worry about….

Step 2: So it is early July and we’re out driving on a Saturday. “Let’s go to the SPCA just for fun” Tammy says…. Long story short “Let’s go to the SPCA just for fun” became this:

This is Cooper. He’s about 6 months old. We really don’t know what he is (We think a Daschund/Lab mix. Don’t aske me how that happens). The cats aren’t overly thrilled with him yet (Pyper hides. Zoey is the boss and smacks Cooper around when he gets out of line).

We found a great place for Cooper to stay while we were away which we were happy about. The place came and picked Cooper up on Friday morning (the 19th) and with that we were almost ready.
I went to work on the 19th, but had booked a ½ day off to do some last minute running around/packing. Tammy runs an in-home daycare, so she was working the whole day. Around 5 the final kid was picked up, and we were ready to go.

We jumped in the car and took off across the border to the Sleep Inn in Buffalo, where we’d be staying for the night, before our flight the next morning. We made a quick stop at Sam’s Club to pick up some breakfast items, and then called it a night. We were in bed by 10, and ready to get this trip officially started.

More to come

 

[gwhb75]

View attachment 159111

I wish the air quotes were needed...

 

[kimberlymautz]

Awesome. Are you doing the not so scary?

We are! Our first time too. My daughter is OBSESSED with Nightmare Before Christmas, so I'm hoping Jack and Sally will be there like I've heard they normally are.

 

[gwhb75]

We are! Our first time too. My daughter is OBSESSED with Nightmare Before Christmas, so I'm hoping Jack and Sally will be there like I've heard they normally are.

You'll have a great time.

 

[gwhb75]

August 23 – “Day Off”

This is one time where air quotes are appropriate. Today was a day that we had no plans at all. No fastpasses booked, no plans to go to a park….nothing. With that in mind, you would think that we would have had a nice day to rest and recharge a bit. You’d think that. You’d be wrong. According to our step counter, this was actually the day we ended up walking the most. So let’s get started

Since nothing was planned, we actually did sleep in a bit. The kids, believe it or not, were ready first this morning, and headed down to the community hall for a while (Liam has discovered that he likes playing pool).

Tammy and I got ready and headed down to meet them.

A shot from the lobby

It was around 9:45 and we decided we’d go back and check out Disney Springs.

On our way to the bus

As I mentioned on the first day that we went to Disney Springs, the whole place looks amazing. The one thing that is different is that the bus stops have been consolidated to one stop between the old Marketplace and West Side stops. You wouldn’t recognize the old Downtown Disney anymore.

Here are a few highlights of the area that we liked:
1) The Under Armor Store is really neat. The upstairs area has a fitness test type machine that the kids enjoyed trying

2) The new bakery (Amorette) looks amazing. I wish we had bought something, but we weren’t hungry when we got there, and we didn’t feel like carrying stuff around with us. The Disney character inspired cakes look like a work of art.

3) Basin is still there, and still has some really neat products.

4) Ghiradelli still has free samples…mmmmmm….free chocolate

more to come

 

[gwhb75]

August 23rd continued

We walked around for about two hours. We also went to World of Disney.

I kept putting hats on Liam in there and taking pictures (mainly princess and women’s hats).

He’s a good sport.

Around noon everyone was ready for lunch. The plan was to go to D-Luxe Burger again, but then Steph decided she wanted to go to Blaze Pizza instead. I went in to D-Luxe and ordered, and then walked Steph over to Blaze.

Blaze is really good.

Think of it like a pizza version of Subway. You pick a crust, a sauce, a cheese and then any toppings you want (the price is $7.99 for a basic cheese pizza, or $9.99 for a design-your-own pizza).

Steph just wanted a cheese one (a bit boring, but that’s what she likes). The pizza is then placed in an oven and is ready in about 3 minutes.

We got the pizza to go, and then headed back to D-Luxe.

Our food was ready when we got back which was good. Liam got the BBQ burger, Tammy got the chicken burger, and I got the Diablo burger.

We also shared a couple of large fries.

The burgers were good, the fries not-so-much. I liked the place, but we have better burger places near our house (has anyone from Canada been to the Works? We have one about 5 minutes from our house). We enjoyed the burgers, but I’m not sure we’d go back.

More to come

 

[gwhb75]

August 23rd continued

After lunch we continued walking around the West Side area of Disney Springs.

this looks like it would be fun

Tammy stopped in at Sanuk and picked up a new pair of sandals (she got a pair last year and wears them all the time). They were pretty nice.

After that we took a quick tour through Jock Lindsay’s Hangar Bar (just looking).

I was surprised at how small the place was.

The ice machine in there is cool (pun intended)

more coming

 

[gwhb75]

August 23rd continued

Next I decided to surprise the kids. We were walking by the Characters in Flight area, so I asked if they wanted to do it.

You bet they did (I didn’t bother asking Tammy since I already knew what the answer would be). We went up, signed waivers, paid, and waited to board.

About 10 minutes later we were soaring 400 feet above Disney Springs.

It was really neat. The kids and I aren’t bothered by heights at all, so we were walking around the balloon taking pictures.

The whole experience lasted about 15 minutes, and we feel it was worth every penny (it was around $50 for the 3
of us, so not too expensive). One more thing we could check off our “Disney bucket list”.

more to come

 

[gwhb75]

August 23rd continued

One last shot from the balloon

We had one last thing we wanted to experience before leaving Disney Springs, so we made our way over to the new Coke store.

The building is pretty impressive (2 stories and a rooftop bar). We entered the store and went right to the elevators and up to the 3rd floor.

We decided to try the International Sampler. Think of it like Club Cool on steroids. We received two trays of small cups, with 8 cups on each tray.

It came with a little booklet telling you what drinks were in what cups.

Not bad for $11 (for $16 you could get 8 cups of pop and 8 floats). We enjoyed trying them.

Some were really good, but some were awful (Beverly, which we already knew was gross. There was another mint one that tasted like mouthwash (which wouldn’t be bad if you were using it as mouthwash, but pretty gross as a beverage)). On the way out the kids picked up two ICEES.

an example of what you can get on the 2nd floor

more to come

 

[gwhb75]

August 23rd continued

After finishing up at the Coke store, we decided to call it a day at Disney Springs and head back to AKL.

We got back around 3:30ish. The kids went back to Community Hall (I’m really glad we stayed at Kidani. The kids have spent a lot of time at Community Hall this trip). We went in and got a few pictures done with them first

Let's try one more time

and then Tammy and I went back to the room and rested (or was it “rested”…I’ll never tell….yes I will….It was rested without air quotes).

Around 5:30 Tammy and I got a text from Steph saying Liam and her had gone to Animal Kingdom. This is the first time they’ve ever actually taken a bus by themselves to a park. I was fine with it. Tammy was a bit concerned, but she got over it pretty quickly. I texted back that we’d meet them there. I hopped on the app and booked 3 fastpasses (Kali, Everest and Primeval Whirl) and then headed out the door.

We got to AKL around 5:45, and headed towards the gates. There was no “randomly selected’s” tonight as everyone was going through the metal detectors (which should happen all day. We have a theme park pretty close to us (Canada’s Wonderland – like a 6 Flags type of park) and they have metal detectors at all entrance points that everyone must go through).

a quick picture on the way in

We head over to meet the kids (guess where). We got to Everest and noticed a lot of commotion and security around the ride. The single rider line was also closed. It turns out they were filming an episode of Blackish in the park today and were filming in the single rider line.

Kind of cool. We saw a lot of the cast. The kids and I rode once.

After Everest we headed over to Kali.

It’s like a game of Russian Roulette when you ride that thing, trying to guess who will end up going down the drop hill backwards since they will end up getting the most soaked. This time it was Tammy and Steph (Liam and I were collateral damage and actually got pretty wet too).

After I get off a ride I have a bit of a ritual that I do where I tap each of my pockets to make sure I still have everything I started the ride with. I’m glad I did, because this time my back pocket was empty (where my wallet was when I got in the ride). I ran back to our ride vehicle, and there it was tucked in behind the seat part. I’m glad I checked. It was a fun ride, but now I’m wet.

Here is my "I'm not happy I'm wet" look

more to come

 

[gwhb75]

August 23rd continued

Next we headed back to Everest for our FP. Fun was had.

Tammy got her name on one of the posters

"Way up there, yeah" (anyone guess where that quote is from?)

I took a few selfies on the way.

The girls sitting behind the kids leaned forward and told them they would photobomb one of the pictures…which they did.

Kind of funny.

Oh yeah. We dabbed (Tammy almost dabbed, but bailed out at the last second and grabbed on to the safety bar for dear life).

Next we headed over to Dinoland and rode PW.

There was no line so we decided to do standby (our next FP wasn’t for another hour, so this worked better).

It was OK for what it was.

After PW we decided to leave AK…and head to HS (I thought this was supposed to be a quieter day). The main reason for going there tonight is to see the Star Wars fireworks. We got on a bus and made it to HS with about 20 minutes to spare before the fireworks started.

Again, everyone was put through the metal detectors before entering the parks.

more to come

 

[mouse_luv]

Loving your trip report! AKV is our "home" away from home. Following along!

 

[gwhb75]

August 23rd continued

We get in, and the kids decide they would rather go on RNR than watch the fireworks, so they took off (Liam was also getting hungry, so he picked up some chicken nuggets on the way to RNR). Tammy and I got a pretty good spot for the fireworks, and then waited.

Soon the lights go off and the show starts. I really hope they keep the show, because it was really well done. I don’t normally care for fireworks shows, but this is so much more than that. The projections on the theatre are really clear, and then there are lasers and fire.

The big finale

Just really good.

At 9 the fireworks end and the park starts emptying out. We text the kids and tell them to meet us behind the Starbucks. A few minutes later they show up…eating cupcakes? Turns out a CM was out in the street just handing out free cupcakes (I guess because the park was closing and they had left overs).

Now, for a day that was supposed to be an off day, we sure have done a lot. It’s now after 9, and we’ve basically been going almost non-stop since 10 this morning….but the day isn’t over yet.

One of the things that we had wanted to do on this trip was go to Ample Hills at the Boardwalk, and since we were so close, we decided we may as well go now. We were going to take the boat, but the line was just too long, so we decided to walk. Along the walking path we found an abandoned park wheelchair. This couldn’t have come at a better time, as Steph’s foot was really bothering her now. She hopped in and we pushed her over to the Boardwalk.

We got to Boardwalk and headed right to Ample Hills.

The place wasn’t too busy which was nice,

We decided to get two sundaes and split them.

We got the Ooey-Gooey-Butter Cake base which was just amazing. The sundaes were huge and very rich, and really good.

After our sundaes we decided to call it a night.

We took a boat to Epcot and entered World Showcase at the International Gateway (after going through the metal detectors again). I’ve learned that my belt buckle sets it off every time which means I’m getting wanded every time.

We walked through the parks to the bus,

and got back to our room before 11. What a day. We did Disney Springs and, technically, 3 parks (OK, we didn’t do anything in EPCOT, but we did enter the park so I’m counting it). I think we need to start planning our non-planned days a bit better.

Tomorrow is "tour" day.

that's it for August 23rd

 

[fractal]

August 23rd - a great unplanned day!

 

[gwhb75]

Loving your trip report! AKV is our "home" away from home. Following along!

Glad you're enjoying it. We love AKL Thanks for reading.

 

[gwhb75]

August 23rd - a great unplanned day!

It really was. I guess it goes to show that you can still have a great time without booking rides 60 days out or ADRs 6 months in advance. Thanks for following along.

 

[Matt and Kelly]

Wow! So much accomplished. Love the idea of not having anything scheduled. We loved the new look of Disney springs. Those sundaes look amazing! Something to put on the list to do next time along with flights of wonder.

 

[gwhb75]

Wow! So much accomplished. Love the idea of not having anything scheduled. We loved the new look of Disney springs. Those sundaes look amazing! Something to put on the list to do next time along with flights of wonder.

I really enjoyed the non-planned day and think we will do more of them in the future.

If you like ice cream then you'll love Ample Hills (Spoiler, there will be another visit there before the trip ends).

Thanks for following along.

 

[Tuvalu]

I think there could have been air quotes around Tammy and I "got ready."

Thumbs down on D-Luxe Burger fries for sure!

Great pics from Characters in Flight! And from Star Wars fireworks (I have not seen the new show.)

Way to go on your "day off."

 

[Matt and Kelly]

Oops my mistake just realized I called it flights of wonder and not characters in flight!!!

 

[fractal]

Loving the TR and hoping the SW fireworks show is still there for me next trip!