Trip Report I swear this is the last time... COMPLETED

That's right! How many times have I made that promise to WDWMagic, that this trip would be the last trip for the foreseeable future? I think at least twice... Because ya girl has got to save for grad school that starts in less than 6 months! But then... all that Epcot news came out... and I just couldn't resist... and my vacation request got approved today...

I do solemnly swear this will be my last time at Disney World for at least a year (the length of my program, and I won't even be in the country anymore so there will be no temptation... except, maybe, Disneyland Paris ;))

When???: May 15-18 2019. 62 more days to go!
Where???: Coronado Springs! The eleganza! Can you believe I'm not staying in a Value or off property? Me neither? But that's because...
Who: Me and my grandma! She's an AP and wanted to go with me before I leave to start school... She also booked the hotel room (yay grandparents!!!)

So, what am I looking forward to? Riding Haunted Mansion, of course. Seeing Sonny Eclipse (duh!). Maybe even experiencing Toy Story Land (I wasn't sold on it... but if I can get FPs... then...). And maybe even attempting to secure a FP for FOP. We'll see about that... Oh, and riding Peoplemover!

If you'd care to sit back and wait 62 days with me as our plans become more concrete, then enjoy. And in 62 days... who knows what tomfoolery is in store.

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o heck yeah
 
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tonystark

tonystark

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After booking it across AK to see a very short but delightful musical, I was thirsty as heck.
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What would I order??? I honestly did it without thinking.
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A water lol.
Time for trail #1.
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This bird was LUXURIATING. His head was back and his eyes were closed, and he was just enjoying some artificial rain.
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I honestly thought this bird was dead or injured, which would be just the sort of thing I would see because that's basically how my luck goes. But when the CMs came out with the food, and another huge bird came stalking towards it, it hopped right up and went about its business. Phew.
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The large bird in question.
Tree break between trails.
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Trail #2
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tonystark

tonystark

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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This hippo was running around in circles, over and over again. I found it relatable lol.
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Me looking over at the clock at work every 10 minutes wondering if I can go home yet.
It was time for our FP!
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This was really an awkward and kind of unenjoyable voyage. I watched a woman absolutely lose her [redacted] at a CM. She was made to wait for the next car because the CM was having groups of 2 have their own row in the very front row, she was also a group of 2. She was SCREAMING about how she was being made to wait (like 3 extra minutes... and you know she would have thrown a fit if she'd been made to share a row with 2 other people). "I will go to Guest Relations about this! I am an ANNUAL PASSHOLDER! Never has this happened to me in all my years of going here!!!!" It's a theme park. You can wait 3 minutes. You can wait 10 minutes. It's a theme park. The CM looked on the verge of tears, and I think a leader or coordinator came over to defuse things, but talk about a really uncomfortable start.
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I felt bad for our safari guide, he had a terrible head/chest cold and had to turn off the microphone every few minutes for some really hacking coughs.
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Racing stripes... zoom.
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tonystark

tonystark

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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The only elephant I saw this trip :( bring back the little Red animatronic so that I will ALWAYS see an elephant (I'm kidding)
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We had like 30 minutes until our dinner reservation (a very early dinner, I know), so we decided to take the long way around to get to Yak&Yeti.
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Yes, it involved a stop over in Pandora so everyone could ooh and ahh. Please ooh and ahh.
Finally, it was time to eat! We were hot, Yak&Yeti was cool, and they placed us on the second floor where we were the only people eating in our room. Sounds like a win to me.
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I ordered...
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The 25$ chicken tikka marsala! It was good, and I ultimately didn't feel guilty spending that much on a dish you can make for much less at home because...
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I ate every bite. We were right next to our next FP, but still had some time (like 10 minutes?) before our window opened up.
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Why not give it a shot, right? Funnily enough, my grandma and I got seated right next to each other on the last row. Wow, that was an intense ride of Expedition Everest! Has it always pushed me that far back into the seat? I couldn't remember.
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Here we were getting ready to go. The Yeti always seems closer these days, I think it's because I know where to look for him, and am always delighted by his glorious disco moves.
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Immediately after, our FP window opened up. We didn't sit all the way in the back this time, but we still had fun.
 
tonystark

tonystark

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Our next FP was for FOP (I know, you are all eager to hear about my experience, we'll get to that). But since we were going to be leaving AK immediately afterwards for our final park of the day, I suggested we stop at Dinosaur to get a ride in before we headed on to FOP.
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It said 15 but it actually ended up being closer to 30 minutes before we were finally in the pre-show room.
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HELLO THERE! I find Dr. Seeker to be much more entertaining than the pre-show guy they have for FOP. I don't know if they were trying to relate to us millennials by presenting a socially awkward scientist or whatever, but they missed the mark and made him way too uncomfortable IMO.
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They were only loading up one side of Dinosaur. Perhaps that explains the long wait. Also, it was REALLY dark inside -- like, so dark that you could hardly see the big Carnotaurus (??? making that spelling up) animatronics, even the one that comes at your head. It wasn't that scary because I couldn't see anything at all lol.
Now... It was time for FOP. I haven't read much about the experience except that it was a must do, etc. etc.
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Here we were venturing through the LONG queue.
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Still venturing...
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I believe we were in the top-most theatre? It sure felt like that. Grandma and I stood here for like 5 minutes waiting for other people to come up, which they finally did. Like I said, awkward pre-show, but I was ready to get on the ride by the time it was done. Imagine my surprise when the back rest and leg rest came up. I figured it would have to secure you in some how, and maybe I was too far forward in the seat, but it really pressed me in with no room to move around. I'm not claustrophobic, but OMG y'all, I started to get anxious. It didn't help that the woman next to us started to shout that she was going to die (in Spanish, thank you my many Spanish classes, for allowing me to understand what she was saying), and she was calling for help and staring right into the camera. No CMs came, which I found very disturbing. Especially since we were delayed to start for a couple of minutes, which made me even more anxious. I basically wanted to get off the ride before it even began, I felt really trapped.
I don't get motion sick, either -- and I think this was more anxiety based, but once the other banshee starts to get in a fight with you or whatever, I had to close my eyes and wait for the very end of the ride to open them again. I get why people love FOP, and it is a very cool ride. I'm not in a hurry to get back on it, though, and I think that's more of a result of the experience I had riding it, not the ride itself.
Dang, that was long winded! My little hands were literally shaking from the anxiety and adrenaline rush I was experiencing, and we made our way towards the park exit. The woman who screamed that she was going to die seemed to live, though.
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We waited almost 40 minutes for this bus to MK. I was almost tempted to call an Uber and be done with it, but we weren't in a super rush to get to MK.
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Ahh, hello! What FP did we manage to grab first? Only the easiest to get of them all.
 

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tonystark

tonystark

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
OK MY ICED COFFEE WAS FREE AT WORK TODAY, I HAVE CAFFEINE COURSING THROUGH MY VEINS. LET US FINISH THIS!
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Oh you bet. Yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me, etc. I bid a fond farewell to the pirate with the dirty foot, trusting that he will be there upon my return some day. Or we will have a problem. You may recall that I chose an All American Sundae instead of a Citrus Swirl. This simply would not do.
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Wow look at that precarious placement on the counter. HEA was about to start, so grandma and I made our way over to Liberty Square to take a seat so that I could eat my ice cream. You obviously know where we were going afterwards.
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Now I'm being serious when I say that this was my last ride of HM for the trip, and for who knows how long. I'll miss it more than I can say :(. We did stop at Madame Leota's scene, so that was nice to watch for a few moments, and there was no one on the first dozen doom buggies ahead of us, so there were no obnoxiously bright cell phone screens to distract from the ride.
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Goodbye :(... Grandma and I joked that the first ride everyone would rush to after the fireworks was obviously the PeopleMover, because that's the ride we rush to lol. And so, the PeopleMover would be our very last ride of the trip.
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I LOVE Tomorrowland at night. I love the neon. I love the atmosphere.
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I wonder how often they reset this counter.
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Do you feel like you're there?
It was on this go-round that I really leaned out of my seat to get a good look at Progress City. It needs a little TLC desperately. The DUST. I couldn't get a good picture, but there is a bunch of dust and cobweb strands from the church to the floor of the model.
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I tried. There are cars that look like they've been run off the main high way and are just parked askew in the grass. Come on, y'all. Give it a good dusting and fix the cars... It's an important model!
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Green lights... futuristic...
With that, it was time to make our way down Main Street for the last time.
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A location that also has excellent evening/night ambiance.
 
tonystark

tonystark

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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Good bye :(. Our bus arrived after 10 minutes or so.
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This really is the end :(
We got back to our room, and I went under the bed for a minute to get my suitcase, when I saw...
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What....
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Someone's abandoned water bottle. I wonder how long that has been there. Also :/ that Mousekeeping doesn't check under the beds, at least not in this room, at this resort, at this time. On our final park day, we did 31,263 steps or 12.59 miles. It was time for bed.
While we're in the room, I might as well show you my wrinkled shirt. I took this picture the following morning, after the shirt had spent ALL DAY in my waist pack, folded up into a tiny square. You must excuse the wrinkles.
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It was time to bid a fond farewell to the room. We were going to walk over to the food court for grandma to get breakfast, and perhaps this time I would get something to eat, too (not knowing that it would be my downfall)
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Goodbye building!
I saw this turtle on our walk to the food court
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He was still there when we walked back, except upon our return he had gathered quite the entourage of interested tourists snapping his picture. I hope fame doesn't go to his head.
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Here were my kids Mickey waffles. I think it was the sausage that did me in, because I had a touch of food poisoning for our drive home. It was a miserable drive to say the least!

Though it ended on a bit of a low point, we had a really awesome trip. I feel like I rode more rides this time than I ever have before, and I got to say goodbye to some of my favorites. Now it's almost time for grad school (I'm going out of the country for it), and maybe when I return to WDW, Spaceship Earth will have been refurbed, the Tron rollercoaster will be open, and I will still be sore about Guardians of the Galaxy being shoehorned into Epcot :) Thanks for reading!
 
Captain Barbossa

Captain Barbossa

Well-Known Member
Enjoyed reading your TR! Hopefully it won't be too terribly long before you get to go back to "the World". Good luck with grads school! Is it in or near France? Just curious because I know you said that DLP might happen.
 
tonystark

tonystark

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Captain Barbossa said:
Enjoyed reading your TR! Hopefully it won't be too terribly long before you get to go back to "the World". Good luck with grads school! Is it in or near France? Just curious because I know you said that DLP might happen.
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Near enough to France to get there in a day -- but I think my finances will be a bit tight for a DLP trip now... We'll see how it goes!!!
 
Darstarr

Darstarr

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Have a great time at grad school.
Thanks for sharing and please let your grandma know that she so totally rocks!!! If she needs someone to go to WDW with while you are away.....👀
(Just sayin’)
 
tonystark

tonystark

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
krisri18 said:
Good luck with school and thank you for sharing your trip with us!
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Thank you!!!!
Darstarr said:
Have a great time at grad school.
Thanks for sharing and please let your grandma know that she so totally rocks!!! If she needs someone to go to WDW with while you are away.....👀
(Just sayin’)
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I know!! I wasn't expecting her to go so hard with everything that happened before the trip but she had more energy than I did! Especially the four parks in one day, I was basically dead to the world when I got back home... and then she went back to Disney the following weekend!!
 

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