Trip Report Blisters! Why Did it Have to be Blisters?! A 2019 Flower and Garden Report COMPLETED

Hello Disney Friends! Welcome to the "Trip Report That Almost Wasn't Posted". More on that in a minute. Now for the details:



Who: Me @LisaBelle and my sister, Tina @TangledTina
What: Tina's 50th Birthday Celebration
When: May 28-June 2, 2019
Where: The Contemporary Resort

How this trip came to be:
In 2016 Tina and I celebrated my 50th birthday by running the runDisney Princess 5k. You can read that trip report here. We knew that we wanted to take a sister's trip for Tina's birthday, but she hadn't decided what she wanted to do. We considered sitting on the beach, a cruise and visiting a new city. Then in July of 2018 our families went on a joint vacation to WDW. That TR is here. That trip had lots of bumps in the road and left Tina wanting another dose of Disney magic. In November of 2018 she called me up to discuss her birthday trip. The conversation went something like this: Tina: How would you feel about spending my birthday trip at Walt Disney World? Me: I'm calling to book it right now! :hilarious:

Because we were experiencing Flower and Garden for the first time we wanted to stay at an Epcot resort. Tina chose the Beach Club and we spent the winter months dreaming of lounging at Stormalong Bay and walking into Epcot via the International Gateway.




Fast forward to about 3 weeks prior to our trip. I received a phone call from Disney saying that they were overbooked at Beach Club and we needed to switch resorts :banghead:. Because of the inconvenience they would discount the price on a monorail resort! After some discussion we decided on the Contemporary. We'd stayed there with our families in July, but we had stayed in one of the Garden Wing buildings. It was a long walk to both the Contempo Cafe and the monorail so this time we wanted to stay in the main building. They were able to accommodate that request so we booked it.

Why this TR almost wasn't posted....
As soon as Tina and I returned from our WDW trip we needed to "finalize" (read completely plan and book :hilarious:) our next family adventure- a 2 week drive from Ohio to Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota. With those plans made I spent June uploading all of my WDW photos, dealt with Disney concerning Memory Maker issues and finally got those pictures uploaded. Our family vacation took up 2 weeks in July and then it was time for professional development and preparing my classroom for back to school! No worries, I can write my TR on weekends for sure over Thanksgiving and Christmas break, right?! This school year has been crazy busy and suddenly March rolled around and I still hadn't started my TR. Too late now I thought. Flower and Garden 2020 had begun and I felt like no one would want to read about last year's festival when they could real about this year's offerings. Then COVID 19 came along and closed down our beloved Disney World :cry:! With that I decided that now might be a good time to finally post this TR!

So without further ado, here we goooooo!

Monday, May 27, 2019
Today was Memorial Day and my family did our usual cookout while I finished laundry and packing. We were flying out of the Cincinnati airport early Tuesday morning. I live closer to the airport so we decided that Tina would spend the night at my house to make the morning less rushed. Tina sent me this photo as she was packing. Tina had planned to arrive at my house in the evening, but due to laundry/packing issues she was running behind. Then the weather near her turned ugly which delayed her even more. There were actually tornadoes in Dayton that night. Luckily, they weren't close to Tina's home.



Tina finally arrived at my house between 11:30pm and midnight. We double checked our Magic Bands, plane check-in, flight time, etc. As we were discussing our outfits for the next day Tina asked my opinion on which shoes she should wear. She had bought a new pair of shoes that hadn't been broken in yet. They looked great with her outfit and they felt so comfortable when she tried them on that we felt like they should probably be okay. Remember this conversation.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Our flight was scheuled to depart at 8am. Because I don't like to be rushed I wanted to be at the airport by 6. This meant we needed to leave my house by 5:30. We woke up about 4:30am. We got dressed, drank a quick cup of coffee and were on the road to the airport by 5:35am. We parked, took the shuttle to the terminal, checked our bags and had made it through security by 6:35. On the way to the gate I sent this text to my family, all of whom were still sound asleep back home.



Tina and I took some airport pictures to pass the time until we could board the plane.



Time passed quickly and by 7:45 we were on the plane!



I channeled my inner J from @riverside's reports and read the safety instructions while we waited for takeoff.



We left the gate at 7:59. During the flight we looked over the Flower and Garden menus to prioritize our food choices for the afternoon. Our original plan was to drop off our bags and hop on the monorail to Epcot. During the flight Tina suggested that we drop off our bags and pop into the MK for a few photos and 1 ride before heading to Epcot. MK is always our first park, so I was excited to keep this tradition alive. Besides, who says no to MK?! Checking our progress.



Our flight was uneventful and we landed at 9:50, which was about 20 minutes ahead of schedule! We used the restroom and jumped in line for Starbucks. We both got a caramel macchiato to drink on the Magical Express.



We checked in with Magical Express and we were first in our line.



We boarded the ME at 10:35 and pulled out of the airport at 10:43.





At 10:47 we received our room ready text. We were super excited about this because we would be able to freshen up a bit before heading to MK!



At 11:07 we drove under the sign and felt like our vacation had officially begun!



Up next: The Contemporary
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued

The first stop was Wilderness Lodge. It truly made me homesick! Wilderness Lodge is my favorite resort. It's been too long since I've stayed there.
The next stop was the Contemporary, our home for the next 5 days.



A CM met us as we exited the ME and gave us directions to our room. We stopped at the desk to connect Tina's credit card to her Magic Band. And by 11:30 we were entering our room. Prepare for an overload of room pictures!





















Up Next: The View!
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...

We LOVED our view!










While we were taking photos of our room I received a notification that a surprise I'd ordered for Tina had been delivered to the desk. It contained adult beverages so I had to show my ID to retrieve it. I headed to the lobby and took advantage of some great photo ops along the way.

Hello Monorail Orange!


This mural :inlove:!


This is the basket I ordered for Tina's birthday. It's hard to see in the picture, but inside the box were two champagne glasses with etched Mickeys on them and a bottle of sparkling wine. Tina had ordered a similar basket for me and had insisted that I keep both champagne glasses. Now she has a set as well!



We put the wine in the fridge, freshened up, put on our sunscreen and headed for MK about 12:30.





Up Next: A quick visit to Magic Kingdom!
 

k8einwdw

Well-Known Member
I'm in! Like many others I'm sure, I'm definitely going through the Disney and Flower and Garden withdrawals! I'm really hoping that if the closure extends beyond Flower and Garden's dates, that they extend the festival!
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Looking forward to seeing and reading all about your trip! All the trip reports really help to cope with the crazy world.

Stay safe!
Welcome! I agree. Trip reports bring a bit of the Disney bubble into our homes. We are doing our best to stay safe! You do the same!

Yay! So glad you decided to share this trip with us! Can't wait to hear all about it!

Thanks Amy! Glad to have you along.

I'm in and looking forward to seeing more.
Happy to have you join me!

Looking forward to a new Trip Report. I have a lot of free time in my hands lately. Thanks for posting
Welcome! Glad to help you pass some time!

In! I think we all need some extra Disney these days!



It was my first time EVER to see it and I don’t get to!😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Welcome aboard! We definitely need extra Disney on these days. I'm so sorry that you don't get to see Flower and Garden :cry: . 2019 was my first ever Flower & Garden and I really enjoyed it. Maybe they will extend the dates or fingers crossed for next year!

I'm all in!

Glad you're here!

I'm in! Like many others I'm sure, I'm definitely going through the Disney and Flower and Garden withdrawals! I'm really hoping that if the closure extends beyond Flower and Garden's dates, that they extend the festival!

Happy you're here! It would be great if they extend the festival! Fingers crossed that it happens!
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 continued...
One of the best parts about staying at the Contemporary is the walk to MK. It's fun to walk under the monorail tracks and to catch a glimpse of Space Mountain and the Tron construction. Sorry, for some reason I don't have a pic of that right now, but I can see it in my mind as I type.
We tapped our bands, Mickey turned green and we were ready to be HOME!
This plaque is one of my very favorite parts of WDW! I take multiple pics every trip. I also have a key ring and a t-shirt with this quote on it.


We're HOME!


On the way to MK we realized that Tina needed a birthday button, so we popped into City Hall to get a birthday button for her and an I'm celebrating button for me.



Tina said hello to Roy and Minnie.


And we headed down Main Street USA to our beautiful castle!


We had to mark the occasion with some Photopass photos!


Love this one! Photobombed by another PP photographer! Although I am not sure if this meets the @amjt660 definition of photobombing. Not sure if it matters, but we had no idea he joined us until after the shot was taken.


Thought this was a cool shot as well!


Because you can never have enough pictures of the castle!




Then we headed into Tomorrowland. Our plan was to ride the People Mover, grab a drink (we were already melting & very thirsty!) and head to Epcot. We were thinking that People Mover usually has a short line and we'd be able to see lots of the MK from the ride. Well, when we got to the People Mover we found the queue filled the turnstiles! We hopped in line anyway thinking that it would move quickly. After several minutes of not moving an inch we decided to bail! The Tea Cups were close by so we joined the queue. We waited about 20 minutes.







Love this selfie! We were having so much fun!


Up next: A bit more of the MK.
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Following! Are you also going to post a TR of your summer vacation? Where in Wyoming did you go?
Welcome! I wasn't planning to do a TR of our summer vacation, but I may add a smattering of photos if people are interested. I don't have those uploaded to Photobucket at the moment, so it may be a day or so until I can post those. Wyoming was mostly a drive through, but we spent the afternoon at the Cheyenne Frontier Days and attended our first ever Rodeo! We had a blast!
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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