Trip Report Tales From the Two Goofs Vault

Greetings again my friends. During my large amount of available free time, I have been working to digitally backup some of our old photos, as well as track down and backup any digital files as well. So far I have come across 3 Disney trips that I haven’t shared on these boards before. One from March 2019, one from September 2016, and another from June 2015. I will be doing these TRs from newest to oldest. Please note that I have no notes on our activities, so the pictures will likely not be in perfect order. I will try and provide commentary on things I do remember. So let’s get started!

Trip 1.

When: March 8-11, 2019

Who: Myself and A as always, plus our closest friends C and M.
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Where: POFQ for just one night, and Coronado Springs(more on why we did a split stay on such a short trip later).

Why: A top secret mission to photograph and celebrate C and M’s engagement.

A little background on how this trip happened.

C is one of A’s oldest and closest friends, he is the closest thing she has to a brother, and she does refer to him as her brother. He had been dating M for about a year at this point, and we all knew she was perfect for him. He’d decided to pop the question on their spring break trip to Disney. For months he had been asking A and I to come down with them to take pictures of the big event, and to celebrate with them(or console him if she said no!). It didn’t look like we would both be able to make the trip though. I finally agreed to at least get A a plane ticket and she was going to go alone for just the weekend and return.

Well as fate would have it, right at the 60 day mark I was finally able to secure the 4 days off needed to take the trip. Unfortunately there was extremely limited availability at the resorts. The only resort with full availability for the weekend was grand Floridian, which was at a non discount rate. We finally found 2 nights at Coronado, and one night at French quarter. We also purchased APs because we had already planned on being at WDW for several day’s in the summer, so it ended up being less to get the AP rather than buying separate tickets for each trip. I was also able to get the AP spring discount applied to our reservations.

With all of that business out of the way, we were able to make FP reservations right at 60 days! C wanted it to be a surprise for M that we were going to be there. We went along with this plan, but boy was it hard not to spill the beans at our super bowl party that year!

Day 0/Night1:

While I was able to get Friday-Monday off, A had no such luck, and had to work a half day Friday. This meant taking a later flight than normal. We had a 7:15 flight out of Dallas Love Field. Our plan was to be at the airport around 5:30. 5:30 on a Friday driving through downtown Dallas, what could possibly go wrong?! Fortunately while traffic was pretty heavy, and my phone told me to take the wrong exit one time, we still made it to the airport on time.

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Already a little tired before takeoff!

Our flight down went smoothly and a few hours later we landed in Orlando. Because of the time change, by the time we got down to DME it was approaching 11 pm. We were both more than ready to get to our room and get a few hours of sleep. Our bus only had a few parties on it. We stopped at riverside first, then French Quarter. Our room had been ready since lunch time of that day, so we went straight to our room. It was well after midnight when we made it to our room.

Apparently we knew that @Nunu would like some room photos at the time!😜
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Another boring redesigned room.

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The beads were a nice touch!

We finally got showered and in bed just before 1 am.
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Could Pickles possibly write a trip report one day? That pup is adorable!!! 🐶
Thanks! She’s a great dog. Her personality absolutely matches her looks! In fact we came across a photographer out taking pictures on the trails yesterday who thought pickle was so cute that she ended up doing a little photo shoot with her! She was also extremely popular when we were walking along the promenade. I’ll certainly try to include her in more posts for you! :)
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Wednesday September 14, 2016 continued.


Let’s get back to our Disney trip shall we?

After dinner at the beach club it was time to return to Epcot. We spent the majority of the evening checking out WS before checking in for our Illumminations dessert party. There were a few showers in the area, so the party was moved inside to the American Pavillion. Never ended up raining, but we were thankful for the A/C anyways!
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We had lots of these! I wish I could remember the bartender’s name that was working this night. We’ve had him at several different things we’ve attended. Our table was close to him, and every time one of our drinks was nearly empty he’d jokingly yell at us to come get some more!
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He was also kind enough to take this picture for us! Also from the looks of it, it must’ve rained after all
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We watched Illuminations from the Italy pavillion.
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The bartender made sure to fix us some drinks to go!
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One tipsy goof!
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Two tipsy goofs! Thanks to our random stranger friends who took this picture!
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We really enjoyed Illuminations this night!
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We had an awesome day at Epcot, despite the massive crowds that were there for F&W. I will say it was quite a lively crowd leaving the park that night! some were maybe a bit too lively from the long day of drinking, which you hate to see. We even saw one person “hitting the reset button”, as we used to call it, in some hedges. They really should probably try to come up with a way to prevent people from being overserved. I love a good drink as much as anyone, but I know my limits too!

Coming Up: a day at AK.
 
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Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Love the retro TR! on board! helps me get ready to go back in august!
Glad you’re enjoying it. Hope you guys have a good time in August. Make sure To let us know how it goes!

Enjoying your Tales!
Many thanks!
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Maybe some day I’ll try my hand at taking real photographs with our real camera. Obviously I wouldn’t have a great eye like you, but practice makes perfect, right? A does a better job than I do. She actually took a few photography classes in college, but she doesn’t like toting her camera around.
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday September 15, 2016.

Several days of rain and extreme heat and humidity had taken their tolls on us. We snuck in a few extra hours of sleep before hopping a bus to Animal Kingdom. We arrived just in time to use our first FP on Everest. We ended up doing standby after our FP since the line was still short.
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This was before pandora opened, and dinosaur was down for refurb, so the number of attractions were pretty limited! Next up was It’s Tough to be A Bug.
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It was already lunch time after we finished bugs. We had lunch at Harambe market. We both had the spice rubbed ribs. They no longer offer this dish, which is a shame because they were really good!

We had some time to kill after lunch, so we checked out the Gorilla Falls trail.
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These gorillas we just trying to stay cool.
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The young ones did show out a little.
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According to the CM, this little guy was quite a little trouble maker.
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He certainly was showing off for us!
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Our next stop was the Finding Nemo show for some much needed A/C.
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The performers were all fantastic as usual!
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I like the larger, more elaborate sets and puppets featured in this show. AK may lack in rides, but it has two really great stage shows!
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Coming up: More AK.
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday September 15, 2016 continued.

We left Nemo and headed straight for Festival of The Lion King. We had FPs for the two o’clock show, but they probably weren’t needed this particular day. We were seated next to Pumbaa.
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The show could use more tumble monkeys.
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It was of course another fantastic show!
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After Lion King it was time for our safari FP. Most people say to avoid doing the safari during the hottest part of the day because the animals aren’t active. We found this not to be the case at all this time. I think it may have been feeding time for several of the animals.
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This giraffe got very close to our truck. It looked for a moment like it was going to peek its head inside, but it didn’t. Even our driver was getting exited at how close it was getting to us!
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This fella wasn’t bothered by the trucks either.
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The elephants and rhinos were also pretty lively.
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The young rhino was born the year before.
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Coming up: More AK
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday September 15, 2016 continued.

Continuing on our safari. The lions were the only animals that weren’t active. No surprise there.
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A few more animals to finish up the safari.
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We enjoyed the safari so much that we got another fast pass that started about 30 minutes later. We decided to take the train over to Rafikis Planet Watch to pass some time. Chip and Dale were out just past the train station, so we stopped to say hi. We definitely pushed through all these children to get to the front of the line. 😉
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Chip and Dale are always a good time!
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There wasn’t much going on inside planet watch. We did spot this guy.
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We also found Rafiki!
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Coming up: More AK
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday September 16, 2016 Continued.

We headed back outside to the petting zoo. A never passes up a chance to pet animals!
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We spent some time chasing goats and sheep around before taking the train back to Harambe for our second safari. Even though it had been less than an hour, the animals were much less active this time around.
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It was nearing time for us to leave the park for our dinner at Boma. We had time for one more attraction. I was able to get us a FP for Everest that started right away. We headed for Asia, stopping for a few pictures Near Tree of Life on the way.
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We also saw Baloo and King Louie meeting with a short line and decided to stop by.
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Seeing who could reach the highest. I won!
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We continued on into Asia. There was a PP photographer with nobody around so we stopped yet again.
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Coming up: Dinner at Boma and some DHS.
 

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thursday September 15, 2016 continued.

We finally made it around to Everest for our last ride. We ended up doing it two times since standby was also a 5 minute wait.
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After Everest we headed for the park exit for dinner at Boma. We originallly had planned to eat at Tusker House as part of the rivers of light dining package. But then Rivers of light got delayed, and they tried that terrible Jungle Book show as a temporary replacement. Even that show had ended before our trip. We were allowed to keep our reservation at tusker house, but decided to go to Boma at a better dinner time instead.

We were seated quickly after checking in. Our table was in a smaller side room next to a window that looked out at a nice little fountain.
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A small sampling of the food we ate.
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Our waiter(who was fantastic) brought us some special birthday desserts. These were actually really good! I also enjoyed the dessert selection here more than most, particularly the bread pudding. I’m pro zebra dome, but can only have one or two because of how sweet they are.
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We really enjoyed our meal at Boma. We haven’t been back since, but I’m sure we will return some day. After dinnner we decided to take a bus over to DHS for a few hours. We stopped for pictures in front of our first destination, The Great Movie Ride. I really miss that attraction!
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We used a FP on RnR next.
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We spent the rest of our time at DHS doing Tower of Terror. Looks like we did five rides on it. I wont bore you with all of the ride photos.
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We left the park before fantsmic finished to beat the rush. Wed had another long but great day.

Coming up: A day at DHS.
 

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