Trip Report ♪ I picked a pearl and I liked it...♪ May 2014 Trip Report COMPLETED (Finally, 5 months later)

Waiting around to check out (They let us have a late checkout of 1pm yay!)and head to DtD before our 6:30 MDE pick-up, so I figured I'd get a head start on my report to help carry me through the leaving Disney blues. We had a great trip, some hiccups and incidents, but overall we had a great time! I can't upload any pics on this super slow wi-fi, so I will add them when I get home. I posted some stuff here and there during our trip and you can find that in my pre-trip report here.

Who: Me, DH, DS(8), and DS (4), joined later by MIL and FIL
When:5/14-21
Where: Port Orleans Riverside Alligator Bayou


Day One
Technically our trip started on 5/13, but I will begin on the morning of 5/14. We had an early 5 am wake-up call and my bestie dropped us off at the AC airport to catch our 730 flight on Spirit. Despite all the negative reviews, our flight was flawless- new plane, friendly employees, no delays We arrived a little bit early and before we knew it we were sitting on an MDE bus on our way to PORS! After a quick stop at Saratoga, we were home!

Online check-in was a breeze and when the CM handed us our packet we noticed that we had been upgraded to a preferred location room in Alligator Bayou, woo-hoo!! We had called and requested building 16 or 17, but they put us in a wonderful room in building 15! Love that pixie dust!

We headed over to our room to check it out.

So after checking everything out we decided we'd get an early start at the MK. We go to head out the door and I have this nagging feeling that we are forgetting something important. SUNSCREEN!! Oh no! All three bottles are tucked safely away...in our luggage! I race over to the store, but cannot bring myself to spend $13 on a bottle when I know that we have three in our bags. The skies were also not looking so friendly, so we collectively decided to head back to the room to take a nap and wait for our bags.

 

[Ember]

Day Four Part Two
Every time we go to Epcot I plan on picking a pearl and every time something happens and I don't get the opportunity. But not this time! My DH went to the cashier and got our ticket and then we stood in line to wait for our turn. The little ceremony they do is so nice and the girls there are adorable. We really enjoyed the experience.

We got a 7.5mm peach pearl! It's beautiful and I am ordering a Cinderella's coach necklace for it to go in

Love this ride! Jose is one of my son's favorite characters.

Hit up Club Cool. I dig the new flavors, but there should really be a warning label on the one with guarana. Both my kids drank some before I saw it

Living with the Land. I want to work here so bad, but I don't ever want to move back to Florida. Too hot for me.

Strawberry shortcake at Sunshine. Thanks for the recommendation. So yummy.

Didn't get to ride Figment this time.The standby was 30 minutes! I love that ride, but I am spoiled by 5 minutes or walk-on.

Butterfly garden

 

[Ember]

Day Four Part 3
Some more pics from Epcot

By this time it was about 5pm and we sent the kiddos packing. We planned to meander around the world and pick up drinks and food at the different kiosks. It was about this time that we began to notice the out of control behavior. We went through the tea garden and planned on sitting in the back by the gazebo, but there was a group of drunk girls back there with one girl puking and crying. I assume hot weather plus alcohol were not her friends. I'll spare you the details on the other run-ins we encountered, but I will say that those combined with the large crowds left me wanting to get out of there. It was not the romantic stroll around the world that we had planned. Oh well. Next time.
Before we high-tailed it out of there we managed to try a few things including a dole whip with parrot bay and the infamous bacon maple cupcake seen below. It was pretty tasty, but not spectacular. After seeing a guy relieve himself in the bushes behind France we decided to go out of the back exit and take a walk to the Boardwalk.

The Boardwalk is very cute and, being from New Jersey, I really appreciated the theming. We ate at the bar at Big River Grille. The food was meh, but the beer was quite good. We hung around outside watching a magician on the boardwalk and watching the drunk people stumble back from Epcot looking for a bus to DtD. We joined the drunken congo and headed downtown. We thought we could grab a drink at Raglan Road, but Downtown is really hopping on a Saturday night so we opted to catch the boat back to PORS instead. Not quite the childless adventure we had in mind for the night, but honestly it was halfway through our trip and I was exhausted! Thankfully the next day was a planned resort day.

 

[Ember]

Side note: This is my last rant, I promise!! I forgot to add in the part on the day before. When we got back from MK we found out that mousekeeping did not service our room that day. Our son had an accident the night before so we had stripped the bed and left a generous tip for mousekeeping and when we returned, sleeping child in my husband's arms, the sheets were still on the floor. We called housekeeping and told them what had happened and asked for sheets and coffee. A few minutes later a man shows up at the door with a giant bag of coffee and thrusts it at DH. DH asked about the sheets and the man said you did not ask for sheets. DH went back and forth with him for a few minutes and the man left. He returned a few minutes later with folded sheets and proceeded to thrust them at DH. No apology, no offer to put the sheets on for us. My DH called the front desk and we got an apology and a different housekeeper was sent upstairs to change thee bed. The whole fiasco took over an hour and it was really unpleasant to say the least. That's the end of my rants. I pinky swear!

 

[Ember]

Day Five Resort Day
All of the times I have traveled to Disney and I have never taken a full day to just hang out. So this trip we dedicated a day to exploring the resort. We even had visitors from our old home town stop by. It was a fantastic day and much needed to recharge our batteries. The in-laws took the kids cane pole fishing:

Such a nice and relaxing day. We spent hours in the pools and then had dinner at Boatwright's. Have to say that dinner was not very impressive, but we may be biased as my husband's family is from Louisiana. The only thing we ordered that is worth mentioning was the bananas foster. Yum!

After dinner we headed over to the campfire. It was really cute and they provided free sticks and marshmallows

 

[Ember]

Day Six DHS and in-laws are leaving!
Hollywood Studios day! My in-laws joined us in the morning since they did not use their third day ticket at AK. Their scooter rental ended this morning, so they had to go the park without it. Hooray!

First stop- breakfast at Starring Rolls

I would eat this chocolate croissant every day if I could.

Eli trying to convince his older brother to ride ToT. "It'll be okay. I'll protect you." Too cute!

Love this ride so much and so does my four year old! He got to go on twice, but Mommy would have to wait until later to ride it again.
Next FP was Star Tours, but the stand-by was only 10 minutes so we went through stand-by and went on it again with FP

The in-laws wanted to catch a B&B show before they took off, so we took the kids to the HISK playground instead. It's always fun in there.

We met back up with the in-laws, used their last FP for RnRC and then said our good-byes. It was nice to have help with the kids, but vacationing with others is stressful for me. So now that we were on our own again I felt the pressure lifted and we were free to roam around and ride whatever we wanted!
We decided to hit up the backlot tour. The kids had never been on it and it had been a long time since DH and I had done it. It's just such a shell of it's former self, but catastrophe canyon is still fun.

Loved that we could see the props for Star Wars Weekends. One day we'll make it to one, but when the kids are older and can appreciate the events instead of wanting to just ride the rides.

 

[Ember]

Day Six Part Two

Do you wanna build a snowman?!

Couldn't decide where to eat for lunch so settled for Pizza Planet. It was edible, but nothing special.

Star Wars again. Still only 10 minutes

Indiana Jones! Haven't seen this show in a long time and it didn't disappoint!

After Indy it was finally time for..............Toy Story Midway Mania!! We have never been on this ride, the line has always been too long and the fps always gone before we got there. Definitely a benefit to the new FP+ system!

What a fun ride! We really enjoyed it even though my score wasn't the best.



Next up dinner at Beaches and Cream. Another in a long line of things we wanted to try, but never had time for. We took the boat from DHS and it was a pleasant ride. We are thinking about staying at Beach Club or Boardwalk on our next trip, either one of those or Wilderness Lodge.

Grilled cheese and the best tomato bisque I have ever had.

Cuban sandwich, also delicious.

The main attraction- No Way Jose. Drooooool.

 

[Tiggerish]

Ahhh, still loving your photos.

The No Way Jose is amazing!! Last trip I tried to tackle it solo, only made it halfway through.

 

[Ember]

Ahhh, still loving your photos.

The No Way Jose is amazing!! Last trip I tried to tackle it solo, only made it halfway through.

Thanks! I was going to try it by myself, but I saw another table get it and I knew there was no way We saw a young couple try to tackle the kitchen sink. It was hilarious!

 

[Ember]

Side note, a happy one this time. The weather was GORGEOUS the entire trip minus the first two days. It was high seventies, low eighties and sunny skies for the remaining six days. Absolutely perfect weather. I didn't get uncomfortably hot until our last day and even then it wasn't too bad. There was one point in the trip where we were freezing cold in the pool. It was glorious

 

[Ember]

Day Six Part Three
Back to DHS for some night time fun. Headed to ToT for a must do night ride. It's just so much creepier. I love it! DH and I found out that you can child swap on this ride even if your kids are tall enough to ride. I thought that was the case, but a poster on here said that you can't do that. Well turns out that you can indeed do that. You take the kids in line with you and then right before you get on the elevator they take one parent and the kids down a non-ride elevator where they wait for the riding parent to get off and then you switch. Easy peasy and worked out great. After ToT it was magic hours time and we rode RnRC, GMR, ST (again), and tried to ride TSMM again, but the line was 40 minutes and we had already been at the park for 14 hours. It was time to hit the hay.

We had the gangster scenario on the Great Movie Ride and it was cheestastic! We were in the front row and my kids were scared to death when the guy hijacked the tram lol

 

[Ember]

Day Seven- Our last full day/Magic Kingdom
Time sure does fly when you're having fun at the most magical place on earth. We decided to take it easy and start the day with breakfast at PORS and then a boat ride to the French Quarter to check out their pool.

Another gorgeous day in Orlando

Our "home" during last year's trip. Miss the Royal room, but couldn't justify the extra cost (about $800 more for this trip).

Love the FQ pool, the slide is shorter than at PORS, but it's a cool theme.

Back to PORS to change and get ready for our last day at Magic Kingdom

 

[acrab3t]

Enjoying your trip report! I had heard of people getting plastered at the wine and food festival but not the garden festival. That is a shame, especially with young children around. That is why I love that Magic Kingdom is booze free(with the exception of BOG where you can snag a glass of wine). I'm not a big drinker so I never understand why some people go overboard. Why would you want to puke at The Happiest Place on Earth?

 

[Ember]

Day Seven Part Two
We finally get to ride the train!

We got off in Frontierland and headed for....Tom Sawyer's Island! Hooray! My kids have never been and we just haven't had the time to go exploring. I hadn't been since I was 12, so we were all looking forward to it.

It did not disappoint! We had a fantastic time exploring everything and even got to watch the FoF parade from there. We had a FP+ for the parade, but cancelled it because we didn't think we'd make it time, so it was nice that we still got to see the parade even if it was from a little distance away. It was nice to view it from where we were because there was no crowding, just us

It looks like we're dancing in this one lol. The floor is REALLY crooked!

It's Anna and Elsa! And Olaf!

Peter!!!!!!!! I felt like a teenager at a boy band concert!

So glad we were across the river and not consumed by that sea of sweat and suncreen!

Not gonna lie, this bridge scared the shadoobie out of me.

 

[Ember]

Enjoying your trip report! I had heard of people getting plastered at the wine and food festival but not the garden festival. That is a shame, especially with young children around. That is why I love that Magic Kingdom is booze free(with the exception of BOG where you can snag a glass of wine). I'm not a big drinker so I never understand why some people go overboard. Why would you want to puke at The Happiest Place on Earth?

Thanks! And I don't know if we just went on a bad day or what. There were several events going on, including a wedding, so maybe that added to the chaos? I had heard F&G was becoming like F&W due to the addition of the kiosks, but I did not expect the craziness that ensued. I think a lot of people don't take the weather into account when drinking at Epcot. Having a few drinks while walking around in the sun is not the same as having a few drinks in an air-conditioned bar.

 

[Ember]

Day Seven Part Three

Before we knew it our 4pm FP for BTMR was upon us. Time to say goodbye to TSI.

 

[DisneyDebNJ]

When my now grown son was between 8-12, TSI was a MUST DO every trip. I mean, he could spend the entire day there. Every day, regardless of how many days our vacation was, we would head back to MK for TSI. Our very first trip was when POFQ was Dixie Landings when he was 3. What memories I have, reading your TR! Thank you for sharing!

 

[FlaggNL]

A great report! Love all the pics! Seems your boys had a more than wonderful time Can't wait for it to be October! Thanks for the share!

 

[mrdrift]

You have a precious family that you are sharing with us in this great trip report with nice pictures. My family have not explored TSI ever in Disney World and will now be a must due after all you have show me. Thanks.

 

[Ember]

Thank you for all the sweet comments! I have more pics to share from our last night at MK and our final day, but the real world has taken back over at the moment. I hope to post more soon!

 

[Ember]

I have been away for so long! Disney withdrawal is an evil villain!! I will eventually post the rest of our trip as I am now in the mourning recovery period and looking into booking our trip for May 2015! It will be a shorter one because we are staying at the Beach Club!!! (And we are also going to Universal to check out the HP stuff Shhhh!)