Trip Report A Not So Scary Very Merry Wine and Dine Dashing TR *updated 12/15

Finally getting around to writing my Trip Report!

If you want to read my PTR check it out here:

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/a-not-so-scary-very-merry-wine-and-dine-dashing-ptr.888402/

In summary:

Dates:

Arrival Date: 24th October

Departure Date: 11th November

18 NIGHTS IN DISNEY!!!!!!!!!

Accomodation:

24th October – 4th November – All Star Sports
4th November - 7th November - Animal Kingdom Lodge (renting vacation points) with dining plan
7th November - 11th November - Art of Animation

The Cast

Me - Karen (26)

My Sister – Rachel (21)

My boyfriend – Sleepy

Here we go!

 

[dancingtodisney]

After our short trip to Space we still had some time to kill so OF COURSE we hopped on the people mover

It was a welcomed break from the HEAT

Sleepy let me play with his fancy pants camera which was lots of fun

I know this is blurry but I think it looks cool!

After our ride it was time for lunch at BOG... I had a fantastic time at BOG on our last trip so I was really excited to go back!

We checked in...

There was a really big line as you can see off to the right of this picture so I was glad we'd gotten fastpasses... ONLY... After we checked in we were told to join the line... EM WHAT???! So all these people in line had been given these little paper fast pass things and they were waiting to enter as well. Now I'm not above queuing with everyone else BUT in having booked a fastpasses we were not expecting to have to queue for ages... FAST pass not SLOW pass... FASTPASS!!!!!! Also... IT WAS SO FRICKEN HOT... LIKE REALLY REALLY REALLY HOT

The year before when we visited and you just had to queue the queue was about the same lenght only they gave out water and had umbrellas for shade... this time NOTHING!!! I was a horrible irritated sweaty mess by the time I got inside (about 25mins waiting)... Then waited some more

BUT HEY... I was in BOG... It really didn't take long for me to get back into happy I'M IN DISNEY mode...

Especially when the food arrived.... yah for food

I went for the turkey sandwich (looks SO GOOD I could eat this right now!)

Rachel got leek and potato soup

and Sleepy had the pork

We got the strawberry and cream cheese & masters cupcake as well as a eclair a l'orange...

All YUMMY! Although Rachel wasn't fussed on the eclair

We ate in what I think is the Rose Gallary which is the only room I hadn't eaten in before... I think my favourite is the West Wing

See all happy again

Sleepy took this pic... I think he could relate to it! hehe

Another great meal at Be Our Guest... A firm favourite with us!

We were pretty tired at this stage and had a Halloween party to attend that night so we made our way back to All Star Sports for a little rest...

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 6
Wednesday 29th October: Crystal Palace, MK & Halloween Horror Night CONT

We wanted to get to Universal early so that we could be in the special area for guests already inside the park and hopefully get into a few houses. I'd been before in 2013 and it was CRAZY busy! Our friends from earlier in the trip were joining us that night and were texting during the day saying how quiet Universal was but we were still prepared for big crowds and that is exactly what we got! We got a taxi from outside the reception at All Stars.. I think it cost about $40

We had a quick ride on Rip Ride Rocket before scanning our tickets and entering the special area secured for anyone with a ticket (it was within the streets were the Blue's Brothers perform) we sat facing The Mummy ride.

The hot house for the night was The Walking Dead but we were informed that it wouldn't be opening right away. When they let us out there was a crazy rush to the two houses in the area which we were told were the only two open. A really RUDE women coming behind Sleepy shouted at him to 'get out of the way or he'd lose his ankles' (she was pushing a man in a wheelchair!!! Really???

Sleepy's reply was simply 'or you could just NOT be so bleebin rude' and with that she stormed passed... Some people... NOTHING IS THAT IMPORTANT

Anyway... turned out we should've just went for the walking dead house!! This house took AGES because they didn't let us in for a while and by the time we got out the walking dead had a huge queue.. The house itself was lots of fun... I think it was an Alien vs Predator one... I love scary things... although you wouldn't think so... me and Rachel were arguing over being in the middle (so not the first or last person)

Sorry again about the lack of picks but I didn't want to ruin mine or anyone else's experience of the houses.

We didn't want to miss the main attraction so we hopped in line for The Walkind Dead... it was LONG.. like 40mins long

It was pretty cool though and you could recognise scenes from the series

We met our friends and headed towards the back of the park for some more houses.. there were people on the street jumping out at us all the time which was hilarious too!

OMG so scared!!! These drinks were in a special refillable lighty up cup that I still have at home

The queues were CRAZY like 40mins queue for 3mins of house time but at least we were all together and having fun in the queue chatting and drinking...

We did 2 houses in a row and went to do a third but the line was SUPER CRAZY so we decided to go to a show instead...

Our show of choice... Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure

Sleepy was enjoying his drink although looking a bit confused

Or angry maybe? I'm not sure what he's going for here...

So the show... it was a funny show that basically made fun of Disney Parks, Frozen, 22 Jump Street and snapchat as well as people like Zac Efron and Megan Fox. Sleepy LOVED IT... Mainly because he isn't exactly a Frozen fan and he really enjoyed their rendition of Let Myself Go...

They did a great job of making fun of the magic bands... calling them 'magical tracking bands' which actually turned out to be the villains weapon of choice!

After that we went on The Mummy... and then The Mummy again... and then... I WAS SOOOOO TIRED!! Rachel was too so we decided to split and head home and leave Sleepy with the rest of gang as they hadn't done the Walking Dead house yet.

Home to bed... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 7
Thursday 30th October: Busch Gardens

Today our friends were heading to Busch Gardens and it was their last full day so we decided to head there too. Sleepy was really looking forward to this day. Every other morning myself and Rachel were up and ready super early and WAITING on Sleepy because he much prefers sleeping to getting up...

This morning I didn't set an alarm and left it to Sleepy to get us up for once.. I don't think he was impressed

We made it to Busch Gardens around 11ish and it was SO EMPTY... it was actually a really nice change of pace. It was cool getting to wander through the park and feel like we had it to ourselves.

Our first stop of the day was Shekra

The drop on this is pretty cool

We rode about 3 times with no queue

Next up was the new ride... the 90 degree tower drop...

I have to say I was a little bit scared

But nowhere near as scared as Rachel was... I didn't think she was going to do it but she did! The whole way up she just kept saying 'why am I doing this to myself?' hehehe It kinda distracted me from the fact that I was scared too!

The bit when you get to the top and it pulls you to 90 degress so you're facing the floor is pretty SCARY!

Then DROP!!! Except you only drop really fast for a little bit and then it catches you.. not as thrilling as I was expecting but still good.

We met our friends at the animal show

It was a good show... fun to watch!

We grabbed food at Zambia Smokehouse. Sleepy was impressed with the food but myself and Rachel thought it was only alright.

We hopped on the Cheetah which was a new ride for me... yah for new rides!

It was actually quite cool, I liked how it mimicked the movement of a cheetah and how it accelerated before inclines, that was fun!

Our next stop was the train.. We saw some Elephants along the way though.. I love how random these parks are with animal themes... just coming across an Elephant

At this time our friends left as they had to catch their bus.

Choo Choo

 

[dancingtodisney]

About this time the park starting getting busy as people arrived for the Halloween night.. I actually think this could've been really good as it didn't have the horrible crowds we'd experienced at Universal but on the other hand I'd say Universals night was far more impressive.

Time for one more ride

It seems like we didn't do all that much this day but we spent the majority of it on rollarcoasters!! It was nice to have no queues and just not have to worry about that side of it...

We were practically escorted from the park as it was well past closing by the time we walked from the rollarcoaster (via the toilets) to the exit.

Final pic of Sheikra from the carpark

We drove back to All Stars and grabbed something to eat at the food court

This was mine.. some sort of chicken pasta dish.. I wasn't that impressed and it was pretty expensive for what it was

Rachel went for a kids pizza

And we got an early(ish) night...

 

[mrdrift]

All the additions to the report was really fantastic. From Universal to Bucsh Gardens what a great adventure at these different parks that looks really fun. Following along.

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 8
Friday 31st October: Epcot & Halloween

We were pretty tired this morning so we had a lazy one! We drove to the parking lot and hopped on the tram into Epcot. I took a photo so we'd know where to find our car

We had a lunch reservation at Biergarten so we took a leisurely stroll over to World Showcase and checked in, we had a bit of a wait so explore the area

which of course meant stopping into...

How cute

Everything looked SO YUMMY!!!!!

Some photos outside

Our buzzer went off so we went inside, met our server and were taken to our shared table to meet the rest of guests that would be dining with us.

The Oomph band were just finishing off a set, they sounded great

I have to admit I wasn't too fussed on the idea of sharing a table with strangers, I thought it could be... you know... awkward

We introduced ourselves to the rest of the table, there was an older couple from New York and another couple with their son. Our server was really friendly and we asked for a drinks recommendation because we had no idea what beer to choose. She recommended the beer flight so we can try a few different ones between us and then we could order what we liked best.

Sleepy ordered some sort of coke fanta drink...

We got four beers Radeberger Pilsner, Altenmünster Oktoberfest, Schöfferhofer Weizen, and Hövels (totally just googled that OBVIOUSLY) which I thought was quite good value for just over $10 .

None of us really liked the dark beer but the other three was nice!

BUFFET TIME

The food all looked so good!

Here's my first plate (you can see in the background that I'd taken a liking to one of the beers)

Also I'd already started eating when I realised we'd never taken a photo... Oooops!

It was around this time we got chatting to the couple from New York. We were sat facing them three in a row facing two of them so it was quite social. They were really nice and had some interesting stories to tell us like apparently the year previous they had been to the Not So Scary Halloween Party and gotten lots of candy that they put in their check in bag AND when they got their bags back on the way home lots of the candy had been taken with even some wrappers left in the case. It sounds really hard to believe but they definitely sounded sincere CANDY STEALERS

 

[Disneykings]

Great trip report

 

[dancingtodisney]

Helloooooooooooo strangers! SO...... I kinda just disappeared there didn't I?!

So I last posted mid April and since then a LOT has changed! First of all I moved country, I now live in London! That meant also moving job AND lets just say a certain character in this story is no longer around...

Also exciting DISNEY NEWS we have our trip for next year fully booked. We will be staying 10nights in OKW with dining plan and 7nights at AKL! This will be a family trip with my sister Rachel and my parents AND we are running the Dopey challenge! That's 5k, 10k, half-marathon and a full marathon in four consecutive days in the happiest place on earth.. full PTR coming soooooon

Well... I guess I better get back to it!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 8
Friday 31st October: Epcot & Halloween CONT

After the shock of hearing about the candy stealers we decided it was time for more food! This time I managed to get a photo before digging in! See that pretzel looking bread there? DELICIOUS!

In fact all of the food was delicious!
As we were stuffing our faces the entertainment started and the oompah band took to the stage

Apologies for the blurry pics...

The band were great my only complaint was that the atmosphere was a bit lacking due to the restaurant being pretty empty, if I was to go again I would make an evening reservation at a more peak time.

Last but of course not least was the deserts

So it looks like I'd also attacked the deserts plate before remembering to take a photo

We continued to chat away to the couple from New York but the other party at our table kinda kept to themselves. They left before us as we stayed chatting and enjoyed our beers.

Our server took a group photo for us:

We finished up and decided to take a little wander around the world

We came across these guys who I think are the jeweled dragon acrobats?! They were really good, we only watched for a little bit and moved on..

It was a beautiful day today, the sun was out and the sky was blue, the lagoon looked so pretty

It was nice to stroll around without much of an agenda just getting some photos along the way

We strolled back out towards futureworld and the exit grabbing a few more snaps along the way

Such a beautiful day! I would love to be back here right now

We took a quick look in here

But didn't get anything, I was still full up from dinner and couldn't face another beer just yet!

We went back to the room to chill for and bit and then out for a spot of shopping..

Later that night we made our way over to the boardwalk, I'd heard that there was some Halloween stuff happening but we didn't really see all that much (we also didn't look too hard either).

Luckily there was also another reason for a visit

ICE CREAM
Last year we had the kitchen sink which was pretty awesome but there were an extra three people then and we still didn't finish it!

We went for some smaller choices this time

I wanted to get the 'No Way Jose' but nobody would share with me and it seemed like a waste when I wasn't all that hungry
I was still tempted though and then I saw that they had grilled banana bread with peanut butter, I was thinking that sounded amazing and not too heavy.

Then THIS came out

It was MASSIVE!

For anyone looking to go here you do have to make an ADR but they also have a takeaway counter service and I think you can use the seats out front for that.

This whole area is beautiful at night, I would love to stay in this area sometime... one day!
That concludes our day! Off to bed in preparation for EMH tomorrow at HS!

 

[Flippin'Flounder]

Yay! You're back

 

[FlaggNL]

Wow you're back woth TR Great! We have just a month left for our next WDW stay

 

[doylekm]

The same kind of thing happened to us at BOG last year. We checked in with our FastPass and they directed us to a HUGE line. We were so upset and so was everyone around us. It turns out that the only people who could get in were people with a FP because the restaurant was already at capacity and they weren't letting anyone else in so even the FP people had to wait in a long line to get it. It was such a mess.

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 9
Saturday 1st November: HS & MK


This morning just myself and Rachel got up out of bed early and headed to the bus stop for EMH at Hollywood Studios

As you can see from the photo above it was pretty dull this morning, it was quite chilling leaving the room in our shorts and tank tops but it had been like that most mornings and then gotten really warm just after 9am so we took no notice.


We arrived at HS just after the 8am opening and as we were walking from the bus to the main entrance we noticed that pretty much everyone was wearing jeans and long sleeve tops. We got to the turnstyle and the CM said "you guys obviously didn't check the weather today" UH OH!! Turns out it was due to be overcast all day with really cool temperatures... Ooooops!


Well of course in these situations at DisneyWorld it's the perfect excuse to go shopping!! We wandering into a few stores along Hollywood Boulevard and both picked up a light zippy top to keep us warm. We both got the same one, I got red and Rachel got grey, I really liked the one we chose as they both had a small mickey mouse on the front and were quite subtly so I've actually gotten lots of wear out of it at home too.


Our next stop for was one of our second favorite ride in HS

The ride photos were down but we managed two quick rides with barely any wait.

Next up was an important fuel stop...

Staring Rolls is AWESOME... their cupcakes are insanely good! We both got hot chocolate as well, as if we didn't have enough for our sweet tooth already.

Red velvet cheesecake cupcake... NOM NOM NOM

We had booked a fast pass for the Frozen Sing Along so that was our next stop.
We'd left it quite late so the show was almost full, we got two seats towards the back of the theater

I wasn't too sure what to expect from this show but I LOVED IT!

.

The narrators were really funny! I definitely recommend going to see it...

Here comes the snow

After singing our hearts out we decided to have a bit of wander around the park. Look who we ran into along the way

Not too sure what they're going for here..

Next for us it was time to meet some characters! We made our way back across to the Animation Academy area to meet Mickey and Minnie.

First stop was Mickey!

High five for Rachel

And a hug too!

SISTERS SHOT!

I remember Mickey being really fun to meet this time, he was giving lots of hugs and high fives!

Gotta get the foot right..

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 9 (cont)
Saturday 1st November: HS & MK

We made our way over to Minnie's area next, there are some cool posters on the wall as you wait to meet her.

HEY MINNIE!

Rachel is always getting the hug shots

We had a little browse around the art store afterwards.. I would love to own a Disney painting like these, I'm thinking maybe on our next trip I will buy myself one...

Our next stop of the day was for the little mermaid show..

I haven't been to see this show in YEARS and I really enjoyed it! I think how the work the pupets is really clever

We had a fastpass for tower of terror so we made our way over to sunset boulevard. For some reason I've no ride photos this morning from either this or Rockin' Rollarcoaster...

Tower of Terror was fantastic as always!

We had a little photoshoot outside afterwards

And look who came to join us! HEY CHIP!

Our final fastpass of the day was for Toy Story Mania, Grumpy was almost at the park so we decided to meet over by the ride.

Grumpy brought us jeans to wear, I think this was the first time I've ever warn jeans in a park!
We had a ride on Toy Story Mania (this ride KILLS my right arm!) and then made our way to sci-fi dine-in theater for our reservation.

We've eaten here before and I really enjoyed the atmosphere so wanted to give it another shot. This time we were seated at the tables were only two people fit so Grumpy was sat by himself behind us. I can imagine that being a right pain with kids but it does look more like you're in the car than the larger tables.

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 9 (cont)
Saturday 1st November: HS & MK

It's so difficult to get photos here but I tried...

The milkshake was yummy but disappeared in like a minute!

Chicken wings were AWESOME

I went for wings with chips... such a good choice

The movie sequence they had repeated a lot while we were there, it would be good if they played an actual movie...

Car photo

Our two person tables do make for a good photo..

I really do love the theming here, the food is nice, maybe a bit expensive but you are paying for the experience here.

Quick photoshoot on our way back to the car

The photopass photographer was very excited about posing us for this one

We went back to the room to chill out and watch some Stacey

 

[Kayla Marie]

We were there October 30th through November 14th!! Going again in 26 days! I can't wait!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 9 (cont)
Saturday 1st November: HS & MK

MK had evening magic hours tonight so after chilling in the room we decided to head there for the evening.

We were hungry again so our first stop was at Casey's Corner for hotdogs

NOM NOM NOM NOM

Followed by some bench time...

We hadn't got anything really planned this evening, after food we wanted a tame ride so Pirates of the Caribbean was our choice

Incredibly blurry queue photo

Afterwards the Main Street Electrical Parade was about to start to we got ourselves a spot to watch... prepare yourselves for a very poor attempt at photos

That's the best of a bad bunch really!!

It was really cold still so we treated ourselves to some hot drinks

Hot Chocolate all the way!

I hadn't seen the country bear jamboree since my very first visit to MK back in 1997 so we checked and there was a show in 10mins, just enough time to finish our drinks while we waited.

I actually saw the Japanese version in Tokyo the year before so I was excited to see this and actually understand what they were singing about!

It was a nice change of pace to the usual rides and I'd say it's a great escape during the hot summer months

I don't think it'll be a must do on every trip for me...

Look how empty it was in the park

We decided to walk the long way round to future world and found that Cinderella and Rapunzel had a short wait we so hopped in line.

I've never found Cinderella to have good chat but today she was on form and we had a nice long meeting with her

And onto Rapunzel who as well was really chatty today, the whole meet and greet was very relaxed, not rushed and great fun!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 9 (cont)
Saturday 1st November: HS & MK

We made our way round and Goofy's Barnstomer had no wait! This was a new ride for us and for some reason all week there had been a really big queue for it anytime we checked so we were delighted to finally give it a go!

For anyone that hasn't been on it's a kiddy rollarcoaster but wow it lasts about 15secs!! I would be so dissappointed if I waited in the 40min queue we'd seen earlier in the week. It was fun though and we went round about 3times as there was little to no queue.

We got on Space Mountain next, again with little wait.
I've no idea what I was going for here

Might as well go again with no queue!

We had a little photoshoot afterwards... Just so you all know how cold it really was

And finally we decided to check out the mine train wait, it was 20mins so we hopped in line! It was good to go through the normal queue instead of the FP one

We made our way to the exit as the park was closing, evening magic hours was great this night, the park wasn't busy and we really enjoyed being able to stroll around at our leisure.

Our view back down mainstreet as we left

Back to our room to chill ahead of another Disney filled day tomorrow... Breakfast at the Polly and dinner at 50's Prime Time!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Yay! You're back

And I'm back AGAIN lol This time I'm determined to get the TR finished... only a year later.. whoops!

Wow you're back woth TR Great! We have just a month left for our next WDW stay

Oh great you may already be gone now! My next trip is January so I'm just about to come onto my fastpass window... getting excited!

The same kind of thing happened to us at BOG last year. We checked in with our FastPass and they directed us to a HUGE line. We were so upset and so was everyone around us. It turns out that the only people who could get in were people with a FP because the restaurant was already at capacity and they weren't letting anyone else in so even the FP people had to wait in a long line to get it. It was such as mess.

It was really frustrating but at least it should all be sorted now with proper reservations happening.

We were there October 30th through November 14th!! Going again in 26 days! I can't wait!

Oh cool we were there at the same time! 26days is SO SOON! I'm jealous!! I'd love to go at the same time of year again, our next trip is for the Marathon Weekend so we have to go in January but I definitely want to go again for food and wine and the Halloween and Christmas season

 

[dancingtodisney]

Day 10
Sunday 2nd November: The Polynesian & HS

We felt we deserved a bit of a sleep in this morning after our late night at MK so that's exactly what we did. Of course it's Disney so I was still awake at like 9am wanting to go somewhere! Myself and Rachel decided that we should head to the Polynesian for breakfast, I really wanted to try Tonga Toast. We checked online and there were no reservations available for Kona but you could get Tonga Toast at Captain Cooks until 11am. It was almost 10am by the time we'd decided what to do and gotten ready and that was cutting it pretty close to use the Disney Transport. Grumpy was being pretty Grumpy this morning and unfortunately he was the driver for this holiday (which in hindsight was a error) after taking FOREVER to get ready we were finally on route and made it just as the menu was being changed over for lunch. Luckily they allowed us to order breakfast!

And here you have it, tonga toast with a side of bacon

It's MASSIVE

I think I was a little dissappointed with the Tonga Toast having read so much about it, maybe it's different at Kona but it did just seem a bit too fast food like or something. I might give it another try next time.

Here's a look at the inside... it was still really nice, that sugar with the banana was a great mix!

Rachel is not a fan of banana so she went for the kids french sticks option (she was straight in before I could get a picture)

That's something we actually did a bit on this trip, we were always able to order from the kids menu and it's great value if you're not in the mood for a bigger meal.

Grumpy decided to go for the bounty platter

See the biscuit on his plate? He was saving that for the end and went to get himself some maple syrup to have it with the last bit of bacon and sausage... he comes back and says the maple syrup is pretty runny (which it was) and pours is over the entire plate... Then the smell hit us... He'd mistakenly gotten a little tub of coffee not maple syrup! His face was a picture... me and Rachel had a good giggle.

I don't think we had the best Captain Cook's experience, there was a lot of construction going on so the outside area was closed over.

We strolled around the resort afterwards and got some more photos

Random staircase photo

After breakfast we decided to head out to the mall for a bit, we had a reservation at 50's Prime Time later in the day which I was really looking forward to...