Trip Report A Not So Splashy, Very Dashy, Somewhat Sleepy and A Little Frisky, Uplyfting Sept 2018 TR (Completed!)

Once again, it is so hard to believe that our adventure in WDW is over. I don’t understand how time goes so fast when we are there. Even though this was our longest trip ever, it still flew by.

We returned home around midnight on Saturday and I’ve been getting back to reality and catching up on reading other TR’s before beginning my own.

Just in case you may not know us…

Me: Mary/mom

Ross – Dad AKA Grumpy, but was acting more like Sleepy on this trip. (And yes – those Crocs came along with him.)

Julia – DD Sweet 16 this trip

Hope – My 9 year old princess whose diagnoses of Autism usually lends itself to some interesting tidbits for my TR’s.

Trip details:

September 6th – 8th at Art Of Animation (Room only)

September 8th – 22nd Pop Century (MYW Package Free Dining)

Yep- that’s a LONG trip – our longest EVER. Still it managed to fly by in the blink of an eye.

If you’re not familiar with my crazy crew or you need to catch up, feel free to check out my pre trip report here:

https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...feet-a-september-2018-pre-trip-report.944145/

All caught up? Are you ready? Okay then, here we go!

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

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The room was beautiful!!! I can’t say enough about it. There was so much storage for everything – it was just awesome!

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@Matt and Kelly I was sad to see this. No more travel size Disney toiletries for us this trip. But actually I ended up liking them.

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I called to see if our luggage had arrived and it was! In a few minutes, it was on its way to our room. Since it was still raining, we took our time to unpack everything and get some rest. I think we were all still drained from the night before.

I have a drawer in the bathroom packed with Disney toiletries. I still have some that have the little Mickey heads on them. I do buy the toiletries from Shop Disney when they offer 25% off all items.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

When we returned, I got the girls settled in bed and then had to run to the gift shop. My poor Julia was in pain. She has been wearing Invisaligns for the past year and everything has gone great. The day before we left for Disney, she saw the dentist and received her last trays. Don’t you know, this would be the one time her teeth were bothering her? Apparently, her upper gum was irritated and the Invisalign tray was scrapping away at it. But she couldn’t take out the tray because she was worried that it would get too tight and not fit. So she sucked it up and wore them. I was able to get her Ambesol to deaden her gum somewhat, but it too almost a week for the pain to go away.

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While I was shopping around, I noticed these…

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Yep. Those are the Crocs!!! I was secretly hoping that they would be nowhere to be found, but here they were right in our resort just waiting for Ross to arrive.

I walked to the lobby and paid off our bill.

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The POP's lobby is nice, but I think AoA's lobby decorations are so much better. I'm just not into all the memorabilia even though obviously, it's the theme of the resort. When I returned tot he room, the girls were fast asleep.

Up next: An Uplyfting Experience

Poor Julia. Last year foot pain, and this year mouth pain. I will assume the dentist adjusted the tray when you got back home and all is well with that now.

 

[MegRuss626]

Had to take a screen shot of the advertisement that appeared on the bottom of the page while I was reading your report!!

 

[LMSB]

I cracked up at the wall of Crocs, "waiting for Ross to arrive"

 

[ScarletBegonias]

Oh no!!! Don't let Ross see the crocs!!!

 

[MeeskaMooska0714]

Hi! I'm so late, but loving your report so far! I can't believe your trip has already come and gone. It sounds like you are having an amazing time so far - hoping you get more pixie dust!

Looking forward to Ross joining you guys! Hoping those Crocs disappear before he comes.

 

[Cetta]

I love your trip reports! Can't wait for more!!

 

[Figment Forever]

Just finished getting caught up with your report so far. I was so excited reading about your magical surprise tickets to the Halloween Party!!
Hang onto that stroller as long as it works for you and don't worry about strange looks. We're planning a trip to Disneyland in January and are trying to figure out what to do about the stroller situation for Xander (he's about to turn 12). Technically he could walk on his own but we've come to realize that it's more about the sensory cocoon the stroller provides for him. Luckily he's still running shortish for his age and still can fit the parameters of the stroller we like to use.

Thanks so much for following along!! Yes - I've realized that I need to keep our stroller for now. Funny, I think Hope needs it for the same reasons as Xander, as I found she remained in it this year for most of the shows we went to. I like how you described it as a sensory cocoon - that's a perfect way to explain it! We are also lucky that she is still a peanut and "fits" in a stroller that works for us.

Oh, No - the Crocs!

Oh yes - what would a TR be without them?

yes..you had me at crocs..following along...

Thanks for following!!!

I have a drawer in the bathroom packed with Disney toiletries. I still have some that have the little Mickey heads on them. I do buy the toiletries from Shop Disney when they offer 25% off all items.

I have the same bathroom drawer and I am down to my last 3 bottles with the Mickey heads on them! lol I didn't know they sell them - I will have to check that out during a sale.

Poor Julia. Last year foot pain, and this year mouth pain. I will assume the dentist adjusted the tray when you got back home and all is well with that now.

By the time we got home, she was okay. It was the first week and the fact that she had an irritation on her gum was used it. It just stunk that it had to happen this week, but she was a trooper and will get her retainer in a week!

Had to take a screen shot of the advertisement that appeared on the bottom of the page while I was reading your report!!

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Oh my gosh - that is too funny!! And maybe just a little bit scary!

I cracked up at the wall of Crocs, "waiting for Ross to arrive" [/QUO

That wall of Crocs was the only place I saw them the entire time we were there in WDW! How strange is that?

Oh no!!! Don't let Ross see the crocs!!!

It would be inevitable!

Hi! I'm so late, but loving your report so far! I can't believe your trip has already come and gone. It sounds like you are having an amazing time so far - hoping you get more pixie dust!
Looking forward to Ross joining you guys! Hoping those Crocs disappear before he comes.

I know - it's hard to believe it's over! But it was an amazing trip! I was also hoping for those Crocs to disappear, but I knew that was not going to happen. lol

I love your trip reports! Can't wait for more!!

Thanks so much for reading!!!

 

[Figment Forever]

Day 4: Sunday, September 9, 2018

Today we woke up and I think we were finally recovered from MNSSHP. Unfortunately, we were still running behind. We had a breakfast ADR for 8:30 but didn’t walk out of our room until 8:00AM.

My hopes that we would somehow make it on time were completely dissipated when I saw the OMG line for MK. It wrapped through the entire waiting area and extended well beyond.

On the bright side, the busses kept coming and I noticed that the double busses were very common for POP. It took about 30 minutes to get on a bus and were on our way.

I felt bad for Julia whose mouth was really hurting her. She has never not worn her trays except to eat and clean them, but I told her to take a break on an off throughout the day until her gum healed.

We arrived at MK by about 9:00AM and if I thought the OMG line at POP was long, I obviously hadn’t anticipated the OMG security bag check line for MK. But we made our way through and then headed for the monorail to take us to...

 

[Figment Forever]

...the Poly!

The girls were very excited to be having breakfast with Stitch. While we make it a point to eat dinner at Ohanna every year, we have never had breakfast here.

As we approached the check in stand I was nervous - we were an hour late! But there was no issue, we were told we may have to wait a little extra before we would be seated and I said no problem. However, as soon as we had our pics taken with Pluto and found a place to sit, I received a text that our table was ready.

From here, everything goes downhill. To be honest, I blame myself. I figured if I had been on time, we would have had a totally different experience. The food was good. I loved the fruit platter, or I should say Hope loved the fruit platter. That was her breakfast as she didn’t want to eat anything else.

Our waiter was terrible. He plopped our drinks and food down and we never saw him again. I asked a different person to refill my coffee and Julia’s juice. At one point I flagged him down to ask for more fruit for Hope. When he returned with the platter, he saw there was no room on the table to put it down, so he handed it to me and said, “Here you go!” and then just walked away.

As far as the characters, we were seated at 9:30 and at 10:00 we still had not seen any of the characters. I know it can take up to an hour to see them, but I found it strange that they were nowhere to be found on our side of the restaurant the whole time we were there. Finally, Lilo stopped by at around 10:15. Of course, Julia had left to go use the bathroom and missed her!

By now, we were so done with breakfast. At 10:30, I suggested we leave, but Hope wanted so badly to meet Stitch. A few minutes later, Mickey stopped by so I had a renewed hoped that Stitch would soon follow.

At 10:45, I could see our waiter was annoyed that we hadn’t settled our bill yet, so I mentioned to him that the characters hadn’t all stopped by yet. He scolded me and said that the characters could take up to an hour. When I told him we were there for over an hour, he didn’t seem too interested. I settled the bill and off he went.

 

[Figment Forever]

I suggested again that perhaps we should leave. Many of the tables around us had left.

I knew it wasn’t just me because I could hear several families complain that they didn’t get to see all the characters. Most of them were afraid they would lose their FP’s if they stayed any longer.

By now, Hope had done the parade 2 times!

Hope would not let us give up her chance of seeing Stitch so we waited. As we were waiting, Lilo reappeared, so I asked her handler if she could stop by our table again – which she did. I had a very happy Julia!

Finally, at 11:00, and hour and a half after we were seated, Stitch entered the room!!! Hope had our book ready and we were on the edge of our seats waiting for him to stop by. Unfortunately for us, he blew right by our table and skipped us!

I was so annoyed. By now we were the only ones left in our section and our waiter seemed to be giving us looks because we were still there! I noticed a manager looking person in the room past where our waiter was standing so I walked over to her and said something.

She started to give me the same dialogue about waiting 45 minutes for the characters to do their rotation until she scanned my band and saw we were there for an hour and a half. Then she went into apology mode. She gave us a FP for the next day but more importantly, she got Stitch back to our table!!

We finally left Ohanna with the realization I would not be returning for breakfast any time soon. But we were not done at the Poly yet. During breakfast, I realized that my charging cord was not working. I lost another cord the night of the party, which ended up in a puddle of melted ice-cream. So I went to the gift shop to see if they had one I could buy. They did and I did purchase it even thought it killed me to pay $25 for it.

 

[Figment Forever]

Now that we were fully charged, we headed out to hop a bus to HS. But HS was not our destination for the day. We were on our way to play golf and then to Typhoon Lagoon. It felt like a long walk today and boy was it ever HOT!!!

When we got to Fantasia Gardens, we were sad to see the Gardens Course was closed.

We decided to play the Fairways Course and look on the bright side since it was something new. It was fun, but like I said, it was HOT!!! I think we all decided that we missed the Gardens course and all the “fun” Disney theming.

 

[Figment Forever]

The Fairways was challenging and I think the heat was getting in the way somewhat. I will say that we had an added challenge with the course. Apparently when you hit the golf ball, you would have to get it past all the little lizards that raced back and forth as we played.

We got stuck behind a party of 4 players who must have thought they were playing professionally. They were taking a LONG time and I could see Hope and Julia fading fast.

Julia managed to lose her ball. Once in the bushes and then in the water!

I suggested we leave, but Hope and her Autistic brain couldn’t just leave without completing the course. So I suggested that we skip ahead the people in front of us. Normally, this would give Hope a complete meltdown. Skipping something was deemed just as bad as not finishing it, but I gave it a shot. I asked the people in front of us if we could just go ahead of them. (I didn’t want to be rude and just pass by them.) I was surprised when at first they said, “No.”

I looked kind of shocked but then the man asked if we were going to stop ahead of them. I said no – we were just going to go ahead and leave and assured them that they would not be waiting behind us. So we went on ahead. We managed to play all the rest of the holes pretty quickly.

 

[Figment Forever]

Our next stop was TL and by now we were longing to be in the water!!!

We left Fantasia Gardens and I found myself having to make a decision. The way I figured, we had 2 ways of getting to TL. The first was to walk back to one of the resorts and take a bus to DS and then transfer to TL. If Ross was here this is exactly what we would have done. But my dear husband was not here and my girls were a hot mess. So I did something I never have done before. I downloaded the Lyft APP and ordered a ride. In 3 minutes, Joseph, our driver was there and 10 minutes (and $7.02) later we were at TL. IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!

I realized quickly, that they send e-mails to confirm your ride and see how the service was, so I had to make sure that I deleted them so my frugal husband was not on to me until I could break the news to him.

Once we were at TL, we were all in better moods.

The water was amazing! My original plan was to get here on the early side, but with the way our day went, it was just after 1:00 when we arrived. I think this worked out to our advantage as we were walking in, a TON of people were exiting. I did notice that my weather APP was calling for some storms, but I figured we would swim as long as we could before we needed to take cover.

 

[Rista1313]

I hadn't noticed this before today, but Hope's hair is getting really long!

 

[Gurt]

Iv been away but all caught up on your report now, love that you got party tickets via pixie dust and that you had a really great time at the party. I so please for you that Hope was able to manage the omnimovers with her Ipod and I am looking forward to hearing about Ross's shenanigans when he arrives.

 

[Figment Forever]

I hadn't noticed this before today, but Hope's hair is getting really long!

Yes - she even had it cut and took off a couples of inches before we left!

 

[Figment Forever]

Iv been away but all caught up on your report now, love that you got party tickets via pixie dust and that you had a really great time at the party. I so please for you that Hope was able to manage the omnimovers with her Ipod and I am looking forward to hearing about Ross's shenanigans when he arrives.

Thanks for following along with us! Plenty of shenanigans yet to come!

 

[Figment Forever]

Our luck would hold out. It never stormed nor rained the whole day. We did the lazy river followed by the wave pool which Julia loved.

We had an ADR for that night so we didn’t want to eat too much. We decided to split an order of chicken tenders and then snacked on doughnuts and frozen lemonade. Julia also got Dippin Dots – one of her favorites.

 

[Figment Forever]

We also rode Miss Adventure Falls and Crush n Gusher. Hope had an issue with Miss Adventure Falls because she cataloged it along with her omnimovers. She did NOT like how the raft would stop along the way up the ramp. Once it started though, she was fine and loved it.

Then we headed back into the wave pool and lazy river until TL closed.

We dried off and threw our clothes back on over our swimsuits. It was about 5:30 when walked out of the park. Our dinner ADR was for 7:00pm but I received a text during the day asking me to arrived and check in 15 prior to that which made me a little nervous since we are prone to be late. This one ADR I did NOT want to mess up! So as we exited the park, we walked in the opposite direction of the busses and called a Lyft to come pick us.

About 10 minutes later, we were back at POP, changed and then out to get a bus to DS.