Trip Report A very late, CD (Corona Driven), TR with a twist

Hi All!

Explanations of the title first.
A very late-this trip was December 2018.
CD (Corona Driven)-I'm a combination of bored and terrified and need a diversion so I am dragging out an old trip to write about!
Not to be all dramatic on the terrified part, but some of you may remember from my trip report from November of 19, that my husband is being treated for colon cancer. Well since that report his cancer has worsened a little and he is back on the more frequent higher dose chemo. He is doing absolutely great, that's not the problem. He's driving his John Deere around and playing in the yard. The problem is. I'm a physician and have to go into my nursing homes twice a week and very worried about bringing something home with me. The rest of the week I'm home on lock down like everyone else, hence the bored part!
Trip report with a twist-Anyone reading is more than welcome to put any of your own photos in that might match up with the locations in my report. I was hoping people would enjoy a reason to pull out their own photos and post them, to reminisce of happier times! And all gifs welcome and appreciated.

Before we get to any of the frivolity and fun.
I want to thank anyone who is working to make all humans have a better/easier time right now. This will be an incomplete list but-all hospital and medical care settings, nurses, aides, dietitians, therapists, doctors, emt's. All grocers, store employees, factory workers, sanitation workers, teachers, manufactures, delivery people of all types. Truckers, gas station attendants, and food service individuals. There is no way this list is complete and as you respond, please add any positions you can think of so we all remember as we hunker down, others are working and could be at risk so we can be a little safer. (And in turn hopefully keep others safe).

Now on to the fun part!
Who-Myself Cindy and my husband Gary. My son Seth and his friend from high school, Emily.
Where/When-We had a split stay at AK Kidani and Bay lake, Dec 17-21. (And ps when we're all worried about Covid I shouldn't be whining about anything), but I'm going to. Never ever, if I can avoid it will I do a split stay again, I know some people like them, but hopefully the first and last for me. More to come on that later.

Day 1
This was my first trip since I became (mostly) retired. I work part time now as above. My staff bought me this shirt and I had to show it off!
Ready to head to the airport at 5:20 am. Yuck. But somehow headed to Disney at 5:20 am never seems so bad!

Seth and Emily as we wait for our Southwest flight to take off. If you have read my other trip reports you know I have trained my kids that it is so much quicker to just let me get the photo, pretend you don't mind, and we'll move on!

We had an uneventful and more important, on time flight from Pittsburgh to MCO.
Seth and Emily as we arrived at the beautiful AKL. Love this place.

We had received our room ready txt on the way there, nice and early, so my pictures aren't so great as the kids were rushing me to go see our room.
The tree looks so much prettier in person. but, I have always loved these lights.

And with all of the rushing around, I didn't even get any pictures of the room. And it was really nice with a savannah facing view. Sorry.

We threw our stuff in the room and headed out to our first park. Next up, Hollywood Studios!

 

[MickeyCB]

Love the father and son picture

Thanks, I have one on the last day of this trip that my husband really likes that I will post, and is actually a genuine smile!

 

[MickeyCB]

Had to laugh at this. I worked at a department store during college. We got a nice discount on anything we could wear to work, even if it was on clearance. I quit the store about a year before I got married. When we were moving my stuff after the wedding, I had 2 bags full of clothes that still had the tags on them. My husband wanted to know how I could buy stuff then not wear it. My answer " But I got a great deal on it! "

That's good to know how this works! I'll check his stuff and see how many are laying around with tags!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 2 continued-

Next up is a stop in a magic castle!

Emily had only been to Disney one time before, and that was 2 years prior with our high school band trip. And that didn't involve too many nice dining opportunities. When they graduated in the spring, we offered to bring her to Disney with us for this December trip as a birthday/graduation celebration. I gave her the link to the dining choices and told her to pick one she would like.

After she checked them out, I told her she was definitely one of my kids because she managed to choose one of the more difficult to obtain! Initially I was only able to get a lunch reservation, but 2 days before we left, found an early dinner reservation. We were all very excited! The last time we ate here my daughter was probably 7 years old, she's 32 now!
So off to dine with the princesses!

The way this usually works is you check in at the podium near the castle tunnel and then when you are called, you are escorted to another line where you meet Cinderella and have a photo opportunity. We got in that line and waited for a fair amount of time. Then someone came out and said "Cinderella lost her slipper and is running late"! We were taken upstairs and told we would take our photo after our dinner.
Emily tried to be cool, but she was super excited to eat with the princesses!

We were all given a "wishing star", and the gals were given a wand, and the guys were given a sword. Our fabulous waiter took this photo for us. These were genuine smiles as we were having a wonderful time in a beautiful room. Love the stain glass behind us.

I don't remember what all we ordered, but from start to finish we all enjoyed our meals!
As we ate each of the princesses came by. I thought they were wonderful. First up was Snow White who gave Gary the what for!

Seth, Emily and Snow White.

Next up was Aurora, she was a little quieter than the rest.

Ariel was next.

And then last to visit our table was Jasmine, who was super cute, messing with both Gary and the kids!

Up next another dinner pic or two, and then we go in search of Cinderella!

 

[Tuvalu]

Emily found Cinderella!

(Oops...right Castle, wrong Emily!)

 

[MickeyCB]

Emily found Cinderella!

View attachment 461509
(Oops...right Castle, wrong Emily!)

That's so funny!

And OMG she's so stinkin cute!! And her shirt is so sweet!
Boy, time flies doesn't it?
You can see the adult Emily in her face, so pretty! (Or should I say you can still see the little girl in the adult Emily face)?!
Thanks for sharing, that is an awesome photo!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 2 continued-

A few more pics of our dinner. Or should I say some pics of my favorite part of dinner!
They brought Emily out a birthday cupcake. Sorry not the best photo.

And then of course I did manage to get pictures of these 2 desserts which were wonderful!

We finished up our wonderful dinner and headed down the stairs to find Cinderella. We didn't find her right away, but we did find this lovely stain glassed window with her image on the way down. And now that I am looking at this I wonder. Does anyone know if that window faces outside of the castle or is it an internal window?

When we made it to the bottom of the stairs we were instructed to stand to the left and we were sent over to see what I am pretty sure isn't the "real" Cinderella.
And they tried to rush us a bit. I wanted Emily to be able to have a photo of just herself and Cinderella and the handler CM wasn't too thrilled. Since we had waited at the beginning and it was going to be literally 14 more seconds for Emily to have her own photo, I insisted, nicely. I promise.
All of us.

And Em's 14 additional seconds photo.

After our excellent dinner we got ready to part ways. Emily and Seth were headed over to HS to the Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM Dessert Party and Gary and I were going to wander out of the park and make our way back to the hotel.

I had asked when I made reservations for the kids if Gary thought he would want to go and he thought he would be too tired. Turned out that was a good plan, because we were both fairly beat by then.
I have a few photos from their meet and greet and if I can find them will post them tomorrow.

They took an Uber to HS from the Contemporary and we grabbed a bus back to AK Kidani.

 

[Darstarr]

I have to give credit to @Darstarr for the Alien Swirling Saucers. I'm pretty sure she also used it in reference to one of her children.

I think I have used it to reference ALL of my children...and husband....
Loving the report!!
Also love:

 

[MickeyCB]

I think I have used it to reference ALL of my children...and husband....
Loving the report!!
Also love:

That's hilarious!
And how can you go wrong with a freshly, slightly burnt marshmallow on chocolate?!

I just thought of something. I prefer my marshmallow a little burnt. How about everyone else? Burnt or just golden?!

 

[Darstarr]

That's hilarious!
And how can you go wrong with a freshly, slightly burnt marshmallow on chocolate?!

I just thought of something. I prefer my marshmallow a little burnt. How about everyone else? Burnt or just golden?!

Golden.

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 2 continued-

The kids took off for the Jingle Bell Bam thing, and Gary and I meandered down MS enjoying the Christmas decorations.

We were struggling to take a selfie with the castle behind us, and a little kid (probably 7 years old) offered to take our picture. He was so cute, but so short he was able to get us but not so much of the castle. It was sweet of him to try!

We made it back to the room without incident. There was a small sitting area in the hall on our way to the room. It looked like a really cozy spot. This family was hanging out in front of the fireplace waiting for their ride to the airport for a late flight.

In the mean time, Seth and Emily were having fun at the dessert party. They said the treats were very tasty. No pictures though.
They each got a pewter ornament in a red drawstring bag, with the Jingle Bell Bam logo on it. (I pilfered Seth's)!
They also had a meet and greet available. They got their pictures with these two.

Goofy being, Goofy!

Meanwhile back at the ranch room, we started packing up our gear as we would be moving tomorrow to Bay Lake.
We had a split stay because I could not get 4 consecutive nights when I booked.

Someone told us if you call bell services ahead (the evening before), and request a specific time they will come up, get your stuff and arrange for it to be moved to your next location. It'll be great they said....

I called down, the gal said, "yes indeed we can do that, what time would you like your items picked up tomorrow morning?"
Because this trip report is being written so late I can't remember the exact time we requested, I think it was 8 am with the park opening at 9 am.
Just a little guess. Who thinks it all worked out smoothly tomorrow?

(And one more little aside). It wasn't too late, but I wanted to go to sleep. But I have that thing where until everyone is under roof I can't fall asleep very well. It is quite silly because the only time it occurs is when they are home from college or visiting from out of town. It makes no sense because when they are at college they are out doing whatever (don't even want to know) and get home whenever. So I annoyed Seth by txting and asking where they were. "Mom, we're headed back". You big liar. You're still hanging out with Goofy!
I still had him on what I call the "find your brat app". (He has since kicked me off).

They finally got back (at a reasonable time) and we all went to sleep because we had another long, fun day planned. Where nothing is going to go wrong!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 3-

Little txt heavy here as I share our morning adventures.
We woke up in plenty of time for our luggage pick up that was scheduled for 8 am. Had some bagels and juice in the room. And waited, and waited...you get it. It's around 8:15 and I call bell services. "Oh, sorry we'll get someone up there right now. So it's close to 8:30 and the CM shows up, not really very concerned we are now a half hour behind on our plans. And you know how I like plans!

He takes our luggage and we bolt for the bus. We're big Uber users but the bus schedule says an EPCOT bus will be right along. Hah! Of course it didn't. I was getting a little annoyed and the CM, a college program young man came over and asked what he could do for us. I explained about the bell service, and now the bus not coming for 20 minutes. It's 8:45 ish by now. He said let me see your magic band. He put an any time use FP on (one for each of us) that he said would be good for TT! My reply was something along the line of "it'll be akward to hug, but thank you soooo much"!

So the bus finally comes and we are just chillin cause we know we don't have to fly to TT cause we have a FP. Right....

We stroll into EPCOT and stroll on over towards TT. We see this beauty on the way in and take a moment to appreciate it's magnificence!

And something that has been a tradition for 15 or so years, is for the kids to pose next to their picture on the Leave A Legacy Tile.
Obviously only Seth was available this trip.

I was able to find the photo of the last time both of them were together for this shot. June of 2017

I know a lot of people called them tombstones etc., but I never really thought about them one way or the other. Just a neat reminder of our trips, our little mark on Disney, and to serve as a reminder of how incredibly fast your children grow up.
(I haven't been back to EPCOT since they have been torn out, so might be a little sad to see them gone).

We keep strolling and ran into these guys and stopped to enjoy their show for a few minutes. Because we have time! We have a TT FP!

And we take a minute to collect our Passholder magnet.

And then finally make our way to the FP entrance of TT and touch our band to the Mickey head and guess what? Anyone? Not the right color for sure.
I show the lady the FP on my MDE, she doesn't care (was actually kind of mean about it), and said that won't work here. You need to go back to guest services. Guess where that is? Of course you're correct, it's back in the front of the park that we just STROLLED past!
So off I go. After I wait in line the CM there was super helpful and kind. She said she thinks he just pushed a wrong button or something. She straightens it out and gives us one that will work on TT, and as a bonus she said just keep the first anytime one, you can even use it at another park. I am so ridiculously silly, I really thought that would work. I figured woohoo, I'll use it tomorrow at AK. Another Hah!

We finally get in and are making a super duper great car. (I'm pretty sure it's all a bunch of hooey), but who knows?

And proof that after all of the fuss, we actually rode! I really like this ride a lot!

We head over to our actual first FP that was ready to expire and ride SE. And then next was Soarin. I don't have pictures of either of those.

Our last scheduled FP was Emily's choice. (Same deal with FP's as dining), I get everyone to pick a few they would like and Emily wanted to go see Nemo! I was thinking this was a perfectly good waste of a FP till we got there and standby was 50 minutes! Go Em!

We all decided we were hungry at this point and made our way into World Showcase and strolled to Japan. We like their quick service Katsura Grill.
This next event was sort of the last straw on the camel and all that.
We were using the dining plan, but when you have 2 reservations, you have 2 dining plans. So for us the first 2 nights credits needed to be used up by today (check out day), and supposedly the new plan starts today with, in our case, 2 more nights of credits.

So we placed our order and when I touched the Mickey payment thing, nothing. Well let me try again. Nope. And then the CM tried very nicely to explain to me that I had NO dining credits and pay up sister. (He was from Japan with a strong accent so obviously he didn't say that), but that's about all I could understand. The reason this is a big deal is I carry nothing on me while in the parks except my band and phone. Luckily Gary doesn't trust anything and had his wallet with a credit card because otherwise we would have been politely kicked out of the place!

We got our food and had an enjoyable view while we ate.

At this point we figured we should make our way over to Bay Lake, see if our room was ready and try to straighten out the DP problems we were experiencing. We took the monorail to the TTC and changed to the resort line.
We'd rather play on our phones than enjoy the sights of Disney rolling by. So sad.

 

[MickeyCB]

Here are a few photo pass photos I found after I wrote about our EPCOT day.

Outside of the Seas

The photographer was into kisses, I guess.

These were cuter, in my opinion.

And again, we're off to Bay Lake, then on to Downtown Disney (never Disney Springs) for dinner!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 3-continued

We make it over to BL without incident. And our room was ready.
At the front desk, the CM who checked us in was not certain what occurred with our DP as she was able to see the credits that were available from the first 2 nights. She initiated our 2nd dining plan and added the QS credits to the second. That was ok, but as someone on these boards pointed out, in a thread about split say difficulties, they could have just deducted the credits and refunded what we spent to my credit card. The only reason this was an issue, was it was actually a little difficult to use up the 4 additional QS meals in the last 2 days. (We did end up taking home a few more snacks than we usually do).

After that was taken care of, we went up to our room, called for our luggage and got ready to head to DS for dinner. We had a reservation to dine with the dinosaurs! Again, sorry no room photos. We were in a 1 bedroom villa using DVC points.

We got to DS and had some time to shop before we ate, so first stop was the Christmas store where I usually get one of the very large Mickey ear ornaments for my tree, but also couldn't resist this. I thought it was so cute!

This is my Disney tree with the large Mickey ear ornaments from a year or so ago. I may or may not have bought a few more since then!

We stopped into World of Disney. It wasn't too horribly busy. (Natazu, ehh @Tuvalu )?! Did I use that correctly?

See the little guy in the lower part of the photo? I can write the script for this one. "Dad, puleeese can I have this"?! Dad trying very hard to ignore child plays with his phone.

After shopping we headed over to Dining with the Dinosaurs! Really it's a thing.
We arrived at the T-REX Cafe. This was a place we all agreed we wanted to try.
This guy greats you at entrance!

And while we were eating this one was directly across from me.

We had a good meal, some basic choices like hamburgers, chicken and pasta. It was decent, but not a place that I would fight for a reservation in the future. The restaurant is well themed but very loud.

After this we headed back to unpack (again) and get some sleep because tomorrow is our last full day and a long one!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 4-Last full day

We were up bright and early and took the monorail to our breakfast destination, what fun! How cool is it that you can get to breakfast on a monorail, a boat or a bus?! Sounds like a Dr Seuss kind of thing!

Isn't the lobby fabulous?! But we're not going to eat there.

We're going to eat here!

This photo is from the year prior. This is Gary's absolute favorite breakfast and he loves Lilo and the other characters.
Every trip Gary asks, "did you schedule our Lilo and Stitch breakfast"? Yes dear.

We had an absolutely wonderful breakfast. Umm love that juice!

Now for the fun. Today is AK day. And I had been keeping an eye on the weather for a week or so. And the prediction never changed.
It said it was going to rain on Thursday and oh boy did it!
This is the view from the bus window to AK from the Polynesian. And while we were on the bus, everyone's phones started to go crazy with an alert. There was apparently a tornado somewhere around!

We headed for our first FP, Flight of Passage. We had a great ride, and it remains one of my favorites.

Now I would like to make a little comment on the rain and preparedness. I'm only going to throw a little shade here as I have definitely had trips where my really cool Disney raincoats I bought for everyone were back in the room, and I was mighty irritated when the weather called for zero rain, only to get an unpleasant surprise of an hour of pouring down rain, requiring us buying Disney rain ponchos.

Watching that 10 day report that never changed, I got us these really cool rain ponchos off of Amazon for only a few pennies more than the ones at the dollar store. They have draw strings on the hood, and actual sleeves with draw strings that are so cool because they don't flap around and actually cover you and stay put.

I only point out the marvel that these maybe $1.20 ponchos are, because if not something like these then apparently you decide to try one of these.

I dunno....

Well, it rained so hard. How hard you may ask. It was a deluge. It felt like I was standing in a shower with a poncho on.
These ponchos were excellent but it rained so hard that the water was rolling onto my face off of the hood, so I used that as an excuse to buy a ball cap I had been eyeing up in the Mombasa Marketplace. Now we were all set and headed off to Safari. I didn't take any pictures the entire day, except for these few as I didn't want my phone drenched.

We decided we had enough sloshing around for the day and headed out.

We had very exciting dinner plans for that evening, but wanted to make a stop at the GF first and show Em the gingerbread house.
We hopped on the GF bus and headed over.

 

[MickeyCB]

I would like to take a moment and exit December of 2018 and fast forward to Easter Sunday of 2020 and wish everyone a safe holiday.
I hope everyone has some way to connect with family and friends.

I was setting our table for dinner. It will be just the 2 of us, and it looked a little empty. So we decided to invite 2 more guests who have assured us they are comfortable continuing to practice social distancing. (And I think we'll have enough food to spare because while I'm not sure, it doesn't look like they will eat very much)!
But shhhhh, please don't tell our guests, I didn't bring out the good china. (I didn't know how much hopping there might be going on)!

Happy Easter!

 

[Tuvalu]

My mom has those same drinking glasses your “guests” are using.

 

[MickeyCB]

My mom has those same drinking glasses your “guests” are using.

I absolutely love vintage Mickey stuff. Those came from a local flea market. (I definitely spend way too much money time there)!
I'll bet with how much your family loves Disney that you have some neat vintage items.

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 4-continued
We left AK and grabbed a bus to the GF. Our goal was to show Em the gingerbread house.
We arrived and the lobby was in all of it's Christmas splendor. So pretty!

On the other side of the lobby was the Gingerbread house. I think it is just amazing what Disney puts together for people's viewing pleasure.

Slightly blurry photo.

We properly oohed and aahed over the ingredients it took to make the house.

Grand Floridian lobby view from the upper floor as we head out to catch the resort monorail back to the Contemporary.

We made our way back to the Contemporary via the monorail. We probably stopped at the store in the Contemporary as it is a favorite, and then took the walkway/bridge over to Bay Lake. We needed to dry off and get ready for a dinner we were very excited to try.

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 4-continued

We were headed over to the Wilderness Lodge to try a character dining experience that had only opened that week! Storybook Dining. Would it be great or a bust? Read on to find out.

We love to use the boat out the back side of the Contemporary and since it had finally stopped raining we thought we would give it a try. Turns out that wasn't the best idea. It was quite chilly and windy out there and that would have been ok, except we waited, and waited and waited for a boat to come. It was not only cold but we realized we were going to be late for our reservation if we didn't change plans. We decided to take an Uber from the front of the Contemporary and were very lucky as a driver had just dropped off a passenger at Bay Lake. He simply swung through the parking lot and picked us up. So maybe 4 minutes and $8 later we entered the front of WL just in time!

We checked in and were seated immediately. The restaurant (despite having a difficult time getting a reservation) was not full and we were given our menus. This was the menu opening week. I understand it has changed and I think the plan was it would be changed seasonally.

Sorry, not sure why this photo is sideways.

This is a photo of the appetizers, Gary and Dopey!
I really enjoyed the food we had for our dinner.
And the characters were so much fun.
This is the Winter Squash, Hunter's Pie and Wicked Shrimp Cocktail. They brought one for each person.

More Dopey!

The ceiling was really neat. The light colors changed with different music and when different characters came out from the back.

Snow White came to visit.

And then the last character to come to our table, and hands down our favorite as a family. Gary's name sake!

 

[MickeyCB]

Day 4-continued

Storybook Dining, continued!
Out came a favorite. We have long not only called Gary Grumpy, but have bought him pretty much every Grumpy item we see.
He wore (of course) one of his favorite Grumpy shirts, it's sort of a combo of 2 of his favorite things. Grumpy and the Polynesian!
Grumpy was so funny. When he saw Gary's shirt he started messing with him, took a photo and even signed Gary's Steeler ball cap.

I just realized that somehow I took photos of the beginning and end of dinner but not our main courses. I can't remember what everyone ordered. I do remember that I had the Brother's Grimm Roasted Chicken and Seth had the Stroll through Nature. And we both liked ours. I think Gary had the Royal Prime Rib. I remember a very smokey taste to it (I think).
This is a photo of the desserts that were also good. Miner's Treasures, Fairy Tale Gooseberry Pie and the Poison Apple.

The finale is the presentation of the "Hunter's Gift to the Queen", which is maple popcorn and a Ganache Heart.

I don't know how they do it now, but during the first week, after dinner is over you head out of the restaurant and have a visit with "the Evil Queen"! She was excellent and played the role well.
People were encouraged to demonstrate their most evil side.
Not bad.

Epic fail!

After our excellent dinner, we took the boat over to MK and then took the monorail to the Contemporary. I honestly can't remember why we did this but it was a fun ride. We stopped to admire the gingerbread house.

And then used the bridge/walkway to Bay Lake.
A very cool view to be sure.

You see this? That's the, it's 9pm and don't think about taking any more photos, look!

Ahh well, it was a long day and time for bed. But, first we all had to pack ☹ because while it may be our last day tomorrow, we will suck every Disney drop out of it we can!