Deep thoughts...by 9000
These lat two trips have been extremely helpful in regards to being able to offer our clients a much better education on bringing their dogs to WDW and also to help me in improving some of our training scenarios back home to better prepare the dogs for environments as busy and crowded as WDW and similar places.
As far as this trip, September offered some decent weather. The daytime temperatures definitely got hot but nothing too unbearable. Morning and evenings were very pleasant.
Crowd levels were low to medium. Definitely not the "ghost town" you keep seeing news articles describe it as. And early Septmeber is not peak season but there are definitely people visiting the parks.
As with most of our trips, there were several things I planned to do but didn't get to it. I had wanted to visit Riveria and get the chicken sandwich at Bar Riva but the stars didn't align for it to happen. Same for Beaches and Cream . Fun fact: as many times as we have stayed at YC, BC, and Boardwalk, we have yet to eat at or even order anything from Beaches and Cream.
I was however able to accomplish many of the tasks I wanted such as riding Haunted Mansion with a dog, trying The Bellevue Lounge, checking out the new rooms at Boardwalk Inn (with all the "hidden mickeys" lol), and getting to see some of the kennels for attractions I did not get to see on my last trip.
The biggest takeaway from these last two trips is that no amount of training for the dogs will prevent grown adults from being completely rude, entitled and disruptive towards the animal while they are working.
The amount of mental energy it requires to keep your head on a swivel to prevent a situation from occurring is very draining by the end of the day. But I absolutely applaud Disney and most importantly the CM's for the efforts they make to assist families with actual service animals. From the resorts to the attractions we have had so many wonderful moments and met some awesome people. I look forward to the next working trip and to experience more of these moments!
And with that, I'd like to share some of the many photo pass pictures we took.over the trip. I was saving most of them for the end of the report to share with those who made it through this with us. Even when there were attempts to dampen the spirit with uneducated opinions. I thank all of you for following along with Edith and I and please enjoy our pics!