Trip Report August 2024- Now With Half The Whining!

Hello everyone! My daughter Sage and I were in Disney from August 17th-24th so I thought I should finally get going on this trip report!

I have done several trip reports here over the years so I apologize if this is repeat information but, just to give you a quick refresh, I am married and have two girls, they are 13 and almost 9. We have been to Disney many times as a family. Unfortunately my kids are very high maintenance and both tend to have behavior issues. They also fight constantly. Yes, even in Disney. Our last family trip was in March of 2023. After that trip, my husband decided he wanted to take a break from Disney. This was absolutely out of the question for me; Disney is my one true love (and also my job) and I could never give it up. I knew there was no way I could handle both my kids on my own so I decided to take them separately. Hence why this trip report only has half the whining

Sage and I planned our trip first for two main reasons. One, she is starting to like bigger rides whereas Aria does not. And two, she could hang out briefly by herself if there was a ride I wanted to do but she didn’t, and Aria definitely isn’t old enough for that yet. We decided on August because she doesn’t like to miss school. I also thought it would be fun to do the Halloween Party. I am planning to take Aria in November 2025 and we are planning to do the Christmas party.

For this trip, I really wanted to focus on things I haven’t done before. And that started with our resort. I have stayed in almost every value resort (some multiple times) and a few deluxe resorts. But, I had never stayed in a moderate. I had also never used the Skyliner so of course, we decided to stay at Caribbean Beach.

Before I dive in with day one, here is a picture from our last family trip in March 2023.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

Next up was Norway! Forgot to mention that I did not purchase multi pass on this day, only single pass for Guardians. Mainly because I wanted the day to be a little more go with the flow since I didn’t know how long it would take to explore the World Showcase. I knew we would likely hit a long wait once we got to Frozen but since the queue was indoors, we agreed to just suck it up. When we got over to the ride, it initially said 40 but switched to 45 as we made our way to the entrance. We agreed it would be easier to just get in line than have to walk back over later if it happened to drop.

And I’m glad we got in line because it actually only took 27 minutes!

Continuing through our tour of the World Showcase- China, Germany & Italy

 

[Tiggerish]

I just want to apologize for my overall appearance on this trip. I feel like when I turned 40 a few years ago, everything started changing and not for the good. I know I look old and frumpy and the sweaty, red face certainly didn’t help things. Some of these pictures make me uncomfortable but, they’re the only memories I have

First of all, do not apologize. You look great. Honest.

Everything does start changing at 40. My 40s were.my best decade, believe it or not--exercise, eating well, looking good. I had all kinds of family "stuff" happen in my 50s, including the deaths of my only brother and then my mom, the first of which started my road to neglecting myself, and now here I am at 60, trying to.commit to eating better and getting back to exercise to shed some.of the 30 pounds I've gained on account of life.

You do not look old and frumpy (I feel.frumpy now, and I've got 20 years on you, but I am.going to find my way back!!). Everyone looks sweaty at AK. Literally everyone. It's a swamp..

Treasure your memories. ❤

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

First of all, do not apologize. You look great. Honest.

Everything does start changing at 40. My 40s were.my best decade, believe it or not--exercise, eating well, looking good. I had all kinds of family "stuff" happen in my 50s, including the deaths of my only brother and then my mom, the first of which started my road to neglecting myself, and now here I am at 60, trying to.commit to eating better and getting back to exercise to shed some.of the 30 pounds I've gained on account of life.

You do not look old and frumpy (I feel.frumpy now, and I've got 20 years on you, but I am.going to find my way back!!). Everyone looks sweaty at AK. Literally everyone. It's a swamp..

Treasure your memories. ❤

Thank you so much Good luck in your journey!

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

At this point, we were definitely ready for lunch. I hadn’t really planned a lunch spot because we didn’t know where we would be on our World Showcase tour. Well, we were in America so I figured, why not try out Regal Eagle? I’ve never been there, mainly because there’s so much great food in Epcot. I know it might be a controversial pick but one, I LOVE bbq food and two, it has mobile order. Sold!

We made a bit of a rookie mistake and mobile ordered right around noon, peak lunch time. The restaurant was crowded and we had to circle several times before quickly snatching a table when someone got up. It was worth it though because the food was actually great! I know standard bbq is a tough sell in the World Showcase but honestly it was really good and I would 100% go back.

Sage got the bbq burger and I got the pulled pork.

After lunch, Sage had her heart set on seeing the American Adventure. I definitely thought we’d be heading back for our break by 1 and here we were, at 1 o’clock, and we still had America, Japan and Morocco.

We were planning to come back to Morocco that evening (spoiler alert, we had dining reservations at Spice Road Table) so Sage agreed that after the American Adventure, she would tour Japan efficiently and then we would head back and save Morocco for later.

The movie was fine, not a must do for me but apparently it was for Sage

We quickly looked through Mitsukoshi, where I got some mochi. Definitely a weird texture but so good. I wish they came in either smaller packages or a variety pack.

One more pic before heading back to Caribbean Beach!

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that even though we had a preferred room, we were not very close to the Skyliner. That is definitely one of the drawbacks to CBR. It is so big, that it’s pretty much impossible to be close to everything. Our room in Martinique was close to the main building & pool, and our bus stop was super convenient, but the Skyliner was pretty far. The Riviera station was about a 10 minute walk and the CBR station was about a 12 minute walk.

But we made it back, we changed, and down to the pool we went!

Sage loved the water slide and went down it more times than I could count. I took a quick dip to cool off and then relaxed in a lounge chair. That’s more my speed

We swam for about an hour and a half, got changed again and then back to Epcot!

Our first stop was for our Guardians lightning lane.

I love this ride! It was Sage’s first time riding. She did not care for it at all. I had actually entered the virtual queue at 1pm, hoping we could ride twice but she didn’t want to ride again. I ended up cancelling the virtual queue for myself because I know the line for that can get pretty long and I didn’t want to leave her for that long.

So sadly, I only got to ride once! And we got I Ran, the worst song in my opinion

Next Sage really wanted to go on Mission Space. She has done green the past few years with Nick but I never did it with them because Aria never wanted to ride. She also really wanted to try the orange side. I agreed and even wearing my motion sickness bands, it was the absolute worst Disney ride I’ve ever been on Never again.

 

[Zipadeelady]

Our first stop was for our Guardians lightning lane.
View attachment 814077
I love this ride! It was Sage’s first time riding. She did not care for it at all. I had actually entered the virtual queue at 1pm, hoping we could ride twice but she didn’t want to ride again. I ended up cancelling the virtual queue for myself because I know the line for that can get pretty long and I didn’t want to leave her for that long.

So sadly, I only got to ride once! And we got I Ran, the worst song in my opinion

I know you're kidding right..... I mean really?...... the worst song. My heart...... It's hurting......
That's my favorite song

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

I know you're kidding right..... I mean really?...... the worst song. My heart...... It's hurting......
That's my favorite song

Sorry, not my fav I’ve only been on 3 times, previously I had Conga, which I LOVED and was dancing along to, and Disco Inferno which was also a lot of fun.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

Next up, two things that were brand new to us, visiting Walt the Dreamer and exploring Journey of Water. Both are incredible additions and we really loved and appreciated both. Our time in all the “new” Epcot was a little shorter than I would have liked but I can’t wait to explore more throughout the years.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

A few more Journey of Water pictures
Unfortunately Moana wasn’t out meeting guests so it must have been too late in the day.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

One last ride before heading back to the World Showcase

A nightmare

We explored Morocco a bit (my favorite pavilion!) before checking into our dinner.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

For dinner, I booked the Spice Road Table Fireworks Dining Package. When my 60 day window initially opened up, I was actually hoping to book Rose and Crown. Mostly because I heard the overall view was better but also because my family had just eaten at Spice Road Table the year prior and I was hoping to try something different. But, R & C was booked for the few days I could make work so I booked Spice Road Table instead. I checked R & C multiple times a day and signed up for dining alerts but nothing ever came up.

While I very much enjoy the food at SRT, I was a little worried about Sage, who is technically an adult in terms of price. I had also read a few negative reviews such as people from the restaurant being allowed into the viewing area and the overhead lights being left on. I was hesitant as to whether the price would be “worth it” but wanted to give it a try after having a horrible experience with MK fireworks the year prior.



Well, let me just say I absolutely LOVED this experience! The food was amazing, Sage actually tried (and liked!) new things, the view was spectacular and we did not experience any of the negativity that I read about.

First, the food pics. Each table gets a tagine of couscous and vegetables to share. This was delicious!

Each person also chooses 2 small plates and don’t let the term “small plate” discourage you, we found this to be plenty of food.

Sage ordered the cheese phyllo and naan plate and I ordered the hummus fries and spiced chicken.

Dessert was a platter of cookies and baklava and I apologize that I forgot to take pic before digging in

Check in begins at 8pm so you have a full hour to enjoy your food before the show starts. We felt the pacing of meal was perfect and our server was great. We were really full from dinner so we asked for the cookies to brought out right before showtime.

This was our first time seeing Luminous and we really liked it! It was great to just sit and relax and have a perfect unobstructed view. This dinner was definitely a splurge but 100% worth it my opinion! We loved it all from start to finish.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

It was also nice to be somewhat close to Skyliner after the show. We beat a good majority of the crowd. We waited about 20 minutes which I didn’t think was terrible.

Pretty view walking out.

After getting off the Skyliner, we checked out the mosaics at Riviera before heading back to CBR.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

Day 4- Tuesday 8/20

This was our Magic Kingdom day!

It was a party day so park hours were 7:30am-6pm. This was another one of my carefully planned early nights. So of course that means Sage changed the plan Because she wanted to take a mid day break the day before, we didn’t finish everything we wanted to at Epcot. She said, that’s ok mom, we can just go back after we leave Magic Kingdom. Sure kid why not

For this day, I pre purchased both multi pass and single pass for Tron. My plan was to do everything in each land before moving on to the next and I’m proud to say that for the most part, my plan worked. Timing for my initial 3 multi pass picks ended up being perfect and even the return times we got for our other LLs were good. I did very little fiddle faddling.

For early entry, we started in Tomorrowland.

At rope drop, we went to Space Mountain.

Then we used standby for Astro Orbiter. Sage likes this ride and I wanted to get it done early in the day since there is no LL. She has always done this one with Nick and I’ve actually never been on. And I can now say with confidence that it’s a pretty big waste of time The load and unload situation with the elevators is pretty ridiculous.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

We then used our first LL, 8:05 at Buzz. I knew a LL probably wouldn’t be needed this early but we did want to ride and I was hoping it would be early enough in the day to book another tier 1 with a good return time.

Since we were headed to Adventureland next, I picked Jungle Cruise for our next LL. I was initially given 11:30am which was a little later than I was hoping but I locked it in.

We then went over to PeopleMover.

When we sat down, I refreshed Jungle Cruise a few times and on the 5th or 6th refresh, I got 9am! This was pretty much the extent of my fiddle faddling that day. All the other LLs were close enough to the times I wanted. There were a few that I refreshed maybe 3 or 4 times but was never successful in getting a better time so we just made it work.

After PeopleMover, it was time for Tron!

Our LL was for 8:45. Sage was on the fence with this one but when I purchased the LLs the week before, she said she would give it a try. However once she saw the ride in person, she changed her mind and decided she didn’t want to ride after all.

She hung out on a bench while I rode. This was my first time riding and I really liked it. While I agree with the overall consensus that it’s a little short, the position you’re in while riding is so awkward and uncomfortable that I was ready for it to be over. And I’m glad Sage chose not to ride because I don’t think she would have liked it.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

Next up was Jungle Cruise!

After tapping in, I booked Peter Pan. Our return time was for later in the day, I want to say 2:30 or 3, but I knew it would be awhile until we were in Fantasyland so I was ok with that.

After Jungle Cruise, we rode Pirates standby. Posted wait was 15 but it was essentially a walk on.

And if you’re thinking Sage looks grumpy in some of these pictures it’s because she was It was a rough morning, she was in a mood for no apparent reason. Thankfully she snapped out of it after a few hours.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

Oh forgot to mention, when we first entered Adventureland, I saw a guest relations kiosk with the blue umbrella. I stopped by and explained how my daughter decided not to ride Tron and asked if I could be refunded for her LL. The cast member said of course, no problem at all! She was really kind and I was very appreciative

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

And now it was time for Tiana’s Our LL was for 9:50 and I took this photo at 9:51 so we were right on track.

I am not a fan of water rides at all so I pulled off to the side to put my poncho on. Sage had one too but she was whining about wearing it because “no one else was”. I was like girl, I’m not getting soaked but you do you. She put it on but made it quite clear how embarrassed she was

So the short version is, I loved this ride! I think the sets and animatronics are beautiful and really well done. I will admit though, the storyline is not my fav. I wish it just told the actual plot instead of this fictitious new story

I have a lot of photos so I’ll have add more in the next post.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

Oh and shoutout to the cast members who found our Photopass photo for us. For some reason, none of our on ride photos uploaded into my MDE app on this day. I had to submit an inquiry after the fact with approximate times for each ride. I don’t know how they found our Tiana photo considering we are wearing ponchos and hats and are crouched way down

After tapping into Tiana’s, I booked Big Thunder and then OBVIOUSLY we had to get some beignets They were good but not as good as the ones over at POFQ. The lavender lemonade was excellent as well.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

Next we saw the new Country Bears show! Very cute and I loved the new version.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

As we were walking towards Big Thunder, the Adventure Friends Cavalcade was just starting. Perfect timing!