Trip Report Barely Squeaking By - A Family & Fun Filled September Trip Report

Well, y'all. It's 9 days to go time and this morning I'm thinking there is no way I'm going to get it all done, so what do I do? Post a Trip Report of course! (I'm thinking this is kind of like having tons of work to do and then getting on Twitter or FB, etc. - Let's just delay a little longer!)

I am a long time WDWmagic lurker and somewhat poster. I love this site, love the regulars, and of course - love Disney! Earlier this year we decided to once again become WDW AP holder's following our February Trip:
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...now-get-in-the-car-tr-a-one-day-bonus.861819/

and knowing we'd be returning this September with my most of my family. We took most of the summer 'off' from WDW aside from one fabulous trip at the beginning of June where we were able to stay in one of the Coronado Springs business class rooms. Wish I'd written a TR on *that* trip. It was awesome! If you ever get a chance to stay at Coronado Springs, upgrade to business class. It's totally worth it.

Well. Thinking we'd avoid all the heat and crowds of the dead middle of summer in south Florida, we journeyed far and wide this summer:


And while I wouldn't change one thing - we saw some of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen - it turned out the joke was on us,


because there were some decidedly un- summery days at WDW this summer! Not sure about Orlando, but here at home, we had the coolest summer on record in 135 years!!! Wowzers! That's pretty amazing for the deep South.

Of course, now that we're headed down in September, the summer temps have arrived. Ha! This trip will be my entire family, minus my brother and his girlfriend this time. We will miss them. It's been 3 years since we were in WDW together. Here we are in 2010:

Yes. We're a little nutty. But that just makes it more fun!
So much more to come. There will be food and fun. Rides and fireworks and of course.......

Lots of matching outfits!
Thanks for reading!

 

[SarahBella82]

Thank you for sharing your trip with us! I haven't traveled with a large group (except as a high school trip chaperone), but I imagine my extended family would be on a bathroom tour too.

 

[disneygirl1]

Great start to your report. My DS who is 11 loves the Japan gift shop too! I swear I have to drap him out of there every trip! LOL!

Ugh 3 hours for your meals? WOW! See this concerns me.... I for one like the QSDP b/c there is no need to worry about being somewhere at a certain time, but in May we are doing the regular DDP b/c that was one of the spitulations that my brother, who is coming with us made. Drats! I really don't want to lose valuable park time! Geese I'm already stressing that there is no way we are going to get done what I want in 10 days! LOL

Can't wait to read more!

 

[erstwo]

Thank you for sharing your trip with us! I haven't traveled with a large group (except as a high school trip chaperone), but I imagine my extended family would be on a bathroom tour too.

Ha! Yes! It just seemed like we were on one giant 'rest stop' tour at some points. You have to be ready for a slower pace. It's still awesome, just slower.

Great start to your report. My DS who is 11 loves the Japan gift shop too! I swear I have to drap him out of there every trip! LOL!

Ugh 3 hours for your meals? WOW! See this concerns me.... I for one like the QSDP b/c there is no need to worry about being somewhere at a certain time, but in May we are doing the regular DDP b/c that was one of the spitulations that my brother, who is coming with us made. Drats! I really don't want to lose valuable park time! Geese I'm already stressing that there is no way we are going to get done what I want in 10 days! LOL

Can't wait to read more!

It was bad. So very bad. I am going to post this later in the TR too, but by night 3 I started asking our servers about it. They gave it a unanimous thumbs down as far as helping their guests get better service. They all said it had slowed everything down immensely. Honestly, my whole family agreed that if it had been our first experience with WDW TS restaurants, we probably would have never scheduled another TS restaurant during a WDW trip. Or at least scheduled them very sparingly. Our servers on nights 4,5,& 6 had all been with WDW for over 25 years (our waitress at Ohana had been with them over 35!) and they said they had never been as frustrated as they are now.

The best thing to do, per my experience is just tell them at the beginning - bring out our bill as soon as you can, even if it's in the middle of our meal. Now, that was easy for us, because we don't order many alcoholic drinks and we were on the DDP, so things were cut and dry. It still took a long time (they've got *just a few* other things going on. ;-) ) but it made it a tad faster.

I know it's here to stay, they've invested billions. I just hope things get easier on the CM's.

There really is something about that Japan gift shop isn't there! :-D I swear it's the candy, but that's not the only thing my son buys, so maybe not?



ETA _ I am going to finish this TR one day! My dad's surgery went well, but we had a 'country song' kind of week - our dog died, my dad had surgery, car issues. We are headed for the great state of Ohio this weekend, so hopefully I'll catch up when we get back!
Thanks for reading!

 

[erstwo]

Time for a quick post! Yay!

Don't you love mornings in WDW? Even hot mornings are just so exciting. This is Day 3 for us - Epcot - Future World, here we come!



I'm not sure if I ever said, but my parents and I were in the 50's section at Pop. My sister was in the Cars section of AoA.



We decided to walk over to the AoA food court for breakfast and depart from the AoA bus stop.




Generation Gap Bridge? (is it still called that?)







After a yummy AoA breakfast, we headed to the bus stop!



We arrived at Epcot well after park opening but both Test Track and Soarin had minimal waits (20 for one and 30 for the other? I think?) So we decided to forgo the Fastpass run and just ride Test Track first and then mosey on over to The Land where we would get Soarin fastpasses and eat lunch.

 

[erstwo]

And we're waiting and we're waiting.



Test Track is the infamous ride in our family. In 2010, we told my mom (who doesn't like thrill rides) that she'd be fine riding Test Track (I mean, honestly, we believed it! It's just like a convertible ride!) But once we were out on 'the open road' my mom decided she did NOT like the ride and yelled "Somebody lied to ME!!!!" Making us all die laughing. We still yell it all the time. So my mom walked through the queue with us, but she took the 'chicken exit' once we got to the top.



Soon it was time to design!


I've ridden Test Track several times since the remodel and this was the first time I was able to really understand the 'design your car' concept. I finally saw 'my' (or more accurately, my daughter's) car go through all the testing and see how it performed.

After TT, we noticed Mission Space was walk on, so we decided to check it off the list before heading to the Land.



This was my first ever Mission Space flight! It was neat. The space sickness bags gave me the heeby geebies.





After our flight the kids took to the playground. Which also gives me the heeby geebies.



We stopped to watch these guys for a few minutes



and finally we were on our way to The Land! And Sunshine Seasons! And fastpasses for Soarin! Much more to come.

 

[disneygirl1]

Ha! Yes! It just seemed like we were on one giant 'rest stop' tour at some points. You have to be ready for a slower pace. It's still awesome, just slower.



It was bad. So very bad. I am going to post this later in the TR too, but by night 3 I started asking our servers about it. They gave it a unanimous thumbs down as far as helping their guests get better service. They all said it had slowed everything down immensely. Honestly, my whole family agreed that if it had been our first experience with WDW TS restaurants, we probably would have never scheduled another TS restaurant during a WDW trip. Or at least scheduled them very sparingly. Our servers on nights 4,5,& 6 had all been with WDW for over 25 years (our waitress at Ohana had been with them over 35!) and they said they had never been as frustrated as they are now.

The best thing to do, per my experience is just tell them at the beginning - bring out our bill as soon as you can, even if it's in the middle of our meal. Now, that was easy for us, because we don't order many alcoholic drinks and we were on the DDP, so things were cut and dry. It still took a long time (they've got *just a few* other things going on. ;-) ) but it made it a tad faster.

I know it's here to stay, they've invested billions. I just hope things get easier on the CM's.

There really is something about that Japan gift shop isn't there! :-D I swear it's the candy, but that's not the only thing my son buys, so maybe not?



ETA _ I am going to finish this TR one day! My dad's surgery went well, but we had a 'country song' kind of week - our dog died, my dad had surgery, car issues. We are headed for the great state of Ohio this weekend, so hopefully I'll catch up when we get back!
Thanks for reading!

Good to know. I think I will ask for the bill as soon as we get our meal! LOL. I know it is here to stay, I just hope they get all the kinks worked out quickly. I think it has great potenital IF it works properly.

 

[erstwo]

Good to know. I think I will ask for the bill as soon as we get our meal! LOL. I know it is here to stay, I just hope they get all the kinks worked out quickly. I think it has great potenital IF it works properly.

Me too! No kinks would be perfect. And I'm sure the CM's and management would like that too!

Photopass came in today! Hoping to update tonight.

 

[erstwo]

Photopass!!!

Day 1 - Normal?



Silly -




Day 2






New Aurora costume. Not a fan.