Hey oh! I'm back on the boards! There was a long time when I was just too exhausted from working 14 hour days/not being at a computer at work for said 14 hours where I wasn't on these boards much, if at all. The combination of the work hours + not knowing when we'll be back in WDW meant I had to keep away or else I'd find myself longing for the lost World... Disney World (lost because I won't be there for a while). Well, I'm back at a desk job since February and slowly started reintegrating myself into the boards since. After much reading, and much more reading, and some talking with my gf about how "I should really write that trip report" it's finally time that I really DO write THIS trip report.
For those of you who don't know (or remember since it's been so long), I'm AJ and my travel partner/gf is Alex (Lexi on the boards). Here I am bothering her before we enter Animal Kingdom:
Nice necklace she has there right? Yeah, I found that on the street outside a restaurant after we had dinner one night. BOOM!
Our dates down in the World were October 9, 2013 (yikes) to October 16, 2013. A nice eight down jaunt during the Food and Wine Fest (a triumphant return, we'd been during 2010, but skipped it our next trip).
Any way, her and I teamed up to work on the PTR for this trip about, oh... 16 months ago. For all the things I don't remember being written by the two of us you can click this link. I hope you enjoy gratuitous food photos and a lot of digression because it is now time for what you actually came for, a Trip Report!
Day 1, October 9:
After a disappointing night of staying up late to watch the Rangers get dismantled by the by the SJ Sharks in San Jose (of course the game started at 10 PM) it was an early wake up call to catch the first flight out of JFK on JetBlue down to MCO (who on these boards really doesn't know what MCO is? We're all obsessed, we all know the airport code). We always end up getting the cheapest flight down there from JFK, it helps that Alex's parents live a 15 minute drive from the airport and that JetBlue gives the "one free checked bag per person" since our trips to WDW are the only time I'll travel with a suitcase.
We landed at MCO a little before 10 AM and were on our way to the DME bus. I won't get over how great DME is, I just throw a pair of shorts and a few other essentials in my carry-on in case our bags take longer to get to the hotel than expected. By 11 AM we were at our resort and in our room. We were thrilled that our room was ready when we got there (we've yet to have an issue with this, fingers crossed, knock on wood, whatever you want to say about that). We were staying at Pop Century and we're pretty impressed with the room to be honest. We had stayed at All-Star Movies back in 2010 and weren't too sure what to expect from Pop. All told, we were happy with it. Growing up in the 90's I wasn't too pumped when I found out our room number:
I was hoping for the 50's, 60's or 80's (even though I was born in the 80's, maybe that's why I have an affinity for the decade). Any who, here's a shot of our room:
Not too shabby eh? We prefer the two beds because we like to live as if we're in an episode of I Love Lucy. That's actually not true, the second bed always end up being something or a souvenir/park maps space.
I don't remember where I spotted this (there might be more of this in this TR considering it was 10 months since we were there), but I'm glad I got a shot of it:
Is it me or is 1986 the easiest year on this to spot? Maybe because it's the best year ever, without it, you wouldn't be so lucky to have this awesome TR to read. Also, without it, there'd be some serious funny business going on in the space time continuum.
Enough of this resort business, we didn't come here to spend time in the room (which is why we booked a value). We were in WDW and it was time to hit the parks! What better way to get yourself in the Disney spirit on your first day in the World than by making your first stop Magic Kingdom? Is there a better way? There really isn't.
Hello beautiful, you big lush green bush you. Oh, wait, I mean you back there! Isn't she a sight for sore eyes? (That's a phrase I've never understood, if my eyes are sore I don't want to be seeing any sights, I want to close my eyes. Depending on how sore maybe with a bag of ice on them.) Anyway! We wasted no time heading over to Tomorrowland (because it's the best) and hit up Space Mountain (because it's the best). You can't tell it's us in this photo, but I know it is. We're like shadow people (except much less horrifying):
Having gotten the momentous "First Ride" taken care of it was time for the (to me, in this case) less momentous "First Meal." For this we went over to Cosmic Ray's. It's something of a habit for us to get some QS meal when it comes to the first meal of the trip, something about being up since 5 AM and being on a plane for a few hours doesn't lend itself kindly to an elaborate sit down meal the first time I eat while I'm in WDW. (One or both of us would probably fall asleep at the table.) So what did this delicious first meal consist of? Alex decided on the kid's chicken nugget meal (because WDW has some awesome chicken nuggets, and lets not even get into the fries, they're the best) and I went with a plain old hot dog. Plain. Old. Hot Dog. Except when I hit up that sweet fixins' bar! Plain old hot dog? NAY! More like AMAZING CHEESE DOG WITH DICED ONIONS!
This is not really the type of meal that lends itself to a review in this space, it gets the job done. It's very good (I like hot dogs more than any normal person should, and WDW has some good dogs) and after being up rather early and on a plane it's good enough to supplement the adrenaline we work on on our first day in the World. After lunch we decided to grab a pair of Fast Passes to Buzz because, well because we could still. We knew that this would most likely be our last chance to get legit paper Fast Passes, so we got as many as we could. Look at these beauties:
Don't get me wrong, I think the Magic Band is pretty awesome. We only had one or two little hiccups while using ours on this trip when it came to Fast Pass usage, getting in the room the only reason it wouldn't work at the end of long days would probably be user error/laziness/exhaustion. There is something about those little paper tickets getting spit out of those Fast Pass machines though that I will miss. Oh well, onward and upward, or whatever they say.
To be honest, from what I remember there wasn't much of a line for a lot of the rides we got paper Fast Passes for. We did it more for a little collection of our own, when we did need to use the we would, but for the most part, we still have them. Back to Buzz, basically every on ride photo we have from Buzz throughout our three trips Alex and I have the same general look on our faces. That look is something like this:
I get very, very into this ride. Very into it. After such an intense spin on Buzz we decided to relax a bit on the PeopleMover.
For those of you who don't know (or remember since it's been so long), I'm AJ and my travel partner/gf is Alex (Lexi on the boards). Here I am bothering her before we enter Animal Kingdom:
Nice necklace she has there right? Yeah, I found that on the street outside a restaurant after we had dinner one night. BOOM!
Our dates down in the World were October 9, 2013 (yikes) to October 16, 2013. A nice eight down jaunt during the Food and Wine Fest (a triumphant return, we'd been during 2010, but skipped it our next trip).
Any way, her and I teamed up to work on the PTR for this trip about, oh... 16 months ago. For all the things I don't remember being written by the two of us you can click this link. I hope you enjoy gratuitous food photos and a lot of digression because it is now time for what you actually came for, a Trip Report!
Day 1, October 9:
After a disappointing night of staying up late to watch the Rangers get dismantled by the by the SJ Sharks in San Jose (of course the game started at 10 PM) it was an early wake up call to catch the first flight out of JFK on JetBlue down to MCO (who on these boards really doesn't know what MCO is? We're all obsessed, we all know the airport code). We always end up getting the cheapest flight down there from JFK, it helps that Alex's parents live a 15 minute drive from the airport and that JetBlue gives the "one free checked bag per person" since our trips to WDW are the only time I'll travel with a suitcase.
We landed at MCO a little before 10 AM and were on our way to the DME bus. I won't get over how great DME is, I just throw a pair of shorts and a few other essentials in my carry-on in case our bags take longer to get to the hotel than expected. By 11 AM we were at our resort and in our room. We were thrilled that our room was ready when we got there (we've yet to have an issue with this, fingers crossed, knock on wood, whatever you want to say about that). We were staying at Pop Century and we're pretty impressed with the room to be honest. We had stayed at All-Star Movies back in 2010 and weren't too sure what to expect from Pop. All told, we were happy with it. Growing up in the 90's I wasn't too pumped when I found out our room number:
I was hoping for the 50's, 60's or 80's (even though I was born in the 80's, maybe that's why I have an affinity for the decade). Any who, here's a shot of our room:
Not too shabby eh? We prefer the two beds because we like to live as if we're in an episode of I Love Lucy. That's actually not true, the second bed always end up being something or a souvenir/park maps space.
I don't remember where I spotted this (there might be more of this in this TR considering it was 10 months since we were there), but I'm glad I got a shot of it:
Is it me or is 1986 the easiest year on this to spot? Maybe because it's the best year ever, without it, you wouldn't be so lucky to have this awesome TR to read. Also, without it, there'd be some serious funny business going on in the space time continuum.
Enough of this resort business, we didn't come here to spend time in the room (which is why we booked a value). We were in WDW and it was time to hit the parks! What better way to get yourself in the Disney spirit on your first day in the World than by making your first stop Magic Kingdom? Is there a better way? There really isn't.
Hello beautiful, you big lush green bush you. Oh, wait, I mean you back there! Isn't she a sight for sore eyes? (That's a phrase I've never understood, if my eyes are sore I don't want to be seeing any sights, I want to close my eyes. Depending on how sore maybe with a bag of ice on them.) Anyway! We wasted no time heading over to Tomorrowland (because it's the best) and hit up Space Mountain (because it's the best). You can't tell it's us in this photo, but I know it is. We're like shadow people (except much less horrifying):
Having gotten the momentous "First Ride" taken care of it was time for the (to me, in this case) less momentous "First Meal." For this we went over to Cosmic Ray's. It's something of a habit for us to get some QS meal when it comes to the first meal of the trip, something about being up since 5 AM and being on a plane for a few hours doesn't lend itself kindly to an elaborate sit down meal the first time I eat while I'm in WDW. (One or both of us would probably fall asleep at the table.) So what did this delicious first meal consist of? Alex decided on the kid's chicken nugget meal (because WDW has some awesome chicken nuggets, and lets not even get into the fries, they're the best) and I went with a plain old hot dog. Plain. Old. Hot Dog. Except when I hit up that sweet fixins' bar! Plain old hot dog? NAY! More like AMAZING CHEESE DOG WITH DICED ONIONS!
This is not really the type of meal that lends itself to a review in this space, it gets the job done. It's very good (I like hot dogs more than any normal person should, and WDW has some good dogs) and after being up rather early and on a plane it's good enough to supplement the adrenaline we work on on our first day in the World. After lunch we decided to grab a pair of Fast Passes to Buzz because, well because we could still. We knew that this would most likely be our last chance to get legit paper Fast Passes, so we got as many as we could. Look at these beauties:
Don't get me wrong, I think the Magic Band is pretty awesome. We only had one or two little hiccups while using ours on this trip when it came to Fast Pass usage, getting in the room the only reason it wouldn't work at the end of long days would probably be user error/laziness/exhaustion. There is something about those little paper tickets getting spit out of those Fast Pass machines though that I will miss. Oh well, onward and upward, or whatever they say.
To be honest, from what I remember there wasn't much of a line for a lot of the rides we got paper Fast Passes for. We did it more for a little collection of our own, when we did need to use the we would, but for the most part, we still have them. Back to Buzz, basically every on ride photo we have from Buzz throughout our three trips Alex and I have the same general look on our faces. That look is something like this:
I get very, very into this ride. Very into it. After such an intense spin on Buzz we decided to relax a bit on the PeopleMover.
