Trip Report **COMPLETED ** A (very delayed) August 2015 Post-Bar-Exam Trip Report!

Hello, new friends! I am back after a (very long) hiatus with my (very delayed) August 2015 WDW Post-Bar-Exam Trip Report!

I am not at all sure that anyone wants to read a report of a trip that happened two years ago, but well, I want to write it, so here goes!

Following our (crazy, exhausting) August 2015 trip, my husband and I immediately turned around and went on an even crazier and more exhausting two-week trip to China.

After that, I immediately started my new full-time job of…waiting on my bar exam results, which somehow felt more stressful and time consuming than studying for or taking the bar ever was. Fortunately, on October 31, I learned that I passed!

A few weeks later, I was sworn is an attorney-at-law and began my new full-time job!And if you’re an attorney or know someone who is, you know that it’s basically just a lot of lounging around doing nothing but taking Disney trips and reading and writing Disney trip reports. Oh wait, strike that, that’s my fantasy job. My real job, like all jobs, is a lot of work, and has taken a lot of adjustment. Fortunately, it is also very rewarding.

Now, almost two years (and a July 2016 trip to Disneyland completed, and a May 2017 trip to Disneyland in the works—more on those in a bit) later, I’m finally getting my bearings and ready to re-join the WDWMagic community!

So, come on, everybody! Here we gooooooo!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Introduction

My pre-trip report, in case you’re interested, is here.

Here’s a quick summary of the who, what, when, where, and why of this trip!

WHO: Me (Erin, 35) and my husband (Karl, 41).

WHAT: Walt Disney World, duh.

WHEN: August 1-6, 2015.

WHERE: Disney’s Contemporary Resort! This was a dream come true for both of us, and something that we thought was years off. We splurged to celebrate the end of law school and the end of the bar exam, and the fact that I had been offered a new job!

WHY: See above!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Day 1: Friday, August 1, 2015

It’s Disney day! The best of all days!

I had spent all summer studying for the bar exam, which had taken place from July 28-30. The exam is given over three days about an hour from my house, so I had been living out of a hotel for most of the week. Frankly, when I woke up, I was still feeling really, really tired. But going to WDW is better than caffeine, so I quickly got out of bed and packed up my stuff.

I lovingly refer to my husband’s morning persona as “the troll” (he becomes his normal sweet self by about 9:00am), but on this particular day, he also woke up in a good mood, because he had some news he’d been keeping from me—we’d been upgraded to first class for our flights to Orlando! Whoop whoop! My husband travels a lot for work, and sometimes it pays off for both of us.

We grabbed our bags and our Magic Bands, and we were off to the airport!

(My husband's family has teasingly referred to him as Chuck for most of his life, for reasons I don't really understand. Something about someone at camp calling him that when he was a kid. But anyway, that's why his Magic Band says Chuck ).

And here we are at the airport, waiting for our first-class flight!

Soon after, we were on the plane.

After a quick and uneventful flight, we landed in…a very rainy Orlando.

Whomp whomp.

But we decided not to let it get us down! We started walking towards the Magical Express, and hopped on the airport tram. I have read enough trip reports to know that this pic is a critical trip report component.

We made it to the Magical Express line for the Contemporary without incident. While we were in line, I started to get hungry, so I decided to dig in to some delicious Biscoff cookies, courtesy of my friendly Delta flight attendant.

Soon after that, a…boring Mears bus pulled up to pick us up. Oh well, they all go to the same wonderful place!

We drove through the pounding rain, and soon, we saw this! (By the way: now is probably a good time to tell you that I stink at taking pictures, both in terms of quality and quantity. If trip reports with large blocks of text interspersed with blurry pictures frightens you, please use the chicken exit now (aka close this window).

After a quick stop at Wilderness Lodge, we arrived at the Contemporary! I had literally never set foot in this hotel before, only ridden the monorail through it. So I was very, very excited to be there! We had received a text message when we landed that our food was not yet ready, so we decided to get something to eat. We dropped our bags and headed to Contempo Café.

Contempo. Cafe. Was. CROWDED. This was, like I said, our first experience visiting, let alone staying at, the Contemporary, and it appeared that because it was raining, lots of people had high tailed it on the monorail to the Contemporary for some lunch out of the rain. It was…a zoo. Fortunately, after a few minutes of waiting, we were able to snag a table.

Stay tuned to find out what we thought of Contempo Cafe, and pics of our Magic Kingdom view room!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Day 1: Friday, August 1, 2015 (Part 2)

At Contempo Cafe, Karl and I shared a flatbread. I didn’t remember to take a picture until after we’d eaten a few pieces. I do not know what this was called (one of the pitfalls of waiting almost two years—the menus change!), but it was obviously some type of tomato/mozzarella/balsamic combo. I remember that it was very good.

For dessert, we shared this chocolate peanut butter cupcake (again, can’t find the real name online! I’m sorry!) I am not the world’s biggest cupcake fan, and honestly, when I read on here about people eating WDW cupcakes for breakfast, I’m like…ew. But you guys, I GET IT NOW. This cupcake was amazing.

After lunch, we got a text that our room was ready. Perfect timing! We hopped on the elevator to our room, which was in the main tower, facing Magic Kingdom. Here are some pics! (I was disappointed by the absence of a towel-Mickey on the bed).

The room was gorgeous and everything we could have asked for. There are a few minor points that I would change, but honestly—we could watch Wishes while laying in bed. That’s all that really needs to be said about this room.

I took a few shots of Magic Kingdom from our balcony.

Then we decided to go join the fun!

After a short walk, we were there!

In Part 3, we tour Magic Kingdom!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Day 1: Friday, August 1, 2015 (Part 3)


We had FP+ for Big Thunder Mountain RR, so we headed that way. When we scanned our Magic Bands, we saw this!

And the Cast Member who checked us in said, “Happy Anniversary, Erin and Karl!” Ah, Disney magic. Hits you right in the feels.

After a ride on the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness, we wandered toward Tomorrowland for one of our favorite attractions…the Peoplemover!

After a relaxing ride around Tomorrowland, we wandered through the shops on Main Street USA on our way toward the exit for our dinner ADR. We spotted this shirt which made us laugh embarrassingly hard.

Then we headed toward the monorail…

For our ADR at…

This was a first for us. During our only other visit as a couple in 2013, CG was under renovation. We were very excited, and we started things off right by ordering a bottle of champagne. The table was very nicely decorated, and my date looked great too.

I started with the Crispy Rock Shrimp Salad. Karl had…maybe the Artisan Romaine? (Ugh, it was two years ago, I’m sorry!)

It gets worse though, because I took absolutely no pics of our entrees. I had the ravioli appetizer as my entrée, and it was delicious and the perfect portion size. Karl had some sort of fish dish. (I know, I’m the worst).

After our entrees, it was time for Wishes! We ordered our desserts, then walked out onto the viewing deck. Our server assured us that she would wait to bring out our desserts until after the show.

In Part 4, we watch Wishes and return to Magic Kingdom for EMH!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

I really enjoy Wishes, but I am excited to see its replacement the next time I go. When I was in Disneyland last summer, I got to experience the Disneyland Forever! fireworks, and I was really and truly blown away. I have watched the video of those fireworks probably 100 times, and I listen to the soundtrack over and over while I'm at work. But that’s another trip report for another time. Here is my one and only, truly embarrassingly bad pic of Wishes! (Don't worry, I got other, equally bad pics on other nights of the trip).

When we returned to our table, our server brought out the dessert we ordered (the Warm Homemade Fritters), plus a congratulatory anniversary crème brulee! It was very nice and made us feel very special.

We enjoyed our dessert, but we didn't stay too much longer. Magic Kingdom had EMH until 2am that night, and we wanted to get back and experience a late night in MK! We thought about going back to our room to change, but we’d had a few glasses of champagne and just felt like living dangerously, so, in all of our California Grill finery, we hopped in the elevator to the lobby…

Walked over to Magic Kingdom…

And walked right on to Splash Mountain…and got drenched!

Like the Darth Vader tshirt, riding Splash Mountain while wearing fancy clothes after a bottle of champagne made us laugh inexplicably hard.

After Splash, we had FP+ for Haunted Mansion, so we walked that way. Shortly after boarding our Doom Buggy, it was clear that the speakers were broken, and all we were getting was a static-y noise. As we were exiting, we told a Cast Member about the problem so that they could fix it for the next guest. Without skipping a beat, the Cast Member said, "Do you want to ride again?" Uh, yes please! So we walked right back on.

Since we had already conquered Splash Mountain, we decided to try a tamer cruise. Although it’s hard to imagine any cruise bringing us more happiness than our cruise down Splash Mountain, we gave It’s a Small World a try.

IASW is a must-do for us every trip, because it’s classic Disney. However, by this point it was practically the middle of the night, and I’d spent all week taking the hardest test of my life. I found myself nodding off during the ride, and when it was over, I told Karl I was ready to go back to our room and crash. Which is exactly what we did. It was an absolutely perfect first day in WDW!

Coming up next, we spend our 2nd anniversary at Epcot!

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Sounds like a fun trip so far!! Absolutely love a late night at the parks its so much fun!!

Looking forward to reading the rest!

 

[Courtney6682]

Introduction

My pre-trip report, in case you’re interested, is here.

Here’s a quick summary of the who, what, when, where, and why of this trip!

WHO: Me (Erin, 35) and my husband (Karl, 41).View attachment 198443

WHAT: Walt Disney World, duh.

WHEN: August 1-6, 2015.

WHERE: Disney’s Contemporary Resort! This was a dream come true for both of us, and something that we thought was years off. We splurged to celebrate the end of law school and the end of the bar exam, and the fact that I had been offered a new job!

WHY: See above!

I'm in! I was there that week, but staying at POFQ!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Sounds like a fun trip so far!! Absolutely love a late night at the parks its so much fun!!

Looking forward to reading the rest!

Thank you for reading!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

I'm in! I was there that week, but staying at POFQ!

That's neat! Did you write a TR? If so I will have to check it out! Thanks for reading

 

[Courtney6682]

That's neat! Did you write a TR? If so I will have to check it out! Thanks for reading

I did, and I just realized that our Wedding anniversaries are on the same day! We are 8-2-14! I'll find a link for you

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Day Two: August 2, 2015: Our Second Anniversary!

We woke up bright and early (ish) on day two, hoping to make it to Epcot by rope drop. We had FP+ for Soarin’ in the late morning, which meant we couldn’t get FP+ for Test Track, so our plan was to make a mad dash before the line got too long.

With that goal in mind, we skipped breakfast. But when we made it inside the park gates, we had to sacrifice a few minutes to get some pics with Spaceship Earth. Good thing we did, because, as you will soon see, the rest of the day was very, very soggy.

After our quick detour, we ran like crazy people to Test Track and found…a 30 minute wait. Fortunately the single-rider line was only 10 minutes, so we opted for that. The trade off was that we didn’t get to fully develop our car or experience the queue (a pretty big downside since this was our first time on the ride), but we are very impatient when it comes to lines!

We were luckily able to get seats right next to each other, even in the single rider line, and we had a great time! We stopped on our way out to explore.

By this time, we were starving, and our FP+ for Soarin’ was almost ready to go. We wandered over to The Land and had an early lunch at Sunshine Seasons, one of our favorite spots. I had a grilled pita with veggies and feta, with a side of potato salad. I can’t remember what Karl had. We split a piece of the AMAZING strawberry cheesecake for dessert, and this is when I had to admit to myself that I had acquired a full-on WDW dessert obsession. WHY ARE THEY SO GOOD? HOW DO THEY DO IT?

You will also notice that I ordered a coffee with my lunch, which is a sign of things to come.

After our lunch, we stopped and smelled the oranges as we soared above California.
I grabbed Karl’s hand so hard when the music started, and I rocked the ever-attractive dopey grin/tears in my eyes look for the whole ride. Soarin’ is Disney Imagineering at its finest, in my opinion.

After Soarin’, we had FP+ for Spaceship Earth, so we headed that way. We enjoyed our ride, but even the lunchtime coffee I had wasn’t enough to keep me from dozing off during our descent. The crazy summer of studying and the crazy stress of the previous week was really catching up to me. But I’d been looking forward to this trip for so long, and I was determined to make the most of it!

We walked out of Spaceship Earth and into…one of Florida’s finest torrential downpours. At this point, although I was working really hard to keep my spirits up, I was exhausted, and a little crabby about the nearly incessant rain we’d had since we landed. Karl loves Ellen’s Energy Adventure (I think it’s the only ride he really clearly remembers riding with his family), so to get out of the rain (and because it’s a great place for napping, since the attraction is roughly six thousand minutes long) I suggested that we head there. On the way, I picked up a Mickey poncho.

For some reason I got a really big kick out of the bottle of Clearly Canadian sitting on Ellen’s coffee table!

I had forgotten all about this beverage, and it really took me back to my high school days when this stuff was all the rage. After this, I balled-up my jacket and my Mickey poncho into a makeshift pillow and…fell asleep for the remaining three hundred and ninety two hours of the attraction.

When we exited the Universe of Energy it was STILL RAINING, even though we had been on the attraction for approximately twenty nine days. Luckily, my long summer’s nap had revived me, and we went over to Innoventions to ride Sum of All Thrills! The last time we rode this I was too chicken to make the ride very intense, but this time we really went for it, and we had a great time.

After this, it was STILL. RAINING. And not a drizzle. It was a true downpour. I pulled out my phone and realized with dismay that this was likely to continue until dinner time. I was also starting to fade again, so I suggested to Karl that we cut our losses and go back to the room for a nap. And that’s exactly what we did!

Coming up next: does the rain ever stop? Plus our anniversary dinner at San Angel Inn!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Day Two: August 2, 2015: Our Second Anniversary! (Part 2)

By 4:00 the rain had stopped and I was feeling much better after our naps. So we hopped on the monorail and went back to Epcot for an evening in World Showcase!

We started in Canada, and in honor of one of our very good friends, who is from Canada, we decided to experience O! Canada for the first time. It felt a little dated, but we actually really enjoyed it. We have never done any of the films in World Showcase, but this makes me want to experience them all.

We wandered through the World Showcase for a bit (no pics, sorry), and made our way over to Mexico for our anniversary ADR at San Angel Inn!

San Angel Inn is a place that doesn’t get much love from the WDW fanbase as far as I can tell. This is another one of the few places that my husband remembers from his childhood, so on our trip in 2013 we had lunch here, and we really enjoyed the ambiance (and the margaritas!) We decided to go back there for our anniversary dinner, and we were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it was our one truly bad experience of the trip!

We had to wait to be seated, and were eventually seated 45 minutes after our ADR time. It was OK, because we had fun just looking around the pavilion. Here is the proof:

But then, after we were seated, our server took almost 20 minutes to come to our table. Again, fine. We were just enjoying each others’ company on our anniversary. But then, when he did arrive, all he said was, “I guess you’re ready to order?” Not even a hello!

We ordered some margaritas and tried to go back to enjoying our night. I had noticed that Karl was looking around and seemed kind of confused/impatient since we sat down. He got up from the table and said he would be right back. When he came back, he was carrying a vase of flowers. He had ordered them in advance and asked for them to be at our table when we sat down as an anniversary present for me, but they had apparently forgotten to put them out. I was really grateful for my beautiful flowers! But I think for Karl the surprise he had been looking forward to was kind of spoiled.

Our drinks arrived after that. I ordered the blood orange margarita, and Karl ordered the jalapeno margarita. His was better than mine, but we liked them both.

Our waiter came back to take our food orders. I have no memory or pictures of what we ordered, but this time it wasn’t my fault--our food never came! We waited for almost an hour, and by that point, we’d filled up on margaritas and chips, and I was feeling really tired again, and we were both so annoyed from the bad service, that we just told them to cancel our orders and we went back to the room. Some anniversary dinner!

The worst part was that when while we were riding the monorail back to the resort, Karl realized he’d left his rain jacket at the restaurant. When we called to find out if they had it (it was only about 20 minutes after we’d left), they said they hadn’t seen it, but that we could check lost and found at the Transportation and Ticket Center the next day. Frankly, given the service we had, we didn’t expect it to turn up, and it didn’t. The weather was so bad that it’s possible that someone else saw that we left it and decided to use it. I hope someone out there is enjoying it!

When we got back to our room, there was something there to brighten our night. Karl’s brother and his wife had sent us a gift! It was a bottle of champagne with two champagne flutes with Mickey logos etched into them. The whole thing was presented on a Mickey-shaped plate. It was so, so nice of them to think of us on our anniversary!

Our anniversary dinner didn’t really turn out as we’d planned, but the excellent experience we’d had at California Grill the night before sort of made up for it. We decided to pretend that that was our real anniversary dinner.

From our balcony we could see that Celebrate the Magic was going on at Magic Kingdom. We couldn’t really make out the details from where we were, but it was still nice to sit on our balcony away from the crowds and enjoy the view of the castle. After that, it was time for Wishes! We queued up the soundtrack on my phone and tried to time it right when the show started. We got pretty close. Then we had our own private Wishes show from our room. It was a great way to end our anniversary!

Coming up next, our first visit to Animal Kingdom!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

I did, and I just realized that our Wedding anniversaries are on the same day! We are 8-2-14! I'll find a link for you

That's amazing! And thank you!

 

[LeighM]

Wow, can't believe you waited that long and the food never came. I'm a really impatient person when I'm hungry - okay, fine I may be considered by some to get extremely hangry lol - and I don't think I would've been able to be nice about that situation lol. And I loved Clearly Canadian mountain blackberry flavor

Your nap reminded me of my October trip. In September, I came down with a bacterial upper respiratory infection that was trying to go into pneumonia but luckily I was put on antibiotics and other medicine in time to not be really sick or contagious during the trip. However, what happened was it was triggering my asthma and the cough. Plus, the humidity of the FL weather wasn't helping anything either. Well to get thru the days and control the cough, I was using my inhalers a lot and some OTC to help with congestion and cough (everyone kept looking at me like I had a plague or something and I had to explain myself the whole trip that it was just asthma lol). Anyways, one day I got my OTC meds mixed up and took the nighttime ones with me to EPCOT instead of the day ones. Whoops!!! I'm extremely sensitive to meds and this NOT good. I was on Living with the Land when I started slipping down in my seat and fell asleep. So hard to wake back up. When I realized what I did with the meds, I really started to panic because we had the Behind the Seeds tour in an hour and I knew I wasn't going to make it. So we found a quiet, empty section in Sunshine Seasons and I quickly passed out at the table. I mean full on drool and everything!! Totally embarrassing. But the required nap in Sunshine Seasons did allow me to get through the rest of the afternoon and the tour was fantastic LOL.

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Wow, can't believe you waited that long and the food never came. I'm a really impatient person when I'm hungry - okay, fine I may be considered by some to get extremely hangry lol - and I don't think I would've been able to be nice about that situation lol. And I loved Clearly Canadian mountain blackberry flavor

Your nap reminded me of my October trip. In September, I came down with a bacterial upper respiratory infection that was trying to go into pneumonia but luckily I was put on antibiotics and other medicine in time to not be really sick or contagious during the trip. However, what happened was it was triggering my asthma and the cough. Plus, the humidity of the FL weather wasn't helping anything either. Well to get thru the days and control the cough, I was using my inhalers a lot and some OTC to help with congestion and cough (everyone kept looking at me like I had a plague or something and I had to explain myself the whole trip that it was just asthma lol). Anyways, one day I got my OTC meds mixed up and took the nighttime ones with me to EPCOT instead of the day ones. Whoops!!! I'm extremely sensitive to meds and this NOT good. I was on Living with the Land when I started slipping down in my seat and fell asleep. So hard to wake back up. When I realized what I did with the meds, I really started to panic because we had the Behind the Seeds tour in an hour and I knew I wasn't going to make it. So we found a quiet, empty section in Sunshine Seasons and I quickly passed out at the table. I mean full on drool and everything!! Totally embarrassing. But the required nap in Sunshine Seasons did allow me to get through the rest of the afternoon and the tour was fantastic LOL.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers Clearly Canadian! I am also really impatient when I get bad service in restaurants. I think this time I was just so exhausted it prevented me from being too upset about it.

I'm so sorry you were sick during your trip! Feeling less than your best at WDW is no fun. That's great that you were able to find a place to nap! I feel like someone could write a book about best places to catch a quick nap at WDW. I will be sad if/when Ellen's Energy Adventure closes, because that is definitely my go-to spot.

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Day Three: August 3, 2015



This was a day of firsts for us. It was our first time at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and would be our first time dining at Tokyo Dining in Epcot. It was also a day of serendipity!


We kept this day pretty relaxed. I hadn’t been sleeping that well because I was so stressed out about the bar exam. I don’t know why, but I had myself totally convinced that I had failed it. I had expected to feel so relived when it was over, but I didn’t. I remember calling my best friend, who graduated law school the year before me, the afternoon that the exam was over. I said—“I expected to feel so happy, but instead I’m just terrified that I failed it and I won’t know one way or another for three months!” She said—“Welcome to the worst three months of your life!” That was definitely not what I wanted to hear. And the stress was really starting to impact my energy on this trip. I finally made the decision on this morning that I would put that aside, because there was nothing I could do about it and because, if I did pass, I would really regret wasting all of my Disney time being stressed out.


We hopped on the monorail to the TTC this morning hoping to find Karl’s lost rain jacket in lost and found, but it wasn’t there. They kindly took our information and promised to send it to us if it turned up, but it never did. The rain was once again pouring, so we bought him a poncho at the TTC gift shop and hopped on a bus to AK.


Our first FP+ was for Expedition Everest. I managed to overcome my fears and hop on, and I had a great time—although I’m pretty sure I cut off circulation to Karl’s hand. After our FP+, the single-rider wait was 5 minutes, so Karl went back on…three times! Once was enough for me for one day, so I hung out and watched the cars come down the big drop.

After this, we had FP+ for Dinosaur. We had a great time on the ride, but we may have had an even better time in the gift shop afterwards when we saw these shirts. (What is it with me and tshirts? I have a problem).

After Dinosaur, we had FP+ for Kilimanjaro Safaris. One benefit of a really rainy week at WDW—the animals were really active. We had a great time on our safari and got some good pics.

After this, we wandered around for a while and eventually found our way to It’s Tough to be a Bug.

We had planned to have lunch at AK, but we must have changed our mind, because we didn’t end up eating anything there. We did stop for some coffee on our way out, though. I remember that we left around 1:00, and hopped on a bus back to the Contemporary. We liked Animal Kingdom, but it probably would not be a must-visit for us every trip. It probably did not help that it was somehow both rainy and insanely hot while we were there.

Up next: ADR at Tokyo Dining, Illuminations, and Space Mountain with the lights on!

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Day Three: August 3, 2015 (Part 2)


When we got back to the resort, Karl opted to take a nap. I decided to walk over to Magic Kingdom to purchase a pair of earrings I had seen the other night, and to grab us some FP+ for Space Mountain that night. As I was walking up Main Street USA, I managed to catch the Festival of Fantasy parade (serendipitous moment #1!). I am not usually the kind of person who wants to give up park touring time to sit and wait for a parade, so when I can catch glimpses of one, it’s always a treat. I was able to sort of wander between the shops and catch moments of the parade.

I grabbed our FP+ for Space Mountain, then went back to the resort.

When I got back to the resort, we decided to head out to Epcot to wander around World Showcase before our ADR at Tokyo Dining. On the way, we stopped at the Mexico pavilion to make one last ditch effort to find Karl’s rain coat, but no luck.

We wandered around World Showcase. Karl grabbed a Sapporo from a stand in the Japan pavilion and I grabbed a Grey Goose Slush.

Eventually we checked in for our ADR. I was hoping that we could time it right to get a window for Illuminations, and it worked out great—this was the view from our seat!

Even if we hadn’t had the window seat, Tokyo Dining would have been a great experience. They started out by bringing us warm towels to wash our hands. We also ordered a pot of green tea to share.

I had an epic fail on taking food pics, but I did get a pic of our salad, which I am not sure is on the menu anymore.

We ordered the assorted vegetable tempura and some udon noodles to split. Everything was delicious.

The main event came at 9:00, when the lights dimmed, and Illuminations began! We had what felt like a front-row seat. I had read that some people are bothered by the people standing on the balcony, but we hardly noticed them. It was a fantastic experience overall!

After dinner, we slowly strolled out of World Showcase, listening to the Illuminations post-show music and enjoying the glow of the lanterns. It is always one of my favorite WDW experiences!

We slowly made our way out of the park, and hopped on the monorail to the TTC.

 

[Pirate'sLifeForME]

Day Three: August 3, 2015 (Part 3)


We hopped off the monorail at the TTC for another first experience--we had never taken the ferry to MK, so we did that now. While we did that, we had serendipitous moment #2, because as we were floating across the Seven Seas Lagoon, we got to watch Wishes! So far, we were three for three on seeing Wishes this trip.

We arrived at MK…

And entered the park to find: THIS!

We grabbed each others hands and held on for dear life as we made our way upstream towards Tomorrowland. Eventually, we made it to Space Mountain, and got to experience serendipitous moment #3, because as we reached the top of Space Mountain and were ready to make our crazy descent, the lights came on!

Everyone booed, but I thought it was awesome. I’ve always wondered what it looks like in there with the lights on! The bad part, though, is that the dark really does create all of the thrill on that ride. When you can see where you’re going, the ride is nowhere near as fun. I wish I had pics, but I wasn’t really able to grab my phone at that point. Here is a pic from another site that pretty accurately reflects what we saw:

When we got to the exit, a cast member gave us a FP+ to return to the ride once the lights were fixed, but she told us that it probably wouldn’t be fixed that night. So we never did end up using those FP+.

After that, we walked back to the Contemporary for another well-earned night’s sleep!

Up next: Karl’s first visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and my first visit in 20 years!

 

[21stamps]

Day Two: August 2, 2015: Our Second Anniversary!

We woke up bright and early (ish) on day two, hoping to make it to Epcot by rope drop. We had FP+ for Soarin’ in the late morning, which meant we couldn’t get FP+ for Test Track, so our plan was to make a mad dash before the line got too long.

With that goal in mind, we skipped breakfast. But when we made it inside the park gates, we had to sacrifice a few minutes to get some pics with Spaceship Earth. Good thing we did, because, as you will soon see, the rest of the day was very, very soggy.

View attachment 198553 View attachment 198554

After our quick detour, we ran like crazy people to Test Track and found…a 30 minute wait. Fortunately the single-rider line was only 10 minutes, so we opted for that. The trade off was that we didn’t get to fully develop our car or experience the queue (a pretty big downside since this was our first time on the ride), but we are very impatient when it comes to lines!

We were luckily able to get seats right next to each other, even in the single rider line, and we had a great time! We stopped on our way out to explore.

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By this time, we were starving, and our FP+ for Soarin’ was almost ready to go. We wandered over to The Land and had an early lunch at Sunshine Seasons, one of our favorite spots. I had a grilled pita with veggies and feta, with a side of potato salad. I can’t remember what Karl had. We split a piece of the AMAZING strawberry cheesecake for dessert, and this is when I had to admit to myself that I had acquired a full-on WDW dessert obsession. WHY ARE THEY SO GOOD? HOW DO THEY DO IT?

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You will also notice that I ordered a coffee with my lunch, which is a sign of things to come.

After our lunch, we stopped and smelled the oranges as we soared above California.
I grabbed Karl’s hand so hard when the music started, and I rocked the ever-attractive dopey grin/tears in my eyes look for the whole ride. Soarin’ is Disney Imagineering at its finest, in my opinion.

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After Soarin’, we had FP+ for Spaceship Earth, so we headed that way. We enjoyed our ride, but even the lunchtime coffee I had wasn’t enough to keep me from dozing off during our descent. The crazy summer of studying and the crazy stress of the previous week was really catching up to me. But I’d been looking forward to this trip for so long, and I was determined to make the most of it!

We walked out of Spaceship Earth and into…one of Florida’s finest torrential downpours. At this point, although I was working really hard to keep my spirits up, I was exhausted, and a little crabby about the nearly incessant rain we’d had since we landed. Karl loves Ellen’s Energy Adventure (I think it’s the only ride he really clearly remembers riding with his family), so to get out of the rain (and because it’s a great place for napping, since the attraction is roughly six thousand minutes long) I suggested that we head there. On the way, I picked up a Mickey poncho.

For some reason I got a really big kick out of the bottle of Clearly Canadian sitting on Ellen’s coffee table!

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I had forgotten all about this beverage, and it really took me back to my high school days when this stuff was all the rage. After this, I balled-up my jacket and my Mickey poncho into a makeshift pillow and…fell asleep for the remaining three hundred and ninety two hours of the attraction.

When we exited the Universe of Energy it was STILL RAINING, even though we had been on the attraction for approximately twenty nine days. Luckily, my long summer’s nap had revived me, and we went over to Innoventions to ride Sum of All Thrills! The last time we rode this I was too chicken to make the ride very intense, but this time we really went for it, and we had a great time.

After this, it was STILL. RAINING. And not a drizzle. It was a true downpour. I pulled out my phone and realized with dismay that this was likely to continue until dinner time. I was also starting to fade again, so I suggested to Karl that we cut our losses and go back to the room for a nap. And that’s exactly what we did!

Coming up next: does the rain ever stop? Plus our anniversary dinner at San Angel Inn!

First of all- I'm in!!! Congrats on passing the bar exam and your new job!!

Secondly- I forgot about Clearly Canadian as well!!! I used to love it. Ha ha.