I'm not sure whether I ever attached the picture of the 50th room key I stopped by to get at the lobby at check in. I wish I had thought to get the luggage tags, as well. I was looking for all of the "free" mementos that I could get LOL.
I took all of the special 50th coffees in our room.
I kept 2 (one to try and one to keep) and sent the rest to my friend that loves Disney and coffee. Housekeeping came into our room on Tuesday and gave more of these. But I also noticed that I was missing my earplane ear plugs for the plane. I don't want to say housekeeping took them but if so, I'm sure they were mighty disappointed to find out they weren't expensive ear buds LOL.
My Take-Along Guide was Taken Home.
This is the shirt that R and I both liked but was only in my size
Apparently these shirts were not huge hits and the CM at check out was very thankful that another one was sold. She didn't know what the new style would be though.
R and I collect pins. So we had to the get 50th Donald and Daisy bc Donald is my favorite out of all of them. The Festival of the Holidays pin that I was disappointed with despite R liking Olaf. You could barely see the tiny blue Festival detail in the lower left corner. I also found the special holiday Port Orleans pin at Riverside the last night there. The cat, Marie, is the character under the tree. Strange character choice for the Port Orleans resorts but okay
I got the older edition, I think, of the PO French Quarter resort to add to my resort pin collection. I didn't like the other option all that much. And R liked this Grogu, which I do have to say is pretty cute.
And these are the wax melts that I purchased. I have a lot of candles and wax melts. More than I should have but not as many as some that belong to FB candle groups. Thank goodness, otherwise, my husband would divorce me
They are usually $12 each but they were having a sale of buy 2 and get each for $10. More than I'm willing to pay for wax melts but I really hadn't purchased much Disney merchandise this trip. And I always go crazy with Disney scents after a Disney vacation. Usually I buy Disney inspired scents from ScentAir, Magic Candle Company, or Three Cheeky Chicks on Etsy. R loved the Mango Papaya bc it's the tropical scent he loves. Clover World smells a lot like the usual GF scent while Gingerbread was supposed to smell like the GF during the holidays. And Seas the Moment is a sweet scent. These are nice scented wax melts but they don't last as long in my warmers like those from MCC.
And, as proof, of my travel notecards to remind me of what not to forget while in the parks.
I still think these notecards would've been perfect if I had remembered I had them in my bag!
And I told my husband when we got back home - the trees I saw at Disney were pretty but I still like mine better LOL.
The framed art behind the tree was a purchase from Shop Disney a few years ago that says "forget about your worries and your strife." The Jungle Book was one of my Mom's favorite Disney movies and The Bare Necessities was one of her favorite Disney songs so I had to have it when it was released.
Now to my final thoughts. Those that have ready my posts on other reports and posts already know this but I'll quickly summarize. I enjoyed my trip and I had fun. I love Disney and WDW and I probably always will. But I found this trip too stressful with the changes caused by Genie+ and ILL. I didn't like having to cancel the dining I was looking forward to in order to make certain ride times work. I didn't like having to pay so much extra to have a similar type of experience. I'm glad I canceled the more expensive Candlelight Processional dinner at Biergarten bc I would not have felt it was a good value for our time or money this year. Maybe one day in the future, I'll feel differently. This was the first trip where I didn't feel overly sad about going home. I've been back home for over a week and I'm not even excited about our next trip, whenever that will be. We won't be leaving our dog, Pippy, alone anymore because of his age and health. I find myself thinking more about a possible future trip to Universal Orlando, a Florida road trip, or maybe going to Atlantis resort. I will go to Disney again but I would do Disney even differently than this trip. This year, in order to make it more affordable with the costs of the Very Merriest After Hours tickets, we downgraded from a river view to a standard room at FQ (no complaints from us, their standard rooms were good) and went from a 2 day park hopper to no park hopper. We didn't eat at as many table services as we usually do. We used the Disney Visa credit card for the 10% off at Brown Derby and were pleasantly surprised to get 10% off at Polite Pig, as well. I couldn't use the 10% for the pins bc we had to buy them at separate locations. Feeling like I had to keep my pennies bc Disney was trying to steal them took away some of the magic from me this trip. I definitely felt like I was paying more in order to get less. I still struggle finding words to describe my feelings about this. The next WDW trip, I wouldn't mind going to AK since we missed it this trip and the possibly to Wild Africa Trek. Maybe doing an After Hours event at HS again, if any are offered. But I want to focus on the water parks, Cirque, miniature golf, dinner shows, and other dining. Things that are new to us. That makes me excited. But the theme parks as they are right now? Not so much.
