Trip Report COMPLETED (finally!)....Did we move to WDW? Nope just a two week trip!

Hello WDW Magic friends and welcome to my trip report. I have done a few trip reports in the past of both WDW and Disneyland. My most recent report was a Spring Break trip to WDW. So if you've read one of my reports before....welcome back friends! If you haven't read one before....welcome new friend!

A little background information

People going: Me (Amy) and my husband (Brad), you'll see enough of our pictures later.

"People" we are leaving behind to go on our trip: Our miniature schnauzer Kapono, she keeps trying to come with us though. She stays with my sister and her family and Kapono has some fur cousins to play with there and is well taken care of which is a relief for me and Brad too I guess.
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Our travel days July 4 -July 19. The days actually spent in WDW would be the 5th-19th. We live in Wisconsin but very close to Minneapolis/St. Paul so we fly from there. It wouldn't be a bad drive to the airport in the morning, but I like to stay near the airport the night before departure.

Since we were going to be in WDW for so long we got a lot of comments from friends joking with us that we must be moving in, hence the title of the report here.

Our Resort: All Star Movies. We don't spend much time in the room so all we need is a clean place to sleep, shower, and store our stuff. We really aren't pool people, although we do use the pool, but if we built in a lot of pool time we would stay at the Beach Club again! Side note: The first time we ever tried to stay at the Movies we were upgraded upon check in to the Beach Club! We didn't ask for it, the magic just happened, it was the best deluxe accommodations for All Star prices! So now whenever we stay at the Movies we keep our fingers crossed on check in day!

Okay so let's start shall we....

On July 4th we spent most of the day with my sister and her family and left Kapono at her "vacation home" for the next two weeks. We drove up to the Minneapolis airport area by the Mall of America, and made a quick stop at Sam's Club for one more discount Disney gift card. The Sam's Club was closing, actually it was 10 minutes before their posted close time and the lady at the door didn't want to let us in. We literally had to go over to a stand near the register and get a gift card, she even called her manager who said it was okay to let us in. We departed the store 3 minutes before for the posted close time! Take that lady! Anyway, it was dinner time but neither of us wanted to sit in a restaurant we just wanted to relax in the hotel room for the night. So there was a sub place and a Lee Ann Chin (Minnesota based Chinese take out chain), and Chinese won out. So we got our take out and checked into the hotel for the night and ate our take out, and watched a Capital Fourth on PBS. Which was fantastic this year with John Stamos as the host. :inlove:

Us with our Chinese take out!
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Our flight left early, but we are early birds so despite being 5 minutes away from the terminal we got there early. Plus we were too excited to sleep! Funny thing, we flipped on the tv while we were getting ready and the Steve Harvey show was on and it was one of the Epcot episodes from earlier in the year that he was recording when we were there in March. We don't normally watch that show and we didn't go to the recording but we saw it being on as a good sign that the Disney gods were with us!
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We arrived in Orlando after an uneventful flight. We enjoyed some movies and tried to nap but again we were just too excited to sleep!
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Magical Express load went quick and soon we were HOME!
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And despite doing online check in and requesting early arrival our room wasn't ready. But that was fine, we had to stop at the front desk any way. I had lots of gift cards in my purse that we wanted to put on our account, we wanted to decline Mousekeeping, and make sure our room had a good position for the 2 weeks. Now we did decline Mousekeeping but we did have our room serviced twice while we were there. We are fairly neat, and I'm always tidying up the room anyway even with Mousekeeping so we figured we could survive without having it every day. Plus with the extra money we would be able to enjoy a good meal or some good drinks at Trader Sam's. So with all that squared away we put our carry ons with bell services and headed to the bus stop with a quick gander at the gift shop.

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Next up: Disney Springs!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
More of day 10 July 14

Lunch today was at Sanaa. It was a new restaurant for us and we were excited to try it. In short, the food was fantastic, we had a good server, but our table didn't have a fantastic view. We were kind of tucked into a corner area, so that was disappointing. I would ask for a better table next time, but by the time we got here (despite our snack) we were hungry.

It was also our first time at Kidani Village too.
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This was taken from the main lobby of Kidani Village.
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Bread service with all the dips. Yum!
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I got the Sanaa burger with seasoned house made chips. Yummy!
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Here's a look at the inside of it.
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At one point I wandered over to the main window area to take a picture of the view, we couldn't see this from our table at all.
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This was the smaller window that was closest to us, but still we couldn't see any of the view from our table.
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B got the AFrican sausage. He enjoyed it. Overall we loved the food but would wait for a better table next time.
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After our lunch we caught a bus back to AK to get back to the All Stars. The bus to AK came within about a minutes and we were let off in the same area of our All Star bus which also came within a couple minutes.
 

LMSB

Well-Known Member
More of day 10 July 14

Lunch today was at Sanaa. It was a new restaurant for us and we were excited to try it. In short, the food was fantastic, we had a good server, but our table didn't have a fantastic view. We were kind of tucked into a corner area, so that was disappointing. I would ask for a better table next time, but by the time we got here (despite our snack) we were hungry.

It was also our first time at Kidani Village too.
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This was taken from the main lobby of Kidani Village.
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Bread service with all the dips. Yum!
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I got the Sanaa burger with seasoned house made chips. Yummy!
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Here's a look at the inside of it.
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At one point I wandered over to the main window area to take a picture of the view, we couldn't see this from our table at all.
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This was the smaller window that was closest to us, but still we couldn't see any of the view from our table.
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B got the AFrican sausage. He enjoyed it. Overall we loved the food but would wait for a better table next time.
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After our lunch we caught a bus back to AK to get back to the All Stars. The bus to AK came within about a minutes and we were let off in the same area of our All Star bus which also came within a couple minutes.
We ate dinner at Sanaa last year & loved it! Definitely on our ADR list for our trip next year. Glad you enjoyed it also 😀
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
So while Brad went golfing I had to get ready for my tour. Today I was taking the Backstage Magic Tour. It was something I have wanted to do for quite a few years now but the price always scared me away. This year I bit the bullet and I'm so glad I did it was FABULOUS!!! And I wouldn't hesitate to go on it again!

But first I had some time before my tour and since Brad had to get going early I was up so I decided to actually eat breakfast in the Movies food court. Of course it was Mickey waffles but it was a nice change. So I took a few pictures on the way there.
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The tour met at Epcot at 9 am and today Epcot had extra magic hours. So the plan was to get to Epcot around 8 am, ride Spaceship Earth and then go to the tour meeting spot. So at about 7:40 am I got in line for the Epcot bus, and the bus wait time board said buses every 20 minutes (not helpful), but it was Extra Magic Hours so I was sure a bus would be along shortly. Well, at 8:17am a bus finally showed up. Can someone tell me why Disney Springs needed 4 buses that morning! I should have bailed earlier and gotten an Uber or something but with early hours a bus should have been showing up soon. So at 8:22 we were finally on our way. I was getting nervous, I like being places early, my husband is the same way, we joke that if we aren't at least 20 minutes early we are late! A few weeks prior to this trip I had taken a Florida trip with a college friend and that is the only thing that irritated me is she was always late and slow when getting ready, like I told her I wanted to be at Trader Sam's by 4pm, and well over an hour later we arrived. :( Anyway back to present time, so now I was envisioning everything that could go wrong an keep me from my tour, it was not a fun bus ride.

Luckily we didn't get stuck in traffic or anything and we arrived at Epcot. I made a quick stop at the restroom before heading to security which I was concerned about being backed up but I spent less than a minute in line for. Also on the walk to security I passed the meeting point for the tour and only one couple was waiting. So I breathed a sigh of relief and I could finally relax now. Shortly after I arrived at the meeting spot our guides for the day showed up.

Oh upon entering Epcot I took this picture of the Guardians construction, it is HUGE!
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Our main guides were Mindy and Peter. The guy with the hat just helped check people in.
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We got our badges.
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We weren't allowed to take pictures in backstage areas so Peter was our photographer at certain points. Even though this wasn't a backstage area we had starting tour shots.
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I will give a little schedule of our tour, but I won't give away any major secrets. We started out going backstage to our tour bus. On the bus water and snacks were available for us anytime we wanted. The snack was a package of gluten and allergy free chocolate chip cookies. And they were actually tasty. The bus took us around the access road to the American Adventure. There we were taken behind the scenes to see how the show is run. It was nice to see the old computer system that still runs the show, the scenes move (they were doing a test run while we were there), and to see some of the scenes up close. After that we got back on the bus and continued our journey on the backstage road and our next major stop was Costuming.


Oh my goodness!!!! This was so great. We got to see people working on designs and the sewing areas. There were also displays of old costumes, including ones from the Great Movie Ride. There was a wall of notions and scraps of different materials used in the costumes for the cat members. We learned a lot of tid bits about the designs and some of the particular costumes. Mindy told us about the design process and outcome of the costumes for the Rivers of Light show, which when I saw it a few days later made me appreciate it more. We were also allowed to hold some current and past costumes. Some of those costumes, like the Storybook Circus Minnie dress and the shell hula skirt of the Luau dancers are extremely heavy! It was just amazing to see all the art that goes into the costumes of cast members. There was so much to see, and if I had any good sewing talent I would want to work here! There was also so much I wanted to take pictures of but I'm a rule follower so I didn't. Although Peter did take our picture here.

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Dh and I hate being late for anything. The clocks in our cars are set 30 minutes fast to alleviate any anxiety.
The wall of thread is incredible! I would love to do that tour someday.
 

Minnesota disney fan

Well-Known Member
This might sound weird, but that first picture you took of Pandora and the mountain? It reminded me of a monkey side view, with it crouching. It really looked like a monkey head to me (part of mountain of left). Sanaa sounds fabulous. My daughter and family have reservations for it for their visit in March. My husband is NOT adventurous when it comes to dining, so he doesn't want to eat there:(
He sticks only to what he knows he will like, but I'm game for new food experiences. Oh well...……………………...
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
After we left Tom Sawyer Island we used our fast pass for BIg Thunder. Since it had been down for so long this morning, both the stand by and the fast pass line was quite long. There must of been some sort of water leak or something because our fast pass line was rerouted a different way (and was for the remaining days of our trip).

Here are a couple pictures of what I could see of something going on with the area in the fast pass line.
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And a bad selfie at the end of the ride.
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After Big Thunder we headed over to Pecos Bills and on the little bridge connecting we sent the restaurant the alert that we were there for our mobile order. By the time we got our condiments and table the food was ready. I got the fajita platter and Brad got the tacos (beef, hamburger, and spicy cauliflower). He liked all of them and was impressed with the cauliflower.
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He also got nachos and we got the queso dip (yum). We both got pretty full and ended up wasting some of the chips. We also wasted the big wad of salt and pepper in the picture too, the food was well seasoned and we didn't need them.
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Those cauliflower tacos were delicious. I hope they don’t get rid of them.
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
I love the picture of you with the Mickey ice cream bar!! Perfectly coordinated picture!!

Thanks! I hadn't actually planned to have a Mickey bar at AK but we were getting our picture taken by a photopass photographer by Festival of the Lion King and she suggested it. And I'm always down for ice cream. So we had dessert before heading to Sanaa. :cool:
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
We ate dinner at Sanaa last year & loved it! Definitely on our ADR list for our trip next year. Glad you enjoyed it also 😀

We had friends that ate dinner there in March and they are basically newbies to WDW and they loved it so we figured as veterans we should give it a whirl. I'm so glad we did, it is going into the rotation.

Dh and I hate being late for anything. The clocks in our cars are set 30 minutes fast to alleviate any anxiety.
The wall of thread is incredible! I would love to do that tour someday.

My clock in my car is 15 minutes fast and my bedroom alarm clock is also 15 minutes fast. And that wall of thread is cool I bet @figmentfan423 would love it too!

This might sound weird, but that first picture you took of Pandora and the mountain? It reminded me of a monkey side view, with it crouching. It really looked like a monkey head to me (part of mountain of left). Sanaa sounds fabulous. My daughter and family have reservations for it for their visit in March. My husband is NOT adventurous when it comes to dining, so he doesn't want to eat there:(
He sticks only to what he knows he will like, but I'm game for new food experiences. Oh well...……………………...

Hopefully there will be something that he will like. The burger I had might be a nice mild experience for him as well as the bread service.

Love that you went back and checked out all those details in the M&G areas! Someone put a lot of work into those and it probably doesn’t get looked at enough 😊

Being a big Duck Tales fan I knew I had to go back to check it out. I appreciate the details in all of Disney's work, that is what sets it apart from other parks.

Those cauliflower tacos were delicious. I hope they don’t get rid of them.

Hubs had to go meat free for a week this past spring and he rediscovered cauliflower. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and he got Korean Cauliflower and loved it, so now he is fair game for anything cauliflower (me not so much...).
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
More of day 10: July 14

We had a lazy afternoon at the resort, a little pool time and a long nap! When we got up we headed over to Disney Springs for part 2 of our Disney Springs Lounge crawl. When we did part one there were two places we really wanted to go to but just didn't have the room or energy for and those were: Morimoto's and Ragland Road.

When we did get to the Springs we checked out the Aerophile as we still had the voucher to use. And of course it wasn't running. I joked that these people working the Aerophile had the easiest jobs at Disney because it was never running!

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So we moseyed on to Morimoto's. Brad just wanted to go to the street food area because he said all he wanted was ribs but by the time we walked there I was really hot so I suggested sitting in the bar for some AC and this was supposed to be a lounge tour. So you probably can't tell but the table we were at had really low and I mean low seats. I was very proud I was actually able to get out of them!

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I got a soba wheat ale, and it had an interesting (not bad) flavor from the soba.
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A look at the main dining room.
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And for a guy who only wanted the ribs, once we got seated he found more things he wanted to share.

Wings:
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Pork belly bao
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and finally the ribs
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It was very good.
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Still day 10 (July 14)

After we left Morimoto's we headed to Raglan Road which was just across the way. And it was BUSY!!!! There were a lot of people waiting for a table and hubs had walked ahead of me into the bar area and said he didn't see anything. But right as he said that I saw 2 seats open and hustled my way over there.

We could see most of the dancers and musicians in the main area from our seat at the bar and here are some pictures of them
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Brad had decided to stick to rum and cokes tonight (so no pictures of his drinks). When the bartender came to take our drink order she told me of a brew on tap that was from a small brewery in Ireland and I decided on that. And no it wasn't the Heineken in the picture.
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It was okay, it had some weird smoky taste. I wouldn't order it again, but it was better than some beers I've had.
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We enjoyed our drinks and music for awhile and then decided to order an appetizer and we went with the battered sausages. These were so good! Much better than the battered banger I had at the Rose and Crown a few days earlier.
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Eventually we left the restaurant and headed to the boat dock.
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The boat to Saratoga Springs was just getting ready to leave but when they saw us they waited for us, which was excellent!
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We headed to Saratoga Springs to catch a bus back to Animal Kingdom. The bus stop wasn't too hard to find once we got to Saratoga but it did take us past the Lake Buena Vista Club house so B wanted to show it to me and get my thoughts on some of the golf stuff he wanted to buy. Once we did get to the bus stop it was a short wait until the AK bus showed up and soon we were in front of the Tree of Life.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Still day 10 (July 14)

We watched the Tree of Life projections for a little bit, and I was happy that the Disney medley one was the second one we saw.
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The Up bird show building was lit up really nice, very festive.
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We were headed to the Rivers of Light show, on the way we made a pit stop into a store to get some bottled drinks.

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It was interesting to see this costume as it walked past us, I had learned a little story about the making and development of these costumes on my Backstage Magic tour.
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One of hubs pictures from the end of the show.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
End of Day 10 (July 14)

And some pictures of the Rivers of Light show. I really like this show, the music is great and I enjoy the floats on the water and while the water screens can sometimes be blurry tonight they were not. It may not have a WOW! factor like fireworks but I still find it enjoyable.

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After Rivers we made our way out of the park and back to the Movies for the night.

Coming up: Epcot and a brunch
 

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