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
Cannot wait to relive your adventures! :)
What an upgrade!!! I have dreamed of upgrades like that.
Just like pizza and pie, right?;)

I'm glad you are here to relive adventures. And I know I will probably never get another upgrade like that again to the Beach Club or another deluxe so I was very grateful. Although we were on the trip with my parents and my sister and her family so I felt guilty about leaving them at the All Star, but not guilty enough to turn it down! :joyfull: And pizza and pie are great anytime!;)
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
It’s time for a little BA

Not bad attitude...

Brad and Amy!!!

Following along

Max

Glad you are here Max! And now very glad that our initials are B and A and not B&O! :joyfull:

I'm excited to hear all about it!!

Glad you are here, I have been enjoying your report a lot!

I'm here too! So jealous of the extended WDW time you guys have! I will be living vicariously through you guys until I can get back in a Disney bubble. :joyfull:

It's great you are here! I hope you get back in the Disney bubble soon, although I'm jealous of all your adventures outside the Disney bubble!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Okay continuing on.....We had arrived at Disney Springs and we had some time before our lunch reservation so we decided to see if the Aerophile was running. @Zipitidoda had been so generous and sent me a 2 for 1 voucher she had been unable to use on her trip for the Aerophile. It was something we had never done and we were excited to try it. So we moseyed over there and it was shut down due to weather, high winds that the elevation it would fly up to. Darn it!

So we checked out the Star Wars shop and the Disney Style shop nearby. The Disney Style shop...OMG! So many things I wanted. I could have bought the whole store. But I decided to just look and take a few pictures and think about what I really wanted and liked. I had 2 weeks here, I could take my time to decide.

Inside the Star Wars Store
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I think I could have a few places to post this....at home, in my classroom....;):)
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Inside the Disney Style store
I thought the pillow was cute, but I thought that Kapono might like it. She loves to sleep on pillows. Her favorite is a Darth Vader one, which is funny because she used to be totally black except for white around her ears, feet and her eye brows so Brad would call her Darth Vader. But Brad said the dog didn't need another pillow so I reluctantly put it back.
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Unlike @Tuvalu I love spinning in the tea cups. I think I could spin in them all day, I would love the chance to make a Guinness World record in them. I would have to do this record breaking alone because hubs can't handle the cups. But anyway, I was pleased to see the cup as a photo op in the store. Too bad it didn't spin, although I did pretend.
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Then I saw the big castle mural and thought it was cool but kind of odd that they would have a large section with just a mural and no merchandise. Disney, with that mural you are losing money! I took a selfie with it anyway though.
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Then I spied the most lovely clothes.....I am on #teamcitrusswirl so I love the Orange Bird so I went gaga when I saw this stuff!
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On another visit I ended up buying the shorts and the gray matching orange bird shirt. No I will not be a geek and wear them together, that is too matchy matchy for me. I liked the blue design better for a shirt but it was long sleeve and I didn't want a long sleeve and the grey was short sleeve. I also liked the blue tiki room one and ended up buying that when I finally made my purchases later in the week.
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It was time to leave the store and head to lunch.
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Rista1313

Well-Known Member
Okay continuing on.....We had arrived at Disney Springs and we had some time before our lunch reservation so we decided to see if the Aerophile was running. @Zipitidoda had been so generous and sent me a 2 for 1 voucher she had been unable to use on her trip for the Aerophile. It was something we had never done and we were excited to try it. So we moseyed over there and it was shut down due to weather, high winds that the elevation it would fly up to. Darn it!

So we checked out the Star Wars shop and the Disney Style shop nearby. The Disney Style shop...OMG! So many things I wanted. I could have bought the whole store. But I decided to just look and take a few pictures and think about what I really wanted and liked. I had 2 weeks here, I could take my time to decide.

Inside the Star Wars Store
View attachment 301983

I think I could have a few places to post this....at home, in my classroom....;):)
View attachment 301992

Inside the Disney Style store
I thought the pillow was cute, but I thought that Kapono might like it. She loves to sleep on pillows. Her favorite is a Darth Vader one, which is funny because she used to be totally black except for white around her ears, feet and her eye brows so Brad would call her Darth Vader. But Brad said the dog didn't need another pillow so I reluctantly put it back.
View attachment 301985

Unlike @Tuvalu I love spinning in the tea cups. I think I could spin in them all day, I would love the chance to make a Guinness World record in them. I would have to do this record breaking alone because hubs can't handle the cups. But anyway, I was pleased to see the cup as a photo op in the store. Too bad it didn't spin, although I did pretend.
View attachment 301995

Then I saw the big castle mural and thought it was cool but kind of odd that they would have a large section with just a mural and no merchandise. Disney, with that mural you are losing money! I took a selfie with it anyway though.
View attachment 301998


Then I spied the most lovely clothes.....I am on #teamcitrusswirl so I love the Orange Bird so I went gaga when I saw this stuff!
View attachment 301996

On another visit I ended up buying the shorts and the gray matching orange bird shirt. No I will not be a geek and wear them together, that is too matchy matchy for me. I liked the blue design better for a shirt but it was long sleeve and I didn't want a long sleeve and the grey was short sleeve. I also liked the blue tiki room one and ended up buying that when I finally made my purchases later in the week.
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It was time to leave the store and head to lunch. View attachment 301999

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Yay #teamcitrusswirl! I'm here to support that!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Lunch today was at Art Smith's Homecomin'. We had brunch planned for this restaurant on our second Sunday in which I knew I was going to get something with fried chicken so I made myself order something else.

I went with the BBQ pork, so yummy. I am finicky about my BBQ, I don't like it very sweet, I would rather have more vinegar. This sauce was a good balance. I also don't like a lot of sauce and there wasn't too much sauce on the pork but next time I might ask for light sauce (if possible) and some on the side. The side was mac and cheese and a cheese biscuit. Oh we also got an order of the hush puppies but I guess I didn't take a picture.
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Hubs also decided to go with non-chicken since he too knew he was going to be getting chicken in the future. He got the catfish. He enjoyed it. I don't like fish/seafood. It ended up being a lot of food and we took some back to the hotel. Because you know as soon as we left the Movies on the way to Disney Springs we got the text our room was ready!
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An upward view from our table.
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A view of our the restaurant. B is sitting at the table in black on the right.
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So with being so full and waking up so early we decided to go back to the Movies and drop off our food and take a nap before heading to the Studios for the evening. When we got to our room our my suitcase and carry on bag was in the room and Brad's carry on was there but not his suitcase. He started freaking out, I told him to calm down and I'm sure it wasn't lost. He doesn't freak out over much so I'm sure he was just a little over tired. Anyway, he called bell services calmly and they said they had his suitcase, for some reason it had separated from the rest of the group. They said they would bring it up soon. So I unpacked my bags and his still hadn't arrived so we settled in to nap for an hour and as soon as we turned off the light bell services knocked and the bag had arrived!

After our nap we headed over to the Studios. We had a fast pass for Aliens and we were eager to check out Toy Storyland. Here are our first impression pictures.
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I didn't know that Woody, Jessie, & Rex talked and I was pleasantly surprised with that Disney touch!
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No more Midway Mania just Mania. That's fine that's what I always called it anyway, but only a 35 minute wait in the middle of the day. Now that's something I can like! Although I don't know why I have such a weird smile on my face.
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We both loved that the girls bathroom is a box of Cooties! We thought it was a cute touch that a little boy like Andy would do because of course girls have cooties! I was also glad I didn't have to go to the bathroom because both men's and women's were closed for some reason.
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We were amazed and thrilled with the view we could get into Galaxy's Edge. My little Star Wars nerd was enthralled!


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Up next: Our first ride on Aliens and a surprise for the husband!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
I'm in! Love that orange bird shirt. I will definitely look for it in October!

I regret not buying the blue one too. What was I thinking?! I live in Wisconsin I NEED long sleeve shirts! I did heavily hint to my husband and my sister (who was there 2 weeks after us) that I regretted it in hopes that one of them would buy it for me for Christmas. I think it passed right by my husband's brain though. I will have to hope that my sis was astute enough when I texted her the hint with the size I would need.:)

I know you must have loved the DisneyStyle merch to purchase it, rather than just photographing it! :joyfull:

Notice that I took the pictures before purchasing! I had to make sure it was what I really wanted. ;) Plus if I bought everything I kind of liked I would be in debt to the moon!;):cool:

Yay #teamcitrusswirl! I'm here to support that!

Yay another member of #teamcitrusswirl! :cool:
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
I just finished my calculations. There is a 90% chance of being at WDW the same time as either Amy & Brad or @Tuvalu .

If I sound jealous it's because I am. :happy:

Looking forward to the latest adventures!

Haha! Good calculations! :) I'm a Disney addict but it's and addiction I just can't stop! It would be fun to run into you and your family some day at Disney!

So excited for your report! I didn't know you could pre-load your Disney gift cards. We always go to the desk with them to pay our bill.

We always put it on our account at the start of the trip. They just credit the account, then we don't have to worry about it the rest of the trip. We do that on the Disney cruises too, first stop is guest relations to add all the gift cards, second stop is the buffet!:cool:
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
I can't wait to read more! Do you park your car at a hotel in Minneapolis or park at the airport? I'd like a different option for a hotel; the one we always stay at is a little far away but I can't seem to find another one that has parking for long enough.

We have done the park and fly at a couple different hotels but we got tired of the hassle of the shuttles so now we just park at the airport. Even if we are flying out of Terminal 1 (Lindbergh terminal) we will park at Terminal 2 (Humphrey) because it is cheaper. The park and flys we have used is the Comfort Inn in Bloomington (it has an Outback Steakhouse attached) and Country Inn Bloomington West (but it has recently been converted into a Holiday Inn). Now when we just stay it is usually in whatever Hilton hotel is cheapest by the Mall of America. So we have stayed recently at the Hilton Airport, Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, and The Hampton Inn airport. Why the Hilton's? I'm trying to save enough points for a stay near Tokyo Disneyland. Anyway, I did check into all of their park and fly and they all have longer options than just a week. If you don't see it on their site when booking call and of course they charge you for the extra days too.
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster

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