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
When my window for booking fast passes for this day opened Slinky Dog fast passes of course were gone so my choices were Alien or Mania. We picked Alien since it was a ride we haven't been on before. As reports were confirmed that Alien Swirling Saucers was just Mater's from DCA rethemed I was worried. Not to for myself, but for the husband. He refuses to ride Mater's at DCA because of the spinning although I always tell him he can handle, but of course he doesn't listen and will not ride Mater's.

I kept looking to change our fast pass to Slinky, but no luck. Finally I told Brad what the reports were on Alien and asked him if he wanted to switch to something else. I figured if he wouldn't ride Maters he won't ride Alien. But no, he said that he wanted to Alien. I reminded him of his aversion to Maters and he said that he thought people were just wrong :)cautious::rolleyes:) in there reporting and he would be fine.

So now we were here and the time of truth came. We were both fascinated by the design of the attraction it looked fun, the music (techno Toy Story) was sounding awesome, and people were spinning in Aliens. And they were spinning in the same type of attraction as Maters (told you so Brad!). I fully expected him to back out but he didn't. He said he wanted to ride together so he would slide around as much, so that's what we did.

Well, I thought the attraction was super fun and so did he! He laughed, smiled, and had a great time. We got off and he said he was surprised at how fun it was and was looking forward to riding again. I was glad that I had been right that he would be fine on the Mater style attraction, so I asked him, "So next time we are at DCA you'll go on Mater's with me?" He said, "I don't know they still might not be the same." Then me at that moment was like.....o_O:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

Well now that you have read all that here are some pictures of the Alien Swirling Saucers and the area around it.
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This is by the bathroom actually which is across from A. S. S. , it's Andy's footprint.
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Quick spoiler story on this pizza window (there are more around the attraction) we found out later in our trip from an Imagineer (who worked on Toy Storyland) that they spent a lot of time and money on designing these windows and they were sure after they saw the finished windows that the window would be the new Instramgamable background for people. (Note: they didn't design the window with Instagram in mind just tried to make cool designs) And they are surprised that they are not and it is the Popsicle wall in the Mania exit that has people buzzing which was an afterthought and put up quickly.
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The claw.......
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
After riding Alien we wanted to get a closer view of the area around Slinky Dog and check it out a little so we headed over that way. The wait time was over an hour and we didn't have that kind of time for it at that moment so we just watched for awhile before heading out.
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We loved all the little green Army men around the land who are always on the lookout for Andy! It was a little bit of a game for us to try to spot them.
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Then of course Brad got stopped by one.
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Such a cute height measuring tool.
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PacNWTigger

Well-Known Member
Your TSL pics are making it more difficult to stick to my guns about not going back to WDW until their Star Wars Land opens up...LOL!! :hilarious:

Oh...you're 100% correct about A.S.S. being the same ride mechanic as Maters. Don't let Brad try to tell you otherwise. ;) Maybe his aversion to Mater is Mater's singing during the ride. I know S tries to overlook that piece of the ride when we're down there. :facepalm:
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
We headed out of the Toy Story area and I took a picture of the old Pixar Place. This would be my last view and picture of this place from this spot, the next time we went it was walled off.
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We headed over to Star Tours for our fast pass, no pictures of that but we did stop in front of this as we passed by the Chinese Theater.
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After Star Tours, hubby started talking about going to Launch Bay. He wanted to renew his friendship with Chewy, I did not want to go to Launch Bay yet, that didn't work with my plan. So as we were walking over that way the cast members from the Frozen Sing Along opened the gates at the top of the stairs and were trying to get people to come into the show. They said the show was starting in 2 minutes, so we both agreed to detour to an air conditioned theater. Hubs said he was going to take a nap, but he did not . We were both entertained by this show.
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After Frozen got done we headed to the Tower of Terror to use our fast pass. Brad still wanted to go to Launch Bay and I assured him we would go over after Tower and before our dinner reservation. On the way to Tower we did stop in the old Sweet Spells shop to look at the Toy Story merchandise. We didn't buy any (but I took plenty of pictures), eventually I did buy the red Toy Story tee shirt.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Your TSL pics are making it more difficult to stick to my guns about not going back to WDW until their Star Wars Land opens up...LOL!! :hilarious:

Oh...you're 100% correct about A.S.S. being the same ride mechanic as Maters. Don't let Brad try to tell you otherwise. ;) Maybe his aversion to Mater is Mater's singing during the ride. I know S tries to overlook that piece of the ride when we're down there. :facepalm:

This Toy Storyland is so cute, it does make it tough to stay away. Did you ever make it to the Toy Story area at the Walt Disney Studios park in Disneyland Paris? That is kind of dumpy compared to what is now in WDW.

Eventually later in the trip Brad finally relented on his opinion that Alien and Maters were different. He said he probably will go on Mater not but did say that he digs the theme of Alien better. And he right with that thought. Especially at night, Alien is kind of like a disco! Mater's signing kind of annoying on that ride in DCA.
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
After Tower we headed to Launch Bay but had a quick stop along the way. Brad checked to see if his Magic Band would let him into Club 33 and sadly it didn't (an never will! :cry:).
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So as far as Brad was concerned we were stopping in quick to Launch Bay for him to renew his friendship with Chewbacca then we would head to dinner at Sci-Fi. Because that was the restaurant listed on our schedule. Well, I had other plans....

Around the middle of June I thought it would fun to surprise Brad with a belated birthday gift of the Star Wars dessert party. There were openings and I booked it. One problem though....it shows up in My Disney Experience! I wanted it to be a surprise in the park the day of. So I told him I had a surprise for him at Disney but he was banned from going on MDE until I told him he could go on the app. You might be thinking well he probably peeked, but he swears that he didn't and he really can't tell a lie or bluff easily (I can tell when he tries). And he knows that he would have to face my wrath if he peeked. Plus from the middle of June until 2 days before we left he was wrapped up in church stuff: Vacation Bible School, taking kids to camp, and taking kids to a large youth gathering in Houston so it wasn't in his upper most thoughts.

So anyway, we start walking over to Launch Bay and I see the dessert party check in stand set up outside. He is heading to the entrance and I start to detour to the check in desk, and he gives me a what the heck are you doing look. And I just looked back at him and said, "Well we might as well check in since they are set up." Brad gives me now a totally confused look and as I give my name to the cast member, Brad says, "Does this mean we are not eating at the Sci-Fi then?". I told him that we weren't eating at the Sci-fi but "Happy Birthday we are going to the Star Wars dessert party!" He then went from confused to elated! He was one happy boy!

He immediately put on his lanyard and he said he felt like a VIP.
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After check in he said we could meet Chewy later maybe when we went back in for the party, well we didn't end up seeing him that day but a couple days later. I think he wanted to walk around the park a bit with his special lanyard and make people jealous.

Somehow we ended up in the store by the Little Mermaid show and modeled the Slinky ears. We did not purchase.
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A couple more merch pictures.
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We ended up going back to Launch Bay and looking around and got interrogated by Storm Troppers.
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We then waited for the dessert party to open and we were the second family into the party and they sent us in for our character meet and greet first, although they do have an assigned time for you to go on your table, which is an assigned table.

A blurry pic of some party set up.
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And our meeting with Kylo Ren. Brad is always slightly freaked out by him and I always end up with some sort of strange look on my face. It is never our best meet and greet picture.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
We survived our meeting with Kylo, although hubs did taunt him by calling him Ben. It was time to get our eat on! I had recently done the Frozen dessert party a few weeks prior with my friend when we were on our Florida trip and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Brad and I had done the Star Wars dessert party (a few years ago) and the Jingle Bell Jingle BAM party before so we knew we were in for some good stuff, I just hoped it lived up the my Frozen one, I fell in love with the cheese fondue there.

Well no worries here, the food was great. I loved the sun dried tomato feta stuff, the chocolate peanut cupcakes, and nitro station with nutella nitro. I kept visiting that nitro guy a little too often! Brad enjoyed the food a lot too. We also like that at the end of the party they encouraged us to take stuff out to the viewing area with us. So I didn't pass up that opportunity for an beer.
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The delicious nitro dessert.
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
When we got out to the viewing area it was raining, but it was a light rain. We had our ponchos with so it wasn't a big deal, although it meant I had to drink my roadie beer faster. It also meant no sitting on the ground to relax and watch the show as I had pictured. Oh well, by standing we burned off more of those Star Wars dessert calories right? I've hear that standing burns more calories than sitting, and if it doesn't don't take way my dream....

So here are a few pictures of the Movie Magic Show and the Star Wars show for you to enjoy....
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I really like the Movie Magic show, it has scenes from some of my favorite movies (Indy, Mary Poppins, & Guardians) but it also features Zorro. Last summer I decided to check out the Zorro series from my library system. I was sure that I wouldn't like it but something made me check it out anyway. I ended up loving the series and was very sad when I got to the last episode. I wish that Disney had gone longer than 2 seasons for it, but I guess there so issues and never returned to the series to have more episodes as planned. Luckily seasons of tv shows had more episodes in the 1950's than today so there was still a lot of Zorro for me to watch. Anyway, if you have never seen the Zorro episodes, do yourself a favor check them out, it is fantastic!
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Time for Star Wars.
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This is a picture of the Star Wars gear from the night back in our room. The AT AT popcorn bucket was not from the party, but hubs has been wanting it for a long time and it was always sold out so he pounced on it as soon as he saw it that night. The Phasma mug is from the party, which he was pretty stoked about because the last time we got Chewy mugs.
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So that is the end of Day one....plenty more to come!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
The Kylo Ren meet is awful! LOL. I did it in 2016 and look so uncomfortable in the pics. Wouldn't do it again.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels a little awkward with him. I just love that my husband gets a little scared of him.

He freaks me out also!!
What a nice birthday surprise for Brad!!

I like surprising Brad in 2015 I surprised him with a trip to WDW. He thought we were spending the weekend in Minneapolis by the Mall of America. I told him about 3 days before we went were we were really going. I should have recorded that because his reaction was priceless.
 

CoreNovawarAMM

Well-Known Member
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. View attachment 302011


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!
Where is that restaurant? That BBQ looks AMAZING!🤤
 

CoreNovawarAMM

Well-Known Member
When we got out to the viewing area it was raining, but it was a light rain. We had our ponchos with so it wasn't a big deal, although it meant I had to drink my roadie beer faster. It also meant no sitting on the ground to relax and watch the show as I had pictured. Oh well, by standing we burned off more of those Star Wars dessert calories right? I've hear that standing burns more calories than sitting, and if it doesn't don't take way my dream....

So here are a few pictures of the Movie Magic Show and the Star Wars show for you to enjoy....
View attachment 302363View attachment 302364View attachment 302365

I really like the Movie Magic show, it has scenes from some of my favorite movies (Indy, Mary Poppins, & Guardians) but it also features Zorro. Last summer I decided to check out the Zorro series from my library system. I was sure that I wouldn't like it but something made me check it out anyway. I ended up loving the series and was very sad when I got to the last episode. I wish that Disney had gone longer than 2 seasons for it, but I guess there so issues and never returned to the series to have more episodes as planned. Luckily seasons of tv shows had more episodes in the 1950's than today so there was still a lot of Zorro for me to watch. Anyway, if you have never seen the Zorro episodes, do yourself a favor check them out, it is fantastic!
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Time for Star Wars.
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This is a picture of the Star Wars gear from the night back in our room. The AT AT popcorn bucket was not from the party, but hubs has been wanting it for a long time and it was always sold out so he pounced on it as soon as he saw it that night. The Phasma mug is from the party, which he was pretty stoked about because the last time we got Chewy mugs.
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So that is the end of Day one....plenty more to come!
Nice photos! I especially like the last two...I’ve been eyeing that AT-AT popcorn bucket for awhile now.
 

riverside

Well-Known Member
I like surprising Brad in 2015 I surprised him with a trip to WDW. He thought we were spending the weekend in Minneapolis by the Mall of America. I told him about 3 days before we went were we were really going. I should have recorded that because his reaction was priceless.
That's so neat!! My family was always big on surprising each other by showing up down there. MDE has made that a bit difficult though.....
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Where is that restaurant? That BBQ looks AMAZING!🤤
It would be fun to run into you guys at Disney sometime too!
Nice photos! I especially like the last two...I’ve been eyeing that AT-AT popcorn bucket for awhile now.

Art Smith's Homecoming is at Disney Springs, over by Morimoto's which is really good too. It would be fun to meet another Magic member. The At-At bucket has been on my husband's to buy list for awhile now, but they were always sold out when we went so get one while you can!
 

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