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!
 

MySmallWorldof4

Well-Known Member
Day 3: July 7 It's an Animal Kingdom Day and we are ready for a WILD time!

To start our day we had the breakfast of champions at our resort before heading to AK.
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Once at Animal Kingdom while about 96% of the people headed to Pandora we headed to the right and roped dropped Expedition Everest. Brad can't do back to back rides but I got 5 rides in and he rode on every other one. I love those Pandora crowds because it leaves Everest a walk on!
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Once the queue for Everest started to get more of a wait instead of a walk on we headed to Dinosaur only to find that it was down. Oh well.
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We headed back to Asia and did the jungle trek there. Unfortunately the tigers weren't very active this morning but a lot of other things were.
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What I wouldn't do for a Mickey Waffle now.
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
After our jungle trek, we had a fast pass for Everest so we went back there. Then onto the Gorilla Falls Exploration trail. We enjoy these trails a lot, especially when it isn't too hot out and it was hot but not too bad yet.
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This little guy was so ugly he was cute!
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I like how these two looked all snuggled up.
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The meerkats were very active, the one in front reminded me of my dog. She likes to lounge and sometimes has a look like that on her face that is like "yeah, I know I'm cool."
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After seeing the gorillas snack we got a snack, and actually my blood sugar was quite low so we grabbed a Mickey Premium bar. We ate it at the Dawa Bar, we were also tempted by some of the drinks at the bar but we decided to just stick to the ice cream.
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We headed around back to Dinoland and Brad bought me my Mickey Premium Bar ears!
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He was also annoyed with his drawstring backpack and decided to invest in another one for the trip.
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LMSB

Well-Known Member
Lunch today was at the Plaza. I wanted to share a chocolate shake but hubs said he wasn't in the mood. Since I didn't want one all on my own, there was no ice cream for us today.

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We did have an enjoyable lunch. B got the brisket burger with chips.
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And I got the Ruben which wasn't really a Ruben because I hate sauerkraut and asked them to leave it off. So it was a delicious corned beef sandwich. I got the fries. We both wanted fries and chips so we did share those. It was a mistake getting the fries, they were fine but the house-made chips were infinitely better.
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If you don't mind looking at food with a bite out of it, here's a closer look.
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After lunch we had a fast pass for 7D (I think I said we used it earlier, but I was wrong. It was after lunch.) Then we headed out of the park to swim and nap.

Here is us being dorks on a mine train.
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I have my hands in this jazz-hands style because I didn't want to block the lady behind me in case she actually wanted to see her face in the on-ride picture.
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You're a very considerate rider -- I wish the person in front of my husband had done that:D
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ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
Once in Dinoland our goal was not to ride Dinosaur but to get character pictures. Getting my picture with Launchpad McQuack and Scrooge McDuck was a must do at some point on this trip, well that some point was today. And I was super excited, Ducktales was one of my favorites as a kid and I do like the reboot but the original is best.

I loved the back drops too there were so many cool details, we went back another day when it was empty to look a little more closely.
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And I always love interacting with Chip and Dale but with them in their Dino costumes, it was almost too cute!
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We we did tear ourselves away from cuteness and headed back to Africa for a safari.
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After the safari we had the Caring For Giants tour lined up. Oh my, I can not say enough good things about this tour. We loved having some up close time to observe and learn more about the elephants. Plus we were the only ones on this tour so we didn't have anyone asking annoying questions, it felt very VIP. The price is very economical (I think under $30), the proceeds go to the wildlife conservation fund, you learn cool stuff about elephants and Africa, and it is only an hour so very easy to fit into your day.

Here are some pictures from the tour.
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And I thought this was interesting, it is a model of a an elephants foot. Look at all that padding in the foot! I wish my feet had that much cushion for walking around Disney parks!
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Songbird76

Well-Known Member
Lunch today was at the Plaza. I wanted to share a chocolate shake but hubs said he wasn't in the mood. Since I didn't want one all on my own, there was no ice cream for us today.

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We did have an enjoyable lunch. B got the brisket burger with chips.
View attachment 302870

And I got the Ruben which wasn't really a Ruben because I hate sauerkraut and asked them to leave it off. So it was a delicious corned beef sandwich. I got the fries. We both wanted fries and chips so we did share those. It was a mistake getting the fries, they were fine but the house-made chips were infinitely better.
View attachment 302871

If you don't mind looking at food with a bite out of it, here's a closer look.
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After lunch we had a fast pass for 7D (I think I said we used it earlier, but I was wrong. It was after lunch.) Then we headed out of the park to swim and nap.

Here is us being dorks on a mine train.
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I have my hands in this jazz-hands style because I didn't want to block the lady behind me in case she actually wanted to see her face in the on-ride picture.
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That's so thoughtful of you not to block someone's face with your hands. I won't let my kids put their hands up either for the same reason. It's awful to get your picture and not even be able to see your face. Looks like you are having fun, though!!! My kids are trying to convince me that I should take some dramamine so I can go on SDMT next Summer. They say I HAVE to go on it because it's awesome, but I really don't like coasters.
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Original Poster
That's so thoughtful of you not to block someone's face with your hands. I won't let my kids put their hands up either for the same reason. It's awful to get your picture and not even be able to see your face. Looks like you are having fun, though!!! My kids are trying to convince me that I should take some dramamine so I can go on SDMT next Summer. They say I HAVE to go on it because it's awesome, but I really don't like coasters.

Thanks for teaching your kids to be considerate! :)

7D isn't too bad of a starter coaster because it is short and you get a nice lull in the middle as you go through the mine. It might be worth it to give it a shot.
 

Minnesota disney fan

Well-Known Member
Thanks so much for reviewing the Caring for Giants tour! I have been thinking about adding that to our agenda in December. I've always loved elephants, so your review and pictures have convinced me. Is there much walking with it? Just wondering about how long it takes to do the tour and can you sit down for a while?
Also, the California Grill is on my bucket list. This is our second trip this year, and we are celebrating our 50th anniversary. So, I think I will knock that off the bucket list and make an ADR for this. One question? What time did you make your reservation so you could see the fireworks from your table? We are early supper people, but would make an exception for the fireworks. Do the CM's mind if you linger over your meal so you can see the fireworks, or do they hurry you along/???
Sorry for all the questions, but a lot to think about:)
 

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