Trip Report Completed: March 5-14, 2020: Our Return to WDW and the "Hips and Elbows People, Hips and Elbows!" edition

Hello everyone! It has been one month since we made our return to Walt Disney World, it was 593 days since we had been there. We hadn't been without Disney trips, we were annual passholders of Disneyland during that time. More info in my pre-trip report. Needless to say we were were excited to return. I was a little apprehensive for a few reasons: 1. what if I didn't like WDW as much any more after being away so long and maybe I had fallen too much in love with Disneyland. 2. I was slightly worried about this corona virus thing (maybe I should have been more worried), but I was hopeful we would get through the trip without having to think about it.

In case you don't want to go back to my pre-trip report let me give you a few more details:

Who: Amy and Brad (my husband)
Resort: Pop Century



Let's begin:

March 5, 2020

We had an early morning flight, it is a pain getting up at 3 am but we do like getting to our destination early and being able to spend a lot of our day at our vacation destination. Plus we were early birds so it wasn't too bad. Luckily there wasn't a snow storm and our flight out of Minneapolis was on schedule!

Not much was open so early but Caribou coffee!

Coming up more of our journey and lots of fun, food and beer!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

More of the butterfly house before we went to Imagination. The Figment topiary was so cute!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

A little more of Imagination. Then we checked out the sorcerer Mickey topiary before checking out the flower quilt.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

The flower quilt was beautiful as always and we enjoyed the Mickey & gang topiaries before heading over to Test Track.

 

[LisaBelle]

I've been wondering what is going to happen with all the buffets now.

I'm so happy that you have resumed your TR!!

We live in Ohio and restaurants have begun to reopen. One of the reopening guidelines stated that buffets would have to have an employee serving the food to the guests. I haven't been to one yet so I can't confirm this, but it seems like that would be the best way to keep the buffets functioning.

Monday March 9, 2020

The projections on the Tree of Life are in my opinion super gorgeous. It was fun to watch the show. I just wish there were some good benches to watch it from! Ha ha!
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After watching the projections for awhile we headed to the bus stop. We clearly hadn't watched the projections long enough because the bus line was still long. We finally got on the 3rd bus that came by and we had to stand just barely making it on the bus for that. Overall it was pretty great day. Animal Kingdom is a park that is really growing on me (no pun intended). I think it still needs a few attractions, I think an Australia section would be cool. I always thought that Camp Minnie-Mickey could have been developed more and featured more North American animals.

Coming up: A day of festival fun at Epcot!

Gorgeous photos of the Tree of Life projections! These made me feel like I was there!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

B and his car at Test Track. Mine ended up winning but I don't know what happened to the picture of my car.

Off we went to the temporary Mouse Gear to do some browsing/shopping.

Interesting placement for Bambi and friends.

Found Spike!

I wonder what will happen to the Orange Bird magnets now?

I thought these were pretty rad, so I got a pair.

I should have bought this glass at that time. I figured I would wait, there seemed to be plenty of them. Went back 2 days later and they were sold out! But the shop Disney still had them but now I didn't get my discount and I had to pay shipping. Ugh. The glass is awesome though.

Thought about this pitcher. But decided to pass and I'm okay with that.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

Time to head over for our Spaceship Earth fast pass and some construction on the way.

Hello Beautiful! I love Cinderella castle but Spaceship Earth is just fascinating to look at . We are definitely ball people, just like @JenniferS and her husband!

In our time machine!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

Let’s take a trip through time. I apologize for any blurry pictures.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

It was time to head back to World Showcase and get some good Flower and Garden eat. First stop the Honey Bee-stro.

We shared the tandoori chicken flatbread (this was excellent, a festival favorite), B at the roasted veggie (he like it), and I had the cheesecake (really good) and B ate some of the ice cream on the cheesecake plate.

Then we went to the Citrus Blossom. The beer flight was good, nothing too outstanding. And we shared the orange chicken thing. The sauce had a nice orange taste but the chicken was dry and over fried.

I got the orange cake. It was fine but didn't have much orange flavor. The mandarin oranges were the best part.

Brad enjoyed the tuna dish at the Citrus Blossom.

And a couple more views of the big flower quilt.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

Some more views before moving on to more food.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

We had the Impossible Meatball from the Trowel and Trellis next. It was really good. B and I just shared one, but towards the end of the trip we each got our own. @figmentfan423 and @MySmallWorldof4 I think you would have enjoyed this.

We had all three dishes from this stand here is a description from the Disney Food Blog of the food:

• Grilled Street Corn on the Cob with Savory Garlic Spread (GF) (Plant-based) (KA) – $5.75, DDP Snack Eligible
• Impossible™ Farmhouse Meatball with Lentil Bread, Spinach, Marinated Vegetables, and Creamy Herb Dressing (Plant-based) – $5.75, DDP Snack Eligible
• Chocolate Pudding Terrarium with Avocado Cream, Matcha Crumble, and Baby Herbs (GF) (Plant-based) – $5.25, DDP Snack Eligible

The street corn was good. The corn was a little cold but it had good flavor.

The pudding....we had a love/hate with it. The chocolate was tasty and rich but the matcha stuff was a bit off maybe there was too much. The pudding was a bit chalky and let a strange aftertaste/film feeling in our mouth.

We had to rush over to catch the next show of Mariachi Cobre. I always look forward to their show but I really wanted to see their Coco themed show.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

More of the Mariachi Cobre show.

After the show we looked at the pretty orchids and headed inside for the ride.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

I really like the new color scheme on the Odyssey building. I think it looks fresh.

We checked out the Epcot Experience area and it was interesting to watch the show. We saw the model at D23 Expo but at Expo they didn't do all the fun projections on it.

Kind of creepy.....

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

Fun photo op area.

While we were exploring inside it started to rain. We didn't want to get wet so we relaxed inside for about 15 minutes until it had passed.

And more food. I got the mango beer from Isla Fresca, Brad got the tropical freeze with rum, and I ate the Tropical Mousse Cup: Layers of Passion Fruit Cake, Coconut Mousse and a Tropical Fruit Glaze with Fresh Pineapple. All very good.

We stopped at Northern Bloom next. I took a taste of the beef it was good and B ate all the scallops.

I enjoyed the Unibroue Éphémère Apple Wheat Ale, it was apple-y.

I thought these little make your own topiaries were cute and I was going to get one. But I worried about room in my suitcase. My sister was planning a trip over Easter and she was driving down so I figured she could bring me back one or two. Well, I should have just bought it and crammed it in my suitcase since she had her trip canceled.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

Onward we went to the American Adventure.

A new booth this year was Magnolia Terrace. And our take....meh.
We got the following: (descriptions from Disney Food blog)

• House-made Boudin Two Ways with Spicy Mustard
• Pecan Cake with Maple Whipped Cream featuring Burton’s Maple Syrup

The Boudin ball was kind of dry and not a lot of flavor, and the other was ok.
The cake was a bit dry too but the sauce and the whipped cream were amazing and so worth the sugar.

We watched the Voices of Liberty. They were excellent as usual and they sang the Nifty Fifty United States song which made me think of @Songbird76 's story of how they always say no one cheers from Wyoming and they said it this time too. They must have forgotten they met her, or just enjoy joking about Wyoming.

One of my favorite paintings here. I also like the immigrant one. I believe they were both painted by Herb Ryman (I know the immigrant one was for sure.

Time for the show. I snuck a few pictures. I like this scene, TR is one of my favorite presidents because of his dedication to the National Parks. Nerd story...a couple years ago when Brad and I went to this area of Yosemite I played this part from the show in the car for us as we drove away from Glacier Point.

And back to the Pop for a nap.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

Back to Epcot after our nap. We checked out the new Canada show. It’s well done, we like that they often reference a map of Canada to point out locations. Then we wander the UK for a bit.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

We wandered until it was check in time for the Epcot Forever dining package at the Rose and Crown Pub.

All the tables for the dining package were pre-assigned and right at the rail we had an excellent view. The pictures above of the lagoon were from our table.

We shared the scotch egg and I had a beer. One beer of many, it was all you could drink! I had four!

Brad got fish and chips.

bangers and mash for me.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

The dining package was a good deal at least to us. The food was good, beer was plentiful, and the show was great and relaxing to watch from the table.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

After the show we had our sampler of desserts and the wandered around World Showcase. It was a nice evening stroll.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

Some of the shops were open maybe because of Extra Magic hours? So we browsed through a few before heading back to the Skyliner and to the Pop. We had an early morning coming up, it was our Star Wars adventure day so we had to be up early!

 

[RememberWhen]

Tuesday March 10, 2020

We wandered until it was check in time for the Epcot Forever dining package at the Rose and Crown Pub.

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All the tables for the dining package were pre-assigned and right at the rail we had an excellent view. The pictures above of the lagoon were from our table.
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We shared the scotch egg and I had a beer. One beer of many, it was all you could drink! I had four!
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Brad got fish and chips.
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bangers and mash for me.
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We had the rose and crown fireworks package booked for our July trip, but it was canceled.
Looks great though! Maybe when things are back to “normal” we’ll try again. Thanks for all the awesome pics!