Trip Report **completed**Our not so perfect, but good enough July 2021 trip

Hi, all! It took me much longer to get this started than I wanted, but my computer decided it didn't have room for any more of my photos and I had to get an external hard drive and transfer some in order to start! We've also been a little busy getting everything ready for Logan to leave for Iowa in 2 weeks!

So, if you didn't follow along with my PTR, we were supposed to be on a cruise to celebrate Logan's HS graduation, but instead had to switch gears and decided to spend a few days at WDW.

Now, the specifics:
Who: Me (Amy), my husband Brian, Logan (18), Lily (16), and Owen (13)
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Where: Cabana Bay Beach Resort and Pop Century

When: July 11-20, 2021

Why: as I previously mentioned, this trip was to celebrate Logan's HS graduation. He asked for a cruise, so I do have another one scheduled for next June and we quickly threw together the Disney portion of this trip (so I guess we can call this his preliminary graduation trip!!)


We had some truly magical moments on this trip and some definitively un-magical moments as well! Unfortunately, our first day held one of the most un-magical moments.

We drove from Ohio and always try to leave very early to try to avoid as much traffic as possible. We set an alarm for midnight and our goal was to leave the house between 1 and 1:30 am. We were spot on!
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We made a quick stop at McDonald's for Cokes and were on our way. It was smooth sailing all the way to northern Florida. We even made it through Atlanta with no drama or slow downs!!
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Florida was stop and go the whole way, but we still made decent time and were pulling in to Cabana Bay Beach Resort about 4:00 which was about 1-1.5 hours later than we had anticipated, so not too bad! However, that is official check in time, and the parking area was a mess, as was the lobby!
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Luckily, they had sent me an email that allowed me to check in prior to arrival and that line was fairly short! The regular line was wrapped all the way around the lobby and was said to be 2 hours long! Brian dropped me off and found a parking spot that he probably shouldn't have been in to wait for me and sent Logan in to the lobby to guide me back to the car!

Now for the most un-magical moment of our trip! I had booked a 2 bedroom volcano view suite as a surprise for Logan since it was his celebration trip and I thought it would be cool to see the volcano lit up at night and watch all the activity in the park from our room. I paid way more than I normally would for a room, but felt it was a reasonable splurge. Well, we get to our room which happened to be on the second floor and this was our view:
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Yes, that is the back of a service building and the very tip of the volcano!! I don't understand how they can charge the same amount of money for this view as they can for the higher floor rooms (which I did request)! They need a lower partial or obstructed view charge for the rooms on this floor. I did say something and no one cared at all and basically told me to stuff it! Needless to say, we won't be back there any time soon!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We decided to head right toward Galaxy's Edge since our boarding group should be called shortly.
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We followed the herd to the left to wait for the rope drop.
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We were in place and waiting about 8:10am. It was unbearably hot already! At least we had a little shade on the side we decided to line up on!
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TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
At 8:30, they led us back to Galaxy's Edge. It was a fairly well controlled chaos! We decided to follow everyone to Smuggler's Run and get a ride in before ROR. We ended up much further back in the herd than our initial position in line would have predicted we would be. Lots of pushing and weaving in and out going on, but nothing too horrible.
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TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We all decided we needed a drink, then we were going to head out of Galaxy's Edge.
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Logan offered to drink a Diet Coke so that I would have all three bottles, Lily could have a Sprite one, and Owen could have a Coke one. I tried to talk him out of it because I knew he wouldn't enjoy it, but I wasn't about to drink it and he insisted that he would drink it...he regretted that decision!
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erstwo

Well-Known Member
We were starting to get hungry, but didn't want to wait in the horribly long lines we were seeing at all of the quick service restaurants. So this was our nutritious lunch:

Aren't we great parents!?!
My brother in law went to SeaWorld before he met our family at WDW for our 4th of July trip. A few weeks before the trip, I managed to snag a dinner reservation for his family, my sister in law, and my father in law for our arrival night (they would all be there by dinner time, and we would still be on the road.) He texted back that he wouldn't be able to make dinner, so I canceled his family's ADR.

Then, as we're driving down, he texted that he wanted to see if they could still make dinner that night. He said that they had purchased the 'eat all day' passes for Sea World that day ($30-$40 per person I think?) but the lines were so long (because of everyone who took advantage of the deal) that they never really got much food! They had planned to eat dinner at SeaWorld to get their money's worth, but decided to give up and eat outside of the park.

Loving the trip report!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
My brother in law went to SeaWorld before he met our family at WDW for our 4th of July trip. A few weeks before the trip, I managed to snag a dinner reservation for his family, my sister in law, and my father in law for our arrival night (they would all be there by dinner time, and we would still be on the road.) He texted back that he wouldn't be able to make dinner, so I canceled his family's ADR.

Then, as we're driving down, he texted that he wanted to see if they could still make dinner that night. He said that they had purchased the 'eat all day' passes for Sea World that day ($30-$40 per person I think?) but the lines were so long (because of everyone who took advantage of the deal) that they never really got much food! They had planned to eat dinner at SeaWorld to get their money's worth, but decided to give up and eat outside of the park.

Loving the trip report!
Thanks for reading! I had contemplated getting the eat all day and decided to wait until closer to our trip. I'm glad I did because I saw how everyone was complaining about the lines and chose not to! Sorry it didn't work out for them.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Next up was Toy Story Land which was new to us!
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Lily, Owen, and I decided to ride Alien Swirling Saucers since we were right there. The wait was listed at 25 minutes which was accurate. We didn't mind waiting that for our first ride, but I probably wouldn't wait that again. We did enjoy ourselves, there are just other rides I like more! Brian and Logan don't like spinning rides and decided to sit this one out without even giving it a shot. I really don't think they understood what it is and think they would have been fine, but whatever!
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