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
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We had a fantastic skipper! She mentioned that she felt like she was in Epcot with all of the green walls up to hide construction! She actually had several new jokes that we hadn't heard before!

I knew the kids wanted to ride more, so I told them that we could watch HEA from wherever we were and we didn't have to be in front of the castle, so we headed to Big Thunder. Of course, a few days later it was announced that HEA was leaving forever.
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As we were exiting the ride, the music started, so we found a spot to watch the fireworks.
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It was kind of cool to see them reflected in the water!!
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TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
One of the things I love about your many photos are that there are so many things that I have never noticed!
The one that particularly caught my eye was the giant hiding up by the ceiling in Sir Mickeys!
But, I'm going to blame that one on my being 5'1' (on a good day)! 🤣
One of my favorite things about Disney is all of the hidden details to find!
I hope your elbow is healing well!!
Even though our meeting was short I’m glad we were able to make it work!! It was a pleasure to meet you!!
Thanks, it's definitely feeling better already! I wish we could have talked longer, but I'm also glad we were able to make it work!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Before going to bed after MK, we had a discussion about whether I would be trying for another boarding group in the morning. The kids decided together that while it was a cool ride, they would rather allow others to have the chance to ride it and didn't want me to try for a boarding group. I thought that was a very mature decision for them to make and was very proud.

Monday, July 19

We got up, grabbed a quick bite to eat in the room, and made our way to the Skyliner. I loved the posters they had on the walls of the Skyliner station at CBR.
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We quickly arrived at DHS and entered the park with very little wait.
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Once inside, we headed to MMRR for our first ride of the day. I was hoping it would grow on me...it didn't. I want to love it so much since it is a Mickey based ride, but I just don't like the animation style!
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TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
When we exited RnRC, the plan was for Logan, Lily, and I to ride ToT and Owen and Brian to head back to Galaxy's Edge to make a couple of purchases for Owen. We were met with this:
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Which meant we weren't riding ToT! Instead, I found a PP photographer and we had some pictures taken.
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While the above pic is cute, all of the ones without Tink were just weird! (I'll only share one, but there were 5 or 6 of them!)
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We knew this one was coming because the photographer had every group in front of us pose this way too! It still didn't stop the kids from making vomiting sounds afterward!!
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I took a few more pics before we decided to get a snack with the hopes that ToT would open shortly.
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