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!
 

fractal

Well-Known Member
We are back! We got him all moved in and were back at home a little after midnight last night. Luckily, I took off work today, but Brian had to be at school! @lostpro9het , one of Brian's friends requested an autographed poster of Dan Gable, so now Logan needs to seek out two wrestling coaches!! I told him he had his work cut out for him!
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Wishing Logan all the best at Iowa! How did the move-in go? We moved Toni back in last week and it was a bit chaotic.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Wishing Logan all the best at Iowa! How did the move-in go? We moved Toni back in last week and it was a bit chaotic.
It actually was very smooth. He moved in early for the Honors program orientation, so it wasn't as chaotic as I'm sure it will be later this week and they were each assigned an hour window when we could park and unload our cars. Then we had to move them, but could come back to help him get organized.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Back to Epcot after our brief afternoon break.

I realized I forgot to post our Frozen ride pic. Everyone looks so thrilled!
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We were back in the park a little after 5:00. Wait times appeared to be very short, so we headed to Future World first.
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The kids chose to start with Figment since it was a walk on.
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TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So far, so good, but here is where the evening started going sideways! The kids had previously said they didn't care if they rode Mission Space, so we assumed we would go right to World Showcase. But, they saw that the wait time for green was 5 minutes and asked to do it. Brian and I sent them ahead and we were going to go into Mouse Gear and meet them over there. Well, Brian started acting like a toddler and pouting because he wanted dinner and to go to World Showcase. There was a line when we got to Mouse Gear, so we/I decided to skip it and just meet the kids. Well, they(Lily and Owen) had decided to do the orange side without letting us know, so we sat and we sat and we sat some more until they finally came out. Brian was in a snit!
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We finally headed to World Showcase at about 7:30. I mobile ordered on the way and pushed the we are here button as we approached the entrance to World Showcase. It still took a good 10-15 minutes once we got there before our order was ready!
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Then Brian was getting upset because we couldn't find anywhere to sit and eat. We eventually found a tall table to stand at.
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Dinner was delicious once we finally got to eat it!

Then off to explore World Showcase.
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TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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Here is where the night just crashed and burned!! One of Brian's favorite things to do is browse the store in Japan. Well, the store had closed at 7:30 that day and it was 8:30. Suffice it to say, the rest of the evening was pure torture for me. I felt horrible that it was closed, but it had never closed early during our previous trips, so I never thought to look into what time they would close. I don't even know if I could have found out what time they were going to close, because the CM we asked said that China and Japan are not operated by Disney and just do whatever they want!
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TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Since we knew we wouldn't get a good spot, we decided to head back towards International Gateway and just find a spot that looked decent and would allow us a quick escape once the show was over. I didn't get any really good pictures, but here are a few just to confirm that we did see the fireworks!
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The smoke was horrible and constantly in our eyes! We left before it was totally over, but we saw the end of it as we were entering our Skyliner gondola. The CMs at the station were also complaining about how bad the smoke was that night! We were bad and took our masks off in the Skyliner, but it was just us and it was so hot! Not much was said on the way back to the room and everyone quickly went to bed once we got there!
 

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
So far, so good, but here is where the evening started going sideways! The kids had previously said they didn't care if they rode Mission Space, so we assumed we would go right to World Showcase. But, they saw that the wait time for green was 5 minutes and asked to do it. Brian and I sent them ahead and we were going to go into Mouse Gear and meet them over there. Well, Brian started acting like a toddler and pouting because he wanted dinner and to go to World Showcase. There was a line when we got to Mouse Gear, so we/I decided to skip it and just meet the kids. Well, they(Lily and Owen) had decided to do the orange side without letting us know, so we sat and we sat and we sat some more until they finally came out. Brian was in a snit!
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We finally headed to World Showcase at about 7:30. I mobile ordered on the way and pushed the we are here button as we approached the entrance to World Showcase. It still took a good 10-15 minutes once we got there before our order was ready!
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Then Brian was getting upset because we couldn't find anywhere to sit and eat. We eventually found a tall table to stand at.
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Dinner was delicious once we finally got to eat it!

Then off to explore World Showcase.
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So my husband is NOT the only one who does this? What is it with them acting like toddlers? I'm so sorry...that really wears on your own experience. I hope he was in a better mood after food!
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So my husband is NOT the only one who does this? What is it with them acting like toddlers? I'm so sorry...that really wears on your own experience. I hope he was in a better mood after food!
He was not better after food because by then it was getting dark and he couldn't see very well without his glasses which he failed to bring with him to the park! I don't know what the deal was that day, that was very uncharacteristic of him to be like that!
 

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
He was not better after food because by then it was getting dark and he couldn't see very well without his glasses which he failed to bring with him to the park! I don't know what the deal was that day, that was very uncharacteristic of him to be like that!
95% of the time, my husband is great, but when he goes into that pouty toddler mode, I have to just keep my distance and let him be in his snit alone. He's no fun to be around when he's like that.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Friday, July 16 Hollywood Studios

So, we all woke up somewhat refreshed and some of us were remorseful for our behavior the day before and apologized profusely. I don't know if Brian just wasn't still feeling 100% or what, but that was so out of character for him. He is normally a laid back, go with the flow kind of guy to balance out my have to have everything planned perfectly personality! I say somewhat refreshed because I didn't really sleep all that well between the drama from yesterday and the boarding group butterflies I had in my stomach! I talked Lily into trying at the same time I did for a boarding group since she has a newer IPhone and I only have a Samsung S8. We both closed everything out on our phones at 6:50 and logged into MDE. We decided to try our luck with the wifi since we weren't getting good reception anywhere near our room. We had Brian's phone set to time.gov and were sitting on the join virtual queue screen. I fully expected Lily to be the one to get us a boarding group, but it was me!!
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With a huge sigh of relief, we all finished getting ready for the day and headed out to the Skyliner.
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We were in our own gondola to CBR, but were with another party on the way to DHS, so masks stayed on the entire time. We had to wait in a decent line before they opened security, but were through quickly once they opened and then into the park just as quickly.
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