Trip Report **COMPLETED** The Tail of Slinky Dog

Hey everyone!
We have been back for a week now so I suppose it is time to start our TR!

Who
Just my Mom and I (Mary and Megan)
This is a picture from our last trip!

When?
July 9-July 16 2018

Why?
To celebrate my 30th Birthday

Where?
The Grand Floridian - thanks to a pretty good bounce back or AP deal (I can't actually remember which one )

The title?
We are obsessed with Slinky Dog Dash - plain and simple

Day 1 July 9, 2018
I had to work most of my usual day before we headed to the airport. Why is this day of work always the LONGEST day of work?
My Dad was actually out of town for work so he couldn't drive us to the airport, but my brother in law Nick kindly offered to drive us (thankfully)
I was super stressed about leaving on time (I thought our flight was earlier than it was ) hence my flushed cheeks

Oh hey Nick

Of course we made it to the airport, checked our bags and made it through security in little to no time
We decided to eat dinner at our usual airport dinner place - Anchor Bar

We shared the appetizer sampler and some fries. Wings, boneless wings, mozzarella sticks I realize now this isn't the best of pictures to actually show the food

After our delicious dinner we headed to the gate to wait to leave.
Petey was ready to go

Soon enough we were on the plane!

Next up: finishing Day 1 (quick day!)

 

[mlegerto]

Blizzard Beach just isn't the water park for us...we are definitely Typhoon Lagoon people

Us too! We do enjoy BB, but no comparison for us to TL.

The after hours event looks like so much fun! My favorite time to be in the parks is at night, so I do want to do this in the near future. Sad that our next trip is so short and there is no after hours event schedule, but hey we get to do the Halloween Party so that's pretty cool too LOL. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Doc Disney]

We can never bring ourselves to eat the pork either!!

This is one of those rides I could never set foot on again. I seriously feel like I'm going to fall out of it. It's so scary to me!!

We can never remember to tell them not to give us the pork...I feel bad wasting it but we really hate pork Astro Orbitor does for sure feel like you could fall out of it at any moment.

Us too! We do enjoy BB, but no comparison for us to TL.

The after hours event looks like so much fun! My favorite time to be in the parks is at night, so I do want to do this in the near future. Sad that our next trip is so short and there is no after hours event schedule, but hey we get to do the Halloween Party so that's pretty cool too LOL. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Halloween party is still exciting! Im sad we are missing Disney World Holiday parties this year

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 7 July 15, 2018
Since we had After Hours the night before we planned on sleeping in...so naturally we got up at 7:30 am
We had planned this day "off" so we didn't have any hard or fast plans but we did talk about heading over to Fort Wilderness so we did decide to do that!
We took the monorail to the MK

Then a boat to FW

Next up: more FW

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 7 continued

I booked us a reservation at Trails End the night before so we headed there.

While waiting for our table a couple comes up. CM: Do you have reservations? Woman: nope CM: Ok, how many in your party? Women: 6, which characters are here? **insert my Mom and I looking at each other like you thought you could just stroll up to a character dining with no reservation?** CM: We do not have characters? Women: where at FW can we see characters for breakfast? CM:.....nowhere...(gives Backyward BBQ dinner as an option) Woman: well thats ridiculous I thought we would be eating with characters - do you have pancakes? CM: No Woman: MY GRANDSONS NEED PANCAKES! CM: well...you could take the boat to the Contemporary or WL for pancakes but we do have waffles Woman: let me see the menu - goes to menu on wall

** as you can see waffles are the first thing listed**
Woman: YOU DON'T HAVE WAFFLES
And it continued on. My Mom and I were dying. Anyway, we did not know it was going to be brunch and while we are not typically brunch people we were excited to try it!
We got seated soon after this whole argument above
Please enjoy random pictures of food

The food was great! We were happy to try some of the dinner food and we said that we would like to try dinner there someday! With bellies full we headed out and back to the MK!

Next up: a WDWmagic Meetup!

 

[LadyBelle]

Having the MK essentially to yourself is a dream! Have I convinced you yet to go?!

Absolutely!

 

[slipperalwaysfits]

WOW! How funny you ended up with the same driver to BB! BB is fun and I'm glad you had a good time! Amazing the After hours was so incredibly empty!! Lucky you! The Fort Wilderness story is funny! I enjoy reading about guests who just expect everything to be perfect with no foresight or planning whatsoever!!
I would NEVER go on the Astro Orbiter, I'm deathly afraid of heights! Your mom was sweet to do that with you!

 

[Doc Disney]

WOW! How funny you ended up with the same driver to BB! BB is fun and I'm glad you had a good time! Amazing the After hours was so incredibly empty!! Lucky you! The Fort Wilderness story is funny! I enjoy reading about guests who just expect everything to be perfect with no foresight or planning whatsoever!!
I would NEVER go on the Astro Orbiter, I'm deathly afraid of heights! Your mom was sweet to do that with you!

I think after hours is always that empty which is awesome !! My Mom says she’s now done with Astro Orbitor

 

[Doc Disney]

When you are at the Orlando airport but you aren’t going to Disney (or even Florida)

 

[krisri18]

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When you are at the Orlando airport but you aren’t going to Disney (or even Florida)

Well that's just sad

 

[riverside]

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When you are at the Orlando airport but you aren’t going to Disney (or even Florida)

UGH....that would have to be really painful....

 

[Doc Disney]

Well that's just sad

UGH....that would have to be really painful....

It was torture

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 7 continued
We took the boat to the MK
There was a tour group walking in all covering each others eyes to look at the castle at the same time... Seems like a cute idea if they weren't constantly on the verge of running into other people

Some random photos

Anyway, we headed right to Fantasyland to meet up with @LisaBelle and her family! I was so nice to finally meet them!!! They are seriously the sweetest people!!! I always say this but it is funny how you feel like you know everyone from here even though you don't - so at least when you finally meet someone it is not as weird

I could have talked all day (especially since we had no plans) but we finally let them go and headed to Carousel of Progress!!

Oh hey Edna!

Then we got a photo pass picture before heading out.

Next up: Day 7 continued

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 7 continued
We headed back to the GF via boat - the boat was our go -to coming back. It was so much faster than the monorail!

We headed down the pool for a bit
We were entertained by this couple who were fighting so bad that even the CMs took notice and tried to help out

Apparently we had a snack of nachos and cheese...somehow we were hungry...

I took a picture of my cup to remind myself that my Mom got a Lava Smoothie (Raspberry Purée blended with Piña Colada Mix - no alcohol) and I got a watermelon lemonade. Both yummy! I had to avoid alcohol due to my stomach issues

After our break we got ready and headed to AK!

Hello birds!

Since this was our "off day" we tried not to make any park plans but when I could not get Flight of Passage earlier in the trip we decided to get a FP for this day instead

This was the slowest FP of all time. I think we waited over 30 minutes just to get into the video part of the ride! This was also the first time I ever saw other people on the ride. I looked up and saw a ton of people above me! How did I never notice that before?!? It did not take away from the ride, though, I thought it added a cool element and we loved it as usual. I did have another FP I picked up for Dinosaur but it was closed so we had a bonus FP. However, we were in F of P so long that we didn't have time to use it

Next up: Day 7 continued

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 7 continued
We had dinner plans over at AKL so we took a bus over there. This is the first time my Mom saw Kidani Village so we walked around a bit

We tried to FaceTime my sister and Max to show them the animals but it is not easy to see them from FaceTime

Next up: dinner!

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 7 continued

We actually got to dinner right as the restaurant was opening for dinner and they did this really cool drum opening!

I had pretty much non-stop talked about Sanaa since eating there a few years ago. My Mom kindly agreed to come with me this trip (since it was my Birthday trip) even though she wasn't keen on trying to food here

We started off with bread service (duh) with all 9 accompaniments.

Next up: Day 7 continued

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 7 continued
I made my Mom try everything and she did!

Learning from the last time I ate here I knew the bread would fill us up and so we decided to share an entree
We got the Potjie inspired with butter chicken and lentil dhal (and the basmati rice that came with it)

I also got a dessert for my Birthday (I was wearing my birthday pin on purpose...I will admit...I really wanted to see what they had for birthday treats )

It was like this ice cream type dessert that was mango and lime...it was so good!!!
Overall we really enjoyed our meal. Even my Mom really liked everything!!
After dinner we headed out to look at the animals a bit more

Anyway, in summary we will definitely be back at Sanaa!
We were really tired at this point but I had one thing I really wanted to do and that was see Toy Story Land at night so we headed to Hollywood Studios.

We got to HS and it was pretty hot out so we headed to the Little Mermaid

This show is fine...but I feel like they could have done a better job breaking it up a bit...I don't know...
Then over to TSL!

We actually had a FP for TSM so we headed there. When we got on the ride our guns would not aim (no matter where your gun was) anywhere but up and to the right aka no points. My Mom said something when we got off the ride and so we got to ride again

Next up: more TSL

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 7 continued
The only thing we did not do in TSL yet was meet Buzz so we hopped in his line. My Mom got the equivalent of the "red card"

The wait for Slinky Dog Dash was listed as 65 minutes and it definitely looked like it. If the que was more inside and/or we weren't as tired we would have probably waited but instead we just watched it for a bit.

We never did wait for complete darkness because we were exhausted so we headed out and back to the GF. We told ourselves not to worry because on our next trip we can see it at night We got to the Grand just about as HEA was starting so we watched that and then packed a bit. The one last thing my Mom wanted to do was take a night time swim so we got dressed and headed down to the pool!
I won't torture you with any poor waterproof camera quality pictures
The water was perfect and it really was the best way to end our last night!

Next up: last day I was say "already?" but it has taken me forever to finish this TR

 

[LadyBelle]

I always say this but it is funny how you feel like you know everyone from here even though you don't - so at least when you finally meet someone it is not as weird

Funny you should say that. I actually dreamt that I met you and your mom in line at Slinky Dog.

 

[DisneyJeff]

Day 7 continued
The only thing we did not do in TSL yet was meet Buzz so we hopped in his line. My Mom got the equivalent of the "red card"
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The wait for Slinky Dog Dash was listed as 65 minutes and it definitely looked like it. If the que was more inside and/or we weren't as tired we would have probably waited but instead we just watched it for a bit.
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We never did wait for complete darkness because we were exhausted so we headed out and back to the GF. We told ourselves not to worry because on our next trip we can see it at night We got to the Grand just about as HEA was starting so we watched that and then packed a bit. The one last thing my Mom wanted to do was take a night time swim so we got dressed and headed down to the pool!
I won't torture you with any poor waterproof camera quality pictures
The water was perfect and it really was the best way to end our last night!

Next up: last day I was say "already?" but it has taken me forever to finish this TR

That was one thing that I wanted to do on our trip last month, see Toy Story Land at night, but we never were able to make it work. Like you said, there's always next time.

One thing I was disappointed with was the Morning Extra Magic hours at TSL. They were only running one or two "dogs" on SDD, so the wait times were just as long (if not longer) than they were the rest of the day when then they were running all 3.

 

[LisaBelle]

Day 7 continued
We took the boat to the MK
There was a tour group walking in all covering each others eyes to look at the castle at the same time... Seems like a cute idea if they weren't constantly on the verge of running into other people
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Some random photos
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Anyway, we headed right to Fantasyland to meet up with @LisaBelle and her family! I was so nice to finally meet them!!! They are seriously the sweetest people!!! I always say this but it is funny how you feel like you know everyone from here even though you don't - so at least when you finally meet someone it is not as weird
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I could have talked all day (especially since we had no plans) but we finally let them go and headed to Carousel of Progress!!
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Oh hey Edna!
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Then we got a photo pass picture before heading out.
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Next up: Day 7 continued

Awe, thanks! We all thought you and your mom were sweet as well. I’m so happy we were able to meet you and your mom! I know what you mean about feeling like we’ve know each other forever even though we’d never met! My family really got a kick out of me finally meeting one of my Disney friends! Now we don’t have to make air quotes when I talk about my Disney “friends” because now that we’ve met they feel like I really am friends with you and your mom!
We never made it over to TSL at night. It looks like it had a great night time vibe. We’ll have to make that a priority on a future trip.
The bread service at Sanaa always looks so good. We’ve never been there but I’d love to try it. It is so hard to eat at new Disney restaurants when you also want to eat at old favorites!
How sad to be at the Orlando airport and not be on the way to Disney!