So Im finally getting around to writing one of these for our trip…Nov 9th to the 16th. Im on business travel for a few days…and seeing as how im bored out of my mind at night and don’t have anything to do…its given me the motivitaion to start writing this trip report.
Quick notes on this trip:
The travelers were myself and my girlfriend. We had been same time last year…for only 4 short days. We have been looking forward to this approximately the second we left Orlando last year. We both had a great time, and are looking forward to the next one. We met my mother and aunt who had already been down there a few days earlier. They would only be there for 3 days of our trip.
We also got Free Dining with the Disney visa card! This was great for us and saved so much money. We would never have so much table service if we didn’t get the free dining. Honestly, it was almost too much food but we loved seeing the different restaurants.
I want to apologize a bit in advance, we didn’t take as many pictures as we did a year ago. Sorry, ill post what I can though. There’s still a lot and hopefully enough to get me through this.
Anyways….onto day 1 of the trip!
Day 1: November 9th (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Magic Kingdom)
Travel day….sorta. I have been looking forward to this vacation since I left Disney about this time last year. Now my mother and aunt, when they say “travel day” they really mean it. As in, they get to the hotel (this year was Animal Kingdom Lodge for them) and they stay put. Get some dinner and that’s it. No parks that day. Now, there is just no way I am going to make this purely a travel day like that. We had plans
We were departing from Logan in Boston…and managed to get a cheap direct flight on JetBlue at I think 8:30 or so in the morning. Originally, we were going to be flying into TPA as the flight was far cheaper that way. However, that got cancelled…and suddenly we were on a terrible connecting flight. Like I said, I had plans that day for Disney and there’s no way I was going to waste all day sitting on a plane or in an airport. So I complained until they gave me a direct flight to MCO. Flight wasnt eventfull, spent most the time just listening to music or looking out the window. We landed, and we had that wonderful familiar first ride of the vacation in the tram thingys at MCO. We finally made it to the rental car pickup and left the airport. As a side note, this is the first year that we had a rental car and we loved having it. It gave us quite a bit of flexibility in going to parks and not having to wait for buses. Sometimes we still used the monorail, sometimes not. It was nice to have the choice though. FINALLY, we see this beautiful sight:
Shortly after that we arrived at our hotel, POP Century:
Quick review on POP for the trip: I thought it was fine. Now, I stayed at Animal Kingdom lodge last year in a Savannah view room…so I think anything short of that would be somewhat disappointing for me. But it still had a Disney touch to it, I was still at Disney World, the food court was good, and clean. So I was fine. It was probably geared a bit more to families with children….but as a value resort I cant complain. As usual, we only slept there more or less so it really doesn’t matter.
We got into our room, put our stuff down, changed out of our northeast attire for florida attire….and off to the Magic Kingdom! I have only been day dreaming about this for about a year:
We recently made sure that our first ride is and would always be Splash Mountain. We had an ADR at Epcot that evening with my family, so we literally could only go to the Magic Kingdom to do Splash….and that’s more or less it. Few pics of Splash goodness:
First line we had of our trip…probably one of the worst…crowds were light:
So with Splash done, we hopped the monorail and headed over to the new SSE for a quick ride before eating in Mexico. By the way, haven’t been on the monorail in oh about 10 years. It was incredible. I don’t have pictures from this night of SSE…but I think I have them for later days that I will post. In short, everything up to the descent was great. Im not the biggest fan of the music and the narration, but its ok. I think the previous incarnation was far more inspirational. So finally…we made it to the dreaded descent! I thought it was very funny, and like others have said…everyone seemed to be enjoying it and laughing. Maybe it will get old, but we liked it. Quite a few random triangles all over the place…I made sure to look for these from reading the board. Really weird, no idea what the imagineers are up to.
Had dinner at Mexico. I believe I had the Mahi Mahi…it was ok. My girlfriend had basically beef steak tips….which were much better and simpler. The atmosphere is great…but for a Mexican restaurant I thought the menu stunk. I guess I would have preferred more simple dishes. Tried to grab a quick ride on the Gran Fiesta tour but it was broken down. We were turned away unfortunatelyL
Since this day 1 is getting a bit long, im going to try to sum things up for the night quickly. We went back to the Magic Kingdom for EMH…and hit all the major rides (we were going back multiple times during the week, so no pictures and all we did was ride):
Big Thunder (in good form…wait time of 20 mins…more like 5 mins..)
Splash (20 mins again…..more like 0. One of the water arcs in the laughing place was broken)
Pirates (10 min wait. Everything was working)
Haunted Mansion (Walk on, was in fine form……)
Space Mountain (Waited a bit however good to get the ride in. We knew this would be closing soon…so just happy to get as many rides as possible)
TTA (best ride in the park at night)
Buzz (I actually did good this time and beat my girlfriend. I think its because I made here drive)
COP (just cant get enough of this)
We finally made it back to the hotel for much needed sleep. It was really needed.
Day2 coming up if you guys are interested (hey these things take a while to type!)…..which includes ADR at Cinderella’s Royal Table which we took plenty of pics of.
Quick notes on this trip:
The travelers were myself and my girlfriend. We had been same time last year…for only 4 short days. We have been looking forward to this approximately the second we left Orlando last year. We both had a great time, and are looking forward to the next one. We met my mother and aunt who had already been down there a few days earlier. They would only be there for 3 days of our trip.
We also got Free Dining with the Disney visa card! This was great for us and saved so much money. We would never have so much table service if we didn’t get the free dining. Honestly, it was almost too much food but we loved seeing the different restaurants.
I want to apologize a bit in advance, we didn’t take as many pictures as we did a year ago. Sorry, ill post what I can though. There’s still a lot and hopefully enough to get me through this.
Anyways….onto day 1 of the trip!
Day 1: November 9th (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Magic Kingdom)
Travel day….sorta. I have been looking forward to this vacation since I left Disney about this time last year. Now my mother and aunt, when they say “travel day” they really mean it. As in, they get to the hotel (this year was Animal Kingdom Lodge for them) and they stay put. Get some dinner and that’s it. No parks that day. Now, there is just no way I am going to make this purely a travel day like that. We had plans
We were departing from Logan in Boston…and managed to get a cheap direct flight on JetBlue at I think 8:30 or so in the morning. Originally, we were going to be flying into TPA as the flight was far cheaper that way. However, that got cancelled…and suddenly we were on a terrible connecting flight. Like I said, I had plans that day for Disney and there’s no way I was going to waste all day sitting on a plane or in an airport. So I complained until they gave me a direct flight to MCO. Flight wasnt eventfull, spent most the time just listening to music or looking out the window. We landed, and we had that wonderful familiar first ride of the vacation in the tram thingys at MCO. We finally made it to the rental car pickup and left the airport. As a side note, this is the first year that we had a rental car and we loved having it. It gave us quite a bit of flexibility in going to parks and not having to wait for buses. Sometimes we still used the monorail, sometimes not. It was nice to have the choice though. FINALLY, we see this beautiful sight:
Shortly after that we arrived at our hotel, POP Century:
Quick review on POP for the trip: I thought it was fine. Now, I stayed at Animal Kingdom lodge last year in a Savannah view room…so I think anything short of that would be somewhat disappointing for me. But it still had a Disney touch to it, I was still at Disney World, the food court was good, and clean. So I was fine. It was probably geared a bit more to families with children….but as a value resort I cant complain. As usual, we only slept there more or less so it really doesn’t matter.
We got into our room, put our stuff down, changed out of our northeast attire for florida attire….and off to the Magic Kingdom! I have only been day dreaming about this for about a year:
We recently made sure that our first ride is and would always be Splash Mountain. We had an ADR at Epcot that evening with my family, so we literally could only go to the Magic Kingdom to do Splash….and that’s more or less it. Few pics of Splash goodness:
First line we had of our trip…probably one of the worst…crowds were light:
So with Splash done, we hopped the monorail and headed over to the new SSE for a quick ride before eating in Mexico. By the way, haven’t been on the monorail in oh about 10 years. It was incredible. I don’t have pictures from this night of SSE…but I think I have them for later days that I will post. In short, everything up to the descent was great. Im not the biggest fan of the music and the narration, but its ok. I think the previous incarnation was far more inspirational. So finally…we made it to the dreaded descent! I thought it was very funny, and like others have said…everyone seemed to be enjoying it and laughing. Maybe it will get old, but we liked it. Quite a few random triangles all over the place…I made sure to look for these from reading the board. Really weird, no idea what the imagineers are up to.
Had dinner at Mexico. I believe I had the Mahi Mahi…it was ok. My girlfriend had basically beef steak tips….which were much better and simpler. The atmosphere is great…but for a Mexican restaurant I thought the menu stunk. I guess I would have preferred more simple dishes. Tried to grab a quick ride on the Gran Fiesta tour but it was broken down. We were turned away unfortunatelyL
Since this day 1 is getting a bit long, im going to try to sum things up for the night quickly. We went back to the Magic Kingdom for EMH…and hit all the major rides (we were going back multiple times during the week, so no pictures and all we did was ride):
Big Thunder (in good form…wait time of 20 mins…more like 5 mins..)
Splash (20 mins again…..more like 0. One of the water arcs in the laughing place was broken)
Pirates (10 min wait. Everything was working)
Haunted Mansion (Walk on, was in fine form……)
Space Mountain (Waited a bit however good to get the ride in. We knew this would be closing soon…so just happy to get as many rides as possible)
TTA (best ride in the park at night)
Buzz (I actually did good this time and beat my girlfriend. I think its because I made here drive)
COP (just cant get enough of this)
We finally made it back to the hotel for much needed sleep. It was really needed.
Day2 coming up if you guys are interested (hey these things take a while to type!)…..which includes ADR at Cinderella’s Royal Table which we took plenty of pics of.
