Trip Report Feelin' hot, Hot, HOT!

How on earth are we back already! But, that's the way it always goes when you go on vacation - you're back before you even know it! We had a great trip with many new experiences, new foods and great, great memories! We had an interesting flight down, a more interesting flight back (details later!) and if you hadn't guessed, it was HOT!

I'm still getting my notes and photos organized, so I will update this TR soon, but wanted to share that the "G" Family has a new addition!! Prior to our trip, we had filled out an application at our local Humane Society to adopt a kitten. We received a call on the Friday we were getting packed up to leave that our application had been approved and that we could pick up the kitten any time that worked for us. I explained we were heading out of town for a week and asked if we could pick her up after we returned and they of course said not a problem. So now we had something fun to look forward to upon our return! When we got home this past Friday, we weren't even in the door 15 minutes and we drove over to the Humane Society to pick her up Meet Belle

She is just the sweetest thing and is very loved in our home!

Be back soon! I see lots of TR's I need to catch up on too

 

[gdisneyfans]

Verdict? We loved it!! In our opinion, the show is really well done.

After the show we wanted to see Pandora at night so we walked that way.

We took a few photos and just walked around and looked. Photos in Pandora at night do not come out so well unless you're @fractal! So I'll spare you all but these two that somewhat turned out!

Although the FP photographer does a nice job.

We decided to head out for the night as Epcot had Extra Magic Hours until 11:00 and wanted to get there to see what we could get on!
As we were walking out we were able to catch the Tree of Life Awakening – that is really, really neat as well! We made our way out and over to the Epcot bus. The bus came pretty quickly and we were on our way – we did have to drop one person off though at Blizzard Beach – that was odd. But we made it to Epcot by 10:00. Security was quick as not too many people were going into the park at this point. They kept scanning our bands throughout the time we were there to make sure we were resort guests so it was nice to see that they were actually making sure people weren’t taking advantage of staying without staying at a Disney resort.

We stopped and got our picture taken from the front of the park since we hadn't been to that side of the park yet.

 

[gdisneyfans]

We went on Spaceship Earth as we still hadn’t been on it yet and it was a walk-on!

I rode with Emily

Then we walked over to The Land building and got in line for Soarin’. I think the standby line said 20 minutes, but it was a pretty steady walk onto the attraction. However, when we were waiting in our Concourse, it seemed like it took a really, really long time to get moving. But the wait was worth it – we were front row center!!!

By then it was 11:00 and everything was closed so we slowly made our way out of the park. I took a couple more pictures in the BC lobby - you can never have too many of the wonderful details!

We got back to the room about 11:30 and crashed! We were exhausted - no wonder...my fitbit said we did 25,700 steps and 10.88 miles Whoa!

It was another amazing day!!

 

[rshell68]

I think Emily liked hers too!

Her drink matched her shirt LOL

 

[fractal]

Wow! looks like you had a great day at AK (except for the jerks cutting in front of you at Dinosaur). FoP really is a great ride!

Great idea at the BC going to the quiet pool, especially to get some colder water!

enjoying the report.

 

[MinnieM123]

I think Emily liked hers too!

That tie-dye t-shirt is really cute!

 

[slipperalwaysfits]

Animal Kingdom is AMAZING!!! Sweet you managed the River Journey twice! We are looking forward to exploring Pandora and our FP's! The safari's are so fun to spot all the animals! Dinosaur is one of our favorites, we love the Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo pipes in the waiting line!
We have the dining reservation seats for Rivers of Light but we'll be sure to be there early so we get a good spot!

I'm excited to take my mom on Everest and see what she does when she realizes it goes backwards!

Amazing Soarin' was a WALK ON for EME! We'll be in Epcot on the EME day, a Tuesday, and here's hoping we can walk on some rides that night!

Wonder where you'll go tomorrow?

 

[Matt and Kelly]

What an amazing day!! You guys accomplished so much. I love hearing everyone's reviews of FOP.

 

[gdisneyfans]

Her drink matched her shirt LOL

I didn't even pay attention, but you're right

Wow! looks like you had a great day at AK (except for the jerks cutting in front of you at Dinosaur). FoP really is a great ride!

Great idea at the BC going to the quiet pool, especially to get some colder water!

enjoying the report.

It was a really fun day. It is so great that AK is now a full day park - and there was still plenty that we didn't do! Next time I think we'll definitely need two days there, so we can get on FoP more than once! Awesome ride.

Oh my goodness the temperature difference between the two was unbelievable! I loved going there, but really, one of the reasons we enjoy the BC so much is Stormalong Bay, so I felt like we needed to spend our time there instead!

Thanks for following!

That tie-dye t-shirt is really cute!

Thank you

 

[gdisneyfans]

Animal Kingdom is AMAZING!!! Sweet you managed the River Journey twice! We are looking forward to exploring Pandora and our FP's! The safari's are so fun to spot all the animals! Dinosaur is one of our favorites, we love the Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo pipes in the waiting line!
We have the dining reservation seats for Rivers of Light but we'll be sure to be there early so we get a good spot!

I'm excited to take my mom on Everest and see what she does when she realizes it goes backwards!

Amazing Soarin' was a WALK ON for EME! We'll be in Epcot on the EME day, a Tuesday, and here's hoping we can walk on some rides that night!

Wonder where you'll go tomorrow?

AK is really growing on us - we've always liked AK, but now we like it a little bit more! We really, really enjoyed our day there. We couldn't believe the wait time for Na'vi and even going twice in a row, we saw plenty of things we didn't see on our first ride. Hope you enjoy Pandora!! Yes, definitely get to RoL early - the theater really filled up quick when we were there and we were there plenty early!

So I take it your mom has never been on Everest? I would be excited too

Nice! I don't know if we've ever hit Soarin' as a walk on, but we've had low wait times before. One year we hopped in line right at closing and were in the last group of people to get into the ride. So we had a pretty empty theater, so that was fun!

We're off to Epcot

What an amazing day!! You guys accomplished so much. I love hearing everyone's reviews of FOP.

It was and we did! Considering the crowds we had, we feel like we actually did accomplish a lot compared to our last trip Here's to hoping you get a FP for your upcoming trip

 

[gdisneyfans]

Wednesday, August 23rd

We slept in a little later this morning – we eventually got moving about 8:15. We slowly got ready to head into Epcot for our morning Fast Passes and wanted to have breakfast in France! After reading one of @wdisney9000's trip reports, we wanted to try out Les Halles! We stopped for a quick PP picture first.

Emily wanted Starbuck’s instead, so she walked toward Future World and Brian and I headed into France. It is so peaceful being in there that time of day with absolutely no crowds!

Les Halles was not busy at all when we got there. Maybe 4 people in line ahead of us. So much goodness to choose from!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Brian had a ham and cheese croissant

I had a ham and cheese on a baguette

And we shared a mimosa (well I mainly had a mimosa)!

Everything was so delicious – I would definitely eat there again!! Next time hopefully it won’t be so hot so we could sit outside in the little patio area, but it was too steamy that morning to sit outside. Emily met us back in the restaurant with her Starbuck’s.

After breakfast, we went toward Future World for our first FP and on our way over, just enjoyed our surroundings. Pretty butterfly on the flowers

Now I know sometimes it's fun to make a fashion statement while in Disney, but what the heck? How can these even be comfortable walking all day?! I can't imagine they kept her feet cool either with the heat we had going on

 

[gdisneyfans]

Strolling through Canada!

We made a quick stop in Mouse Gears to browse.

Then onto our first FP

I'm glad we had a FP as there was a little bit of a wait - not terrible, but we walked right in!

We had fun with Figment, and then strolled over towards the Seas.

 

[gdisneyfans]

I never got a picture of the Land sign so I made sure to take one on our way over to the Seas - I just love this sign for some reason!

We actually had a little bit of a wait with this ride – but it was okay, it was inside and in the air conditioning!

While we were in line, I made a 12:30 lunch reservation for San Angel Inn. We used to enjoy going there, but the last time we were there, we weren't impressed with our meals - they were pretty much cold by the time we got them. But we wanted to give it another try to see if things had changed.

We enjoyed our ride with Nemo and Friends and then took some time to check out the fish tanks.

 

[gdisneyfans]

Lots of sea pictures coming your way

We sat and watched the matinees for a while - they are such interesting animals. Plus it was lunch time so it was fun watching them eat their lettuce!

We are usually in such a hurry to get back outside after Nemo and Friends, we rarely take the time to just look. I'm so glad we took the time this trip to see all of the different interesting species of fish and aquatic life they have!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Just a couple more

We had a FP for Turtle Talk with Crush, but no one was into going, so we skipped it

Our last Fast Pass was coming up, so we made our way back to World Showcase over to Norway for Frozen Ever After.

We made a quick stop in Disney Traders to browse a bit

Emily really, really, really wanted to buy this....but nope!

Halloween stuff starting to show up!

 

[gdisneyfans]

We made our way over toward Norway.

These guys played quite good!

We were a few minutes early, so we sat in the shade and enjoyed the surroundings.

We were looking up wait times for attractions and saw this - 210 minutes for FOP?

As we were waiting, I looked over at the ride area, it seemed as though the doors were closed as if the ride was down. Sure enough, we went in as if we were going to go on the ride, and the cast members said the ride was down and they weren’t sure when it would be back up. We mentioned we had a FP for it and she said an anytime FP would be put back on our bands that we could use for any ride and we could check back later.

Okay, what to do now since we had 30 minutes before lunch! We wandered over to Germany as we wanted to check out Karamell-Kuche. Oh my goodness the smell of that place – caramel goodness!!! We picked up a few things

Yum!! We also picked up a caramel apple too but I guess I didn't take any picture of it.

 

[gdisneyfans]

Brian and I stopped for a beer while we were in Germany and shared a Schofferhofer Grapefruit Beer.

Sorry the picture is blurry, but as Brian was grabbing it to take a drink I told him to hold on so I could take a picture! So this was the result when you try to take something so quick!

We only shared because we weren’t sure if we’d like it, but oh my goodness I wish we both would have gotten our own. It was so good!!! If we weren't heading to lunch shortly we so would have tackled one of these too!

We went to find some shade and a bench to enjoy the beer. Emily dove into the caramel apple so she and Brian each had a slice. I tasted it as well and it was so delicious!

After our little snack, we made our way back over to Mexico for our lunch reservation. We checked in and were told it would be just a couple of minutes, but of course as soon as we sat down, our pager went off!

As we were perusing the menu, I was looking around at the decor and noticed this:

There were doodle marks all over the wall - this is just a taste of what we saw Why do parents let their kids do this - smh.

On to lunch!

Brian ordered a mango margarita. We usually order on the rocks but forgot to tell her - oh well. They go down a little slower this way! He said it was quite good.

Emily ordered the non-alcoholic mango margarita and like hers.

I went with the avocado margarita - again forgot to say on the rocks

Mine - I did not like it at all! I love avocados and thought I might like it. I even tried five or six sips to see if it would grow on me, but it didn't. Our server came out and brought our chips and salsa

After she dropped them off, she asked how our drinks are. Normally I would just suck it up and either drink it or leave it but I mentioned I didn't care for it and she asked me if I'd like something else, so I asked for a regular margarita - on the rocks - and she said no problem! She took the avocado one away and brought me the replacement. I fully expected to pay for both of them as it was my mistake to order something I may not have liked, but she never put the avocado one on our bill

Much better!!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Our lunch came out quite quickly. Brian and Emily both had the same entree - chicken enchiladas.

I had the carne asada

We all really, really enjoyed our meals this time. Everything was very hot and delicious! It seems like they are serving the entrees now on these heated skillets which seems keeps everything nice and hot. We would definitely come back after this meal!!

Throughout lunch I kept checking the MDE app to see if Frozen was back up but it wasn't so we went to check out Donald to see what he was up to.

I checked the app again – no luck. So we decided to head out of the park and go to the pool. We figured we could come back into Epcot and ride it hopefully before heading to Disney Springs (our plan after the pool). We stopped at Disney Traders to walk through the air conditioning. I checked my app quick and FEA was back up! So we turned around and went back to Norway!

The FP line was a little backed up, which didn’t surprise me due to how long it was down, but we managed to get on pretty quickly.

**After just reading @fractal's TR with his FEA photos, these photos are so feel free to skip past and go look at his

 

[gdisneyfans]

More FEA photos!

 

[gdisneyfans]

Last but certainly not least! The ride must be awfully thrilling according to Brian

We enjoyed the ride! We will definitely go on it again, but wouldn't wait more than 20 minutes either.

After FEA, we walked out of Epcot back to the Beach Club! As we were walking back, we spotted a guy with a tshirt that said “Sorry I’m late but I didn’t I didn’t want to come” Hilarious some of the stuff people wear! We got back to the room about 2:00, got our suits on and went down to the pool. We found three lounge chairs together and hopped in and out of the pool since it was so hot again. But about 4:00 they whistled everyone out of the pool as there were storms in the immediate area, but it never really amounted to much.

We stopped at the Marketplace to shop a little. Emily ended up with her Stitch pillow pet that she’s been wanting all trip. We went back up to the room and relaxed and got ready to go to Disney Springs for the evening. Our original plan was to go in MK for the evening, have dinner at Skipper Canteen and then catch HEA inside the park, but the day before we were reviewing what we had left for days and really wanted to get over to DS at some point, so decided to cancel our dinner reservation and go to DS for the evening. I'm sad we didn't get to see HEA inside the park, but am happy we got over to DS as the last time we were there, it wasn't finished.

Heading out! I love these chairs in the BC lobby.

And the subtle "beachy" details

We got to Disney Springs about 6:00. Emily went into Sephora first and shopped for quite a while in there (typical teen aged girl!). Brian and I found a bench and sat and enjoyed a beer together. While waited for her to come out I snapped a few pictures.

She finally emerged! She said she didn't spend too much (sure...), so we continued our stroll.