Trip Report George and the family he doesn't deserve trip report, 10/12/19-10/19/19

So, this is going to take me a while. I would guess 10-14 days. It won't take a while due to the pithiness of my prose or the hours spent looking through wondrous photos. It will take a while because I'm busy. Feel free to post anything you desire in between my posts. So, we drove from Indy to Midway in Chicago due to really cheap plane tickets and a direct flight. We stayed here -

since we got in at midnight, 10/12/-10/13. Its nice. You can hit the whole array of breakfast offerings in the airport before picking up the rental car the next morning. We've had balconies with views of the security gates and the airport shuttles over the years. This trip we got security gates. Cindy (DW) took some pictures, but I just learned that since its her work phone we're not sure how to transfer them without getting into trouble. This also explains the many pictures I've noticed missing over the years. Thus, at some later point in this trip report there could be images added. This was our third time here. For us, if we fly into MCO between 11PM and 1AM it is hard to beat. There are a few families who make this airport Hyatt their home base for a Uni or Disney trip. Weird.

In order to build anticipation - Halloween Party, DVC midnight magic at Typhoon Lagoon, and SWGE will all be reported on. There will be some pictures of us. We have 4 sources, my iPhone, Photopass, old school SLR, and my wife's phone. Wife's phone accounts for 40% and I don't take pictures of normal things, but we will have images.

 

[Swissmiss]

I too take advantage when there is a hotel in the airport and I have a late landing flight. And on a trip to Copenhagen several years ago we made the Hilton at the airport our home base for the time we were there. It was perfect because the rail service into the center of the city was right outside the hotel

 

[Bullseye1967]

Following along!!

 

[Katiekitten]

I'm following along, cant wait to read all about it!

 

[King Racoon 77]

Stalking...
















I mean , following along.

 

[Rista1313]

following =D

 

[MinnieM123]

Looking forward to your TR!

 

[KellBelle]

Count me in!

 

[George]

I think taking it slow will help with some details. For example, I forgot an extremely important detail in the OP. Whilst standing in the bathroom trying to remember where my toothbrush was something happened to the lower left side of my back. I was in pain the whole trip. It seemed to get better. By the end of the week, I thought I was doing OK and then my sister and her family showed up and they were all shocked and said they had never seen me hobbling around like that.

Anyway, let us do the first full day at WDW. We left the airport on the morn of 10/13 and we drove to one of our DVC home resorts, the Villas at Wilderness Lodge now known as Boulders of Copper Creek Canyon Ridge or something. I refuse to learn the new name cuz I'm old and cranky. In fact, I'm old enough that I have back problems for no reason. We then took our resort boat to the MK.

Here are two members of the family who were not happy that we were on vacation

We got in several Space Mountain Rides, Splash, Mine Train, BTMRR....I'm a vacation planning bad . Anyway, here are a few ride photos from that time period.

Hannah claims that there has never been a picture of me on Space Mountain where I don't look bored. The top Space photo has just me, the bottom has the rest of my family. I don't remember how it precipitated, but Hannah got a ride on Space with just me. She was laughing because (recall this was the day of peak back pain) every time everyone else went "Whoooooo!" She heard me go, "Owwwwwwww". I should note, that I'm not lying when I mention that my first visit to MK was in March of 1972. When on space, I actually closed my eyes for most of the ride and anticipated each dip, drop, and turn in an effort to save my back.

We ate lunch at the newish chicken and waffle place in Liberty Square. I believe it is Sleepy Hollow. I had the sweet and spicy chicken waffle sandwich. It was pretty good.

It was then time to go to Publix to stock up our one bedroom unit. Also, for those familiar with VWL, we were in a room just off main octagonal area. So, we didn't have to walk the length of the full hallway. This made us decide to get a couple of refillable mugs since the walk to Roaring Forks wasn't ridiculous. On the way to Publix, we drive by some neat stuff. I gave the boy my phone.

He was all like, who cares where they work on the monorails and the stupid coaster isn't even built yet. Also, note our Sunpass. We packed it for the rental. For dinner that night we prepared delicious Stouffer's mac and cheese paired with bag of salad with Ranch dressing. For dessert - Publix Key Lime pie. If you're ever in a Publix on your vacation, buy the Key Lime Pie. I've been eating them from time to time since I was 10. Also, Key Lime pie is really easy to make at home. But, I digress. We've never had so much Disney as a family as we've had this year. Trip over NYE, trip this summer, trip over fall break, and a few days before visiting family this Christmas. I mention that because I'm not good at trip reports and I leave you with this NYE fireworks show image.

Tomorrow morning we get up for SWGE. Hooray!

 

[George]

So, we're on Monday, 10/14. This was a very active day. We got up super early to get to SWGE. The humidity impacted initial attempts to get pictures

But I was able to get the SLR cleared up soon enough.

The good - the land looks spectacular. Really spectacular.

We got a ride in on Smuggler's Run. Honestly, it was OK. Fast forward ahead to the last day...we all had a chance to ride Smuggler's Run or TSMM before catching our flight and the whole family picked TSMM. We waited about an hour. Alec and I were pilots. Cindy and Hannah were gunners. Oh, the best part is the animatronic smuggler dude that I have no emotional attachment to from the cartoons or whatever. That animatronic is great. Anyway, back to the ride. It started kind of fast. I controlled left/right, Alec controlled up/down. We did terrible the first 30 seconds, but then kind of got the hang of it. The couple in the engineer row was heckling us at the start. Maybe they were experts who had ridden many times. I dunno. I didn't like the fact that the group's ride experience really hinged on what Alec and I did. It was my only ride and I could tell pilot was quite a bit more important than the other positions. Another complaint is that as pilot you have the best view through the cockpit, but you can't really enjoy it because you're always doing something. I could tell the engineers had the worst view by far and it seemed like they had the least to do. Not a good design. Rides in the Studios I like better would be ToT, RnR, and TSMM. I do like it better than Slinky Dog. All in all, the Honda whatever animatronic dude and just standing in the MF were the best parts. I think RotR will be much better.

We did get into Oga's Cantina.

This was OK. I liked the music. I wish there were some aliens somewhere in the Cantina. Bear with me on this point - it was 7:45AM and I didn't want an alcoholic beverage. Neither did the wife. She made the wise choice and got the capuccino. It wasn't bad. I decided I had to get my coffee in some alien format since we were in a SW cantina. Plus, everything at Satuli Canteen is so good, that should be replicated here right? I ordered the Black Spire brew. Menu description -
"Cold Brew Joffrey’s Coffee, honey, falernum, passion fruit, and citrus - $7.00"
Correct Description - "Rancid Grapefruit - $7.00"...
An adult duo of women was seated with us and one of them ordered the Black Spire Brew. She said, "This tastes weird. I can't place it." I said, "Rancid Grapefruit?" She said, "That's it!" The kids got the Moogan Tea and the Blue Bantha - each earned an OK. Now, to the really bad part. We ordered a Mustafarian Lava Roll. Somehow, and I don't know how, they made a cinammon roll type breakfast item taste bad. We also ordered Rising Moons Overnight Oats for Hannah. She typically loves things like this. However, she gave me hers to finish. I quickly realized why.

Menu description - Rising Moons Overnight Oats - Oats, Dragon Fruit, Yogurt, and Seasonal Fruit - $7.00
Correct description - Rising Moons Overnight Oats - Tasteless Paste Like Food product- $7.00

At some point we split a glass of blue milk between the 4 of us. Only $8.71 for maybe 6.5 ounces of an OK drink that is fruity. Later in the week we tried the green milk. $8.71 for maybe 6.5 ounces of an OK drink that is vaguely indescribable.

I think all the of the other food places are pretty good (they are very well reviewed at least). However, I would expect the pop cultural signature food and drink (cantina options and blue milk especially) to be really good as well. Here's another thing. Mind, this is from someone who saw the first SW movie countless times in theatres over the more than 60 weeks that I could do that when I was 7 and 8 years old. See the people in this pic? Two of them should be Han Solo and Lando Calrissian.

So to summarize -Look of Batuu - top notch.
Ride - OK (I'm pretty sure the unopened ride will be fantastic).
Cantina - Atmosphere - Good. Food and Drink - Mediocre
Decision to set Batuu in the time it is set in, or setting it in any time at all - Kind of dumb

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure we'll commit a sacrifice to get a ride on RotR in December and I'll take many, many pictures in this place for years to come. Plus, the Docking Bay is supposed to be really good. I would imagine the Cantina will have some menu items reworked. One of my friends told me that someone made the decision to dispense with taste testing before selling product to actual customers. I can't believe that. I think he agreed with my views of Cantina breakfast and was trying to come up with a reason.

This is a really big day. We still have the rest of the day in the Studios, impromptu rides on the just opened Skyliner, lots of Food and Wine stuff. This day will be multiple posts. I'm going to have a night cap and hit the hay.

 

[Swissmiss]

Your food descriptions are very funny. I will definitely avoid eating and drinking in Batuu when I go at the end of the year,

 

[George]

Your food descriptions are very funny. I will definitely avoid eating and drinking in Batuu when I go at the end of the year,

I think some of it is luck of the draw. Since I've been home, I've been looking at reviews on the internetz and the Docking Bay 7 place is well loved and the alcoholic beverages at Oga's Cantina are highly reviewed. The "adult beverages" at Oga's are the reason I mentioned the 7:45 AM time. They did have a few breakfast drinks with alcohol. I'm far from a teetotaler, but I really don't want anything like that in the morning except for maybe an occasional mimosa in a brunch setting. There were a few people in the Cantina who ordered a fancy adult beverage at that time. Part of me wonders if I should've done that even though I wasn't in the mood. I also (I have no reason to believe this except common sense) believe they will be reworking the blue and green milks. For both purchases, made almost a week apart, I was able to walk up. The second purchase was made at a high noon, close to high crowds time. I think they want that place slammed. Before tax their price is $7.99 and I'm guessing once you correct for labor costs and ingredients the profit margin would be $7.81 if they could get a constant influx of people. Right now, its probably a mere $7.36 since labor has a few moments where they are just standing there.

 

[George]

So, we did a few more things that morning after exiting Black Spire Outpost. The land is so pretty we took a lot of pics even as we were exiting. The sun is up! Hooray! I also liked the look of the sun over the RotR ride entrance even though I'm pretty sure that is awful photography.

In the foreground you can see the disembodied spirit of Samuel L. Jackson jedi guy.

We did a couple of things for Hannah who was really going through a sentimental phase. I will say this - if you haven't seen BatB for a while, it is very pleasant. We also had rides on ST and ToT. I believe we also got a showing of Muppet Vision. Our plan was to head over to EPCOT Studios for a Food and Wine brunch/lunch extravaganza. We exited and before we even considered making our way to our rental car, something that hadn't been running for a while was. I should note that if my sister would've been with she would have declared that I have some sort of inexplicable Disney powers where I can just make things happen whereas things always go off the rails for her. Anyway,
here are some pics take of and from the Death Boxes that are now my favorite mode of WDW public transport. They are really efficient. Line moves quickly. GREAT views. Over the course of 9 separate legs, we had one cabin that was wrapped. The wrapped cabin really does obscure the view some. Fantastic views of Rat construction.

So we flew to EPCOT. We look for obscure Photopass photographers at this point

It would be here at Food and Wine that we would find a beverage that all 4 of us love. A beverage that I was willing to WAY overpay for. A beverage that we got one last round of one our way out of dodge 5 or 6 days later.

 

[Tiggerish]

Well, there's a cliffhanger...

 

[George]

Well, there's a cliffhanger...

Yes...soon all will be revealed. When we arrived at the Experimental Prototype Community of Unrelated Things it was still fairly early in the day. We had a late evening dinner reservation at PRIME Time, but first we were eating some food, drinking some drinks, and experiencing some attractions. We got a ride on Norwegian Ice Fairytale. So happy not everything is movie IP. Also, even though I couldn't see my family (or myself) for that matter on extremely small thumbnail icon view, I can tell I picked the correct day based on my festive fish t shirt. This is one of my favorite t shirts. Purchased at The Living Seas at some point before the Nemo overlay.

Also, my sunglasses are prescription so I look like a weirdo indoors much of the time on vacation. If you become a Premium Member you can search for the trip report where I buy Minnie Mouse reading glasses at DAK since they were the only ones I could find. They were purchased because my cheap, $2 Menards readers literally fell apart due to over exposure to my acidic sweat in the Florida sun during a summer trip. I can recall suntan lotion and sweat streaming down my forehead and into my eyes (the stinging! Oh god the stinging!) while I held one spectacle arm and one lens in front of my partially closed eye while trying to see what the next fastpass was while waiting on Prmeval Whirl. The glasses I purchased after this did have little rhinestone Minnies on the arms, but since they were black, they didn't seem to overly feminine to me. I wore them all week and thought they weren't noticeable at all. Then I met @James and his lovely wife who I can no longer tag for some reason (that sounds really bad if it were taken out of context) and thought they REALLY weren't noticeable, since they didn't comment on it. Then, when I was doing my trip report and mentioned this @Laura (see...doesn't work) was all like, "WRONG! It was the first thing I noticed. I was just too polite to ask." Also, tell @wdwmagic that George sent you for an un specified discount or free Subaru Crosstek. I can't remember.

Here are some pics taken the other way off most EPCOT pics

We also did the Food and Wine game where you find Remy. If you find all 15 or so Remy's you get a plastic Minnie Mouse drinking cup, good for free refills for life at Dixie Landings.

The Remy scavenger hunt is slightly better than the Lion King scavenger hunt at DAK.

So food and wine - we found most of our favorites this year were in Future World or near Future World. We did like the raclette (@Swissmiss) and I wish we had taken a picture of it so you could judge its veracity. Also, my daughter is currently a pescatarian and thus we tried several things like this -

• 
  Impossible™ Cottage Pie: IMPOSSIBLE™ Ground Meat with Carrots, Mushrooms, and Peas topped with Mashed Cauliflower, White Beans, and Mozzarella (V)

which was found at Earth Eats. This was suprisingly good. At the ESPN, college gameday eating pavillion, my wife got this - "Smoked Corned Beef with Crispy Potatoes, Cheese Curds, Pickled Onions, and Beer-Cheese Fondue". Two notes - Cindy is from Wisconsin and this is one of the most Wisconsinney things I've ever seen at food and wine and 2) this actually wasn't a small portion. It turned into her lunch.

So the super, duper drink. We went to the Chocolate Experience located in Future World West. First, this was superior to the Godiva pavilion this year. Second, Hannah was complaining about the lack of non-alcoholic speciality beverages. I said, "Look, moms and dads need extra help to put up with kids on vacations like this." Still, the complaining continued. Anyway, whilst at the chocolate experience I got one of these - "Twinings® Pumpkin Spice Chai Tea and Chocolate Shake (non-alcoholic) (KA)" for all 4 of us to share. I then purchased 4 more so that we didn't have to share. We then hit this kiosk on Saturday before leaving the world so we could drink 4 more.

This is far from a complete food and wine experience list. I will say the College game day pavillion, Earth Eats, and Coastal eats were very good.

Next up - Tuesday. Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Fiesta. I'm wearing a costume.

Edit - maybe I can tag @Laura. Her name didn't show up on the pull down list of users for some reason.

 

[Swissmiss]

If your cheese was still in a liquid, melted state, then your raclette was as it should be, if it had congealed, not so much. That being said, raclette cheese is tasty even before melted. It does however STINK when melted which is why I only eat raclette at a restaurant or when invited to someone’s for dinner, as it takes days for the smell to leave an apartment in the wintertime, unless you want to leave the windows open and wear your coat indoors for the day.

It’s also makes me laugh to see the bread slices with it. While there are places that serve potatoes with fondue, in 20 years I have never seen raclette served with bread. IMHO fondue is better with potatoes than bread so I prefer going to restaurants that have that option.

 

[MinnieM123]

When we arrived at the Experimental Prototype Community of Unrelated Things

 

[Cesar R M]

Don't mind me, just stalking by.

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

LOL, I'm enjoying your quirky trip report! I get your sarcastic, quirky sense of humor. It's a lot like my families. It's like, "sometimes we wonder if he/she is really serious?". Can't wait for more TR, and I won't say "quirky" anymore

 

[George]

Tuesday, October 15

I mentioned my back. Here is a recurring theme from the trip I haven't mentioned. My wife and I are both professional nerds. She was working on a big project for the pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly. There were times during the trip that she had to work. This was non-negotiable. Tuesday morning was one of those times. As a result, it was me and the kids in DAK. Also, as a result, I don't think we have a single picture from that time period because the kids are very anti-pictures. Let me confirm this suspicion. Back in a jiffy. Confirmed. I'm going to cheat and attach a couple of pics of the 4 of us from this summer since I have them on the memory stick that is shoved wantonly into this really sketchy old laptop.

The picture frame thing was still there and so is Pandora. Remember folks IP popularity, or pre-existing IP doesn't matter. All that matters is quality of the land in the themed recreational environment. Just a reminder.

I had a fastpass for the new Animation thing. The kids had zero interest. In fact, I believe I was called a "dodo head" for even suggesting we take the train to conservation station. Don't worry. Sometimes I take on a fake pop star persona (I call myself Beeblo) and sing my biggest hit, "Beeblo Eat Some Food, Food" while dancing around to enact revenge. So, we rode Everest (twice) and Dinosaur (once). We saw FotLK (Cindy showed up after lunch and its her favorite). I also purposely changed a FoP fastpass into a Navi River fastpass because we were meeting an old, dear friend and the FoP fastpass was late enough it would interfere with Halloween Party shenanigans. Cindy also got to ride Navi River. I like the little dark ride a lot. Its very pretty. I think they've made it effectively longer by running it progressively slower, but I can't prove this. I like FoP better, but we had fastpasses for Friday with my sister's family (yes, another cliffhanger...large group day). The worst part for Cindy was that she ate PB&J in the room (she loves Satuli). In fact, (another cliffhanger) she may have even hated this more than the meal she missed on Th, which is really mind blowing.

Halloween Party - Short waits. Fireworks show - pretty good. Projections on the castle and on the weird looking side turrets. They decided to tell a story which enhanced the show if you could disregard its overall stupidity which Jake (my friend), Alec, and I couldn't, which actually made it more enjoyable since we were laughing. Also, many, many people yelled "Crappers Full!" at me except they didn't use the word crapper. Candy stations - we go every 3 years and they had more than in the past. I'd say maybe 14 or 15. Parade - OK.

A few quick thoughts before I wrap this up. 1) Big Handfuls of candy this year. There has been some variation in this. 2) One of the "Crapper's Full!" without using the word crapper shout out came from an ~ 8 year old boy whilst we were in line for Pirates. The line wound around and we were at walking speed and it seemed like I walked past this kid 37 times after he yelled this at me and I didn't know how to respond. Awkward. 3) My hat was an actual winter hat. Not a costume It was hot! Huge mistake. Every time I took it off though, I was just bathrobe pervert.