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 -

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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.
 
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George

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
Original Poster
Alright. Let us move onto W, 10/13. We have Moonlight Magic at TL in the evening. But, first there was some daytime shenanigans. Let me consult my memory stick of images and see if I can refresh my memory. So I didn't mean to upload the image below, but I decided to play Russian roulette and just go with it. So, I guess it will stay. It looks like we were visiting a construction zone of some type.
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I honestly, don't have much memory of this time. I did jot down a few notes while were on the trip, I'll go consult them in a sec. Apparently, we did visit the DVC lounge. It used to be something else. Quiz: What attraction used to be housed in the DVC Lounge? A: Electrical It's a Small World. It was raining out. I think we hit the Land pavilion at some point, LwtL and Soarin'. We also rode SSE. Oh yeah, free snackie poos and drinks available in the Lounge.

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I've written multiple letters about how awful the dust on the duct work is.
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We didn't do a lot of Food and Wine since Moonlight magic features a) a free dinner and b) unlimited Mickey premium bars. We didn't take any TL pics (I always feel awkward taking pics of things surrounded by people in bathing suits), but Cindy and Hannah did do some of the special meet and greets.

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We all had fish and chips for dinner. Not at the place right behind the wave pool beach, but at the place that's a little further walk. You know, right before or after where Crush and Gusher and the family raft ride are. OK we ate at Typhoon Tilly's (I googled a TL map). Also, the family raft ride is Miss Adventure Falls. Really good ride. It has a pirate parrot animatronic. But, I digress. We didn't eat at Leaning Palms because the lines were nuts. However, once you found the locations of the Mickey Premium bars, you could help yourself. Cindy saw some people who brought in small coolers to really stock up. There was a DJ and dance party at the Surf Pool beach. We always grab some chairs near the surf pool and hit the lazy river. We did that. I was even able to enjoy a beer despite the presence of the DJ. There were moonlight magic branded ball caps, t shirts, insulated mugs, and a couple of other items I'm forgetting. The t shirt looked the best. Cindy and I each picked one up. I saw one person buy 6 of the t shirts and another person buy ~10....I didn’t want to stare and count. I'll take a pic of mine in a minute and put it in the next post. I know they also do moonlight magic stuff at MK and EPCOT. We never overlapped with it before. It was really nice. Not crowded at all (except for the aforementioned Leaning Palms).
 
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Loco_driver

Loco_driver

Well-Known Member
Way late but following along! Interesting thoughts on Star Wars. I did find a bit odd that they went with the newer movies as a time setting, but loved the land anyways. We had a much better experience at docking bay 7 for breakfast it seems. Great party costume too!
 
George

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
Original Poster
Th, 10/14

MK...breakfast at Cindy's Royal Table. This was Hannah's request. My wife had to miss. She had a meeting that was non-negotiable. She did join us in time to do most of the major MK attractions including Mine Train, but it was sad. Hannah requested this because she remembered it from when she was a little kid. This was my third time at Cindy's Royal Table. Twice with my current nuclear family and once in 8th grade when it was King Stefan's Royal Banquet Hall (if I'm remembering correctly. The name actually doesn't make much sense, but I digress).

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Sad picture without our Cindy. I don't recall what Alec ate. I had this giant piece of French toast stuffed with apples and covered with caramel. Essentially, a carb wonderland. I think I may have been psychologically compensating for lack of tonga toast. I usually get some tonga toast. From a food perspective, tonga toast is superior, but it is not served in Cindy's castle. Hannah had shrimp and grits. Hers was good. Really good. We did get Cindy's breakfast refunded (I had prepaid) and they applied the DVC discount after the fact. I hope they were able to parlay the 6 months of interest earned off of those monies into a Lord of the Rings purchase or something.

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They distribute weapons at the meal.
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No princesses back when Hannah was 4. What I remember about that meal was that Cinderella's mice friends came by the table and they didn't sign Hannah's autograph book (they didn't interact with people that way at the time) which caused her to spend the meal crying. In retrospect, this may have been a weird request based on that memory.

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I usually don't take food pictures. Weird.
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George

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
Original Poster
Friday...Seven of us! My sister's family loves DAK. They love Rainforest Cafe. So, that was the main focus of the day. That and a Flight of Passage fastpas
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No camera. We are photopass dependent on this day. Essentially, we did the big rides again and again. We're traveling with teenagers. We did play the find the Lion King statue scavenger hunt in Africa. I forget the prize Hannah got. I think it may have been a piece of Lion King bric a brac or $50,000. Eh, guess it doesn't matter that much. Note how excited my sister appears on Everest. Also, note my rain poncho. Hannah wanted to ride Kali and I drew the short straw so to speak. We always see FotLK when in the park. In my opinion, the two musical in DAK are the best general entertainment theme park shows in WDW and DAK has the best counter serve line up and I don't even think its close.

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Hannah and I are in another vehicle. What distracted the woman in white?

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Hannah and I beat the rest of the family into Rainforest by 10 minutes. I had a really good meal. I don't remember being a big Rainforest Cafe fan, but I had some fish thing stuffed with crab (which is really hard to mess up anyway) and it was really good even for a super rich thing. Also, I had a really odd check in experience. There was a man and woman in front of me. The man was from New York. The women was from South Carolina. Their families were super best friends and they wanted to have the Rainforest Cafe staff or maybe the Disney staff or maybe the people waiting behind them in the check in line for eons to go out into Animal Kingdom and find the rest of their group (9 other people) since dinner was supposed to be a surprise. And, I crap you not, the man wanted some kind of Buffalo Bills surprise for his mom since she was a big Bills fan. Eventually, the fine folk behind them in line were allowed to check in. No idea if their incredibly intelligent surprise dinner plan worked out.
 
George

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
Original Poster
Saturday. We fly out, but our plane doesn't leave until late. It is this morning that we pass up a chance to ride MF again for TSMM. We all just find TSMM more fun. We also, blew off a Slinky Dog fastpass. My kids are older...really for the toy story area to work I think they need 3 or 4 more type rides. Anyway, we also hit EPCOT. We wound up eating a dinner/lunch or linner at Lotus Blossom. I think it is the last counter serve in WS we haven't eaten at. We should've hiked to the Katsura Grill since it has good food. One thing we did that was new, was the EPCOT expansion advertising circlevision, model projection room. Fantastic visual presentation. Informationally, it is fairly bereft unless you want to spend hours piecing things together like you're watching the Zapruder film. @wdwmagic said that he was paying me 70 grand for that review. So, Mr. Magics, I think you can see it is done and dusted.

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The 18 million dollar ad and the two photopass stops above are in the old Odyssea restaurant so named because it used to serve seafood like chicken fingers and hamburgers.

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There was no line for Olaf or the Hamburglar. Olaf was very huggie.

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Disney rainbow as we were leaving. I believe the cost of an exit rainbow is $495/party member. Also, on the plane Hannah showed me what she had bought at EPCOT that day

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A little bit of the old park still hangs on. With this, I bid you adieu.
 
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