Trip Report It Is What It Is... Our Journey To The Dark Side...Sept 2023 (Completed)

Hey there everyone!

We are back! I have to say, it was a Disney trip that was VERY different from those in the past. I am happy and excited to share it all with you all, as long as you are patient with me. Lol. You know – me -the one that takes 4 plus years to finish up a report!

That being said, I need to take care of some unfinished business before I start this epic tale. If you don’t know what I mean…. Here is the link to September 2019 trip which I am desperately trying to wrap up.

https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/from-droids-to-toys…-texting-the-boy-and-can-we-just-blame-it-on-captain-hook-our-september-2019-disney-journey-including-another-ross’-return.960569/

Thanks to all of you who helped get me excited for this trip and gave me such good advice and tips for our journey!

Here we go…

 

[Elizabeth Swann]

We too joined the AP club for the first time this year and are looking forward to going for the first time during the holidays. I love all the Figment merch.

 

[rshell68]

I LOVE IT!!!! Welcome to the Passholder family!! We use passholder room discount quite often! Shopping and food discounts aren't too shabby either.

 

[cgersic]

I was not ready for this latest post from you!!! But oh my heavens, that is some fabulous news! Welcome to the AP family and now I really hope to see you all one day!

 

[Figment Forever]

Now if only I can arrange to get a "Tuvalu" card to go with my passholder merchandise!!!

We too joined the AP club for the first time this year and are looking forward to going for the first time during the holidays. I love all the Figment merch.

We are working on some dates now - it doesn't seem real yet. Are you going in December?

I LOVE IT!!!! Welcome to the Passholder family!! We use passholder room discount quite often! Shopping and food discounts aren't too shabby either.

Thank you!! We definitely took advantage of the discounts when we were there!!

I was not ready for this latest post from you!!! But oh my heavens, that is some fabulous news! Welcome to the AP family and now I really hope to see you all one day!

Thank you!! Yes- it would be so awesome to meet up one day!!

 

[Figment Forever]

Hope had no idea what we were doing. We told her to sit on a bench while we took care of it. We didn’t want to get her hopes up until it was a done deal. We told her afterwards that she was a passholder and she was in disbelief! She exclaimed, “NO WAY!” I tried to video it, but it didn’t come out.

When the shock was over we entered into EPCOT and started to walk around World Showcase. Julia and Nick had forgotten something, so they had turned around and went back to POP. So it was just Ross, Hope and me for a while and it felt weird!!

We got a couple of snacks which were very yummy!

Them we rode our first ride – any guesses what we rode?

 

[Figment Forever]

I know you guys guessed it!! lol Of course it had to be Figment!!

Julia and Nick met up with us and since Julia wanted to ride Figment too (That’s my girl!!), we rode a second time.

When we exited, I saw the line for Figment – it was tremendous!! I asked a CM how long she could estimate the wait, and she told me about 2 hours, but it was cut off for the day. I was almost relieved because as much as I wanted to meet (giant) Figment, I wasn’t going to wait 2 hours! I did manage to check out the gift shop and I was so excited to find they had a Figment sweatshirt!!! I had been waiting one for so long! I didn’t want to carry it around for the rest of the day, so I decided to come back later on.

As we were leaving, we turned left, but Hope turned right. She wanted to meet Mickey!

 

[Figment Forever]

We headed off to the Land to ride Soarin and LWTL. And we also watched Amazing Planet… which really wasn’t so amazing- IMHO.

Is this new? - cause I don't remember it.

We rode Spaceship Earth and played the games at the end for a bit. Ross and Nicolas “competed” at a couple of games.



And then it was time for Gaurdians!

Now about this time, my phone was dwindling in power and my portable charger broke!! So I don’t have too many more pictures of the day.

We walked over to Guardians and changed our VQ into a DAS Lightning Lane. All I can say is WOW!!!!! Hands down the MOST AMAZING RIDE I’ve ever been on!!!

When we exited, it was time for our paid LL which Ross complained about for the entire trip. We rode a second time and again – it was just as awesome, maybe even better!

And while I totally get why it’s ridiculous to pay that price – I loved every second of it! Both times we got, “I Ran”, which one of my favorites from the six so I had no complaints, but I hoped we would have the chance to ride it again with a different song to see if it changes the feel of the ride.

 

[Figment Forever]

After we rode Test Track...

And then we walked around a bit before heading out and going to Disney Springs.

We exited through the front and honestly I have no memory of how we got to DS. We may have taken a bus to a resort and then took a boat or we may have went to a resort and took another bus…. But somehow we did get there and went to Blaze Pizza for some dinner.

We were tired.

We headed back to the resort and went to sleep. It was a LONG travel day, but it was wonderful!

 

[Tiki Traveler]

Great that you were able to get annual passes! Always happy to learn how to stretch those Disney $$$.

 

[mpaulam]

Those pizzas look great!

 

[Doc Disney]

As we made that skyliner trip over towards EPCOT, Ross and I, (well mainly me) were making a final decision. You see, we knew this would not be our last Disney trip.

Let me explain…This trip was our postponed 2020 trip which was paid for in 2020 and it was a much more costly trip than what we had changed it to. Nick and Julia also ended up paying for their park tickets for this trip and had their own spending money. So by the time we changed our original trip, with Nicolas and Julia pretty much paying their way, and when you take into consideration four years of Disney Visa points that we hadn’t used and numerous gift cards that people had given us as gifts over the past 4 years, we still had a lot of Disney dollars to spend. The only problem was Ross didn’t think he could do a long trip like we were doing. 10 -14 days just didn’t work anymore. He no longer has someone who could run his route while we are away and the worry was too much for him. I actually felt bad about this trip because he did do a lot of worrying about his business while we were away. He said future trips would have to be shorter trips, and that he would actually prefer to come on 2 short trips rather than one long one. Excuse me?? Two short trips? I thought, “Who are you and what have you done with my husband?”

How awesome would it be to visit Disney at a different time of year? I mean don’t get me wrong, Disney in the fall is beautiful, but I would love to see it during a different season. I started to think about visiting at a different time of year, but soon I realized that the cost of tickets would put it out of the question. The tickets get cheaper the longer you stay, so I wasn’t sure we could swing it. Plane tickets? No problem! We had enough points thanks to the S.S. Mosaic (his work truck) to not only have business class status, but we probably could fly back-and-forth to Florida six times at no cost! However, the thought of paying the higher prices for 5 day tickets each time - no way we could swing that.

Now as we were trying to get ready for our trip, I was reading some older trip reports. One in particular from @gwhb75 from several years back. As I was reading, he wrote how his family upgraded their 10-day tickets to an annual pass. Annual pass??? Would it be cheaper? Would that work for us? No way, I thought.

The wheel was in motion. I made some phone calls to Disney and did some math. As crazy as it sounded, this could be an option for us. But I quickly dismissed the lunacy from my brain. What was I thinking? I didn’t even want to go on this trip to begin with and now I was considering getting an annual pass for a year?

As crazy as it was, I threw it out to Ross and we talked about it. Ross was concerned we would lose our free dining credit for this trip, but I called and found out it would not. Then he was certain that we would have to pay full price and not have a credit for what we’ve already paid, but nope, they would deduct the price of our tickets. It would also open up the possibility of getting a room only with a passholder discount. I still tried to push it out of my head telling myself it was crazy then I thought about this…

View attachment 746574

and this…


View attachment 746575


and this…

View attachment 746577

and with that, our journey to the Darkside was complete.

View attachment 746578

I remember very distinctly the trip I upgraded to an AP - I happened to run into @Tuvalu at the POFQ bus stop that very day. And I remember her telling me my life was going to change and I was about to go to Disney way more often and boy was she right
Welcome to the AP club!

 

[rshell68]

but it was wonderful!

What am I reading??!! This statement plus the APs....I'm thinking someone's Disney mojo is back....

 

[lindawdw]

I finally got all caught up with your postings. Newark Airport is always a zoo for the super early flights! The whole Uber experience at the Newark airport hotel and then at MCO was so stressful! I'm glad it all worked out for you in the end. I had that happen at a most inopportune time while in SC during my daughter's wedding week and I was bribing the driver to drive fast to my hair appointment because they were going to cancel my washing if I didn't get there by a certain time! I can laugh about it now but at the time I was freaking out. I love that you decided to upgrade to an AP!!! Welcome to the club!!! It is a life changing experience.

Sounds like you accomplished a lot on your first day! Can't wait for more.

 

[Figment Forever]

Great that you were able to get annual passes! Always happy to learn how to stretch those Disney $$$.

It still feels so weird!! I know it's a one time deal, so hopefully we can get give them some use! lol

Those pizzas look great!

Blaze is our favorite! We had wanted to try a couple of different places at Disney Springs, but we always ended up at Blaze! I wish we had one locally!

I remember very distinctly the trip I upgraded to an AP - I happened to run into @Tuvalu at the POFQ bus stop that very day. And I remember her telling me my life was going to change and I was about to go to Disney way more often and boy was she right
Welcome to the AP club!

I know - it still feels strange! I hope we do get a couple of trips in before our year is up!!

What am I reading??!! This statement plus the APs....I'm thinking someone's Disney mojo is back....

haha you may be right...

I finally got all caught up with your postings. Newark Airport is always a zoo for the super early flights! The whole Uber experience at the Newark airport hotel and then at MCO was so stressful! I'm glad it all worked out for you in the end. I had that happen at a most inopportune time while in SC during my daughter's wedding week and I was bribing the driver to drive fast to my hair appointment because they were going to cancel my washing if I didn't get there by a certain time! I can laugh about it now but at the time I was freaking out. I love that you decided to upgrade to an AP!!! Welcome to the club!!! It is a life changing experience.

Sounds like you accomplished a lot on your first day! Can't wait for more.

Thanks so much! It was exciting to be back after so long. I am so glad we did the TSA pre-check!! Best money spent!!

 

[Figment Forever]

Wednesday September 13 - Magic Kingdom Day

I opened my eyes at 8:30! It was actually Julia who called and woke me up! She thought we had already left and we’re at the park. Lol. I couldn’t believe I overslept that late and missed the 7 AM boarding for Tron! Oh well, It is what it is.

I told the big kids to go ahead and start the day without us, that we weren’t going to be out of the room for a while. We all got up, showered and got dressed. I tried to figure out more of the My Disney experience app. I played around with it a lot before we left home, but it seems you really need to be in Walt Disney World to Really start to understand how it works. It was confusing me because it said we were in Epcot??? It took me a few3 days to figure things out, but it did get easier as the days went on.

I realized before we even left for our trip that early morning rope drops were NOT in our plans. One plus to not being in the early morning crowds were by the time we got outside to grab a Bus, there was no wait.

A bus showed up quickly and we were soon at the Magic Kingdom. Again, there was really no lines to get in so walking and was a breeze.

 

[Figment Forever]

As we were walking down Main Street, I texted Julia and told her we would meet them in Tomorrowland. As we were heading over, we got caught up in the FoF parade so we watched in front of the plaza.

I FaceTimed my mom and dad. I held up my finger to signal not to talk – just watch and then I held up the phone so they could watch the parade. When it was done, I looked into the phone and motioned that I would speak to them later, and I could see my mom had tears in her eyes.

We met up with Julia and Nick. They had already rode BTMR and seen the Bears. We had a return time for Haunted Mansion, so that’s where we headed.

Hope knew exactly where hat box ghost was going. It was fun to ride without Hope being scared. She announced she conquered her fear of omnimovers. But oh my... our pictures were soooo sad...

As we walked into the quene, the clock struck 1:00 – I was ready to go and got a Tron boarding group 149. That was a relief.

 

[Lyssa]

OMG, I cannot believe how big the girls are. They were so little the last time I read a trip report.

Also, Newark Airport is the worst, I was stranded there overnight during the summer when I was flying home from visiting my parents in NJ.

 

[Figment Forever]

OMG, I cannot believe how big the girls are. They were so little the last time I read a trip report.

Also, Newark Airport is the worst, I was stranded there overnight during the summer when I was flying home from visiting my parents in NJ.

They grew up overnight!!

I'm glad we got the TSA Pre-check. If nothing else, it takes away some stress.

Thanks for reading!!

 

[Figment Forever]

We walked over to tomorrowland. On our way, a parade of scooters and stollers went by… One of the women in the back kept yelling. “ Mom remember your toe brakes!!!” I don’t know what that meant, but I was sure to stay out of their path!!

We were heading for Monster Laugh Floor, but it was so hot we decided we needed to stop for something cool. Since Auntie Gravity was on the way, that was where we stopped to hydrate!

After our treat, we walked over to Monsters Inc – Hope was so excited!!!

Ross was picked to tell the geography of the human world, but was said he wasn’t picked for “That Guy”. lol

 

[Figment Forever]

After our vist with Mike W., we walked over to Buzz. I was shocked to see how long the LL was! (We had a return time.). But it moved super fast. Ross noticed they “rerouted” the way we walked through the line and no longer waked in front of Buzz.

I was proud how much Hope “played” the game. Her score wasn’y so shabby, but none of us were a Galactic Hero! lol

Went to carousel of progress but it was down. Apparently, it stopped for a min and people started getting up and leaving!! So they had to reset the ride.

We decided to take on the most thrilling ride at MK – The PeopleMover. Tron was up and running!!

After that, we went on carousel of progress because it was back up and running. Ross got in a quick nap.

Our stomachs got the better of us and we decided to have something to eat. I wanted a cheeseburger spring roll or a chicken waffle thing. So ideally, we wanted to start heading over that way, but since we were all very hungry and getting cranky, we decided to pay Sunny Eclipse a visit. Ross actually suggested I mobile order so I did!

It was just burgers and chicken tenders, but it was actually really tasty. Ross asked for a side of lettuce, tomato, and pickles, which was great since they no longer have the topping bar. We found a table and hunted down a few extra chairs and we all settled in and scarfed down everything! I got some sort of salad which was also very tasty.

We headed to Adventureland, because I had a 230 return time for jungle Cruise. It was fun, our skipper was cool. I did see Nick crack a few smiles. I told him he should get a job driving one of these boats since that’s completely his sense of humor.

What does Ross think of the humor???