Trip Report It takes two to make a trip go right-June 2018

Who: just DH (@MSUJafar, who I will call E for the remainder of this report) and I. DD20 stayed home this year to watch the dog and also because she is taking summer classes.
When: June 16-27. We don't usually travel this early in the summer, but E is getting his Master's Degree and this was during a break for him. As for myself, it was a little stressful leaving the day after school got out (I'm a teacher for those who don't know). We really ended up liking this time of year much better than our usual July or August trips.
Where: 1 night at Pop Century (it ended up saving us money to fly out a day earlier than we had planned), 4 nights at BLT, and 6 nights at Boardwalk.
Let's get this show on the road!
Our flight from Detroit was scheduled to leave at 3:30. I think we got to the airport around noon because we were more than ready to get this vacation under way! We had to enjoy some chicken tortilla soup since the airport is our only Max & Erma's left in our area. We enjoyed a few drinks before boarding. We were flying Delta Comfort, so we were looking forward to more drinks on the plane, but because of some turbulence we only ended up having one on the plane.
I apologize for the lack of pictures so far, but my day drinking gave me an early hangover and I wasn't in the picture taking mood yet. Here are a couple from our Pop room.

As DVC members, we are definitely deluxe snobs, but this room was more than comfortable and very clean. The walk in shower was amazing (the best shower we had the whole trip)! It was around 8:00 p.m. when we got into our room. We called an Uber to take us to Publix for some water, beer and snacks. This was new for us since we usually use a grocery delivery service. We decided to try it this way since technically this was a "bonus" day for us. We were both tired and hangry, so we ended up getting into an argument at Publix. It wasn't too bad though and as soon as we dropped off the groceries and had some food at Everything Pop, all was well.

We retired for the night in anticipation of our move to BLT and our most looked forward to ADR of the trip: Brunch at the Top!

 

[PineapplePrincess]

Fun trip report! We recently had brunch at the California Grill too, it was amazing and the meal could have just been the appetizer buffet and I would have been happy!

Thanks! I always enjoy your reports too! I wish I could have brunch at Cali Grill every Sunday, lol!

 

[PineapplePrincess]

6/23 continued
After looking at my phone pictures yesterday I realized that E napped back at the Boardwalk, but I wasn't tired. So I ended up getting an iced coffee and riding the Friendship boat to Epcot and back. It was a nice relaxing ride, but later I would regret not taking a nap!
HBD is definitely our favorite in park restaurant and we eat there every trip. The service there is hit or miss, but the food and drinks are always wonderful. We end up getting the same thing every time. E gets the Margarita flight and I get the champagne flight.

I get the Cobb Salad and E gets the Filet.

I should have photographed it before he mixed it since it looks much prettier.

I usually get the grapefruit cake, but since we had the dessert party we skipped dessert.
I had moved our Star Tours FP until after dinner to set the mood for the party.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this dessert party. We have done the Wishes party, Illuminations sparkling dessert party and HEA. This one was probably my least favorite. It probably would have been more enjoyable if we had skipped dinner beforehand.
The cocktails were not my cup of tea, so I had some wine. I didn't partake in any of the savory options, but I enjoyed the desserts that I tried.

I didn't photograph our plates, but this cake was pretty cool.
The seating was pretty cramped. We got lucky and had a table to ourselves, but we noticed some other people who were sat at a table with people they didn't know and the tables were so close together that there was no room to move.
The card on our table told us what time to meet Kylo Ren. I didn't really want to go because he scares me, but this party was for E so I was brave and went. It was pretty awkward! For some reason I can't find the photos, but trust me you're not missing much!
About 20 minutes before the fireworks they started gathering everyone together to walk to the viewing area. At this time they also gave us our Darth Vader souvenir cup and some bottles of water.
They viewing area was great! We could have sat if we wanted to, but we chose to stand off to the side.

All in all, it was enjoyable and I'm glad we did it for E's sake. It's not something that we feel we need to do again. After the show, we called it a night.
Tomorrow would be our second visit to AK.

 

[myhappyplace]

Enjoying your report so far!

I really enjoyed HBD when we dined there previously, and I cannot wait to go back and have another Cobb salad!

 

[DisneyGigi]

6/23 continued
After looking at my phone pictures yesterday I realized that E napped back at the Boardwalk, but I wasn't tired. So I ended up getting an iced coffee and riding the Friendship boat to Epcot and back. It was a nice relaxing ride, but later I would regret not taking a nap!
HBD is definitely our favorite in park restaurant and we eat there every trip. The service there is hit or miss, but the food and drinks are always wonderful. We end up getting the same thing every time. E gets the Margarita flight and I get the champagne flight.
View attachment 297878View attachment 297879
I get the Cobb Salad and E gets the Filet.
View attachment 297880
I should have photographed it before he mixed it since it looks much prettier.
View attachment 297881
I usually get the grapefruit cake, but since we had the dessert party we skipped dessert.
I had moved our Star Tours FP until after dinner to set the mood for the party.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this dessert party. We have done the Wishes party, Illuminations sparkling dessert party and HEA. This one was probably my least favorite. It probably would have been more enjoyable if we had skipped dinner beforehand.
The cocktails were not my cup of tea, so I had some wine. I didn't partake in any of the savory options, but I enjoyed the desserts that I tried.
View attachment 297882
I didn't photograph our plates, but this cake was pretty cool.
The seating was pretty cramped. We got lucky and had a table to ourselves, but we noticed some other people who were sat at a table with people they didn't know and the tables were so close together that there was no room to move.
The card on our table told us what time to meet Kylo Ren. I didn't really want to go because he scares me, but this party was for E so I was brave and went. It was pretty awkward! For some reason I can't find the photos, but trust me you're not missing much!
About 20 minutes before the fireworks they started gathering everyone together to walk to the viewing area. At this time they also gave us our Darth Vader souvenir cup and some bottles of water.
They viewing area was great! We could have sat if we wanted to, but we chose to stand off to the side.
View attachment 297889
All in all, it was enjoyable and I'm glad we did it for E's sake. It's not something that we feel we need to do again. After the show, we called it a night.
Tomorrow would be our second visit to AK.

Enjoying the report! I am so up in the air about what to do extra. We did Club Villain in 2016, and I loved it! My planning this year is so off, 41 days to go, and I still have not made some decisions yet. I didn’t realize you got to do the meet and greets with the Star Wars dessert party, that is pretty cool. I agree about Kylo Ren, he totally freaked me out, but somehow, I thought I was in the Chewey line. I kept wondering why everything was dark side..while we were waiting. Maybe I had too many Derby Cosmos, before we got in line.
*edit to add, I love the Brown Derby, my family not so much. They like the food, but like you said service is hit or miss. I always go at least to the Lounge to get a couple of drinks and a mini Cobb salad!

 

[PineapplePrincess]

Enjoying the report! I am so up in the air about what to do extra. We did Club Villain in 2016, and I loved it! My planning this year is so off, 41 days to go, and I still have not made some decisions yet. I didn’t realize you got to do the meet and greets with the Star Wars dessert party, that is pretty cool. I agree about Kylo Ren, he totally freaked me out, but somehow, I thought I was in the Chewey line. I kept wondering why everything was dark side..while we were waiting. Maybe I had too many Derby Cosmos, before we got in line.
*edit to add, I love the Brown Derby, my family not so much. They like the food, but like you said service is hit or miss. I always go at least to the Lounge to get a couple of drinks and a mini Cobb salad!

Thanks for following. I would love to do Club Villain, but the timing is never right for us. I totally get what you mean by your planning being off. Maybe that's a drawback of going so often? As great of a trip as this was, the biggest disappointment was some of the table service dinners. E and I have already talked about next year and we're leaning toward more lounge dinners and less ADRs.

 

[PineapplePrincess]

6/24: AK & DS

Sorry it's blurry! Today we had planned an AK morning and an evening at DS. We had an ADR at STK that we were really looking forward to.
Our FP for the day were for FoP, the safari and Dinosaur. I know we arrived before 9:00 because I remember them checking to make sure we were resort guests, but we didn't rush to make rope drop this morning. Our FoP FP was at 9:15, so we decided to see what the wait for Navi River Journey was. It was only about 20 minutes, so we went on. I liked filling up my water bottle in the queue. It's the little things that make me happy! I didn't get any good pics of this ride.
After our Banshee ride, we headed over to the safari. The giraffes were coming really close to the vehicle!

Baby elephant!

I didn't want to miss those adorable chipmunkosauruses, so we went to see them before traveling back in time. Their line was super long and they were taking a lengthy break, but we persevered and it paid off!

I was really doing my best to take in all of the details, but most of the time I would forget to photograph them.

After bringing back the iguanodon, we were kind of hungry. We went for another visit to the Nomad Lounge for a couple of drinks and some chicken satay.
We said goodbye to AK for this trip and had a much needed nap before heading to DS. There was a nice storm during our nap and we were really happy to not be in it!
It was still raining a little when we left for DS so we put on our ponchos like the troopers we are and headed out. We shopped a bit and then gave Wine Bar George a try.

We really liked it and wished we could have stayed longer, but we only had time for one when it was time to check in to STK. This restaurant was E's choice, but I'll admit that I was really looking forward to it too. I'm not sure what I expected, but it was a lot different that what I thought it would be. The music was great, but quite loud. I guess it had more of a club vibe than a restaurant vibe to me. The meal was good, but not good enough for a repeat. That bread though...amazing!

We both had the 10 oz. filet (should have gotten 6 oz.), and shared the jalapeno cheddar grits and the mac and cheese. It was all really good, but just way too much food! Our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs!
Up next: back to Epcot

 

[Zipadeelady]

Those Dino Chipmunks are way toooo cute!! And that bread looks heavenly!

 

[PineapplePrincess]

Those Dino Chipmunks are way toooo cute!! And that bread looks heavenly!

It's worth going just for the bread!

 

[PineapplePrincess]

6/25: Epcot
Oh how I love the International Gateway! It makes Epcot mornings so much more pleasant.
We did our usual Epcot morning routine and headed straight for the Land to rope drop Soarin'. We had a FP for it at 9:25. After our first flight around the world, we enjoyed Living With the Land once again. Here was our nutritious breakfast for today.

The carrot cake cupcake was good, but not nearly as good as the carrot cake cookie. I really thought I would love the whoopie pie, but it was soooo sweet!
After our second flight around the world we headed over to the seas pavilion to visit the manatees.

I could watch them all day, but we had another FP to use.

My attempt at being artsy!

I let E choose our future this time. He had us living at the beach and growing our own food. I think I'll keep him!
Our last FP for today was Character Spot. I don't really like having my picture taken, but with the Memory Maker being part of our APs, I figured we should make good use of it. I think we did a pretty good job of it on this trip!

Goofy is always the most fun!
We made our way to World Showcase and found a table at La Cava. I used to really love the blood orange margaritas there, but this time I found it just okay. The queso is so good though! That was our lunch for the day.
I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but toward the end of the trip I stop taking as many pictures. Maybe it's because we visit each park multiple times, so I don't want to take the same shots time after time? Or maybe I just get lazy? Anyway, I don't have any photos from our trip around WS. It's a pretty safe bet that there was a stop at Rose & Crown!
We had an early dinner tonight, so there was no time to rest just a little time to freshen up. Originally we planned to dine at Yachtsman tonight. About a month before our trip, we were talking about how we should go to Cali Grill again so I changed it. I guess I was lucky to get in at only 30 days out, but I had to take a 5:35 reservation.
We had a decent server although I can't recall her name and we sat at one of the booths that's kind of in the middle of the restaurant.
I had the California Combination Roll and E went with the filet again. The food never disappoints!

We talked about hanging around to watch HEA either there or at Top of the World Lounge. I was really tired though and it was hours away, so we went back to Boardwalk for some ice cream and to start packing. Tomorrow would be our last full day and I think my leaving Disney depression was starting early. I'm really mad at myself for not sticking it out to see HEA one last time!

 

[PineapplePrincess]

Before I get to our last full day, I realized that I left out something that we really enjoyed. Because of my non-existent note taking, I have to go by what my pictures are telling me.
So this must have happened on 6/18.
We hopped over to MK. I know for sure that it was a little after 3:00 because we were able to watch FoF from the train station. It was going to be about a 20 minute wait for the train because only one was running.

We had not planned on watching the parade at all, so this was a bonus for us! For the life of me, I can't tell you what we rode besides the train. This tells me we visited Big Top Souvenirs.

The best part of the day though was on our way out. Ever since I told E about the daily flag retreat he has wanted to see it. On this day, we happened to be in the right place at the right time.
CMs were standing guard around the flag so no one could walk through (though I saw a few people try). The Dapper Dans were on hand to sing some patriotic songs.

The little girl in front of them led us all in the Pledge of Allegiance. As a teacher, this really brought on the waterworks!
The National Anthem was played and we all sang God Bless America.

I'm so glad we were able to witness this! I hope they never take it away.
My sincerest apologies for it being out of order, but it's something I really wanted to share with y'all.

 

[riverside]

I'm so glad we were able to witness this! I hope they never take it away.

It is a very moving ceremony. I teared up just looking at your pictures!!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

We were able to catch the full flag retreat this time for the first time this past trip too. We had only caught the very end before. It really is a great ceremony. We have watched the Disneyland numerous times though and that is always wonderful as well. I think it has been easier for us to catch the Disneyland one because we usually watch the afternoon parade there by the train station and then the flag retreat is usually about 30 minutes or so after the parade so timing just works out better.

 

[LeighM]

I was able to watch it for the first time in March. It was great timing bc my BIL is in the Air Force and he really enjoyed it. I watched it by myself from the Main Street Station and I had wonderful views and got great videos of the ceremony. No one else wanted to follow me up there bc they thought it was closed off. Because of that I was able to get videos and pictures of them in the crowd watching it. Worked out really well. And I definitely teared up too.

 

[PineapplePrincess]

6/26: Our last full day.
We went back to HS today. Normally we don't make 3 trips to HS, but E was convinced that there was going to be a soft opening or a DVC or AP preview for Toy Story Land. There wasn't. They did CM previews or dress rehearsals as they were calling them all week. It didn't bother me too much considering chaos is not my thing, but every time we walked by the entrance, E would get angry.
Still no FP availability for TSMM so we rope dropped it and got on fairly quickly.
After my icky ride on RnR last week, I changed our FP to Beauty and the Beast. I just love that show!

We rode ToT numerous times on this trip and it's a lot of pressure to come up with new poses. Our last ride is by far my favorite photo.

The little girl next to E was gripping onto his shirt for dear life! She was so cute, but so tiny....I don't know how she was tall enough!
We had a light lunch at ABC Commissary. As many times as we've visited, we've never eaten there, but we will again. The air conditioning was divine! We split a chicken sandwich and we thought it was quite tasty.
Remembering that this was about the time the other day when TSMM had a short wait, I suggested that we go check it out. Sure enough, the wait time was 10 minutes! We rode it 3 times in a row!

I think this will remain my favorite even after I have a chance to experience Toy Story Land.
We had one more FP for Star Tours and were very pleased to get two new to us sequences. We were ready to leave HS, but not ready for our day to end.
I managed to snag a FP for Soarin' (score!) that started in a couple of hours so we bussed and boated over to International Gateway.

We were just moseying our way through WS. E wanted a beer so we stopped in Japan for one and I got a cherry shaved ice. It was so refreshing and I can't believe I had never had one before!
We could see an impending storm, but we had no idea what a doozy it would be! We donned our ponchos and tried to wait it out for awhile. It was a soaker! Now I still consider us lucky that we made it through most of our trip without getting caught in a downpour. This more than made up for it.
After waiting for about a half hour we could see that it wasn't going to let up, so we sucked it up and sloshed over to the Land Pavillion. My shoes were waterproof, but E's were not so he was dodging puddles along the way. Once we got over toward the Land, there was a small lake. Some people were wading through it while others were cutting through the bushes. I am ashamed to admit that we were bush cutter-throughers. Not our proudest moment, but E was not liking the idea of soggy sneakers.
Our final ride on Soarin' was a chilly one, but enjoyable nonetheless.
We headed back to Boardwalk to get ready for our Flying Fish dinner and our Boardwalk area bar crawl.

 

[PineapplePrincess]

6/26 continued.
So I had packed really well for this trip and I had the exact right amount of outfits. Having none to spare, I had to blow dry my skirt from today since it was soaking wet! I enjoyed a nice Orange Blossom Pilsner whilst drying my skirt!
Dinner tonight was Flying Fish. I love scallops and last year when we went they weren't on the menu. We had decided that if they weren't on the menu this year that we would cancel our ADR. We had checked the day before and saw that there was a scallop entree so we kept our ressie.

Since we were repeat customers, they brought us an amuse bouche. I thoroughly enjoyed my glass of Sancerre. This was the only place on property (that we visited) that had it. I'm no wine expert, but in my opinion it was the best wine I'd ever had. Sadly I only had one since I knew after dinner we were embarking on a bar crawl. Here was my entree.

The scallops were perfectly seared! I wasn't crazy about the rest of it. I believe it was polenta with artichoke and balsamic glaze. Sorry I can't be more specific, but it's not on the current menu. The silverware there! You can't see the tail, but it's very mermaid-esque.
We skipped a sweet dessert in favor of liquid ones.
Our first stop on our Boardwalk area crawl was Abracadabar.

As you'll see from the photos, I stuck with Sauvignon Blanc while E tried a cocktail at each place. Even after looking at the menu, I have no idea what E ordered! Whatever it was was too sweet so our server Chelsea doctored it up for him.
I wasn't paying attention, but apparently the woman at the table next to ours was giving her companions passes to the next day's press preview to Toy Story Land. This of course got E hot under the collar again because they weren't even excited about it! I'm glad I wasn't paying attention.
We strolled around to Yacht Club to the Ale & Compass Lounge.

We really liked it here and wished we had discovered it earlier in our trip. As much as we wanted to stay, we had to push on!
Next stop: Crew's Cup Lounge. Always one of our favorites.

It had started raining again. Since we had had enough sogginess for the day, we took an Uber from Beach Club to Boardwalk!

We finished out the night at the Belle Vue Lounge. We were lucky to get two seats at the bar. It was packed with large groups including some very young and loud children complete with large strollers! Since I was several (but who's counting) drinks in, it didn't bother me too much at the time.
It was a very enjoyable last evening. We sadly went back to the room to pack up some more. Tragical Express wasn't picking us up until 4:00 the next day, but we wanted to do airline check in early so we could spend one last day at MK.

 

[riverside]

Love your ToT picture!!

 

[ATLmouselover]

I love the idea of a Boardwalk area bar crawl! We're staying at Yacht Club over Labor Day weekend, and we'll definitely be giving that a go!

Really enjoying your trip report! Between all these cocktails and brunch at Cali Grill, you're getting me super excited for our trip. 31 days to go!

 

[Tuvalu]

Love your ToT picture!!

What she said ^^^^!!

 

[fractal]

Thanks for sharing the Flag ceremony. I would love to see that one day.

Love the bar hopping on the last night!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

I love the idea of the Boardwalk area bar hop, we have done the monorail one a couple times. Something new to add to the to-do list!