Trip Report It was the best of times in the worst of times...

Hello All!
We're back from our October 2020 Disney trip, and a crazy time it was!

Like so many others whose trips were cancelled/delayed and changed, ours was too. A year ago before the world collapsed my husband wanted to have a big family blowout trip in November 2020. Our usual companions are my son 20, occasionally daughter 32 and her new husband. He also wanted (for whatever reason) to invite my mother and husband who profess to despise Disney, despite never having been there. His brother and wife, who live in NC and are so reluctant to travel they don't know the restaurants in their own town. He wanted to invite my sister, her husband and son, that he doesn't really spend any time with.🤷‍♀️ I said, "whatever dude" you invite and I'll figure it out.

Invitations went out and 2020 arrived. Our 2020 like many others has been a big pile of 💩 with one shining exception. So, I'm going to list from January to now in a purposely run-on sentence (paragraph) to get the years crap mentioned here and out of the way. It's meant to read fast and forget. The reason I'm going to go into our family's woes is some of this impacted our trip planning/scheduling.

January Scooby (our crazy loving dog) had to be put down and it was very traumatic February Gary's cancer worsened (those of you that have read my other reports know he is fighting stage 4 colon cancer) and they had to increase his chemo Gary gets both cataracts out right before Covid hits February I schedule the Poly for a crap ton of people that of course aren't coming March Seth gets kicked out of his college dorm in Savannah with the Covid shut down and in 48 hours finds an apartment we drive down 12 hours with a Uhaul trailer with donated furniture to help set him up looking like the Beverly hillbillies Aleisha my oldest gets laid off from her job as an interior designer in California due to Covid April we start volunteering at the local food bank because increasing volumes of people are hungry May Aleisha gets her job back and then looses it again due to Covid July I fall in the yard fracturing in multiple pieces my right (dominant) wrist requiring surgery September the day my daughter and her husband are getting ready to put a down payment on a house in California he gets laid off from his job as a lawyer due to Covid.

What, you say, could possibly be the shining exception? In the middle of that mess in April Aleisha and Julio called to tell us that we will be first time grandparents mid December! We're going to have a baby girl!

So, all of that crazy above resulted in my daughter and husband bailing on us for the November trip, and of course none of those in-laws, outlaws etc. were ever going to come, so we rearranged dates around my sons school schedule and planned for a trip in October, and said pooh to the rest of the invitees!

The people who actually ended up going were: Myself-Cindy, Husband-Gary, Son-Seth, Seth's friend from school-John
When: October 21-26th
Where: 1 night Rivera 1 bedroom Villa, and 4 nights at the Polynesian in a Bungalow
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MickeyCB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Arrival day balcony views-

Earlier I had said I requested a high up room. One of the reasons is I always tend to enjoy the balcony from a higher perch.
This was from the 4th floor. It was the first room after the elevator so jammed in the corner. The view to the right is this.
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But, the view to the left is this! So pretty!
I do love the Skyliner but I don't like to see the giant poles required for it to function.
And do you see the tunnel to the right? That's where we are headed!
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View from inside the lobby as we headed out.
I don't have a picture of it, but of course Gary had to stop in the little gift shop to pin trade. They have a pin trading board there and were pretty accommodating with his perusing. He absolutely loves to pin trade. I related a tale in one of my previous trip reports of a huge fight we had on Main Street because our priorities differed on how to spend a few minutes at rope drop, pin trading vs hustling to Jingle Cruise!
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This is the tunnel I pointed out from the balcony. Inside on the walls are beautiful mosaics that actually curve up to and continue on the ceiling. Not sure I understand the theming, but I think they are gorgeous!
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After you walk through the tunnel the sidewalk leads to the Skyliner station. We're headed to EPCOT, shouldn't be a problem, correct? Well you see that little arrow I highlighted with the red arrow. We didn't see it. We merrily march up the ramp and hop in a cabin. When they're not busy I ask for an unwrapped one because you can see out so much better. The CM's usually permit this.
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See the really cool view BEHIND us?! Yep, we got on the wrong direction and as we were traveling, I said to Gary, "you know, I'm not sure but I don't think this is the right direction"! Sure enough, when we got off at the Caribbean Beach changing station, the CM's got a little chuckle when I explained that I apparently can't read and am directionally challenged both! He told us just to loop right around and get on again! There weren't any significant lines in the late afternoon.
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Now we're going the right way, I think!
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MickeyCB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Arrival day, Skyliner continued and a CM saves our butt!-

Yep, now we're headed the right direction! I thought the cloud above Tower of Terror was kind of cool!
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Spaceship Earth off in the distance.
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I think this is where the Ratatouille ride will be. If anyone knows differently please correct me.
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We got off of the Skyliner, had a quick temp scan, and walked through the security scanners all pretty quickly.
We needed to go activate our AP's so we went to guest services. We had no problems doing that.
After that it all went downhill.
Before the world collapsed I had bought our passes, and had bought a gold pass for Seth thinking that the prices were going to go up and let's have one in the bank. As it turns out his AP due to covid was extended through this trip and he didn't need the gold pass so it was unassigned. He then asked if he could bring his friend and we were fine with that but then in March there were no ticket or pass sales. So I remember I have this gold pass and I assign it to John. Purchasing it with DVC it wasn't much more than the ticket he would need. But, I did not know you can't assign one to someone not from your address.

We're chatting with the CM Jackie, and I explain we will be back tomorrow because our friend needs to initiate his pass. (The pass I have also obtained park passes with). She gets a little saucy with me telling me I'm not allowed to do that, and I should know this because it is in my DVC contract. I realize you shouldn't sign things without reading them, but that was 5 years and about 500 pages ago.
And with that said John has no park passes nor a ticket for entry and she told me there were probably no HS passes available!
I think when she saw me get a little pale and sweaty when I realized John might not be able to get into any park, she took pity on me.

What we worked out was she let us buy his ticket and then right there at the window she got him a park pass for each day including HS!
I was so relieved even though it cost me some cash, that I went right next door to the customer relations office and filled out a "we love this CM note".

We then headed up the walk to enjoy our first day at Disney! It wasn't crowded at all on a late Wednesday afternoon.
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I had Gary take this picture of me because my Disney work friend made me this shirt and I wanted her to see I was wearing it again (wore it last trip too)!
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After all of this, we decide we're hungry. Where to go? So many choices!
 

riverside

Well-Known Member
You are literally the best aunt ever!
Not quite—I was working the late shift today & I got a call from J thanking me for the Lego set(I left it on their porch on my way to work). While talking to him I realized I bought the wrong one. He is so considerate that he didn’t even bring up that I got a different one than we talked about. I told him I would take it back & get him the right one. He told me he was fine with what I got him. He also said that if I wanted to get him the other one he’d go with me so I could get the right one!!
 

Zipadeelady

Well-Known Member
Not quite—I was working the late shift today & I got a call from J thanking me for the Lego set(I left it on their porch on my way to work). While talking to him I realized I bought the wrong one. He is so considerate that he didn’t even bring up that I got a different one than we talked about. I told him I would take it back & get him the right one. He told me he was fine with what I got him. He also said that if I wanted to get him the other one he’d go with me so I could get the right one!!
He's slick. Any kid that can hide mass quantities of jelly beans from his mom knows how to scam another lego set out of his Aunt :hilarious:
 

Zipadeelady

Well-Known Member
Arrival day balcony views-

Earlier I had said I requested a high up room. One of the reasons is I always tend to enjoy the balcony from a higher perch.
This was from the 4th floor. It was the first room after the elevator so jammed in the corner. The view to the right is this.
View attachment 510571

But, the view to the left is this! So pretty!
I do love the Skyliner but I don't like to see the giant poles required for it to function.
And do you see the tunnel to the right? That's where we are headed!
View attachment 510573

View from inside the lobby as we headed out.
I don't have a picture of it, but of course Gary had to stop in the little gift shop to pin trade. They have a pin trading board there and were pretty accommodating with his perusing. He absolutely loves to pin trade. I related a tale in one of my previous trip reports of a huge fight we had on Main Street because our priorities differed on how to spend a few minutes at rope drop, pin trading vs hustling to Jingle Cruise!
View attachment 510575

This is the tunnel I pointed out from the balcony. Inside on the walls are beautiful mosaics that actually curve up to and continue on the ceiling. Not sure I understand the theming, but I think they are gorgeous!
View attachment 510576
View attachment 510577
View attachment 510578
View attachment 510579

After you walk through the tunnel the sidewalk leads to the Skyliner station. We're headed to EPCOT, shouldn't be a problem, correct? Well you see that little arrow I highlighted with the red arrow. We didn't see it. We merrily march up the ramp and hop in a cabin. When they're not busy I ask for an unwrapped one because you can see out so much better. The CM's usually permit this.
View attachment 510580

See the really cool view BEHIND us?! Yep, we got on the wrong direction and as we were traveling, I said to Gary, "you know, I'm not sure but I don't think this is the right direction"! Sure enough, when we got off at the Caribbean Beach changing station, the CM's got a little chuckle when I explained that I apparently can't read and am directionally challenged both! He told us just to loop right around and get on again! There weren't any significant lines in the late afternoon. View attachment 510582
Now we're going the right way, I think!
View attachment 510584

Tell Gary I'd love to see some pic's of his favorite pins. I don't have a lot of them (only 15-20) but I love looking at what the CM's have to trade. I'll switch up some of mine here and there but there are a few that I refuse to get rid of.
 

DisneyNittany

Well-Known Member
Sorry, I had to take a little break to watch my Steelers play the Ravens. That was a nail biter!
Anyway, on to day 1.

October 21st-Arrival day!

I'm a late packer, so didn't really start till the day before. But one thing I did do was bling up some masks! I figured if we had to wear them may as well try to have some sort of celebration thing going on. So with my trusty glue gun and some craft stuff I had around, made these.
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We grabbed our gear and headed for the Pittsburgh Airport. It's only about 20 minutes from our home.
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The long walk to fun!
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We got through security with no wait at all and rode the tram to the air side. There was only one other passenger.
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A Pittsburgh type safety reminder.
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The airside was fairly empty!
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I got Chick-fil-A nuggets for lunch, and while it doesn't look like Gary ate, he had a chicken sandwich. It was pretty good. They are working with a fairly limited menu. There were no kids meals, etc. Oh yeah, and the candy man there, brought some mini chocolates for dessert!
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As we prepared to board we changed into N95's and nice light eye shields for the flight. No space goggles for us @riverside!
Everyone has their own opinions and risk tolerance for traveling right now, and our thought is let's be careful but still try to get a little enjoyment during this mess. We talked to Gary's doctors first as I didn't want to be on the national news as the idiot doctor who took her cancer'd up husband to Disney and got Covid! They all felt it was reasonable to go with these precautions. So, here's our snazzy flight wear!
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Up next, we're in Orlando!!!

Following along from the South Hills (Dormont)! Go Steelers!
 

MickeyCB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Not quite—I was working the late shift today & I got a call from J thanking me for the Lego set(I left it on their porch on my way to work). While talking to him I realized I bought the wrong one. He is so considerate that he didn’t even bring up that I got a different one than we talked about. I told him I would take it back & get him the right one. He told me he was fine with what I got him. He also said that if I wanted to get him the other one he’d go with me so I could get the right one!!
He is so stinkin cute (and as I said before, quite brilliant)!
 

MickeyCB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tell Gary I'd love to see some pic's of his favorite pins. I don't have a lot of them (only 15-20) but I love looking at what the CM's have to trade. I'll switch up some of mine here and there but there are a few that I refuse to get rid of.
You're going to be a teeny bit sorry you made that request. When I get a chance I'll post pics of his pin boxes on here. He started collecting a few years ago and loves it. It's great as far as I'm concerned, it keeps him from yelling at me when I spend too much money on my collections! 🤣
 

MickeyCB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Arrival day continues-

We decided we were hungry and happened to be strolling through the UK.
Covid, what covid? See we're traveling! Anyway, we happened across this restaurant and I saw there was outside/porch seating. We checked out the menu and found a few things we thought we would like, and checked in. They take your phone number and throw you a txt when your table is ready. We headed across the street to shop and received the txt before we got there! So we turned around and were seated at a wonderful table with a view of the lake.
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The view from our table. Just gorgeous! It is a little blurry because there is plastic there that annoyed me at first, till later when I really appreciated it.
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They have the small pieces of paper on the table that they have you scan with with your phone camera to access the menu. It was ok, but Gary struggles a little with technology and reading the smaller print. We discovered if you ask for a printed menu they will bring you one and several times we did that for him.

@Darstarr Gary says Cheers! He said it is a HarpLager and it was very good. I am not sure if that is
a gesture to me as I asked him to take his grimy mask off of the table or just a camera angle. Since we are so
much in love, I'm going with camera angle.
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He was very proud of his grumpy band. I was excited to find it for him this trip, as I have never seen that offered before.
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We each had a Welsh Pub Burger with bacon and chips on the side. The sauce on it is very good, it's a beer cheese sauce and I regret having them put it on the side on mine. The other thing I regret is not getting the leeks, they sounded gross, but I tried Gary's and they were delicious.
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As we were close to finishing our meal it started pouring rain. I then realized the value of that plastic beside the table. By the time we were finished it had stopped already.
As we were finishing up a gentleman from the next table stopped over to chat. He wanted our opinion on the burger. He was there with his wife and another couple. Apparently they are local (the Villages), and frequently stop by just to have lunch and wander around.
They looked like they were having a great time.

We finished up and wandered towards Canada. Gary was in a particularly light mood (despite what his band said), and asked me to take his picture here.
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We came across this, and I thought, how neat. Till I realized the little girl and her mother right beside her were feeding their pretzel to birds!:rolleyes: Who doesn't know this isn't cool?
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We decided to head for "The Land" next. It was a nice walk over, little warm, but still Disney!!
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MickeyCB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Arrival day continues-

But, before we head for the land, I wanted to share this pic with you guys. I thought it was cool and was very unplanned.
This week Gary had to go to the Cancer center at Shadyside in Pittsburgh for a consult with radiation oncology to zap a place on his back that has an area of cancer. We were walking past this elevator bank and I started laughing and told him to stop so I could take this photo. Totally unplanned wardrobe for the day! A doctor came by and also started laughing when he saw what was on Gary's shirt and gave him a thumbs up!
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I also wanted to share this with you. My husband (and I) like our Disney shirts, and my daughter made this. (She added to the original graphics on this) for Gary when he was diagnosed in 2014. He has more Grumpy stuff than anyone I know, cause you know, he's Grumpy!!
He has a tradition of taking this shirt with him to all treatments, etc. and everyone signs it for him. It's covered now with the kind words and thoughts of his many excellent care providers. The first one on there was from the Dr that is still his oncologist, a fabulous soul.
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Now back to the fun stuff! We've arrived at our first destination for the evening.
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We went inside to hopefully ride Soarin. The line wasn't too bad at all. We walked all of the way to the top of the ramp before we were stopped.
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I sent this pic to @riverside and @Darstarr looking for Riverside's J to teach Gary how to behave with distance markers and asking Darstarr for advice on miss-behaving boys since she seems to have some experience!
Their advice seemed to focus on beer! 🤷‍♀️ 🤣
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We enjoyed our ride. We were off center enough that that it was the leaning tower, but whatever, I love that ride!
After that we went down and had a nice boat ride. One of my favorite scenes. Sorry it's fairly blurry.
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Love this!
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I realized as we were riding along, that I have never been on this attraction in the dark. And it was a different experience. We went the next day and you can see totally different things. I thought this was a neat set up.
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And of course, another awesome Mickey!
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After this we decided we were ready to go back to the room so we headed out.
 

MickeyCB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We started walking back through the park towards the Skyliner. I thought both of these were neat shots. It's so pretty here!
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We hiked, and hiked and hiked our way to the back of the line for the Skyliner! Quite a different experience from earlier in the day.
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This was the first leg of the line.
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And then it wraps around and up the ramp. It actually went reasonably quickly for the volume of people using the Skyliner.
The family in front of us were very nice and we chatted and it helped pass the time. No special cabin requests on a night like this. We were just happy to sit, ride and enjoy the breeze blowing into the cabins.
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We got back and of course Gary had to pin trade again, and then we went to their little quick service and picked up some waters.
That's Topolino's on the top floor in the right side of the photo. (We just might be up there tomorrow)!
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A few views from the balcony at night. And how about I didn't see the hidden Mickey in the railing till I was looking at the photo I posted here.
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Well that's enough for one day! And I'm lovin my step count from only about a third of a day at EPCOT, about 13,000! But, I will also tell you that because I am so short, (my son has rudely called me a Hobbit), that I probably do take more steps to get where we are going than the rest of the crew. Or so that's what they tell me.
 

MickeyCB

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Here, and have to say B, all the way down here in NC, has always been a huge Steelers fan! Love the bling masks and Gary’s shirt!
Glad you're here!
And it's crazy how many places you can find both Steeler fans and Steeler bars!!
And thank you.
 

Darstarr

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
@Darstarr Gary says Cheers! He said it is a HarpLager and it was very good. I am not sure if that is
a gesture to me as I asked him to take his grimy mask off of the table or just a camera angle. Since we are so
much in love, I'm going with camera angle.

I sent this pic to @riverside and @Darstarr looking for Riverside's J to teach Gary how to behave with distance markers and asking Darstarr for advice on miss-behaving boys since she seems to have some experience!
Their advice seemed to focus on beer! 🤷‍♀️ 🤣
😂
Sorry, I have been a little MIA.
Beer???
Did you say beer???

giphy.gif

BTW, that was some nice CM to fix John’s ticket!
 

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