Trip Report COMPLETE - It's an After-Hours Event Extravaganza at Epcot!

Hello!

It's these guys again!
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We don't often go to the parks anymore because we've hit that point in our lives where waiting in lines and massive crowds aren't our jam, plus we don't have APs that give us the ability to pop in and out of parks. With that said, we've done some side quests in the past few months. Our latest was the monorail crawl in which we learned that if you drink massive amounts of water (plus Liquid IV), you can have 7 drinks between late afternoon and late evening and still function the next day. We primarily hang out at a resort and/or Disney Springs. So, if you see us in the wild, say hi!

We will be in Florida for the first week of April and decided to buy After Hours tickets for Epcot on April 4. They were $75 less (with DVC discount) than an Epcot, one-day ticket on the same day. I know what you're thinking. You get fewer hours in the parks. Yes, that's true, BUT let's be honest, we're no longer park commandos. Regular hours at Epcot on that date are 9 am - 9 pm. After Hours is 9 pm - 1 am, but you can show up at 7 pm. For us, it's a win-win. It should be a bit cooler and if there are any afternoon showers, they should have moved out.

I've purchased the tickets and they are in the app. We don't wear magic bands anymore and just use our phones. We're pretty chill and go with the flow. This sums it up perfectly as a Gen-Xer:

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Let's get down to brass tacks.

We will drive from our digs in central Florida and potentially hang out at Disney Springs for a bit to wait for our resort room to be ready. It's all a big TBD.

What is a known factor is our 1-night accommodations. For our past few stays (which have all been one night), we've been playing the lotto on DVC room availability. Sean stalks the DVC availability and we've had pretty good luck in finding a room at a resort we like within 30 days of the trip. It's usually a run-of-the-house room. Sometimes we're upgraded, but most of the time, it's an accessible room. This time, we wanted a room walkable from Epcot or on the Skyliner, even though riding it scares me. It's the same type of scary as Mickey's Wheel of Death (aka Pixar Pal-o-round) at California Adventure. That left us with Boardwalk, Beach Club, and Riviera for DVC.

Sean did the usual stalking of reservations and someone dropped a whole week in a tower studio at Riviera. We picked up the one day we needed. The only downside is that we have to Uber to Epcot because the entrance for the event is at the main entrance.

Up next, potential Flower & Garden food/drink stops.
 

EngineerMom

Active Member
From what I've read, F&G booths will not be open during the After Hours event, so we have to get all our eating and drinking in by 9 pm. If you were paying attention, that's only 2 hours after entering the park.

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This is the list of food and drink that looks interesting. I like food, so it may be possible to get all these things.
  • Bauernmarket - Farmer's Market
    • Toasted pretzel bread with black forest ham and melted cheese - I like all of these things so this should be a good combo
    • I'm adding this as a lol because I put it on my list and wondered why it sounded familiar. That's because it's Kroger's finest pilsner beer. - Bitburger Premium Pils
  • The Citrus Blossom
    • Orange sesame tempura shrimp with orange-chili sauce - I'm a fan of deep-fried food.
  • Fleur de Lys
    • Croissant with goat cheese, herbs, and roasted garlic.
  • Hanami
    • Orange Blossom Brewing Co - Cherry Blossom Green Tea Pilsner
    • Ichigo Breeze Cocktail - Sake with strawberry and watermelon - I love anything with watermelon
  • Jardin de Fiestas
    • Sope de Chilorio - Guajillo pepper-braised port on fried corn shells with black beans, shredded cabbage, crema Mexicana, queso fresco, and chives
    • Lychee margarita - I'm not a fan of margaritas, but I do like lychee
    • Brew Hub Honey Jasmine Lager
  • Northern Bloom
    • Collective Arts Brewing Beyond Reason Micro Pale Ale
  • Primavera Kitchen
    • Bocconcini - Mozzarella bocconcini, grape tomatoes, and pesto sauce
  • Tangierine Cafe - Flavors of the Medina (RIP to the greatest Epcot QS)
    • Orange Blossom Saffron Cake
  • Refreshment Outpost
    • Lavender Martini - Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka with lavender and lemon
  • UK Beer Cart
    • Scottish Thistle: Fords Gin with lemon and blackcurrant-cucumber syrup
I have 6 food items and 6 drinks (not including the Kroger pilsner). I think I can make it through the food, but probably not all of the drinks. The three I want to try are the green tea pilsner, lychee marg, and Scottish thistle.
I went to an after hours event a few years ago and that was the case. You can go in before hand and when the even starts only the places serving anything as part of the event are open.
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Quick trip before THE TRIP.

We're doing a meet up today, so we decided to hit up Disney Springs.

We are winging it, so we tried our luck at Homecomin'.

Plenty of bar seating is available, which was pretty surprising. There were also quite a few empty tables as well.

We ordered some drinks and food.

Old Fashioned Elder - Good, but pretty sweet
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In our advanced age, we have learned that you need food when drinking, so we decided on an appetizer. This is fried green tomatoes with country ham (it's called something else, but tastes just like country ham). This is very good and what I like best is the breading doesn't come off when you cut up the tomatoes.
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We then decided to go ahead and eat dinner because our meet-up plans had shifted to a later time.

In the mistakes of all mistakes, we order two things:

Thigh High Biscuits - which is an appetizer.

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Country Fried Steak
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When this was brought out, I just wanted to slide down my chair onto the floor and pretend I didn't order it. We know better. This is not our first rodeo.

This steak was about a ruler length from right to left about 6 inches from top to bottom. Add the green beans, mashed potatoes, and biscuit and you have enough for two, maybe three people. The good news is that at least a 1/3 of this was breading (which was delicious). I ate around the breading but still didn't finish the steak. We did our best on our meals and ate a lot, but in the end, it was just too much. We brought a couple of biscuits home for breakfast this morning. They reheat up really well.

Honestly, I'm still full from yesterday and DO NOT want to see a country fried steak for another 10 years.

Overall, it was another great experience at Homecomin'.
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After Homecomin', we met up with @coachwnh and his daughter at Coronado Springs Resort.

We have never stayed here, but we have been to Three Bridges in the past.

This is a beautiful resort the smell when you hit the lobby is so nice. My work goal is to find a conference held at this resort.

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This is the Spice Road Gin Tonic. The rosemary was pretty strong when taking a drink, but it did not add any flavor to the drink. Overall, it was refreshing and I would order it again.
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Had a nice visit and beer exchange with @imahistorygeek and @lostpro9het At Three Bridges. Unfortunately, Crystal wasn’t able to join us. It was great catching up with both of them. It was nice to relax and have some fun with them.

We had a great time meeting up with them and it was such a nice and relaxing conversation and we have plans to meet up in the future, time/date/location TBD.
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Currently at Riviera pool.

Ordered food and drink and now we're just relaxing.

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Italian Sandwich
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I picked up this cute pin too.
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My only two beefs: neither phone or magic band work to get into the pool and the restrooms, bar, and food are outside of the pool area. Otherwise, great pool day.
 

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Zipadeelady

Well-Known Member

Minnie1986

Well-Known Member

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We've made it back to our FL home after a really good experience at Disney.

We had a one-night reservation at Rivieria in a tower studio.

Traffic on the turnpike and western way has become a bit of a nightmare. We are about 45 miles from Disney and it took us an hour and 1/2 to get there. Nevertheless, we arrived at Riviera with time to spare to set up at the pool and get ready for a 11 am meeting I had that day.



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We tried parking near our room, but it was not happening. That parking lot was full. We had to go to the other side and park, which wasn't bad. It gave us a chance to go to the lobby. Since the pool didn't open until 10, we decided to browse the resort shop. It's small but has an amazingly large selection of DVC items.

Our room was ready around 11 am (which was amazing). We took the elevators to the 6th floor. They had fans running and it was humid, but not too bad.

First impressions - this room is the size of a closet. I used Sean for scale. My foot is where I'm standing against the wall on the other side.
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The bathroom is very nice and is the size of the room. They could have made the room a bit larger and taken away from the bathroom.

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Notice anything about this bed? Side note - It was the loudest bed to pull down. Y'all remember those old pull-out couches where all you heard was the springs? That was this guy. However, it was pretty comfortable.
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Not a pillow in sight. Plus, we're used to those nice duvets on the beds in Disney resorts. This had a thin blanket. No big deal on the blanket, but where were those pillows? It turns out they are in those bags with extra linens and when Sean called to double-check on whether or not that was what we needed to use, it sounded like he should have already known that. No extra blankets, but there were four pillows.

The balcony is small and you do have to move chairs to open the door if you are outside.
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This was the showpiece.
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We really enjoyed the resort and room. I get it, it's small, but it's enough for two people. We would stay here again.
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Daaaaang! That is small! Did you use DVC points or resident discount?
DVC

Based on the limited number of these rooms (I think in the 20s), I can't imagine they're not already snapped up for a resident rate deal. I tried to find one available at rack rate and couldn't find anything.

I did find a chart with rates on a 3rd-party website. If we were to book and pay cash, it would have been between $573 - $629/night. That's a crazy price for a room that tiny and only holds 2 people.
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Quick aside: I don't think we've seen your daughter in quite some time, does she still travel with you kids?
She doesn't travel with us anymore. She's a full-fledged working adult and only has a little bit of vacation time she can use. I think she would travel with us more if she had time and money. Plus, she has a cat and really doesn't want to leave him for any length of time since he's a senior kitty.
 

cgersic

Well-Known Member
She doesn't travel with us anymore. She's a full-fledged working adult and only has a little bit of vacation time she can use. I think she would travel with us more if she had time and money. Plus, she has a cat and really doesn't want to leave him for any length of time since he's a senior kitty.
I guess I think that all of the people on here have kids that don't age, so I expect them to remain the age they are in the last photo I saw of them. 😂
 

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