Trip Report Magical Business Trip, May at the Beach Club

Hi everyone! I finally got my photos uploaded, so I guess I'll get this thing started. It'll be a short one!

Who: Me and my husband R (previous trip reports linked in my signature)
When: May 3-6
Why: R had an annual meeting in Naples, so we tagged a WDW trip to the beginning.
Where: Beach Club

Travel Day! (text heavy)

We both worked a half-day on the 3rd and headed out of town around 1:15. We had to fly out of Nashville, unfortunately, which is about a 2 hour drive and neither of us particularly likes being in Nashville. Memphis has really limited their nonstops though, so we may have to suck it up and drive the extra hour from now on :cry:

I kept getting calls from the same number, so I finally decided to google it, and it was Southwest. When I checked the app, I saw our flight was delayed by about a half hour. As we were coming into Nashville, R asked if I wanted to stop anywhere, so I directed him to McKay's (a huge used bookstore). I found 5 books in 30 minutes, which is really a lot for that place! It is HUGE and I always have a hard time finding anything, but I was pleased.

We continued on to the airport and the long-term lot was full, meaning we had to park economy. We always choose the more expensive option when his company is paying :hilarious:. We were annoyed, but they're doing a lot of construction, so I think they had a garage closed off. We got into the airport and through security quickly, then stopped at Quiznos. We thought we might get to Disney early enough for a late dinner, but with the flight delay, we didn't want to chance being starving.

The airport was slammed, and the flight leaving before ours was super late, which is what threw ours off. We ended up leaving about an hour late, and arrived in Orlando at 8:40pm.



Guess who was on the plane with us? A BUNCH OF CHEERLEADERS. It was a sign of what the parks would look like. The flight attendant got sassy with them because they couldn't decide where to sit. He said "They all land at the same time, just pick one" :hilarious:



Got our special bands on! Ignore my watch telling me I've been lazy.



Finally stopped for a picture with the Mickey!

We waited longer than normal for the bags to start moving, but we eventually got ours and headed of to Magical Express.



There was a little bit of a backup at the checkin for ME. There were four lines, and they all seemed to be having problems. I think people just didn't have their stuff together because we scanned our bands and were through with no issues.

At this point, I decided to call Beach Club because I hadn't received a text. Last time this happened we waited at the front desk forever at like 2am, and I was not going to let that happen again even though it was earlier.

While I was being transferred, we hopped on the bus. We ended up sitting there 20 minutes before we took off and not one more person got on after us :facepalm: Whatever.

I was able to get my room assignment over the phone, and he pushed the text to me so I wouldn't forget it. It was 5th floor, and my interest was piqued. I know the Beach Club is not tall, and I know that club level rooms are usually high floors. Hmmmm....

I did some googling, but didn't find anything that made me absolutely certain, and I didn't want to get my hopes up.

---------------

We arrived at our resort around 10:15/30 and stopped in the marketplace for a snack. I wanted donuts and R wanted a cookie, and for some reason he seemed to think we shouldn’t get both because we didn't need that much food. I was not having that...I got us both. Ha


We got on the elevator and hit 5 and nothing happened. Then the door opened and some other people came in and were also going to 5. But since we’d already pushed the button, they didn’t do anything and again we just sat there...They had just arrived too, and we finally realized we were supposed to scan our band otherwise the elevator wouldn’t go anywhere. Once that happened, I knew we had indeed been upgraded. Score!


I guess the bubbles are supposed to be hidden mickeys? There were some better ones, but this was the only picture I took.

The lounge was already closed, and it was late so I didn't take room photos. I was gushing over this room though! And the view!

The room was super clean and fresh feeling, spacious, nice decor. There are almost no Disney touches though, which is disappointing and no bed runners! :hilarious: We turned in for the night after we ate our treats.

Up next: First Day in the parks
 

sheriffwoody

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
First Park Day - May the 4th (be with you)

I woke up around 6 and never did get back to sleep. The blinds on the door and window do not block out light very well so it was quite bright in the room by 6:30! This ended up being the only day it mattered as it was cloudy the next two mornings and thus still dark outside. I got up around 7 and made coffee to sit on the balcony.

We took our time getting ready and arrived at Epcot a little before opening.



I LOVE being able to walk there :inlove:

No issues getting into the park, and we decided to have breakfast in France, so we waited at the rope.



They let us through a couple minutes after 9, and there were probably 20ish people headed toward France with us. Not all of them went to the quick service restaurant though. It looked like a few just went to take pictures over there then moved on.



I had a hard time resisting the macarons!



I got this beignet that was chocolate filled. It was...ok. It was really dry and did not seem deep-fried. I could tell from looking at it that it wasn't going to be like other beignets I've had, but I thought it might still be good. It was a "meh" for me though.



Also got this croissant that I can't find on the online menu. I'm assuming that it's supposed to be egg? It had a little bacon and some cheese on it too. It tasted fine but R kept calling the egg part a "carpet pad" :hilarious:

This definitely left us feeling full!



Stopped for a photo of my hair. The purple is completely gone already :rolleyes: but I've got some conditioner stuff I'm going to try tonight, so we'll see.

At about 20 after, we headed to the front of the park to ride Spaceship earth. Took some photos along the way.






ALMOST signed up for the tea tour, and I regret not doing it now. I will probably never do that dang tour.





We had a FP, but it wasn’t needed. We pretty much walked right on. It slowed down several times and stopped once. Also, I was shooting with my newest camera, which is great with low light. Both of my Sonys are actually... This is my second Sony, so once I get lighting for weddings, I'll be fully converted to Sony!








I pushed the ISO pretty high with these, just to see how it would do. They're grainy, but I'm fine with that.



Up Next: More Epcot
 

sheriffwoody

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thank you all so much for following along!! Hoping to get a couple more updates done today.

Beach Club is one of our favorites!! (Actually it is DH's fave and my second only cause I'm partial to WL after Disneymooning there). We definitely did not get upgraded though--jealous!
I think WL is our fav! Right now Poly and Beach are tied for second....it's so hard to choose though since they all have their pros and not very many cons :joyfull:

Great photos inside SSE! So, whats the new Sony camera? I know you have an A9.
Thank you! I got the A7iii. Literally picked it up from the post office an hour before we left. Not a whole lot different set-up wise from the A9 so I didn't have any trouble with it. It's so much louder though!! Now to figure out lighting...so far I'm not pleased with how the a9 looks with my flash on-camera, so I've got to figure out what to do to make it work for me. When I rented it, I used an AD200 off-camera and it looked great, but sometimes I really need it on-camera, so... trial and error it is!

Purple fades so fast =( But 2 years later I still have the bleach streak where the purple was.... apparently my hair is growing slow as I get older.
It's so annoying! All that money on a hair color that lasts one or two washes :banghead: I honestly expected it to be a little longer, but I know everyone's hair is different and I JUST started coloring my hair, so maybe it just doesn't hold color very well. At least now that it's lightened, I can just add the color without going through the bleaching again.
 

Rista1313

Well-Known Member
It's so annoying! All that money on a hair color that lasts one or two washes :banghead: I honestly expected it to be a little longer, but I know everyone's hair is different and I JUST started coloring my hair, so maybe it just doesn't hold color very well. At least now that it's lightened, I can just add the color without going through the bleaching again.

It is annoying! Mine did the same thing! I ended up going to sally's hair supply and buying Purple Manic Panic, to refresh for awhile. Hmm I'm going to a knitting retreat in a month.. maybe I'll have to repurple my hair!
 

sheriffwoody

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
First Park Day continued - May the 4th (be with you)

By the time we got off Spaceship Earth, it was time to head over and use our Test Track FP. I think we hit up the restroom on the way to kill a little time, but we didn't have to wait long for our window to open.

The wait was only 40 minutes at 10am, which was a huge change from our spring break trip where everything was 80+ minutes about a half hour into opening.

Since I designed the last car, I let R make this monstrosity




He had the top score at that point in the day! I think it was the best one we've made so far.

After TT, I just randomly checked the app for wait times and saw that Frozen was a 20 minute wait. I thought that was crazy, but we headed over anyway. So this is at like 10:30am...and it really was 20 minutes. We may not have even waited that long. I don’t know what was up with that!



The group of girls in front of us (maybe late 20s age?) were talking about wedding gifts and how much they usually give their friends. They were talking about giving people up to $500 for a wedding gift :jawdrop: I don't know how someone in their 20s can do that, but hey...let's be friends. You can give me my gift 5 years late :hilarious:




Pushed the ISO even higher in this queue.





After Frozen, we headed over to the Pineapple Promenade for some spicy hot dogs and violet lemonade. Yum! We both got some hot dog toppings on our shirt of course. :cautious: They were extra messy this time and we tried to eat sitting at a bench when we should have found a table.



Mmmmmmm I wish I knew how to make this. So tasty! Forgot to take a picture of the hot dog, but...it looked like a hot dog.

After that, I wanted to go ahead and get my passholder magnet before I forgot, so we headed over there.



On the magnet note, if anyone is going to be there while they're giving out the Donald magnets and can get their hands on an extra, I would totally buy it from you! Or trade you our extra Mickey or Minnie! I want Donald so bad :cry: I wish I could get down there during that time.

When we left there I hopped in line for a photo with the Figment topiary while R sat down.

While I was waiting in the eternal line, I got on here and noticed I had a message from @lostpro9het and they were in Epcot. We got connected and they were pretty close by. They swung through to get their magnets and then made it to me right before I got to the front of the line, so they got to watch me awkwardly take photos by myself.






The line was so slow because this guy was making lots of magic! I didn't mind so much since the weather was nice. Also, this is the first time I'd seen the fairy wings...it was pretty cute.

Me @lostpro9het and @imahistorygeek headed over to where R was sitting and made introductions. I'm sure he was thinking W T F in his head because I hadn't told him I might be meeting up with some forum friends :hilarious: Surprise! He goes with the flow though, so he didn't care.

Up next: Magic meetup!
 

LeighM

Well-Known Member
Love your pictures! I'm going to be in WDW for the weekends before and after our cruise next year - one of which will be May 4th. Are the cheerleaders really bad throughout the parks? Just need to know to start preparing myself :) I was planning on just going to AK and MK (for Dapper Day weekend before) but I might have to find a way to add Epcot in as well. I love the park during Flower and Garden Festival!
 

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