Trip Report March 2016 - A 30th Birthday Eartravaganza!

OK, I've hit my typical four months mark from when I've returned and been through my typical WDW withdrawals. For those of you that are unsure of what you're getting in to, here is where you can catch up with me and my wife in our pre-trip report for this time through the parks. Spoiler alert, we got our DME tags on time.

If you don't want to click that link - I'm AJ and Alex is my wife. Follow our adventure through WDW to celebrate my 30th birthday!

(So you all know, there are plenty of pictures to be seen but it takes a couple of paragraphs to get to them first, hang in there.)

Day 1 - Magic Kingom & an Early Birthday Surprise

As we do, we took the earliest possible flight out of EWR - something along the lines of 6 a.m. so that we could be at the resort around 9:30 a.m. (DME willing). Luckily enough, we had no issues with our flights - the only problem was that we sat on the bus for a bit at MCO waiting to head to Port Orleans Riverside, it was nothing major, probably about twenty minutes, but when you're waiting to go to WDW it feels like FOREVER. And then FINALLY, we started moving. This was our first time seeing the new movie that DME shows and, honestly, I don't care for it. That old video guys, "welcome home" - that got my juices flowing. Is that too much? Well, I don't care, I want that old video back. I want that old video downloaded on my phone so I can toss in my headphones and feel the magic (get it?) when I'm riding that bus.

With this being our first time staying in either Port Orleans resort we found out the hard way that Riverside is the fourth of five stops (or maybe the fifth or six, either way, you get it) on the DME. So that waiting for the bus to leave MCO and then finally getting dropped off at Riverside took close to ninety minutes. If you're wondering how that's possible - here's how: twenty minutes waiting to leave MCO, thirty minute ride, another fifteen minutes in WDW to get to POR. OK, so the math adds up to 65 minutes, but that's still closer to ninety minutes than, say, forty minutes (it's actually the same distance.)

Our brilliant plan to take the first flight out and check-in early to "beat the crowd" and hopefully be able to get an open room was foiled by the fact that the lobby was absolutely mobbed when we arrived. I'm talking lines every where, check-in, check-out, general help. While Alex went to check-in (officially, since we'd already done it online), I sat dutifully with our bags, digging through them trying not to make a mess while getting a pair of shorts for us to change in to. With both of our tasks accomplished, it was time to change, but not before Alex gave me my first present. A seriously awesome R2-D2 shirt (which you'll see pictures of at some point during these day one posts). Once we were changed up and ready to do something it was time to get going... until I realized I had no idea where my sunglasses were. This could be a problem on the first day of a WDW trip. After five minutes of freaking out and heading back to the bathroom to make sure I didn't leave them in there, Alex made sure to point out the fact that I'm an idiot because I put them in my backpack, which I had been standing in front of for a solid thirty minutes. Nice work me.

Once we checked our bags it was time to wait for the bus to MK, we gotta hit MK first. It's just not a WDW trip until you see that Castle from way down Main Street. It's the best. Luckily, the MK bus pulled up, and with it being close to 11 a.m. at this time there was barely any body on it. Also, given the time, when we got to MK it was pretty packed and people were getting ready for a parade, although I think people are always getting ready for a parade these days in MK. After a whirlwind morning is there any better first ride than the Peoplemover? You can say there is, but to me, there isn't. Also, with the unfortunate refurb of Buzz starting during our second day, we had to hop on there. Then this happened:

Yep, Alex whipped my butt. I am terrible at Buzz, no two ways about it. While still in Tomorrowland and sometime before our ADR at Be Our Guest we decided to check out Space Mountain, because it's awesome.

Nah. What you can't see is that the stand-by time is being changed from 60 minutes to 80. The line on the right is for FP+, luckily, we did not have any fastpasses until after our lunch. I'm also not 100% sure of the point of FP+ if that's what the line will look like, granted we've never had issues with it and this was a bizarre and very rare sight.

In our trips together Alex and I had never done one specific thing in MK, we've always wanted to but we decided we were definitely going for it this time (especially because I didn't want to try and cut through a parade in the hub):

Yeah boy! Ridin' that choo-choo! Thanks Walt! I love locomotives, I think it dates back to my first viewing of Back to the Future III as a four year old (I'm not explaining that), so riding this was a treat. It was a treat because the estimated twenty minute trip (by a CM) took close to forty. As it turns out, between the Fantasyland and Main St stations the crew found out that one of the pins that locks the cars together was loose. That's not a good thing. I'll use the term "snail's pace" and I'll use it very generously, but we were able to get some nice pics:

Check out this sweet creeper shot of Buzz & Jesse. That's right, we're watching you.

Once our circuit around the park was complete, we double-timed it over to the BOG so we could check-in for our ADRs as close to on time as possible since we were already late. Not so late that we didn't stop when we noticed a lonely photopass photog in front of Gaston.

There's that sweet R2-D2 shirt I mentioned. After this brief stop, we finally made it to BOG. I love WDW's little lakes and rivers.

And this fella:

Coming up next, more pictures of BOG for those of you that have already seen a ton and more of our first day adventure!

 

[ArtieJim]

After showering up and getting ready for our evening ADR we decided to head to Epcot for a little bit. This trip was our first time visiting Epcot during the Flower & Garden Festival. I also refused to miss out on Epcot any longer as we'd already hit the other three parks in our, so far, short time down in WDW. So, finally, we got there and I was thrilled:

I could type for days about how much I love Epcot, but I won't do that again. Since we had about an hour before our ADR we decided to grab a drink for the walk, but first we couldn't help but grab a shot of these guys:

There just isn't enough Huey, Dewey and/or Louie in the parks these days.

And here she comes. I can look at Spaceship Earth all day, if I wasn't so worried about it not being done correctly, I'd get a SSE tattoo.

It looks great close up and it looks great from afar:

Epcot at twilight is a real treat. It's hard not to love this park. An added bonus was all the great topiaries for the F&G, with this being the first weekend of the festival we were surprised at how, relatively, empty the park was (our day 2 was Sunday). Check out this fun little set up:

I guess we were a bit surprised by the crowd level because of the fact that two of our three previous trips had been during the Food & Wine Festival and the other of those three was during Christmas/New Year's (we were there from 12/25-1/3). This crowd level is much, much more manageable for us, and has so many more fun things to see. The food kiosks are cool and all, but they definitely crowd things up a lot during the F&W, these topiaries are just plain fun. I'll have plenty more during later days in this TR, as I mentioned, this was just a quick trip through Epcot on our way to dinner. We quickly found ourselves on our way to... drinks:

Who am I kidding? I already had a drink at that point. There's no way you're getting me through Canada without a Moosehead, or if you think you're going to switch it up and start at Mexico there's no way I'm going through Mexico without taking a pit stop at Cava del Tequila (played it safe this time and went through Canada first, which we usually always do). We were headed to France for Alex, because no Epcot trip is complete for her without swinging through France and getting herself a Grey Goose Lemon Slush. Look at these two sexy glasses that aren't made of glass:

Once we had our drinks in hand we decided to head over to the International Gateway, and take a gander at the shop that way. That shop always has fun little things, plenty of glassware/coffee cup things. Those are always fun, unfortunately Alex and I have way too many glasses as it is so there's no point in us buying new stuff. After we had finished our drinks it was time to leave Epcot and head on to our dinner. Having eaten here two trips ago and loving it we realized it was time to go back. On our last trip we wanted to give Shula's a try so we could say we gave another steakhouse a try. Our Shula experience is well documented in our last TR and we'll never be going there again, so if you haven't been able to narrow down where we went once leaving the International Gateway and headed to a steakhouse than you're missing out. We were heading to the one and only Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht Club:

I'm obsessed with the Beach & Yacht Club. I could wander around here for hours, they'd have to kick me out, I also love that their soda fountain is outside so if you have your mug you can just pop over and fill up while walking around the Epcot resort area (or not if someone is stuck up about only using those at your resort). One of these days, we'll stay here. Until then, we'll just enjoy the bars and restaurants. Once we checked in at Yachtsman we were told it would be a few minutes, so we decided to grab a stool at the Crew's Cup Lounge to pass the time:

The copper top of this bar is so cool, literally it's nice and cold, looks very nice too. Alex decided to get herself a (guesses any one?) Bud Light while I went with a Manhattan:

The whole feel of this place is wonderful. The comfy wood chairs, nicely nestled tables, it's small and they fit a good amount of tables and seats in the place but at no point does it feel crowded. Great to have that next to Yachtsman while waiting for your table to be called. Their food menu is also pretty impressive for a small bar next to such a great restaurant, but we knew better than to ruin our appetites by ordering something here.

 

[ArtieJim]

Not long after we got our drinks the table was ready. Unfortunately, the text message they sent us to let us know our table was ready never actually arrived so we were surprised when the hostess came into the lounge calling my name looking for us, but it was finally time to get some great eats in us! We couldn't wait! As we were brought into the dining room we were pleased to be seated in the section under the large cupola and next to a window no less. This isn't the best picture, but we weren't about to go stand next to a table where people were enjoying their meals so we could get a shot directly under the lights:

I really like the windows surrounding the lower part of the cupola, everything about it is just really stunning. No reason to waste time though, lets dive right in to the real reason we're here!

There was no fooling around here, Alex went right for the French Onion Soup (if you saw our first day, you'll know why). I decided to forego ordering my own appetizer, since I knew I'd be getting some of that soup, and because the bread service at Yachtsman is great - they're butter and roasted garlic to go with it is awesome!

It may look a little burned on the top there, but it certainly didn't taste that way. How could you say no to that soup? I'm not sure about that doyley though. For entrees, Alex went with the 14-oz Prime Rib of Beef, with au gratin potatoes instead of the casserole, and a side of the Sauteed Mushrooms:

For my entree I went decided on the 18-oz Kansas City Strip Steak and a side of Caramelized Onions:

These onions are so rich, good luck finishing an order by yourself!

It's really hard to say anything about this food. I think my only issue was the scallions in the onions. Everything else was spot on, cooked perfectly, tasted amazing. This meal is so damn filling that it was impossible for us to even think about dessert. The garlic aioli that came with my steak was unreal. This was a day of great food all around for us. The steaks and sides are so large, not to mention the sides that are already included, make these meals almost impossible to eat all of.

After finishing up here we decided to just head on back to POR and have a night cap over at the River Roost. Once we got there, we had a couple beers then called it a night (I love the amount of Abita beers they have on tap). After a long day of great drinks and even greater food, we needed to call it a night. After all, my 30th birthday was tomorrow and we needed to rest up!

 

[FlaggNL]

View attachment 152050

Yep, Chewie heads. When I took my trip to the bathroom I picked up some popcorn since Alex wasn't much of a fan of anything that was available, dessert-wise. I also decided to pick up a lightup X-Wing clip, because I could, it's clearly not lit up in this picture. We had enough trouble getting the Chewie heads with the X-Wing lit up so we just turned it off. Just because Alex wasn't a big fan of a lot of the food doesn't mean I wasn't as well.

We've got to get ourselves one like these!!

 

[FlaggNL]

Thanks for sharing this TR! Great pictures!

 

[blreinsel]

Loving your TR and your humor to go along with it! My stomach is growling after reading about all of the great meals you've had so far! French Onion Soup is my weakness.

 

[ArtieJim]

I've completely fallen off the writing wagon, sorry about that every one. Without further ado, here is the continuation of our TR.

Day 3 - A Great Day to Turn 30!

We started our day at MGM. I knew I wanted to spend the start of my 30th year riding the rides I love, so that's exactly what we did. Also, one of the greatest meetings of my life would happen later in the day. We wasted no time heading to Tower of Terror. I'm kind of happy I haven't written in so long, because now I can add my short rant about how upset I'll be if they ever get rid of the ToT in WDW in favor of Guardians of the Galaxy. Don't get me wrong, I loved the movie, but Twilight Zone is one of my all time favorite shows - easily top 4 (along with Quantum Leap, Seinfeld & The Simpsons). I don't see Guardians of the Galaxy getting four day long marathons during New Year's Eve. Look how excited I am.

Any way, as of now, ToT is still Twilight Zone themed and that's what I like. Happily, we wasted no time scanning our MagicBands and taking a ride. What a great sight:

This is still the greatest wait time clock in all of WDW:

Always look up!

Every one always makes fun of William Shatner because of the "there's some THING on the wing" episode of Twilight Zone (Nightmare at 20,000 Feet). I think it's much more fun to make fun of William Shatner for the episode "Nick of Time" where he and his wife get stranded in a small town when their car breaks down. Upon stopping at a diner for lunch (which costs like $6 for two sandwiches, fries and two iced coffees, I'm lucky to get one iced coffee for six bucks in WDW now) he and his wife start asking a little penny slot yes/no machine questions, one of them being "Will we every get out of this place?" as only Shatner could deliver it. Oh, and that penny slot just so happens to be right here in ToT:

Go ahead, ask him a yes or no question. Just don't end up like the couple at the end of the episode that come back to ask more questions. You might just find yourself in the Twilight Zone. After geeking out (as always) in the waiting room when the little film plays, it was time to hitch a ride. Elevelator going up!

And in case you guys were wondering, we were at #6.

Check this folks out, they seem friendly. They were inviting us in:

Now, I don't know if we've never ridden on the right side of the building or if we've never sat on the right side of the ride car but this is something I had never seen at the end of the ride:

That's the slot machine from "The Fever," the episode where the guy gets super addicted to playing the machine to the point that he loses his mind and kills himself because of it. Granted, my description of the episode sounds much more macabre than it actually is, but it's a great episode. Once out of the Tower we needed to get some real food in us, not the bag of grapes we had split from the Starbucks before we got on.

Stay tuned to find out where this "meal" would take place...

 

[ArtieJim]

So what wonderful spot were we going to eat at on this surprisingly crowded and hotter than we expected day? Well, we were looking for a quick service with indoor seating and ultimately we ended up at Backlot Express. This, to us, is the quintessential CS/QS location. The food here is decent, at best. Why do we say that? Well, with a little bit of urging Alex ended up with the chicken and waffles:

"The chicken was terrible." Not usually something you want to hear when said chicken takes up 3/4 of a dish. We were surprised too since it looked like the chicken fingers that you can find almost any where in WDW, but these were just not good. The waffles were fine, but how do you mess up chicken fingers? More breading than chicken, that's how. Strange situation. As for me, I went with a classic chili dog:

I was happy with this. The chili was beanless, so that made me happy. The hot dogs in WDW are usually pretty good and this was no different (not talking the specialty hot dogs which are popping up all over now, just the plain old dogs). The bun was a bit stale, but whatever, it's a bun - I tossed some mustard on this bad boy and I was good to go. Add to it a side of WDW fries and I was a happy man. Unfortunately, the iced tea machines were only dispensing water so that was a bummer. I'm a big fan of Gold Peak Iced Tea (don't know why, it's nothing special), so having free refills of it (basically) at WDW, I'm all set. I was excited for the iced tea with lunch but it didn't happen. Something about drinking a soda when it's 90 degrees out and I'm walking around all day really doesn't do it for me, so that was a bummer.

An upside of Backlot Express is that it's close to Star Tours and with our next FP+ being for Star Tours we were able to enjoy a couple extra minutes of A/C before stepping back outside (to go to a ride that's inside).

Here's something we learned from a crazed CM as we were walking into Star Tours (up the ramp that starts the queue). DO NOT STOP ON THE RAMP WHEN THE SHOW IS IN PROGRESS! KEEP MOVING! This woman was a lunatic about it. As we were walking up the ramp we noticed that there was no one in front of us at all and no one behind even close to getting on the line. Alex decided to stop and take a quick picture because Darth Vader had just come out and she knows I'm a big fan of Vader, this woman, however, was on her in no time. When I stopped to turn around and tell Alex we should keep moving the woman came up to me and flipped out that I had now stopped on the ramp. So, thanks for that one lady, just take it easy next time, we're not trying to hold up any line, there was no one any where near us.

Anyway, here's the picture Alex stopped to take:

Darth Vader is one of the most awesome movie villains of all time. Something about him being a part of this show (I get it's for the kids) almost cheapens him, this seems like it's much more suitable for Kylo Ren - he's a bum. So, after being yelled at and told to move along we finally entered and I came upon the droid I was looking for:

He's the best. I love BB-8, but you just can't top R2. I'm also a fan of this look-a-like, but don't be fooled, clearly not THE R2.

I know what you're up to R2-D1 (yep, that's his name). Once we were through the queue, rather quickly I might add, I was ready to go!

Not sure what happened to my lips, I must've eaten an extremely sour candy or something (I hadn't). I love Star Tours and really liked the addition of Finn and some of the other new characters to the mix. As upsetting as it is that they decided to close down so much of the classic areas and rides of the park (as classic as a 27 year old park can be), I'm super excited for Star Wars Land - it's bittersweet though. So what's a natural next attraction after Star Tours? Well, what else...

I was very concerned about the direction of MuppetVision when the announcement of Star Wars and Toy Story lands were announced. With its location basically in Streets of America it seemed like there was an announcement to follow about the removal of MuppetVision as well, it's nice to know that they've decided to rebrand the area and keep it around. It's been there for as long as I can remember (the first time I was ever at WDW was when I was 5, that would be the first year of MuppetVision as well, so it makes sense that it's as long as I can remember). And how could any one not enjoy this thing?

When we got our seats we were spotted rather quickly:

Busted. And were able to grab a wonderful shot of the logo:

As much fun as MuppetVision is, I love that it's never full but there's still always a good sized crowd in the waiting area before they open the doors to the theater. Always a must do.

 

[ArtieJim]

Thank you all again for following along with one of the slowest written TR's of 2016.

With plenty of time still to spare we decided to pop into a shop that was over there. Over where?

Over there, duh.

We'll stop in any WDW Christmas shop to see what they each have, we usually will hold off on buying our ornament(s) for the trip until we're at Days of Disney or Ye Olde Christmas, but it's always worth looking in each of them. We got creeped out by the majority of the figurines in the shop and decided to try our stand-by luck at the Great Movie Ride (the newly refurbished Great Movie Ride, for us anyway). On our way over we couldn't miss this gigantic Emmy award. Since Jimmy Kimmel had recently been announced as host of this year's Emmys I decided to take a picture:

There it is. Enormous. The stand-by line was not very long (is it ever? Actually, I know the answer to that, we've been down there during Christmas week) but Alex was able to get a couple pictures of things she was really excited about. It's hard not to get excited about things in this queue, especially if you're a movie fan. There's so much to take in, and here it is...

Gotta love classic Hollywood memorabilia. We were actually moving smoothly through the line until we hit the theatre room (does this have an actual name?) Once we got in here we ended up a few people behind a group that wouldn't get off their phones and, therefore, wouldn't move. Maybe you should get the hint to put your damn phone down for a few minutes after a CM has asked you to keep the line moving five times in ten minutes. Finally, we were next up on the ride and then guess who we were lucky enough to sit next to! Yep, that same group! No joke, the woman next to us was texting the entire god damn ride. The whole way. Would not stop. At least we got to enjoy this part of it:

And then it was over. Oh, if you're wondering what she was doing on her phone the entire time? Texting to her boyfriend about how she couldn't wait to ditch her kids with her parents so they could meet up. The woman was about 35 and dressed like she was a college girl going out for Halloween (if you catch my drift). Once off the Great Movie Ride it was finally (FP+) time for the ride we'd all been waiting for. Here we come!

I'm not sure what that Photopass guy was doing because we definitely didn't even notice him as we were walking by. This is actually the first time I've noticed him, too bad. We had things to do though, things that involved walking through this:

And we played some guess who:

Seriously? Who could it be?

Oh, it's Jessie. Should've known.

 

[ArtieJim]

You know what's awesome? Riding in the Alien car, that's what's awesome.

It's also pretty awesome when you have a 25,000 point comeback for the win!

That's what I'm talking about. Oh hello, giant game of Life, nothing wrong with that.

There was one last thing that I needed to do before we called it a day at MGM. We headed back to the Star Wars Launch Bay and took a bit of a walk around until I found what I was looking for. After about twenty minutes, I had the greatest WDW meeting of my life:

I met Chewie! I loved this, we were lucky enough to be the last group in our batch of people that they let in so I think when the CMs heard me talking to Alex about how excited, legitimately excited, I was to meet Chewbacca they gave us a couple extra minutes in here. It's not like the guy is going to talk to us, but it was nice that they did they. The two CMs in there with us were taking all sorts of pictures. We got Photopass pictures, cell phone pictures and pictures on our own camera (which are what I've been posting that entire time I've been writing about day 3).

That is a 30 year old man who was genuinely pumped to be getting his picture taken with Chewie. When I told Alex to hop in for a picture of the three of us she said she was fine. At this point Chewie started speaking, now I don't speak Wookie but whatever he said got Alex excited and she decided to get in on the photo shoot. Check out this family photo:

Man, I love Chewie. Before departing the Launch Bay we grabbed a shot of this fella as well:

I hope they get a BB-8 and R2-D2 to move around the upcoming Star Wars Land, kind of like the old Push the Trash Can that was in Tomorrowland. Poor Push, forever in our hearts. Before we headed out Alex decided to stop for a snack since it was still a while before we had a dinner reservation. So what does one get when wanting a snack at MGM? Why, a Mickey pretzel with cheese and a beer of course:

While Alex was happy with a Bud Light I was determined to find a Sam Adams. I knew I had seen one earlier at the Streets of America cart so I figured it'd be easy to find one elsewhere. Nope, not the case. I ended up walking from the ABC Commissary to the very cart I just mentioned on Streets of America. I know it's not a far walk, but when you think you can get something closer it's a let down. I did find out that ABC Commissary does not sell beer, or at least did not sell beer that day. I saw beer taps, but no handles. Oh well. Apparently, while I was on my Sam Adams search a guy noticed that Alex was drinking a Bud Light just by the color and asked where he could get one because he wasn't happy with the "fancy beers" they're serving at MGM. Fancy beers?

After our short break it was time to depart. Farewell MGM, next time we meet you will look drastically different (and maybe I'll have gotten over the destruction of the Backlot Tour by then).

Stick around for the next post, which will be the Photopass pictures from our day here!

 

[ArtieJim]

Alex does not like to wear fun hats with me:

Look who we found! Not sure what he's doing there though.

The crowd on my left thought the seat belts would undo themselves at the end of the ride so Alex and I got to sit in the elevator for an extra minute until a CM came and helped them unbuckle.

 

[ArtieJim]

Big developments in my and Alex's life, so once again, many apologies for the long periods of time between posts. Here is the continuation of Day 3!

Upon leaving MGM we decided to take a walk to Epcot since we had plenty of time before our dinner reservation. This is definitely one of the most underrated (in my book) walks in all of WDW.

Some how, this was the best picture I could get of us:

After multiple stops along the way (hey, it's not my fault the Boardwalk has a publicly accessible soda fountain and we had our resort mugs - gotta get your money's worth on those things) we finally made it to Epcot. And here's Alex not wanting to stop because she's on her way to her favorite place in all of Epcot:

She's dying for a Lemon Grey Goose Slush and is no mood for that picture. While she was all set with her old faithful I was still trying out as many things as I could from the F&G carts. Here's me toasting the Red Ruby sign:

I distinctly remember not likely this beer from the Florida Fresh stand, but at least I tried it. That's the best you can do. Strawberry beer is not my thing it turns out. And here's this, just in case we forgot where and when we were down there:

Love Cinderella Castle all you want but I'll take Spaceship Earth any day. And here's Alex, with SSE:

You gotta ask for the slushes in that type of cup because the plastic martini glasses are too prone to spills when you're walking around the World. On our trip around the World this time we wanted to get some daylight photos of the topiaries, so enjoy these, we sure did:

How cool is the back of Woody here!

And here's Snow White with her buddies:

This isn't the best picture, but that's why we have more!

 

[ArtieJim]

As I said, we have more:

Unfortunately, our shots of the Lion King topiary (Simba being held up by Rafiki, we all know the scene) won't load up so I can't post them here. We did get these however!

Hakuna matata! When I was younger Pumba was my favorite character in the Disney universe (Lion King came out when I was 8, so go figure):

Since we were in WDW a month before the live action version of The Jungle Book they were pushing it all over and one of the results was this pretty awesome sand sculpture:

Since we were in no real rush we wanted to spend a bit of time in Norway since we'd never see it again (at least not the Norway we grew up with). Sadly, I got lost in the pavilion:

I hope that guy is still there, any one know for sure? Next up is my favorite pavilion, where we stopped for a spin around the country.

Watch out indeed. Not sure why that's projected on there but it seems unnecessary:

And I do not approve of this pinata!

More Mexico to come after the break!