Trip Report Movin' In? Two Weeks in the World!

Figgy1 · Jul 14, 2016

Thank you again for my pre-vacation free vacation. Hoegarden is the one and only beer I would drink before having to go gf :hungry:

. I hope we get to do the entire monorail shop hop and crawl on check in day.

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 14, 2016

It was close to 3 pm by now and we still hadn't gotten a text about our room. It was a little irritating but we were still having hot fun at the Magic Kingdom. So since it was close to 3 that also meant it was almost time for Festival of Fantasy to start off in Frontierland. So we wandered over to see if we could find a decent spot. We found a spot in Liberty Square right in front of the rope and it was only 5 minutes until the parade, we figured we might not find better so that is where we stayed. I also told Brad that even if we got a text about our room, after the parade we were getting ice cream sandwiches at Sleepy Hollow. He reluctantly (

) agreed.

Festival of Fantasy is a great parade so it was nice that it worked out that we could see it with little wait.

Flynn?! Flynn! Remember me?!!?

The dragon, never did any fire in front of us. We saw it but never when it was in good camera range.

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 14, 2016

As the parade ended we made our way to Sleepy Hollow. It seems we beat the rush too, as it got very popular after we got in line. We had never gotten anything at Sleepy Hollow so this was a first for us. I wanted to share an ice cream sandwich. Brad wanted his own. So we each got our own, and when we both couldn't finish our sandwich he agreed that we should have shared. They were tasty. The choices of ice cream was vanilla and cookies and cream. When I heard cookies and cream so how my brain translated that to cookie dough, so I was a little surprised at the Oreo pieces, but I soon got over it when I realized my mistake. Cookie dough, would have been a little better though...

While we were eating our ice cream sandwich (close to 3:30 now) we finally got a text saying our room was ready. So we started to make our way out of the park and to the Caribbean.

Coming up....baggage problems and a wonderful birthday dinner....

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 14, 2016

MouseDreaming said:
Mushrooms in the mashed potatoes? Why? Yuck. I do not enjoy any fungi as a rule. And it is interesting about your wait, because it seems like I always wait a long time for a bus back to PO when I am there.

Looks like you made good use of your mini solo day!

Yeah, the mushrooms in the potatoes eludes me too. AK is usually the park where we have had the most waits for buses, but service there was really quick this time.

figmentfan423 said:
Thank you again for my pre-vacation free vacation. Hoegarden is the one and only beer I would drink before having to go gf. I hope we get to do the entire monorail shop hop and crawl on check in day.

Hoegarden was a new beer for me, not my usual type of beer but good. I usually go for ambers or dark beers. I'm glad I can help pump you up a little for your trip. I will be eagerly awaiting your report too!

Figgy1 · Jul 14, 2016

ajrwdwgirl said:
Yeah, the mushrooms in the potatoes eludes me too. AK is usually the park where we have had the most waits for buses, but service there was really quick this time.

Hoegarden was a new beer for me, not my usual type of beer but good. I usually go for ambers or dark beers. I'm glad I can help pump you up a little for your trip. I will be eagerly awaiting your report too!

THNX but it will be very long with lots of pics.

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 14, 2016

figmentfan423 said:
THNX but it will be very long with lots of pics.

Like mine then! I'm trying to limit some of my pictures.

Tuvalu · Jul 14, 2016

No like Pooh?......well, Pooh!! :in pain:

Figgy1 · Jul 14, 2016

ajrwdwgirl said:
Like mine then! I'm trying to limit some of my pictures.

What? Wait! Aren't there laws about limiting pics?

donaldtoo · Jul 14, 2016

ajrwdwgirl said:
We then headed to Test Track to use our Fast pass but it was down, so we wandered through Mouse Gear for a little bit before heading back to Test Track.
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I was really diggin' both of these ornaments, in the end I didn't buy either one.
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I thought the reflection was pretty cool in the the Test Track window.

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Our car, we were the winners in our car at least.
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Next we headed to Spaceship Earth, we both thought the yellow blooms were pretty on the tree.

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Spaceship Earth stopped for a bit in one scene so I did a bit of picture taking, Brad took a nap. I have a picture of him sleeping but I don't think he would want me to share. It is a funny picture though.
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We headed to do something else that has been on the back burner for awhile...La Cava in Mexico. We only got margaritas but they were good ones.
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Hubby got the passion fruit one, he thought it was just okay. I got the avocado and it was fantastic. Hubby hates avocado but I made him try it and he loved it. He said he wished he had listened to me and gotten it. I told him it was supposed to taste like melon, which I knew he would like, but he didn't listen.
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After drinks we got the cheese empanadas from the stand outside the pavilion.
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Alright: I'm out for the night. Coming up soon...more exploration of World Showcase, Springs, and fireworks!

Tryin' to ketchup

on your TR...

I NEED that Partners statue ornament...!

donaldtoo · Jul 14, 2016

MouseDreaming said:
Thanks for the resort pictures. Our family wouldn't "fit comfortably" in a value with the full sized beds, but I always thought my DS would love to stay in the jazz rooms.

Get a family suite.
We were there this past February for the Princess 5K, and the 6 of us (including SonIL) fit nicely in a family suite at ASMusic in the jazz section.

ScarletBegonias · Jul 14, 2016

Loving this TR! Thanks so much for posting the pictures of GG breakfast!

PacNWTigger · Jul 14, 2016

I totally want to do the monorail crawl the next time we go visit WDW. That sounds like a lot of fun and a great way to check out the other properties. :happy:

joshsprincess921 · Jul 14, 2016

Loved the monorail crawl! I was giggling at Brad's "exotic" drink of choice at every location!

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 14, 2016

Tuvalu said:
No like Pooh?......well, Pooh!!

I don't know what it is about him, but he just don't do it for me.

figmentfan423 said:
What? Wait! Aren't there laws about limiting pics?

I'm a rule breaker...

ScarletBegonias said:
Loving this TR! Thanks so much for posting the pictures of GG breakfast!

Thanks! I enjoyed eating it!

PacNWTigger said:
I totally want to do the monorail crawl the next time we go visit WDW. That sounds like a lot of fun and a great way to check out the other properties.

The crawl is fun, it would be really cool at Christmas when all the decorations are up.

joshsprincess921 said:
Loved the monorail crawl! I was giggling at Brad's "exotic" drink of choice at every location!

Brad's response, "I like what I like."

MinnieM123 · Jul 14, 2016

What a wonderful birthday you had!! :happy:

And you had a celebrity, Sonny Eclipse, perform a matinee show just for your birthday lunch. Aren't you lucky?!

Also, I love that photo of Brad with the Dapper Dans--and he got to sing with them, too!!! :joyfull:

You've mentioned before how much he enjoys their barbershop harmonizing, and I think it's so much fun that he got to join them.

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 15, 2016

MinnieM123 said:
What a wonderful birthday you had!! And you had a celebrity, Sonny Eclipse, perform a matinee show just for your birthday lunch. Aren't you lucky?!

Also, I love that photo of Brad with the Dapper Dans--and he got to sing with them, too!!! You've mentioned before how much he enjoys their barbershop harmonizing, and I think it's so much fun that he got to join them.

Yes, it was on of my better birthday celebrations. We did have a hiccup that I haven't gotten to yet, but even that wasn't too bad (just annoying). Brad would love when he retires to be a Dapper Dan, he would probably even do it for free.

donaldtoo · Jul 16, 2016

ajrwdwgirl said:
Day 5: June 25....It's our Anniversary. 11 years for us.

Today was the day to ride the new Frozen ride, so I had planned ahead and brought my Maelstrom shirt to wear. Brad said it was a silent protest, I said it was just a tribute to the past. I have Norwegian heritage, and while I think that Frozen is a good movie I wasn't in favor of a total rehaul of the attraction maybe putting in something to compliment Norwegian culture with the characters. Imagineers didn't consult me though, so I will have to live with it and hope children don't grow up thinking that Arandelle is a real place in Norway. In the end I did enjoy the ride and rode it two more times and I will ride it again in the future.

Anyway, we started the day with Soarin' which I think will always be a favorite. We also love to listen to the WDW Radio podcast and the host Lou Mongello was having a meet of the month at the Land so we stopped in to say hello. He is a really nice guy (at least that was our impression the couple times we've met him) and sometimes gets slammed because he is always so positive on his podcast but that is why we like it so well. There is so much negativity in the world we enjoy the positivity. The show is well researched too, I listen to a couple other podcasts and often detect mistakes in their information but I never had in his (but there could be I suppose).
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After that it was over to Mission Space, orange for me and green for Brad.
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Then to Frozen...Spoiler alert....Frozen Ride pictures below....

In the queue make sure you check out this board, it has some fun things to read on it. It is located shortly after you enter the building.
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Sorry the pictures are a little blurry, I was not patient with getting good shots.

Hahaaa...!!!
WDWRadio was the first Disney website I was ever a member of. I, by chance, found a copy of Lou's first WDW Trvia book at a Barnes & Noble just down the road from the office sometime in '06 during a lunch break. I finally bought a copy a few weeks later. The web site was referenced in the book, so I checked it out and lurked for a while (really had no clue about online forums at the time), and finally officially became a forum member in May of '07. I had almost 16,000 posts on that site before I joined here in Oct. of '12.
The forums were thriving for a few years before and after I first joined. I would first visit during lunch hour and be 20 pages behind. I would check in during the evening after work, and same. It was insane.
A falling out happened between many members, and Lou and some members.
By the time he finally shut the forums down (switching to an FB page instead) it was deader than a door nail around there.
It was actually kinda' painful to log in and see nobody had posted in what used to be the favorite chat thread in over a month or more.
Anyway, although I haven't listened to one of his podcasts in a very long time, I used to listen to them regularly.

Also, DWifey and I met him at an '08 MouseFest AK EE nighttime meetup with other members from the site.
He knew most of the others, but, was also plenty nice to us.
I would still listen to his podcasts (and yes, he is one of that "spirit"

guys favorite "lifestylers"), I just don't have that much time.

Anyway, still following along and tryin' to ketchup!

Thanks again for you great report! I know It is time consuming...!

ETA: Will try and ketchup

more tomorrow...!

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 17, 2016

donaldtoo said:
Hahaaa...!!!
WDWRadio was the first Disney website I was ever a member of. I, by chance, found a copy of Lou's first WDW Trvia book at a Barnes & Noble just down the road from the office sometime in '06 during a lunch break. I finally bought a copy a few weeks later. The web site was referenced in the book, so I checked it out and lurked for a while (really had no clue about online forums at the time), and finally officially became a forum member in May of '07. I had almost 16,000 posts on that site before I joined here in Oct. of '12.
The forums were thriving for a few years before and after I first joined. I would first visit during lunch hour and be 20 pages behind. I would check in during the evening after work, and same. It was insane.
A falling out happened between many members, and Lou and some members.
By the time he finally shut the forums down (switching to an FB page instead) it was deader than a door nail around there.
It was actually kinda' painful to log in and see nobody had posted in what used to be the favorite chat thread in over a month or more.
Anyway, although I haven't listened to one of his podcasts in a very long time, I used to listen to them regularly.

Also, DWifey and I met him at an '08 MouseFest AK EE nighttime meetup with other members from the site.
He knew most of the others, but, was also plenty nice to us.
I would still listen to his podcasts (and yes, he is one of that "spirit" guys favorite "lifestylers"), I just don't have that much time.

Anyway, still following along and tryin' to ketchup!
Thanks again for you great report! I know It is time consuming...!

ETA: Will try and ketchup more tomorrow...!

When I first discovered WDW Radio a few years ago, I noticed that the forums seemed pretty dead. I much preferred the forums here.

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 18, 2016

Sorry for the delay but I'm going to continue....I had left off with us finally getting text that our room at the Caribbean Beach was ready, we had spent the day at the Magic Kingdom, and it was my birthday.

So we had a little hassle with our bags. We dropped the bags off at bell services at the Music at 7am (actually a few minutes before), so now by almost 4 pm we figured that they would be at the Caribbean. We had 5:55pm reservations at the Yachtsman and we wanted our bags delivered quickly. So as we are on our way from the MK to the Caribbean, we get a hold of bell services at the Caribbean. They told my husband that the bags were there at the resort. Great! So Brad asks if they can be delivered to our room and gives them the room number. They said that they can't help us right now, and basically hang up. WHAT?!? By the way, there is no weather issue right now it is sunny with barely a cloud in the sky.

Whatever, so we get to our room and Brad calls bell services, it is the first thing we did. We entered the room at about 4:15pm. And now they actually help us and say they will deliver our bags probably within 20 minutes. So I wait a few minutes and then popped in the shower. I figured by the time I was done the bags might be there or close to being there (I don't take long showers). Anyway, by the time I get out of the shower it is raining and 45 minutes after Brad calls from the room no bags! We are getting pretty peeved, we had tried to get them to deliver while we were en route to our room, they hung up on us, we call from our room they say 20 minutes and now 45 minutes later nothing. I call this time and the lady says that they will send them out right away! Ugh, so they hadn't even sent them when they said they would. And then it still took about 15-20 minutes. So almost an hour and 15 minutes after we entered our room the bags finally come. So now Brad can finally get showered and changed into presentable clothing. By the time we leave the room there is no way we are making the Yachtsman on time (and we tried calling them but couldn't get through to the restaurant just a generic operator but they said our reservation would be honored).

We hoped that the Yachtsman would still honor our reservation and we headed over. Our original plan was to bus over to the Studios and boat or walk over to the Yacht Club, but that would take forever! So we went to the Custom House because I knew we could get a taxi there. It made me mad that we had to pay for a taxi when we had tried to get our bags delivered in a timely manner but it just didn't happen. What really made me mad was that bell services refused to help us, hung up on us, and then lied about sending our bags. I knew it would gnaw at us if we didn't say something to someone. So we talked to a manager and she did tell us that delivery had been suspended during the rain (it wasn't raining when we called the first 2 times) but agreed that they way bell services handled the original call was terrible. Anyway, I'll wrap up my long story here.....I did go in to get this off our chest so we didn't dwell on it (I'm a dweller) but I didn't expect much else. In the end the Caribbean comped our taxi to the Yacht Club, called the Yachtsman to explain the delay and hold our table, and gave us each 2 anytime Fast passes to use on one day. So in the end it was a hassle but it worked out. I suppose we shouldn't have stayed so long at the MK but we were mostly there because we hadn't gotten the room ready text. Oh well....lesson learned if I plan a nice meal on resort swap day plan it later in the evening.

So here are some pictures of the room. I liked the room a lot. It was bigger and had a more posh feel than the Music. I kind of wished there would have been a few more Disney touches in it though, I only found hidden Mickeys on the shower curtain.

Anyone see the hidden Mickeys?

At the Custom House

Next...arrival at the Yachtsman and the most fabulous meal!

ajrwdwgirl · Jul 18, 2016

So we finally check into the Yachtsman, and Brad apologizes for being late and the guy checking us in says "Yes, we know of your situation." Even our server referred to our tough day.

In the end though this restaurant ended up being our favorite of the trip. The atmosphere was casual yet elegant, the service by our server was impeccable, and the food was outstanding. It will be a place we will return to.

Fresh meats

The ceiling

My view from the table, I liked being able to see the pool area and do a little people watching.

The bread was an onion peel apart with salted butter and roasted garlic.

I got a beer sampler, and Brad got his "exotic" Rum and Coke (no picture of that).

We also shared a Jamaican beef stuffed squash blossom appetizer, it was very tasty and not too spicy. But I wouldn't get it again if we went back, I would want to save that tummy space for the truffle mac and cheese.

Trip Report Movin' In? Two Weeks in the World!

Figgy1

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ajrwdwgirl

ajrwdwgirl

ajrwdwgirl

Figgy1

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ajrwdwgirl

Tuvalu

Figgy1

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donaldtoo

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donaldtoo

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ScarletBegonias

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PacNWTigger

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joshsprincess921

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ajrwdwgirl

MinnieM123

ajrwdwgirl

donaldtoo

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ajrwdwgirl

ajrwdwgirl

ajrwdwgirl