Trip Report So we went to Disney again... - an August/17 trip report

Intro

Hello again everyone, and welcome to the 2017 (part 1) Burnett family trip report. Hopefully you'll enjoy following us through another fun/crazy/childish humor filled trip report

If you want to see the pre-trip report :http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...riginal-title-so-you-get-this-instead.927386/

Or, if you don’t want to go to the PTR, a quick recap:


Who
Same group as all the other trips we've done in the past

There's Tammy and I

and Steph and Liam

Actually, this picture may capture them better...

When

We were down at WDW from August 19th to the 28th


Where

Back when we were planning this trip, we asked Steph and Liam where they wanted to stay. Steph wanted Boardwalk, and Liam wanted Poly (we’re DVC btw). We decided to give them both what they wanted, and did a split stay. We spent the first 5 days at a garden/pool view room at the Boardwalk, and the last 4 days at a lake view room at the Poly.


Well…let’s get started


Countdown – everything up to August 18th

Where to start… We were pretty busy right up until we were on the plane to head to Florida. We did most of the packing for the trip in the few days before the 19th, and were really looking forward to getting away.

We took our cat Zoey over to my parent’s house on the 17th (my Dad loves cats and loves it when the cats get to stay over),

and our dog Cooper was picked up on the morning of the 18th to go to his daycare/overnight place.

We’ll miss the animals.


We’re almost ready to go…


However, as I mentioned in the PTR, my Mom was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer back in May and I had been going with my Mom and Dad to all of her appointments (I was there to take notes and ask questions, as my parents are both 80 and tend to get things mixed up). The reason this plays into the trip report is because we found out during the first week of August that she was going to have surgery on August 18th.

So, after weeks and weeks of appointments, the 18th finally arrived. As you can imagine, it was a bit of a different day than what you normally expect on the day before a Disney trip. Yes, we were excited about the upcoming trip, but also anxious about Mom’s surgery (and also very well aware that if there were complications then the trip would be postponed).

Here's my Mom and I at the hospital waiting to get checked in

The good news is that everything went very well. Mom’s surgery was at 9am, and lasted about 2 hours. After a few hours in recovery we were able to see her. She was kind of groggy, but was doing well.

I brought my Dad back to our home after we saw her, so that he could take a nap (he didn’t sleep well the night before the surgery). He slept for about an hour and then headed back to the hospital.

At around 4ish we finished packing up the car, and then I drove Tammy and the kids down to the hospital to see my Mom. I was surprised at how well Mom was doing. She was wide awake and was already asking the Dr if she could just go home that day (I already though it was crazy that you only stay in less than 24 hours after a mastectomy). She is one tough lady. Everyone was happy to see her doing so well, and she kept telling us we should get going, so we did.

We jumped in the car and headed across the border to Buffalo. We made a few stops (Sam’s Club (picked up some more gift cards and some breakfast stuff), the hotel (the Sleep Inn by the airport), the airport (to weigh our bags so there would be no panicked repacking at the airport the next morning), and the Cracker Barrel (for dinner)). We were back in our room by around 9:30 and settled in for a few hours of sleep before our super early (3:15am) wake-up call.

see you tomorrow

 

[gwhb75]

I can tell you I would not drink warm pop.

I hear you. Room temperature pop is bad enough. I can't imagine "hot pop"

 

[gwhb75]

Day 8 – August 25th

Hello last weekday of our trip. Time is flying by for sure. Well…gotta make the most of the rest of our time here.

As usual, we started the day with our early morning walk…but with the kids this time.

Still happy with his banshee

We did the same path as the day before, but this time made a quick pit-stop when we saw the Spirit of Aloha theatre, so we decided to duck in and see what the place was like.

We’ve never done this before. If you have, was it worthwhile?

We continued down to the Grand Floridian and wandered the grounds a bit.

Have you seen the cabanas by their main pool? Man those things are nice.

As we made our way back we started talking about what we wanted to do today. Back when I planned the day we were going to go to a waterpark in the morning, but everyone was feeling kind of waterlogged, so that was out.

Steph came up with the idea of taking the ferry over to the MK, and then taking the boat to Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness. Steph and Liam are both really interested in what’s left of River Country, so they wanted to go by there. We thought that sounded good, so we started making our way back to the Poly. We stopped in at the villas to see what it was like

…why do they get an espresso machine? Liam decided he couldn’t pass up free concentrated caffeine, so he had a shot.

That should help him wake up

On the walk back to the Poly I had an idea…What if, instead of taking one of Disney’s boats, we rented a boat and took it over to River Country. That would let us take some pictures at a slower pace than the quick glimpse you get as you pass by on the way to Fort Wilderness. We also get a discount on the boat rentals from the Poly marina, so I thought it may be fun

I proposed the idea to Tammy first. She was kind of iffy on the idea. She tends to think worst-case scenarios and was worried that having someone who has never driven a boat before taking the kids through potentially gator-infested waters may not be the best way to spend a morning. However, the kids kind of heard our idea and were all in. Tammy eventually conceded, and the trip was on.

Still to come - boating

 

[gwhb75]

Day 8 - We're on a boat

We walk up to the Sammy Duval boat rental location, fill in some waivers, grab some life jackets and were escorted to our boat.

I had kind of hoped for a speedboat, but the two they have were already out. All that was left were pontoon boats.

Tammy was actually thrilled with this as she feels these are more stable. We received a few instructions on how to drive the boat, and some rules around areas we can and can’t go, as well as how far we have to stay away from the ferries, etc, and then were set off.

We headed out across the 7 seas lagoon to the water bridge.

We passed by Wilderness Lodge (the new cabins actually look great) first.

Soon we were at River Country. I got as close as I was allowed, and Steph took some pictures (one of the rules was that the person driving the boat couldn’t use their phone while driving).

Next we passed Fort Wilderness, and then made our way around Discovery Island. Part way around Discovery Island I asked Tammy if she wanted to drive. I was expecting her to say no, but she surprised me and said she’d give it a shot. Does this look like the face of someone who was worried about boating about 30 minutes ago?

Tammy drove around Discovery Island and back to the water bridge, and then we changed spots again.

We made a quick pass by the MK, past the GF, and then back to the Poly.

We were out about 45 minutes in total, and had and absolutely fantastic time.
We had the CM take a picture of us when we got back

It was definitely a highlight of our trip (so much so that the kids are still talking about it, and now want to get a pontoon boat).

Still to come - lunch

 

[gwhb75]

Day 8 continued

After the boat ride we decided to go to Captain Cook’s for lunch. Tammy and Steph got the noodle bowls,

Liam got the bacon cheeseburger,

and I got the big kahuna sandwich.

Everyone seemed to enjoy their lunch. I found the sandwich to be so-so. I probably wouldn’t get it again.

After lunch we made out way over to the ticket and transportation centre to grab a monorail to EPCOT. We decided to stop by the central lost and found to see if Liam’s glasses had been turned in.

Sadly, they hadn’t. Oh well.

We took the monorail over to EPCOT and headed in. We got pictures done in front of SE (the CM was using a fisheye lense, so the pictures were a bit different that the normal ones)

We decided to stop by the DVC lounge first.

We spent about 30 minutes up there. It’s a nice place to relax.

mmm...snacks

Up next - Soarin' and World Showcase

 

[gwhb75]

Day 8 continued - Soarin' and World Showcase

Next we headed over to the Land for our Soarin’ FP.

As I mentioned earlier, Tammy hates Soarin’ so there was no was she was going on this, but Steph, Liam and I did.

It was fun.

After Soarin’ we decided to wander around World Showcase a bit. We stopped in a few countries and had fun.

When we got to Norway we saw the Frozen Ever After was closed.

I’m guessing technical difficulties. While we were in Norway we got some pictures taken by a Photopass photographer.

Well, talk about perfect timing. Just as he was taking the last picture the doors to FEA opened. Right place, right time.

We happily headed in and had a short wait before we were on a boat, reliving the story of Frozen.

Next we made our way over to Japan and stopped in the store there. On the way out we saw some very threatening clouds rolling in.

We decided we better hustle over to England before the rain came (we had reservations at Rose and Crown).

Well…we got to Rose and Crown just as the skies opened. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it rain as hard as it did that day. Our table wasn’t ready, but we were told to go wait in the bar area to stay out of the rain. That sounded like a great idea, except that I think almost everyone in EPCOT was told to do the same thing, because the bar was packed.

Still to come - dinner and a show

 

[gwhb75]

August 28th coninued

There was one kind of funny thing that happened in the bar though…. So we’re all crammed in there, and Liam is standing at the bar looking at a menu. I turn away for a minute to talk to Tammy, and when I turn back there’s a girl (I’d guess in her early 20’s) talking to Liam. Apparently she offered to buy him a drink (she knew he was underage so she was offering a Coke). Liam declined, but kind of had a smirk on his face when he looked over at me…I told Tammy that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”…then we had a good laugh at that.

still pouring

A few minutes later our buzzer went off and we headed into the dining room. For dinner Tammy, Steph and Liam got fish and chips,

and I got the shepherd’s pie.

All were delicious. For dessert we split a few sticky toffee puddings.

Speaking of right place, right time…just as we’re wrapping up dinner, some of our friends who we used to live close to walked by our table.

What are the chances. We knew they were down at Disney, but we hadn’t planned to meet up or anything, and yet here we are. We spent about 20 minutes catching up, before heading out into the rain.

Oh yeah, the rain was still coming down. We decided to call it a night since it was really coming down hard. I did manage to talk Tammy in to going on Spaceship Earth on the way out.

After that we headed back to the room. We got back just in time for the start of Happily Ever After. I did my best to turn on a long exposure on my phone camera and held it as still as I could. A few pictures turned out OK.

After that we called it a night.

See you tomorrow

 

[riverside]

I've been to the Spirit of Aloha show twice. First time 3 years ago & the last time was last week. I think the show is a bit too long but at the end there's a guy dancing with the fire which is pretty interesting. The food is ok--Salad, noodles, ribs, chicken, pulled pork & vegetables. This last time the ribs were extremely fatty & the pork was a bit dry. We paid out of pocket this last time but if I remember correctly if you're using the dining plan it is two credits. In my opinion it's not worth using two credits. The show is more of a draw than the food in my opinion.

 

[Tuvalu]

Surprised to see that Tammy is one of those people who find Frozen Ever After to be terrifying...

 

[gwhb75]

Surprised to see that Tammy is one of those people who find Frozen Ever After to be terrifying...

I thought it looked like she was vomiting into the backpack

 

[gwhb75]

I've been to the Spirit of Aloha show twice. First time 3 years ago & the last time was last week. I think the show is a bit too long but at the end there's a guy dancing with the fire which is pretty interesting. The food is ok--Salad, noodles, ribs, chicken, pulled pork & vegetables. This last time the ribs were extremely fatty & the pork was a bit dry. We paid out of pocket this last time but if I remember correctly if you're using the dining plan it is two credits. In my opinion it's not worth using two credits. The show is more of a draw than the food in my opinion.

Thanks. We may try it out sometime in the future.

 

[djpoore94]

We did Spirit of Aloha about two years ago with a group of four adults. We opted for the tier one seating and had great seats. We all really enjoyed the show and thought the food was great. Even the picky eater in our group really enjoyed all of the food!

 

[PacNWTigger]

I'm finally caught up! Happy belated anniversary to you guys.

 

[gwhb75]

We did Spirit of Aloha about two years ago with a group of four adults. We opted for the tier one seating and had great seats. We all really enjoyed the show and thought the food was great. Even the picky eater in our group really enjoyed all of the food!

Thanks for the review. We're interested in it, just not sure how interested yet.

 

[gwhb75]

Sunday August 27th

Well, first of all I just realized my days of the week were messed up, and that the last day’s trip report was actually on Saturday, not Friday, and it was the 26th not the 25th.

What does all that mean…

We’re at our last day at Disney today and I didn’t even know it (at least from a trip report POV).

So, as you know if you’ve stayed at Disney, every last day starts with this on your door.

Having said that, I was a bit concerned because when I opened the door it wasn’t there. However, I was up really early to go for a walk. I was going to call ME to make sure, but decided I’d go for a walk first and then call if it still wasn’t there when I got back. When we got back it was there.

I won’t bother with any more walk pictures since it was the same route as last time. On the way back we stopped by Captain Cook’s. I had wanted to try the Tonga Toast from there, and Steph wanted Mickey waffles.

Both were good. FYI, if you’re staying at Poly, Captain Cook’s is open 24 hours. That comes in handy on days like today, because the plan was to make rope drop at AK, so we were really early this morning.

After breakfast we made our way out to the busses.

Around 7:45 an AK bus arrived, and we were on our way.

I do like kind of messing with people a bit so I say in a just-loud-enough-for-the-people-around-us-to-hear voice:

OK guys, when we get to Animal Kingdom head straight to Dinorama. We want to make sure we get on Primeval Whirl before the crowds get crazy.

I like watching people’s reactions when you stay stupid things…

I was really happy that we actually made it to a rope drop (and I mean really made it, not arrived a few minutes after). We arrived at AK and joined a relatively small crowd of people waiting to get in.

Around 8:25 they started letting us in.

We headed through the Oasis, and got to the entrance of Pandora at around 8:30. Naturally almost everyone who was there for rope-drop was heading to Pandora, so there was quite a line.
Here's the line in front of us

and the line behind us

I should mention the amount of grief I took from Liam about getting there this early (this was before we left the room this morning). He took it all back when he saw the crowds.

Still to come - some Pandora time

 

[gwhb75]

Last day continued

OK, story time. I’ve never understood why everyone can’t just travel in an orderly fashion once they "drop the rope" and let people into the park. In our case, there was what we thought was a solo woman who was making it her mission to cut through as many people as possible to get to FoP (which is where most of the crowd, including us, was heading). I could see her coming up behind us and she was about to cut between Tammy and I, so I just grabbed Tammy’s hand. Seeing that this route was now closed, she set her sights on a slight gap between Steph and Liam. Steph saw what was going on and quickly grabs Liam’s hand. Route 2 is now blocked…but that didn’t stop her. She cuts a hard left, hops on the curb, and jumps in front of us.

“no big deal” I think to myself “if it’s that important to get ahead of us to her so be it”. Like I’ve said before, this is not a hill I think is worth dying on.

However…it gets better. She then turns around to look at the crowd behind us and starts waiving for some other people to come up with her. Who you might ask? The rest of her party (I'd guess about 10 people), including her elderly parents who are both in scooters. They kept telling her they can’t cut through everyone like that given that they are in scooters.

Well, this leads to her “getting up on her soapbox” and announcing to everyone around her how unfair it is that people are cutting her off from the rest of her family, and how she’s been in the spot she is in now the whole time and all the people behind her have cut her family off. Oh boy. Again, not a hill worth dying on, but she’s really starting to get on my nerves now. However, I held my tongue and just kept making our way to FoP (I’m guessing this woman may not know that FoP is a fairly high capacity ride, and then getting a few people ahead really doesn’t matter as you’ll be getting on at the same time as the 40-50 people around you).

We finally get to FoP, and start making our way through the standby line. I was actually really looking forward to going through the standby line as I heard there is just a crazy amount of detail.

While there was a lot of detail, I was kind of disappointed that they hadn’t opened up the full standby line, so we didn’t go through the lab area (which is kind of a big part of the line…. And isn’t it weird I’m basically complaining that the line isn’t long enough). We finally get to the load area, and there is a short wait so I start looking around, and realize that I can see the lab area from where we are. I point it out to Liam, who then grabs my phone and takes off into the lab to get some pictures.
He was back in about 2 minutes with some pictures for me. Good boy.

Soon we are assigned to our bay and the ride process begins.

Ready to ride.

We had a great ride again (and Tammy still enjoyed it, this time with less screaming and yelling).

still to come - some more Pandora

 

[gwhb75]

Last day continued - More Pandora and heading to Asia

After the ride we wandered Pandora a bit taking pictures etc.

''

Drum show

Us

We then headed over to the Na’vi River Journey for our first FP of the morning.

Tammy hadn’t been on this one yet, and she enjoyed it.

After that we headed back out into the park. We had noticed the sky was a bit cloudy when we first arrived this morning, and those clouds eventually brought rain. Fortunately we came prepared with our ponchos, so we threw them on.

We made our way though Pandora to Asia as we had Everest FPs coming up. We did have a few minutes before our ride, so we made a stop and the Royal Amandapour Tea Co for some snacks.

Quite good.

Still to come - Everest etc.

 

[gwhb75]

Last day continued -
I forgot to mention that on the way to Asia we stopped for a picture with Russel

Next up was Everest. Tammy decided not to ride this time, so the kids and I were on our own. We did single rider the first time since our FP window wasn't open.

Taking an important call...

We

We had fun.


It was still pretty early, so the standby line for Everest was really short, so we rode again.

After that we headed over to Dinoland for our Dinosaur FP. We stopped to get some pictures done on the trail beside Dinosaur, and then headed over to Dinosaur.

Another great trip through time was had (wouldn’t it be cool if they could mess with people on that ride at the end when the guy keeps saying “we’re not going to make it”, and have the power cut and everything go dark before hearing him say “they didn’t make it).

still to come - Nemo

 

[gwhb75]

Last day continued

After Dinosaur we decided we wanted to see Nemo so we headed over that way. Liam noticed that the line for Primeval Whirl was short, so I went on that with him, and then we met up with Tammy and Steph to see Nemo after that.

''

Good show. After that we were going to leave the park, but the kids decided on one last trip on Everest, so they did that.

Pouty last ride

I forgot to mention that this morning while we were in line I jumped on the MDE app to find somewhere to eat, and found a reservation for somewhere we hadn’t eaten before…Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ Kitchen. I booked it for lunch, so that’s where we were off to next.

still to come - Chef Art Smith's

 

[gwhb75]

Last day continued - Chef Art Smith's

We grabbed a bus to Saratoga, and then walked over to Disney Springs.

After a good walk, we were there. We checked in and were quickly seated.

We were really looking forward to eating here. We looked through the menus, and made our decisions.

Tammy ordered the fried chicken,

Liam got the fried chicken sandwich,

Steph went with the “3 sides” (she got mac and cheese, cheese drops and mashed potatoes),

and I went with the BBQ pulled pork with the mac and cheese.

We were all pretty full after that, except for Liam, who opted to try a slice of the chocolate pecan pie.

Not my favourite dessert, but not bad. Overall impression of this place… excellent, and a place that we will return to in the future.

After the late lunch we headed back to the room to finish packing. After finishing that, we headed over to the Grand Ceremonial House to grab a monorail to the MK. While at the Grand Ceremonial House I made a stop by the desk to pay off the balance on my room with the Disney card.

With that out of the way we headed up to the monorail platform.

Oh, good news btw….the Poly bag check is no longer a high risk security area, as the guards there had no problem with me taking a picture.

still to come - closing it out at the MK

 

[gwhb75]

Last day continued

We enjoyed our last monorail ride to the MK, and were soon through the “turnstiles” we took one last picture at the front of the park before heading in.

It was kind of a damp-ish night tonight, so the pictures were all a bit misty.

The kids took off to do their own thing, leaving Tammy and I childless for most of the evening. I’m not really sure what the kids did since there were no pictures provided. I can tell you that Tammy and I headed to Advertureland, and rode PotC one last time.

After that we headed over to the viewing area for HEA. I sent a message to Steph telling her where to meet us, and a few minutes later they showed up. We didn’t have the greatest spot (we arrived about 15 minutes before the show started), but they were OK.

Soon the show started. My opinion….AMAZING SHOW. I normally find fireworks shows to be a huge waste of time, and really only like them because the lines for the other attractions drop quite a bit during them, but this one was just amazing. From the castle projections, to the lasers, to the fireworks it is just a terrific show that I fully recommend catching at least once (Steph really loved it and wants to make sure we make the time to see it again when we go back in November for the karate tournament).

After HEA we headed back to Adventureland and got pictures done outside of Pirates, and then called it a night after that.

Heading out

One last look down the street

We decided to use the other mode of transportation available to us, so we took a boat back to the Poly.

... and with that we called it a night.

End of last day

still to come - heading home and final thoughts.