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

LSV · Sep 16, 2017

Really enjoying your trip report. All caught up now that power is back. Lights out Sunday at 10:14pm, back on at 7:20pm today. We have a generator, so could plug in the fridge and some fans, but no running water. It was an uncomfortable week, but really just an inconvenience. Irma brought down lots of trees in our neighborhood but only saw one house with damage.

gwhb75 · Sep 17, 2017

LSV said:
Really enjoying your trip report. All caught up now that power is back. Lights out Sunday at 10:14pm, back on at 7:20pm today. We have a generator, so could plug in the fridge and some fans, but no running water. It was an uncomfortable week, but really just an inconvenience. Irma brought down lots of trees in our neighborhood but only saw one house with damage.

Glad to hear you're OK and that you came out of it with little damage.

ScarletBegonias · Sep 18, 2017

So cool that you got to meet @Tuvalu !

I've always wondered how I would approach this! We don't know each other's names, so I can see myself being too embarrassed to shout screen names across the park! LOL!

MinnieM123 · Sep 18, 2017

gwhb75 said:
Thanks for the Anniversary wishes.

I'm wondering if there will ever come a time when you'll be able to book a FP to meet @Tuvalu in one of the parks

The parks aren't big enough for two VIPs at the same time! :joyfull:

gwhb75 · Sep 19, 2017

Day 5 – Last Day at Boardwalk

So here we are at the halfway point of our trip, which also happens to be our last day at Boardwalk. Despite my totally messed up feet, I still wanted to get one last walk around the loop…but my feet are really messed up now. On top of the pain, one other thing that happens every time I’m in Florida (and I know I’m not the only one this happens to) is I get a heat rash over the top of my feet. It’s not painful, but it looks bad. OK, enough complaining.

Tammy and I were both up early and got ready for our walk. Surprisingly, Liam and Steph got up too, and decided they wanted to do some kind of workout, although they weren’t sure what. Tammy and I were happy there were up, and left the room while they were still deciding what to do.

Tammy and I had another nice walk around the loop. We’ll definitely miss it. We completed our loop and decided to stop by the gym to grab some chilled towels. We were kind of surprised to see this…

I’m glad they are continuing some form of training while on vacation. Of course Tammy and I had to undo all their hard work by stopping by the bakery and picking up these.

We split these between the four of us, and really enjoyed them.

After finishing our not-too-healthy breakfast, we put on our bathing suits and headed out to Typhoon Lagoon. We’ve really enjoyed the waterparks this trip and were looking forward to another day at one.

...and we're here

Our first stop was to claim some seats:

Still to come - Some more waterpark and lunch at the springs

gwhb75 · Sep 19, 2017

Day 5 continued - Some more TL, and lunch

I won’t bother posting too many pictures since I already posted a lot of TL pictures on Day 2. Here’s a picture of us at the end of Miss Adventure Falls.

We rode a few slides again, and Tammy and I did the lazy river once again. We had a good time. I spent a few minutes in the wave pool. It’s fun and all, but I don’t love it like the kids do. I’m not a huge fan of having people slammed into me repeatedly I guess.

We spent a few hours at the TL, and before we knew it, it was lunch time. Today we decided to leave TL for lunch and go over to Disney Springs. We packed up our stuff and headed out... but not before a picture with Stitch (when did they start putting characters in the waterparks?)

Apparently no one else is following our lead...

While on the bus we discussed where to eat, and 3 of us agreed on Blaze Pizza. Liam decided he wanted to go t D-Luxe Burger instead. Fortunately the two restaurants are close together.

I took Liam over to D-Luxe Burger and stayed with him while he waited for his food.

It took a bit longer than I thought it would, but the wait wasn’t too bad.

We then headed over to Blaze Pizza and met up with Tammy and Steph. We ordered our pizzas, found some seats and waited for our buzzers to go off. It wasn’t too long before we were feasting on our woodfired pizzas.

All were delicious

Still to come - Hanging at Community Hall

gwhb75 · Sep 19, 2017

Day 5 continued - Hanging at Community Hall

After lunch we headed back to the Boardwalk. Tammy and I had been telling the kids for days that they should go and check out the community hall (we may still think of them as being younger than they are, because they used to love the community halls at the other resorts), and they finally decided to give it a shot. While they went there, Tammy and I went back to the room to drop off the towels, and pick up our refillable mugs. We then headed down to the bakery, filled our mugs, and headed over to meet the kids.

I love the name of the proprietor

She has no idea I'm taking her picture

When we got to the Community Hall, the kids were in the pool swimming.

Tammy and I went into the community hall building and looked around.

A few minutes later the kids joined us. Liam and I played a few rounds of foosball first.

It was fun, and the old man still rules that game. Next we played some football on the PS4.

We’re not huge football fans, but it was fun anyways. Oh, and I love the retro video game.

We stayed there for about an hour, and had a really good time.

Still to come - Spending the evening in Pandora.

gwhb75 · Sep 19, 2017

ScarletBegonias said:
So cool that you got to meet @Tuvalu !

I've always wondered how I would approach this! We don't know each other's names, so I can see myself being too embarrassed to shout screen names across the park! LOL!

It was pretty cool

Tuvalu · Sep 19, 2017

"Drop off the towels".....hmmm, that's a new one! :joyfull:

gwhb75 · Sep 20, 2017

Tuvalu said:
"Drop off the towels".....hmmm, that's a new one!

Lol.

"Hung the bathing suits to dry" was another option.

Courtney6682 · Sep 20, 2017

gwhb75 said:
Lol.

"Hung the bathing suits to dry" was another option.

''Checked to see if the room had been serviced''....

myhappyplace · Sep 20, 2017

"Got out of our wet suits"

gwhb75 · Sep 20, 2017

Day 5 continued

After that we headed back to the room so the kids could get changed, and then headed out to AK for the evening. I was really looking forward to going to AK as I wanted to see Pandora during the day (and Tammy hadn’t seen it at all yet). Not to mention I had scored 4 FPs for Flight of Passage (here’s a tip for getting FPs for FoP – book FPs for later in your trip first (this has to do with the + 10 rule of booking FPs)).

Another empty bus ride

We get to AK in good time, and make our way over to Everest for our first FP.

Tammy doesn’t love this ride, but will go on at least once per trip.

Look at the joy on her face. We were surprised at how short the standby line was when we got off, so the kids and I decided to ride again.

After riding through the Himalayas, we started making our way over to Pandora. We made a pit-stop in Africa for a picture first.

Finally, we made it to Pandora.

This place looks great during the day. We walked around for a few minutes looking at the theming.

Still to come - FoP and some food

gwhb75 · Sep 20, 2017

Day 5 continued

Before we knew it, it was time for our FoP FP.

I’ll be honest…I was concerned about this one. No, not for me, but for Tammy. As I mentioned, she doesn’t like flying, mainly because she doesn’t like heights. I know she hates Soarin’, so I was worried that she’d really hate this one too.

We made our way over to the FoP entrance. We all tried the ride vehicle out front first just to see what it was like.

We then headed in. As much as I was concerned Tammy would hate it, I was also really excited to try it. The FP line moved quickly and before long we were in the pre-show.

I though the whole pre-show thing was really well done and set the stage well for the upcoming ride. Soon we were ushered in to the theatre, and found our seats.

We put our glasses on, got locked into our seats and waited. Before long the shield lifter and the ride started. My opinion – this was amazing. As for Tammy…my concerns for here were unfounded. Yes, she may have screamed and hollered through the whole ride, but at the end she admitted she really enjoyed it (she even said something inadvertently funny when she told me I could book another FP for it later in the week – like that would be possible).

After experiencing flight we decided to grab some food. I really wanted to try the new Satu’li Canteen so we headed there.

This is another amazingly well themed place.

We decided we wanted to try a few things, so we got the chicken bowl with the potato hash and the cream sauce,

and the cheeseburger pods...

And of course we couldn’t skip dessert, so we got two of the cheesecakes.

Our opinion? Everything was amazing. The bowl was great., the kids though the pods tasted like a McDonald’s cheeseburger, and the cheesecake was delicious.

So good.

still to come - a few more rides at AK, and some EMH

gwhb75 · Sep 20, 2017

Day 5 continued

We decided to head out of Pandora after that, and headed over to Dinoland (but not before a quick stop in Asia so the kids could get some honey chicken from the Yak & Yeti counter service.
“Didn’t you just eat?” you may ask….If you’re asking you probably haven’t had teenagers).

After their second dinner (I think they may be hobbits), we headed over to Dinoland to use our Dinosaur FP.... but not before one more Everest ride

Finally, we made it to Dinoland. This whole area of the park was pretty dead, probably because Rivers of Light was loading. We jumped on Dinosaur since there was almost no line. We had fun.

On the way out Liam decided to walk by all the screens with the picture and run his Magic Band down the row. As a result, we got pictures of other people’s vacations.

After Dinosaur we headed over to Chester and Hesters. We stopped for some pictures first since the place was empty and there was no line.

How empty was it? I believe the line at Primeval Whirl can answer that (we went on that too).

Good night.

Still to come - EMH at MK

gwhb75 · Sep 20, 2017

Day 5 continued - EMH at MK

We decided to call it a night after that, and made our way to the front of the park (and just avoiding the post Rivers of Light mass-exodus). Now, the smart thing would probably be to go back to the room for the night…but no one has ever accused us of being smart. There were EMH at MK until midnight tonight, so the kids asked if they could go. We said they could, but that we had to go back to the Boardwalk first, as I wanted to clear the balance on our room before it got too late (We had bought Disney giftcards to pay for everything, so I didn’t want to make a mistake and have the charges go on my credit card) . However, it turns out there was a bus from AK to MK, so the kids asked if they could skip the trip back to the room and just go directly to MK and then meet us there later. Tammy and I decided that would be fine, so they happily headed out.

Tammy and I headed back to the Boardwalk, paid off our balance (or is it "paid off our balance"...I'll never tell) , and then headed back to the bus stop. The MK bus came quickly and we were soon going through the security check at the front gate. Just as we’re heading in I get a text from Steph….”We just rode Space Mountain with the lights on”…. Bah….Apparently it was amazing.

So Tammy and I didn’t really feel like going on any rides. We got some pictures done on Main St, and then just wandered a bit.

I noticed that the old vehicles were out tonight for some reason (the double decker bus and the firetruck), and people were getting on.

This was unexpected. Tammy and I headed over to the double decker bus and got on. We went up to the top level and found some seats.

A few minutes later we started making our way down Main St. On the way down we saw the kids so I texted them to look up. They did, and then followed the bus down to the castle.

We had to get off the bus at the castle, but then got back on and headed down to the entrance.

The MK was pretty busy, so the kids decided they wanted to call it a night since everything was so busy. We were happy to oblige, and happily headed back to the room. Another great day today.

End of day 5

gwhb75 · Sep 24, 2017

Sorry for the long break everyone. Here comes another day:

Day 6 (August 24th)– Bye Bye Boardwalk, hello Poly

Hard to believe, but our time at the Boardwalk has come to an end. As I mentioned at the start of this report, I wasn’t really looking forward to staying at the Boardwalk. Did my opinion change????

YES. It turns out we absolutely loved staying at the Boardwalk. From the early morning walks around the lagoon, to the bakery, to the pool, to the nightlife, Boardwalk has won me over. Is it my favourite resort? No, that spot is still held by Animal Kingdom Lodge, but I would definitely stay at Boardwalk again with no hesitation.

We were up at a fairly good time and finished packing our bags before calling bell services. The call to bell services was kind of interesting though. I called and explained that we were changing resorts and needed some help with our bags.

“We can’t actually keep your bags here today. We’re undergoing renovations and our storage room isn’t available”.

Ummm….so now what?

“…so what we’ll do is come get your bags and then put you in a cab with your bags and take you over to the Poly.”

I actually liked that idea more as it means we won’t have to be without our bags once our room at the Poly is available. A few minutes after calling the CM from bell services was at our door. He was a very nice CM from Morocco who had been at Disney for a very long time. He originally worked in the Morocco pavilion but transferred to the resorts. We told him we were from Hamilton, Ontario, and he started naming all the cities around us. It turns out he had lived in Montreal for a while and spent quite a bit of time in Ontario as well. He was very talkative and very nice. He got a good tip.

We stop by the bell services desk and are given a card for a free cab ride that we gave to the cab driver. A short drive followed, and before long we were at the Poly checking in.

I may or may not have whispered an inappropriate comment to Tammy about the flower necklace...

It was still really early in the morning, so our room wasn’t ready yet, so we checked our bags with bell services at the poly and then headed over to the bus stop. HS was our destination today. However, there was quite an attraction on the busses before we got there. It all started at the bus stop…

So we get to the bus stop and find some seats. We notice a woman there pacing around looking kind of agitated. We couldn’t figure out what was bothering her so much, until we heard her talking to someone else. I guess she had been waiting about 40 minutes for a bus to HS, and it sounded like she had a reservation or something she was now late for. OK, I can see being a bit annoyed by that.

Oh, but this got so much more interesting....

There were a few more busses that came and went before a HS bus finally arrived. However, when it pulled into the bus area, there were already 2 busses loading passengers for MK and AK, so it had to wait a bit further down the road until the busses moved…Well this was unacceptable apparently. This woman starts power walking down to the bus and knocks on the door. She was too far away to hear what exactly she was saying, but it looked like she wanted to get on the bus NOW, and the bus driver was telling her she had to wait until he pulled into the bus loading area. She storms back to the load area and waits…but she’s waiting kind of in the wrong spot, because when the bus finally pulls up, it stops way before where she’s standing. You can imagine how she reacts to this.

Oh…it gets better though….

So we all get on the bus, and we head to the back of the bus and grab some seats. This woman is back there also and she starts talking to another woman who was trying to get to the GF for a lunch reservation and was now late also. I studied quite a bit of psychology when I was in university, and I know that mob mentality is kind of a crazy thing. I mention that because that’s kind of what happens here. We have two women who are both unhappy and they start talking about their long wait and how unhappy they were. Enter woman number 3 who must have overheard part of the conversation from the middle of the bus, as she makes her way back to join in. It was one of the funniest/saddest things to listen to. They got back and forth about how much they’ve all paid to be here and how they are entitled to certain things because of that. Then the best part

Woman 3 – “when you get to the park you go right to guest services and you demand something…don’t ask…demand…get loud…If it was me there would be a whole show at guest services.”

Now everyone is getting worked up with their demands for free things. Finally, we get to the GF and the woman with the lunch reservation gets up to leave, but not before gifting us with our new line for the rest of the trip

“that’s it, they are paying for my lunch”. This line replaced “I’m calling the mayor” and we couldn’t be happier.

And, as if woman 3 hasn’t expressed her entitlement enough, as we are pulling into the HS parking lot, she says goodbye to the first woman, and then goes and stands by the back exit so that she can get off first (while the bus is still moving and nowhere near the drop off point…and, of course, when the driver didn’t open the door right away, she started banging on it).

At least it wasn’t a boring ride.

We clear security and head into the parks. We ended up splitting up pretty much right away, with the kids heading over to RNR and ToT, while Tammy and I just kind of wandered a bit...but we couldn't pass up the chance for another picture first.

Tammy and I made stopped into the Star Wars Launch Bay and decided to go meet Kylo Ren (we were wearing Star Wars shirts – Liam and I were were First Order shirts, and Tammy and Steph were wearing “Rebel” shirts).

Waiting for Kylo

Mr. Ren

It was fun.

While we were doing that, the kids rode RNR and ToT.

PhotoPass_Visiting_STUDIO_8088500088 (1).jpeg

PhotoPass_Visiting_STUDIO_8088507115 (1).jpeg

more to come

gwhb75 · Sep 24, 2017

Day 6 continued - lunch and Star Tours

After that we met up for lunch. We decided to go to the Backlot Express, so we wandered over to the opposite side of the park. We ate a bit later today (around 1ish) because we have late ADRs for ‘Ohana tonight. We ended up with two chicken and waffles and two chicken nuggets. Both were good.

Next up was Star Tours. We didn’t have a FP, but the standby line was only 20 minutes. Before going in I wanted to get a picture of the sign, but ended up with a photobomb…

I wanted this

but got this

The standby line was outside of the building, so we ended up waiting in the Florida heat for a few minutes. Liam wasn't thrilled about this, and was about to enter "teenager mode" again... I felt like the sharks in Nemo..."INTERVENTION"...

As I mentioned earlier, Liam has a pretty good sense of humor , and decided he had a good way to cool off a bit

…What a boy

After our ride through space the kids decided to head back to RNR and ToT (it is kind of sad that there are only a handful of rides in this park. I’d be upset if I had paid the full day ticket price to come here right now).

The kids ended up riding ToT again while Tammy and I wandered a bit more. We made a stop by Starbucks and picked up an iced tea, and then had a seat in the outdoor seating area.

We sat for about 30 minutes and just chatted. It was really nice. We then wandered the stores a bit to cool off. Tammy found a cat.

She loves cats.

Still to come - checking out our room and going for a swim

amjt660 · Sep 24, 2017

gwhb75 said:
We jumped on Dinosaur since there was almost no line. We had fun.

awesome ride photo by all 4 of you

gwhb75 said:
I may or may not have whispered an inappropriate comment to Tammy about the flower necklace...

Keep it PG

Enjoying the story telling - mob mentality - love it

Max

gwhb75 · Sep 24, 2017

Day 6 continued - checking out our room and going swimming

Finally we met up with the kids again. Liam could barely contain his laughter. “You have to see our ToT picture”…..uh oh….what did you do…that's him in the top left

I guess he was feeling hot again

We decided to call it a day at HS and made our way out…however, we were blocked by the First Order.

The march does look kind of cool.

At the bus stop I checked my email, and saw that our room was ready. Awesome.

We headed back to the Poly, stopped by bell services to ask them to bring our bags up, and then headed up to our room.
Almost there

We had a lake view studio on the 2nd floor. We were very happy with the room

bathroom #1

bathroom #2 (the numbers do not correspond to what you do in the bathroom btw)

And the view

still to come - swim and snack

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

LSV

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gwhb75

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ScarletBegonias

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MinnieM123

gwhb75

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gwhb75

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gwhb75

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gwhb75

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Tuvalu

gwhb75

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Courtney6682

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myhappyplace

Crazy Cat Lady

gwhb75

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gwhb75

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gwhb75

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gwhb75

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gwhb75

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gwhb75

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amjt660

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gwhb75

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