Trip Report SOLO + FOMO = DUO : Oct. '21 trip to WDW

Hello Friends!

I just spent last week in WDW and I'm excited to share another trip report with you all.

Back in August, I planned a SOLO trip to celebrate the 50th as a birthday gift to myself. My birthday is September 21st, but I was celebrating a month later in Disney!

One morning in September, my husband comes home from work (after working the night shift) and says he needs to ask me a serious question. Of course, all kinds of things start flowing through my mind. He proceeds to ask whether I would mind having his company on my trip. That he'd been thinking about how much fun it was going to be, etc. etc, but that if I really wanted to go SOLO he'd understand. I told him I'd love his company, however, it depended on a few things. One, you have to see if you can take vacation. He already handled that. Two, you have to see if flights are still available. Again, that was taken care of. Third, I had to check to see if park passes were available. He went to sleep and I got up to start my day. I logged on to work from home that day and immediately checked and saw that the same park days were available. So, I called Disney, added him to the reservation, scheduled his park days and voila. Since the original plan was for it to just be me, I was only planning on having quick service meals, but now that he was coming I also went ahead and grabbed some reservations. Fast forward to my birthday and we were out having brunch when he asks if it would be easy for us to add an extra day to the trip. When we got home, I called Disney to add an extra day and change our resort. I was originally staying at Movies, but we wanted Skyliner access. We were able to change flights easily as well. Final plans were now in place!

So without further ado, I hope you will all join in as I share our adventures!

Who: Josh and Heather
What: My Birthday Trip and WDW's 50th Celebration!
When: October 25-October 29
Where: Pop Century Resort

 

[joshsprincess921]

Following along!

thanks for following!

 

[Disstevefan1]

Hello Friends!

I just spent last week in WDW and I'm excited to share another trip report with you all.

Back in August, I planned a SOLO trip to celebrate the 50th as a birthday gift to myself. My birthday is September 21st, but I was celebrating a month later in Disney!

One morning in September, my husband comes home from work (after working the night shift) and says he needs to ask me a serious question. Of course, all kinds of things start flowing through my mind. He proceeds to ask whether I would mind having his company on my trip. That he'd been thinking about how much fun it was going to be, etc. etc, but that if I really wanted to go SOLO he'd understand. I told him I'd love his company, however, it depended on a few things. One, you have to see if you can take vacation. He already handled that. Two, you have to see if flights are still available. Again, that was taken care of. Third, I had to check to see if park passes were available. He went to sleep and I got up to start my day. I logged on to work from home that day and immediately checked and saw that the same park days were available. So, I called Disney, added him to the reservation, scheduled his park days and voila. Since the original plan was for it to just be me, I was only planning on having quick service meals, but now that he was coming I also went ahead and grabbed some reservations. Fast forward to my birthday and we were out having brunch when he asks if it would be easy for us to add an extra day to the trip. When we got home, I called Disney to add an extra day and change our resort. I was originally staying at Movies, but we wanted Skyliner access. We were able to change flights easily as well. Final plans were now in place!

So without further ado, I hope you will all join in as I share our adventures!

Who: Josh and Heather
What: My Birthday Trip and WDW's 50th Celebration!
When: October 25-October 29
Where: Pop Century Resort
View attachment 597174

I am in. Excellent title BTW.

 

[joshsprincess921]

Next was our Individual LL for Mickey and Minnie. Totally could have just waited Standby for this. It wasn't worth the extra $$$ in my opinion. Granted, the crowds were not too bad either. Earlier, I noticed ToT was back open, so hopped on and grabbed the next Genie+ slot for that and we went back down Sunset after riding Mickey and Minnie. The standby was 45 minutes and we waited about 10 minutes with Genie+.

I was happy we were able to squeeze it in before lunch. Speaking of lunch, it was time to check in. While we waited, we watched Goofy do some fishing.

We were having lunch at 50's Primetime! This was a first for us. We were seated in this area...

Josh got a vanilla shake and we both got the fried chicken. Looking back, we wish we would have split this and then had room for dessert! It was a lot of food, but we both really enjoyed it more than we thought we would. Our waiter was a little awkward. It's like he was trying to be funny, but he felt weird doing it, but none the less it was a fun experience.

Next up, was another first for us. The Frozen sing along.

For me, it was just ok. Josh fell asleep, LOL. I did love the last scene and the snow.

With that, our time at Hollywood was up and we headed back to the resort for some R&R.

 

[joshsprincess921]

I am in. Excellent title BTW.

Thank you!!
Thanks for joining!

 

[chriskbrown]

Next was our Individual LL for Mickey and Minnie. Totally could have just waited Standby for this. It wasn't worth the extra $$$ in my opinion. Granted, the crowds were not too bad either. Earlier, I noticed ToT was back open, so hopped on and grabbed the next Genie+ slot for that and we went back down Sunset after riding Mickey and Minnie. The standby was 45 minutes and we waited about 10 minutes with Genie+.

View attachment 597602

I was happy we were able to squeeze it in before lunch. Speaking of lunch, it was time to check in. While we waited, we watched Goofy do some fishing.

View attachment 597603

View attachment 597604

View attachment 597605

We were having lunch at 50's Primetime! This was a first for us. We were seated in this area...

View attachment 597606

View attachment 597607

Josh got a vanilla shake and we both got the fried chicken. Looking back, we wish we would have split this and then had room for dessert! It was a lot of food, but we both really enjoyed it more than we thought we would. Our waiter was a little awkward. It's like he was trying to be funny, but he felt weird doing it, but none the less it was a fun experience.
View attachment 597608
View attachment 597609

Next up, was another first for us. The Frozen sing along.
View attachment 597610

For me, it was just ok. Josh fell asleep, LOL. I did love the last scene and the snow.

With that, our time at Hollywood was up and we headed back to the resort for some R&R.

Frozen show is all based upon whomever is playing the Historians.

 

[joshsprincess921]

Frozen show is all based upon whomever is playing the Historians.

Good to know!

 

[joshsprincess921]

Ok, so I don't want to complain, but I'm going to some in this section. This area where the cube is was the stairwell we used to get to our room on the 2nd floor. The area surrounding it and in the stairwell smelled very strongly of WET DOG. I have no idea what was causing this smell and we never smelled it anywhere else, but let's just say it never gave us that Welcome Home feeling when we were going up to our room.

Then, we are people that like to unpack when we get to a hotel room. I don't know if one of the hitchhiking ghosts were hanging out or not, but our drawers would always slide open randomly. I can't tell you how many times I hit my shin on this drawer because I wasn't paying attention.

We got back to our room and had some much needed rest. I put the door hanger on the door and we both fell asleep. I was sleeping so good when we got a knock on the door. I got up and answered and someone for Housekeeping tells me they have to come in and do a 20 second walk through of the room. She walked in, asked if anyone was in our bathroom, then she went in there, turned the light on, turned on the sink, then said ok you are good and left. We were both very confused! Of course, we couldn't go back to sleep after that. The only other time on the trip that we came back to nap, the same exact thing happened. This time she came in and turned the lights on by the bed, walked in the bathroom and turned on the lights and that was it. I asked her why they do this and she said it's for safety and that sometimes the AC goes out. Umm, I was even more confused at this point and very annoyed that every time I try to nap someone wakes me up. Does anyone know the reasoning behind this? This didn't happen on our trip in May, so I'm curious if something happened or if this some new policy.

My one other complaint was that we also had an unwelcomed critter in our bathtub one night. Yeah, I don't do critters especially the flying type. I know it's Florida, I get there are doors to the outside, but I'm just not cool with having a roach in my hotel room. Again, I hate complaining and wasn't going to share this information, but hey it's part of the trip. The room served its purpose. I didn't want to bother trying to move rooms or any of that, but I did decide to send Disney an email once I returned so that maybe they can improve upon the issues and help out someone else's future stay.

Back to the fun stuff!!! We were headed back to Epcot for some more Food and Wine and to actually see Harmonious this time.
On the walk to the Skyliner, I thought it was cool coming across this.

On the flight over, I checked to see if I could get a Genie+ for Test Track, but once again the time slot was super late. Standby was 20 minutes so we would just go ahead and do that.

I was happy we were able to design our car again!

After the ride, we were stuck in this area for a little while.

But they finally let us out! I would love the have this car.

 

[KellBelle]

I could be wrong, but I want to say that the room checks are from that incident in Las Vegas in 2017. I think Disney started them shortly after that. It's possible that in May they were not doing because of Covid, or you were out of the room at the times they came in. Again, I could be wrong, but I seem to remember Disney stating they would be doing daily room checks.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Disney makes us use our phones for everything, they should incorporate some kind of room occupancy calendar in the app so guests can indicate when they are ok with housekeeping coming in, housekeeping can look in the system to efficiently make their rounds with no guess work

 

[erstwo]

This is so weird. I was reading reviews of Art of Animation just yesterday (planning a future trip) and the newest review mentioned men from Disney maintenance randomly coming by the room every single day to do a ‘security check.’ The reviewer was so creeped out by it as she was a woman alone in the room (once she had even just gotten out of the shower) during two of the checks.
I figured this couple/ family at Art of Animation must have been suspicious somehow, but now hearing your story - which is exactly the same - it makes me wonder.
I was at Yacht Club in July and my 85 year old father in law spent much of the day in his room. Zero ‘security checks’ for any of us (and we had 4 rooms and we took mid day naps) that trip!
This has to be something new! And there must be reason??

 

[chriskbrown]

Good to know!

EquityBen "retired" from Disney with Covid; lucky to see one of his last shows. He made that show all it could be. Heppy for him as he is living his best life but man was he over top funny in that show.

 

[MinnieM123]

We stopped by the new Club Cool. It's not as fun as the old one IMO. I missed my feet sticking to the floor and the weird smell. The nostalgia was missing, LOL.

I had forgotten all about the sticky floor! It's been a number of years since I went there. Anyway, glad to see it's back, and it's amusing that they still kept "Beverly".

By the way, I'm enjoying your TR so far -- lots of great photos and commentary.

 

[joshsprincess921]

Disney makes us use our phones for everything, they should incorporate some kind of room occupancy calendar in the app so guests can indicate when they are ok with housekeeping coming in, housekeeping can look in the system to efficiently make their rounds with no guess work

That would be a good idea. I certainly don't mind them coming in and checking. I just wish there was a way to let them know we are napping and to come back later because the door hanger doesn't seem to matter.

 

[joshsprincess921]

This is so weird. I was reading reviews of Art of Animation just yesterday (planning a future trip) and the newest review mentioned men from Disney maintenance randomly coming by the room every single day to do a ‘security check.’ The reviewer was so creeped out by it as she was a woman alone in the room (once she had even just gotten out of the shower) during two of the checks.
I figured this couple/ family at Art of Animation must have been suspicious somehow, but now hearing your story - which is exactly the same - it makes me wonder.
I was at Yacht Club in July and my 85 year old father in law spent much of the day in his room. Zero ‘security checks’ for any of us (and we had 4 rooms and we took mid day naps) that trip!
This has to be something new! And there must be reason??

Yacht Club is where we stayed in May. There was one day when my husband was sick and he didn't leave the room for 24 hours and no one ever knocked on the door or came in. So I'm not sure.

That's just it. We thought something must've happened to prompt them to begin doing this, but the vagueness when I asked about it was strange.

 

[joshsprincess921]

EquityBen "retired" from Disney with Covid; lucky to see one of his last shows. He made that show all it could be. Heppy for him as he is living his best life but man was he over top funny in that show.

I've heard about him. I wish I had gotten to see him perform.

 

[joshsprincess921]

I had forgotten all about the sticky floor! It's been a number of years since I went there. Anyway, glad to see it's back, and it's amusing that they still kept "Beverly".

By the way, I'm enjoying your TR so far -- lots of great photos and commentary.

Yes! I tried the Beverly again and it's just as disgusting as ever!
The cucumber sprite was my favorite. It's really good.

Thank you!

 

[joshsprincess921]

Nighttime in Epcot is my favorite! After TT, we made our way back to have some dinner.

Saw the Figment statue. (Weird angle, but there was always so many people around the statues taking pictures)

We wanted to start in China. Just a warning, my picture taking isn't the best, so my picture taking at night is even worse.

Pan - Fried Chicken Dumplings with Sweet and Spicy Sauce - these tastes like your average dumplings you can get anywhere, but they still get a 5/5 for me because I LOVE dumplings. They were delicious.

Crispy-fried Pepper Shrimp with Spicy Sichuan Noodles - Josh loved it and gave it 5/5. I said 3/5. The shrimp were not crispy. The noodles were good though. He loves anything pasta though.

We continued on our journey and admired the Beacons of Light across the lagoon.

Next stop was Italy.

Grilled Chicken Ravioli with Alfredo sauce - for me, it was nothing special. 3/4. But as I said previously, Josh loves pasta and he declared this one a victory.

We wanted to try the Breaded Mozz filled Ravioli but they had sold out.

And our final stop on the Food and Wine journey was Hops and Barley located near American Adventure.

We each got a New England Lobster Roll and a Freshly Baked Carrot Cake.

I've never had a lobster roll before but have always wanted to try. Is the lobster always cold on a lobster roll or are there different ways it's prepared? I have a friend who lives in Maine so I should probably ask her. I don't know why, but I was expecting it to be warm when I bit into it, so the coldness threw me off. I thought it was very tasty though. 4/5.

The carrot cake with the warm cream cheese icing was 5/5! So good!

We sat in this little area and enjoyed our last treats from the festival. We absolutely loved experiencing Food and Wine.

Afterwards, we took a walk through Art of Disney before finding our spot to watch Harmonious.

We watched some of Game 1 of the World Series.

Atlanta Braves fans incase you are wondering!

 

[joshsprincess921]

I also played around with the filters from the Genie.

Then it was time for Harmonious! I took a few terrible pics, but mostly just watched the show.

My honest review of the show...I love the soundtrack. There were a few "scenes" that had the WOW factor for me. Those 3 were Mulan, Coco and Princess and the Frog. I enjoyed it, but do I think it's worth having the huge obstructions in the lagoon full time. No, I personally do not think so, but I've seen lots of people absolutely love it.

On our way to the Skyliner, we passed up a couple and the lady was SO drunk she couldn't walk. The man was trying to escort her out, but she kept falling to the ground. I imagine she wasn't feeling too good the following day.

The line was very long, but it moved steady. It took us an hour from leaving our fireworks spot to getting to our room, so not bad considering it was park closing.

Mr. and Mrs. greeted us when we returned.

Another wonderful day in Disney! It was late and we were tired.

 

[joshsprincess921]

October 27th

We typically always rope drop, so on our Magic Kingdom day, I set my alarm for 6:30, but when it went off I was still so tired, so I turned it off and rolled back over. I never do this, but I must've needed it. Now Josh always kind of moans and groans about having to get up so early, but when I finally woke up it was 8:00am and he was almost in panic mode trying to rush me. I had to tell him to relax and that we had a full day ahead of us. It was ok that we weren't going to rope drop. I showered and took my time getting ready and while he was in the shower, I mobile ordered us some breakfast from the food court and walked over to get it. I got Mickey Waffles and he got the Bounty Platter. We sat in the room and ate while Josh was sweating over leaving so late. He cracks me up because he tries to play it off that Disney is for me, but the more we go, the more I see him falling in love with it, but not sure if he will ever admit it.

On the bus ride over, I pulled up Genie+ and booked Splash Mountain. My first castle picture was taken at 10:10am.

Big Thunder was only a 10 minute wait so we hit that one first before utilizing our first Genie+ selection.

Splash Mountain had a good little wait but zipped on in.

Looked at the tip board and saw there was a Haunted Mansion available so grabbed it and headed that way. I stopped at the little cart and got a pumpkin spice cold brew (tasty!) and we watched the marching band come through.

When you scan your magic band for the LL at Haunted Mansion, it plays this neat little spooky noise. Nice touch!

When we got into the loading room, the ride was down. I started to think we would be sent out. We stood here for a good 10 minutes at least. But they finally got it running again.

 

[joshsprincess921]

We did not get photopass for this trip, but I have to brag that because of these trip reports, I nailed the HM picture while Josh looked into the darkness.

Next Genie+ selection was a walk on anyway.

Soon as I scanned, I looked at the tip board and grabbed one for Buzz. We walked over there right after. Josh may have beat me on Midway Mania, but I took the lead on Buzz!

We were soon going to be heading out of the park for lunch, but had a little bit of time, so we were going to watch Monsters Inc Laugh Floor. We stood in line and right before it was time to head in there was a little baby who started screaming and I mean, SCREAMING. When the mom took the baby in the theater and sat down and baby just kept screaming, we decided to just hit the exit instead of staying. Instead we saw the celebration floats on our way out.