Trip Report Surprise - We went to Disney again

Surprise…we went to Disney for a few days

High Level Details

Who - Tammy and I
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When - April 17th-20th

Resort – Saratoga Springs - Studio


Preamble

So like the title says, we did a kind-of last minute trip to Disney in mid-April. I was going to be on a course in Tampa from April 15th-17th, and had this crazy idea to bring Tammy with me and we would tack a couple of days on at the end. Our original plans for this trip were to hang around Tampa and try Busch Gardens out for a day or two. However…I started looking into things a bit more, and realized Tampa is only about an hour drive from Orlando, so our plans changed to Disney instead. Once we decided on Disney we then had to decide what we were going to do there. I noticed there was a waterpark season’s pass that Disney was offering, so we decided waterparks only this trip…or so we thought (but more on that later).



April 15th – April 17th

I won’t spend too much time on these days. I was on a course that was held at the Tampa Convention centre. I’d go to the course during the day, and Tammy would hang around the pool at the hotel, and then we’d meet up in the evenings for dinner. Tampa was OK. The riverwalk was nice, but I didn’t really love the area we were in.

One small problem came up with our plans though… I logged on the morning of the 17th to buy the waterpark seasons pass…Only to be met with “this ticket offer is no longer available”. I guess I missed the part of the offer that said they were going to only be sold up to the 16th. BAH. However, there is a DVC deal for waterparks, so we decided to get 1 day of waterpark passes for the 18th, and then decided after that what we wanted to do on the 19th.



April 17th – PM


The course wrapped up around noon on the 17th, and it was vacation time. I headed back to the hotel to meet up with Tammy, then we took an Uber back to the airport to pick up our rental car (I tried to rent something closer to the hotel, but I couldn’t match up the return times of the car to any of the locations nearby, so the airport was the easiest way (and we were flying out of there at the end of our trip anyways). A short trip to the airport, and soon we were in our rental and heading…back to Tampa
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So I’m a big hockey fan. Scratch that. I’m a big Toronto Maple Leafs fan. What were the chances that the Leafs would be playing in Tampa at the exact time I’m in Tampa (and if you know anything about Toronto pricing for hockey games, I would have been cheaper to fly down to Tampa, go see the game, then fly home again than it would have been to see a game in Toronto). It was the last game of the season for both teams, and Austin Matthews (the top scorer in the NHL this season) was at 69 goals, and had one game left to try and get the Leafs record for goals scored in the regular season (70)….so of course we had to go to the game.



The area around the Arena was quite nice.

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Tammy and I put on our Leaf’s jerseys and joined the fray of Tampa Bay fans heading into the Amalie arena.

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The game was fun even though the Leafs lost, and Austin Matthews didn’t get his 70th goal (one kind of funny thing that could have turned inappropriate really quick almost happened. There were some young kids behind us who were “chirping” the Leafs all game (i.e. chanting anti-Leafs things)). As the game was winding down I heard one of the kids say to the other “let’s chant “69” at Austin Matthews”. Fortunately their Mom quickly shot that idea down (and now the kids are probably wondering why Mom jumped to his defense) LOL).

The game ended at around 10:30, and we made our way out of Tampa and about an hour later we finally saw the sign
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to be continued
 
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Tiki Traveler

Well-Known Member
Celebrate Number 1 GIF by echilibrultau


Great that you got back to Disney! Though we are, for better or worse, Buffalo Sabres fans, it must have been great to catch that Maple Leafs game in Tampa!
 

ajrwdwgirl

Premium Member
Excited to see more. Glad you got to go to a hockey game with your favorite team. This past spring I missed seeing my team (Wild) play in Anaheim & LA by a week, that would have been fun to see them play.
 

gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
April17th continued
I had done on-line check-in, so we just went straight to the room. We had a studio at the Carousel up on the 3rd floor.
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The room was comfortable and clean. Here's a few room pics
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Sorry, we had already "moved in" before I started taking pictures

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The rooms now had that Disney/Siri thing. We didn't really use it, but it's a cool idea.

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OK.... Confession time....We don’t love Saratoga (even though we own there) just because it’s so big. Having a rental car made it a bit easier, but it’s just so spread out. However, since we booked so late, we really didn’t have any other options (I know…first world problem). LOL. We were both pretty tired, so called it a night.

End of April 17th.
 

gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
April 18th – Typhoon, Boma and YOLO.

Our first full day at Disney is upon us. The nice thing about going to a waterpark is that they don’t open until 10am, so we had a more leisurely morning. If you’ve ready any of our previous trip reports, you know the day starts with coffee in the room. After we got some caffeine in our system, we decided we’d do a quick tour of Saratoga Springs.

The lobby area
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The quick service restaurant and store (just off the lobby)
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The pool area
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The resort is really nice, but it is just way too spread out for our liking. If we didn’t have a car it would be very time consuming to get around the resort. Regardless, the grounds are very nice.

To be continued
 
Last edited:

gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
April 18th continued

Around 9:30 we got back in the car and made our way over to Typhoon Lagoon. It’s crazy to think that we haven’t been to a Disney waterpark in 6 years (especially since we really love waterparks). The last time we were at a Disney Waterpark you used to be able to choose between Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach as both used to be open at the same time.

We got to the front gates around 9:45 and made our way in.
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Steph and Calvin (our daughter and her husband) had been to Typhoon Lagoon when they were at Disney for their honeymoon in August, and recommended we pick up a refillable mug there, so we did (and, bonus, we can bring the mug back when we are down in September (ooops,…spoiler) and they only charge you $8.50 to reactivate it for the day (it costs $12.50 on the day you buy it).
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The other thing we did after getting the mug is rent a locker. I didn’t want to carry my phone with me all day, and didn’t want to leave it at my chair either, (it’s my work phone too so I really can’t risk losing it) so locker it is.

Not long after all that was done we were allowed into the park. The first stop for Tammy and I was to get chairs. We found two right at the front of the beach area that we claimed as ours.

The view from our chairs

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Or with the ropes in focus and the background out of focus LOL
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After laying our towels out, etc we decided to hit some slides.

Our first stop was Misadventure Falls. So here’s a new thing we didn’t know about…when we were here last time you could go in groups of two. If you’ve never been on this before, the rafts are not super large, and are quite a tight fit for normal sized people…. I’m 6’4, 255lbs…so you can imagine how uncomfortable it was when we got up to the loading area and they had two other people join us in the raft. I guess they changed the rules around how many people could go in a raft, and now there had to be at least 3. Well that was awkward. We managed to pretzel our legs together with some strangers and had an otherwise enjoyable ride.

After Misadventure Falls we hit Slush and Gusher and rode two of the 3 slides (I guess I should have mentioned that the park was extremely quiet at opening – there were no lines for anything). After that, Tammy and I hit the one thing we look forward to the most when we talk about Disney Waterparks…the lazy river (yeah, we’re old now).
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We both grabbed a tube (I like the new tubes they have that are like a half chair), and we floated around for a long time (we did about 3 full loops the first time around. So relaxing).

After floating aimlessly for about an hour we decided to grab something to eat. We didn’t want anything too big as we were going to BOMA for dinner. One thing we had seen (I think on Tik Tok) that we wanted to try was the Dole Whip flight in a bathtub thing at Typhoon Tilly’s Snack Shack so that’s where we went.

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We also decided to get a Mickey pretzel with the plastic cheese (because we’re healthy like that…can’t just have dessert). The bathtub came with Matcha, Strawberry and traditional Dole Whip along with some boba balls. We both really liked it. The pretzel was good too.
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to be continued...
 

gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
April 18th continued

After eating we decided to wander the park a bit and take in the theming. There’s a lot to see if you take the time to look. Very cool.

A few pics from around the waterpark

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Before calling it a day we hopped back into the lazy river for a few more laps, and then decided we had had enough waterpark fun for one day.
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Goodbye Typhoon Lagoon

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So….on the way back from the park we started talking about what we wanted to do tomorrow. We floated the idea of going back to the waterpark again, but that wasn’t really what we wanted to do. Disney Springs was an option, but I can’t see spending a full day shopping (especially since I really don’t like shopping).

Then I floated this idea…what if we go to Animal Kingdom… Now, being a finance guy, I’m normally fiscally conservative, and I know that the price of a one day ticket at Disney is ridiculous (especially during a race weekend that I didn’t even know was happening). However, one thing that covid taught us was that you never know what’s going to happen in the future. I wouldn’t have believed it in 2018 if you told me that we wouldn’t be back in a Disney Park for over 5 years. Sure, we have a trip planned in September (spoiler again…OK, I’ll do a pre-trip at the end of this trip report), but for all we know we’ll be locked down again and unable to travel. So…YOLO…. We decided we were going to Animal Kingdom.

So why Animal Kingdom and not one of the other parks:
  • Animal Kingdom is our favourite park
  • It’s the “cheapest” park – it’s crazy how expensive one day tickets are, especially on a race weekend. We ended up paying $149 USD each for the tickets (so over $400 Canadian). The other parks were $169.
  • When we were at Disney in September (trip report is here if you're interested: https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...llllll-the-magic-if-you-know-you-know.982379/) we did Magic Kingdom (at a MNSSHP) and Hollywood Studios, so it was either this park or Epcot (see point 2 LOL).
  • If the rumours are true, this may be our last chance to see It’s Tough to Be a Bug, Dinorama and ride Dinosaur.
After that decision was made, we made our way to the nearby Sam’s Club to buy more Disney gift cards to pay for the tickets (they offer them at a slight discount). Once we picked the gift cards up we set our Google Maps for Animal Kingdom Lodge – Jambo House for dinner at Boma.

To be continued
 

Wicked Sisters

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
April 18th continued

Around 9:30 we got back in the car and made our way over to Typhoon Lagoon. It’s crazy to think that we haven’t been to a Disney waterpark in 6 years (especially since we really love waterparks). The last time we were at a Disney Waterpark you used to be able to choose between Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach as both used to be open at the same time.

We got to the front gates around 9:45 and made our way in.
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View attachment 797700
Steph and Calvin (our daughter and her husband) had been to Typhoon Lagoon when they were at Disney for their honeymoon in August, and recommended we pick up a refillable mug there, so we did (and, bonus, we can bring the mug back when we are down in September (ooops,…spoiler) and they only charge you $8.50 to reactivate it for the day (it costs $12.50 on the day you buy it).
View attachment 797697

The other thing we did after getting the mug is rent a locker. I didn’t want to carry my phone with me all day, and didn’t want to leave it at my chair either, (it’s my work phone too so I really can’t risk losing it) so locker it is.

Not long after all that was done we were allowed into the park. The first stop for Tammy and I was to get chairs. We found two right at the front of the beach area that we claimed as ours.

The view from our chairs

View attachment 797698

Or with the ropes in focus and the background out of focus LOL
View attachment 797699
After laying our towels out, etc we decided to hit some slides.

Our first stop was Misadventure Falls. So here’s a new thing we didn’t know about…when we were here last time you could go in groups of two. If you’ve never been on this before, the rafts are not super large, and are quite a tight fit for normal sized people…. I’m 6’4, 255lbs…so you can imagine how uncomfortable it was when we got up to the loading area and they had two other people join us in the raft. I guess they changed the rules around how many people could go in a raft, and now there had to be at least 3. Well that was awkward. We managed to pretzel our legs together with some strangers and had an otherwise enjoyable ride.

After Misadventure Falls we hit Slush and Gusher and rode two of the 3 slides (I guess I should have mentioned that the park was extremely quiet at opening – there were no lines for anything). After that, Tammy and I hit the one thing we look forward to the most when we talk about Disney Waterparks…the lazy river (yeah, we’re old now).
View attachment 797704
We both grabbed a tube (I like the new tubes they have that are like a half chair), and we floated around for a long time (we did about 3 full loops the first time around. So relaxing).

After floating aimlessly for about an hour we decided to grab something to eat. We didn’t want anything too big as we were going to BOMA for dinner. One thing we had seen (I think on Tik Tok) that we wanted to try was the Dole Whip flight in a bathtub thing at Typhoon Tilly’s Snack Shack so that’s where we went.

View attachment 797703


We also decided to get a Mickey pretzel with the plastic cheese (because we’re healthy like that…can’t just have dessert). The bathtub came with Matcha, Strawberry and traditional Dole Whip along with some boba balls. We both really liked it. The pretzel was good too.
View attachment 797701View attachment 797702
to be continued...
Loved your photo of the lazy river as it brought back so many happy memories floating around it. Just wondered if you would be going again September 2025 as we will be there again from the 8th for two weeks.
 

gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Loved your photo of the lazy river as it brought back so many happy memories floating around it. Just wondered if you would be going again September 2025 as we will be there again from the 8th for two weeks.
To be honest, we haven't started thinking about 2025 yet.

We may be going to Disneyland in February which, if it happens, means we'd probably not be going to Disney World in the summer/fall...but you never know.
 

cgersic

Well-Known Member
You are so full of surprises on this report!!! Thanks for taking the time, and glad you had the opportunity to experience Tampa - but you definitely made the right choice to head to Disney!
 

MotherofaPrincessLover

Well-Known Member
I'm staying at Saratoga in November with my two kids and my niece. I am pretty nervous about how spread out it is, especially with no car. I wasn't 100% sure I was going to take the trip (and it was borrowing points so I didn't want to book just in case) and by the time I fully decided the choices were Saratoga or OKW.
 

gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I'm staying at Saratoga in November with my two kids and my niece. I am pretty nervous about how spread out it is, especially with no car. I wasn't 100% sure I was going to take the trip (and it was borrowing points so I didn't want to book just in case) and by the time I fully decided the choices were Saratoga or OKW.
If you can get near the main building it's not too bad.

If I had to pick between the two resorts, I'd do OKW (it's another one of our favourites). It's pretty spread out too but I really prefer it to Saratoga. Having said that, you're still at Disney, so don't stress about the resort. Saratoga is still a really nice resort.
 

gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
April 18th continued
We hadn’t been to Boma for dinner in a long time. Tammy and I both loved it, but our kids were picky eaters, so it wasn’t worth paying $50ish dollars for them to eat mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. But now it was just the two of us, so we were free to do as we please.

We got to Animal Kingdom Lodge around 5:30 and made our way in.
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The Lobby is amazing. This lobby and Wilderness Lodge’s lobby are the two best on property IMO.
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We made our way down the stairs to the Boma check-in desk, and minutes later we were seated.
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Dinner was amazing. The butternut squash soup is a 10/10. Everything was delicious….and Zebra Domes.
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After dinner we wandered the grounds a bit (we’re staying at AKL in September – but at Kidani (man if I keep dropping spoilers I won’t need to do a Pre-trip report).
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I absolutely love AKL. The only downside to it is that it’s so far away from everything.

After wandering for a bit we headed back to Saratoga, and called it a night. When we got back to the room I bough the AK tickets for Friday and then went to bed since I know that we’re now going to have an unplanned early morning to make rope-drop.

End of April 18th
 

MotherofaPrincessLover

Well-Known Member
Are there items on the dinner buffet at Boma for picky eaters? I want to go in November for my birthday but my kids are extremely picky. They're not huge eaters so don't need a lot of choices so I'm hoping there's at least something for them.
 

k8einwdw

Well-Known Member
Are there items on the dinner buffet at Boma for picky eaters? I want to go in November for my birthday but my kids are extremely picky. They're not huge eaters so don't need a lot of choices so I'm hoping there's at least something for them.
Yes - same standard options they usually have in the “kids” section of the buffets onsite - Mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, pasta with marinara, etc.
 

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