Trip Report The “Cruising is not for me” Surf n’ Turf Spring Break Shenanigans Trip Report *Completed*

All the who’s and what’s can be read over here:
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/round-five-twelve-months-of-shenanigans-ends-with-a-family-surf-n’-turf-spring-break.911138/

The Cliff’s Notes version is that we took our annual spring trip but for the first time it would be during Spring Break week. The trip also marked the first time the DD would be going on a cruise, something the DW and I couldn’t wait for her to experience. Another first would be our crew experiencing the Poly, super excited about this too! So, without further ado, let’s get this party started!

Wednesday:
We still had to get through the work day before we embarked on the trip which included me teaching my 5:30 computer ethics class and the DW’s Jazzercise class. I picked her and the DD up at 7:00 right after swinging by Zaxsby’s for some to-go chow. We were on the road by 7:20 and heading down GA400 towards Macon for our overnight pit stop. We pulled into Macon around 930-9:45 and checked into the La Quinta inn. The hotel served it’s purpose, a place to sleep part way to the bubble. The DW and I knocked out some grading before calling it a night by 11:30.

Thursday:
So the alarm was set for 5:30 but La Quinta had other plans… About 4:00-4:30 the smoke alarm in the room began chirping..you know that chirp, the one that says “hey, the battery is dying, change it”. Only problem is there is no taking this smoke detector down and replacing the battery. This meant every two minutes or so the detector would chirp. Good luck sleeping through that! So we were up and put La Quinta behind us before 5:00! The good news was that we would be to Disney that much earlier the bad news was that NOTHING drive-thru was open for breakfast yet! So we drove a short while and made a pit stop at a Walmart to pick up some things we forgot, something we’ve gotten quite good at lately; forgetting. By the time we left The Marts McDs was open! So we grabbed some quick food and made for the bubble! About 3 hours of uneventful driving later and we hit our first sign of hope!
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About two more hours later and we were there! Don’t let the clouds in the pic fool you the weather was GREAT!
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Soon we were pulling into the Poly’s parking lot. It was WARM! I checked in with the front desk but our room was not ready, they’d text when it was. We decided to check out the grounds a bit and hang at the pool.
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A family of ducks getting some shade!
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With that I decided to relax at the pool for a bit since I still had some classwork to deal with while the ladies branched out for some food.
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Soon, the ladies were texting me to come over to the DVC pool as it was quiet and had some good looking food options. It was pretty beautiful over there for sure too.
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DD went with the kid’s Hawaiian burger
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DW went with the kid’s fish taco
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I went with the pork sliders
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The food was excellent, especially for a pool side snack shack! So we relaxed here a bit longer before the ladies took to exploring the Poly and GF some until our room became available.

Still to come: An amazing standard view room and The Grand Floridian Café.
 
Last edited:

DisneyMorgan

Well-Known Member
Our first and second cruise was a verandah room. It was nice, very nice. This most recent one we decided to try something different. I had originally booked a family verandah room, which from my reading is only slightly larger than a regular deluxe stateroom. I did some searching and saw there were these rooms laid out like a suite and two giant portholes. I changed it to this room instead and saved several hundred dollars. This room was huge. It felt like twice the size of a regular stateroom. Plus, being able to sleep right next to the porthole was great. For two people, it's a bit large, but for three, it was the perfect size. I would definitely book this room again.

For our next cruise, I booked a GTY 5e extended verandah.

Did I miss the verandah? Not really. I thought I would, but waking up and just being able to look out at the ocean made the category switch worth it.

Awesome!! What category room is this again? Do you know if they have these type rooms on the Wonder/Magic? We really want to do an Alaskan cruise but the price for a veranda is scaring me lol. However, one of these rooms may make up for not having a veranda.

Our first two cruises were veranda views and I too thought it would be hard to change staterooms but this stateroom worked well! We had a ton of room, two nice portholes, and spent so much time doing activities around the boat that the veranda wasn't missed at all. Our cruise In October will be just the DW and I and we have a guaranteed 5E which means we will have a veranda and maybe even an extended veranda, fingers crossed! We will probably take it easy on that trip and enjoy a slower pace which means some time on the veranda in the evenings and mornings.

We are booked in a category 7A for November, same category we booked for last October and we really enjoyed that veranda even though it was "solid white wall". It didn't bother us one bit! I'm sooo looking forward to having morning coffee on my veranda again, I can't wait! I really love the layout of this 2 porthole room though! I'll have to remember this when it comes to booking my next cruise!
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Gooood morning! We woke to a beautiful morning and some peaceful scenes. It seems the local wildlife likes to take advantage of no kids in the pool during the early morning hours. Despite the shooing attempts of the CMs trying to clean the pool, the ducks found the perfect spot just out of reach from every angle.
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As has become custom for our tiny tribe, Entenmann’s for breakfast! It is hard to beat a good chocolate donut and coffee for a quick breakfast before the parks.
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We were slated for a few hours at AK this morning to catch a few rides and a safari. We opted to just drive over to the park today since it was so close and with us making rope drop we should get good parking, or at least we thought we would. We were quickly reminded that the good parking was now reserved for those that wanted to pay for it. I present to you The Preferred Parking Lot(I did note that when we left the park only 4 cars were parked in this lot):
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Now, its well-known that I am the morning person in the house. I’m up at 04:45 every morning to run and lift. The DW and DD, on the other hand, can be quite ….well…lets just say they are not morning people. It can be hard to put into words I suppose so let us enjoy this rope drop picture to describe what kind of morning people we all are.
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In all my trips I’ve never been able to get a clean pic of DiVine…it is not like she is moving fast. Just nto meant to be I suppose.
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Heading to our go-to first ride of AK, Dinosaur.
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After some time travel fun we took a whirl on the way to EE. I could not believe the DD posed for this again! It was probably because no one was looking…
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A little EE action before we made our way to the safari.
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Almost a smile…
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Still to come: Safari pics, Sanaa, and Golden Monkey by the pool
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Awesome!! What category room is this again? Do you know if they have these type rooms on the Wonder/Magic? We really want to do an Alaskan cruise but the price for a veranda is scaring me lol. However, one of these rooms may make up for not having a veranda.

Our room was a category 8A. I tried looking at the Wonder deck plan, but didn't see a comparable room, but I'm really unfamiliar with the Wonder/Magic.
 

MinnieM123

Premium Member
How come your animal pictures came out much better than mine? :( I was at AK on May 16.

I tried to get an action photo of a few animals running across the savannah. You can hardly see them. (Photo below-- there's three critters running -- seriously! :p ) If you click on the little photo, it will get larger, but you still won't see much! ;)

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lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So we made it back to the room and packed up our swim gear. The DD decided she’d rather make a pizza in the room than go to Sanaa with us and swim. Lunch Date! The DW and I made for the lobby and hopped on the next van over to Kidani. The lobby there is so small and cozy compared to Jambo. It is not as busy and it really is nice.
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After a brief look around we made our way down stairs. We did not have an ADR but it wasn’t an issue. We had a short five minute wait and we were in.
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You can’t come here and not do the bread service…right? In our early days we would get all the sauces but that ended up being a waste so we just go with three now, one mild and two spicy. For lunch we decided to split the Potjie with rice. We chose the butter chicken, AMAZING, and the chickpea wat, also very good. The picture below is a half portion and very filling!!! @blgauger you gotta give this place a go! We never miss it on a trip.
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BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!!! What is dinner without some entertainment? This family of four that included two young children decided to “enjoy” Sanaa too. There were several instances where the eldest child was just not having it. The parents went through several stages of parenting and finally settled on “ignore”. The eldest child, not to be outdone, decided to up his game and plopped down on the floor and just laid there while mom and dad ignored, good times!
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So with bellies full and it still early in the afternoon the DW and I made for Samawati Springs. It was this location where we discovered Golden Monkey, one of the best beers on property, and just last September realized we could get a pitcher of it here! We were sad to learn that Maji bar no longer sold pitchers so the DW and I each settled on a draft, still good. The pool was hopping, the weather was great, and we were relaxing.
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After a few hours we caught a van back to Jambo and relaxed in the room for a while before our Jiko ADR.

Still to come: Jiko, a little EC, and a solo morning trip to MK.
 

BigHero4

Well-Known Member
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!!! What is dinner without some entertainment? This family of four that included two young children decided to “enjoy” Sanaa too. There were several instances where the eldest child was just not having it. The parents went through several stages of parenting and finally settled on “ignore”. The eldest child, not to be outdone, decided to up his game and plopped down on the floor and just laid there while mom and dad ignored, good times!

Great TR as usual! Seems like as parents, we've all been through this with our kids. I feel bad for those parents that it had to happen at Disney, but I loved the parenting process play-by-play. The only problem with the ignore stage is that you usually admit defeat, and don't really have a go-to stage after that. You should have turned up the Dropkick and gave that boy something to move to (and by move, I don't mean create a mosh pit).
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So after a few hours a of R&R The DW and I made our way down to the lobby on our way to Jiko. The DD decided cooking in the room was better than mom and dad. The lobby was bright and hopping with folks coming and going, far different than Kidani’s lobby.
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A short elevator ride down and we exited to hear quite the commotion. There were a ton of people buzzing around the entrance way to the restaurants but thankfully they were all DDPrs getting their buffet fix on, gotta maximize that value right? Here is Boma’s check-in area vs Jiko’s.
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We were perfectly fine with this! It just meant a nice quiet dinner at a fantastic restaurant for us!
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We were quickly greeted and seated. We placed an order for a couple of waters and a bottle of Red Jasper. Red Jasper is a blend from South Africa that is just wonderful. I highly recommend anyone in the Jiko area to stop by and sample it.
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Soon to follow our server presented us with a complementary appetizer. I honestly don’t recall what it was other than it was braised pork mixed with some sort of house chutney, it was amazing; I could have eaten a ton of it for my meal. The app was also followed by bread.
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For dinner we settled on sharing the meat & cheese board and we each had a bowl of the Braai mac & cheese. If you’ve never had this mac& cheese you are missing out! It is amazing and one bowl is a meal in itself, easily.
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After we finished our mains we were stuffed but of course our server had to tempt us with some complementary macaroons; yes please!
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Something we noticed on this trip that we had not in the past is how different the MDE menu pricing was from the actual menus at the restaurants. It didn’t really affect us at all but we just noticed many menu items in the restaurants where higher, sometimes significantly higher, than the MDE website.

Still to come: More animals, a quick stop at EC, then a solo morning at MK.
 

imahistorygeek

Well-Known Member
Side note: Jiko's menu includes "enhancements." The mac and cheese is an enhancement and lobster tail is also an enhancement. You cannot use the dining plan for these. IMO this is where Disney is going with the dining plan. I've noticed "enhancements" at other restaurants too. There will be a regular menu for the dining plan and enhanced for paying out of pocket. This was another instance where I saw the dining plan customers being quickly ushered along.
 

blreinsel

Well-Known Member
I unfortunately can't see your pictures on my computer at work, and it's taken me this long to remember to check back on my computer at home- lol. BUT I have Sanaa on my list of places to go in 2017 when my boyfriend is my travel buddy. That bread service... holy cow my mouth waters just thinking about it!

A little side note: I think my jaw may have actually dropped a little bit when I read that your DD chose pizza over Sanaa! Oh my what I would do to take her place! :p
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So after dinner we walked the resort for a bit and took in some views before texting the DD and heading to EC.
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So we met up with the DD and made for EC. I think we were more interested I checking out the shops this visit but did take a quick trip through time and met up with the Three Caballeros. Along the way we learned a few things, for example, we were introduced to the phrase Code V. We heard a few CMs, frustrated, discussing a code v that just..well…popped up. Additionally, we were on a mission to snap some pictures for the Dw’s history classes.
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It was getting late and we were tired so we made for AKL.

Still to come: Solo trip to MK, some pool time, and Il Mulino.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So the next morning came fast and I was up early. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in on our last full day. So I made for the busses and was soon at MK. For whatever reason they had modified the entrance to day and moved bag check and body scanning to the guest services side. Now here is where the “randomly selected” sham shines brightest (@MinnieM123). Not having any bags I was making my way through the far left of the crowd when a CM security guard came barreling through THREE lines of folks from the far right. This CM was no small dude either; think older John Candy but a foot taller. He came up on me as fast as he could and out of breath from his sprint to “randomly select” me. My 99.9% randomly selected rate had me wondering if cargo shorts was a “randomly selected” trigger so I attempted to inquire, sadly to no avail. Our exchange went as follows:
Him: Sir you’ve been (out of breath gasp) randomly selected this way please(out of breath gasp)
Me: Is this because Im wearing shorts with pockets?
Him: Sir you’ve been randomly selected this way please(out of breath gasp)
Me: You sure did push through a lot of people to randomly select me, should I not wear shorts with pockets anymore?
Him: (out of breath gasp) Sir you’ve been randomly selected this way please
Me: Are you allowed to even look me when you talk to me? ( the CM wouldn’t even look at me and this bothered me most?!?!)
Him: Sir you’ve been randomly selected this way please

Anyway, after my fun with Disney's John Candy I decided to take out some frustration on Zurg for a while. Then caught a ride on SM

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After a couple hours at MK the DW called to say she was heading to the pool so I decided now was a good time to head back. Soon it was coconut run and pineapple juice mixers by the pool followed by some lunch from Mara!
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Can’t leave your room at AKL without a picture of animals, right?
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Still to come: Il Mulino, MK At night, and AK in the am before heading home!
 

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