Trip Report The “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket…or Two….or Three” Christmas Experience.**Completed**

So here we are again for another fun filled journey that is sure to include some poor spelling, beer, poor grammar, great food, beer, plenty of animals, a fourth wheel, park visits, beer, and judgement for said poor spelling and grammar. For those ignorant to the primer for this journey you may read all the funivities HERE. The Cliff’s Notes version is we’ve got five nights in the bubble at one of the most beautiful resorts on property and are accompanied by two teens that can watch each other so lets get this ball rolling!!!


Sunday December 17th


So yesterday after a viewing of The Last Jedi we made our way to the half way point, Tifton, for a night’s stay. Not being a complete barbarian, insensitive to his three female traveling companions, I offered to get up this morning at 04:45 to get breakfast for the tres muchachas while they get ready because, you know, ladies be taking forever to get ready in the AM. Hats off to the trio as they were downstairs by 05:30 and we were on our way to the bubble. A very uneventful three and a half hours and we hit the Super Target on 192 to pick up some cold staples before making our way home!
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After dropping our gear off with bell services I needed to head to the front desk to make sure the 4th wheel’s band and charging privileges would work, OH BOY, what an ordeal!!! What should have been simple ended up taking an hour with an overly confident CM, Jeff. At one point he had lost the 5-day hopper pass associated to her band and had to call IT to get it back! He instructed me that he had set 4thWheel’s limit at $400, corrected her band, and that all our bands were ready to use. A bonus of it taking so long was our room became available while we waited and it wasn’t even 11:00!!! During my interaction with Jeff I specifically asked that he verify that all bands would work. I even made mention that “I guarantee at least one of these bands will not open our door”. He thought all the issues he was having with charging and losing the ticket had me worried, I assured him it was experience that had me worried. So, with Jeff’s assurance we made for room 5130! Guess what? 3 of the 4 bands WOULD NOT open our door! So I told the ladies to head inside, call bell services, and I would take care of the bands. I made my way back down to see Jeff who was probably tired of seeing me by now and politely let him know. Jeff said one thing that really bothered me and that was “You have too many magic bands and that is why you can’t get into your room”. He followed that up with “You do know you can decline the bands, you don’t have to get one each time”. He then proceeded to count all the bands I had on my MDE account. I didn’t care for being blamed for Disney’s lack of foresight or design so I asked Jeff if Disney had a rule on the number of bands a guest may have associated with an MDE account to which he answered “no”. So then I pointed out that I was playing by the rules and the number of bands should have no bearing. So another 10 minutes and he assured me the bands where set and then asked where we were headed this evening. I told him HS and he gave us our first golden ticket of the day to ride RnR.
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So back up I went and thankfully the bands worked! Bell services had arrived and the teens were itching to get to MK so the DW and I said go! That’s when the 4th wheel informed us that her ticket was no longer showing up on her MDE account!!! Back to see Jeff! Another 15 minutes with Jeff and the ticket was back with further reassurances that it would work. This lead to our second golden ticket of the hour! Jeff gave the girls a golden ticket for 7DMT and they made their way to MK but not before being forced into taking one of the only picture we would get of them this trip
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Still to come: Room 5130, Sanaa, our third Golden Ticket, and I promise a lot fewer issues going forward.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Sunday December 17th cont.

So we had a Star Tours FP to burn before leaving the park which meant a small trek to the opposite side of the park. The crowds were moderate I would say.
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The Last Jedi is now showing in ST and if you ignore continuity issues, it was pretty well done! After ST we were pretty much done for the night. We had plans on doing rope drop the next day at AK which had morning EMH so we figured we’d make a leisurely stroll back to the buses to head home. Along the way we had to stop and enjoy the new Christmas decorations. I must say, the feel of these new decorations are very nostalgic and probably some of my favorite Christmas themed decorations that Disney has ever done in the parks.
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Soon we were at the bus stops, love that AKL is the first one, and who did we see in the queue? You guessed it, the teens were first in line and a bus had just pulled up! An uneventful ride home and we were quickly in bed ready for the next day!

Up next: Avatar madness, playful tigers, and calling an ADR audible.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Monday December 18th


Sleep came fast last night and the alarm came even faster! Since this isn’t our first rodeo I set up the coffee pot yesterday afternoon so all I had to do is turn the pot on. The only challenge now was making it to the kitchen without waking the teens, nothing worse than waking those monsters on short sleep! DW and I developed a strategy over the next few morning of illuminating the coffee nook with our phones so as to not wake the girls, aren’t we considerate. If you’ve ever read one of our TRs then you know what was for breakfast. Perhaps the only surprise is the banana.
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With a rope drop goal, and AK only around the corner, we decided to drive to the park. Apparently we even beat the parking attendant because no one was manning the booth! No matter, we would not have had to pay anyway. We were directed to the Dinosaur lot and this morning was FOGGY!
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We opted to skip the tram and walk to the gate. No passholder queue this morning so we slummed it with the rest of our resort friends.

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It wasn’t long and the preopening opening occurred and you know where EVERYONE was headed. The heard moved at a decent pace over the bridge and turning left of the tree and towards Audrey II. Once we past the little shop of horror the heard came to a halt.

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We were in this holding pattern for about 5 minutes when we started moving again…but not towards FoP. Nope, we were headed for FotLK! They had rerouted the hoard all the way from James Cameron’s acid trip to Africa! I was impressed with Disney’s efficiency in moving the heard. We finally came to rest near the bathrooms in front of FotLK, which was good because I had a lot of coffee ;). We still had about 10 minutes before the EMH officially started so we kept ourselves busy for a bit. About 7 minutes later and we were moving! We moved pretty consistently all the way to the actual FoP queue and all-in-all from EMH starting to our turn in FoP was about 40 minutes, no complaints here! Now…you will notice a serous lack of photos of avatarland and that is simply because, outside of FoP, I just don’t care for it

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I know, I know...I am so happy that most all of you are head over heels in love with the set from the 1986 movie Troll but it is just not for me. But, hey, more room for you! You're gonna need it in that small nook of a "land". Hats off to Disney for making a fantastic ride in FoP but I fear in a year or so time maintenance of the ride will slip and the ride with it. Ok, enough Debbie downer, time to move on.

We checked the Disney shop app and it still listed “The” ornament as still being available at Once Upon a Time in HS as well as Discovery Trading Company in front of the ToL so we made for DTC. Hooray!!! Thay had at least a dozen of this little gal

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We promptly purchased one and had I sent to our room! Im happy to say it quickly found a place on the tree once we arrived home.

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Up next: Cute Animals, disco yetis, and Downtown Disney.
 
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krause

Well-Known Member
Any idea what it was like if you wanted to rope drop NRJ (I know I know tiny dumb boat ride but it’s still a new ride!)? We are there in a few weeks and got FP for FoP so thought we would try to rope drop NRJ. Do you get shuffled along with that hoard of people or is there a separate line?
 

dclfan

Well-Known Member
Any idea what it was like if you wanted to rope drop NRJ (I know I know tiny dumb boat ride but it’s still a new ride!)? We are there in a few weeks and got FP for FoP so thought we would try to rope drop NRJ. Do you get shuffled along with that hoard of people or is there a separate line?

I was in the same situation. We had a FOP FP+ and we rope dropped NRJ during EMH back in December and we literally walked right onto the ride. We didn’t get stuck in the hoard going to FOP. We even stopped and took a few photos and still managed to walk right onto a boat.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
@imahistorygeek I love the minnie ornament. I'm going to have to get one now too!!

edit~ Ugh. I just looked and it says In Store Purchase only :mad:. Maybe @Tuvalu could pick one up for me during her next trip. I'm sure it's coming up soon. :D
Yeah, that was the kicker. The app was showing it as an item to buy...just not on the app! Otherwise, we would have ordered it on the way to the bubble.

Any idea what it was like if you wanted to rope drop NRJ (I know I know tiny dumb boat ride but it’s still a new ride!)? We are there in a few weeks and got FP for FoP so thought we would try to rope drop NRJ. Do you get shuffled along with that hoard of people or is there a separate line?

Looks like @dclfan got your answer! When we were being redirected towards Africa a few folks, 1 out of every 50, would head towards NRJ, so I think your plan will work just fine. In all honesty, we've been to AK several times since the new area opened and haven't given NRJ a single consideration, maybe one day.
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Monday December 18th cont.


So riding the high of finally getting “The” ornament we off to the next must do of our AK visit. By now most all of you know about the new addition to the Maharajah Jungle Trek and being cat folks the DW and I were excited to see the new “kitten”. We made for Asia and most all the visitors were still getting their blue man group on so we had much of the park to ourselves. We did our best to not sprint to the tigers and made sure to make the other critters feel loved. Just look how happy they dragon and bats are to see us!
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Soon we were there and they were active!

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I didn’t have a camera for action shots so I stopped taking pictures and took a few small videos. The fist one is where the baby gets a little to far from mom and she goes to investigate



The next is the baby playing hide and seek with mom



Folks were starting to pile up around the tiger viewing area and I felt like I was hogging the space so I moved on but was happy to see them in play mode. We then were surprised to see that the next viewing area with the deer and antelope was under refurbishment but I was able to get one mediocre pick through the scrim.

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We continued our leisurely pace towards one my DW’s favorite spots, the birds. It was early still and I’m not sure they were quite awake yet so good shots were limited. One guy did let me get up close and personal.

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As we exited the trek I noticed this tap on a food cart. Im pretty sure this isn’t the first time Ive taken this picture but I just love the little details

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Up next: Making EE friends, beer, and honey!
 

lostpro9het

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Monday December 18th cont.



After our jungle trek experience we made for EE for a little EE single rider action. I enjoy making friends on these rides and decided to take a little selfie with my new train mate.

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After making new friends we decided to just walk around a bit to take in a few more animials before lunch.

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And a picture the fog prevented us from getting at the start of our day

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With that we decided to drive to DTD for some shopping and some lunch.

Up next: Who would we meet at DTD, a presidential surprise, and a consistently good dinner.
 
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