Trip Report The Many Adventures of the Figaro Family in Florida

We are back! It's going to take me a little bit of time to organize the photos and my thoughts but I thought I'd at least get this trip report started. For anyone who wants to get to know us, you can read my pre-trip report "Everybody's Got a Laughing Place (and I can't wait to get to mine!)"
Quick re-rundown of the family: Me (Jo), my husband James, daughter Maddie (13), son Xander (10).
This was the longest vacation our family of four has ever taken together. Ten nights total in three different hotel rooms. It was a lot of togetherness but I think we all handled it pretty well, aside from various late night awakenings from loud snoring(James and Xander) and my daughter Maddie's sleep talking. I'm sure she does this at home too, but we don't hear her in her room. Every night on every vacation we've been on she'll sit up suddenly and start angrily lecturing about something while wildly gesturing. She never remembers it the next day and I'm left curious what she was dreaming about. No one complained about anything I did, so I assume I slept like an angel that does not snore or talk in her sleep.
I'll begin with the very end of the trip while it is still fresh in my mind then go back to the beginning when I get the photos organized.
The trip ended last night with a bit of good news then bad news. Good news was our flight got us home to Portland a full hour early!!!! It was a combo of being able to take off 15 minutes ahead of schedule and winds of some kind that shaved of the other 45 minutes. We were supposed to get home at 7:30pm pacific time but got in closer to 6:30. We were really excited because that meant we had a chance at picking up our three pets from boarding before the place closed at 9pm. We had thought we'd have to wait until this morning.
The first inkling of bad news came when we got our car from the long term lot and tried to pay the parking fee. James swiped his credit card but it got rejected. He tried again, rejected again. We try mine (same account), it gets rejected. "That's not good..." we say to each other. He pays with the bank card and we race home so we can drop of the luggage and James and Maddie can go to pick up the pets. I say "don't you think we should call the credit card company?" he says "I don't wan't to waste time with that, let's just get the pets home". They get to the boarding place and James tries to pay, the credit card gets rejected again. So there he is in the pet hotel calling the credit card company to find out what's going on. Apparently multiple fraudulent charges started showing up on our account while we were in the air and our cards got shut down. We use Disney Chase Visa and I do have to applaud them for catching this so quickly. James was able to get them to let our charge for the pet boarding go through before they fully shut down the account and we were able to identify all the charges that we did not make and don't have to worry about them. It didn't make for a nice relaxing homecoming at all! I have a bad feeling that it happened at the airport just before we boarded the plane. I went to one of those airport stands that sell snacks and picked up a few things for us to eat on the plane. I swiped the card instead of using the chip without thinking and even had a moment of unease about it at the time. I think it was an ideal place for someone to install one of those card skimmers.
This was truly the most drama filled moment of the entire trip. thought there were a few smaller ones that felt big at the time! I'll start at the beginning on my next post.
...stay tuned for part one: An extremely early morning drive to the airport.

 

[Figaro Family]

When we finished the Grand Fiesta Tour there was about 25 minutes left until illuminations. We decided to just start walking around the waterway and look for a spot to watch. There were a lot of places that were really crowded with people who'd already staked out their spots so I started to worry that we'd waited too long. But just as we passed China we saw an area with almost no one in it! There was a short stone wall to look over and some tables to set drinks on. It was almost perfect, the view of the main area of the lake only partly obscured by some trees on a island! While we were there, only a few more people wandered into the area so we had a nice, almost private viewing of illuminations. Maddie and I went out in search of some drinks and found strawberry slushes at the outpost to bring back, they were pretty tasty.

When the show started, Xander was still in his stroller because he'd said "No" when we'd asked if he wanted to get out to watch the fireworks. We were excited when he changed his mind a little bit later. It was nice to see him get so engaged in the show that he wanted a better view.

I was really wishing for a "real" camera after taking these pictures. They could have turned out a lot better.

 

[Figaro Family]

I really liked illuminations and was happy to finally check it off the list of things we haven't seen/done yet at WDW. I pointed out to James that we might as well take our time leaving EPCOT since we were all the way at the back of the park and there was probably a huge wait to get on the monorail right then. So we slowly walked the rest of the way around the showcase towards future world.

SSE is so pretty lit up at night. Something I hadn't seen in at least 15 years!
While we were walking by all the countries we hadn't had a chance to explore yet, I started to get a sinking feeling that we were running out of time to do everything on our wish list at WDW. We'd spent a good amount of the day before in Epcot and this evening and still had only seen three countries up close. I started to analyze our upcoming plans on my app and saw that our one chance to come back was Sunday evening. The plan for that day was to go to Hollywood Studios in the morning then take a break in the afternoon to return the rental car, then we had an ADR at Beaches and Cream at 6:45pm. By Sunday we'd be staying at the Beach Club and could take advantage of the international gateway to just walk into the world showcase! Only problem was it closed at 9pm, it would be hard to get much time after our ADR. I decided to check if there was any chance we could eat earlier and got lucky! There was an ADR available for 5:30!! I grabbed it and cancelled the original one. Now we could spend another evening at the World Showcase, hopefully enjoying the cool evening breeze with no rain and no sun beating down!
We continued on to walk through Mouse Gears because it had started raining a little bit. We were too tired to focus on much shopping so just enjoyed generally looking around. Maddie started to complain that her feet hurt so we finally headed out toward the Monorail and once again it stopped raining when we stepped outside.
It was still crowded at the Monorail and we had trouble finding a compartment with enough room for the stroller to roll on when it was our turn. Instead of waiting for the next one James decided that Xander should get out of the stroller so he could fold it up and we could all squeeze on. This was a really bad idea and I was a little ticked with James for popping Xander out and getting on with the folded up stroller before I had a chance to object. I ended up in a different compartment with an instantly sobbing Xander and embarrassed Maddie. Since Xander was always in the stroller when we got on the Monorail, this was his set routine. Changing it with no warning sent him off into a meltdown. To make matters worse there was standing room only so Xander was sobbing while I was trying to keep him steady and holding onto a pole. After a couple of minute a very nice lady behind us offered up her seat to us. "Poor little guy, would he like to sit here?"
I thanked her and said "Xander look, do you want to sit down?" Apparently standing at the pole for two minutes had "reset" his routine so he cried even harder at the suggestion and yelled "Stand! Stand!" arrrgghhh... I thanked the nice lady again and explained that he was just too upset to change where he was. Everyone had to listen to Xander crying loudly until we got to the TTC and switched monorails. James gave me a sheepish look as we loaded Xander back into the stroller. Luckily there was space on the next monorail and Xander calmed down quickly.
It was the latest night we'd been out so far and we still had to pack up a bit to be ready to switch hotels for the final time the next day. I took another mural picture on our way up to the room.
.

Xander got some time to chill out with his toys while we packed and everyone got ready for bed.
It was a long day with a couple of hiccups in the evening but was overall really great!
Tomorrow: Moving on to Saturday August 26. Breakfast at Ohana, more Florida family time, and a move to our last hotel of the trip!

 

[fractal]

For future reference, if someone in your party forgets or loses their magic band just go to guest services - they'll be able to get you a new one.

Always enjoyed our meals at 9 Dragons and the wait staff has always been excellent.

Close call with Xander and the potty break - glad he made it!

Illuminations is such a great show. A board member here @Cliff did an amazing multi camera view video of it and sharing it in the Photography and Video forum.

 

[littleroo]

I really enjoyed your pics of Illuminations. I think Maddie did a great job with the picture of you and James in front of the fountain. Nine Dragons is one of the few places, we have never been to before. I will be putting it on the list for our next family adventure in 2019!

 

[Figaro Family]

For future reference, if someone in your party forgets or loses their magic band just go to guest services - they'll be able to get you a new one.

Always enjoyed our meals at 9 Dragons and the wait staff has always been excellent.

Close call with Xander and the potty break - glad he made it!

Illuminations is such a great show. A board member here @Cliff did an amazing multi camera view video of it and sharing it in the Photography and Video forum.

Going to guests services and begging was definitely on the list of possibilities running through my head. Xander threw us several curve balls during the trip which we kind of expected. I was really thrown off by one coming from Maddie!
Thank you for the video link, really cool!

 

[Figaro Family]

I really enjoyed your pics of Illuminations. I think Maddie did a great job with the picture of you and James in front of the fountain. Nine Dragons is one of the few places, we have never been to before. I will be putting it on the list for our next family adventure in 2019!

Thank you! I've read some mixed reviews of Nine Dragons but we found it to be relaxing and different than the usual without being overly expensive. I hope you like it too if you get a chance to go there!

 

[Figaro Family]

Breaking news in the Figaro Family world! I might be planning TWO trips to Disneyland for 2018!! Of course, one of them I don't get to go on but I get so much fun out of planning that it almost (almost) doesn't matter.
The background on that one is a result of the Children's Theater group tour of London that Maddie is going on and I am chaperoning next summer. In order for me to go, James has to take a week off of work to stay home with Xander. We know Xander will be upset that Maddie and I will be gone and will be fixating on it the whole week so we started throwing around the idea of James taking Xander down to Disneyland for a few days. Then we wondered if James' mom might like to go along so she could spend some time with Xander and enjoy how much he loves Disney. She has only been there once for one day in the early 60's. James brought the idea up with her recently and she said yes almost immediately. James invited his stepdad too but stepdad has no interest in Disney so he said no but is happily supportive of Grammy going. Then Grammy told James' sister and brother-in-law about the trip and they are interested in tagging along with our niece who is three years younger than Xander. This is becoming a big thing!
Grammy is a bit of a nut, sometimes she can be so easy to talk to and get along with. Other times her anxieties and nuttiness spill out and she drives everyone crazy, so this trip should be interesting. James said "You know you can't trip report this since you won't be there right?" I said that I wish I could be a fly on the wall because this one is bound to be pretty entertaining!
The second possible trip came into play last night when I said to James, "I have kind of a crazy idea, please don't say no right away but I really want to go to Disneyland at Christmas time next year." He completely shocked me by saying "OK that sounds like fun."
"uh...it would only be five month after you and Xander are going in July..." I started to make the argument that I had thought he would make. "That's not too close together." he says "We should do it." I am so happy! Now I just have to hope that he doesn't get Disney vacation agreement amnesia.
I'll have to make myself hold off on planning for awhile, but just knowing there is potentially a new Disney trip coming up for us in a little over a year makes me feel good!

 

[Figaro Family]

Saturday August 26
We got to sleep in until 8am this morning, it was a nice chance to recharge. We had an ADR at Ohana's at 10:15 so the plan was to finish packing up and leave our luggage at Bell Services then pack up the rental car when we got back from brunch and drive to the relatives house in Winter Park.
We got ready and onto the Monorail in plenty of time to get to The Poly. Thinking of what happened the night before, we decided to have Xander ride in the stroller even though he really didn't need to. We've been by the Poly many times while on the Monorail but have never gone inside so this was a really fun excuse to go in finally!
James went to park the stroller while I went to the Ohana check in desk. This is where things went a little sideways for a bit but luckily everything worked out in the end.
I gave our name and ADR time to the young woman at the desk but when she looked it up, our ADR wasn't there. We looked at each other for a few moments, she was probably thinking I'd gotten mixed up on the time or date. I quickly opened up my app and showed her the ADR for Ohana's at 10:15am for August 26 was clearly there. She was definitely sympathetic and did not try to blow me off. She tried looking it up again and couldn't find it. Then she checked a paper master list that she had. "There you are on this list!" she showed me "I can't understand how you got bumped out of the computer system! I'll try to do something to fix this for you." She called someone over to consult with and that person at first just suggested that she put us on the walk up list and to her credit, she said no since this would have made our wait really long. "don't worry I'll figure out how to get you in" she told me. I'm not sure exactly what she had to do but she worked some magic with her computer for a couple of minutes and then said "you're all set! you can wait over there to meet Stitch and your name should be called soon after that!" I thanked her profusely (I wish I'd gotten her name to give her some kind of good review with Disney) and went to explain what had happened to James, then we sat down to wait for Stitch.

Awww... I just found this really good picture of Xander in the photos from that morning.
Whatever magic the Cast Member had made happen worked really well because our name was called before it was our turn to see Stitch. They said not to worry, the table would be held until after the meet and greet! Then it was time for Stitch, Maddie went in for a hug first since he is her favorite.

Then Xander joined in.

This is the Photo Pass picture.
Then the whole family.

First one is from our phone, the second is Photo Pass.

This is the first time Maddie has "met" Stitch. She thought he was very cute and was pleased with the experience. Xander seemed to really like Stitch too!

 

[littleroo]

Woo hoo another Disneyland TR!! So happy for you!!

 

[rshell68]

Now I just have to hope that he doesn't get Disney vacation agreement amnesia.

Get it in writing LOL

 

[Figaro Family]

Woo hoo another Disneyland TR!! So happy for you!!

Thank you!

 

[Figaro Family]

Get it in writing LOL

I think I brought it up at just the right moment. James might have been feeling sorry for me because of the pneumonia and my sad attempts to breathe after a coughing fit. I'm holding him to it though!

 

[Figaro Family]

We got a great table up against the windows with a view of the pool! This has become my favorite character breakfast. One downside was that only three characters actually come to your table. On the other hand, the meet and great in a dedicated spot with Stitch was better than him just coming by the table. As far as the food, even though there is a very small set menu I loved that we were served at the table and didn't have to do the whole buffet line dance while trying to make sure we didn't miss any characters! It was much more relaxing and it really was all you can eat. Xander was able to get as many waffles as he wanted (which was a lot) and we all love ham and scrambled eggs so it was a win for everyone! Bottomless coffee and "Stitch" juice was great too. Xander was disappointed about no chocolate milk but once I talked him into trying the Stitch juice he drank three glasses! He was so cute when he was trying to ask for the second and third glass. He studied the juice deciding what to call it and eventually said "More banana juice?" He sounded like a little minion.

We each got a piece of sweet bread to start.

James posing very seriously.

The sausages and potatoes were a little less popular
than the ham and eggs.

Stitch waffles instead of Mickey!
Lilo came by the table first.

I think Maddie was really enjoying herself!

Mickey came by next, Xander was pretty distracted right then so we didn't get the best pictures but we have a lot of others with Mickey and will get more in the future.

 

[Figaro Family]

Pluto got a big Xander hug.

A very serious stare at the camera.

Some family photos with our favorite Disney pup!

One last picture of Maddie and I before we left our table. I was hoping for the background to be the Poly pool area but it completely disappeared!

Up close look at the decor on the way out.

 

[Figaro Family]

We admired the Poly atmosphere for a minute. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go downstairs to pay homage to the Tiki statue.
We did take some time for the gift shop.

Maddie already has a medium sized Stitch at home but couldn't resist giving the giant one a cuddle. I got Xander to give it a hug too and he admired the unique softness of the Disney Stitch plush.

There was no way we could fit this big guy in our luggage so I decided to buy Xander his own medium sized Stitch while James got him into his stroller for the return to the Contemporary. Stitch would be a surprise in our new room later that night!
We got back to the Contemporary and the kids and I waited with the luggage while James went to get the rental car. These were our last moments at this wonderful hotel. I loved our room and the unique experience of staying at the "Monorail Hotel". I was also feeling prematurely sad that we only had four more nights left of the trip. It was going by so fast!

Maddie is either picking up on those feelings here or is (more likely) just bored.
Goodbye Contemporary, hopefully we'll be back someday!

 

[Nala06]

I am glad to hear you liked the Ohana breakfast! With the recent changes there of Stitch meeting outside the restaurant and the menu change, I had heard some not so great reviews. We have this scheduled for our trip next month and I was starting to have serious reservations. But your post gives me such relief! We had such a great meal there last year, now I am excited to do it again!

 

[MotherofaPrincessLover]

After the Farm Ride we set out for the World Showcase with the Frozen ride in mind. I got a return time with Xander's DAS for 40 minutes later which was perfect for a bathroom break and a visit to the Kringla Bakeri! It was just after 10am and we were pretty hungry since we'd just had a snack breakfast earlier. This whole area was pretty shutdown in 2015 with the Frozen ride being worked on and I had been hoping for a chance to get scandinavian treats from the bakery on this trip.

Our last name is obviously not "Figaro" but it is Italian since James' dad was an Italian New Yorker. I however am not Italian at all if you couldn't guess from my pale face and red hair. On my dad's side I am German, Swedish, and a little bit Norwegian. On my mom's side I am a little bit English, Irish and a whole lot of Norwegian. My mom's maiden name was Norwegian and my last name growing up was an unusual German one that I was happy to trade in for my Italian name 17 years ago. Both of my parents families are from North Dakota. There are still relatives living on the family farms near the Canadian border. I grew up with a few Norwegian/Swedish traditions, my favorite was eating Lefse with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. We didn't have any this past year since it was always dad's job to track it down and no one felt like taking over. A woman in my dad's hometown used to make a batch that my grandma would buy and mail to us every year. More recently my dad would track it down in specialty stores.
I was really hoping to find it here at the Norwegian bakery.
When we went in, there it was on display! I think the guy behind the counter was surprised that I knew what it was and was excited to order it. Lefse is pretty bland when you come right down to it. Paper thin potato mash rolled out and baked then butter is spread on it and sugar sprinkled, then the whole thing is rolled back up. Bland yes, but such good childhood memories.

We also picked out some other treats including school bread and sat down to share.View attachment 231942 Yummy treats and the Lefse! I know, compared to the other treat the Lefse does not look exciting. The kids don't think so either but both tried some anyway. I think it's growing on them!
View attachment 231943
After we were done eating I wanted to get a "Norwegians Only" picture in front of the Stave church. I didn't realize James didn't get much of the building in the pictures. Maybe he was being passive aggressive about my saying Norwegians only.

View attachment 231938 View attachment 231940

Then it was finally time to ride Frozen!
!View attachment 231945 View attachment 231946I didn't buy the photopass picture of us on the ride, it was pretty bad(the photo not the ride). We all liked the ride a lot! We checked out the gift shop afterwards and I liked that they had some troll references there from the original ride. I briefly considered a knitted sweater until we looked at the price tag. Then it was time to get to Test Track before our fastpass window closed.

But first, the sunglasses curse struck one last time...

I'm just catching up on your trip report. I love lefse! We usually make it for family Christmas but last year didn't get around to it. Do you use brown sugar or white sugar on yours?

 

[Figaro Family]

I am glad to hear you liked the Ohana breakfast! With the recent changes there of Stitch meeting outside the restaurant and the menu change, I had heard some not so great reviews. We have this scheduled for our trip next month and I was starting to have serious reservations. But your post gives me such relief! We had such a great meal there last year, now I am excited to do it again!

I hope you enjoy the second go round! There is not much variety on the food but it was all good and they bring you as many new platters as you want. I felt like we got a lot of attention from the waitress making sure we got enough food and drinks while we were there and she offered to take a family picture of us with Pluto which was nice.

 

[Figaro Family]

I'm just catching up on your trip report. I love lefse! We usually make it for family Christmas but last year didn't get around to it. Do you use brown sugar or white sugar on yours?

Wow! My mom and dad attempted to make it themselves one Christmas and it wasn't very successful as I recall. Do you have a special recipe? Maybe I'll get ambitious this year.
We have only ever used white sugar and until you asked that question, it had never occurred to me to use brown sugar! That sounds really good.

 

[Figaro Family]

Continuing with Saturday August 26.
We loaded everything up in the rental van, put the Aunt and Uncle's address into the GPS, and headed out toward Winter Park. The GPS kept trying to send us into restricted backstage areas! The first time we ended up in a restricted area for Epcot. The guy at the security gate let us do a u turn and tried to explain the right way to go but we were confused. We knew which Hwy we wanted to get on but weren't sure which direction and the GPS kept trying to turn us back to other restricted areas. Finally we drove far enough away from the parks that the GPS reset on a better route. Once we finally got out of the Disney bubble the trip was easy and somehow the way we ended up going was one where we didn't go through any tolls! The last time we went to their house from WDW in 2015 we got stuck with several tolls. I'm not sure what we did differently this time.
We pulled up to the Aunt and Uncle's house about 1pm and ended up staying until 8pm. We had a really nice time there hanging out with just the Aunt and Uncle at first and then various other relatives as they arrived later in the day for dinner. We got to spend some time with James' other aunt and uncle, the cousins from the day before, some other cousins and we got to meet two of the new babies in the family! Little M was there and while she'd been a bit shy with us during our day at MK she was very outgoing in the familiar territory of her grandparents house. She decided that Maddie was her "friend" and followed her around hero worshiping her all day! She couldn't remember Maddie's name though and kept calling her either "my friend" or "Paisley". It turns out that Paisley is the name of one of the cousins dogs who they joke is Little M's "cousin Paisley". Maddie did not think it was funny to be given a dogs name by a two year old so naturally all the adults started calling her Paisley for the rest of the day too.
Xander was thrilled with the treasure trove of toys that Little M's grandparents had at their house for her to play with. He stuck around the toy area checking things out most of the time so we were able to relax and not chase him around their house the whole time worrying that he'd sneak out!

The two girls checking out the slot machine in the game room. Xander and Little M examining all the cool toys.

Aunt and Uncle have a pool but we didn't end up swimming because it was raining off and on with thunder rumbling and lightning was possible. Once again I felt like our weather luck was holding. Everyone was happy hanging out indoors, so it was the perfect day to skip the parks and not get waterlogged!
When we finally got back on the road to Disney and the Beach Club I checked my phone to see if we'd gotten a room ready text earlier in the day. No text! Once again however, when I checked the app there was our room ready notice.

I was surprised that we were on the first floor but then I remembered that I'd marked "close to transportation" on our room request when I'd done online check in several weeks earlier. The drive back wasn't too bad though it was rainy and in the dark. We pulled up to the entrance of Beach Club, got everything out of the car and James asked where to park the car. We made the mistake of letting a cast member take everything to bell services. He assured us it would all be brought to our room the second we got there and called them for the luggage. We should have loaded everything onto a cart and stayed with it until James got back.

Beach Club lobby!

I was a little nervous about our room's location. It was in the hallway down from the gift shop and bank of elevators and I thought it might be noisy. It turned out to be in the perfect spot though, nice and quiet but close to everything! Xander was not as happy. As Maddie and I pushed his stroller past the elevators toward our room, he started exclaiming "Elevator! Elevator!" I guess with our rooms in the previous two hotels being on upper floors, that is what he expected at this one too. Also, he just really loves riding in elevators. While I was trying to talk Xander out of full meltdown mode we reached our room and Maddie tried to open it with her magic band. It didn't work, I tried mine and then Xander's, nothing.
I felt a bit let down, imagining a big scene in the lobby with Xander screaming about elevators while we waited in a long line at the check in desk. OK we have to fix this, so just got to go do it. I took a deep breath and told Maddie that we had to go figure out what was up with the room not unlocking. Xander was predictably upset to be rolled by the elevators again without getting on but luckily did not increase his volume too badly. I also got lucky and found a cast member with an ipad greeting people in the lobby. I told her about the room not opening so she checked my band. "Did you just check out of the Contemporary today?" I said yes and she explained that staying at two resorts in a row somehow upsets the system and our bands were probably still hooked up with the room there. She fixed up our three bands quickly and we were able to go try again, this time with success! Xander decided he needed to cry some more about the elevator.
"Buddy, you've got to give it up. This is a great room!" James found us about this time and had to knock on the door. I let him in and explained the Magic Band situation so he went to get his fixed too. He was thrilled about the room being on the first floor since he was usually the one maneuvering the stroller onto the elevator.
I called Bell Services for our luggage then took these pictures of our last room of the vacation.

We waited about 45 minutes for our luggage and then let Xander take a bubble bath while we were still waiting, which restored his good mood, but it continued to get later. Finally James went down the hall to Bell Services and got all our things himself. We really needed to get Xander into his PJ's! They had gotten backed up because so many people drove up at the same time to avoid getting luggage out in the rain.

This room had a fold out couch too! Maddie was pleased that she would have her own space again at this hotel.
Once we finally had all our things, we were all able to get ready for bed and set out our clothes for the next day. This hotel transition had been a little bumpy but not too bad compared to the epic arrival at the Contemporary! We all appreciated our recharge day, we'd been able to sleep in, have a fun character meal and a great visit with family. We probably walked less than a mile on this day too, a nice break for our tired feet.
Tomorrow: Hollywood Studios, and we finally break out the ponchos (but not for long!)