Trip Report The One With the Hashbrown Style Potato Barrels - July 2017

meg0039 · Jul 30, 2017

I'm happy to see that the pictures are working! I tried to fix it from my phone this weekend but unfortunately ended up forgetting about all things Disney. My best friend was moving from an apartment in the city in Atlanta to a townhouse right outside of the city, which is time consuming on its own! Add in a broken down moving truck, a confused GPS, a doomsday security man, and no internet and my weekend was interesting to say the least! So now i'm hoping to bang out one more portion of this trip report before my third overnight shift at work in less than a week (work retail, they said... it's easy, they said...)

meg0039 · Jul 30, 2017

Day 2, part 1: Epcot!
We woke up bright and early at 6 AM with a much better view than the one that we had gone to sleep with!

I ran to the food court and grabbed coffee while mom showered and we were both ready by 7:00, so we decided to kill a little bit more time and grab a light breakfast. I did my usual Disney breakfast of coffee and a snack credit bagel while she did Diet Coke and a snack credit yogurt. We've found that using snack credits for breakfast foods is one of the only ways that we don't end up taking home many bags of Goofy's Candy Co. snacks! Also, I have this random picture of our hand sanitizer holder (I am a hand sanitizer fanatic... it probably helps that we both sell a lot of it and use a lot of it at work) that I bought specifically because it reminds me of Orange Bird, one of my fave characters!

We hopped on the bus to Epcot and were there about 35 minutes prior to rope drop, so we grabbed a seat around the fountain and relaxed a bit, since we weren't rushing to anything because we had FastPasses planned. Our first one, in fact, was for SSE at 9:05, so naturally we headed there at 8:55 when the ropes were officially dropped. Usually, a CM will allow you to use a FP early if the standby line is not long, so I asked, hoping to be told yes, but that was NOT the case. We were rudely informed that it was "dumb" to be using a FP at that point because the ride was a walk-on, but if we INSISTED that we had to wait 5 minutes to come back and use it. I wasn't annoyed that we couldn't use it because rules are rules, however, I was annoyed at the attitude that the CM took with us! Unnecessary! So mom and I stood at the FP scanner for four minutes. Us looking at the CM. The CM looking at us. He finally rolled his eyes and let us in at 8:59. It felt like a little victory, honestly.

I love this grand and miraculous spaceship. And the photos were working at the end!

From here we headed to see my favorite Disney character, ever. Like ever ever. Like we rode this ride 23 times in a row once when I was younger. Like I went to Epcot costuming and tried on the lab coat when I worked there.

Luckily, we were riding with other Figgy enthusiasts who sang and laughed along with us the entire ride! I love finding people like me at the world! I was also wearing a Food Rocks! t-shirt this day (my second favorite when I was younger before it was taken out) and the CM loading the ride had actually worked at Food Rocks! We had a great conversation about it. Definitely made up for the FastPass enforcer earlier!
We then headed over to the Land for our final FP of the morning, Soarin'. I wish I had been able to get pictures of the queue, however we were moving too quickly and there was a family behind us that were literally ON TOP of us through the entire ride. Mom got hit by a plush stitch about 5 times before the grandparents apologized for their grandson and explained that this was his first trip. They said that he hadn't been wanting to ride anything and had generally not acted like a child at Disney. This was made more evident by the fact that after we were loaded into the ride, ready for take off, you began to hear him scream. At the top of his lungs. His grandparents didn't want to take him off of the ride and I was terrified that my second time on Soarin' Around the World would be hindered by his terrified screaming. However, the cast members basically made his grandparents take him off of the ride and do rider swap. I was relieved! The CM here also told me that he had seen the Food Rocks! stage that was still behind the ride and that if I ever return to the company I should try to do some sort of backstage tour at Epcot and see if they would show me. I have a new life goal.

-edit- I forgot that we also rode the farm ride (Living With the Land) while waiting about 25 more minutes for our Soarin' window. I got no pictures, again, but the girls behind us were discussing how Disney should have a rating system on their app so that no one else would waste time standing in line for something so dumb. Sigh. I personally love Living With the Land so I was tempted to say something, but I refrained. I did not want to have a repeat of a Haunted Mansion incident from 2016, however that is a story from another time!
Up Next! Actual photos, sprinting around World Showcase, and some much needed pool time!

meg0039 · Jul 30, 2017

Tuvalu said:
I know if you switch resorts after your initial Disney's Magical Express reservation, you need to submit a new reservation with the change. DME is not informed unless you (or your TA) tell them.

It seems themed bed runners have gone away. This year I have stayed at Pop, All Star Music, POFQ, POR, WL and the Poly and none have had bed runners.

I'm so sad about this! They were always a nice touch of theming. I feel like they would especially be nice at Pop with the new, more sterile redesign. Sigh.

ksr99 · Jul 30, 2017

meg0039 said:
Day One - Monday July 17: Travel Day!

According to my notes I was awake at 4:30 this morning (We didn't leave our house until 7:15... I was eager, to say the least). Our drive to Atlanta was easy and uneventful and only took about 2 and a half hours, putting us at the park and ride at about 10:30 Eastern time. We are big fans of using park and ride at the Atlanta airport and I'm sure our bus mates thought that we were a walking Vera Bradley ad.

This ride was... interesting, to say the least.I am very sensitive to hearing other people eating/drinking/etc. and the woman across from us smacked her gum. LOUDLY. THE ENTIRE RIDE TO THE AIRPORT. It was so bad that I made a note about it in my notes for the day. We got in the airport and through checkin, bag check, and security without incident, boarded the plane train, and made our way to gate C.

We stopped at Carabba's for lunch and split chicken bryan. It was PHENOMENAL, however, the meal took about an hour and fifteen minutes. We waited to the point where we were about to cancel our order out of fear of missing our boarding time for our flight, however it came out just in time! This was my first time flying Southwest, having only previously flown AirFrance and Delta, so I was slightly nervous about the boarding process. However, mom ensured that we had good boarding numbers and I have absolutely zero complaints about Southwest's process! Honestly, it ran a bit more smoothly than our last two Delta flights, if I had to be honest. The flight was extremely turbulent, to the point where all attendant's services were suspended throughout the entire flight. I wasn't going to complain, though. They were extremely apologetic, and our last Delta flight we got no drinks or snacks for no reason... the attendants just didn't get to us

Plane slefie!

We got off of the plane and boarded the fonorail quickly and navigated to the Magical Express desk! We scanned our MagicBands and were directed to the French Quarter line... however when we scanned our MagicBands at the bus, it said that our reservations were pulling up at the Polynesian We had originally had our trip booked at the Poly, but decided to change months ago. Some of our reservation never updated... which is odd. Our entire trip, if we wanted to order something off of the app and get it shipped to a resort, it would ship to BouTiki NOT Jackson Square. I'm still trying to figure out how the glitch happened. But, they ended up letting us on the French Quarter bus and away we went! We first stopped at Old Key West, where I saw an old friend (if you were ever a CP, you know EXACTLY what I mean by this)

and then Saratoga before proceeding to French Quarter.
It was pouring when we got there and we were mostly concerned with getting to our room as quickly and as dry as possible, so I didn't grab any lobby pictures. Or room pictures originally, come to think of it but this was our view the next morning! Building 6. Very close to the main lobby, pool, and food court and also quiet. Like, I didn't hear a loud family at ALL.

We got to our room, threw down our bags, and were immediately out the door again. Grabbed an Uber to our destination and had the nicest driver! He drove to help pay to take his family of 14, including grandkids and in-laws (!!!!), to Atlantis in the Bahamas for a week. He made our trip very comfortable! 5 stars! My app is telling me that his name was Garry. He was awesome!

Stay tuned for: Dinner! Monsoons! Leftovers! Lotion! It's a party, people!

That bus!!!! I was a cp in 99-2000 at safaris!

ksr99 · Jul 30, 2017

*Flynnderella* said:
I think it was the internet browsers at work that wouldn't let me see them! How selfish of them not letting me look while I'm meant to be working following on the trusty IPad and that dessert looked amazingggg!!

It's the little things that makes me sad

meg0039 · Aug 14, 2017

Okay wow HI I am back and hopefully about to get this thing back on track! Life got super super crazy there for a minute and I had to neglect my little TR ): Sad. But I am back and here with
Day Two, Part 2: World Showcase & Relaxation
From Soarin we headed over to the World Showcase and grabbed lunch at La Cantina de San Angel. This was my roommate and my favorite quick service on my CP, so I insisted that we eat there! Mom and I both got the chicken tacos, which were yummy as usual. I also love the rice and beans here!

We ate inside which was a SUPER nice break in air conditioning and not crowded at all! There was no fighting for tables with a lagoon view like outside!
From there we headed into the Mexico pavilion and hopped on the Three Caballeros.

My parents aren't fireworks fans and this ride was one of my favorites when I was young, so they used to take me on it at night and say tha those were "the Disney fireworks". We still joke about it to this day!

From Mexico we trekked (or really sprinted. It was hot and mom was ready to be back at the room for a bit) around the world showcase. I stopped in Germany for my favorite!

I'm a huge fan of any and all beers and there's just something about this one!
On our continued marathon style viewing of WS, we ran into a character palooza!

Gideon was the only pic that I grabbed because it was ending and he had no line, but I couldn't see him out and not grab a picture (as unflattering as the picture is).
We finished up WS and headed back to French Quarter for some R&R. Mom took a nap in the room and I headed to the pool!

I got a Nola Cola from the pool bar. It was... disappointing, to say the least. The machine that makes frozen drinks was broken, so he mixed it by hand in a blender and it ended up with chunks of ice in it that melted very quickly. The taste was good and I would definitely get it again as long as the machine was working!
I sat next to a nice woman from Tampa who told me that she was there having a park free vacation for a week. It was nice downtime in the middle of the day!
Coming up: Hollywood Studios, Fantasmic, and catching up with some old friends!

meg0039 · Aug 14, 2017

ksr99 said:
That bus!!!! I was a cp in 99-2000 at safaris!

Ahhh so you get it!! I was joking with my mom that other day that if I ever took transtar I would leave two hours before my shift juuuuust in case. We had a bus catch on fire and another run over an alligator and break down on my program, so I stayed far away!

12in12 · Aug 15, 2017

Happy you came back to your TR. Your lunch in Mexico looked delicious. :hungry:

Sandurz · Aug 15, 2017

Great TR so far! Lol what happened at the Haunted Mansion on a previous trip, with rude guests or whatever it was?

meg0039 · Aug 15, 2017

Sandurz said:
Great TR so far! Lol what happened at the Haunted Mansion on a previous trip, with rude guests or whatever it was?

Essentially, we were in line behind a group of high school aged boys. I was finishing up my stint as a CM at the time. They were loud in the line but that didnt really bother me because of the queue being open and what not. However, after the ride began they started to yell profanity and generally super inappropriate words (I'll let you fill in the blanks by saying that there is a game that people say that's essentially a dare to see who will yell certain words loudest in a public setting). Loudly. Like so loudly that my friend and I heard them, my mom in the buggy behind us heard them, AND my other roommates behind her heard them. Once the buggies turned and were more "side by side" I leaned over and politely asked them to quiet down and stop being inappropriate because there were others trying to enjoy the attraction. They then started yelling more loudly. I got off of the ride expecting a CM to say something, but no one acknowledged it and they continued to yell down the moving walkway toward the exit and I decided to say something, because as a CM I was comfortable talking to guests and I felt like it was something that needed to be addressed. I politely informed them that I hope that they never rode an attraction with parents with young kids because they wouldn't handle it as well as I did and that their behavior could get them and their entire party removed from the park if they persisted. It was immature and inappropriate and disrespectful and they needed to be mindful of the little ears around them. They proceeded to call me some very nice names. One of their parents was waiting at the exit as I was talking (or yelling in response...) and proceeded to say that it wasn't a big deal, they were children, blah blah blah. I grabbed another CM and told them about the entire ordeal (at that point it hit the children and the adults that I was an employee of the company) and I'm not quite sure what happened next, but I did see them at the Emporium later and one of the parents made the entire party come up and apologize! Genuinely the worst behavior that I had ever seen at the parks in my 18 year history of visits. (This particular incident is my soapbox, I could really rant all day)

Sandurz · Aug 15, 2017

Yikes, good on you for calling them out! I feel like Mansion is particularly susceptible to disruptions...in the stretch rooms, in the doom buggies, always people talking...no escape!

ksr99 · Aug 17, 2017

meg0039 said:
Ahhh so you get it!! I was joking with my mom that other day that if I ever took transtar I would leave two hours before my shift juuuuust in case. We had a bus catch on fire and another run over an alligator and break down on my program, so I stayed far away!

I was pretty lucky and never had an issue!

meg0039 · Aug 17, 2017

Day two, Part 3: Hollywood Studios!

We had reservations at Mama Melrose's with the Pixar dining package that night and the news about Great Movie Ride had just been announced, so we made our way to Hollywood Studios after our rest period! My old roommate is currently a VIP Tour Guide cast member and she happened to be in the park waiting as her last tour had just finished up, so I ran over to say hi! We spent a few minutes catching up before she had to run, but it was nice seeing a familiar face! We still had a bit of time to kill before Mama Melrose's and all of the wait times were astronomical, so we popped into the Frozen sing-a-long because there was a show starting in literally 5 minutes. This was the first time that mom and I either one had done the show and GOOD LORD Y'ALL I LAUGHED UNTIL I CRIED.

This is the best picture that I got due to the fact that we were seated in the VERY front row, but I loved it!!! I didn't expect to enjoy it in the slightest but I am very glad that we chose it over the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which we had debated on.
We then started making our way toward MuppetVision and the area-formerly-known-as-Streets-RIP. We still had about 30 minutes until our ADR even after browsing shops, so we took a rest in the patio area of PizzaRizzo. The skies started to look like this, and we decided to just check in early for our ADR. Better safe than soaked!

And I am GLAD that we made that decision! Rain started coming down in sheets not long after we checked in and we were seated immediately! Mom and I made the decision that we would try to stretch our meal because AccuWeather said the rain wasn't supposed to let up for at least an hour, and I felt better about taking a long time to eat if we ordered something not included in the dining plan, so I got the Mama's Margarita and mom got the Watermelon Margarita!

I had read about this margarita on other trip reports, but I have to say it may be my favorite one that I've ever drank!! Mom's was okay, but it had a very jolly rancher taste to it, which is not my thing at all. They were both strong, to say the least! They had the effect that the Trader Sam's drinks lacked the night before.
We did the dining package that included tickets to the Pixar show, so we each got an appetizer. We decided on the margherita flatbread and the mozzarella and vine-ripened tomatoes. Both were super yummy!

Our waitress, who was cool with stretching our meal, let us completely finish our apps before taking our orders for entrees. I got the steak, on recommendation from these boards, and mom got the fish of the day, which was Mahi (Our faves!).

Holy moly was this good. I'm still talking about this meal a month later. It was fantastic.
It is at this point that I'd like to share a small story, 100% influenced by a NolaCola and margarita. I got up to use the restroom right before our entrees came and realized that I had forgotten to change out of my bathing suit bottoms after leaving the pool. I had been walking around in my bathing suit bottoms for 2 hours and hadn't realized. I got back and told my mom, who laughed harder than usual due to the margaritas. We told our waitress, who laughed harder than I expected her to and the table next to us heard and also proceeded to crack up. We all started laughing harder at each other laughing and it was quite the scene for a few minutes :joyfull:

I got no pictures of our dessert, unfortunately, but it was just a sampler that came with the dinner package. It was okay, not spectacular. Nothing to really write home about, but the meal overall was a 10/10! I would definitely go back.
I didn't want to split this day into one more post, but I started typing about GMR and realized that for spacing, I would rather do that! So Day three, part 4 will be up immediately after this one, and I have already cried once writing it, so buckle your seatbelts!

meg0039 · Aug 17, 2017

WARNING THERE IS ONLY ONE PHOTO AND LOTS OF EMOTIONS IN THE NEXT PART OF THIS POST
It was still raining when we finished up our meal, but it had definitely lightened up quite a bit so we decided to make the dreaded walk... to Great Movie Ride. I'm glad it was raining because I cried walking there. Shamelessly cried. Walking past the boarded up areas of streets to go ride one of the last attractions that little me loved. My mom looked over and knew to not say anything. As crazy as it sounds, I was mourning. I'm still mourning. I am a Disney purist, not in the form that nothing should be touched, but in the form that we should have progress while remembering the roots of the park. I think a lot about Walt and what he would think of the park today, but I never get into that with anyone. It's just kind of my own little zone in my mind.
I did a backstage tour of Great Movie Ride with other Polynesian Cast Members on the second week of my college program. I'm a nervous person around groups of people that I don't know, so I was slow at making friends at my work location at first. It was here, walking down the track, that I made my lifelong group of friends from that location. I have picked up bottles from the windowsill and touched James Cagney's arm in the gangster scene. I have seen the area under the sets that the Wicked Witch of the West sits in before she appears in Munchkinland in a cloud of smoke. I've walked the corridor to the Indiana Jones scene. That ride meant more to me than I realized until it was announced that it was closing. As we walked through the queue I took in its beauty. I really, really hope that they keep parts of it. If you have some time, do some research into the queue and how meticulously it was created. It will blow your mind. When we got to the room showing the movie clips, there were people sitting on the floor watching the reel. I'm not sure if they were there for a reason or if they were just hanging out, but I was so emotional that I could have joined them and sat there all night. We boarded the ride and weren't seated with anyone else, just my mom and I, and I was glad for that. I took this one photo and decided to put away my phone and take in this ride that I love.

Wow okay this is me right now

When we exited the ride, I was a blubbering mess, but I had a nice surprise waiting for me! Two good friends of mine from high school that love Disney like I do were at the park and saw on Snapchat where I had posted that I was on GMR, so they waited by the exit and we met up! The tears dried quickly and I was a happy lil clam. Mom and I had already made the decision to forego the Pixar show due to the rain, and she was tired, so she headed back to the room and I set off with my friends Brevyn and Andrew and Andrew's girlfriend (whose name escapes me at the current time...

)
The trio had Fastpasses to RnR, so I walked with them to that part of the park and sat outside and waited for them to exit, because I couldn't get a FastPass. They rode and Andrew and his girlfriend decided to go back through the single rider line, while Brevyn and I headed for Tower of Terror!

The poor little girl in front of us sobbed the whole time

When we exited our elevator, my mom had called me FOUR TIMES. I called her back, frantically, thinking that something had happened. And boy had something happened!
When she exited the park, she walked to the French Quarter bus stop, as French Quarter was our resort. A CM walked up, told her that French Quarter and Riverside were combining buses, and walked away. She found that odd but walked to the Riverside bus stop anyway. She saw 4 French Quarter buses come and go from the stop and was confused but trusted the CM. Once the bus driver pulled up, she double checked that the buses had, in fact, been combined. The bus driver rudely informed her that "she should learn her resort" and he "WOULD NOT TAKE HER TO FRENCH QUARTER." Apparently, they got into a heated argument that ended with the bus driver shutting the doors in her face.
At this point in our conversation, I was like

Well, she walked BACK OVER to the French Quarter bus stop and got on a bus in about 15 minutes. When she arrived back at the resort, she went to the Front Desk and told them what had happened. APPARENTLY, THIS IS A COMMON OCCURRENCE. The CMs that she was talking to apologized profusely and gave us three extra fastpasses to use the next day and then called after she got back to the room and gave us three more fastpasses to use on our last day! It was quite the ordeal, which would be our transportation theme for the trip. As I was on the phone, my friends had grabbed us FastPasses for Fantasmic! so we headed that way! I, once again, got no photos because I was really enjoying being with friends and catching up. The show was nice, not great, not bad, but that's my general opinion on Fantasmic all around. I headed back to the room and crawled into bed and was honestly asleep before my head hit the pillow, ready for day three!

sheriffwoody · Aug 18, 2017

Just now joining in, but enjoying your report! Love reading your thoughts as a former CM.

meg0039 · Aug 19, 2017

Day Three, Part 1!
The next morning we woke up and did our usual breakfast of snack items from the food court and caught an early bus to MK. It was a gorgeous morning!

We got to the park about 8 o'clock and spent the morning checking out the gift shops on Main Street. I was looking for a ring to replace my Pandora princess ring that my mom had purchased me on Main Street after I finished my first year of college because, quite frankly, where I live, that ring has become a thing that is given to girls by their boyfriends and I had kind of outgrown it. I was also searching to find a ring to replace ANOTHER Pandora ring of mine that I lost one day at work. Lots of lotion + lots of soap + lots of customers = bad for rings ):
I ended up getting this one to replace the one I lost at work!

It's not Pandora, but we did get it from Main Street Jewelers! It was a more understated Mickey than most of the Pandora rings but I absolutely loved it!

And this one to replace the tiara ring!
After rope drop, we headed to say goodbye to the Red Head in her current state. I may be part of the minority that is okay with changing her in the ride. I'm excited to see what they do with her! She was a classic that I will miss because of memories, but I was the little girl who wanted to be a pirate instead of a princess growing up, so I'm excited that the next generation of little me's will be able to see a bad a** woman in her place!

I saw on the way out that they still had a few of the red head shirts left, so I picked one up for my dad. PoTC is our "thing", so I knew that he would appreciate the sentiment. The CM checking me out told me that they had that one shipment of shirts left before he thought they were going to be gone. When I went back with my friend that afternoon they were already sold out, so I'm glad that I grabbed one!
From there, we made a stop at the Tangled bathrooms and used a FP for Peter Pan, mom's favorite! Then we headed toward SDMT, which was down. I made an offhand comment that I wasn't too upset that it was down because it honestly wasn't my /favorite/ anyway and my mom ended up agreeing, so we decided to keep on walking straight to the PeopleMover!

From there we went unda da sea

I know that the jury is out on this ride, but personally, I adore it. I think it is too cute for words!
From here, we headed to lunch at what is (usually...) one of our favorites, Be Our Guest!

Mom and I each got the Croque Monsieur.

It was... bad. That's the only words I have for it. I didn't comment while we were eating, but at the end, mom and I both looked at each other and knew, it was very bad. My fries were cold and what is usually my favorite sandwich on property was just gross, for lack of a better word. I'm not quite sure WHAT about it was bad, but it was bad. When we talked to our friends that had eaten there the day before, they said that theirs wasn't up to par either. I'm hoping that we just came at an off time but I am definitely deterred from eating there again for a while.

Up next: Back to PoFQ, more rain, and menu hysterics!

kimberlymautz · Aug 21, 2017

Following along! Looks like such a fun trip!

LowesChevy · Aug 22, 2017

Mom and I each got the Croque Monsieur.

It was... bad. That's the only words I have for it. I didn't comment while we were eating, but at the end, mom and I both looked at each other and knew, it was very bad. My fries were cold and what is usually my favorite sandwich on property was just gross, for lack of a better word. I'm not quite sure WHAT about it was bad, but it was bad. When we talked to our friends that had eaten there the day before, they said that theirs wasn't up to par either. I'm hoping that we just came at an off time but I am definitely deterred from eating there again for a while.

Up next: Back to PoFQ, more rain, and menu hysterics! [/QUOTE]

It is so frustrating that the counter service restaurants can't serve hot food hot, well sometimes the other restaurants don't either. Sending the food back just prolongs the agony of the meal-it needs to be correctly served the first time.

Other than that I am enjoying the journey so far

meg0039 · Aug 23, 2017

Whew, another delay in posting. Work's in full swing getting ready for fall and school's started back! Graduation advising, market assessments, interviewing to go back to my favorite boss, who just so happens to be a mouse.......

I'll keep y'all posted! Anyways...
Day three, part 2!
We decided to head back to Port Orleans after lunch and nap! We honestly slept for like two hours and then woke up and decided to grab a snack, even though we had lunch about three hours later! I just got a plain cupcake from the food court.

After that, we headed back to Magic Kingdom! We weren't really in any rush or anything, so we took our time walking down Main Street and decided to go to the PeopleMover.

We then took our time walking toward Frontierland and Liberty Square and took a quick spin on the Haunted Mansion, but I got no pictures! After that we then perused the gift shops and I thought it was interesting that they were carrying muppet merchandise in Liberty Square, I guess due to Great Moments in History.

It then started to pour again, which happened every day that week, so we decided to head to our ADR at Liberty Tree Tavern. It was PACKED and although we checked in early, we got seated right at our ADR time. We started with salad and rolls, which were fairly standard.

Next came the main course and oh my word was it amazing!!!! I'm not a turkey eater, but the turkey was phenomenal. The roast beef and gravy was amazing. And the stuffing... OMG. I am a huge Thanksgiving food fan, so I was in heaven. The cranberry sauce was okay, but not my fave. The mashed potatoes were great! The mac and cheese was... bland. I mean it wasn't bad, but it wasn't fantastic either. I'd give it like a 5/10. Just okay. We would most definitely come back here!

And finally dessert! I had heard rave reviews about the Ooey Gooey toffee cake, so I was excited to try it! It was good, but I prefer the Ohana bread pudding, if I'm being honest.

After that, we headed back to Tomorrowland to use the first of our bus fiasco fastpasses to ride Buzz.

No galactic hero for me ):

We then met up with our same friends from the night before and I used an extra FP to take a quick trip on Space Mountain!

My friends wanted to watch Happily Ever After, but mom and I decided to head back to the room. Exhaustion had hit once again. It was at this point that we realized that we had no ADRs for the next day, and being on the dining plan, we needed to figure one out! I ended up looking through the app at open reservations. Mom and I had considered Garden Grill, so I looked at the breakfast menu. One of the featured items was "Hash-brown Style Potato Barrels." I don't know if it was the exhaustion or the heat or both, but we had never thought anything was so funny in our lives. Turns out, they're just tator tots, which made us laugh harder.
To this day, when either of us need a pick me up, we'll just look at the other and say "Hash brown.... style... potato... barrel." and it works every single time!
We drifted off to sleep not long after booking an ADR for breakfast at Grand Floridian Cafe the next morning!

fractal · Aug 23, 2017

meg0039 said:
Whew, another delay in posting. Work's in full swing getting ready for fall and school's started back! Graduation advising, market assessments, interviewing to go back to my favorite boss, who just so happens to be a mouse....... I'll keep y'all posted! Anyways...
Day three, part 2!
We decided to head back to Port Orleans after lunch and nap! We honestly slept for like two hours and then woke up and decided to grab a snack, even though we had lunch about three hours later! I just got a plain cupcake from the food court.

After that, we headed back to Magic Kingdom! We weren't really in any rush or anything, so we took our time walking down Main Street and decided to go to the PeopleMover.

We then took our time walking toward Frontierland and Liberty Square and took a quick spin on the Haunted Mansion, but I got no pictures! After that we then perused the gift shops and I thought it was interesting that they were carrying muppet merchandise in Liberty Square, I guess due to Great Moments in History.

It then started to pour again, which happened every day that week, so we decided to head to our ADR at Liberty Tree Tavern. It was PACKED and although we checked in early, we got seated right at our ADR time. We started with salad and rolls, which were fairly standard.

Next came the main course and oh my word was it amazing!!!! I'm not a turkey eater, but the turkey was phenomenal. The roast beef and gravy was amazing. And the stuffing... OMG. I am a huge Thanksgiving food fan, so I was in heaven. The cranberry sauce was okay, but not my fave. The mashed potatoes were great! The mac and cheese was... bland. I mean it wasn't bad, but it wasn't fantastic either. I'd give it like a 5/10. Just okay. We would most definitely come back here!

And finally dessert! I had heard rave reviews about the Ooey Gooey toffee cake, so I was excited to try it! It was good, but I prefer the Ohana bread pudding, if I'm being honest.

After that, we headed back to Tomorrowland to use the first of our bus fiasco fastpasses to ride Buzz.

No galactic hero for me ):

We then met up with our same friends from the night before and I used an extra FP to take a quick trip on Space Mountain!

My friends wanted to watch Happily Ever After, but mom and I decided to head back to the room. Exhaustion had hit once again. It was at this point that we realized that we had no ADRs for the next day, and being on the dining plan, we needed to figure one out! I ended up looking through the app at open reservations. Mom and I had considered Garden Grill, so I looked at the breakfast menu. One of the featured items was "Hash-brown Style Potato Barrels." I don't know if it was the exhaustion or the heat or both, but we had never thought anything was so funny in our lives. Turns out, they're just tator tots, which made us laugh harder.
To this day, when either of us need a pick me up, we'll just look at the other and say "Hash brown.... style... potato... barrel." and it works every single time!
We drifted off to sleep not long after booking an ADR for breakfast at Grand Floridian Cafe the next morning!

I never knew I liked "Hash brown style potato barrels". Like your report even more!

Trip Report The One With the Hashbrown Style Potato Barrels - July 2017

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