Trip Report The Return of Random Day

When: May 8th through the 15th
Who: me - Don (no to be confused with that Donald or the other Donald either) an DW - Diana
Where: Port Orleans French Quarter

We live in Minnesota but are AP holders and fly down two to three times per year. We were supposed to go in February for the Princess run, but I had to cancel because of a work trip and DW went with our youngest DS and his girlfriend and ran without me. Full disclosure - would have loved the trip. Not as much the run. Lol.

This trip will be all about us and not the three boys. In a couple of years we’ll all come together as we had a new addition to our family with our first Grand daughter at the end of the year.

We’ll be doing some new things this trip that we haven’t done before and some old as well, which brings us to “Random Day”. We started this tradition a couple of years ago on our first no kids trip. We set one day of our week with no ADRs or FPS. We wake up when we feel like it, have our coffe and stroll out to the resort bus stop and get on the first one that shows up. We go wherever it takes us and do two things there, we then go back out and get on whatever the first mode of transportation shows up and explore where it drops us off. We then continue the routine for the rest of the day, be it parks, resorts, or anything else. Completely random and luck of the draw.

That being said, here are our plans:

Day 1: MK
FP- POTC - because it’s always the first ride of every trip
FP - BTMR
ADR - lunch at the Diamond Horseshoe (we’ve never done this one and they now serve beer, so roll the dice)
FP - SDMT
Then back to FQ for some R&R
Back to MK for After Hours event and we’ll see how many rides we can get on and if we can stay up as late as we think we can.

Day 2: AK
FP - Safari
FP - Everest
Lunch ?
FP - FOP

Day 3: HS
FP - TSM
FP - Rockin Rollercoaster
Back to FQ for some quality down time
Evening we are headed to Epcot to see what may be our last Illuminations and what better way than by doing something we’ve never done before, the Frozen Desert Party!

Day 4: Mothers Day Epcot
FP - Soarin
FP - the Vegetable Ride
Lunch at several places around the world and a special stop to get my Beverly on!
Back to the pool for the afternoon
A special ADR for the Mom at Boatwrights (also a first)

Day 5: RANDOM DAY!

Day 6: AK
FP - FOP
Lunch at Sanaa

Day 7: check out and head to AK for one last FP at FOP and whatever else we feel like

Since this will be my inaugural trip report, I can only hope you can cut me a little slack as I stumble through this. Enjoy.
 

StitchSNK

Well-Known Member
We got all of the treasure maps, two full sets of pirate trading cards, and six fast passes for POTC along the way. Oh yea and we rewarded ourselves with a Peter Pan float before heading out of the park to catch a bus to Hollywood Studios. For our final fast passes - frozen ever after and star tours. We grabbed a picnic table near the Chinese Theatre to watch the new anniversary show and the Star Wars show before heading out to call day 6 a wrap. Tomorrow we board the DME for the airport at 3:00, but we’ll still try to get in a park or two before we have to go.View attachment 372473

The peter pan float is one of my favorite snacks. Glad you're enjoying it! And I'm loving your TR!
 

LeighM

Well-Known Member
Food at Sanaa looks delicious, we have never dined there because Frank doesn't like curry :rolleyes:😄
But, we both enjoy spicy savory dishes! Is it as good as it looks in your pictures?

My husband hates every type of curry and Sanaa is one of his favorite places. They had a entree that had 3 different types of meats (changes seasonally), and R absolutely LOVED it. In fact, he still talks about how perfectly cooked everything was and how much flavor it had without being spicy. He had concerns when I booked it but walked out a fan :)
 

Nunu

Wanderluster
Premium Member
My husband hates every type of curry and Sanaa is one of his favorite places. They had a entree that had 3 different types of meats (changes seasonally), and R absolutely LOVED it. In fact, he still talks about how perfectly cooked everything was and how much flavor it had without being spicy. He had concerns when I booked it but walked out a fan :)
Sold! :hungry:
 

NothatDonald

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day seven - AK

Started out very much like the past six. Except for the whole packing up, saying goodbye to our room, and turning in our luggage to the bell cap. We had packed up all that we brought with us plus a few things my wife couldn’t leave without lol. As we made our way to the bus stop we had one detour to make. We went to the stop for Magic Kingdom and found two families of three where we handed them the fast passes we won completing our treasure hunt to spread a little pixie dust around on our final day. And after seeing six smiling faces with a promise to pay it forward we climbed on the bus to take our third ride on FOP.
 

NothatDonald

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
By 9:30 the standby line for FOP was already stretched out to the bridge that leads to the lion king, but we had fast passes, so made our way to the FP line. But there was no line. As a matter of fact we were the only ones in the tunnel until we came to the CM at the second green Mickey. It seems to me that something is really broken if there is a line over two hours long and there is no one in the fast pass line. It didn’t stop it from riding and taking one last walk through the land of Pandora.
C594EB0D-27D2-42AC-A683-51A5A86CE54A.jpeg
 

Darstarr

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
We left the park for POFQ for one last dip in the pool and a drink with our favorite bartender in WDW, Shelley.

I’ll finish this random trip report with my closing thoughts and some random photos tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who has been following.
Who knew random could be so much fun! Thanks for sharing. Sorry we missed each other.
 

NothatDonald

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Recap and some Random thoughts

Even though we were only there for a week, for some reason it felt much longer. Sure, we would have loved to have added a couple more days. Ok, weeks, to our stay. But it clearly ranks right up there as one of our most fun Disney trips ever. We enjoyed many of our favorite things to do and added some new things to the list. French Quarter will remain our favorite resort to stay at. It’s quiet, beautiful, and has the most friendly outgoing CMs in all the land. I love that no matter how long we’ve stayed away that many of them call us by name and continue a conversation right where we left off the last time we stayed.

I’ve read many trip reports on this site over the years and have learned so much from all of those that have shared there experiences with us and I can only hope that in some small way that I have been able to pay it forward.

Writing the report quasi live actually made every day even more fun for a couple of reasons. One - I didn’t have to take notes or pull information from an already too cluttered mind and two - it helped us look at everything we did with a fresh perspective and made us want to share more.

Was everything great, magical, and practically perfect in every way? No, of course not. Did we let the not perfect things get us down? Not a chance.

Love bugs? Yep. Somewhere between a gazillion and infinity. But it was really cute watching a little boy on the bus, carefully collecting them in a paper cup and telling me each ones name. Yes, he had named them all!

Cheerleaders? Give me a “Y”. Give me an “E”. Give me a “S”!!!!! Laughing, giggling, and taking selfies all over the place.

Scooters, groups stopping dead in their tracks blocking the way, and strollers? Yep, yep, and double yep.

Did we have some odd things happen when we were there? If you call the toilet in our room letting out a huge moaning sound every time it was flushed (we called her Mertle) or the breastfeeding Mom at our desert party table that got “desert” ready for her baby out in the open for a full minute before her husband got the baby out of the stroller odd then I would say we had a few.

Will we do it again even though we normally go for Food and Wine in September and Star Wars is going to make all the parks a zoo? Not in September, but we did take advantage of our book back offer and will be going back down December 11th for a few days to see all the Christmas decorations.

Will I do another Random trip report? I’ll leave that up to the pros here to help decide if you would like another “Random” look at our adventures.
 
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