Trip Report The "we took a trip to Disney World just so we could write a trip report" trip report

Hello fellow Disney-folk! Early this year me (Scott) and my CDP (co-Disney-Phile) Lyn started hatching a spring trip to WDW. We've never done a real trip report before so we thought it would be fun. Lots of pictures too. Enjoy!

Our "incredible" vacation (er...long weekend, anyway) ended up during St Patrick's Day weekend. Planned in advance with reservations at Pop Century, snagging pretty decent rates too. Magic Bands customized, ordered, and received! Not really into planning things out very much but since FP+ was available, we used it (more on that later).

One day I got two(!) boxes in my mailbox from Davenport Florida. Magic Bands!

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Are we Disney-nerds? Yup. Hadn't done this before though: Mousekeeping tipping envelopes (available from WDW Prep School). This was kind of an experiment. Tipping at hotels has been a contentious point recently. Even though I travel quite a bit I'd never heard of leaving tips at hotels before reading about tipping "mousekeeping". I won't start a debate about the practice, but this was something we wanted to try in our (my?) own odd way.

More exciting news about that later on. Stay tuned!

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Well...it's a couple of lenses, but I used the "awesome" setting ;)

I've heard good things about the Great Piggy Bank Adventure and the Vision House, but that IBM thing is just bewildering. The vertical touch-screen things are certainly "interactive" but their design is really haphazard. After a few minutes I always end up thinking "well.. yeah.. great.. what's the point again?"
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day Three Continues... Flowery-Gardeny stuff ensues

On to flowers-gardeny things for the 2014 Flower & Garden Festival. This is by far the best time to visit Epcot. The additional colors and displays just make it a little more fun.

Leaving "The Land" and "The Imagination" pavilions, making our way toward some of the displays. First up, the flutterbys... er, butterflies.

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See? Flutterbys! There were more this year than I've ever seen. To be fair there were lots outside everywhere too :)

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Flower arrangements everywhere. I love Epcot regardless, but once this stuff is gone these areas look really empty. Enjoy them while they're here :)

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This year's main attraction after the fountain has a Soccer theme. The ever-changing island was surrounded by globes themed with different nations. Someone mentioned it has something to do with the World Cup but...

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Goofy kicks a ball. This was an area open to guests to use for pictures, putting them "in" the display. Nice idea.

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Ferbeas and Phin... no, Phineas and Ferb? Well, the square-head guy and the triangle-head guy. They were there. They were big. I swear this guy was staring at me.

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photoflight

photoflight

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Original Poster
Fantasia themed garden on the way to World Showcase

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See? Dancing broom sticks. No triangle-head guys here!

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Huge dancing mushroom things

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Massive birds!

All the topiaries here - everywhere really - are really well done. Better this year than ever I'd say.

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Side excursion over toward Test Track...ever notice that the less in-the-know guests all call it Fast Track? That's always funny.


Anyway... 'Mater topiary.

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Lightning McQueen on a bed of red flowers. Terrif...sniff...wheez...sigh...terrific!

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Neglecting to take the Odyssey pathway toward World Showcase on the counter-clockwise tour, guests pass Duffy. Got a Duffy? I do. He sits on the couch and watches me write this stuff. Spooky.

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Passing duffy means we're embarking on another World Showcase adventure. Incredible excursions into foreign lands and exotic foods await. Stay tuned!
 
PhilharMagician

PhilharMagician

Well-Known Member
photoflight said:
Safely back on the ground we scampered (not really) over to Carousel of Progress. Another favorite! The doors were open, no waiting, no crowd.

This is my favorite scene...they say no photography but Nikon's "quiet mode" means a soft click that's barely there. Nobody seemed to notice, really!
Once on COP I was taking some pics and over the loudspeaker a CM reminded us to (I was not the only one) to not take pics. I tried for one more and the CM actually came into the theater to make sure that I understood. I thought my camera was going to taken for a moment. All along I was in the back with nobody around me and shooting with no flash. I am not sure what the beef was. I have shot video in there a few times and taken many pics without problems prior to this incident.

BTW I am loving your TR. Great pics and great comments. Thank you very much for sharing.

I thought you lived in the immediate Orlando area since you have so graciously supplied us with amazing aerial photos for many years.
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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
PhilharMagician said:
Once on COP I was taking some pics and over the loudspeaker a CM reminded us to (I was not the only one) to not take pics. I tried for one more and the CM actually came into the theater to make sure that I understood. I thought my camera was going to taken for a moment. All along I was in the back with nobody around me and shooting with no flash. I am not sure what the beef was. I have shot video in there a few times and taken many pics without problems prior to this incident.
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Who knows. When we were on Soarin' they got on the PA and scolded someone for using a camera, identifying them by row, etc. They had to repeat "put the camera away" several times. That really puzzled me but then I realized I was seeing a really dull spot on part of the screen. I'm pretty sure it was an IR illuminator for a video camera and it was probably really bright on their security cameras.


BTW I am loving your TR. Great pics and great comments. Thank you very much for sharing.

I thought you lived in the immediate Orlando area since you have so graciously supplied us with amazing aerial photos for many years.
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Thanks :)

I'm not too too far away. Princess Lyn is in Storybrooke though (Maine), at least for now. My visits are usually only a few hours long, but these multi-day trips aren't a lot different than anyone else's I guess.
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Here's a quick side-trip before we go to World Showcase. For as long as I can remember there's been a vendor selling Plumeria cuttings during the Flower & Garden Festival. The pictures are really impressive, big flowering fragrant plants. How nice.

Here's this year's vendor spot:
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Straying from this trip a little...last year I finally decided to buy one of the Plumeria cuttings. I listened to lady from Just Plumerias give her lecture about how to grow these things. Sounded way too easy and seeing as that I have trouble growing anything, well... anyhow, I bought one. Turns out their prices at the show aren't too over-the-top either - they're only about $5 higher at the F&G than normal.

So...shortly after we went to the F&G in 2013 I planted my Plumeria cutting - which we have since called "the stick" and waited...and waited...and waited... here's what it looked like:

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It took awhile but after a couple of months a leaf started to grow out of the stick. Then another...and another. Suddenly this little stick was growing like a weed. This was the stick in the late summer last year:

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By late fall it had grown like crazy, each of the three branches were over a foot longer than when I got it. Once it got cold the leaves fell off (as I was told they would) and I brought the stick inside for the winter. By February it had started growing again though and it was looking promising.

This was last week but today there are several large leaves. Just about a year after getting the "stick" at Epcot it looks like I'm about to get flowers on it. If it keeps going I'd say it's probably the best things I've bought at Epcot so far :)

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photoflight

photoflight

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Original Poster
Day Three Continues...on to world showcase

Moving right along - now we're venturing into the World Showcase. First stop, Mexico!

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The Mexico Pavilion is where people are being serenaded by Mariachi Cobre, among other things. Their pins say "Happy Anniversary" by the way, so...awww.

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Wish this was sharper. I'm really tickled by the guitar strings so I had to include it :)

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Just inside the Mexico pavilion and there's the Sun Stone

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...and then artisans inside the pavilion

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photoflight

photoflight

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Original Poster
Now time for a thrill packed boat ride on the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros. This is a really underrated ride - but it's so nice and crowd-free and relaxing :)

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Here are three Mexican kids hitting poor Donald with a stick. WHACK!

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It's a small Mexican world, all the way to the end of the river.

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What a nice ride. Now we're hungry. Where to go to eat? Hmmmmm...
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hope so. So far it's been growing like a weed. We get too many freezes here for me to plant it though, hopefully it won't get too big in the pot for me to move on to the porch in the winter.
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Here's a Plumeria update from today... growing like a weed. Had to move it under the eaves though, it was getting drenched from the sunshine state rain.

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