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
Day Three Continues... we make a stop for a snack

Making our way over there slowly, but first we need to make a stop

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Norway!
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Time for our snack, so we stopped by Norway's Kringla Bakeri og Kafe. We're a fan of their sandwiches for lunch. The line here is deceiving - you'd think it was "packed" but there weren't that many people sitting and eating.

Not quite sure what the lady in the red shirt is looking so miserable about but...

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Hmm, what can we have here? Everything looks so good

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Goodies. We'll have one of those, and those, and those.

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Yum
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We just about got to this point when someone in front of us (not pictured) started asking a million questions about the pretzels. I've probably done it too, but this was funny and went like this: "the one in the back, is that just for decoration or is it chocolate or what? Oh, so it's chocolate? And this one, are those nuts? What kind of nuts are they? But it does have chocolate on it? Just the one in back?" ... and so on.

Line are fun :)

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But this was our treat: we went to get School Bread and that's what we got. We split one and really enjoyed it. Norway (and France) are now on my list of places to stop for a sandwich or snack by the way, adding Germany when I want a pretzel.

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Update on the Epcot tree. It's growing. This little guy wants to be something :)

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Callum Chambers

Callum Chambers

New Member
Love. Love. Love all of your photos - so much colour and excitement in each one!

Epcot's topiaries and arrangements are looking great this year, especially the football themed one. I was wondering how they would mark the World Cup and you have provided the answer!

Thanks :)
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Callum Chambers said:
Love. Love. Love all of your photos - so much colour and excitement in each one!

Epcot's topiaries and arrangements are looking great this year, especially the football themed one. I was wondering how they would mark the World Cup and you have provided the answer!

Thanks :)
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Thanks! I don't follow soccer (er... ok, football) so I didn't figure out all the countries right off, but I do now :)
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day Three...the saga continues

Well fed snacked with school bread we continued around World Showcase to poke around. Stopping to look at China briefly and noticed no dragon (didn't get a decent picture of the Panda topiaries, too many people standing there taking selfies). No dragon? Darn.

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But there were other amazing displays to be seen around the world:

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Flower and Garden Duffys
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...how about a real fake model of a topiary? These were actually neat garden fixtures

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Wow, SSE is wayyyy over yonder, we're not quite half way around
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...and some crowds for the atmosphere:
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MinnieM123

MinnieM123

Premium Member
Thank you for sharing all these great photos and interesting commentary. Just wanted to say that the photo you took of dining at San Angel Inn was perfectly composed; it was an outstanding shot. I literally said, "wow" when I saw it!
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day three continues... on to Americaland

On to Americaland - but first...more garden stuff

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The Florider booth

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Then slowly making our way around and stopped in to the American Adventure

The Voices of Liberty

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Ok, I haven't really picked on other guests but there are always those people that are so massively annoying that you just want to get in their face and say "so waddup wid you, ya stupid or sumpin?"

This was one of those instances.

The Voices of Liberty are singing (see the above clip) and there's a guy standing there on a cell phone. He was right next to me when I was taking those pictures/video. The entire time they sang "Red River Valley" he was chatting away about what he ate yesterday, what he ate this morning, what he had for lunch, where he's going for dinner, the rides they'd been on, where they're going next, etc, etc etc. I mean...really? At least take your phone over to the corner so you're not standing there in front of a singing group. It's not as if they're animated and on film.

End of rant :)

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I should add... I called it "Americaland" because - well, because of something I overheard one day. Just passing the France pavilion I started overhearing someone right in front of me talking loudly into a phone. This person was telling someone how they were in Canadaland and UK-Land, then they were just walking through Franceland on their way to Americaland and were going to end up getting something to eat in Germanyland.

Amusingly that kind of stuck. We were in Americaland. :)
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day Three still continues... Japanland and beyond

Moseying along after our very enjoyable viewing of We The People, a stop at Japan (after excercising willpower to avoid a funnel cake!).

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Mitsukoshi is a normal stop for me, especially when it's hot out. They don't change too many things too often though. Seems that they've edged away from their models/miniatures in favor of other things this year. No surprise, these two kits seem to have been on the shelf for ages. Yeah I know, they probably have more than 2 of each of these - but a Mini Cooper and '66 VW? Can't imagine they actually sell too many. Always wanted to build a Tamiya kit though so... well, anyway:

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Then there are these things. Everywhere. Yes, modern Japanese culture items. I get that but not the actual "stuff". Oddly enough CDP-Lyn knows about this stuff, then again she's a wacky nunu:

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Bonsais on display outside again this year. Another really nice addition for the F&G festival. The Bonsais are displayed by a Florida club (I think...can't remember the name). The Bonsai kits in Mitsukoshi are from Lakeland, FL.

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Working our way toward ending our Epcot escapades and eventually dinner at a surprise location (any guesses?)...

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The sun is getting low on a nice night...

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Stop and smell the flowers? We (sniff) did!

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Ok, we're hungry. Where's the surprise dinner? McDonalds? Chik-fil-A? Downtown Disney? Where do we go from here??

Stay tuned :)
 
mrdrift

mrdrift

Well-Known Member
Great report, I heard of that ride just recently inside the pavilion. Now that you have described it for all of us with some once again awesome pictures I will have to give this a try :). Thanks!! It's always great to learn about attractions that are not well known which in turn makes you want to go back to Disney again.
 

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