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
TinkandCrew said:
Grow baby tree grow! I'm loving it, how exciting???? I love "the stick" too. Post update pics of both please!!!
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Oh I will. There are still some seeds coming off the trees. I actually found a couple more on the ground today and there were quite a few still waiting to come down. Someone else was hunting for seeds too.

Here's what they look like right off the tree:

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
prfctlyximprct said:
Adore all your photos!! It's like you took the Disney in my imagination and can never quite explain in words, and gave proof of just how wonderful everything is. And you've inspired me to buy a figment plush.. I hope they still sell him!!
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Thanks!! :D

The last time I checked the small Figments weren't around anymore. A year or so ago I bought one and got a huge lecture about the magnets in Figment's hands, I expect they finally got rid of them all. They should have the bigger ones though :)
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Ok...I haven't had time to finish writing up more of the actual TR because I spent the day at, um, Epcot, but I wanted to add something. Someone probably reported this somewhere else, but, today I noticed a new food kiosk at the American Adventure Pavilion:

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You can get the Mickey-shaped Super Pretzels, water, and a variety of beers (I guess... I don't drink so I'm not really familiar with exactly what the different brands actually are but they're from different areas of the country, which is neat). Doesn't appear that they're offering soft drinks. This is located right next to where they sell Funnel Cakes.
 
cw1982

cw1982

Well-Known Member
Can I just say that I just sat down and read this entire report, all 11 pages of it, because these pictures and comments did THAT great of a job of keeping my interest? That never happens on these trip reports. Not only are the photos mesmerizing and your comments funny, but on top of that everything you have mentioned is something that I care about doing in three weeks! I'm a little too excited, and now even moreso thanks to this report! We're even staying at the Pop lol :)

Thank you for making my night!
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day Three winds down

Satisfyingly full of Canadian beef-product we had a leisurely stroll around Future World. Ended up skipping IllumiNations this time (it's one of Lyn's favorites) but next time we'll stay for it I'm sure.

Lots of time for looking around and shopping though:

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Ugh... no - already ate, but yum anyway :)

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Hmm loud flowery touristy shirts?

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
How about some nice refreshing Beverly before heading out? Yes? Yeah!?

Nah

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Bubbles. The kid in the lower-right was walking around blowing bubbles.

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No more bubbles
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The tiles light up? How did I not know this? That's a really neat effect!
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Buh-bye topiary-creatures :)

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Short line for SSE! Going on SSE after sunset is the best. Everything looks better when your eyes are already adjusted for the dark - as long as you're careful not to stare at the flash during picture-taking session in the first lift-sequence.

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...another obligatory SSE picture with it lit up

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roropatches

roropatches

Member
photoflight said:
Back on track toward Liberty Square. Somehow we completely skipped browsing in Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe. My CDP missed that for some reason...now we'll have to take another trip down there. Darn.

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WDW's Liberty Bell in Liberty Square. We've seen this bell here again and again but never really looked at it much. Not long ago I read about this bell. It isn't just a cheap display piece for decoration. No, there's more to it than that.

From the Disney Parks Blog: "The bell was cast for Walt Disney World in Annecy-le Vieux, France by the Paccard Fonderie, using the exact same mold as the original Liberty Bell. The Liberty Square bell stands eight feet tall, weighs two and a half tons, and is comprised of copper, tin, lead, zinc, arsenic, gold and silver. It was hoisted into its present location by a crane, just in time for the 1989 Independence Day Celebration."

So, MK's Liberty Bell is about as close to the real thing as you can get without going to see the original. That's kind of neat.

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Hall of Presidents!
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I never knew that about the bell....That is cool.. Thanks for sharing.
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The little Epcot tree is trying hard. Looks like more leaves getting ready to pop out.

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photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day Four
But wait...Day Three, the great tipping experiment

During the first part of this TR we talked a little about our great tipping experiment. When we left the rooms this morning (day three) we continued to leave no tip at one room and doubled the tip in the other.

Remember?

When we got back to the room(s) we found this in the previously tipped room:

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Notice anything?

No? Maybe? Here's what it looked like when we left:

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Hmmm... so... you leave a tip and get a face made of a face cloth (haha get it? face-cloth). Leave another tip and double it and you get the same thing without eyes.

How odd.
 
photoflight

photoflight

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So that was the end of day three. Doubled the tip, lost the eyes, still nothing in the tipless-room.

But....

.... about 20 minutes later CDP-Lyn is all excited, screeches, and yells "OH MY...COME IN HERE!"

So I did.

We found the eyes:

i-xfNsh8c-X2.jpg


:D

Mousekeeping took the eyes from the "face-cloth" and made an elephant in the bathroom! Pretty darned clever, really. And, honestly, we thought they just took the eyes for some reason. What a surprise.

The tipless-room? Still nothing. Here's what it had in comparison:

i-gBWXxp8-X2.jpg


Fresh roll of TP but nothing else.

We have to conclude that my assumptions about the "you get stuff if you tip" malarky actually has some validity. Not sure if we'd have had an elephant with the same tip as the day before - honestly, would you remember if the room was on your schedule? Maybe those tip envelopes do...but, anyway...lesson learned :)

Just to dispel any nothing that I was a complete cheapskate with the other room (well ok, yeah, I am a little thrifty), when we checked out I left a tip for the entire stay.

Stay tuned for Day Four. You just won't believe what happened then.
 
Vader2112

Vader2112

Well-Known Member
photoflight said:
So that was the end of day three. Doubled the tip, lost the eyes, still nothing in the tipless-room.

But....

.... about 20 minutes later CDP-Lyn is all excited, screeches, and yells "OH MY...COME IN HERE!"

So I did.

We found the eyes:

i-xfNsh8c-X2.jpg


:D

Mousekeeping took the eyes from the "face-cloth" and made an elephant in the bathroom! Pretty darned clever, really. And, honestly, we thought they just took the eyes for some reason. What a surprise.

The tipless-room? Still nothing. Here's what it had in comparison:

i-gBWXxp8-X2.jpg


Fresh roll of TP but nothing else.

We have to conclude that my assumptions about the "you get stuff if you tip" malarky actually has some validity. Not sure if we'd have had an elephant with the same tip as the day before - honestly, would you remember if the room was on your schedule? Maybe those tip envelopes do...but, anyway...lesson learned :)

Just to dispel any nothing that I was a complete cheapskate with the other room (well ok, yeah, I am a little thrifty), when we checked out I left a tip for the entire stay.

Stay tuned for Day Four. You just won't believe what happened then.
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Plus the tiplless room the person(s) did not even make the "M" with the cloth in the middle.
 
wishing_upon_a_dstar

wishing_upon_a_dstar

Active Member
Great TR, love your pictures. I love that you have your own price of Epcot at home, that's amazing. It's interesting about the towel animals, out of interest what is the recommended tip?

Only 104 days till we are at the most magical place on earth :)
 

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