Trip Report You and me, we're in a club now! *COMPLETE*

Hello Everyone!

Now that we are less than a week away (and we've just finished our last trip report oops!). It's time for Our pre-trip report for our next holiday. This next ones a big one so hopefully it should be even more fun!

Who?
We are Natasha (Tasha) and Adam, we're from the East coast of the UK and we love disney world! If you have caught our last couple of trip reports you know that we love a semi relaxed approach to our holidays in disney and we like to see where the fun takes us. We both like to take it in turns writing the trip report together (so that we prolong the fun) and will refer to each other as N or A.

We are also going to be joined this trip by 13 of our nearest and dearest. We range in age from 63 to 2 years old, first timer's to seasoned disney veterans. I imagine they will all make their appearance in the trip report one way or another. Trying to plan a trip for this many people has been one headache I don't want to repeat for some time.

Where?
This visit we are lucky enough to be staying on property for 2 weeks! We are initially spending 4 nights just the two of us at POFQ and then we are joining my family at OKW resort for the rest of the trip. Everyone else is staying at a mix of coronado springs, wilderness lodge, all star sports and the hilton at disney springs.

When?
September 7th-September 21st. There will be 15 of us for the first week and then 7 of us for the second week.

Why?
This is the big one. We are getting Married!!! We initially were supposed to be married this May but unfortunately due to a vendor bankruptcy we had to scrap our plans a week before xmas. After that there was much panic and scrambling to get together a plan B. We had already booked our holiday for this September so decided why not get married at the happiest place on earth?? It was a big change going from a wedding of 120+ people down to just 15 people but we are lucky that everyone has been very supportive with our wishes.

What are our plans?
We have been steadily planning through the year with Disney Fairy Tail Wedding's for the big day on September the 9th. We will have a couple of days to get our body clocks aligned before the big day. The details of the day we'll keep quiet for now as I don't want any family members accidentally catching on as we have a few surprises in store for them all . The rest of our time we are planning to show the first timers the joy of disney, hopefully catch some time at galaxys edge, make the most of all the extra magic hours. We have park shoots planned at both MK and epcot in our wedding attire. My parents are DVC members and we were lucky to get tickets for the moonlight magic in the second week of the stay. We are annual pass holders to both disney and universal right now so we will also be heading to the dark side with the hopes of catching a ride on Hagrid's motorbike adventure. We are big lovers of halloween and cant wait to experience this years HHN. As it is the first part of our honeymoon adventure we have treated ourselves to the rush of fear pass with express. This means hopefully we should get to experience all the houses several times!

We cant wait to share the upcoming adventure with you all!

 

[Swissmiss]

Also, did you say Taco Bell in the UK, where is this?

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to pick up on that little nugget of information ...

 

[Tashifer90]

I’ve just overloaded your likes/loves a bit, I didn’t realise how far behind I was with your report. Love your early morning photo shoot in the parks, my favourites were the Morocco pics. Beautiful. Also, did you say Taco Bell in the UK, where is this?

We loved morocco too! It was our second choice after Canada (We couldn't get photos there due to construction) but we're definitely happy with how those ones turned out!

Oh yeah, taco bell are EVERYWHERE in the UK now!

Check it: https://locations.tacobell.co.uk/

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to pick up on that little nugget of information ...

Haha! I genuinely thought tacobell in the UK was common knowledge!

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Haha! I genuinely thought tacobell in the UK was common knowledge!

I really didn’t know. I’m in Milton Keynes and we tend to have most of the big chains here. Looks like the closest is Northampton.

 

[Katiekitten]

I really didn’t know. I’m in Milton Keynes and we tend to have most of the big chains here. Looks like the closest is Northampton.

I didn’t know we had them until one opened here just after Christmas.

 

[Tiggertoo56]

My nearest is either Cardiff or Cheltenham and didn't know they were over in the UK

 

[Tashifer90]

I really didn’t know. I’m in Milton Keynes and we tend to have most of the big chains here. Looks like the closest is Northampton.

I didn’t know we had them until one opened here just after Christmas.

My nearest is either Cardiff or Cheltenham and didn't know they were over in the UK

I love taco bell

haha! I didn't realise this was such a hot topic! lol! Although the UK menu is definitely not as good as the states

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 10- September 16th

So after leaving the park it was time for some 'Holiday admin' Boooooo!!!

Our replacement car had a slow puncture! so we needed to head back to the alamo car care centre near magic kingdom, and guess who we saw again for the third time at the booths?? Arnold! The guy obviously thought we were some kind of weirdos who were spending our entire holiday at the car care center...

We swapped for another car then we left the car care centre as we drove away guess we we noticed? 'Warning, breaking sensor fault!' so back around we went to the alamos and instead we got downgraded to a more reliable car... Yayyyy. (They did give us some money off vouchers when we dropped this off at the airport at the end of the holiday, but the whole experience left a very bitter taste in our mouth)

We headed back to old key west for a swim to cheer ourselves up.

After that we refreshed and get ourselves ready to head back to magic Kingdom ready for the fireworks!

Just waiting for the bus!

Even saw a deer dash across the road on our way there!

On arrival i really wanted to get some corn dog nuggets from caseys corner, but Tasha told me we had to ride first so i would just have to wait (Tasha disagrees with the way this conversation panned out lol!)

Haunted mansion was a 15 min wait but we were on in 5 mins.

Great views from the line though!

After this we walked past sleepy hollow towards tomorrowland so we could get our FP for space mountain, and i saw that they were doing churro ice cream sandwiches! Unfortunately we couldnt stop as we really needed to get to our fast pass. Such immense sadness!!

We went on space mountain, during the ride Tasha thought it would be funny to show how married life has her feeling. We finished the ride and there was no photo! We got a weird feeling that the pose Tasha did as a joke was not allowed by the photo pass guidelines. We went over the the photo pass booth and our suspicions were correct! Turns out this photo went against photopass guidelines... The cast member was lovely and explained everything and understood that it was only meant as a post married life joke. Tasha felt mortified . The pose was only meant as a joke!!!!

The cast member must have felt that there was some humour in the joke after all (or he just felt sorry for Tasha), as the photo appeared in our MDE app a couple of hours after we had left the ride.

are you ready to see the photo? *drum roll*

the moral of the story is... don't pretend to fake choke anyone for a photo even if you think it might be hilarious at the time!!!! Also Tashas dad did not get the joke memo

It was getting close to HEA so we decided to stake our place amongst the masses in the hub. It's so much harder trying to get a group together for the fireworks! Once we were in place Adam was hoping he could have grabbed himself a snack but the crowds were just too busy to leave. He was not impressed!

Our view for the show

excited face ready for the fireworks!

Once the show started it was quickly evident that Amelia was just too short to get a good view of the castle and the fireworks.

Adam decided to be the best uncle in the world (his words) and gave her a piggy back for the show. I helped by holding Amelia up from behind as its a much longer show than you think and i think Amelia must have had rocks in her pockets as she was heavy!!!!

HEA was amazing as per usual! I always get a few happy tears watching and Adam laughs at me. Holding up Amelia for the majority of the show left me with cramp in both my arms and Adam was feeling super sweaty in the florida heat!

We still managed to pull some happy faces.

I also had to recreate my castle pose.

A lady complimented me on my posing as she went by. Part time princess in the making here!

To be continued...

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 10- September 16th

we decided to take a couple more photos before joining the masses and heading out of MK. I seem to remember the bus journey being tiring and sweaty!

Inside the villa Adam was starting to feel hangry and snack deprived since he didn't get any of the tasty snacks he had planned in MK.

I decided it was time to try a new service... the in room service!

What a good wife I am right?!

the ordering process was fairly simple, just press the button on the villa phone and order. It took a decent while to arrive but we had expected that before ordering.

we went for a meat feast pizza with olives over half.

Adam thought the pizza was fine for takeaway pizza but I really enjoyed mine. The cheese had a really specific flavour that i enjoyed but can't explain. I had plenty left over for a snack the next day which is a bonus.

sweet pizza dreams......

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 11- September 17th

Today would be a shopping day. We had a bit of a lay in and then when we were about to get some cash and head out realised that my Dad had taken the safe key with him to EPCOT

We called the hotel lobby and a very nice engineer came to open the safe for us. We were thankfull we didn't have to wait for my dad to come back to the villa.

whilst we waited for the engineer Adam went to 'shoot some hoops'. He was kind of successful?

its not very often the ball gets stuck INSIDE the hoop!

After the engineer paid us a visit we were off for some retail therapy. We went to the premium outlets at vineland followed by the Florida mall. These are the only photos I have from our shopping trip.

not creepy at all.....

We didn't spend too much whilst we were out, Adam was continuing his jersey hunt and felt quite disappointed in the options available. I bought a couple of bits from sephora.

Whilst we were in the American Eagle store Adam was looking to see which out of a couple of t-shirts was most likely to be his size, afterwards he folded them and placed them back as he normally would. The manager of the store noticed him doing it, came over, told him how good his folding was and offered him a job! If only working at American Eagle would get you a visa and the same wages he might have taken her up on the offer

The Manager laughed when she heard his british accent but said if he was ever in orlando and needed a job one would be there for him!

It's always nice to feel wanted.

Shopping complete we headed back to the room to freshen up before heading out to the parks in the evening.

On our return to the villa I made a discovery... I had been in possession of the safe key all along doh!

The funny side of being in a group with children. Amelia wanted to wear an outfit that was not suitable for wear in the parks and My sister told her she couldn't. Then started the funniest sulk ever! Amelia took herself to the balcony to contemplate life.

if looks could kill

We thought it was so funny that Adam couldn't help recreating the photo.

What's the point in having nieces if you can't collect embarrassing photos to show them later in life!

Our park this evening was going to be hollywood studios. We had FP's for TSMM and then possibly Fantasmic.

On the way in we couldnt resist a few shots with the PP photographer

We had heard that the wait times at galaxys edge had actualy been much shorter in the run up to park closing and during fantasmic in comparison to rope drop and were curious to see if it was true.

Once we arrived in he park the wait time for smugglers run was 35mins! we couldn't miss the opportunity so we decided to miss fantasmic since we had already seen it and make our way over to galaxys edge.

The wait this visit was more like 20! we couldn't believe our luck We were engineers this time.

The wait inside the falcon is really interesting and we got to explore the pre-boarding area a bit more closely this time.

This ride was much more successful and we managed to grab 2 canisters of coaxium.

After leaving we had a bit of time before out FP for TSMM so took a few shots in galaxys edge. it really is pretty at night.

It was time for our FP on TSMM. Adam got the higher score as per usual... one day I'll win!

After the ride the wait times for smugglers run were still really low so we decided to go for our second ride of the night. Our family decided to join us.

 

[Swissmiss]

I had a similar problem with my niece’s choice of clothing at DLP ... except she was 18 years old at the time. One morning she puts on shorts (or a skirt - I can’t remember) which just barely covers her bottom and a crop top that showed way too much stomach skin for my taste. I don’t get along as well with that niece as her younger sister and I’m looking at her thinking: 1) that my brother will make it all my fault she’s dressed like that (um, I don’t buy her clothes buddy, you and your wife do) and 2) how can I ask her to change without it ruining the rest of our 10 day vacation together. To this day I’ll never know if it showed in my face or not what I thought of her clothing choice, but her younger sister, who was 16, just said « I don’t think that outfit will look come out well in pictures ». And suddenly she was wearing something else.

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 11- September 17th Continued

So with the wait time being a staggering 15 minute for smugglers run, we headed back over there with our family for a bigger group in hopes that we would be pilots this time.

We got to do just that! I relished in every opportunity to say 'Punch it' but left out the chewbacca part as Tasha really would not appreciate me calling her that

Best seats in the house!!

The CM was happy to let me take a quick photo of the cockpit as well.

Then we headed outside and got some photopass poses!

Unfortunately after this the first order decided to pick on me...



Best of it, Chewy was wandering around the place and they didn't even see him!

After that ordeal we needed to get some food! So we went to Docking Bay 7 as the food looked pretty interesting!

Tasha got the Crispy Chicken with choice of Vegetable Mashed Potatoes with Herb (Bottom of the picture) and i got Sticky Pork Ribs, Blueberry Corn Muffin, Cabbage Slaw. Sounds like a weird mix right? But both of them were really tasty and i loved how they themed the food, it all felt like a mix up of random stuff except it all tasted brilliant, the blueberry muffin was really nice to have after the ribs too!

Our food came to 44.96 credits, i apologized to gentlemen serving us and i said i didn't have any credits, only dollars. Luckily they do take dollars and exchange them! Phew!

Someone looking very happy with their food!

I also got a 'Moof Juice' which was Fruit Punch, Orange with Chipotle-Pineapple. Not half bad!

Theming of the place is really cool too!

After we had our fill we decided to have a quick peek at smugglers run again... 25 minutes! So we dashed on again!

We had the worst pilots in the world! But we tried the 'Manual' targeting as gunners and it was a lot of fun!

After that we were totally done in and decided to head back home for sleep!

Got this nice little photo just as we were leaving star wars land too

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 12 - September 18th

We rolled out of bed around 9ish this morning and had to get a shuffle on as we had a Fast pass booked for Slinky Dog at 09:30!!

After diving in the shower and running around like loons we managed to get to Slinky dog by 10:31!

We then had a bit of time to kill before our reservation at oga's cantina so mooched around star wars land for a while and had a look at the droid building area which was so difficult to resist the temptation to build one!

We also saw this little guy as well!

We thought it was just a model but then as Tasha got nearer to take the photo it moved towards her and started beep-booping!

So naturally she got a selfie with it!

After killing some time here it was time for our reservation, so we headed over to oga's and got in the queue. The queue was huge but CM's were walking up and down the line asking if you had a reservation etc and then we got to skip to the front of the queue, (We felt very VIP)

And we were in!

as you can see, it was very crowded! We were crammed onto a table with a few other people but everyone was very friendly.

Tasha got herself a Carbon Freeze which was Lemon Lime, Wild Strawberry, Blueberry, and Green Apple Popping Pearls. It actually bubbled too!! and I got at Jabba juice which was Orange with Pineapple, Kiwi, Cantaloupe, and Blueberry Popping Pearls. eating the pearls was really were they were like soft and squishy but then exploded in your mouth! It was a very odd but tasty treat!

We also had heard of a secret menu item which was a charcuterie Board, so ordered that too! Everyone else on our table kept looking over at it and checking the menu looking somewhat bewildered

Here it is!

Whats crazy is, it looked again like a load of rubbish just mixed together but it was so tasty! There was little cheese string bits, pork crackling stuff, peppers and loads of other bits! Can highly recommend!

We then headed out and decided to quickly pop on star Tours, the new rides that they've created are really good but very nauseating towards the end of the ride haha!

Also how cool are the little bottles of coke and sprite you can get in star wars land?

Tasha also did her best Porg impression:

It's scarily accurate...

We then headed over to Lightning Mcqueens racing academy with the family. It was actually a pretty good show, very entertaining and i was very impressed how they got the mouth to move on the car, I don;t know if it was projected or an actual mouth put on the front of the car but it was very impressive!

As we were nearby after the show we thought it would be rude not to do rockin' rollercoaster too, so hopped on there!

and guess who managed to keep their eyes open for the camera? Kinda...

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 12 - September 18th Continued...

So after all this running around Hollywood Studios we were feeling rather hungry, so decided to go to our favorite seafood place, red Lobster! We know for Americans this is probably a kind of ‘standard normal food place’ but seafood restaurants just aren't like it back home!

I mean… this is the only place I will go and can actually honestly say ‘I enjoyed that salad’

Also we can’t get clam chowder at home, so I had to get some of that as well.

And don’t even get me started on the biscuits… They. Are. AMAZING.

Tasha had the shrimp trio with coconut shrimp and I had the regular shrimp trio… You can tell we don’t get seafood like this back home can’t you? In the UK I’ve yet to go to a restaurant that can cook shrimp half as good as they do at red lobster.

After we had, had our fill of seafood we headed back to to the hotel to relax and get ready for Moonlight Magic at Typhoon Lagoon! We managed to just get tickets through Tasha's Mum and Dad's DVC before we came so was super excited to see what was in store for us as we had never been to one before!

and we are in!!

Tasha was very happy to be here of course...


Just waiting for them to give the word we can go into the water!

We didn't get much chance to take photos throughout the event because it was Dark and we were running around like loons.

I was super happy with the amount of unlimited ice cream on offer. Me, Ruby and Amelia ate about a ridiculous amount of ice cream sandwiches.

Queues for the food were bigger than what we were normally used to a waterpark but we were never in line for more than 15 minutes.

Also... water rides in the dark? Much more scary!!

Got this cool little photo of the place totally empty as they were closing!

It was so nice to see it all lit up in the dark though!

 

[riverside]

I mean… this is the only place I will go and can actually honestly say ‘I enjoyed that salad’

Next time try the caesar salad with shrimp!! I get that as a meal quite often!!

 

[BrerWayne]

Day 12 - September 18th Continued...

So after all this running around Hollywood Studios we were feeling rather hungry, so decided to go to our favorite seafood place, red Lobster! We know for Americans this is probably a kind of ‘standard normal food place’ but seafood restaurants just aren't like it back home!

I mean… this is the only place I will go and can actually honestly say ‘I enjoyed that salad’
View attachment 468536

Also we can’t get clam chowder at home, so I had to get some of that as well.
View attachment 468538

And don’t even get me started on the biscuits… They. Are. AMAZING.
View attachment 468539


Tasha had the shrimp trio with coconut shrimp and I had the regular shrimp trio… You can tell we don’t get seafood like this back home can’t you? In the UK I’ve yet to go to a restaurant that can cook shrimp half as good as they do at red lobster.

View attachment 468541
View attachment 468543

After we had, had our fill of seafood we headed back to to the hotel to relax and get ready for Moonlight Magic at Typhoon Lagoon! We managed to just get tickets through Tasha's Mum and Dad's DVC before we came so was super excited to see what was in store for us as we had never been to one before!

View attachment 468545
and we are in!!

Tasha was very happy to be here of course...


Just waiting for them to give the word we can go into the water!
View attachment 468551

We didn't get much chance to take photos throughout the event because it was Dark and we were running around like loons.

I was super happy with the amount of unlimited ice cream on offer. Me, Ruby and Amelia ate about a ridiculous amount of ice cream sandwiches.

Queues for the food were bigger than what we were normally used to a waterpark but we were never in line for more than 15 minutes.

Also... water rides in the dark? Much more scary!!

View attachment 468554
Got this cool little photo of the place totally empty as they were closing!

View attachment 468556

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It was so nice to see it all lit up in the dark though!

You said that you are a Saints fan - Who Dat!!!! And came for a game in the Dome. I hope you had some shrimp in New Orleans. It is life altering.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

I’m with you on the love for Red Lobster, the first time I ever had lobster was on a trip there over 20 years ago. It was not something that was easy to get in the UK back then (now I feel old ). And I don’t think those cheese biscuits have changed in all that time. That is one chain I would love to see over here.

Moonlight magic looks fun, although I’d be very nervous about all the bushes in the dark and

 

[Tashifer90]

Next time try the caesar salad with shrimp!! I get that as a meal quite often!!

That sounds amazing! I can't believe i haven't even noticed that on the menu! I will definitely by trying that next time!

 

[Tashifer90]

You said that you are a Saints fan - Who Dat!!!! And came for a game in the Dome. I hope you had some shrimp in New Orleans. It is life altering.

Yes! Love to see another saints fan!!
It is!! All the food in New Orleans is life altering! The bread on the Po' Boys themselves is amazing, Beignets were awesome I could have had them every night! The char-grilled oysters as well?? just wow! I wish we could could go to the Ruby Slipper cafe for brunch every day!

 

[Tashifer90]

I’m with you on the love for Red Lobster, the first time I ever had lobster was on a trip there over 20 years ago. It was not something that was easy to get in the UK back then (now I feel old ). And I don’t think those cheese biscuits have changed in all that time. That is one chain I would love to see over here.

Moonlight magic looks fun, although I’d be very nervous about all the bushes in the dark and

Yes definitely! But if they did it over here they need to cook that lobster right (Especially with the copious amounts of butter)

We did try to make our own biscuits actually (We followed chef artsmiths recipe though and they were surprisingly easy!

haha! I totally forgot about the snakes until you mentioned it!

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 13 - September 19th

We woke up late this morning feeling a little bit run down. We had a think whilst we got ready what would be the answer to perk us up


That answer was Denny's.

It's always Denny's.

We stopped at the Dennys that was close to the premium outlets on I-drive.

We ordered too much... and it was amazing!

We had a mooch around the shops and Adam had some success going to the american eagle discount outlet. He had been searching all holiday for a specific style of shorts that we struggle to buy in the uk to no avail. He then found the style in the outlet store at $5 a pair! I've never seen a man get so excited about buying shorts- he bought 9 pairs! I don't think he will need a new pair of shorts for the next decade

After finishing shopping it was mid afternoon and we headed straight to Universal so that we could do the Stay and Scream for HHN. We were definitely in a snacky mood that day and couldn't resist dropping in to diagon alley for adam to get some frozen butter beer and I ordered sticky toffee pudding/salted caramel blondie ice cream.

We managed to find some good seats to chill whilst we watched everyone leave the park.

Our chill time didnt last for too long before a security guard ushered us towards the stay and scream area.

We picked the Finnegans area to get a jump start on some of the more popular houses and whilst we had to wait we treated ourselves to some pizza fries as its something everyone who goes to universal seems to rave about.

I'd say that the pizza fries were just ok. The fries reminded me of the kind we can by at home from the freezer isle at the supermarket so i didn't feel it was worth the approx $10 price tag. I guess that's theme park food though!

We had some confusion when we reactivated our refillable mug with a new team member and it meant we ended up getting our refill for free! We were feeling pretty lucky however that was not to last for the whole evening..... more on that later.

As soon as we were allowed out of the area we did the houses closest to our holding area (Us, Stranger things and Yeti).

The sun was shining and we were feeling pretty good.

I loved this poster soo much. I ❤ the stay puffed marshmallow man!

I don't know why we took this photo as we were walking along but my hair looks good so its being added lol