Hindsight is 2020 - A VERY late trip report (NYE and Feb/March cruise) - Updated 8/27-Off the cruise and a VIP Tour!

[MeghanEmily]

You and Baby Yoda were so cute! I love how he sat on your shoulder a lot of the time.

I'm envious of this meet! You all look so happy to be together! Nice picture

And then he gave us an awesome Welcome to Disney World!

This bus driver was amazing! I love when there are little doses of magic like this in a trip.

Haha the shirt was so appropriate!

I more than paid for it on my Lyft back to Kidani. Ugh, this guy. First, he got totally lost picking me up; I could see his location and he passed the pick-up spot (which has plenty of signage) and ended up on the other side of Saratoga Springs. Then when he finally showed up, he asked if he could stop at a 7-11 for a drink. I mumbled, I guess, but he could tell I was peeved, so he just kept going. And then as we are pulling into Kidani, I ended up handing him my Magicband, where of course he dropped the AP slider, ugh, so I had to make him pull over and I had to go back and get it off the ground. He also asked “how long have you lived around here?”. Um, dude, you are dropping me at a hotel… Just overall weird and annoying!

Oh. My. Gosh. What kinda crazy Lyft ride was this!?! I feel like I remember Liesa having a similarly bad Lyft or Uber driver at one point. But what the heck why would he ask to go get a drink on your ride?? Go do that on your own time between rides or something buddy! This whole thing was weird.

He looks so cute on the Skyliner on that great big seat!

the magnet I attached to Baby fell off… Originally I had used a super sticker, but obviously that was not super enough. I ended up ordering a hot glue gun to be delivered to the resort and later glued it on

That's commitment!

And first food from Goshiki pavilion. I got all of the food items: Taiyaki (fish-shaped cake stuffed with sweet red bean filling served with green tea chocolate and whipped cream cheese), Sushi Donut (donut-shaped sushi featuring salmon, tuna, shrimp, cucumber and sesame seed over a decorated plate of wasabi aioli, sriracha and eel sauce), Vegetable Gyoza (vegetable and edamame filled gyoza atop truffle mashed potatoes, shiitake mushrooms, pepper strings and tonkatsu teriyaki sauce). I also got the Nigori Sake Cocktail (frozen nigori sake and calpico accented with strawberry and finished with cotton candy).

This all looked so good! Nathan would have ordered all of these are well and wanted to try them all. He's especially a fan of taiyaki.

Blue Milk, yum!

That blue milk is as big as Baby is!

I got the Potjie, with Butter Chicken and Chickpea Wit. I also added on 2 Naan breads, rather than the full bread service, because I prefer the bread over the dips!

Yum! I don't think I realized you could even do that, just order a side of naan with a meal. But it makes sense.

He did get his flying in afterwards though!

Ok this one....and also the next one...

...are such awesome pictures! Baby was very photogenic in this trip

Beautiful! It sounds like the wedding was a special day. I love the cake!

I also did a loop on the lazy river, though I think I was the only one, lol! (And I overheard some CMs talking about wanting to go home, which wasn’t exactly welcoming…

Ugh. I mean I know CMs are just people doing their jobs, and I have to remind myself to give them the same grace I'd want someone to give me sometimes...but still...this is just a bit of a magic-killer. You may not feel like being at work, but keep it to yourself. Not great for customer experience.

Overall, Blizzard Beach was fine. I went to Typhoon Lagoon in May 2019 and think I preferred that park for theme. The tropical atmosphere just fits more with water park, plus the foliage makes it feel more organic.

I think I prefer Typhoon Lagoon a bit more, too. (I liked Blizzard Beach as a kid, and I think their kids area is really cool for families with young children, but now as an adult I prefer TL.) I'm not much of a water park person in general, but I found I really preferred doing a waterpark at night! I hope they bring back H2O Glow Nights at TL in future.

For activities, there is a virtual reality experience, where you put on VR goggles and you basically get transported into the center of the lion enclosure on Kilimanjaro Safari. It was pretty fun when you would spin around and suddenly a lion would appear! Very fun!

This is so cool! I can't handle VR with my motion sickness/brain issues, but Nathan loves it. Such a neat experience to offer!

These didn’t come in Baby’s size.

Such a shame. They're just his colour, too!

Temari Sushi. Chef-selected assortment of oceanic delicacies. The little sushi balls were pretty cute (though I requested no sea urchin and they had no problem adding an extra salmon instead).

I looooved this! I think the sushi was possibly my favourite part of the tasting menu, though it was all so good and the steaks were amazing so maybe I shouldn't say that. But I liked the sushi enough that I craved it on future trips and we went back just for sushi and drinks once.

Both steaks were very tender and delicate. I know you are supposed to say you prefer the Japanese steak, but I think for my tastes, I preferred the American steak. The Japanese steak had a bit too much fat, which I know helps to make it tender, but I just prefer less of it, though I do have to admit it was well-marbelized

Yes, weren't these both just amazing!? Drool! I do think I slightly preferred the Japanese wagyu. It was just so tender and flavourful, probably because of how marbled it was. But the American wagyu was also so delicious so I can understand why someone might also prefer that.

Opening float – it was interesting how they were all towed by trucks.

Huh! Maybe an advertising deal with the dealership or something? lol

Also I feel like I remember Ariane writing in one of her old trip reports about being on one of these floats once and tossing beads!

And another thing I hadn’t done before – Doctor Doom’s Fearfall. Definitely freaky, but it does have some great views of Orlando!

Woah. You're braver than me!

 

[footballmouse]

Took me a few days but finally caught up with this awesome report. It looks like you had so much fun!

 

[MeghanEmily]

I took advantage to get some photos with him and Director Minnie without any lines!

So cute! Nice pictures, and Mickey and Minnie's outfits are adorable <3

You see, my friend, @chunkymonkey had invited me on a VIP tour, provided my our lovely friend “chunkydust”! She had given our EPIC group of girls in May 2019 a VIP tour and then when Su-Lynn and Steve decided to come down to WDW when I was there, they ended up scheduling another one!

So amazing! It's so kind of Chunkydust to share the magic with her friends like this! And it seemed like there was lots of fun to be had

I think I see a couple of chunkydumps in this picture! LOL

I don't read a lot of cruise TRs unless they're people I already know from their other WDW trips, but I really enjoyed reading about the cruise portion of this trip. I was sorry to hear that there were a few low moments and you had some times it felt lonely, but the high moments sounded wonderful, and I was glad to hear they ended up getting you seated with some nice dinner company.

I've so enjoyed catching up on this TR so far and hearing about what you were up to, Lesley!