Never say Neverland: Easter '18, May/June '18, July '18, Sept '18, Nov '18 TRs (8/22 UPDATE!)

So for those in suspense about one and two above. Yes and yes. Popcorn bucket packed and while my husband rocked it with remembering how to get here...his navigation once here sucked. He irritated me before we even left our neighborhood regarding packing the car. I'm totally annoyed with him right now and thus treating him as if he is a thorn in my side.

Vacation fun.

The line for the Autotrain check-in was the longest we have ever seen but we have never travelled this close to major holiday.

And my tablet isn't charged which is annoying.

I could use a nap.

And for some reason my family chose the LATE dinner...7pm...what?

I am already hungry and it is after 2pm. We should board in about an hour.

yTeAVeLi1m43FriT6
 
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Yikes! I hate it when things start off with a thud.

The bright side?

It HAS to get better! (Hopefully real soon)
 
Happy July 4th to from Florida. We had a lovely evening on the train and despite some slow downs we aarrived early to Sanford. So early that we had wait for the staff to open the station.

We were on the road to WDW by 9am or so. We headed to CBR and got the email and text about the room being ready while driving. Unfortunately I did not get my requested room but at least both rooms are next to each other though not connecting.

We are still figuring out this place but did get my lunch at Spyglass grill which lived up to the hype. Sadly I took no photos of food...sorry. Just as we planned to hit the pool it closed and they had everyone leave due to rain so we are catching up on lost sleep in our rooms while tstorms roll through. Good thing I got all my sunscreen on. ;)

Plan is to hit HS around 3pm or after the rains are done. I had hopes of hitting just our village pool but not sure that will happen before 3pm.
 


First full day here...good so far. Quick note about last night ...rode the Alien Space Saucers and enjoyed it. Funny what you can do in the rain.

So far today has been EPCOT and Typhoon Lagoon. Sadly TL is having issues with the wave pool so we didn't enjoy it as much. After a break we plan to hit EPCOT again for a 14th birthday celebration.

Hoping to stay a little more dry tonight.
 


So what we have learned so far: plan for evening rain not day Rain!

Though some threats of day rain have been evident the rain has been hitting around 8PM. For today that meant we had to leave a show we were enjoying at EPCOT (Guardians of the Galaxy) and sprint to try to catch our last FP ride earlier (TT) only to find it shutdown (weather was looming) and leaving us with a FP that we need to try to use tomorrow back at EPCOT which wasn't in the plans. And so we will adjust though I'm not sure it is the right thing to do. It was a ride my birthday boy had looked forward to today which we already adjusted once to squeeze in Typhoon Lagoon. So we will make it work.

On another note Sprinkles cupcakes did not disappoint for a late night snack. I'm missing that particular aspect of a resort with a food court or at least more Food options.

I also need to figure out what to do about our final day FPs because I can't add my FIL to any of them now that he has upgraded his ticket to an AP.

So there will be changes in plans for sure.
 
We had a good day today and right now I'm considering making tomorrow a rest morning. I'm not sure how that will go as my two youngest enjoy pool time in the rain. I'm so full from dinner at 'OHANA 6 hours ago
 
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Happy for you, sounds like things came together nicely! Doesn't pool time count as rest? Oh wait....kids probably won't sit on a lounger sipping pina coladas all morning long, will they? :P :drinking1
 
Great thing about vacation is you can roll with a new plan at any time. That is exactly what we did today. Enjoyed several wonderful hours at Blizzard Beach waterpark followed by a very short nap. Dinner at Sanaa was great. Sadly unlike last night when the rain only threatened most of the night, tonight it came through and lasted for hours. We made the best of it.

Tomorrow is another plan change. Will let you know how that goes.
 
Sorry to have slacked off on my updates. Today was our last full day here and it was a good one. Yesterday was also fun where we ended up splitting up and the guys caught a movie while the girls lounged at the pool for a bit and grabbed lunch at Spyglass grill. Dinner at Sci-Fi Dine-In was just okay. Slinky Dog Dash was a unique and coaster. Another pool day today plus walking around disney Springs followed by MK time. Wish park wasn't closing so early but probably best since we are supposed to have an early morning.

Hoping to share more details and photos soon.
 
So...back at home and settling into a routine. I ended up taking an extra day off to spend time with our puppy and moved up a doc appointment. Yesterday morning I had to drop Harley the puppy off for her spay surgery.

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This was taken when she was home on Wednesday. Now she is currently sporting the "cone of shame"...poor thing. Hoping she heals soon.

Anyway a quick recap of our trip for you before I do a detailed day-to-day report.

Autotrain: This mode of travel was enjoyable as always. We sure do miss the days of the wine and cheese happy hour, but we brought along our own wine and enjoyed that, though not as much as another group who clearly had boozed it up from the moment they arrived on the train as walking past their room it smelled like a brewery! DH and I were seated with two burly biker guys at dinner and they seemed none-too-happy about the "meal" served as I don't think it was enough food for either of them. Still they were nice to talk to and overall we enjoyed our time. Even with sleeper cars, "sleep" on a train isn't the best but it was okay. We actually arrived early to the station in Sanford despite some delays on the trip down, and paying for priority unloading of our vehicle was worth it.

Resort (CBR): Ok so honestly don't recall what section I requested, but didn't think it was Aruba...but it could have been as I changed it so much based on readings here. Honestly it wasn't my favorite. I like the ability to grab late-night snacks like cupcakes and such and that was a challenge here. They did have a small counter service area outside of the buffet tent that was open late so I could get a Mickey Ice Cream bar one night. It was a bit of a walk over there, so I think I would have preferred Jamaica. The rooms however were fine and perfectly comfortable, no complaints there. DD and I rode the "internal" bus one day over to Trinidad North to get lunch at Spyglass Grill. I will say that place is worth the hype, ate there twice and enjoyed it both times. The tacos were delicious and I had a kids salad with shrimp that was also pretty good. We did enjoy that we had the "quiet" pool at Aruba mostly to ourselves each time we used it, so that was pretty nice. I didn't care about the construction honestly, but I would love to see the place once it's all finished.

Parks: I didn't think crowds were insane at all. We managed to snag some 4th and more FPs a few times. We did standby on things quite a bit too. I think the new TSL crowds make it easier to ride some other stuff, as we did Tower one day a few times with almost no wait for it really. It was nice to have the line not be winding outside in the courtyard area. And speaking of TSL, really loved the new area, never waited to get into the area, rode each of the new rides twice (one using FP and one using standby) and just did TSM standby a few times. The SDD coaster is adorable and fun so I had to ride it a second time at night, getting in line right before the 10:30pm park closing was key...we waited only 20 minutes then. The queues for both of those new rides though...as bad as they say, outside with little to no real air flow or fans. It would be miserable on a hot hot day, we did standby in the evening when it had cooled off a TINY bit at least and no sun. We had overall pretty good weather, a few evening thunderstorms but didn't impact us too much.
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Waterparks: We visited both TL and BB, and TL was having issues with the wave pool on the day we were there which sucked. We did ride a few slides and did the lazy river there though. We visited BB earlier in the day and did some slides and lounging there as well. Enjoyed both except the lines for the slides. It's so much better to visit these parks later in the day if you want to do the slides.

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Food: So we cancelled a few planned ADRs, made it to some restaurants which we hadn't visited in a long time, and returned to some favorites. I can say for sure that Sci Fi Dine-In was just...meh. I don't need to return there but it was fun to try it again after about an 11 year hiatus. Via Napoli is still a favorite, they sang Happy Birthday to my son in Italian after he polished off a pizza on his own. 'OHana was delightful, our server was fabulous, I ate way too much and I learned that I do love the Lapu Lapu drink and of course the bread pudding was wonderful. Mama Melrose was also good but I felt the service there was lacking a bit, quite slow. Skipper Canteen was just okay, the food was good but we didn't have a very fun server like DS and I had on our last trip. She really wasn't entertaining at all and that was part of what made our first visit there so great that we wanted to return. We probably don't need to go back. Sanaa was very good as always, I'm sure we'll keep returning there. Same goes for the Plaza, though it's nothing special it's still a nice "last" day at MK place to go for a meal. I had the Strawberry Chicken Salad which was good. And as for counter service, as I mentioned already Spyglass Grill at CBR was wonderful...worth the visit, though the wait times for food were always a bit long. Other than that, we had food at Sunshine Seasons (breakfast) and I know some of my family did the buffet breakfast at CBR and said it was good. Oh and I nearly forgot, our last day we did the Wave for breakfast and REALLY enjoyed this one. Fresh fruit was good, made to order omelet was also good, worth a visit for sure. My family also headed off property for breakfast a few times, one morning I took two of the kids to Dunkin Donuts to get some food before our waterpark day.

So I think that sums up most things. Any questions, ask away and hopefully I'll post more soon.
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Welcome home, I'm glad you all had a good time! And glad you made it back before that huge outage at HS yesterday :scared1:
Good to hear Spyglass was enjoyable. CBR is a challenge to stay at now for many people, but at least they're heading in to the home stretch with most of the construction so it should get better food-wise.
I've heard some good things about SDD so I'm looking forward to trying it in Sept! My agency owner really enjoyed it, a friend of mine said it's cute but not as fun at 7DMT. I have clients going down next week and I'm anxious to hear what they think! I don't know if I'm interested in riding Alien Swirling Saucers so I guess I'll just take a look when I get there :goodvibes

and I still remember fondly my first Mickey ears with my name on them. I'm not looking because it's clear I'm eating...probably ice cream! :)
I had those ears, too!!
 
July 2018 Celebration of Life Trip - Day 1

So it was time to get the show on the road, but of course that meant some last minute stuff. I went into work for about 3 hours because I just have a pretty sad leave situation right now and have a trip to Hawaii coming up soon. I went in around 6am and left around 9am. Once home I had to do some last minute packing for things I nearly forgot, cleaned up my bedroom a bit, got the cats situated, and packed up the puppy and headed to drop her off with my friend for the week. I can report that she had a fabulous time, and if this works you can see her and her BFF swimming: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ChpHqCqE1FbtayKy9

I think it was around 11am when we finally hit the road for the hour or so drive to the Autotrain station in Virginia. We got there in PLENTY of time, so I found a nearby area for lunch. Some wanted Chipotle, others wanted Quiznos, and so we split up for our meals (but DS and I brought our food into Chipotle to eat with the rest of the gang). I think we were done around 12:30pm and figured we'd just head over to the train station and wait there. It was about 5 minutes away and as we drove up we could not BELIEVE the line to check-in...we've never experienced that. It was quite a wait.
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This was as we finally approached the check-in area. Thankfully DH had paid for priority loading and unloading, so once we got checked in we pulled right up and unloaded.

There is not much to eat or drink in the station at all, but they do have WiFi so everybody mostly just chilled there.

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They started boarding the train around 3pm, which is later than usual but they told us that up front. DH chose the LATE dining session (7pm) for some reason, and I wasn't sure I'd make it but we managed. We pack a cooler of drinks and snacks with us. We each got to our roomettes and settled in there first.

Kids were across the hall in us in their roomette:
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After a while, we all decided to be a little more "social" (the HORROR) and we headed to the lounge car to find a seat that we could all play some games.

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We got too booths across from each other and played cards while watching the world go by outside the windows. There are some lovely views:
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After a while it was time for dinner. We headed there and they split you up because each table seats four. Since we had six, we had my FIL and 3 kids in one booth and DH and I shared a booth with two guys who were on their first Autotrain trip and were travelling with their motorcycles. One was from NY and one from PA I think.

They were nice guys but big burly guys and were somewhat unimpressed with their roomettes (one guy wasn't sure he'd fit in the bed so he planned to sleep in the roomette as a chair setup) and the lack of food options. I think overall they were still happy to not be driving, but they would be much more prepared next time, like bringing food and drinks. They were even wondering if they could get more than one entree and/or dessert because I just don't think it was enough food for them. They were nice guys though and we had some good conversations.

After dinner, we headed back to our roomettes for the night. My FIL broke out a bottle of wine so we had some after-dinner drinks:
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Soon we all got ready for bed and were looking forward to waking up in Florida in the morning.





 
Adorable videos! The Auto Train looks like a fabulous way to travel. Let someone else do the driving and have your vehicle available at your destination without having to rent a car. How convenient!
 
Looks like a good time on the autotrain!

Hope Harley is recovering well from her surgery.

Cant wait to hear more about Toy Story Land!
 

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