There's No Sleeping at Disney! - A Oct-Nov 2020 Trip Report. MINI TR COMPLETE 5/10

Your pre-Disney day sounds very productive! I can't wait until we can return to doing normal things, like Disney, without all the worry. Hope your first day went well!
 
Day 1 (Wednesday, October 28), Part 1

I woke up shortly before my alarm, to this text from my dad.

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It turns out he had missed his first flight because he didn’t schedule his Uber correctly (he requested it for 4 pm instead of 4 am). So, that was his screw-up. If you can’t tell from his rambling, this meant that he was now landing in Orlando at 3:15 pm.

Disappointing, but also in some ways a relief, since it meant I wouldn’t be rushing through the morning, and Alex would get more time with April before he had to go to work.

First thing I did that morning was something I’d been wanting to do for a long time.

I dyed my hair!

Before I had April, I got my hair professionally dyed a brown and pink ombre every six weeks. But this was expensive, time consuming, and required me to be in close proximity to a stylist for many hours, none of which were really doable or safe in the current circumstances. Thus, I hadn’t really had any proper hair treatments since January. I do plan to go back at some point, but for now, home remedies will have to do.

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I’d purchased this box of purple dye at CVS a few weeks before, and was excited to finally use it. It was the only non-traditional color I could find on the shelf that didn’t require me to bleach my hair first and was suggested for use on brown hair.

It was my first time dying my hair entirely on my own so I was a bit nervous. But it wasn’t too difficult. I followed the instructions and didn’t make a huge mess of it.

So, 30-ish minutes later, how did it turn out?

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Not bad! Not as pronounced as the girl on the box, of course. I think if I do it again, I’ll buy two boxes because my hair is so long. But at least my wayward grays were temporarily invisible.

A little before 11, April woke up (yes, she typically has a very late wake up call! It’s pretty nice). She was still a little groggy but definitely not going back down.

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I got her changed and brought her into the kitchen for breakfast. She had egg and apple mini muffins, and I think I had a leftover piece of coffee cake, or maybe some cereal? Nothing too substantial, that’s for sure.

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I also drank this can of Coca Cola Energy. I had tried it out since Coke discontinued my favorite flavor (diet Feisty Cherry, one of the great corporate tragedies of this year!). I didn’t love it, but I was in need of some energy and coffee zaps my energy as quickly as it gives it to me, so this was my only alternative.

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I packed up a bit more while April ate and at some point I’m sure Alex woke up and also took over supervision duties. I took this cute video, probably shortly before that happened.

I was able to fold and pack up the pack n play all by myself.

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This is a 4Moms BreezeGo, by the way. Highly recommend. It’s very easy to use.

After I got April dressed, I snapped a quick picture of her to send to my dad, who was about to board his second plane.

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At 2, Alex went to work and April went down for her first nap. This was going to be my golden hour to really get stuff done. I had all my bags and luggage laid out by the door and was putting them in the car from biggest to smallest. When most of the items were in the car, I decided to let our dog out into the yard and play with her a bit, since she’d be spending many hours in her crate over the next few days.

While I was there, I snapped a picture of this little thing that was growing out of a plant in our yard. I’ve never seen it before and have no idea what it is. A flower? A seed pod? An alien? Let me know if you know what it is!

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But I also found something else out there. A gallon-sized plastic bag, torn to shreds.

Obviously, Nova, our dog, had gotten into something, but I couldn’t think of what, until I remembered the apple muffins I’d made the day before, which I had mere minutes ago taken off the counter and put them in the reusable grocery bag with the other non-perishable items, assuming they would be safe.

Obviously, I was wrong. I went inside, and confirmed it. The bag of muffins was no longer in the grocery bag.

Sigh.

But remember when I mentioned that the night before, I had made extra batter? Yes, I could still make more! The only snag was that the bag of batter was in the freezer, so I had to quickly defrost it using a bowl of cold water and some vigorous massaging. It took about five minutes, but soon enough it was ready, and I cut the corner of the bag and piped it right into the muffin tin, then threw it in the oven. While it baked for ten minutes, I finished packing up the car, tsk-tsking at Nova whenever I saw her. She, of course, did not understand what she had done wrong, because she’s a bad dog.

I was very proud of the packing job I had done, considering I would also need to have room for my dad and his things, so I snapped some pics.

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Sometime during this ordeal, I got this text from my dad.

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The heat was on. Thank goodness those muffins bake so fast and the batter was ready to go. I took them out as soon as the timer went off and set them on the counter to cool. I woke April up for her nap and got her all set to go out the door, and just before I left I put the still-warmish muffins into a new bag, and put Nova in her crate. Fool me once!

And then, finally, it was time to depart for Orlando International, and for our Disney trip to begin.

Up next…our long-awaited reunion!
 
So many twists and turns to your day! Looking forward to hearing how your first day went.
 
A little before 11, April woke up (yes, she typically has a very late wake up call! It’s pretty nice).

My mind is boggled that April sleeps so late! My kids were both up at the crack of dawn (or before!) when they were babies.
 


Jumping on board! We took our little for her first trip at 19 months I believe it was and she had a blast! Can't wait to read more as missing Disney, and no idea when we will next get a trip in.

She's such a cutie! I need to go back and read more detail but she sleeps till 11?! that's very wow!
 
So many twists and turns to your day! Looking forward to hearing how your first day went.

Haha, I know right? We hadn't even gotten to Disney yet. Such a busy morning.


My mind is boggled that April sleeps so late! My kids were both up at the crack of dawn (or before!) when they were babies.

She wakes up a couple times in the night, but she will almost always fall back asleep. She pretty much will sleep 12 hours from when we put her to bed until she's really up (and I'm talking sitting up, talking in her crib, very obviously awake and ready for the day). I've heard before that it's literally impossible for babies to stay up past 7 or 8 am, but idk, I guess she's just her father's daughter, haha.


Jumping on board! We took our little for her first trip at 19 months I believe it was and she had a blast! Can't wait to read more as missing Disney, and no idea when we will next get a trip in.

She's such a cutie! I need to go back and read more detail but she sleeps till 11?! that's very wow!

I get a lot of shock responses to her sleep schedule. But it works well for us and she's as happy and healthy as can be, so I'm not complaining!
 
Not bad! Not as pronounced as the girl on the box, of course. I think if I do it again, I’ll buy two boxes because my hair is so long. But at least my wayward grays were temporarily invisible.

It looks great!! You are inspiring me to think about a home dye job!! Why not??
 


Oh my goodness! A morning of many mishaps! I am glad your dad was able to get his flights sorted. Ordering the uber at 4 pm instead of 4 am is something I would do lol. Great packing job! I love packing the car, but I am super weird like that lol.
 
It looks great!! You are inspiring me to think about a home dye job!! Why not??

Indeed! If there was ever a time to try it...


Oh my goodness! A morning of many mishaps! I am glad your dad was able to get his flights sorted. Ordering the uber at 4 pm instead of 4 am is something I would do lol. Great packing job! I love packing the car, but I am super weird like that lol.

Thanks haha. I am glad he was able to find a flight at all, with them being so scarce. But after he had to get up so early, I'm sure it sucked that he still had to sit in the airport for hours.
 
I get a lot of shock responses to her sleep schedule. But it works well for us and she's as happy and healthy as can be, so I'm not complaining!


What time does she go down? Lucky for us my little (now 4) was/is a good sleeper...which is good as she was a tough baby otherwise lol
 
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving if you celebrate! And a nice weekend otherwise haha. We stayed home and made the turkey and a couple casseroles and pie. We gave half of it to some friends of ours, who also made food and gave us half. So overall, it was actually really nice. We got to share food with loved ones without having to host or travel, and we got to keep all the leftovers! It was my first time making a turkey all by myself and it came out great! I used Ree Drummond's citrus brine and roasting recipes and they were a big hit. Really flavorful and moist. It turns out I find basting to be really relaxing, so I will volunteer to do the turkey any time! Enjoy some pictures of my bragworthy bird, and cute little April enjoying her meal and some whipped cream for dessert.

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Sadly, it looks like our choice to stay home was well founded, as my in-laws seem to have contracted Covid, and my sister up in New York has also tested positive. So far, thankfully, it looks like everyone is recovering, but it's a really scary time and I urge everyone to be as careful as you can. At this point, I can't imagine our January Disney trip will still happen, but with a vaccine on the way hopefully we will still be able to have one next year.

We actually have a small family vacation planned for next weekend. We'll be renting an Airbnb in Palm Coast, which is on the east coast of Florida, between Daytona and St. Augustine. I'm really looking forward to it and will hopefully have some pictures to share. It should be a really quiet, safe trip. We'll keep to ourselves and the beach should be pretty empty.

Anyway, onto the next part of the report!


Day 1, Part 2:

There was a little bit of traffic on the way to the airport, but thankfully not too much. According to the text I sent just as I was leaving, I left at 2:52 pm and estimated the drive would take me 30 minutes. I called him when I was close to the airport to confirm which door to meet him at, since by that point he already had his bag.

A little before 3:30, or only 15 minutes after his flight had originally been scheduled to land, I pulled up at the airport to greet him. Not bad timing! But still hours later than our original plans. Oh well.

Dad was very excited to see me, and me him, but we were eager to get away from others and get on our way. One advantage of the flights getting delayed was that our room would now be ready by the time we got to property, and Dad was eager to rest for a few minutes as he was quite exhausted.

After a few wrong turns from me (I rarely drive from the airport to Disney, and my GPS kept giving me unclear or too-late instructions), we pulled up to the Riviera Resort, our home for the next six nights.

I parked in one of the registration spots and we walked inside of the lobby. We had decided not to do online check-in, in the hope against hope that we could sweet talk and hint our way into a one bedroom upgrade. I wasn’t sure how likely it was, since we booked with our DVC points, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

I didn’t explicitly ask for a *free* upgrade, mind you. I just was kind of like, “We wanted to inquire if there were any one bedrooms available that we could upgrade too,” and then let the cast members interpret that how they will. And their interpretation, sadly, was that sure! We could upgrade to a one bedroom. We would just need to pay 80-ish more points than we had paid for the studio.

Oh well.

We politely declined. It wasn’t worth the extra points for just two adults and one baby, though the extra space would have been nice to have. I do want to point out that Riviera rooms are apparently some of the largest studios on property, and we definitely didn’t feel too cramped.

After we were assigned our room, we went back to the entrance and asked the cast member working at bell services for assistance getting our luggage up to the room. We decided the best thing to do would be for one of us to take April up to the room, and the other to pull up the car to the front and then park it closer to the room. I took the latter job, since most of the stuff in the car was mine and I knew what needed to be brought up and what could stay in there for now.

I drove the car back around to the entryway, helped the cast member load up the cart, and then drove to the East parking lot and got a spot as close to the building as possible.

We were in room 8687, which meant we were on the 6th floor. I went in through the side entrance and followed the signs to the elevator. Along the way I snapped a picture of this poster.

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The hotel was decorated with European posters for many Disney movies, not just classic ones! There was a row of posters for more modern movies like Zootopia and Inside Out near the courtyard, for example. But as I had just recorded an episode on Cinderella for my podcast, I definitely wanted to snag a pic of this one.

I could tell I had arrived at the right floor, because as soon as I stepped off the elevator, I could hear April screaming. It was muffled, but the closer I got to our room (which was a few doors down from the elevator), the better I could hear her. This was a common theme throughout the trip, as April is definitely going through a phase right now where she usually wants me instead of anyone else (which makes working from home extra fun). My dad reported he had been able to keep her entertained for a few minutes, but when she finally realized I wasn’t in the room, she got mad.

I barely had any time to take in the awesomeness of our room before I had to grab her and give her love. I sat on the couch and my dad snapped this picture of us. It was really the only good pic we got of the room before we started unpacking.

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Behind me you can see the handles for the murphy bed. I thought this was a big advantage Riviera had over other studios that use a pullout couch. The bed was much more comfortable, and it was easier to pull out at night and put away in the morning. Usually we just have the pullout bed out the entire trip, but being able to more easily pack everything up made the room feel much bigger.

While I comforted April, Dad helped the bell services cast member who arrived shortly after me (Dad had called them as soon as he got to the room). We did most of our unpacking at that point, since I didn’t want to be caught in the trap I’d been last February where I never really unpacked and just lived out of the suitcase the whole trip. It made things feel way more chaotic. This time, I made sure to put all our clothes in drawers and all our toiletries in the bathroom, so I could put the suitcase under the bed and not really think about it until the end of the trip.

Dad had brought some presents for April, me, and DH, and arranged them on the coffee table so we could open them later. April played with them while we unpacked.

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One thing I regret is that I didn’t snag a picture of the view from our balcony. I realized after I got home that we had both forgotten to do so the entire trip. I found this picture on touringplans.com to give you an approximation of what it looked like. It's the room directly below ours, 8657, so the view was pretty much the same, except we could see a little more of the pool and Caribbean Beach.

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We were in the East wing, overlooking part of the main pool (you can see the fence for it in the bottom right of the picture), Caribbean Beach, and a retention pond with a beach setup. This was a preferred view room, and it was definitely nice to not have to look at the parking lot.

After we’d unpacked and let April crawl around a bit, it was finally time to head to our first park of the trip! That’s up next.
 
What time does she go down? Lucky for us my little (now 4) was/is a good sleeper...which is good as she was a tough baby otherwise lol

Usually between 11 and 11:30. She takes naps around 2 and 7:30.
 
We actually have a small family vacation planned for next weekend. We'll be renting an Airbnb in Palm Coast, which is on the east coast of Florida, between Daytona and St. Augustine. I'm really looking forward to it and will hopefully have some pictures to share. It should be a really quiet, safe trip. We'll keep to ourselves and the beach should be pretty empty.

That sounds just lovely!! So nice that you can drive to a beach and have warm weather!! I think that would make living through this pandemic so much more bearable!!!
 
That sounds just lovely!! So nice that you can drive to a beach and have warm weather!! I think that would make living through this pandemic so much more bearable!!!

Yes it definitely makes life a little better. Although this weekend is supposed to be quite chilly, by our standards, anyway.
 
Day 1, Part 3

We loaded April into her stroller at about 5:15, according to the timestamps on my images, and made our way down to the main floor. I definitely felt a little unmoored in a resort that was completely new to me.

If you haven’t been to the Riviera, the first floor is hope to the courtyard with the two pools, a bocce ball court, Primo Piatto (the quick service restaurant), and Bar Riva. It’s also where you go if you want to get on the Skyliner.

We had a bit of a hard time finding the station, but once we did, the path was very clear and we never got lost again. Riviera is pretty compact, so it’s not too hard to get used to its layout. As I mentioned, we stayed in the East wing, and the station is on the West wing, but it was not a long walk at all, maybe five minutes from our room, unless there was a hold up at the elevators or something (Disney is asking folks to limit the elevators to one party per car).

I do want to mention that the elevators at the Riviera were exceptionally fast. We usually stay at the Polynesian, on the second or third floor of Tokelau, and as my dad put it, you could use a year of your life on those elevators. I suppose age is a factor here, so enjoy the speed while you can!

On our way to the station, we also passed the activity center and the gym. If you read my report from last fall, you may remember we spent a lot of time in both locations when we stayed at the Boardwalk. We didn’t work out in the gym, though. We were just there to refill our water bottles and take advantage of the scented cool towels. Sadly, this gym did not have any scented towels. I’m not sure if that’s just how it normally is, or if it’s a victim of Covid, but we did stop in a few times during the trip to refill our water bottles. The hours weren’t posted, but there were a couple of times our bands wouldn’t let us in, so I assume it’s not 24/7. We didn’t end up going to the activity center at all during our stay, but it’s nice to know it’s there for future reference.

A few moments later, we arrived at the Skyliner station. We followed the signs to the Epcot line, and waited behind a few parties to get in our own car.

The Skyliner right now is pretty much the only form of Disney transportation I feel comfortable using, since every family gets their own car. But I do look forward to using boats and monorails again in the future.

We boarded without having to fold up April’s stroller, which was nice and convenient. We were able to wheel it right on. She didn’t seem sure of what to make of the experience, and I took this video as we ascended.

It was a pretty quick trip to Epcot, where we went through a quick and easy temperature check and a pretty painless bag check. The procedures have really changed since Covid. The guards tend to not look through your bags unless they have to. Instead, they ask you to take out any large metal objects and just carry the bags through the metal detector. They would also have me park April and her stroller off to the side a few feet, and once I went through the metal detector, either I would go get her or the guard would push her to me. It was always pretty efficient. Be aware that things that can trip up the metal detector include umbrellas and some portable chargers, so you’ll want to take those out of your bags (my dad has a charger that tripped up the detector at least once).

By now it was about 5:45, and even though our reservation wasn’t until around 7, we were starving. So we had a couple of options. We could eat at a couple of booths to tide us over, or we could go straight to the restaurant and see if they could seat us. We decided to go with the latter option because we were so close to the restaurant.

Our destination this evening was Spice Road Table at Morocco, our current Epcot favorite. I was surprised to see that the cast members working at the restaurant were actually from Morocco, given all the current travel restrictions. I’m not sure if these folks are permanent residents or citizens, on a different type of visa, or if Morocco has different travel restrictions than other countries, but it was nice to see some international cast members in World Showcase.

We checked in, and were able to be seated right away. We requested a table outside and they were able to accommodate that. This is always our preference for seating, although the inside area is very nice and pretty open air.

There weren’t a lot of other tables being utilized when we went out, which was nice. They let us bring April’s stroller onto the patio, but I still wanted a high chair because eating in her stroller is not ideal. They brought one out and we wiped it down just to be safe.

I bought these disposable placemats at Publix and they were a great investment. I do have a tip if you use them, though. Always make sure the end closest to the child dips slightly over the edge of the table. Otherwise, as you can see here, there’s still room for them to store food directly on the table surface, which of course goes against the point of the tablecloths. Oh well. After this, we got wiser. We gave April some snack puffs to keep her occupied while we waited for drinks and food, and she decided the container itself was entertaining enough.

This dinner marked the first of many times during this trip my dad attempted to get a dark beer. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it in previous reports, but he loves dark beer more than any other kind of beer, and is always disappointed by the lack of it at Disney. I imagine a dark, heavy beer isn’t a super popular option for people dealing with heat and humidity, but that has never deterred him. Sadly now with the pandemic, menu options have been further curtailed and dark beer is even harder to find. He will always order whatever the waitperson says is the darkest beer on the menu, and he is almost always disappointed by it. I can’t remember what he ordered this time, but I think he had a similar experience.

I ordered a red sangria, which I ordered when we dined here last February, and I was very pleased with my choice. It was tasty, refreshing, and the perfect way to start a vacation.

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Before our food arrived, I held April a bit, as I knew if she stayed in her high chair for too long she'd get fussy. She was fascinated with my hat.

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For food, we ordered the same thing we got on last year's fall trip, so I’m just going to steal pictures of them since we both forgot to take pictures this time. We got the vegetarian sampler (hummus fries, babaganoush, vegetable couscous, grape leaves, and pita chips, though it looks like last year they were soft slices of pita bread), and the mixed grill (chicken and beef skewers, green beans, and fried potatoes). Dad was worried it would be too much food for us, but I wasn’t. I was ravenous, and we ate it all. We also shared some of it with April. She got to try the babaganoush, and we also took the skin off a couple of potato slices so she could eat the bits underneath. Looks like we also let her try a green bean, although I'm sure she just gummed on it.

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It was a really delicious meal as always. Towards the end, as is usual for her, April started getting fussy. It was close to her naptime, so I took her out of the high chair and tried to sing to her to get her ready to go down to sleep. This was how well it went.

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I held her while Dad settled the bill, then I put her in her stroller and reclined the seat and covered the top to encourage her to sleep. A few minutes later, she finally gave into sleep.

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By the time we left Spice Road Table, it was starting to get a little bit crowded on the patio, so I was really glad we’d decided to eat early. We made our way around World Showcase towards Mexico, just enjoying the sights. It was pretty empty.

We passed by Norway. The line for Frozen was pretty long, plus I didn’t want to wake April up from her nap, so we decided to skip it, along with Mexico as well. We were resigned that we wouldn’t be able to go into any buildings while April was asleep, but as we passed Mexico, Dad finally thought to ask what was open and what we could do. I opened the MDE app to check.

And that’s when I discovered, nothing was open. Because while we were walking, Epcot had closed! The park actually closed at 7, mere minutes before I checked my phone. I had no idea until just then. My dad teased me about it. How could I, the family Disney expert, not know that the park was closing early? My only excuse was that this is a weird year, man. Park hours seemed to be changing daily. Also, I thought it was weird that there wasn’t any sort of announcement that the park was closing. Especially at Epcot, where the fireworks are usually what signal the end of the day, you would think they would have another way for guests to know when it was time to leave.

But oh well, nothing we could do about it now. At least we’d gotten a nice dinner. We kept walking around World Showcase, deciding to make the full loop before getting back onto the Skyliner.

We stopped briefly at the popcorn cart in Canada. It was closed, but there was still a cast member there. Dad just wanted to make sure they were still serving maple popcorn during park hours, since we are obsessed with that maple popcorn. We were worried they had stopped serving it during the pandemic, but we were delighted to hear that was not the case. We had another Epcot day on our schedule, so we looked forward to coming back and getting some on that day.

Next we stopped briefly at the UK pavilion. My dad wanted to get some mayonnaise for our hard boiled eggs. He asked a cast member where he might find some, and they suggested he ask at the bar in the Rose & Crown, which was still open. So he ducked in there to check it out while I waited on the sidewalk with the stroller.

While I waited, I witnessed a disturbing interaction, which will become relevant again in a moment. A group of four young adults were at a table on the sidewalk on the other side of the street (in front of the shops). Maybe late high school, early college age. Two of them, a boy and a girl, were having an argument. The boy was towering over the girl, using an aggressive stance, while the girl was being firm but I could tell she was rattled. I couldn’t make out what they were saying or arguing about, but it was one of those things where you can tell what the emotions were, and whose side you’d take if you had to. After a moment, the boy stormed off.

Shortly after, Dad came back out. He didn’t get his precious mayo, but he had packets of all sorts of other condiments like tartar sauce and vinegar. The mayo quest continued.

We went up the hill and then down again through the International Gateway exit. A line was starting to form for the Skyliner, but it was moving pretty quickly. Not long after we got in line, April woke up, and I noticed that the person in front of us was the boy from the argument I’d just seen.

Let me tell you, I was diligent about following the distance markers throughout our trip, but never so much as I was here. I hadn’t told Dad what I’d seen after he came out of Rose & Crown, and I wasn’t about to tell him right now. I was really grateful that we had to keep that distance between us and other parties, because up close this boy only looked more disturbed. He was staring at his phone, obviously angry. I felt really bad for the girl he’d argued with. I didn’t know if she was his girlfriend or what, but I’ve dealt with enough angry boys in my life to know when to stay away. Not that I think he would have done anything, but it was just something about him that skeeved me out and made me want to make sure we didn’t interact with him.

We got on our Skyliner car and once we were safely isolated, I told Dad about the boy and why I’d been so keen to make sure we stayed away from him. He understood, and commended my diligence.

Next up, our Riviera evening!
 
We gave half of it to some friends of ours, who also made food and gave us half.

That's a great idea! We live in the same town as our parents, so never have to cook holiday meals, but love this idea!

I used Ree Drummond's citrus brine and roasting recipes and they were a big hit.

We do a turkey fry at the farm sometimes and brine, will def look this one up!

as my in-laws seem to have contracted Covid, and my sister up in New York has also tested positive.

Oh no! Hope everyone continues to recover x

e'll keep to ourselves and the beach should be pretty empty.

Sounds like fun, I would love to be somewhere warm with a beach!

We had decided not to do online check-in, in the hope against hope that we could sweet talk and hint our way into a one bedroom upgrade.

We've done this when we've checked in at hotels in Vegas before...sometimes it has worked for free, sometimes offered at cost like you

April is definitely going through a phase right now where she usually wants me instead of anyone else (which makes working from home extra fun). My dad reported he had been able to keep her entertained for a few minutes, but when she finally realized I wasn’t in the room, she got mad.

Oh I remember those days for sure!

a picture of the view from our balcony

Very nice!

Spice Road Table at Morocco

I've only been to Epcot once (crazy I know, but we are from the west coast so more of DL people) and we at in Morocco- it was pretty empty and the food was sooo good!

the first of many times during this trip my dad attempted to get a dark beer.

will always order whatever the waitperson says is the darkest beer on the menu, and he is almost always disappointed by it.

So my FIL (and now my husband) will usually ask the waitress to surprise him, but mention he prefers dark beers...yet he is surprised when he gets a light beer..ongoing saga

A few minutes later, she finally gave into sleep.

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Yay! what a good girl, sleeping in her stroller!

ted, I witnessed a disturbing interaction, which will become relevant again in a moment. A group of four young adults were at a table on the sidewalk on the other side of the street (in front of the shops). Maybe late high school, early college age. Two of them, a boy and a girl, were having an argument. The boy was towering over the girl, using an aggressive stance, while the girl was being firm but I could tell she was rattled. I couldn’t make out what they were saying or arguing about, but it was one of those things where you can tell what the emotions were, and whose side you’d take if you had to. After a moment, the boy stormed off.

Yikes, that sounds scary indeed, hopefully they settled it ok!

Looking forward to more, who knows when we will ever get back to Disney!
 
Looking forward to more, who knows when we will ever get back to Disney!

Thanks for following along! I hope we can all get back to normal soon. I love DL and would love to get back there in the next few years.
 
The Skyliner right now is pretty much the only form of Disney transportation I feel comfortable using, since every family gets their own car. But I do look forward to using boats and monorails again in the future.

That's a plus. I have been wondering what the transportation is like these days.

I’m not sure if these folks are permanent residents or citizens, on a different type of visa, or if Morocco has different travel restrictions than other countries, but it was nice to see some international cast members in World Showcase.

I wonder if they stayed in the US this whole time or if they were able to go home and get back? I know they are allowing travel for work and school so maybe that is how they did it...Still, it's got to be a tough time for them.

Especially at Epcot, where the fireworks are usually what signal the end of the day, you would think they would have another way for guests to know when it was time to leave.

That must have been really strange. You would think they would at least announce something.
 
Interlude: A Palm Coast weekend getaway

I wanted to share some pictures and a mini-report from our first vacation as a family. We recently did a long weekend in Palm Coast, a beach town on the east coast of Florida, between St. Augustine and Daytona Beach. We rented a really cool Airbnb that was built out of a mobile home. It was a really awesome location; one block from the river and less than a mile to the ocean. Here are some pictures of where we stayed (all from the listing). I would definitely recommend this for a couple; technically it’s only got one bed so once April gets big enough for her own bed we would need to stay somewhere else, otherwise I would really love to stay here again. It’s also dog friendly and the hosts don’t charge an extra pet fee. If you’re interested, PM me and I’ll be glad to share the link to the listing with you!

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On our first day, we got settled and went to look at the ocean. The Airbnb hosts provide bikes, but we don’t have a baby trailer so we drove. It was too cold to really go in the water, but it was beautiful to look at.
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There was an outdoor wine and cheese bar pretty much right next to the house. Most nights we listened to the music from our yard, but that night we went to get some wine and charcuterie. It was delicious.
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We also built a fire that night and roasted marshmallows.



On day two, Alex got up early to see the sunrise. I wish I’d gone, but at least he got some great pictures.
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We took advantage of the two person kayak the hosts offer and took April on the Mantanzas River. She did pretty well until she woke up from her nap and then just wanted out of there. But we still had a really nice time overall.
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Day three, we all woke up early to try to see the sunrise again, but it wasn’t nearly as nice, and also very cold ☹

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We went to Washington Oaks State Park and looked at some gorgeous gardens. We also had a picnic. I’m a foodie at heart, but there’s just something about eating a simple turkey sandwich with your family outdoors.

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We also got some more beach time in. We went to see the sunset on a bridge overlooking the beach near the house.

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The Airbnb had a record player, so we played some records that night. April really got into it.


Our last morning, I went myself to try to get one last sunrise look in, but the clouds obscured it too much. I will long regret not waking up with Alex that first morning!



Hope you enjoyed this brief interlude! Next up, we return to our regularly scheduled report.
 
That sunrise!!! :love:My goodness, it looked so beautiful from the pics. We really like that area of the Florida coast. We stayed just south of St. Augustine two years ago and loved it. Beautiful beach. Looks like you guys had a great time :)
 

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