TR Bonus - 10/20-24/18 "I hope you like pictures of food” - New TR LINK added 3/12

[skier_pete]

Added on January 12, 2019 - we have decided to combine two trips into one TR. DW and I travelled to Disney for 5 days - October 20 to 24th, 2018. This trip followed one in August of the same year, which is covered on the first 7 pages of this trip report. If you just want to read the 2nd one - then skip to HERE. on page 7 of this TR.


Good day, friends, and welcome to yet another trip report from our small family. I get lazier and lazier with these intros, but really what you need to know at this stage is that I am the original Disney addict in the family, going every year with my grandparents to Florida and having many dreams of Disney. After DW and I married we went twice before our daughter was born and stayed off-site, but it was a fateful trip in 2006 when we stayed on-site when she was 3.5 that got us hooked. We’ve been back most years since then at least once, in 2010 twice, and THIS year this is our 3rd trip out of 4 in twelve months thanks to DVC and APs. This is DW and mine 16th Disney trip, and our 12th as a threesome, not including DLR and one Disney Cruise.

One difference on this trip. DD15 has always been stuck hanging with her parents only, and while we are a close family that get along well, she’s asked many times to have friends come along. We’ve tried this in the past, but have not been successful at finding friends to come along. Well, this year we were able to invite her best friend along as well. We will just call her BFF for the purposes of this report, but they are both 15 and go to the same school and make a pretty good pair. This is BFFs second time to WDW – she went in 2017 with her family. They had the usual first-time experience of trying to pack it all in (including Universal) in a week – but of course couldn’t see everything, so we wanted to try and get her to a few things she missed and repeat some favorites. We hoped we could show her a good time, and that the two of them would not hate each other by the end of the trip. She is a HUGE Stitch fan, so we could not help but fit an O’Hana breakfast into our plans! (BFF is the one in the Stitch shirt.) having the two girls allowed us to give them a little bit of freedom in the parks, but also freedom to just hang at the resort as well.



We got to split our trip between Animal Kingdom Lodge and Beach Club, which getting into Beach Club is a real coupe for anyone that owns DVC. We also were going to give the Halloween party a try for the first time since 2010, and hoping for a better experience than we had then. So, if you want to follow along friends, please do - There's a Never Land waiting for you.

 

[skier_pete]

Table of Contents - yet to come

Day 1 - Arrival at AKL - LINK

Day 2 - MK morning start to trip LINK
Day 2 - O'Hana Lunch LINK
Day 2 - Return to MK for evening LINK

Day 3 - Blizzard Beach - LINK
Day 3 - Animal Kingdom with FP - LINK

Day 4 - Early EMH at AK - these lines are nuts! - LINK
Day 4 - Meet up with friends at AK & Sanaa Lunch - LINK
Day 4 - First night at Epcot - LINK

Day 5 - Move to Beach Club + Beaches and Cream - LINK
Day 5 - MNSSHP - Part 1 - LINK
Day 5 - MNSSHP - Part 2 - LINK

Day 6 - First night at Epcot - LINK

Day 7 - Change of plans - DHS - LINK
Day 7 - Toy Story land - DHS - LINK
Day 7 - THe Void & Yachtsman's Steakhouse - LINK

Day 8 - EMH @ Magic Kingdom - LINK
Day 8 - Be OUR guest - LINK
Day 8 - Return to DHS for Slink Dog - LINK

Day 9 - Typhoon Lagoon with a little Food and Wine - LINK

Day 10 - Epcot on the last day - LINK

October 20-24th report
Day 1 - We are now entering the food zone - LINK
Day 1 - More food and more drink - LINK

 

[skier_pete]

Day 1:

Though I sort of loathe the heat of the summer at the Disney Parks, the one advantage of us going at the end of August is that our school system does not return to school until after labor day, so we’ve found the week before labor day to be a fairly low crowd week, but of course it is also not the best weather week. We were originally planning to arrive on Saturday morning, but when we ended up booking our flights, it turned out to be significantly cheaper to arrive on Saturday night. We didn’t want to take a whole day off on Friday – so we had a 5PM flight and took a ½ day from work. This was the first time BFF had flown since she was a little kid, so she was a bit nervous about the flight, but in the end the flight was pretty uneventful which of course we were all very grateful for.

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Our flight left home at around 5 PM and got to MCO around 7:40 PM. We didn’t waste anytime and skipped off the plane to be swept off to the monorail.

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Our ME bus only had to wait maybe 10 minutes before we were loaded. Ours was the fourth stop though after stopping at the three all-stars, it really wasn’t that bad though, and we were walking into Jambo house at about 8:50 PM, a mere 70 minutes after deplaning!

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We had enough points to go with a Savannah view room, but my room request didn’t even come in close. I asked for rooms that would have been on the Arusha savannah and pretty convenient to the pool, we were put well down the hallway in room 5269. While this was a bit disappointing, we weren’t ALL the way on the end, so I guess that was OK.

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The family knows I like to get pictures of the room. Pretty common room look for AKV – this is our fourth stay now at our second “home”.

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DD tried to stop me from getting pictures.

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I like the little kitchette that DVC studios all have.

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We had planned to go swimming when we arrived, so we got out our suits. DW wanted to stay in the room. Surprisingly, this was the only time DD and BFF went swimming, as DD had picked this resort specifically for the pool. We went down to the pools for about an hour. They had a great time, yet this was the only time we got down to the pool the whole stay – and there was plenty of time to do so. The lesson: Gadgets trump pools anytime.

When we got back to the room the luggage had arrived. Once we folded out the sofa bed and spread out the bags there was not a lot of extra room, but it was manageable. We were to be here for 4 nights, and were excited to start the trip the next day.

We also had our first dose of one of our favorite snacks – Zebra domes!

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Coming up next – first day at MK.
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[skier_pete]

Day 2: Magic Kingdom

We had all the best intentions this morning to get to the park for rope drop. We woke and not surprisingly it was SO humid but we got down to the bus stop with plenty of time to spare (probably 8:10 AM) after having breakfast in our room.



That’s when I discovered my stupid rookie mistake. When I had sorted out the gift cards and my cash to put in the safe, I had accidently put my DVC, AP and most importantly my Tables in Wonderland card in the safe instead of into my wallet. Since we were going to a late breakfast at O’Hana, I needed that card. So I told everyone else to continue to the park, and I went back to the room. I managed to get back in time for the very next bus. (You can track the buses on the DMS APP from the resort.) But there was no way I was going to make it in time for rope drop. The great thing is with phones I was able to keep them informed. I suggested they get some Photopass photos in front of the castle, and that I would meet them by Big Thunder. So, that’s why I didn’t make it into any of the castle pix this morning. The PP person must’ve really been happy to have a group that wasn’t in a hurry to leave – they did all sorts of poses!









I arrived at the park and was just getting to security at 9 AM, so really maybe not too bad. The only negative is that we were only in the park for about 90 minutes before we had to head over for our ADR, so I hated losing even 10 minutes, so I booked through the park on our way over to the ride. There’s always time for snaps though!







It’s always a good day when there’s a castle in the picture.



There was a HUGE line of people waiting to get the new Funko pop Splash Mountain figure. Maybe 200-300 people. Crazy. Other than that – 10 minutes after rope drop and Frontierland is deserted!




Soon enough – it was time for the “Wildest Ride in the Wilderness!”



We followed that up with a ride up and down Chick-a-pin Hill




Splash Mountain Selfie!!!






And down we go!!!


There was this “model girl” standing in front of Splash making this real pose. I told the girls that they should pose the same as her.


We were originally planning to try and get 5 rides in before heading to Ohana, but my late start costs us a bit, and I said we would likely have to forego one to a later time as it was already 9:48 by the time we got off Splash. The 3 were Pirates, HM and JC. The girls picked Pirates and HM, so we headed to Pirates next.


Stand still Jack!


Our first time seeing the new auction scene. Last trip it was the LAST day of the old scene, so we were one of the last few thousand to see it.




Haunted Mansion


Doom Buggy selfie!


The ride stopped for a few minutes at one point. We told the girls we were smooching in our Doom Buggy. They were properly grossed out. (Ah, the rewards of being a parent!) The girls were having a great time, but everyone was getting hungry (not yet hangry) and it was time to get to our breakfast ADR.

Next up - Disney needs to be better than this!!!

 

[rteetz]

Joining in Pete! Looks like a good start so far despite the room request not coming through. AKL is one of those places I have always wanted to stay.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Count me in! Looking forward to hearing about your trip. How nice that your daughter was able to bring her BFF. I bet they had a blast! I think AKL and BCV are the perfect split stay. I adore AKL (too bad your room request wasn't honored) but it's tough to beat BCV - especially during Food & Wine... you definitely scored on that one! I haven't stayed on property since they've added the bus times to the app... I'm really looking forward to that feature. Can't wait to hear more about your trip!

 

[Aimee Wolfe]

My daughter is a huge stitch fan and Ohana's best friend breakfast was the highlight of our trip!

 

[skier_pete]

Joining in Pete! Looks like a good start so far despite the room request not coming through. AKL is one of those places I have always wanted to stay.

Hey thanks for joining in and . I totally love AKL/AKV. The only negative (and it's a minor one) is that it's got pretty long halls - our room location was not the best but there are worse. I would say the worst being the ones on the farthest end of the Kudu and Zebra trails. My other complaint was sort of the lack of animals we had on our bit of savannah - but again a minor complaint. Overall, the walk to the room wasn't terrible except when I would screw up and forget something. (This happened more than once.) I actually think our room location at Beach Club was more inconvenient than the one here.

Count me in! Looking forward to hearing about your trip. How nice that your daughter was able to bring her BFF. I bet they had a blast! I think AKL and BCV are the perfect split stay. I adore AKL (too bad your room request wasn't honored) but it's tough to beat BCV - especially during Food & Wine... you definitely scored on that one! I haven't stayed on property since they've added the bus times to the app... I'm really looking forward to that feature. Can't wait to hear more about your trip!

Thanks for joining in. BCV is definitely tough to beat, though to be honest I think I prefer Boardwalk just slightly depending on how important the pool is to your trip. But yeah, I was a little surprised with the room request. I gave them about 8 different room numbers that I would've liked, and I would've thought that if they were going to not give me the request, then at least they would've put me on the same wing...in the end, it wasn't that big a deal...if it really was, i would've asked for a room change.

My daughter is a huge stitch fan and Ohana's best friend breakfast was the highlight of our trip!

I think the kids had a good time with it, but I would not have called it a highlight due to a few factors. I don't want to spoil my next posts, but I will say that there were some disappointing aspects to our meal.

 

[dnllmz]

Following along! We plan on going during the same week next year so I look forward to hearing how your trip went.

 

[khertz]

Joining in!! Love your pics of AKL. I dream of staying there again one day! Too bad your requests didn't come through though.

Looks like a great first morning so far. Looking forward to seeing how 'Ohana went. We really enjoy the breakfast there.

 

[SweetSerenity]

I'm excited to read your new report! I hope you all had a wonderful time!

 

[Tinker326]

I'm finally back on DIS! And I get to follow along on a trip report! Yhea!!!
So many smiles from the kid... having that friend really works wonders. I gotta try it for our next trip for my non-smiler (ah never mind, I can't even afford the three kids I got anymore, let alone an extra!).

Can't wait to follow along!

P.S- While I def. envy the Disney trip and the AK stay- I do NOT envy that HEAT! I'd wither and melt and die.....

 

[skier_pete]

Following along! We plan on going during the same week next year so I look forward to hearing how your trip went.

I have to say crowds were generally great with a few exceptions. Heat is pretty unbearable.

Joining in!! Love your pics of AKL. I dream of staying there again one day! Too bad your requests didn't come through though.

Looks like a great first morning so far. Looking forward to seeing how 'Ohana went. We really enjoy the breakfast there.

'Ohana is coming right up!!!

I'm excited to read your new report! I hope you all had a wonderful time!

Thank you so much! Hope you enjoy reading along.

I'm finally back on DIS! And I get to follow along on a trip report! Yhea!!!
So many smiles from the kid... having that friend really works wonders. I gotta try it for our next trip for my non-smiler (ah never mind, I can't even afford the three kids I got anymore, let alone an extra!).

Can't wait to follow along!

P.S- While I def. envy the Disney trip and the AK stay- I do NOT envy that HEAT! I'd wither and melt and die.....

Where have you been? Good thing I get to follow along with you on Facebook/Instagram instead.

 

[skier_pete]

As a reminder - we were in MK on our first morning and it was about 10:30 AM. At this point, we had to head out of the park for the Poly. We had an 11:05 AM reservation for breakfast at O'hana.



With two choices, boat or monorail, we went with the monorail.



We got to the Poly about 5 minutes before our reservation, but they were 45 minutes behind on seatings! The lobby was LOADED with people waiting.





We got our pictures with Pluto and then did a little shopping.




I had to get this Trader Sam’s mug shirt:



WE finally got called for seating about when they said - the text I received says it was 11:52 AM. They started us out with some pineapple bread which I thought might have been yucky, but turned out to be tasty.



Stitch came by really early at the beginning. But he really just posed for a quick photo, didn’t even offer to sign our book, and there was maybe 15 seconds of interaction:





WE got fruit plate and eventually the main plate came out.





The food was all very good to excellent - with the exception of the eggs which were typical buffet eggs (kind of runny), even if it took a little long to come out. We had a bit of a debate as to whether the waffles were prepared on site. When going to the bathroom I was able to answer this:


We got seconds on most things seeing as it was afternoon and we had hardly eaten anything today. I would say all the food was goo

While the meal was fine, the character interaction continued to be sub-par. We were there almost an hour and still no other characters – just the Stitch fly by. Finally Lilo made it to our table.



We didn’t even wait for Mickey. We had been here at the Poly between waiting and eating for over 2 hours and it was enough – we had arrived on time for our 11 AM reservation, and it was after 1 PM that we were finally leaving. Overall, I have to give this experience a thumbs down. The food was fine, but it is ridiculous to spend all that money and time, and only really get a good character interaction with one out of the 3 characters in the restaurant. (Realize this breakfast cost us something like $135, and that was with the Tables in Wonderland 20% discount.) I guess what I would say if you want to do this meal, do it closer to the start of the day, and leave yourself at least 2 hours so that you are not disappointed if it takes 90 minutes to get through the character interactions.

We had debated how to return to the resort – we weren’t expecting to spend SOO much time at Ohana. So I decided to see how much it would cost to Lyft back to AKV. It was only like $9.50 – so I was like “Oh yeah, we’re doing it!” We got back to resort in about 15 minutes – we only waited maybe 3 minutes for the ride. It became a regular habit to use lyft around property whenever it would take more than 1 form of transportation to get somewhere. I sort of can’t believe I turned into “that guy” but $7.50 vs a 45-60 minute travel time – yes please!

We went back to the hotel. I was surprised the girls didn’t want to go for a swim. After a nap, I intended to go down for a swim, but unfortunately as I got down there, they closed the pool because of lightning and rain. In the morning we hadn’t seen any animals out on our Savannah, but in the afternoon we had a few:



There were more on the main Savannah





Next up - a return to the Kingdom...

 

[skier_pete]

We were waiting for the rain to stop, so we actually ended up getting back to MK later than we had initially planned, and had to reschedule our first Fastpass (for Peter Pan unfortunately) and moved it later in the evening for Buzz.

So by the time we got to the park, it was time for our NEXT Fastpass, which we weren’t about to miss – it was 7 Dwarves.




Once we were through with that ride, we could already head over to Space Mountain. DD really didn’t want to ride it. (She had ridden Splash against her will.) Before that though – we took our picture with the Incredibles props.



DD walked through the Space Mountain queue but didn’t ride.



They routed us out of the ride through a back door as I guess they were rehabbing the exit ramp. This brought us in the back of the building, which gave us a view of the Tron coaster construction. Certainly not much to see yet!



At this point we decided to get some dinner at Cosmic Rays. We had wanted to give the girls a few hours this evening to themselves, but the whole day falling behind and the rain we really were only able to give them an hour after we eat. But for dinner, both DW and I got the Incrediburger, which was a burger with mozzarella sticks and it was really, really good.



DD got a chicken sandwich.



And BFF ordered the 10 piece chicken nuggets. She didn’t look at us too weird for taking pictures of food.



So we let the girls go out ahead of us. We all had Buzz Lightyear FP, but we didn’t go on it together.



DW just beat me.





WE decided to just get an ice cream because we didn’t really feel there was time to do anything else before the fireworks. However, DW had a bathroom emergency, and the girls apparently decided to do the Laugh Floor, so I was waiting all by myself trying to hold a spot for the fireworks, and people just got squeezed in more and more, and people were being rude, so I ended up moving out, and while they all made it before the fireworks, we watched from the bridge to Tomorrowland and couldn’t really see the castle projections, which was too bad, but it was a good view of the fireworks.







We decided rather than fight the crowds out of there (and it WAS crowded) we would go over and ride the Jungle Cruise that we meant to ride that morning.



It was a good skipper and the jokes were lively, though I admit I don’t really like riding it at night as much. The girls then wanted a dole whip / citrus swirl, and by the time we did that, they were ready to leave.

Total # of rides/attractions: 8 for parents, 9 for girls.
Step totals: 20,350 steps (8 miles)

Next time...Day 2 - "Water park Wedgies are free with admission!"

 

[Tinker326]

It looks like you are boppin' him in the nose! Like "press here for faster Ohana service".

Total bummer about that meal. That has always been one of my favorites (lower price point, good character interaction, good food). We have always gone early though. I feel (and I'm sure it's similar for you guys now too) that the character meals just are not worth it. Our little tweens/teens don't care enough for us to pay that price!

Becca and I had an Incredible Burger in May. We were skeptical but ended up really liking it too!

Great first day! You guys got a ton done in that heat!

 

[tammy]

Yay another report! Your dd is smiling. We did Lyft quite a bit last trip.

 

[skier_pete]

It looks like you are boppin' him in the nose! Like "press here for faster Ohana service".

Total bummer about that meal. That has always been one of my favorites (lower price point, good character interaction, good food). We have always gone early though. I feel (and I'm sure it's similar for you guys now too) that the character meals just are not worth it. Our little tweens/teens don't care enough for us to pay that price!

Becca and I had an Incredible Burger in May. We were skeptical but ended up really liking it too!

Great first day! You guys got a ton done in that heat!

I wish there was a button for faster service! Yeah, I can't say that buffets are top of our list anymore. DW and I both feel like we can no longer eat enough for it to be worth it, and the character interactions aren't nearly as fun as when the kids are little. I kind of miss the food at Crystal Palace, but can't justify the price to see the Pooh characters. I'd rather put that money towards nicer restaurants.

We especially got a ton done when you consider how much time we actuallly spent in the parks. We were there from 9 AM to about 10:30 AM, and then back from 6:30 PM to about 9:30 PM, so really only spend maybe 4.5 hours in MK and yet we still did 8 pretty top tier rides. I also have to point out we did the "MK Mountain" quad, which may be the first time we've done all 3 in one day.

We actually avoided the worst of the heat. Weren't outdoors really from 11 AM to 6 PM.

Yay another report! Your dd is smiling. We did Lyft quite a bit last trip.

She smiled a LOT. I have evidence!

 

[franandaj]

Now it's my turn to be late to the party! I will have to come back and catch up, but at least I finally made it over here to sign on and read along.

 

[indoshakespeare]

it was nice for your daughter to have a friend along especially at that age.