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

[Tinker326]

Oh, the refresh on the BCV rooms is so nice! I was so disappointed in the resort because of the 1980's country rooms when we stayed there. Almost made me NOT want to stay there ever again (except for that awesome location!). Now it would be back on my radar! Nice!

Everyone I know who did the August MNSSHP had massive rain this year. I know two other families with the same story. That is stinky when you pay so much money for the event. Hopefully the rest of the evening turns for you guys!

Love the costumes!

 

[skier_pete]

Oh, the refresh on the BCV rooms is so nice! I was so disappointed in the resort because of the 1980's country rooms when we stayed there. Almost made me NOT want to stay there ever again (except for that awesome location!). Now it would be back on my radar! Nice!

Everyone I know who did the August MNSSHP had massive rain this year. I know two other families with the same story. That is stinky when you pay so much money for the event. Hopefully the rest of the evening turns for you guys!

Love the costumes!

Yeah, I still don't think they have a great "beach" feel, but I do like the way they did the rooms, and it was MUCH better than the run-down looking room we stayed in back in 2015. As I said in an earlier post, having now stayed at Boardwalk twice I really much prefer Boardwalk over BC, but we did enjoy our stay quite a bit.

I can't give away what happened with the rain yet...gotta build suspense! Sooon...

 

[Lesley Wake]

We again didn’t get our request, which was near the elevator, and instead got “almost the farthest point from the elevator we could possibly put you.”
However, to make up for that – this was our view:





So that’s the land pavilion in the front, with Soarin’ sort of sitting on the right. Then Spaceship Earth, and beyond that the new Guardians of the Galaxy coaster. The girls were so excited by this they almost looked up from their phones.

Do you mind me asking which room number you had? I'm staying at BCV and that could be an awesome view!

 

[skier_pete]

Do you mind me asking which room number you had? I'm staying at BCV and that could be an awesome view!

Yup - easy to remember because it was Room 3-6-9. Check out link below to see where it was. As I said, couldn't have been a much longer walk (only 4 rooms further from the elevators) but really isn't that big a resort so mostly not an issue. (PITA for refillable mugs, though.)

https://*******.com/dvc-information...villas/parkinfo2go-maps-of-beach-club-villas/

 

[franandaj]

I'm so far behind, I'll just check in that I'm caught up. I'm looking forward to eating at Beaches and Cream next March! Nice comfy costumes!

 

[skier_pete]

I'm so far behind, I'll just check in that I'm caught up. I'm looking forward to eating at Beaches and Cream next March! Nice comfy costumes!

We definitely went with a plan that was "It is ungodly hot and humid here and we are going to be comfortable damn the costumes!"

 

[skier_pete]

Day 5 - MNSSHP for reals...

Now let me make a confession – I HATE these hard ticket events. I really can’t blame Disney for doing them, but they are awful for the park goers – and the masses are too busy to line up to pay for them to notice. First – the “Special events” have bigger crowds than the regular park days much of the time. The ride waits are short, but that’s because people aren’t there for the ride. Instead, you get just huge crowds for everything else. Then, by putting these events 4 times a week, they are vastly reducing the amount of time available for the MK to non-ticket holders. When we come in the fall, we get to choose only 3 nights a week that the park is available at night. In addition, I think Disney has cut late night park hours because of it. So you never get to hang out in the park late – unless you are willing to pay $75-100 extra for the privilege. And lastly, buying season passes like we do, I know that I am only paying $25 a day for my park tickets – yet I have to pay 3-4 times more for a mere 5 hours in the park. In addition, the two times we came (once for MNSSHP and once for MVMCP) DD was a complete terror. The Christmas party especially when she was 10 was awful. She threw a temper tantrum and wanted to go home right at 7 PM. We managed to get her calmed down after a while, but when the crowds were so huge for the fireworks (at 9 PM) she went crazy again and insisted she wanted to go home – and this was her idea to go to the party. So I ended up at the party all by myself for the rest of the evening.

So, for all that, why are we doing this? Well, three reasons: (1) DD and BFF really wanted to do the Halloween party. And admittedly it’s a good limited period of time to let the girls go off on their own. (2) DW offered to pay for the tickets, so if the party sucks I wouldn’t feel I wasted my money and (3) being an early party, I thought the crowds might be more manageable – AND they were only charging us $70 a ticket with the DVC discount.

So – I was DETERMINED that I was not going to let anything bring me down for this party – but the weather right off the bat was trying it’s best. We basically got shorted 2 hours of planned party time because we didn’t want to walk around drenched in a poncho. We also missed the two FP+ that we had booked for before the party.

So in the end, we walked into the place, and basically told the girls “Meet us at Cosmic Rays at 9:45 PM so that we can watch the fireworks together.” DW and I went to the fire station to get the special Sorcerer card. (Note I kept my camera in my bag for much of the early part of the party – so photos are pretty spotty. )

Anyways, we got our card and decided to head towards Fantasyland. We stopped for trick or treating at a few stops. Here is my greatest complaint. We spent more time waiting in line for Treats than anything. Our first stop was at Mickey’s Philharmagic. It probably took us 10 minutes to get through the line. In the end, there was two treat stations in there, but we got maybe 3-4 candies at each treat station, and to wait 10 minutes to get a handful of candy? We ended up going to probably 6 treat stations all night, and only one of them was a 1-2 minute wait, most were at least 5 minutes of winding through a line. By the end of the night, DW was very disappointed in our “haul” because she wanted a bag overflowing with treats, but she also didn’t want to wait in some of the massive lines we saw. I also pointed out to her that $70 will buy you a lot of treats if that’s really what you came for. On the bright side, the candy was of higher quality than the last time we came (in 2010).

So after the first treat, we saw Peter Pan had a 35 minute wait and decided instead to do It’s a Small World. I asked the CM if there are any pirates on board this ride. They said they’re weren’t.








We decided to catch some added Fantasyland rides – we stopped first at Pinocchio’s Village Haus. There was a family that had a “plaid” (CM Tour Guide) who was looking really weary. The family was a bit ahead and we talked to him. Said they’ve been going since 9 AM (!!!) with him. He was a not a jolly CM! Another case of a 5 minute wait for candy.

We next rode Little Mermaid – still no PIRATES! (Though Eric dresses vaguely Piratey.)





There was a candy station at the exit of the ride, but again it was all backed up because one family decided they wanted to chat for 5 minutes with the candy passer out. What’s up with all this! We then rode Pooh – but no pictures here. We wanted to get to ride Pirates before the parade started up, so we headed across to Adventureland. I always like this angle of the castle.



The candy station outside Jungle Cruise was the only one we found that didn’t have a line. Then – we finally found some pirates!





We waited in another 10 minute line for candy. The queues were always moving, but some of them were super long windy queues, and it was all making my feet hurt. We headed eaten anything since lunch, and wanted a bite. Two of the treats for the party had us curious, the madame Leota Tart and the Hitch-hiking ghost crème puff.


I couldn’t get a good photo of the tart that showed the Madame Leota in the crystal ball, but what was weird is that little ball was a chunk of rock candy that was completely impossible to eat. The Ghost crème puff was much better – it actually had a fairly sweet crème filling.


We texted a bit with the girls – they were having fun. They had ridden the Mine Train, and Peter Pan and were now heading towards Pirates (though I am not sure if they ever rode it.) We crossed the parade route again before the first parade started. We then rode Haunted Mansion, and the wait was actually pretty short – maybe 5 minutes. Maybe because of the parade.



We were having an OK time, but it was damp and humid and we were really sweaty. We were planning on meeting up with the girls before the fireworks, so we headed across the park to meet them at Cosmic Rays. Ran into these two ladies at the time.



We all shared a 10 piece chicken nugget before it was time to head out for the fireworks. Hallowishes really needs an update when compared to the regular Happily Ever After. I mean, the fireworks going off all over the park for 30 seconds is neat – but why do they not yet have a projection show for this. I didn’t take any pictures during the fireworks, as I just wanted to enjoy them.

Continued in next post...

 

[skier_pete]

Once this was over, we staked a spot that we thought would be good for both the parade and the stage show. First up was the Villians Spelltacular.






I have to say, this was the biggest surprise of the evening for me. I’m not a big Hocus Pocus fan, as I was already in my mid-twenties when it came out and I always thought it was a slightly goofy but not very good movie – but it seems to be having a moment, and the show they put together was a HUGE improvement over the old villain show. It helped that it used two of my favorites – Dr. Facilier and Oogey Boogey. But, yeah just a real fun show.
Boo to You is a also a great parade, and now with no nighttime parade at the park, it’s the only way to see one. (Yes, I am bitter about the lack of night-time parade.) This is definitely a fun one. The only negative is we didn’t get the headless horseman. I assume the rain earlier was what cancelled that.






Peter Pan seems to be starting to show his age....








Clara Cluck!











In case you didn’t notice this – I always try to get spots for the parade where the castle is in the background of the photos. It was now about 11:40 PM and the girls (including DW) were all tired. I offered to do some more trick or treating, but no one else was interested. So we left with the crowds. Hard to be believe this many people were still packed in the park for this party at this time of night.



So, overall I had probably the best time I’ve ever had at one of these parties, though this was a low bar to hit. I still am not a big fan. Since we did one early in the year, it was only $70+ tax with the DVC discount. Closer to Halloween, they run $125. I cannot help but think I would’ve felt ripped off at that price. We had the first few hours of our time washed out, got a total of 5 rides and then maybe 5 treat stations, followed by the parade, stage show and fireworks. Came out with maybe 30 – 40 candy bars. And it remains WAY TOO CROWDED for an event that you are paying all this extra money for. And this wasn’t even remotely a sold out party. So, to me these parties are really a “one and done” event. I don’t ever need to do this again, or at least not until maybe we have grandkids were tooling around.

So that's it for the night - up next, the short walk to EPCOT!

 

[SweetSerenity]

We did not get to enjoy Magic Kingdom at night at all because of the park closing so early.

I'm glad you enjoyed the party!

 

[skier_pete]

We did not get to enjoy Magic Kingdom at night at all because of the park closing so early.

I'm glad you enjoyed the party!

Another reason I hate the stinking parties. I really enjoy the parks at night a bunch - and they make it so hard to go and enjoy the parks at night.

 

[tammy]

Sounds like a fun night. Awesome pictures. Thanks for sharing!

 

[skier_pete]

Day 6 at Epcot

The plan – which we stuck to – was to have another fairly mellow day after our late night at MNSSHP. WE took our time waking up and getting up in the morning, and eventually made our way into Epcot around 11 AM. Now, I will point out that the next day (Thursday) was scheduled to be the FIRST day of the Food and Wine festival. So, not surprisingly, this was a VERY quiet day at Epcot – probably the LAST quiet day until mid-November.
We basically came into the park through the IG and made our way clock-wise around World Showcase. I did take a few pictures near the IG. In particular, one looking over at the Ratatouille ride, and another at the Gondola station. This is interesting to see when compared to the work 2 months later in October – but you will have to wait another 2 months for that picture!




Also, I have been fascinated by the Riviera resort, and what the views into Epcot are going to be. The building is basically completely framed in at this point, so it’s basically showing just over the tree line to the left of Germany from across the lake. They seem to be doing a good job of making it subtle, while still allowing the resort to have views for the new fireworks show coming in 2019.




There were CM everywhere doing final prep training for the Food and Wine work:



So our first stop was in Mexico – we rode the 3 Caballeros – but I didn’t manage to get any pictures (which is weird I swear I took some.) Perhaps I was too busy drinking my margarita!



We were supposed to have a FP for Frozen Ever After but the ride went down. We actually never even used the FP, so instead we headed to China.






We went in and watched the circlevision movie. Definitely feels like it could use an upgrade – like most of Epcot!

Next up was a quick DISmeet, where we met up with @TheMaxRebo and his young daughter. We had joked we were going to have a beer and complain about all the sight-lines of all the new Epcot projects. We did do the former, but not the latter.




We found that Frozen was STILL down, and we still had about an hour before our lunch reservation at Via Napoli, so we decided to make our way over to the American Adventure, much to the bemoaning of our two young charges. (BORING!) On the way, we met some more trainees. We joked that we were going to come back in October and see if they were all still so fresh faced after two months of working the food and wine booths! We thought about it, but didn’t have a print of the picture to really do this.



We also stopped for a quick drool at Caramel Kuchen





My one less than interesting shot at AA


Once we were done with this show, it was time for lunch at Via Napoli. Disney pizza in general is somewhere between awful (most of it) and passable (the flatbread pizzas) but Via Napoli is the one place you get genuinely good pizza. We started our with Arrencetti (forgive me spelling) which are fried balls of rice and meat, and they are yummy.



We ordered a large (1 meter) pizza with pepperoni and half mushrooms. One thing I like about Via Napoli, though the pizza is expensive, this one $35 pizza fed the all four of us, so overall it wasn’t too bad. Of course we also got a bottle of wine as well.



Everyone enjoyed the pizza a lot, especially our guest teen – who ended up gobbling down I think 5 pieces on her own! We didn’t leave one crumb behind. There wasn’t much room for dessert, but DW wanted to try the blood orange gelato, which she enjoyed very much.



Once we were done with the pizza everyone was full, and it was very hot out. I can’t remember for sure, but I THINK we just proceeded back to the Beach Club. The girls didn’t even feel much like swimming so we just hung out in the room for a while. In fact, the girls didn’t even want to go back into the park in the evening because it started raining again when we were in our room and didn’t stop until probably about 7:30 PM – so DW and I went out on our own. We weren’t all that hungry after dinner, but we decided to eat at Tangerine Café, since we rarely get to eat there since we are always doing food and wine and don't end up eating there.




After that, we went out to watch Illuminations – which had not yet been announced as closing. But the park was so empty, we were able to walk right up to the railing between France and Morrocco and watch the whole show. I even livestreamed it on facebook! Once the show was over, we headed back to the room.

Step totals: 10,818 steps (4.2 miles).
Next up - Day 7 and throw ALL the plans out the window!!!

 

[SweetSerenity]

The Arancini is certainly delicious!

Do you enjoy The Beach Club from the DVC side? Just asking for a friend.

 

[skier_pete]

The Arancini is certainly delicious!

Do you enjoy The Beach Club from the DVC side? Just asking for a friend.

We have found we like Boardwalk better than Beach Club. Beach Club is a nice resort, but I find that the DVC portion of it feels very "off in the back" which I don't really like. Stormalong Bay is great with kids, but honestly to me wasted on adults. far and away is the walk to Epcot is SOOOO close - which makes it really fun to just duck out of the end of the resort and be at Epcot. Really it's very nice and I would never complain about staying there, but it's not my #1. (I think I ranked the resorts at the end of my February trip report.)

 

[khertz]

I'm glad you mostly enjoyed the party and the rain didn't disrupt it too much. We love the Halloween parties, but it is definitely becoming increasingly difficult to justify that cost for just a few hours in MK. The parade is really excellent! I still haven't seen HEA in person, so the Hallowishes fireworks still do it for me. lol I love the pic of you & DW in front of the Pirates ride!

Hey, you got to meet @TheMaxRebo ! Only one degree of separation between us now!!

Touring Epcot the day before Food & Wine starts is kind of brilliant. I'll have to keep that in mind if we are ever there that time lol

 

[skier_pete]

I'm glad you mostly enjoyed the party and the rain didn't disrupt it too much. We love the Halloween parties, but it is definitely becoming increasingly difficult to justify that cost for just a few hours in MK. The parade is really excellent! I still haven't seen HEA in person, so the Hallowishes fireworks still do it for me. lol I love the pic of you & DW in front of the Pirates ride!

Hey, you got to meet @TheMaxRebo ! Only one degree of separation between us now!!

Touring Epcot the day before Food & Wine starts is kind of brilliant. I'll have to keep that in mind if we are ever there that time lol

I think we already had one degree separation with the podcast crew, but I mentioned to him knowing you guys, and never meeting -yet. One of these days....

 

[2xcited2sleep]

All caught up! It was very nice to meet you last month at the tequila lunch! I feel like there was a ton I wanted to comment on but have forgotten. I’m sad I didn’t do the Halloween party this year if Hallowishes is going away. Fun to do a split stay. Beach Club is my home resort but I think I agree that I actually like Boardwalk better. The room decor isn’t great but SO much better than it was. How fun to be there for the start of the festival and to have a DISmeet. I love Via Napoli pizza too. I see a lot of complaints about it though and I wonder what kind of pizza those that hate it are used to.

 

[skier_pete]

All caught up! It was very nice to meet you last month at the tequila lunch! I feel like there was a ton I wanted to comment on but have forgotten. I’m sad I didn’t do the Halloween party this year if Hallowishes is going away. Fun to do a split stay. Beach Club is my home resort but I think I agree that I actually like Boardwalk better. The room decor isn’t great but SO much better than it was. How fun to be there for the start of the festival and to have a DISmeet. I love Via Napoli pizza too. I see a lot of complaints about it though and I wonder what kind of pizza those that hate it are used to.

Hey there! I went "looking" for you on the boards to say thank you for introducing yourself - but I guess I wasn't getting your screen-name spelled right - I didn't realize it was "no-E". Glad you stopped by to say hi. I actually have started writing my TR for that report (and I've completed this one) but I am posting over a period of time. I should get this one wrapped in the next month or so and then I have to say that was quite a kick to have you say "I recognize you from your trip report." I tried to convince DD that I was "internet famous" but she wasn't buying it!

I have not heard that Hallowishes is going to change at all - I wasn't trying to imply that. I was just suggesting that I am surprised with all the projection stuff they are doing now that they haven't incorporated the projections into Hallowishes. I guess why spend more money to improve something that they keep raising the prices on yet people go more and more.

And don't get me wrong, Beach Club is a wonderful resort - I just really like the atmosphere of the Boardwalk to go for a stroll at night - it feels like they struck a real nice balance between the reality of theme and the Disney version. Plus of course Jellyrolls.

Yeah I don't get hating on Via Napoli pizza. It's doesn't hit the NY thin crust buttons exactly, but is really good for a oven-fired pizza and quite honestly it is pretty on-par with the pizza we had when we were in Italy. The rest of WDW pizza is awful though.

 

[skier_pete]

Day 7:

SO today was an interesting day – due to some unforeseen circumstances that I won’t get into here, we had originally planned today to go to a water park for the day, but at the last minute – as in when we woke up in the morning, the decision was made to switch our water park day to Saturday (two days from now), and instead “move up” our DHS day.

Well, if you are a regular Disney-goer - and most people probably reading this TR are - then you KNOW that Disney plans are not well set up to change. The good news was that our Slinky Dog FP was on Day #8, not Day #9, so our FP for Saturday that we were losing out on only included Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, and Indiana Jones. The bigger deal perhaps was that we were losing out on our ADR for Sci-Fi. But we thought maybe we could make that work as well. The final issue was that we had a session at the VOID (Star Wars VR) at Disney Springs at 4 PM, and also a dinner reservation at Yachtsman’s in the evening (around 7 PM) for myself and DW, and we couldn’t give up either of those.
Well, this decision was only made about 8:45 AM, so we were already missing out on doing rope drop, so the first challenge was to manage to move over our FP+. I started to work on this as we walked down to the boat. In fact, getting Star Wars and Indiana Jones certainly wasn’t very difficult. And it turned out even TSM wasn’t that hard. I quickly got a late day FP around 3 PM (which wouldn’t work) but I was able to gradually move that FP up to around 1 PM by persistently updated the app. Never managed to get it moved earlier. Dangit!! By the time we got off the boat to the Studios, my plans were all set! I had time to take a photo of the skyliner station. Should be interesting when these are running all over the area.



It was just about 10 O’clock as we were walking into the park



So first up we headed to our Star Tours FP+. Standby was I think about 20 minutes, not real bad.


I always think how few people actually look up at this AT-AT. It’s a pretty impressive sight, but seems to be generally ignored.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2b7RN64]

Star Tours Selfie – we got the Jakku/Crait ride, landing in the Black Spire Outpost (Coming to a theme park near you in 2019.)


Everyone likes a speeder shot!


Though I decided to do a quick search to find her first speeder shot. It wasn’t until 2011 when she was 8, but still a cute difference shot!


BFF I only have the one!


Once the ride was over, we decided to stop by the Sci-Fi Dine In Drive In and see if we had any chance to get a table. They actually said they could take us right away! It was only about 10:30 AM, but we had only had breakfast in our room, so we decided to go for it.




They put us in a car in the back – not one that faced forwards, but one that was sideways, but I was in no place to complain.






Tom never gets poor Jerry!



I forgot exactly what was on my burger – it was the special. It had like a Fried peppers or something and was VERY tasty. I also could not resist having a shake.


DW had the Falafel Burger, which she liked a lot.


DD had the oven roasted turkey sandwich.


BFF had the chicken fingers. She also tried a shake. They weren’t as big as they used to be giving you the whole tin cup, but still pretty good.


Everyone liked their meals. The food is nothing special, but the entertainment is fun. Some of my favorite old cheesy sci-fi movies get trailers shown. A great one is “It conquered the World” with Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, and Lee Van Cleef.




Then you have the Amazing Colossal Man. “What sins could a man commit in a single lifetime….”


Then of course the great Ed Wood’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space”.



TO be continued in next post...[/url]https://flic.kr/p/29JY7mWhttps://flic.kr/p/29JY7mWhttps://flic.kr/p/29JY7mW

 

[skier_pete]

Day 7 continued...

After we had eaten, we had our FP for Indiana Jones. We were a tad disappointed though when they had to cut the show short because it had rained while were in the Sci-Fi. So we got to see the first stunt scene, the volunteers shtick, and then that was it. Bummer!




Next we did Muppets 3-D. DD never wants to see this because it’s 3D, but we used the BFF card to watch it.





I am afraid that it will be going away once SW land opens, this attraction will go the way of the dodo. Disney just doesn’t seem to know what to do with the muppets. (The movie launch stalled, and the TV show was DOA. I think they are planning a new version on the streaming service, but what REALLY bothers me is the complete utter lack of Muppets merchandise in the exit store. Literally two things available – a stuffed Kermit and stuffed Animal. That’s it. IF Disney can’t sell merchandise for something, you know it’s not long for this earth. Since then, they put PizzaRizzo to a seasonal operation even though it JUST opened 2 years ago. Not a good sign.
With that, we got everyone a frozen treat and headed for Toy Story Land.


[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bpx6PW]



Woody, Jessie, and Buzz were all out greeting.



Before we had to use our FP, we decided to try the Alien Swirling Saucers.



Coming soon to a theme park near you…




Head on over to MK for a smaller version!


There’s slinky Dog! Won’t get on that for 2 more days!



Happy buy maybe a bit sweaty…





This is a fun little ride. Many think it’s the same as the tea cups. (That’s what the girls said.) but it’s really not. This is a “whip” ride, where the front of the ride – the alien – is on a fixed figure 8 track, while the ride vehicle itself whips out behind it. It’s a pretty basic amusement ride, but this is the first whip to appear in WDW in its 47 years of existence, which alone is pretty impressive.
Once we rode this we were in our FP window. Always happy to ride TSMM with my sweetheart.



On our way out of TSL – there was some entertainment going on with the green army men.



Really enjoyed the new land! There’s definitely a level of fun and playfulness near that makes for a great family atmosphere. I think once you have the other things in this park open and the TSL is not the main focus, the lines will actually run pretty reasonable in length and it will be a great place for the kids. The one mistake I think they made is not including some sort of play area where kids can run around in.

Next time - The VOID and some steak...[/url]https://flic.kr/p/29JWr37https://flic.kr/p/29JWr37https://flic.kr/p/29JWr37