This summer has been crazy, no getting around it. From myself working 50-60 hours a week at
work due to understaffing, to a tree impaling our roof, a damaged door on a
brand new car, a cracked tooth crown, and then our AC completely dying too,
Jeff and I were seriously thinking it was time for a vacation, somewhere,
anywhere. Only problem was it couldn’t
cost too much, even with my overtime our summer of fun had taken pretty much
all of our extra cash. When the August work
schedule came out at the end of July I noticed I had 3 days off in a row,
Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The time
was ripe. Originally we thought about
heading to Universal, but after discussing we decided Disney would be more cost
effective. After all we already had
annual passes, (tickets = $0), Disney offered free transportation through
Magical Express (though we had never used it exclusively), we had free plane
tickets already thanks to Southwest points and Jeff’s Southwest companion
pass, and last Disney had these great
things called value resorts, that wouldn’t break my bank account. Basically all we had to pay for was a cheap
hotel and food. Sounded good.
So the original plan was the fly down Saturday morning and
fly back Monday evening, two full days, two nights. Then Jeff enrolled in a business class, which
had a test Monday night at 5:30… so schedule had to change. Instead we decided to fly down Friday night,
and come back Monday afternoon, it cost an extra night in a hotel… but we were
set we were GOING.
The craziness continues as on the Monday prior to leaving I
head to the doctor, I had been having some really itchy bumps that were
spreading from my hands, to my arms and legs.
I was thinking allergic reaction… I was told Scabies, a highly
contagious bug infestation. Lets just
leave it there. Working the next day,
Tuesday couldn’t happen, ugh. I applied
to treatment cream and hoped it would get better. It didn’t, it got worse. Thursday night I decided to head back to the
doctor, instead of Urgent Care this time though I headed to my primary care
doctor, which I should have done the 1st time. Turns out it wasn’t scabies after all, it was
a skin reaction, mostly to the cream prescribed to treat the scabies, that I
didn’t have. What caused the original
breakout? Will never know. I was
prescribed MORE drugs, this time steroids, and went home HOPING it would get
better, but feeling better that I wasn’t contagious.
Friday finally comes, I go to work, and get off at about
3:30, I head home. Finally things start
moving smoothly as the drive up to the airport, and parking was
uneventful. We flew through Atlanta, and
had a quick connection to Orlando. There
was about a 30-minute delay but by the time we got to Orlando we were only
about 15 minutes late, arriving around 11:45 instead of the scheduled 11:30
pm.
Since this was a “cheap” trip we decided for the first time
ever, not to rent a car and to attempt to use Disney transportation
exclusively. For a lot of people that’s
the norm, but I was a little worried.
From check in, to sitting on the bus (which was about 30 minutes) to the
drive, and check in, to the room was about an hour and a half, which I have
read is about average. We were staying
at All Stars Sports, and had one stop prior, Coronado Springs.
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| The Orlando Airport Terminal Tramway... I love this view. |
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| More Orlando Airport... |
ORIGINALLY, when I had booked our reservation for two nights
it was at Pop Century. However, as I
previously mentioned we had to change it due to Jeff’s class and flew down
Friday night instead, Pop Century wasn’t available for all three nights, so we
chose All Stars Sports instead. This
means my goal of staying at all Disney Resorts is increased by one, and I only
have one more value left to go. (four
total resorts left, Yacht Club, Grand Floridian, Caribbean Beach and All Stars
Music)
I had also previously thought there were no King bed rooms
in the All Stars. After researching I
found out that was not true and put in a request by calling in, as well as
another first, requesting a reservation request fax in through
TouringPlans.com.
We ended up in Building 6, 3rd floor of the
Surf’s Up section (preferred), with a King Bed.
Finally, some good luck.
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| All Stars Sports at Night |
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| Lobby |
It had been about fourteen years since our last stay at all
All Stars (prior to our wedding we stayed at All Stars Movies), and I was
surprised in how small everything was, both from check in, food court, resort,
etc. It was nice that it was small as I
can tell there would never be a long walk to the main building a bus stop
regardless of your room location, I didn’t like it because everything was just
really small.
Room itself was clean, you could tell it was recently
renovated, and had no problems with the room itself. So after being up 20+ hours I went to sleep
quickly around 1:30 am.
Saturday
With only two full days it was going to definitely be an
interesting trip. I had set up FP+ for
both days about two weeks prior and was pretty happy with what I was able to
get. One thing I really liked about FP+
is that we didn’t even wake up until 10:30 am or so, yet we were still able to
get and use three FP+ within just a few hours for some pretty major
headliners. That would have never
happened under the old FP system.
So we knew our plans for today was Magic Kingdom, primarily
because it had late magic hours until 1am the following morning that was the
original plan atleast. We took the quick
walk to the bus stop, and waited. I
noticed immediately the lack of shade over the bus stop, an addition at Pop
Century that I can now fully appreciate.
Seriously, add some shade. We
waited about 10 min before the bus arrived, not bad, and arrived around 11:30. Our first stop was get something to eat, and
decided to stop at our traditional MK stop, Caseys.
I noticed right away that it seemed rather busy, the Main
Street Trolley show had just finished, but it wasn’t a mad house like I
remember the hub to be. Both Jeff and I
were both pleasantly surprised with how well the hub re-design worked at
controlling the crowds during parades, and busy times.
With it being about Noon, our first FP wasn’t until 11:45,
we decided to head that direction, originally we were going to ride TTA first,
but noticed it was either down or had a massive back up, so we headed for our
FP at Space Mountain first. Space
Mountain was… Space Mountain, very short wait.
Our next FP was Splash Mountain.
Instead of heading back over the hub, we decided to head for the train
station in Fantasyland and ride the train to Frontierland. A great plan, but problem was by the time we
got over there… Splash Mountain was down, loaded.
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| Alligator at Magic Kingdom |
I learned two things pretty quick. One, Disney is fabulous at handling stranded
riders. It was sunny and hot and the
park provided umbrellas and bottles of water to those stranded at the base on
the main Splash Mountain drop. Two, that
Disney can pretty much figure out when someone can’t use a FP because of said
ride being down, and sends out an e-mail giving you options immediately to use
your FP instead at any ride that had available FP without having to actually
reschedule. We decided to use it for
Haunted Mansion which had about a 35 minute stand by at the time, one of my all
time favorite (if not absolute favorite) ride.
By this time it was about 3, and it was time for our last scheduled FP,
Big Thunder Mountain. After exiting Big
Thunder we happened to notice that Splash Mountain had finally re-opened, we
figured that as it had just opened it might not have a long stand by wait. We were right. Stand by was maybe about 10-15 min? During that time there were two messages
about threatening weather headed towards Walt Disney World… However, it
wouldn’t actually hit for several more hours.
So in four hours we had ridden the entire Magic Kingdom Mountain Range,
as well as Haunted Mansion and the WDW railroad. Not bad.
Certainly a LOT better then pre-FP+.
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| At Big Thunder Mountain |
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| Best Ride EVER, Haunted Mansion. |
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| New float for the 3PM Magic Kingdom Parade. Pretty cool. |
During the time moving between rides, I had been messaging a
few friends of ours that lived in Florida.
One, Adam had just moved from KC to Orlando the previous few weeks, and
asked if he wanted to get together. We
made plans to meet up at Port Orleans Riverside for Yehaa Bob later that
evening.
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| Haircut at Magic Kingdom |
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| Glass Blower at Magic Kingdom |
Jeff had mentioned earlier that day about getting our hair
cut at Magic Kingdom, and we had decided we would check that out on our way out
as we weren’t sure what time the barbershop closed. Turns out it closes at 6, but at 4:30 pm or
so it was still open, and had a seven person wait, turned out to be about a 30
min wait, not too bad. I love the experience
because I can’t think of a single other place you can get your hair cut inside
of a park, and two its really not that expensive, $19 for a haircut? Great
Clips is $14! Plus, its just so dang
cool. We both got our hair cut, and they
did a great job, I got Jeff talked into getting pixie dust (sparkles), which
was pretty miraculous.
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| Polynesian Roof during a rain storm |
So its about 6pm, too early to head over to Port, so we
decided to monorail hop a bit and headed towards the monorail and stopped at
Contemporary first, we checked out the shops, and the quick service there, and
decided instead to grab food at Port Orleans, which I believe has the best food
court at WDW resorts. Polynesian was second;
we timed the walk from TTC to the DVC Polynesian buildings (3 min by the way)
since we have reservations for Polynesian for the January Marathon
weekend. Walked over by the completed
bungalows, and took a look at the new pool area. It seemed different then before, more open,
not necessarily bad, and I think the whole resort is still one of the most
beautiful. By this time the skies were
growing dark, the wind had picked up it looked like it was about to pour… so we
headed inside. Not long after arriving
indoors it started to pour, so we found a seat, and relaxed in the lobby for a
bit. About twenty minutes later,
realizing the rain wasn’t going anywhere and it was getting closer to 7, we
decided to head out. We bought some
ponchos and headed for the monorail…. And waited. 10 min later, we gave up and headed instead
for the Ticket and Transportation center to get a bus to Port Orleans… nope no
buses there only at Magic Kingdom. So we
ended up taking the express monorail back to Magic Kingdom, and boarded the bus
to Port Orleans.
We arrived around 7;30, met up with Adam, and got dinner at
the Port Orleans food court. I mentioned
it previously, that Port Orleans food court is in my opinion one of the best
and we love the build your own pasta.
About 8 we headed over to the River Roost, and there WWIII almost broke
out. It was crazy packed and we waited
by a table that looked ready to leave for about an hour. As they left, a lady behind us, came up and
claimed the table saying she had been waiting since no one else had been in the
bar. Uh yeah. So we gave up the table, and waited and
waited. Around 10 a few seats at the bar
opened up and I grabbed them as fast as I could. Finally able to get my Mississippi Mudslide I
was happy. Around 11 or so, we decided we
had enough of River Roost and decided to check out a new adventure. Being more then a little crazy, we decided to
take the bus to Downtown Disney. Knowing
that DD closed at Midnight didn’t change this idea. So we headed over and found most stores closed,
but still got a chance to see all the new changes to DD since our last visit in
January. We did find one shop open on
the West side, and I bought at new Star Wars shirt.
Around Midnight we headed back to the marketplace. Jeff and I caught the bus to All Stars
Sports, Adam had to get a bus back to Port Orleans, he had parked there. We made it back to our room around 12:30, and
went to sleep around 1 or so. A long
crazy day to say the least!
Sunday
If Saturday was crazy busy then Sunday was almost a carbon
copy but was quite literally about as perfect a Disney day as you can get. We woke up again around 10:30, having FP for
Hollywood Studios TOT at 11:45, that was our first plan for the day. Now I
am not a fan of TOT, my husband on the other hand, loves it, if there is anyone
else in our travel party that likes TOT, I will not ride, but… it was just me
and him today so I figured I would suck it up and ride. On the way down Sunset blvd though we ran
into some citizens of Hollywood (characters that provide skits on the streets
of Hollywood studios), playing a game with the various guests of stroller
bowling. Strollers in general are the
ban of all non-stroller using adults at WDW.
They are so many of them! And so
many abuse them as battering rams in crowds.
Annoying yes. I love how Disney sometimes is ok with making fun of
themselves, and this is a great example.
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| Stroller Bowling at Hollywood Studios |
We made it to TOT eventually, there was a little bit of a line even for FP
holders, it appeared the ride might have been down for a short period. No matter, it was kind of nice having a few
minutes to appreciate all the intriciate theming that went into this amazing
attraction. As far as the ride? It wasn’t that bad. THAT bad.
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| Amazing theming at Tower of Terror |
As we hadn’t eaten yet for the day we decided to stop for
lunch next, and our favorite place at Hollywood Studios is one that will be
going away soon due to the re-construction project… Dockside Diner, and its
famous pretzel dogs. Honestly, it wasn’t
as good as I remember. Our next stop
wasn’t for a FP, which wasn’t until about 1:30, but instead was the Great Movie
Ride. Recently receiving a little love
by its new sponsor TCM, its always fun.
It was about a 20 minute wait which allowed us to appreciate the updates
to the queue line and introduction movie.
I was dismayed to find that the film clip finale had been edited to NOT
include Cotton Blossom… I need a hug
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| More Tower of Terror |
Star Tours was next, which is my favorite ride at Hollywood
Studios, we had a FP but 100% DID NOT NEED IT.
Complete walk on, our vehicle was only about 50% full, and again I was
not the rebel spy. Some day. Haing already bought a few Star Wars items
the night before at Downtown Disney we checked out the exit shop but didn’t see
anything I couldn’t live without.
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| Mulch Sweat and Shears at Hollywood Studios |
Using the Touringplans ap I was able to find out that Mulch
Sweat and Shears, a rock and roll tribute band that plays in the streets of
America was performing again at 2:30, we stopped at The Writers Corner shop for
a bit, a combination book store/bakery/gift shop has some great tables in the
back to relax in. As it closed in at
2:30 we headed around the corner to streets of America to catch Mulch Sweat and
Sheers, always a good show!
For this trip I made only one ADR and considering it was
only two days long I guess that makes sense, for my birthday at Teppan Edo at
EPCOT, since I made it only 20 days previous the only time I was able to get
was 4:20 pm, so with it closing in on 3, we headed towards the entrance at
Hollywood Studios to take the boat to EPCOT.
Good choice as at this point it was just starting to cloud up, by the
time we got on the boat and headed for its first stop, it started POURING. Since it takes abou 30 minutes for the boat
transfer between Hollywood Studios and EPCOT we were lucky enough to miss out
on the heaviest rain on the enclosed boat.
Perfect timing.
When we arrived at EPCOT it was drizzling and with the idea
of a dinner in a air conditioned restaurant coming up soon… I bought an
umbrella. We headed into World Showcase
and started walking towards the Japan Pavilion.
Since we were still quite early we checked out the department store for
a bit, and a little after 4 headed towards the restaurant.
Its been several years since we hade been at Teppan Edo, but
I really enjoy Japanese Hibachi, so this was 100% my idea. Overall great experience. We were seated with a family of four with two
small children, which were relatively well behaved, they were kids, being
kids. Thought about ordering sushi since
I really do like it, but since Jeff doesn’t like sushi I couldn’t see myself
eating a whole order myself so I skipped it.
Good thing. With all the food we had I was stuffed. I had shrimp and chicken, Jeff had steak and
chicken. Food was excellent, service was
excellent. I received a free dessert
since we were celebrating my birthday and the servers sung to us, it was
fun. Overall it was a pretty inexpensive
meal for an EPCOT dinner, around $80 with tip and tax. No complaints here.
We headed out and began walking around the rest of World
Showcase, checked out the Germany and Norway shops, as well as construction
going on in Norway for the new Frozen ride.
Also checked out Mexico and China, but we skipped the ride and movies,
having seen them so many times before.
About 7 we hit Future World, and also checked out a few of
the shops there, since Mouse Gears is one of the best shops in Disney
World. I bought a Birthday Christmas
ornament (buing a Christmas ornament on trips is kind of a tradition for
me). We headed over to Test Track but it
was showing a 50 minute stand by, so we checked out the wait times board nearby
and noticed right off the back that Soarin’ had a 20 minute wait. A 20 minute wait… for SOARIN’? This is a ride that normally has 60+ mins
waits, atleast. So we high tailed it
there. Obviously a lot of other people
did too, but our wait was only about 24 minutes so no complaints.
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| Spaceship Earth, yes that's us in the upper right side... |
With all of our walking I was starting to notice a small
blister forming on my foot, so I wasn’t entirely sure how much longer I was
going to make it, I also was thinking about running that night at the resort,
so I was eying heading back to All Stars.
Still we decided to ride the traditional Spaceship Earth (which of
course was a walk on), and checked out the Art of Disney shop. It was about 8 now, and Jeff and I
talked. We had the option of going back
to the resort and relaxing the rest of the night or heading back and then maybe
heading to Magic Kingdom later, since it was open until 11. We decided that I would decide based on how I
felt when we got back to the hotel and put a band-aid on my toe.
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| Magic Kingdom at about 9:30 pm |
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| Looks pretty crowded... |
We headed for the bus stop at EPCOT and quickly made it back
to All Stars. After sitting down for a
few minuts, and applying the band aid, I decided that there was no ways I was
going to go out running as it was alreay pitch black, so I decided what the hey
lets go back out to Magic Kingdom. We
headed back to the bus stop, the bus came literally 2 minutes later, and only a
few minutes later we were at Magic Kingdom.
It was about 9:30, so a few on the bus were headed over for Wishes,
including a family from the UK. We
talked with them for awhile, gave them a few ideas on how to get over to
Universal, as they were told by their travel agent that there were free buses
to all the parks. (ugh!). Once we arrived at the park we headed right
over to Fantasyland, our goal was in the next hour and a half to ride Peter Pan
and Seven Dwarf’s Mine Train. Ha. Just
two rides? Meer Mortals. Peter Pan is a favorite anyway, but it had a
recently re-designed queue line experience that had just opened. I was completely impressed. Very interactive, and love trying to watch
for tinkerbell flying around, so much better then the old basically amusement
park queue line it once was. I also
noticed one of the cast members, was
being very interactive with the guests… “keep moving two by two”. You have to have been there to appreaciate
it. Great to see.
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| Tomorrowland the way it should be viewed... at night. |
So overall our wait for Peter Pan was maybe about 20
minutes, our next stop was right across the midway at 7 Dwarfs… posted about a
40-50 minute wait, we timed it… it was about 16 minutes. Like Soarin’ its not uncommon for 7 Dwarfs to
have 60+ minute waits. I still think its
short, but overall fun. So now its about
10:30, so we head to the attraction I had wanted to do the previous day,
TTA. Nothing thrilling or crazy about
it, but its fun, and it’s a great way to see Tomorrowland at night. After exiting, we still had about 20 minuts
before park closing so we headed over to Space Mountain, 20 minute posted
wait…. COMPLETE walk on. We had ridden
the left side the day before so we rode the right side this time. Still trying to notice any different, still
not noticing any. Still fun, though I
always feel like I have to duck as it transverse the curves, you can just
barely see the track structure above your head.
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| TTA Peoplemover |
So technically after exiting Space Mountain we had about 5-6
minutes left, there was nothing left that we could make it too in a decent
amount of time so we just figured we would head to Main Street USA, and do some
shopping while the crowds exited. (yeah
crowds… where were those again?).
Instead as we hit the hub I noticed there was a decent, but not crowded
gathering around the curbs as if waiting for a parade. I was thinking… no way.. chcked my
TouringPlans ap and sure enough there was an 11 pm Main Street Electrical
Parade. This is my absolute FAVORITE
parade, even though its old, hokey, and has a definite 80’s synthesizer sound
to it. I like the sound track so much I
used it for my wedding recessional 14 years previous! With low crowds, in that there was only one
line of guests sitting on the curb at the hub, we had a great view. I loved how right before the parade started
all the lights go out on Main Street USA which was surreal, and then as the
parade ends all the lights start coming back on in domino-fashion as the parade
ends.
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| ANDDD.... NO LINE. |
With the parade over, and with it being around 11:30 we
decided to head for the entrance, the day was over, all the parks were closed
now, and I was terrified that there would be a huge wait for the bus back…
Nope. I even had a seat on the bus
back. Looking back on the day it was a
huge success, actually the whole trip was.
On Sunday alone though we visited three different parks, used only two
fast passes, but rode atleast 6 E-tickets, (TOT, Great Movie Ride, Star Tours,
Soarin, Seven Dwarfs and Space Mountain), plus several other rides, had a great
meal, and overall it was still a very relaxing, if long, day.
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| This is just so surreal... |
Just because I love it so much here is a YouTube video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnziycJZT0I
Monday
Monday
Under the original plan, we weren’t due to fly out until
3:30, allowing a few hours of park time.
Under the new plan, due to Jeff’s test, our plan was to fly out at 12:50
pm, with Magical Express pick up at
10:05 am. I had discussed with Jeff the
night before about getting breakfast at the All Stars food court prior to
catching Magical Express, since I love my breakfast (Jeff not so much). We woke around 8 am, got packed, and headed
to the food court. As I mentioned before
All Stars Sports is SMALL, and so is the food court, it was re-modeled a few
years previously, which you can tell, but still. Overall though it wasn’t mobbed, and it was
easy to get food and find a place to sit.
Food was okay. About 9:45 we
headed out to the bus stop, for our ride to Orlando Airport. I won’t go into the details of flying back as
it was rather boring, though I thought it was interesting we flew into Chicago
Midway on the way back, since I would be back to this same airport in exactly
six weeks for the Chicago Marathon.
Prior to takin this trip I had never had a trip to Disney
that was this short, I wasn’t sure what
to expect, and had only been once before during this time frame and that was
during Free Dining. Overall, we ha a
great time, had good experience with Disney transportation, and overall had
great CM experiences. The only negative
that I can think of was All Stars, and it wasn’t really a negative, I am just
not a huge fan of value resorts, having been completely spoiled by DVC these
last few years.
Looking forward to November, and the F&W ½
marathon!
