Dugette
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2009
If you read our PTR, you may know that our first two days went more-or-less according to our plans. This was the first day where we ended up switching things up a bit more. Originally, we had planned to attend Early Magic Hours at Epcot, do the headliner attractions, have a 12:20pm lunch at Teppan Edo, walk to DHS, and have dinner at Studios Catering Company. We actually didn’t do any of those things as planned. Between our DDP dilemma with Teppan Edo and our late Extra Magic Night at MK the night before, EMH at Epcot was no longer a priority. Our trip was long enough that we would have other opportunities to get the headliners in. The relaxed morning and late lunch worked out well. The walking from Epcot to DHS didn’t happen, as we were getting tired and semi-grumpy by that time (too much walking in World Showcase, I guess), so we opted for the boat. And, with the late lunch, we weren’t hungry for dinner while at DHS. So, yeah, this day ended up holding only very loosely to our plans.
In case you’re wondering, Dug’s new collection of medications was helping his impetigo a little bit. He felt like the swelling went down somewhat. But it definitely wasn’t going away.
So, after a relaxing boat ride
, we arrived at DHS. First thing we did was head over to the photo store. I was taking a lot more video than expected and Dug didn’t want me to run out of tape our next day (4 parks in one day planned!). We got me some new (overpriced, of course) mini-DV tapes and set off in search of attractions without lines.
Dug is a huge Star Wars fan, so we hit Star Tours
:
These little guys screeching get pretty obnoxious when you are stuck in line under them for several minutes
:
Next, we strolled over to the Muppets:
We had read something about a hidden key by the ticket booth, so took a quick look at the booth. But, with nobody else around, the cast members were just looking at us like we were weird
, so we moved on without finding it. I really like the Muppets show, so that was fun. 
Since we had arrived so late and the park was closing so early (7pm), we didn’t have much time left. We wandered over to the Great Movie Ride to check on the wait:
It wasn’t too bad, but we knew that the park would be closed by the time we got out of the ride. Was this how we wanted to end the day? We weren’t sure
, so we walked partway down the queue, then changed our minds and turned around and left. We decided to go see the American Idol finale instead:
We actually saw only the finale on our last trip too. It was enjoyable both times. I think it’s probably a little different than going to one of the shows earlier in the day, as everyone in the finale is pretty good. We had a good time and the contestant we voted for won (she had a ton of enthusiasm and was just fun to watch
).
The park had been closed for awhile by the time we got out of the show. We wandered through various shops on our way out.
It was still fairly early to just go home. And we still had to eat dinner. So, even though we hadn’t planned on going to Downtown Disney until later in the trip, we decided this night would be a good time to make a spontaneous trip over there. We had never been to Downtown Disney before, but Earl of Sandwich was calling to us (we’ve seen all those food pictures on this site).
The challenge with Downtown Disney is trying to get there directly from one of the parks. Luckily, however, there’s an app for that! Dug pulled out his iPhone and it told him that Saratoga Springs was the best resort to go to on the way to Downtown Disney. So, we caught a SS bus.
The bus ride there took awhile, but the resort is right next to DD. Then, we had to figure out where to get off the bus. This resort is huge! After staying on through a few stops (all of which felt like they were miles apart from each other), we realized (from conversations we overheard) that we were not the only ones that were taking this bus to get to DD. So, we just watched the others. When we saw some of these people get off the bus, we did too. This was at the Congress Park bus stop.
We could see the DD hot air balloon, so we knew we were close. We walked in that direction and ended up by the river. How to cross this river? I had an inkling that we should go to the left, but I’m not the directionally-inclined one in the family, so we went to the right. Walked for awhile along the river. It was nice. We thought we could see a bridge up ahead, but it was looking like we might have to find another bridge to cross another body of water before we could get to that bridge to cross the river. Plus, I was feeling like we were walking towards the wrong end of DD. Dug thought maybe we could catch a boat. After walking a little further, we decided this was not going to end well, so we turned back and found our bus stop again.
We ended up taking the bus to DD. Got off at the Marketplace stop, just where we wanted to be. After our walk around a small part of the giant expanse that is SS, we were hungry. Went straight to EOS.
We had never been here before, obviously. Saw everyone ahead of us grabbing a basket to put their food in, so grabbed a basket. Went up to order. Informed them we were on the dining plan. I got the Ham & Swiss. Dug asked what made their BLT the “Best BLT” (what they called it), thinking maybe there would be something different about it. The clerk looked at him like he was a crazy man and snapped, “I don’t know.” Dug took his chances and ordered it anyway. Moved down the counter to where the desserts were. One of the clerks ordered me, “Give me that basket!” I did, thinking maybe she would give it back with food in it or something? No, she just took it. Ok, then. I think Dug asked about a dessert that was on the menu, but he didn’t see in front of us. Again, rudeness. How dare he ask to have something that’s on their menu, I guess?
So, he grabbed a Strawberry Shortcake cup and I took a Triple Chocolate Brownie. I got a Hot Chocolate (WAY too hot, even with ice cubes) to drink and Dug made himself a mix of Sprite, Lemonade, and Fanta.
We took our seat. Got our sandwiches. The food was quite good:
I was just surprised how bad the service was. I think everyone working there was rude to us! I’ve seen a lot of reviews of EOS and have never seen anyone mention this, so I’m assuming we just caught them on a bad night. I think the staff needed some Disney attitude training. The good thing is that we didn’t have much of a wait and were eating quickly. And the food was yummy. So, if you’ve never gone there before, I guess I’d advise: don’t take a basket and don’t ask any questions.
I think I ate half my brownie and got full, so we wrapped it up and stuffed it in the backpack to bring back to POR for later. Although I don’t remember if I ever did eat the other half. Our fridge ended up getting full of leftovers during the next week.
After eating, we checked out the toy store (Star Wars toys!), Ghirardelli (free chocolate samples!), and World of Disney (lots of stuff to keep in mind for souvenirs!).
After our explorations, we caught the boat back to POR. It was a chilly ride that night, but nice to be on the river. We wandered around the main building of the resort a bit to check it out. Then we requested our luggage. Again, the transfer had gone smoothly and our bags were there. They offered us a ride on the golf cart with our bags! We were beat (after about 20k steps that day again), so that ride was wonderful! And the guy helping us was super nice. Back in the room, we hit the sack quickly, as we had a big day planned tomorrow!
Up next: Four Parks in One Day…can we do it?
In case you’re wondering, Dug’s new collection of medications was helping his impetigo a little bit. He felt like the swelling went down somewhat. But it definitely wasn’t going away.
So, after a relaxing boat ride
, we arrived at DHS. First thing we did was head over to the photo store. I was taking a lot more video than expected and Dug didn’t want me to run out of tape our next day (4 parks in one day planned!). We got me some new (overpriced, of course) mini-DV tapes and set off in search of attractions without lines. Dug is a huge Star Wars fan, so we hit Star Tours
:
These little guys screeching get pretty obnoxious when you are stuck in line under them for several minutes
:
Next, we strolled over to the Muppets:
We had read something about a hidden key by the ticket booth, so took a quick look at the booth. But, with nobody else around, the cast members were just looking at us like we were weird
, so we moved on without finding it. I really like the Muppets show, so that was fun. Since we had arrived so late and the park was closing so early (7pm), we didn’t have much time left. We wandered over to the Great Movie Ride to check on the wait:
It wasn’t too bad, but we knew that the park would be closed by the time we got out of the ride. Was this how we wanted to end the day? We weren’t sure
, so we walked partway down the queue, then changed our minds and turned around and left. We decided to go see the American Idol finale instead:
We actually saw only the finale on our last trip too. It was enjoyable both times. I think it’s probably a little different than going to one of the shows earlier in the day, as everyone in the finale is pretty good. We had a good time and the contestant we voted for won (she had a ton of enthusiasm and was just fun to watch
).The park had been closed for awhile by the time we got out of the show. We wandered through various shops on our way out.
It was still fairly early to just go home. And we still had to eat dinner. So, even though we hadn’t planned on going to Downtown Disney until later in the trip, we decided this night would be a good time to make a spontaneous trip over there. We had never been to Downtown Disney before, but Earl of Sandwich was calling to us (we’ve seen all those food pictures on this site).
The challenge with Downtown Disney is trying to get there directly from one of the parks. Luckily, however, there’s an app for that! Dug pulled out his iPhone and it told him that Saratoga Springs was the best resort to go to on the way to Downtown Disney. So, we caught a SS bus.
The bus ride there took awhile, but the resort is right next to DD. Then, we had to figure out where to get off the bus. This resort is huge! After staying on through a few stops (all of which felt like they were miles apart from each other), we realized (from conversations we overheard) that we were not the only ones that were taking this bus to get to DD. So, we just watched the others. When we saw some of these people get off the bus, we did too. This was at the Congress Park bus stop.
We could see the DD hot air balloon, so we knew we were close. We walked in that direction and ended up by the river. How to cross this river? I had an inkling that we should go to the left, but I’m not the directionally-inclined one in the family, so we went to the right. Walked for awhile along the river. It was nice. We thought we could see a bridge up ahead, but it was looking like we might have to find another bridge to cross another body of water before we could get to that bridge to cross the river. Plus, I was feeling like we were walking towards the wrong end of DD. Dug thought maybe we could catch a boat. After walking a little further, we decided this was not going to end well, so we turned back and found our bus stop again.
We ended up taking the bus to DD. Got off at the Marketplace stop, just where we wanted to be. After our walk around a small part of the giant expanse that is SS, we were hungry. Went straight to EOS.
We had never been here before, obviously. Saw everyone ahead of us grabbing a basket to put their food in, so grabbed a basket. Went up to order. Informed them we were on the dining plan. I got the Ham & Swiss. Dug asked what made their BLT the “Best BLT” (what they called it), thinking maybe there would be something different about it. The clerk looked at him like he was a crazy man and snapped, “I don’t know.” Dug took his chances and ordered it anyway. Moved down the counter to where the desserts were. One of the clerks ordered me, “Give me that basket!” I did, thinking maybe she would give it back with food in it or something? No, she just took it. Ok, then. I think Dug asked about a dessert that was on the menu, but he didn’t see in front of us. Again, rudeness. How dare he ask to have something that’s on their menu, I guess?
So, he grabbed a Strawberry Shortcake cup and I took a Triple Chocolate Brownie. I got a Hot Chocolate (WAY too hot, even with ice cubes) to drink and Dug made himself a mix of Sprite, Lemonade, and Fanta. We took our seat. Got our sandwiches. The food was quite good:
I was just surprised how bad the service was. I think everyone working there was rude to us! I’ve seen a lot of reviews of EOS and have never seen anyone mention this, so I’m assuming we just caught them on a bad night. I think the staff needed some Disney attitude training. The good thing is that we didn’t have much of a wait and were eating quickly. And the food was yummy. So, if you’ve never gone there before, I guess I’d advise: don’t take a basket and don’t ask any questions.
I think I ate half my brownie and got full, so we wrapped it up and stuffed it in the backpack to bring back to POR for later. Although I don’t remember if I ever did eat the other half. Our fridge ended up getting full of leftovers during the next week.
After eating, we checked out the toy store (Star Wars toys!), Ghirardelli (free chocolate samples!), and World of Disney (lots of stuff to keep in mind for souvenirs!).
After our explorations, we caught the boat back to POR. It was a chilly ride that night, but nice to be on the river. We wandered around the main building of the resort a bit to check it out. Then we requested our luggage. Again, the transfer had gone smoothly and our bags were there. They offered us a ride on the golf cart with our bags! We were beat (after about 20k steps that day again), so that ride was wonderful! And the guy helping us was super nice. Back in the room, we hit the sack quickly, as we had a big day planned tomorrow!
Up next: Four Parks in One Day…can we do it?
I actually am just about done making a short video summary of it, so I'm hoping I can get that posted on here soon, then follow up with the narrative, which will probably take me awhile to put together (it was a full day!)
Why yes, yes I do! 
The plan was for me to take our APs to Expedition Everest and get FPs while Dug took our KTTW to Dinosaur to get FPs. And, if it didnt work, no big dealit was early, wed be okay.
that should work for everything in AK. So, he got the Dinosaur FP and we both made our way to Kilimanjaro Safaris to meet up. Heres some pics Dug took on his way:
I made Dug take this picture as we walked through Dinoland:
We saw 2 TTC busses come by and wished we had gotten in that line, since you can easily walk to the Poly from the TTC. But we couldnt get to those TTC busses without going around a long way or dodging busses and jumping fences. So, we kept waiting. Bus arrived around 10:15am. I think this was the bus ride where the driver was really chatty with us (her only passengers) and even said something about Disney opening another park at WDW! 
Cool!
:
My Dh was the dancer last time- we loved Monster Laugh Floor! Did you go on Astro Orbiter? We love that one. Kind of like Dumbo- but faster and the view is pretty cool because you are up so high.
Beautiful last picture! 
