This Trip Broke The Bank. Update 11/26 Day 11: Why can't I get in the MK?

[oboedm]

I thought I'd have this update a while ago, but life got busy!
Now that I've finally uploaded the photos (which actually don't start till later in the day...), I figured I should get on with it. So here is...

Day 10: What a Disney park on the sun would feel like...
This day got off to a poor start. But hang in there- it got very fun (and a bit embarrassing) later on.

We hadn't planed much for our last full day, and wanted to use it to re-visit the attractions we had missed or needed to re-do. Since there wasn't a big agenda, we didn't set an alarm and looked forward to sleeping in a bit.

To our surprise, we were awoken at 7:15am. The people next door were having an early morning conversation, and we could hear every word. When a child started screaming and crying with no signs of stopping, Ben and I admitted defeat and got up to start our day. We popped down to Captain Cook's for a quick breakfast. We had a lot of snack credits, so we got a bagel and a cheese danish. Guess who had the danish? What can I say... pastry for breakfast is a vacation thing and I love it!

We headed back to the room to drop our refillable mugs off (have I mentioned that we don't carry a bag of any kind to the parks? We travel light!) and the screaming/crying was still going strong. Ok, we'll just skedaddle right on out of here, then.

Since it was only 8:15, we figured we could catch rope drop at DHS and therefor get a quick ride on TSM. The bus came right away and we were at the park at 8:30! Only problem is... the park had opened at 8. D'oh- it was EMH at the Studios. The wait for TSM was already 45 minutes and I had finally learned my lesson- we skipped it! So I may make bad decisions, but I do learn from them eventually

Instead, we rode Tower of Terror 3 times in a row with no wait at all. Then we took a spin on Rock N'Roller Coaster. We hadn't done the Animation Tour yet, so we headed there next. We were able to just squeeze into the next Animation Academy class where we ended up drawing Russel from 'Up'. Man, was that a hard character to draw. I don't have any proof, but mine actually came out pretty nice! We threw them away as soon as we left the building, though- remember, we travel light!

By now it was getting closer to 11am and we were ready to bid farewell to the Studios. We took the boat to Epcot... and sweated our way around the different resorts. Even though we were inside the FriendShip, with the door being open so much it never got very cool in there. When we finally made it to the International Gateway, we were melting! We popped into the gift shop there to try and cool down. It didn't really work, so we continued on.

We decided just to wait for the World Showcase to open as we were hungry for lunch and wanted to get fish n' chips from the UK pavilion. It was only a matter of 10 minutes before we were sitting along the lagoon eating. Being outside was sucking majorly, so we tried to eat quickly. When we were done, was ran into the Rose & Crown Pub and almost died of rapture when the freezing AC blast hit us. It was glorious. We ordered a couple of Bass Ales and cooled off.

Next, we had some important work to do: Villains to catch, alcohol to consume, a nap to take, strangers to meet

Great update! Sitting here now, it's hard to really remember how freaking hot it was in Sept... but you update brought it all back!

ToT three times in a row is awesome... and I am so glad you are plaanning on doing mini TRs for your beach trip! I am so tempted to do the tour, just so know more aboutg it and I can start saving. How did you find out about the gift card thing? I think I could convince #& to do a tour if money was involved...

 

[klacey1]

Mmm, I bet those beers tasted amazing after trudging around in the heat!

 

[Joyciemc]

Pastries for breakfast are the best, even more so is the Cinnamon buns. Man they are delicious

You'll read soon enough but we had a screaming child scenario too. Was not pleasant I tell you That's another thing too kids are getting brattier and brattier at Disney too!

ToT three times in a row?!? Awesome!!!

Sounds like you guys were ready for that Ale, must have been really hot. Gotta love that aircon blast

Mmmm, could go for a cinnamon bun right now...

Great update! Sitting here now, it's hard to really remember how freaking hot it was in Sept... but you update brought it all back!

ToT three times in a row is awesome... and I am so glad you are plaanning on doing mini TRs for your beach trip! I am so tempted to do the tour, just so know more aboutg it and I can start saving. How did you find out about the gift card thing? I think I could convince #& to do a tour if money was involved...

It was so hot! I swear each day was worse than the one before..

The CM at the DVC kiosk in the Poly told us about the $100 gift card. But beware... what he didn't tell us was that we had to do our tour between certain hours of the day (when I'm sure they are slowest because most people are in the parks at that time). So we almost didn't get it! Luckily, Ben found out and we changed our tour time. Disney is a lot of things- generous isn't usually one of them (you gotta know how to work it!)

Mmm, I bet those beers tasted amazing after trudging around in the heat!

They tasted so good, we just kept right on drinkin'

 

[Joyciemc]

A little off topic, but I finally saw The Princess and the Frog last night... and it is such a great movie!! Definitely need to watch it again, loved the music, the story and the animation.

Now, back to the trip report:
Okay, I was kinda gonna postpone writing more cause I am getting near the end of this (very long) trip report and I'll be sad when it's over! But then I realized that I have another very busy few days coming up, so I'll just bite the bullet and get something posted here.

Day 10, Cont: Who knew Epcot had so many super villains?
This would end up being one of our favorite park days, ever... despite the heat (or maybe because of the heat and the method we chose to cool down...)
When I left off, we had been enjoying a couple of beers in the super-duper cool AC at the Rose & Crown. When we left, we were hit in the gut with the heat once again. We braved the heat long enough to visit the nearest Kim Possible kiosk to sign up for a mission. We were given a FP to be redeemed at the Norway station. This had us worried, as Norway was the one mission we had already done, but the CM assured us that we would be starting a different mission.
Since we now had just a bit of time to kill, we spent it hopping from one gift shop to another from one country to the next. Along the way, we discovered which places were best for cooling off in the WS: We found a good vent in an Italy store and stood there for a while before we got bored enough to venture on.
But my favorite spot by far was this bathroom:

It was in Germany and it was COLD! I told Ben when I came out that I wished I could think of more things to do in there. A guy standing nearby overheard me and gave me the strangest look. Which I could totally understand, and it made me crack up laughing!

Eventually, we made it to Norway to pick up our Kimmunicator. I was a little nervous about how hot it was going to be, but we were bound and determined to catch those bad guys!
You can imagine how grateful we were when we realized that our first mission was in Mexico- a completely indoor and superbly air conditioned pavilion. I made sure to acquire a delicious mango margarita to give me the strength we'd need to solve this crime.

So I don't know if it was the joy of being out of the heat, or the wonderful margarita, but Ben and I had the time of our life completing this mission.

We did take lots of pictures of the different parts of the KP missions, but I don't want to ruin them for anyone else (and you should all do them- not to be missed, IMHO), so I am trying to just use general photos that don't spoil things.

All too soon, it was time to move on to the next mission... in China. While it wasn't entirely inside, there were quite a few pieces that were and we remained cool (with the help of another round of drinks, I'm sure)
This mission contained one of my favorite elements, so I will share a picture of it...

(The face I am making has something to do with me eating something... which may or may not have been part of the KP mission. Did I mention how much I loved this KP thing?)

I have to admit, I have no idea what order we did the rest of these missions (I wrote my trip notes at night each day. You will soon see why my notes from this night are not the most detailed). But I do remember what happened in each country, so those parts will all be true!

Germany may have been our next stop, and I am sure we ordered a couple of Oktoberfest beers from the Somerfest CS. This was the one and only time either of us were carded in WDW. At Universal, we were carded religiously, but not so in Disney.

A lot of this was outside, and we were very happy to finally get indoors for a portion of the mission.

Japan was likely next, along with another round of beverages. I don't remember what we had to drink, but I'm sure they helped keep us cool/forget how hot it was!

We also finished the France mission, despite having some real trouble finding one of the clues. It was during this one that we noticed other people looking for different things. So that made us think they must have slightly different missions for each country, which is nice when so many other people are doing the missions along with you.
This was the elusive clue, which we finally found!

Our last assignment was in the UK, and was another mission that had a really neat interactive effect. Though it was also one of the two missions that had inoperative elements that were kind of a bummer (the other was the Norway mission we had done at the beginning of the week).

Having completely rid the World Showcase of its super villains, we celebrated and got more beers.

Now what were we gonna do till our 7pm dinner at Biergarten? And we couldn't possibly be planning on drinking more, could we?

 

[ccgirl]

Ahh...love vacations without kiddos. My DH and myself went to WDW last year for F&W and absolutely LOVED Epcot. We kept quenching our thirst at the various countries. It is so much fun!!!

 

[Stefy]

Wow you really did clear up those bad guys Loving all the pics of World Showcase, making me sooooo nostalgic.

Which mission was your favourite?

 

[irishdancer86]

Just finished Day 4! oooh that must've been so disappointing to open the door at the poly and find a messy room! especially as you'd been planning and looking forward to that moment for weeks/months/years?! maybe years is a bit dramatic but you know what i mean! glad you's were able to move on though, a few things happened on our holiday and apparently i left my big girl pants at home and cried like a baby!

portofino looks lovely, agree with you on breaking the bank though, DBF nearly passed out at the price of cereal milk and donuts from the hard rocks little breakfat shop!

will hopefully get caught up soon, really enjoying the report so far!

 

[annmarieda]

You make the missions sound like so much fun. We have never done them....I think we might have to after reading about your adventure!

 

[klacey1]

I definitely think we'll have to work in doing a KP mission or two next year! I've only heard positive things from people of all ages! Seems like your last day was really nice and low-key!

 

[Joyciemc]

Ahh...love vacations without kiddos. My DH and myself went to WDW last year for F&W and absolutely LOVED Epcot. We kept quenching our thirst at the various countries. It is so much fun!!!

We just love World Showcase! I hope to check out F&W someday...

Wow you really did clear up those bad guys Loving all the pics of World Showcase, making me sooooo nostalgic.

Which mission was your favourite?

Hmmmm... I think China was our favorite mission. It had one of our favorite clues. Though Mexico being indoors was a definite close second!

Just finished Day 4! oooh that must've been so disappointing to open the door at the poly and find a messy room! especially as you'd been planning and looking forward to that moment for weeks/months/years?! maybe years is a bit dramatic but you know what i mean! glad you's were able to move on though, a few things happened on our holiday and apparently i left my big girl pants at home and cried like a baby!

portofino looks lovely, agree with you on breaking the bank though, DBF nearly passed out at the price of cereal milk and donuts from the hard rocks little breakfat shop!

will hopefully get caught up soon, really enjoying the report so far!

Thanks for reading! We were very disapointed by that dirty room at the Poly. It was gross! But we did manage to have a great trip anyway.

Universal hotels certainly are expensive... but we loved the Portofino so much it was worth it.

You make the missions sound like so much fun. We have never done them....I think we might have to after reading about your adventure!

They are great! Disney did an amazing job with these things. And it made us notice so much more about the different countries!

I definitely think we'll have to work in doing a KP mission or two next year! I've only heard positive things from people of all ages! Seems like your last day was really nice and low-key!

Try at least one! They can be addictive, though- once you start to see the different effects, you'll want to check them all out.

 

[reelmom]

Just up to Day 5 but throughly enjoying your TR. We really enjoy Universal but haven't been back since the WWoHP opened. Hopefully, when all the crowds die down, we will go back. I haven't read any of the responses inbetween your updates, just have used the links so I don't know if someone posted this, but I have the phone numbers to the Epcot UK phone booths if you would like them.

 

[Joyciemc]

Just up to Day 5 but throughly enjoying your TR. We really enjoy Universal but haven't been back since the WWoHP opened. Hopefully, when all the crowds die down, we will go back. I haven't read any of the responses inbetween your updates, just have used the links so I don't know if someone posted this, but I have the phone numbers to the Epcot UK phone booths if you would like them.

Welcome to the trip report! So glad to hear that you are enjoying reading about our trip.

Oooh, I would like the numbers for the UK phone booths! How fun would it be to call?

 

[Tracy161]

As much as I LOVE World Showcase, I confess I've never tried the KP missions! Must do so next time, sounds like you and Ben had a blast!

 

[oboedm]

KP sounds like so much fun! We got a FP for it but ran out of time. I hope to do it next time, though, we are going with a 7 and 8 year old. I am sure they would LOVE it!


Thanks for the info about the tours...maybe I will swing by the DVC kiosk at WL when we are there. We will have four adults, and I am sure my BIL and SIL won't mind a little exta spending money! We have a free morning, so we coujld maybe squeeze it in.

 

[reelmom]

Welcome to the trip report! So glad to hear that you are enjoying reading about our trip.

Oooh, I would like the numbers for the UK phone booths! How fun would it be to call?

Left Booth- 1-407-827-9862

Center Booth1-407-827-9863

Right Booth- 1-407-827-9861

 

[SOUTHERNtinkerBELLE]

Great update! It sounds like a KP mission and a few drinks make for a great afternoon!

 

[Joyciemc]

As much as I LOVE World Showcase, I confess I've never tried the KP missions! Must do so next time, sounds like you and Ben had a blast!

Do it! Especially if you are already a World Showcase fan- KP missions really let you interact with the pavilions in a whole new way.

KP sounds like so much fun! We got a FP for it but ran out of time. I hope to do it next time, though, we are going with a 7 and 8 year old. I am sure they would LOVE it!

Thanks for the info about the tours...maybe I will swing by the DVC kiosk at WL when we are there. We will have four adults, and I am sure my BIL and SIL won't mind a little exta spending money! We have a free morning, so we coujld maybe squeeze it in.

You should totally do the tour! Free money is always a good thing. And the tour itself didn't take all that long, just don't spend a couple hours 'figuring' like we did!

Left Booth- 1-407-827-9862

Center Booth1-407-827-9863

Right Booth- 1-407-827-9861

Yay! Thank you, I can call to check on Epcot from home, now!

Great update! It sounds like a KP mission and a few drinks make for a great afternoon!

It really did! We had a blast that day

 

[reelmom]

All caught up. My son is sick and stayed home from school today so I have been able to get caught up. I can't believe that your DH agreed to buy into DVC. I can't talk my DH into even taking the tour. Maybe he knows what will happen. I tell him it makes sense but he always tells me that he doesn't want to be tied down to a vacation spot. Seems like a silly argument considering we have been to Disney about 12 times in the past 5 years. We never go anywhere else. We always say we are and research other places but always book Disney.

We have never done Hoop Dee Doo but after seeing your report, I think we might try. I think the boys will enjoy it. They are at the age where corny jokes are the funniest thing ever, well, besides gross bodily functions.

 

[annegirl]

Enjoying this so much! I hope Harry Potter world isn't too crowded in December! Can't wait to read more.

 

[Joyciemc]

All caught up. My son is sick and stayed home from school today so I have been able to get caught up. I can't believe that your DH agreed to buy into DVC. I can't talk my DH into even taking the tour. Maybe he knows what will happen. I tell him it makes sense but he always tells me that he doesn't want to be tied down to a vacation spot. Seems like a silly argument considering we have been to Disney about 12 times in the past 5 years. We never go anywhere else. We always say we are and research other places but always book Disney.

We have never done Hoop Dee Doo but after seeing your report, I think we might try. I think the boys will enjoy it. They are at the age where corny jokes are the funniest thing ever, well, besides gross bodily functions.

We also seem to end up going back to Disney, even though Ben would like to travel to more places. I guess that's part of why we ended up buying DVC. Though our very first DVC trips are going to be to the non-WDW resorts, so I think it actually worked out in Ben's favor!

Hoop Dee Doo is sooooo much fun, and just very 'Disney'! I think your boys would love it!

Enjoying this so much! I hope Harry Potter world isn't too crowded in December! Can't wait to read more.

Hi!! Thanks for hopping over here and reading! Sorry that you found the report just as I was heading into a super busy time and not able to update...
But the good news is, I've got something coming right up!