Just Back Last Night From DH's POFQ Happy Birthday Trip!

[summerlady]

Just back last night from our first adults only trip in 9 years, it was a short trip, November 6-10, we arrived at about noon and our room was ready for us, Magical Express picked us up at 11:10 a.m. for our 2 p.m. flight home on Tuesday. I did online check in all three of my requests were granted at POFQ: building 3, ground floor, corner room. We were in room 3141, facing the parking lot, but because there are trees and plants, you don't really notice the parking lot all that much and we didn't hear any noise at all. That location is very quiet and peaceful, about a 2 minute walk to the foodcourt. Heard toilets flushing a time or two but it wasn't bothersome, no overly loud activity from any other room or from people walking past, in fact, we rarely saw anyone walking past. Our room was spotless when we checked in and our mousekeeper, Norma, kept it that way. Norma left a cute swan towel animal for my DH on his birthday and a nice little fan-like arrangement in a glass on the shelf over the sinks for our toothbrushes; we tipped her $3 per day, but I don't think that had anything to do with her extra effort. Yesterday morning when we were getting ready to leave for our Magical Express ride to the airport, Norma stopped by to say goodbye to us. (I'm going to write to Disney to let them know what an exemplary job she did during our stay) I've read that some think the resort rooms are worn but ours was fine other than a chip or two on corners of the night table, the furniture looked ok. The buses were good except for late Saturday afternoon when the driver had people so packed in that we all looked like a can of sardines, I swore after that ride that we'd get a rental car for our next trip, but we had no further problems with the buses so will probably ditch the rental idea. We were always picked up and dropped off before POR and only shared twice during four days. We love the Magical Express, when we returned after a few hours at DHS, our suitcase was in our room; yesterday morning our boarding passes were in an envelope on our door handle. All we had to do was bring our bag to the check in area in the lobby, have it weighed, and we didn't see it again until baggage claim in Newark. Easy peasy and no worries.

We used the QSDP this trip and enjoyed it as we did when we had it last May. Totally stuffed, way too much food, but that didn't stop us. We subbed fruit for dessert a couple of times, no problem. During EMH at the MK on Sunday night, we ate at Cosmic Ray's, which was pretty empty at that time, and because we didn't want a "real" dinner, we got bacon double cheeseburgers. They were ok, nothing special, the buns crumbled as we were eating, and we probably won't get them again. Sunshine Seasons was yummy, we both had the turkey and something sandwich with strawberry shortcake for dessert and had FPs for Soarin', which we rode again (for the 3rd time) right after dinner. We took the boat to DTD twice, Friday night and again on Monday afternoon (on Monday, that little boat was rockin' and rollin' in the high winds), and ate at WPE (Marketplace), which was excellent, as always, and had the creme brulee for dessert both times. Had muffelettas and beignets at the foodcourt for lunch once and loved them, it wouldn't be a stay at POFQ without having those two things at least once. Hmmm...I'm trying to write this cohesively but I'm still floating in pixie dust . Didn't notice many people using old mugs at the foodcourt, but I wasn't really looking for that anyway. Didn't see any LGMHs either, but again, I was pretty oblivious. The powdered sugar funnel cakes at Sleepy Hollow in the MK are still a snack credit and absolutely delicious, we got them and walked across to the rose garden before the castle, near the Tomorrowland bridge, to get ready to watch Spectro at 7 followed by Wishes at 8. That location proved to be an excellent viewing spot, relatively uncrowded, with a cement planter available for us to sit on. The view of Spectro wasn't spectacular from there, but it was ok. I blubbered during Wishes again and the rose garden was a wonderful place to be, some people showed up after the fireworks had already begun and they were polite enough to sit down on the walkway rather than stand and block the view of those of us who were already there.

We rode Splash Mountain first thing Sunday morning, no wait, and I got drenched. I mean hair-wringing, clothes sopping soaked. Strangely enough (duh....Jersey Week?), I heard a familiar accent, the couple sitting behind us were from Joisey too! We spent a happy half hour chatting with them after the ride while we all were drying. We gave away our FPs for the Jungle Cruise because we didn't feel like backtracking, at that point we were just focusing on getting our Dole Whip Floats. We rode everything we wanted during the morning with no or minimal waiting times and then went back to POFQ for a swim and a bubble in the hot tub. Got back to the MK at about 6 for EMH and stayed until about 11:30 p.m. I know that everyone raves about the cinnamon buns from the Main Street Bakery so we picked a couple of them up on our way out to have for breakfast on Monday morning. To us they were just meh....they were ok, and huge, but didn't really have all that much taste to them, I think Entenmans are better. Lunch was at Columbia Harbour House, DH had the BLT salad (he's not much on seafood), which he liked, and I had the fried shrimp, very good and crispy! We both had the apple crisp for dessert and liked it very much. If you eat there, make sure to take your tray upstairs, it's so much quieter and emptier there and really nice to look out the windows.

We were at Epcot on Saturday (boy, this is really rambling, isn't it) morning and had planned to stay until about 2 p.m., return to the resort for a swim and go back that night for Illuminations and to experience the F&W, but even in the afternoon WS was almost shoulder to shoulder so we changed our plans and stayed until about 4:30 p.m. and then went back to POFQ for the remainder of the day and evening. We had an ADR at the Biergarten at noon for DH's birthday lunch, what a wonderful time we had there! We checked in at 11:45 and were given a beeper and were seated near the stage right on time, the show began at 12:30. I was slightly apprehensive about sharing a table with strangers but the others at our table were really nice: a friendly woman from Tampa (it was her birthday too) and her kids and a very lovely older woman and her adult son. The food was very good, great selection on the buffet, something for everyone. I especially liked the potato leek soup and pretzel bread and the warm potato salad and selection of sausages, the chicken schnitzel (bet I spelled that wrong) wasn't so great though, tough and flavorless. I thought the restaurant would be noisy being that it's a buffet but it was really rather quiet. The show was lots of fun, a couple of little girls were dancing, and the band members announced birthdays and such, DH was happy about that. DH felt kind of silly at first wearing his birthday button on his shirt on Saturday but ended up loving it....at least 100 people wished him a happy birthday and the bag check dude sang to him as did a CM at the entrance to one of the rides (don't recall which one). We had one rather uncomfortable confrontation with an extremely drunk 20-something young man while we were in the FP line for Test Track. He and his girlfriend were standing in front of us, he was absolutely bombed on his butt and she kept on trying to shut him up because he was talking loudly and cursing and just being generally obnoxious. We were ignoring him until he called his ten friends who were way behind us to join him and his gf. No way was DH going to let these people jump the line and said so to the drunk nitwit, which of course escalated from there. My DH may be an old fart but he's big, 6'5" and 250 lbs. and looks and sounds mean when he wants to. So anyway, the ten friends stayed by themselves and I got the impression that they were embarrassed to be with this guy. DH was stewing about this encounter for awhile but I convinced him to just let it go, which he did. Even the FP line for TT was over a half hour wait, and it was so noisy in there. We returned to Epcot on Monday afternoon and even arriving at that time of day the crowd level was quite manageable and we rode everything we wanted with minimal waiting time. DH walked straight on Mission Space early evening. We stayed for Illuminations, which we watched from the bridge from France to the UK, we didn't have to stake out a spot overly early, while there were people standing at the railing in front of us, we leaned against the railing on the other side of the bridge and were afforded a fine view. We got the big pretzels at Norway for a snack, which we had back at POFQ with coffee while sitting at one of the tables outside the foodcourt. DH had the almond covered one and I had the sweet pretzel with drizzled chocolate, they're amazingly yummy and very big. I tried the school bread last year that everyone else seems to like but I wasn't impressed so didn't get it this trip.

Almost got run over a couple of times by "double stroller people" but had no prob with ECVs and had a couple of nice conversations with some who were driving them, a lovely woman and her baby who live in the UK and another charming lady from Alberta come to mind.

The weather was just about perfect, no rain at all, a bit cloudy but just enough sun to be comfortable swimming in the pool. It was very breezy and just wonderful at night, cool enough to put on a lightweight long sleeved something, but not cold. I've never been during this November week before, but we're planning going again same time next year. Met lots of people from Jersey, had lovely conversations with people at the parks and at the resort. I didn't take any food pictures, just didn't think to bother, but I have lots of POFQ pics which I'll post at the proper forum later on. Some of the Christmas decorations are up at POFQ and looked really pretty, especially at night, and the MK C-mas decorations are absolutely gorgeous. Loved the show before rope drop too. This will more than likely be our last grown-ups only trip for awhile, and we really missed the kid, but it was totally wonderful and relaxing. We skipped Fantasyland completely (we walked through late at night but I didn't miss spending hours there as we've always done during past trips) other than the teacups, which is something I always have to do in memory of my dear mother in law whose favorite was the teacups.

I rode RnR for the first time on Friday night and I'll never do it again. Never. Nuh uh. Not ever. I love Aerosmith and I loved the blast-off, but after that it was all downhill for me...I kept my eyes closed for the rest of the ride. But I did Mission Space, green side, while DH did the orange, and we both loved it.

After we saw the Indiana Jones show at DHS late Friday afternoon, we took a short break and sat on a bench nearby. About an hour later, as we were getting ready to leave the park, I noticed that I didn't have my camera. We walked back to the bench but it wasn't there, then stopped at the lost and found to see if anyone had turned it in, but no luck. I was really sad and really upset that I had been stupid enough to actually leave my camera somewhere, but decided not to let it ruin our trip so was going to purchase a couple of those disposable cameras the next day. I had the number to call for the main lost and found near the MK, and did call the next afternoon. They had my camera!!!! Some kind person had brought it to the L&F!!!! I really thought that it was long gone, and was overjoyed to be able to pick it up Sunday morning. There ARE good people all over the World, aren't there?!

[sassyredhead]

Wonderful trip report. I love all the details. So good to hear about your camera.

[Pjimmeyer]

Thank you for the report! What a fantastic time!

[lugnut33]

sounds like fun!! Nice report

[summerlady]

Originally Posted by lugnut33

sounds like fun!! Nice report

Thanks. It WAS lots of fun and I'm missing it like crazy.

Originally Posted by Pjimmeyer

Thank you for the report! What a fantastic time!

You're welcome. I wish we were still there, it's so icky around here this time of year.

Originally Posted by sassyredhead

Wonderful trip report. I love all the details. So good to hear about your camera.

Thanks. I was amazed that someone actually took the time to drop my camera off, my faith in human nature has been restored.

[serrotak]

Awesome report, I really enjoyed hearing all of your details.

[summerlady]

Originally Posted by serrotak

Awesome report, I really enjoyed hearing all of your details.

Thanks! I wish...I wish I could be there right now!

[summerlady]

.

[waw1961]

Thanks for the report, I almost felt like I was there ! We're leaving for a 9 nite stay at POFQ in 77 days. I'm glad to hear you had a good experience there. I've been a little concerned about the bus service but it sounds like overall it wasn't too bad. Jan. 30th. can't get here soon enough.

[summerlady]

Originally Posted by waw1961

Thanks for the report, I almost felt like I was there ! We're leaving for a 9 nite stay at POFQ in 77 days. I'm glad to hear you had a good experience there. I've been a little concerned about the bus service but it sounds like overall it wasn't too bad. Jan. 30th. can't get here soon enough.

The buses weren't bad this trip, last May it was ok too, but when we were there in April, 2008, the bus situation was just awful, I think they've tweaked it up since then.

Hope you have the best vacation ever!

[ShannonMB]

Thanks for the report! I'm just waking up with coffee and the DIS, in a few minutes it'll be time to get ready to go to the airport! We're staying at POFQ, too, so this little TR was perfect reading for me right before our trip!!!

[summerlady]

Originally Posted by ShannonMB

Thanks for the report! I'm just waking up with coffee and the DIS, in a few minutes it'll be time to get ready to go to the airport! We're staying at POFQ, too, so this little TR was perfect reading for me right before our trip!!!

YAY! Have a fabulous trip! I just love POFQ, if I ever win a bazillion bucks in the lottery, I'm moving there permanently.

[crazycatlady]

We had an ADR at the Biergarten at noon for DH's birthday lunch, what a wonderful time we had there!

We were at Epcot on Oct. 29th, and it was extremely hot out. We normally eat counter service but we all decided to splurge and eat inside because of the heat. We chose the Biergarten because it was close and my DH and I like German food. We loved it!!! It was really a highlight of the trip. Even our kids,(DS is extremely picky) loved the food, band, atmosphere. There is something for everyone on that buffet (DS mostly ate rot. chicken and desserts). My favorite was the potato leek soup, too.

Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I'm glad you had a great time!

[Linda Farrell]

Thanks for the great trip report. I love reports like yours--it makes me feel like I'm there. Thanks for sharing your trip, and I'm glad you got your camera back.

[drinkme]

Great trip report! Thanks for sharing.