All the Pixie Dust! A May 2016 Trip - 1/24 FINALLY COMPLETE!

[LindseyJo22]

All the Pixie Dust!
May 2016 Trip Report

Welcome everyone to my second full TR! We were lucky enough to be able to spend a glorious 6 nights in Walt Disney World May 17-23 at the Boardwalk Villas. Our usual Disney vacations include either my husband and me by ourselves or they are larger family trips. This one was a little bit different, since my mom joined us! I wrote about our preparations somewhat sporadically in my PTR here. My mom's last trip to Disney was not the most fun, so I was determined to make this one great - and really, I was super excited to be able to spend almost a week with mom since we don't get to see each other too often any more.

We did a ton of stuff, at a lot of food, and had a really magical time the whole trip. It was such fun to do Disney with my mom, and it was awesome to be in my favorite place again for a longer stay!

I'll be back soon with a more "real" update, but I wanted to make sure to get this thread going before I forget all of the details of our trip


​

​

 

[LindseyJo22]

Table of Contents

Travel Day and Epcot Afternoon
Cape May Dinner
Magic Kingdom Day! (Morning)
Be Our Guest Lunch
Epcot Afternoon, Flower and Garden Booths, and MK EMH
A Short Update - Disney Springs and Relaxing Day

 

[heaven2dc]

Joining in on the fun!! Can't wait to read all about your trip!

 

[ArielSRL]

Here!

 

[belle0517]

Joining in.

 

[amberdc1987]

Here! Can't wait!

 

[Saphire5742]

I'm here too. Looking forward to reading all about your magical adventures

 

[hokieinpa]

I'm following along - we were down in May too!

 

[chunkymonkey]

Here too!!

 

[gonedisneycrazy]

Following along...

 

[ariane37]

Joining! We've had 3 great stays at the BWV and one......not so great, so I'm interested to hear how your stay went

 

[LindseyJo22]

Travel Day and Epcot Afternoon

After a whirlwind end of the semester and a little time to prepare, I woke up on May 17 and saw this:

Woo hoo! It was Disney Day! My favorite days ever This was a really nice trip since we were done with work for the semester. We had time to plan and pack, and we weren't going to have to jump into work the day after the trip like our last few. The night before, we had packed the car with everything we could, and that meant that we could just get up and get dressed in the morning to make the quickest getaway possible.

I think we ended up hitting the road somewhere between 6 and 6:30 so that we could get to Epcot around lunch time. I love that it's only about a 6 hour drive for us right now - we're taking advantage of that as long as possible

I texted my mom as we were leaving, and she let us know a few times on the way down what was happening with her schedule and flights. We knew we'd get there a good amount ahead of her, so our plan was to hang out in Epcot until she got there and then meet up at the Boardwalk to see the room and explore a little bit.

The drive was very uneventful - we sang to our Disney playlist, I listened to a few episodes of the Be Our Guest podcast and the Dis Unplugged to get excited, and very soon we were here:

We had put in a wait list request for the Beach Club, but it didn't go through (no surprise to me). However, we adore the Boardwalk - pretty obvious since it's been our resort of choice the past few times - so it was no big deal. Unlike our previous few trips, our room wasn't ready when we got there, which was also fine. I've been consistently surprised with how early we've gotten some of the rooms, so this was no big deal. We had booked a one bedroom with a garden/pool view, which also may have played into it. I know there aren't as many one bedrooms, and I always figure it probably takes people a little longer to check out of them if they may have a larger group than a studio. Plus, they're bigger so probably take a little longer to clean and everything.

I was just so happy to be at Disney! I'd been counting down to this particular trip for a long time, and I was so ready for mom to get there so we could do Disney together. Unfortunately, it looked like she might be delayed on the flight and wouldn't be getting in until 5 or so. Not great, but not the worst. We quickly handed our bags off to Bell Services and headed down to the Boardwalk. Epcot was right there, we had Annual Passes, and there were Flower and Garden food booths to enjoy!

I apparently was far too focused on food to take any pictures of the scenery. Our first stop was the Florida Fresh booth where Will picked up some Shrimp and Grits:

They were very yummy! Very warm, the grits were creamy, and the sauce was just a little spicy. I really enjoyed the little bit I had, and Will definitely liked them!

I was on a mission to get to the American pavilion, however, because I had heard great things about their offerings. I picked up the burnt ends hash and the bourbon caramel cake:

I loved both of these so much - I'd totally go for some of that right now! The hash was really tasty (I had them leave off the jalepenos because I don't care for them). Good meat - I didn't get any that was too fatty like I'd heard some people did - and the cheese sauce was really good. The potato and pepper mix on the bottom was also great, and this was a really nice portion for a food booth.

The cake was also very tasty. The sauce had a distinctive bourbon flavor along with the caramel which I thought was wonderful, but that is basically the whole reason I chose this dessert. The cake itself could have been a little more moist, but the sauce helped that nicely. And you can't go wrong with pecans! Both of these together was a pretty large lunch, and I was very satisfied with my choices.

Will also got something from Les Halles in France - the chocolate raspberry cake. It was delicious! Everything we've gotten here has been wonderful.

After our food, we meandered over to the Mexico pavilion to finally ride the Gran Fiesta Tour! The line had been crazy our past few trips, so we were excited to see it again:

(my phone pictures aren't great, but I love the fireworks in this part!)

Pretty sure these guys are new - they were awesome!

After this, I think we had a fastpass for Spaceship Earth.

It was just as great as usual, but the picture thing didn't actually work - so we just got some generic people in our future

After that, I'm pretty sure we did Living with the Land - and at some point, mom had texted me that she was going to make her original flight! So after we got off Living with the Land, we headed back to the hotel because she was there! And our room was ready, so that was great

And there was even a surprise waiting for us when we got there!

We had put our anniversary on the reservation since it's in July, and goodness knows we are pretty against going to Disney in July if there is any other option. So May it was! And it was super fun to wear our buttons and have people wish us a happy anniversary

And mom was here! Of course I don't have a picture of that right now - but it was super great to see her We live in Georgia for the moment, but all my family is in Arkansas, so I don't see them much since I went to grad school and got married and all that. My mom is basically my favorite, so it was amazing to be able to spend an entire week with her!

I thought I took room photos, but they may be on the other camera - the one bedroom was great, though! The Boardwalk renovations look wonderful and really update the resort a lot. We enjoyed having the full kitchen for storing water bottles, leftover snacks, and breakfast stuff even though we don't really cook in our villa at all when we're at Disney. The other thing I really liked was the laundry. It was hot (of course) and I also recently got into running, so I did some exercising on this trip and it was great to be able to wash my gym clothes and not have them stay disgusting the entire trip. The studios have access to laundry rooms, but it's much more convenient to be able to start a load of laundry and come back to dry it without worrying.

We decided to explore the Boardwalk area until it was time for Will and me to head over to Cape May for dinner. Mom decided not to join us for this one, just in case the plane had been delayed. Obviously she got there in plenty of time, but was also not feeling up for a buffet that night.

I got my refillable mug with the new pattern, which I love - and I put on my Minnie ears too I got into making ears before this trip, so they will probably feature prominently in this and future TRs!

This has gotten quite long (because I am super wordy...) so I think I'll leave the Cape May review for next time. I have to say, writing this TR has gotten me back into the Disney spirit - maybe I'll start a PTR for our January trip soon

 

[LindseyJo22]

Joining in on the fun!! Can't wait to read all about your trip!

Awesome! Thanks for following along

Here!

Great! You guys went earlier this month, right? Hope it was great!

Joining in.

Glad to have you!

Here! Can't wait!

Yay! Thanks for joining!

I'm here too. Looking forward to reading all about your magical adventures

Woo hoo! I have to go find your TR now - your trip sounded epic in the PTR!

I'm following along - we were down in May too!

Awesome! It's a great time to go - probably our favorite time, actually.

Here too!!

Great! I need to catch up on your TR now that I'm feeling more like reading about Disney

Following along...

Glad to have you!

Joining! We've had 3 great stays at the BWV and one......not so great, so I'm interested to hear how your stay went

Awesome! And sorry about your one bad BWV experience :/ We haven't had any issues yet (spoiler), but I figure at some point we'll probably have something. Glad the rest of them were good!

 

[ArielSRL]

Great! You guys went earlier this month, right? Hope it was great!

Yes, thanks! It was wonderful, though I learned a lot that I will apply to our next trip!

I love your update but for some reason, I can't see your photos. I couldn't see the one you posted on your PTR when you were on the trip, either. But I can see all the others you have posted (PTR ones and previous TR ones). Its that way on my iPad and my computer. Seems so weird! I hope I can get it figured out...

 

[cajunfan]

Is it just me that can't see any pictures this morning? I'm reading along, and will come back for pictures!

 

[LindseyJo22]

love your update but for some reason, I can't see your photos. I couldn't see the one you posted on your PTR when you were on the trip, either. But I can see all the others you have posted (PTR ones and previous TR ones). Its that way on my iPad and my computer. Seems so weird! I hope I can get it figured out...

Is it just me that can't see any pictures this morning? I'm reading along, and will come back for pictures!

I'm going to see what's happening with this - I think it may be something that happened when Picasa switched to Google Photos, which is what I use to store everything, so I'm going to see if it's some kind of privacy setting or something Or maybe I just put too many big pictures in. Hopefully there is a fix!

 

[LindseyJo22]

OK guys, I edited the privacy settings so that hopefully the photos show up now - but if they don't I may just start using another service to host the pictures Let me know!

 

[ArielSRL]

I still don't see them.

 

[LindseyJo22]

I still don't see them.

OK - I may start using something else then!

 

[LindseyJo22]

OK, because the new Google Photos has apparently done something ridiculous with their privacy settings, I can't actually seem to get a public URL of my images :/ So I'm uploading to Photobucket and will re-do the first post with those images, and hopefully it will work!