"For a few Fastpasses more!" TR-Nov 9-18, 2013 (Cruise TR LINK added April 10th)

[skier_pete]

After that was done, we thought inside was the best place to be. We had already switched our FP+ for Festival of the Lion King from the afternoon to the morning, and headed over.

One last shot of Camp Minnie Mickey!



The dragon waterfall, reminding us of what might have been, and what is yet to come. (*COUGH* Avatar *COUGH*)



This was the ONE time that the FP+ for a show seemed to benefit us. The FP+ line was a separate location from the standy line, and we got there a little early they were just finishing letting the FP+ line in. We walked in and got a spot in about the third row of the lion section. DD was hoping to be picked to participate, but no such luck. I didn’t take many pictures as we’ve seen this show so much.







We were practically next to Pumba.











Well, I really only had one more thing that I wanted to hit and that was Expedition Everest. I suggested since DD loved Flights of Wonder so much that the two of them go see the bird show, while I ride the coaster. First we got a few snacks, DD getting her frozen lemonade favorite, while I had a cheese stuffed pretzel (there’s a healthy snack for you) and DW had a hummus and veggie snack.

The trek to AnandaPOUR




The rain was sure unpleasant! Because it moves inside and outside you would one second be having a fun ride and the next be being betean by 60 MPH rain pellets. And the Yeti was in “C” mode, as in, you don’t even get to “see” the Yeti. Not the most fun I’ve ever had on Everest. Even my redneck ride photo came out terrible.



I have to mention, on the way back to the Flights of Wonder show, I stopped where the Gibbons exhibit is, and I talked with the CM there for about 5 minutes. She was standing there in the pouring rain doing her job, and I said I felt bad that she had to stand there with no one talking to her. I found out there are only two Gibbons in the exhibit at the moment, a father and his daughter. The mother was off taking care of new babies, but they would evenetually be re-introduced. One of the many things that impresses me so about AK is the way they staff the displays, and how knowledgeable the CMs are.

Well, it was coming up on noon, and we’d all had enough of the rain. IT was time to head out of the park, but before doing so we had to stop for a photopass. He was standing in the cave when you leave the main park for the Oasis, so he could stay drive, but we couldn’t. We went for too moods on the day.

“How does it feel that you are still at Disney World?”



“But what do you think of our beautiful Florida weather?”



To be continued in next post

 

[skier_pete]

We got lunch back at the hotel after changing into dry clothes. We spent the afternoon in our room. DD did homework and played on her DS, while we went about the process of packing up all of our clothes for leaving on Monday, which was just two days away.

In addition, I had to deal with more ticketing issues. If you remember I had to add one day to two of our tickets, and that I had been told it would be complimentary, but I had to get it done at the parks and bring it back to the resort for the refund. . Well, on the way out of AK I stopped at Guest Services to do this, and they did it for me, charging me the $25. When I got back to the resort, I went directly to the Custom House to take it off, and of course they said “Oh, you should’ve done that right at the Guest services window.” After I explained that everyone (including their own hotel) told me to do it this way, they were eventually able to straighten it out, but not before I was hanging out there another 40 minutes. At least this was the last of our ticketing problems and they didn’t cancel our room key either.

Part of the reason we spent the afternoon resting is we were planning on an evening out for the two of us. We took a taxi with DD over to the Beach Club, and dropped her in the kids club. As usual there were very few kids there, I am not sure why more people don’t take advantage of this. The rain had passed through by now, and the evening was cool but pleasant enough. We went from there over next door to:
 


We were looking forward to a yummy steak!





Again, photos were with my Droid phone, so quality is not high. The Chandalier above our heads.



The butcher cutting the prime cuts for us:



We were again using DDP credits, so appetizer was not included. However, we did get rolls with dinner. We went with the strip steak with twice baked potatoes.



We also got an order of sautéed onions to share.



These steak were soooooo good I can’t even begin to say. Fan-flippin’-tastic best describes it. What impressed me the most is that while this restaurant is expensive, it is NOT really for the type of restaurant. The price is very comparable to what you might pay a high-end Steak house, and in fact many Steak places would be higher.

Dessert was of course included. DW had this chocolate cake that I cannot find on the currently listed menu:



I had the sorbet trio sundae which was quite good.



We really enjoyed this meal very much, but were looking forward to meeting up with some of our ABD friends from the trip earlier in June (gosh was that only 9 months ago as I write this?).

The plan was to hit Jellyrolls, a favorite nightly hangout of ours. The dueling pianos are a lot of fun, though I admit it’s not the greatest for conversation. At first we were sitting up front, and we also ran into Tinker326 and her husband, who we knew were going to be there. They wanted some “alone time”, so didn’t join the larger group.







It was real nice to see everyone and catch up, but it quickly came up on 10 PM, and our DD wouldn’t want to be up much later than that, so we headed back to the Beach Club, and took a taxi back to our hotel, which was nice that they dropped us right in front of our building.

The Good
One last look at Camp Minnie Mickey and Festival of the Lion King before relocation.
Dinner at Yatchsman
Jellyrolls and reunions with new friends

The Bad
Um, can I tell you that Animal Kingdom is a BAD choice for a rainy day
Getting pummeled by rain drops on EE.
Not getting to see portions of AK, it’s a good thing we had already had a ½ day in the park.
Missing out on getting together with Tinker326's family again.

The Ugly
Did I mention the rain in there?
Mo’ Ticket Blues
These morning bus issues are getting just plain silly.

FP vs FP+: OK, It was really at this point that I was pretty well convinced I prefer FP+. Even though our plans were pretty much tossed out the window, I was able to reschedule two of our three FP+ on the fly and they definitely were a benefit. The third one, which we had originally scheduled for Kali River rapids, wasn’t used.

 

[wiigirl]

Great pics!

 

[Tinker326]

Oh that cursed rain!!!

We finally ventured out when it started to lighten up (I think when you guys were just leaving).. and it was clear for a wee bit becuase we got a picture in front of the tree with no rain....

But then the skies opened up on us again.. Boo. But it was probably only another hour of rain at that point. By the time we moved over to Everest (around 3ish).. it had stopped.

But I was bummed- that was our ONLY day at AK and we barely got to see or do anything because we were only there for like 3 hours!

And Sarah was sad to have missed A- she wanted to hang with her at the boneyard!

Your poncho pics are great though- that should have been your Christmas Card......

And ahh.. Jellyrolls!!!

Love me some Scotty, Ray & Rob!

 

[skier_pete]

Oh that cursed rain!!!

We finally ventured out when it started to lighten up (I think when you guys were just leaving).. and it was clear for a wee bit becuase we got a picture in front of the tree with no rain....

But then the skies opened up on us again.. Boo. But it was probably only another hour of rain at that point. By the time we moved over to Everest (around 3ish).. it had stopped.

But I was bummed- that was our ONLY day at AK and we barely got to see or do anything because we were only there for like 3 hours!

And Sarah was sad to have missed A- she wanted to hang with her at the boneyard!

Your poncho pics are great though- that should have been your Christmas Card......

And ahh.. Jellyrolls!!!

Love me some Scotty, Ray & Rob!

DD was really, really bummed too. We considered swinging by AKL to say good-bye, but DW thought that might be too "stalk-y".

Re: the Photos. The PP Photog said "OK, look really excited!" then he said "OK, look really miserable!". Can you tell which was the easier of the two to conjure up?

 

[Tinker326]

DD was really, really bummed too. We considered swinging by AKL to say good-bye, but DW thought that might be too "stalk-y".

Re: the Photos. The PP Photog said "OK, look really excited!" then he said "OK, look really miserable!". Can you tell which was the easier of the two to conjure up?

I should have made my mom watch all the kids at the Lodge!!! The irony being, of course, she whined about watching the three she had!!! (even though she offered!)

 

[PrincessInOz]

Rain! Rain!

Wow. It was pelting and wet, wasn't it. Sad that you had to experience that; but kudos for you and the family for heading out and making the best of it anyway. If I were at the start or in the middle of the vacay, I think I would have opted to stay at the resort; but at the end? I would have done exactly the same as you did.

It also sounds like a fantastic night at the Yachtsman and JellyRolls.

Pity about the tix and the pain of adding it to the MB. I sure hope that Disney IT fix the inconsistencies and soon.

 

[skier_pete]

Rain! Rain!

Wow. It was pelting and wet, wasn't it. Sad that you had to experience that; but kudos for you and the family for heading out and making the best of it anyway. If I were at the start or in the middle of the vacay, I think I would have opted to stay at the resort; but at the end? I would have done exactly the same as you did.

It also sounds like a fantastic night at the Yachtsman and JellyRolls.

Pity about the tix and the pain of adding it to the MB. I sure hope that Disney IT fix the inconsistencies and soon.

Yes, we were at a point in the trip where if we stayed home, it would've meant just missing out on AK other than the few hours the first day, so it was either that or brave the weather. We really got the main things we wanted to do that we would otherwise have missed (Safari, FotLK, EE), so it was successful in that respect.

 

[khertz]

That rain looks just downright AWFUL. And definitely not what you want to encounter on your last few park days. I'm sure all of the trees make it worse in that park since even after the rain, it's still dripping on you!

Glad you & DW still managed to have a nice night out. The dinner at Yachtsman looks wonderful! Definitely better than the pb&j I'm currently eating for lunch.

 

[skier_pete]

I have a big announcement to make regarding our next Disney - trip, but I'll start first with an update...

Day 9: Today dawned as was forecast, it was a hot day and very sunny. The perfect day for hitting the beach. Blizzard Beach!



This was our first trip to BB since May, 1997. Yup, that’s almost 17 YEARS. That’s a LONG time between park visits!We were able to leave the hotel about an hour later than usual, so we were at the bus stop at 9 AM. Since we needed an Animal Kingdom bus that stopped at the water park, we were ready to go, but the bus took a while, fortunately we got to BB pretty quickly, and we were in the park waiting for “Rope Drop” about 10 minutes before the park opened.

Being a skier I am pretty high on the theme here. I also love the slides, as they are big-time water slides. The biggest problem here was my injured foot. The demand on wearing sandals instead of shoes were worse.









While we were getting our beach chairs ready – DD wanted to check out the wave pool. She was just as happy to play in the wave pool as anything else.







We started taking the chairlift up to Teamboat springs – the big raft ride





…but Teamboat Springs was CLOSED.


So instead we rode down the Storm Slides, the twisty mat slides. Then DD and I did the Double Dipper, which was a larger drop-type tube ride.

We next wanted to ride Runoff Rapids - the large tube slides - in the back, but we took the lazy river ALL the way around the park.




I like this lazy river – especially the way you go through some caves! More evidence of Yeti’s here!



We did a run down Runoff Rapids. The problem was that certain rides only allowed single riders, while others allowed double tubes, so we ended up going down separate slides! DD really wanted to get to the kiddie area at this point, but we wanted to finally hit Teamboat Springs! The chairlift was crazy crowded, with at least 100 people in line, but the single rider line was EMPTY. Yay for single rider!



We all loved Teamboat Springs and DW wanted to do it again. But DD wanted to check out the kiddie pool area. Not the younger one (there were two here), but the one that was a little older. This area had the climbing rafts, which she managed to successfully navigate after a few tries.



DW enjoyed meeting the gator mascot, even though he got a little fresh with her.



Next up was the very best thing about the Disney water parks – the fresh cooked Mini-Donuts! When you ask me to name my three most desired food at WDW, these little balls of hot delicious dough will always be on that list!





Then, we sat at the wave pool for a while and DD played in the sand. Soon, we decided that it was time for some lunch.

DD wanted to try the stuffed pretzel dog. This was a big hit, so much so that I barely had time for a picture.



DW had a standard hamburger and fries:



But I tried the Pulled Pork Dog, a hot dog with BBQ pork and cole slaw. This was very tasty, if a bit on the messy side!



While DD played some more in the sand by our chairs, we took turns splitting up for a bit and I rode the Storm Slides and Runoff Rapids again. Then it was DWs turn and she did Teamboat Springs. (DD just wanted to play in the sand/water and not even ride the slides. Around 3 O’Clock we knew we had to return to the hotel because we had one last dinner planned and we still had to finish packing for our early departure in the morning. Again good return bus Karma, as we didn’t wait even 5 minutes for a bus to show up.

To be continued - but first...

 

[skier_pete]

I am sure all my readers are in suspense at my big announcement. All 8 of you! Actually there's two of them.

So - the short version of announcement 1: We bought into DVC!

The Long Version:

DW and I had been considering a short "Adults Only" return trip in the fall to enjoy Food & Wine as unresponsible adults. We in fact booked a bounce-back for the end of September as this trip wrapped up. However, we were thinking it would be more than we could afford this year, and really had it pretty much in the Fantasyland category.

Eariler this year we started looking into a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) and at the same time found that I was getting both a bonus at work AND we were getting a large tax refund. (We owed significantly last year, and some shifts and adjustments landed us in the opposite boat this year.) Suddenly the possibility of the trip went from "unlikely" to "maybe".

At the same time I started looking at something that I had considered but rejected previously - DVC. Because we typically went and used free dining in the past, I never found DVC to be a good fit for us and did the cost benefit analysis and found it to take almost 20 years for the there to be a "payoff" for doing it, which was too long in my view. With DD about to enter middle school, I started playing around with something I never really looked at before - resale points. By buying points resale, I suddenly discovered that the break-even point on this - combined with our HELOC - would be about 10 years versus continuing to stay at Moderates. The real benefit was AFTER that - if we still want to visit Disney as we approach retirement age, the cost savings would actually become massive using a vary modest 5 % continued increase in hotel rates vs DVC annual dues.

Reading the boards, I put together a list of "Reasons DVC might work for you" that really encompassed both the plusses and minuses of it all. They were as follows:

1) You like Disney enough to go at least once a year to maybe every other year.
2) You vastly prefer staying on property AND staying at moderates or deluxes and you have the money to do so.
3) You can regularly schedule your vacations at a minimum of seven months in advance and preferably 11 months in advance. (Last minute and DVC don't go great together unless it's 1 or 2 nights.)
4) You would be 100% satisfied with staying at the resort at which you own points.
5) You don't mind not having maid service in your room.
6) You don't care about trading points outside the DVC family of resorts. .
7) Once you spend the initial money, you better understand that you continue to have to pay maintenance fees, and these fees will continually rise. DVC will never be paid off.
8) The biggest thing to me - you have to foresee that you will want to continue stays at Disney World (on property moderate/deluxe) for at LEAST the next 10 years or more. The advantage to owning DVC is not today. When buying resale, the advantage is out about 10-12 years. (It's closer to 20 years if you buy DVC new from Disney.)

DW and I had a long discussion about it a few weeks ago, and we decided that we would watch for the right DVC purchase. Since we didn't really need points for a 2014 stay, we figured we could be patient and look for the right buy over the next several months. We had decided we wanted to buy into Animal Kingdom Lodge. While the location was remote, it had the advantage of (1) points are relatively inexpensive, (2) the lease time was longer than many of the existing resorts by about 15 years, (3) we really like staying there.

Well, I had been watching the Timeshare resale site for a few weeks, and knew that sales seemed to range from about $74 to $85 a point for AKL. One day I clicked on, and noticed a new "for sale" at $75 a point. This sale had something that none I had seen before had - freebie points. In other words, normally any unused points for the current year, the seller has you pay the annual dues to take those points. You then have to either use them, or bank them for next year. Since we weren't really thinking of going this year -even buying DVC - I didn't really want to buy points for this year if I could help it. But this purchase had 127 points that had to be used by December 1st, that were 100% free (no maintenance fees) and only 33 points that had to be paid for this year and could be carried over to next year.

Suddenly, we had a situation where we could buy the DVC membership for our trip NEXT year, yet still go on a trip THIS year without having to pay ANYTHING for our room. (Yeah, sure we're paying for the DVC, but the way I look at it, it's points you pay maintenance fees on that actually cost you the money.)

So, we decided to go for the buy, and use the freebie points for our little weekend in the fall. The DVC contract hasn't gone through completely, but we are over the most-likely failure hurdles. (Disney has "Right of First Refusal", which could cause the deal to fall through - but the price we are paying is not so low that it is very likely.)

In the end, we were able to get a GREAT deal on direct flights with SWA ($224 round trip with second flight "free" on points) so we booked to fly down on Thursday, October 16th and return late evening Monday October 20th, giving us 3 full days (F,Sat,Sun) and a partial (M). With that price on the flights, and the hotel stay being "free" as well, we suddenly can afford our weekend at F&W. We will be booking somewhat last minute (~4.5 months out by the time the contract has gone through), but we don't even care where we end up staying, we even have enough points we could go 1-bedroom in OKW or SS if we had to.

So announcement #2: A trip is now in the works for October!!

 

[Tinker326]

I literally just laughed out loud at my desk at the picture of the gator and DW- great shot... TOO funny!!!

The theming looks great. And looks like you guys had a great time!

My kids would have loved it here- I should have planned a day- oh well.

Next time, right?

 

[Tinker326]

And whoop, whoop on the annoucement!

I think I just became related to you so you can invite on vacation! Hahahahahahaha!!!

I am excited for you guys. Awesome! You'll have to let us know how A's reaction was to the news. My kids would be over the moon!

 

[skier_pete]

I literally just laughed out loud at my desk at the picture of the gator and DW- great shot... TOO funny!!!

The theming looks great. And looks like you guys had a great time!

My kids would have loved it here- I should have planned a day- oh well.

Next time, right?

I think too many people miss out on the great water parks there. I personally would rather spend the money on a WP&M adder than a hopper. I am seriously thinking when we go August 2015 we will likely get the WP&M option and spend a few afternoons in the wave pools.

And whoop, whoop on the annoucement!

I think I just became related to you so you can invite on vacation! Hahahahahahaha!!!

I am excited for you guys. Awesome! You'll have to let us know how A's reaction was to the news. My kids would be over the moon!

Tell her what...that we're going to WDW without her? I'm sure that'll go over well.

We haven't yet told her about the DVC. I think we'll wait until it is official. For her, it doesn't really affect things until we go in probably August 2015, so I am not sure how excited she will be right away. If we can book some nice hotels for that stay - we will likely book at AKV at 11 months out, and then try and split stay with a different resort once we hit the 7 month mark?

IF we had the money/points we would gladly invite "Aunty Nicole" along, but we really only bought enough points for studio stays.

 

[Tinker326]

I think too many people miss out on the great water parks there. I personally would rather spend the money on a WP&M adder than a hopper. I am seriously thinking when we go August 2015 we will likely get the WP&M option and spend a few afternoons in the wave pools.

Kurt and I typically don't like water parks.. because we can't see without our glasses & I hate being in public in a bathing suit.. those kind of things... but my kids had SO much fun at Great Wolf Lodge that I really regret not going here last trip.....

Tell her what...that we're going to WDW without her? I'm sure that'll go over well.

Right. Forgot about that. I havn't told my kids I'm going on TWO trips without them. So..that'll be a fun conversation!

We haven't yet told her about the DVC. I think we'll wait until it is official. For her, it doesn't really affect things until we go in probably August 2015, so I am not sure how excited she will be right away. If we can book some nice hotels for that stay - we will likely book at AKV at 11 months out, and then try and split stay with a different resort once we hit the 7 month mark?

IF we had the money/points we would gladly invite "Aunty Nicole" along, but we really only bought enough points for studio stays.

Fine, forget all about Auntie Nicole. All those wonderful birthday gifts I sent.. all that time I spent.... thanks! Oh. wait...
I'll continue working my charms on Kurt to buy. Although it will never happen. So I will continue to rent points.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Pete - Love the update on BB. It is beautifully themed and the rides/slides look great as well.



CONGRATULATIONS on DVC. Well done. I hope the sale goes through and it looks like you're going to enjoy the comforts of home for a long time. So excited for you.

 

[khertz]

What a great photo of DD! Looks like a great afternoon at the water park.

Congrats on getting into DVC!! Always exciting to know there are more definite trips in the works!

 

[skier_pete]

Pete - Love the update on BB. It is beautifully themed and the rides/slides look great as well.

CONGRATULATIONS on DVC. Well done. I hope the sale goes through and it looks like you're going to enjoy the comforts of home for a long time. So excited for you.

The water parks are so great there! Definitely underappreciated gems.

The DVC is weird. For years I was so anti-DVC that the switch has been jarring. I'm both excited and apprehensive about the commitment. And the fact we don't really get to take advantage of it as a family for 18 months is a little bit of a bummer, though DW and I going in the fall mitigates some of that.

What a great photo of DD! Looks like a great afternoon at the water park.

Congrats on getting into DVC!! Always exciting to know there are more definite trips in the works!

Thank you. On this trip she didn't seem big on smiling for pictures. It's always nice when you capture a genuine smile.

And thanks also for the DVC congrats. I don't know if we are stupid or smart on this.

 

[skier_pete]

I've wrapped up the trip in a fit of writing over the last few days. I knew I wanted to get this done before the end of the month. I have a whole 'nother trip report to get to!

Our evening plans were leftover from when we were still planning on doing Blizzard Beach on Day 6, and that was dinner at Tutto Italia, yet another new restaurant for us. We headed over to Epcot just as it was getting dark, and for once we didn’t have to wait long for a bus! We got to Epcot and I realized much to my own stupidity that I had left our FastPass selection the same as it was in the morning instead of moving some to at night, though we actually had a FP+ for Illuminations this night. Because the bus wasn’t running late, we were early enough that we decided to take a walk by Test Track. While the stand-by wait was showing at 70 minutes, the Single Rider wait was listed as 10. We asked DD if that would be OK, but after experiencing single rider up the chair lift, she was good with it, so off we went. And it ended up that there was ZERO wait. We literally walked up and they were putting us on a car. DD even got to ride in the same car as DW! The only negative to single rider is you don’t get to build a car – but who cares when you skip a 70 minute wait.

Then it was off to Tutto Italia. We decided to take the Friendship boat, which took a little while to wait for it – we were the only ones there and there was no sign of it, so we couldn’t tell if it was still running. After a few minutes we saw it coming from across the lake.

We pulled into Italy and checked in at the restaurant.





We were seated almost immediately. The décor not surprisingly was very Italian,





We received a bit of an Antipasto with bread and olives. This was OK, though DD and DW both don’t care for Olives:



I had the Fettuccine Vecchia Roma with Pancetta, parmesan cream. This was very tasty and the portion sizes were rather large – at this point in the trip I couldn’t finish my meal.



DW tried the Polenta Valsugana - Traditional Northern Italian creamy polenta, melted fontina, served with braised short ribs, meatballs, sweet and piccante pork sausages.





I’m not a big fan of polenta, but DW enjoyed this one quite a bit. It was again a generous portion. I believe because of our free DDP, DD got the adult portion of the Spaghetti, but as usual she requested the sauce on the side. DD can’t go wrong with Spaghetti.



DD didn’t even want dessert, but DW and I decided to suffer through. DW got the Torta Di Nocciole - Hazelnut polenta cake, nutella, sweet cream cheese (yup, more polenta!)



While I went for the Mocha Tiramisu - Mascarpone cream, espresso coffee, savoiardi biscuits, and chocolate



Something most people don’t know about me (or at least my childhood) I grew up in a town that was heavily Italian/Mafia, and as such growing up we had some inexpensive and very fantastic Italian restaurants. It’s not just in the movies that the mob frequently uses restaurants as fronts. If you don’t believe me – look up “Big Al” Bruno on Wikipedia and note the town “Agawam” when talking about his arrest in 1991 aquittal – that’s the town I grew up in. A bit off-topic, but the reason I mention this is that I KNOW good Italian food – not the crap that comes out of Olive Garden and the like. I tend to avoid Italian at places like Disney World for this reason.

So, how was the food here? I would list it as pretty good, but not really great. So, overall while we enjoyed our meal, I don’t think we’ll be coming back too soon either.

After dinner, DD was ready to go to sleep, while DW wanted to stop at a shop or two. So DD and I headed out walking (as the Friendship boats were shut down for Illuminations) with a short detour to pick out traditional snow globe (she was one for every trip to WDW). We got the bus back to the room, knowing we had just one morning left to go.

The Good
Hey, the weather’s actually nice!
Blizzard Beach was a good closer of a day
DD is old enough for single rider.

The Bad
Morning Busses strike again

The Ugly
Man that’s a long walk from the back of the park to the bus!

FP vs FP+: This does you no good at all at a waterpark. Ummm, how about it Disney, now that I have a water proof magic band!

 

[skier_pete]

We had an early breakfast ADR at Crystal Palace, and we knew that we needed to be out of the room by 11 AM. The plan was an hour or two at MK, return to the hotel, check our bags at the Custom House, and spend several hours by the pool until our ME bus picked us up around 3:30 PM. Well, it WAS a good plan…

The day started out well enough – nice weather and a bus ride to MK. Hey what do you know – the buses didn’t show early.




We again ran late getting to MK. I was surprised when we got there though that they didn’t ask for any proof of our ADR. We just walked into the park at 8:05 AM with no questions asked. Is this normal?





We did one more set of photopass photos before going to our ADR. Look – no sweatshirts, no rain ponchos!









The line was long, but we didn’t wait more than 5 minutes to be seated. I had a little time to take some photos. Longing to be inside with Tigger:









Crystal Palace is one of our few “traditions”, as we have eaten here just about every trip we’ve taken going all the way back to 1997 when it was not a character meal. Unfortunately, I am much fonder of the dinner here than the breakfast, and in addition they got rid of one of my favorite things – the breakfast frittata. So, overall the meal was pretty mediocre.



The character interaction though was pretty good. The characters came through well spaced, but all came through in under 45 minutes. This has been a problem in the past at this restaurant with the slowness of the characters.






It’s funny that DD doesn’t really like characters, but for some reason she likes seeing Pooh and the Gang at Crystal Palace. With our next trip not planned until she is 12, I think this might be last time for a while that we do Crystal Palace.





To Be Concluded...