I See a Line, I Wait In It ~ A January 2016 TR - Completed 12/29

[NJlauren]

Seems like a great evening! I love the poly and would really like to stay there again! I stayed there last in high school, but I feel like there are so many hotels I want to check out and stay at!

You crack me up, I don't like kids but I understand them haha!!!

Real nice you didn't need to switch buses! Always a plus when something like that works out!

 

[SarahDisney]

Great way to end the night. Love all your Poly photos. Almost makes me wish I hadn't decided to cancel Kona. Oh well, next time (I really have to keep a lost of all these next times, they are seriously adding up).

Thanks! Poly is definitely worth visiting ... so definitely make that Kona ADR next time!

Seems like a great evening! I love the poly and would really like to stay there again! I stayed there last in high school, but I feel like there are so many hotels I want to check out and stay at!

Thanks! The Poly really was amazing, and I'm jealous that you got to stay there (even if it was a few years back).
But yeah, there are a lot of awesome-looking Disney hotels to check out.

You crack me up, I don't like kids but I understand them haha!!!

Thanks, I think. I'm very entertaining.

Real nice you didn't need to switch buses! Always a plus when something like that works out!

Yes! Definitely made the night and getting back to the hotel a little easier.

 

[KathyM2]

Love the Trader Sam's patio...so nice. Glad you made it there and enjoyed it. I share your love of the Poly...if I had the money..that would be my first choice...I think maybe points rental is the way to go to stay there...may try it some day...Way to go on the bus luck!! That saved some time and effort to be sure!!

 

[SarahDisney]

Love the Trader Sam's patio...so nice. Glad you made it there and enjoyed it. I share your love of the Poly...if I had the money..that would be my first choice...I think maybe points rental is the way to go to stay there...may try it some day...Way to go on the bus luck!! That saved some time and effort to be sure!!

The Tiki Terrace really was beautiful!
I've been thinking about renting points to stay at the Poly ... but it's still a little more expensive than some of the other DVC, so we'll see what happens next time I'm planning a trip. I definitely would love to stay there!
The bus luck really was awesome!

 

[SarahDisney]

Day 6, Chapter 1: Disaster Morning
Sunday, January 10th, 2016​

Sunday morning was another “sleep in a bit” morning, but we didn’t want to sleep in too late, because we were hoping to be at the Fantasia Gardens mini-golf course when it opened at 10. We’ve been wanting to do mini-golf for a few trips now, and since we get vouchers for a free game with our package, it seemed like the perfect way to spend a Sunday morning.

Things seemed to be going okay in the morning … until my glasses broke. The glasses I travel with are my backup glasses, but I had just (irreparably) broken my regular glasses a few weeks earlier (I finally replaced them a little over a month ago), so I kinda didn’t want to break the only pair of glasses I had left. Thankfully, it was just that the screw had fallen out, and Beth was able to fix it. But that wasn’t exactly how I wanted to start my morning.
Moral of the story: I really need to travel with a glasses screwdriver so that Beth doesn’t have to use tweezers to fix my glasses.

Breakfast that morning was oatmeal that we brought from home and ate in the hotel food court (or so my menu says … I don’t remember these things anymore). We ate our breakfast and headed out to the bus stop, where the plan was to catch a bus to DHS and boat over to the Swan/Dolphin so that we could walk to Fantasia Gardens.

As we were on the bus, Beth realized something. She had forgotten to pack the mini-golf vouchers. Uh-oh. After a short discussion, we decided not to go back to the room. We figured we’d see if they could do anything for us when we got there, and if not … we’d just pay for the mini-golf.

We got to DHS and got off the bus … to discover that the boats were not running due to Marathon. I knew that things would be affected by the marathon, but for some reason I didn’t realize the boats wouldn’t be running.

Yeah, this just was not our day.

Okay, fine, we’ll figure this out. New plan: I managed to change our Epcot FP+ around a bit so that we would be spending the morning at Epcot and then heading off to mini-golf once the race was over and things were reopened.

As we were figuring this out, we were kinda watching the runners, and we saw some spectators that we recognized … it was @stacy~** and her daughter! So we stopped to talk to them a little bit, which was nice, and we cheered for the runners with them before heading over to the bus stops to catch a bus to Epcot.

Oh, and by the way … as we were waiting for the but to Epcot, there was a bus to the Swan/Dolphin. I probably should have figured out that that was going to be a possibility. We tried to move our FP+ back to what we originally had so that we could go do our mini-golf, but we weren’t able to change one of them back, so we decided to just go to Epcot and do the mini-golf later in the day.

Another funny … one of Beth’s friends/former campers (who lives in the Orlando area) had told Beth on Facebook that her husband was running the marathon. Beth’s fairly certain that she saw him running past as we were waiting for the bus. We were entertained.

Anyway … the bus eventually came, and we made our way to Epcot!

And of course, our first pixie dusting of the day:

And our first medal picture of the day:

Looking at this picture … wow my sunglasses are way bigger than Beth’s. Like way bigger. Seriously.

Anyway … it was time for our first FP+ of the day … a classic attraction:

I don’t love Spaceship Earth, but I like it, and it’s definitely a must-do for every trip (although we did skip it once). This time I actually tried to take some pictures … here are a few:

The Future:

Official Picture:

Next up was one of our favorite attractions at Epcot …

We had a FP+, so it wasn’t too long before we were designing this guy …

In more proof that today wasn’t our day … we don’t have our ride picture. Just assume that my hair is in my face.

Our next stop was a relatively new addition to Epcot …

For those who haven’t been to Epcot recently, this is across from the other Character Spot. When we were there in January it was just Baymax, but I think Joy and Sadness also meet in that area.

The line was very long and frustrating, but there were some cool posters and stuff in the line. It was a little hard to take pictures, but I did get one:

As you may have noticed, we’re not wearing our medals in the Baymax picture. We were asked to remove our medals and bags for the picture. Fine, it makes sense, they want to be careful about sharps around an inflatable thing.
What doesn’t make sense is the attitude we got from the character attendant. She basically acted as if it was offensive to her that we were wearing the bags and medals in the first place. Seriously? I’m going to hope that she was just having a bad day and she’s not normally like this, but still … if you work in customer service (which is what all guest-facing jobs at Disney are), you act nice even if you’re having the worst day ever. That’s just the nature of the job. This was definitely a CM fail.
But whatever.

As we were walking across Epcot, there were a few points where we had to wait a bit to cross the end of the marathon (they hold guests in an area, then change the course a drop so that we can go around the runners … it sounds complicated but it makes a lot of sense when you see it). While we were waiting, we cheered for the runners, because we’re awesome like that.

Next on our agenda was a visit to some of our favorite fish friends:

Nemo was … Nemo. We journeyed through the ocean, we found Nemo, and that was that. It was enjoyable … as it always is.

It was almost time for us to head out to mini-golf, but we had one last attraction to experience:

This had opened shortly before our trip, and we figured that it would be something cute for us to check out.
It started out in a waiting area, where there was a video talking about the history of shorts and both Pixar and Disney shorts. Definitely interesting stuff.

Once we went into the theater (which used to host Captain EO), there were three Disney & Pixar shorts – “Get a Horse” (Walt Disney Animation Studios, 2013), “La Luna” (Pixar, 2011), and “For the Birds” (Pixar, 2013) being shown. There were also some motion elements and effects.

I think “Get a Horse” had the most effects, and they didn’t really do anything for me. The short was cute, but the 4D effects kinda bugged me. I think Beth liked some of the effects, though. “For the Birds” was okay, but I didn’t love it. My favorite (by far) was “La Luna” (and I believe Beth agreed with that). I’m not going to spoil it (you can find it online if you’re really interested), but I found the story compelling, the animation beautiful, and the ending very sweet. I didn’t notice any motion or effects, which I think means that things were organic enough that they just enhanced the story. I’ve actually watched it a few times since on either Netflix or YouTube (I can’t remember which one) – I absolutely love it.

Once we got out of the theater, it was time to hustle our way out of the park so that we could make our way over to mini-golf!

Coming Next: I Want The Bigger Number!

 

[rteetz]

I think everyone has that one day on their Disney trip where things just don't happen the way us uber planners plan them too. This was apparently that day for you.

I wouldn't have thought about the boats not running either but it makes sense. I'm glad you were able to change things around though to accommodate that.

Spaceship Earth is a must do for me as well. Its one of those few original attractions that still exists from Epcot Center even though its been changed a few times.

The Seas is always fun. The ride is just kind of meh but I always love looking around afterwards.

You guys got some great photos throughout the day with your medals.

When I met Baymax they didn't make me take off my medal but they did make me take off a pin. That really sucks your CM was rude about it. The CM we had was very nice at explaining why we had to do it.

We didn't make it over to the Pixar Short Film Festival. For the birds is my favorite Pixar short though. The new that just came out with Finding Dory is close behind it though.

Can't wait to hear about the rest of your day.

 

[FantasiaMagic]

It's good you and Beth were able to change your EPCOT Fps for the earlier part of the day!
I love your picture with Baymax, I can't wait to meet him when I go! And lol, I heard the same thing about taking off any bags and other pointy accessories when meeting him. That's horrible about the CM though, she had no need to be rude!
The Pixar Short Film attraction looks really cute, I plan on checking it out!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I'm surprised that the boats weren't running but I guess I can see why they stopped them during the marathon. Were they allowing people to walk to the resorts and to Epcot, or was the path only for runners?

We saw the Pixar Films and were pleasantly surprised at how much we liked them. I agree that La Luna was the best of the bunch.

We were staying at the Wilderness Lodge on this day, so we took the boat to MK. I've never seen the park so empty in my life, since traffic was a mess and only boats seemed to be making it over to the park. The crowds finally started arriving around 11am. It seemed to me that it was a nice morning without any rain.

 

[cyndiloveswalt]

Hello! Found and read your entire trip report between yesterday and today. Really enjoying reading about your adventures. I signed up and trained for the Wine and Dine half marathon last November which was to be my first half and then had a lightening storm cut our race in half. It was really frustrating as I had trained for months! I still haven't actually run an entire half, not sure if I will at this point. I think a 10k is more my speed at this point.
I also agree with you about the Poly and am happy to say that we will be staying there in November! Can't wait!
Looking forward to hear about the rest of your adventures!!

 

[Saphire5742]

Things seemed to be going okay in the morning … until my glasses broke

Oh no! I definitely know how that is. Twice I've had to rely on my prescription sunglasses, once even to a tango performance in a dark theater where I sat towards the back.

Thankfully, it was just that the screw had fallen out, and Beth was able to fix it.

Phew! Good thing it was easily fixable

Anyway … the bus eventually came, and we made our way to Epcot!

Love how you are sporting your medals. Also your shirt is super cute!

We had a FP+, so it wasn’t too long before we were designing this guy …

Very cool looking vehicle.

Looking forward to reading about your mini golf adventures

 

[SarahDisney]

I think everyone has that one day on their Disney trip where things just don't happen the way us uber planners plan them too. This was apparently that day for you.

Yeah, this was definitely our "nothing went as planned day." But if we have to have a disaster day ... at least it's at Disney!

I wouldn't have thought about the boats not running either but it makes sense. I'm glad you were able to change things around though to accommodate that.

It just didn't even occur to me - but there was no way to get to the boats without crossing the race. We were definitely glad that we were able to work things out.

Spaceship Earth is a must do for me as well. Its one of those few original attractions that still exists from Epcot Center even though its been changed a few times.

Spaceship Earth is actually one of the few things I remember from my first trip to Disney. The only things I really remember from Epcot that are still there are Spaceship Earth and Akershus (which will come up later in this TR).

The Seas is always fun. The ride is just kind of meh but I always love looking around afterwards.

I love Nemo so I always enjoy the ride, and I love that there's so much to see afterwards (although we didn't really look around much this trip).

You guys got some great photos throughout the day with your medals.

Thanks!

When I met Baymax they didn't make me take off my medal but they did make me take off a pin. That really sucks your CM was rude about it. The CM we had was very nice at explaining why we had to do it.

I totally understood why we needed to take off any potential sharps, but I think it would have been nice if they explained it. The CM definitely did not handle the situation well.

We didn't make it over to the Pixar Short Film Festival. For the birds is my favorite Pixar short though. The new that just came out with Finding Dory is close behind it though.

For The Birds was definitely good, and I did enjoy it (even though it wasn't my favorite). I haven't seen Finding Dory yet, so I haven't seen the new short, but I've heard that it's really good.

Can't wait to hear about the rest of your day.

Thanks. I hope you like mini-golf pictures ... there will be a lot of those.

It's good you and Beth were able to change your EPCOT Fps for the earlier part of the day!

That was definitely a relief.

I love your picture with Baymax, I can't wait to meet him when I go! And lol, I heard the same thing about taking off any bags and other pointy accessories when meeting him. That's horrible about the CM though, she had no need to be rude!

Baymax was definitely fun once we got past the rude CM!

The Pixar Short Film attraction looks really cute, I plan on checking it out!

It's definitely cute and worth checking out if you have time!
Plus, there's air conditioning, so it's a good place to hang out in the summer.

I'm surprised that the boats weren't running but I guess I can see why they stopped them during the marathon. Were they allowing people to walk to the resorts and to Epcot, or was the path only for runners?

I'm pretty sure that the path was for runners only. I think the marathon has a lot more of an impact on the parks and whatnot than the other races.

We saw the Pixar Films and were pleasantly surprised at how much we liked them. I agree that La Luna was the best of the bunch.

We definitely were pleasantly surprised by the Pixar short films!

We were staying at the Wilderness Lodge on this day, so we took the boat to MK. I've never seen the park so empty in my life, since traffic was a mess and only boats seemed to be making it over to the park. The crowds finally started arriving around 11am. It seemed to me that it was a nice morning without any rain.

I think the parks were definitely a little emptier that morning - that and the good weather definitely made for a great morning (despite our hiccups).

 

[SarahDisney]

Hello! Found and read your entire trip report between yesterday and today. Really enjoying reading about your adventures. I signed up and trained for the Wine and Dine half marathon last November which was to be my first half and then had a lightening storm cut our race in half. It was really frustrating as I had trained for months! I still haven't actually run an entire half, not sure if I will at this point. I think a 10k is more my speed at this point.

Thanks for stopping by and reading along!
That Wine and Dine situation definitely must have been rough, but I guess runDisney had to do what they felt was safest. I think that 10K is really a great distance, and I love the WDW 10K course (which I think is the same course as they use for Princess Weekend).

I also agree with you about the Poly and am happy to say that we will be staying there in November! Can't wait!

Yay!! I'm so excited for you!

Looking forward to hear about the rest of your adventures!!

Thanks!

Oh no! I definitely know how that is. Twice I've had to rely on my prescription sunglasses, once even to a tango performance in a dark theater where I sat towards the back.

Thankfully I was planning to wear my contacts, but ... I hate breaking my glasses. Especially because I have problems with my contacts sometimes. So it was definitely frustrating.

Phew! Good thing it was easily fixable

Yep, that was a big relief!

Love how you are sporting your medals. Also your shirt is super cute!

Thanks!! We wore the medals all trip and got a lot of comments about them!

Very cool looking vehicle.

Thanks! We have a lot of fun designing the cars.

Looking forward to reading about your mini golf adventures

Hopefully I'll have an update (with lots of pictures) soon!

 

[SarahDisney]

Day 6, Chapter 2: I Want The Bigger Number (Part 1)
Sunday, January 10th, 2016
​

So … that title needs a little explaining.
My family is a mini-golf family. Not as much now, but when I was younger (I’m talking “tall enough to hold the club” through high school) we used to mini-golf at least a few times every summer, both in the NYC area and on vacation.
I’ve always been terrible at mini-golf. Like, worst in the family. As a kid … whatever. As I got older and crankier, I started to really hate mini-golf and complain about it a lot.
Once upon a time, we were out mini-golfing, and I was in a foul mood about it, as per usual. There was another family there, and the little girl (probably 5 or 6ish) was crying to her mom because she gave her the wrong score. “I want the bigger number!” cried the girl.
Since then … it’s been a thing in my family. “I want the bigger number!” is applicable not only to mini-golf, but to all things in life. But whenever we go to mini-golf … it comes up.
Now that you have your family history segment taken care of, let’s get back to the story.

When you last saw us, we were heading out of the park. We took a bus to Hollywood Studios (because we weren’t sure if the boats were running yet), and from there we walked to the Swan/Dolphin. (In hindsight … no idea why we didn’t just take a bus to Swan/Dolphin … or walk from the International Gateway or something like that … I swear, this was just an off day, I usually know what I’m doing.)

Anyway … we made it to DHS and took the pathway over to the Swan/Dolphin. Now, the marathon had just ended, and the pathway from DHS to the Swan/Dolphin was part of the race route. Not only that … it was shortly after a water & nutrition stop.

I mentioned to Beth that there had clearly been a race there that morning because the path was littered with the remnants of Clif Shot Gels and chocolate wrappers. (There were also a few other brands of gels and some cups from water/Powerade)
I’m funny.

We made it to the Swan/Dolphin area, but really couldn’t figure out how to get to the mini-golf. After a little discussion and confusion, we went inside and asked, and were given a map and directions.
We were still a little lost and confused, but between the map, the directions, and some signs, we made it to the mini-golf eventually. After passing by the entire hotel, the pools, and having to cross a streets. It’s not really far so much as just complicated. But whatever. Anyway … picture evidence:

We got to the check-in area (the background of the above picture) and asked if there was anything they could do for us if we left our vouchers in the room. Alas … no dice. We paid our $28 ($14 each) and were told that our tee time would be in about 20 minutes. We sat down to wait, and we weren’t the only ones waiting. There was a group of 4 high school or college age girls ahead of us. Remember these girls. I don’t hate all girls that age, but … sometimes they can be annoying. So I wasn’t excited.

Anyway … finally they called the group in front of us, and then a little after that they called us. We got one golf club (why should we both have to carry one?), we got golf balls (pink for Beth, yellow for me), and we were told that if our balls went into the water, we should come get another one. No going into the water to get your ball. Makes sense.

I took a lot of pictures (partially because I’m me and partially because I really didn’t see that many pictures when I was quick Googling before my trip), so I’m going to post all of my pictures and then share some thoughts about the experience at the end of the post.

WARNING: If you don’t like mini-golf pictures, you may want to skip to the end of this update
​

The Fantasia Gardens mini-golf course is themed around the movie Fantasia. As I’m sure you guys know, the movie consists of several segments of animation set to the tune of classical music. The 18 holes of Fantasia Gardens mini-golf can be divided into sections, with several holes being themed around the each segment.

Section 1: Tocatta and Fugue (Johann Sebastian Bach)

For each hole, I tried to take a picture of the “instructions” (which gave you a hint to help with the hole), and a picture (or two) of the hole itself.

Beth golfing:

Section 2: The Nutcracker Suite (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)

(I don’t seem to have a picture of this hole)

Section 3: The Pastoral Symphony (Ludwig van Beethoven)

Beth golfing:

Sarah golfing: (not the best picture of me, but it was the only time during the mini-golf that I let go of the camera)

Continued in Next Post

 

[SarahDisney]

Continued From Previous Post

Day 6, Chapter 2: I Want The Bigger Number (Part 2)
Sunday, January 10th, 2016
​

Section 4: Dance of the Hours (Amilcare Ponchielli)

Section 5: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Paul Dukas)

If you walked past these brooms, you may get wet. I wasn’t particularly a fan.
And I had a really hard time getting a picture of them dumping water … hence what you have here (I think the girls in front of us thought I was crazy for trying to get that picture).

At the end of the last hole (pictured above), your ball went down and you didn’t get it back. And that was the end.

Now that you’ve seen the pictures, here are some thoughts:

1. I won! Not by a lot, and neither of us set any course records, but I won! That doesn’t usually happen. In Beth’s defense, she was having a problem with her hand that made it difficult for her to hold the club.
2. For some of the holes, you had to hit the ball pretty hard. They were steep inclines. I wasn’t expecting that, and I’d imagine that makes it more difficult for kids.
3. The girls in front of us (one girl in particular, mostly) kept losing their balls in the water and having to go back, which slowed them down and then slowed us down. They did mostly play without the girl who had to go get a new ball, but it still affected us. So the girls weren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be, but they did slow us down a drop.
4. Overall, we enjoyed it. One of the most fun courses I’ve done in the last few years. I’d definitely recommend it for people who like mini-golf or who just want to try something new outside the parks.

Once we were done, we bought ourselves some snacks for the road …

Best post-mini-golf snack ever, am I right?? (The answer is yes, I am right)

Ice cream in hand, we made our way back to the Swan/Dolphin, where we walked over to the boat dock for our transportation back to Epcot. Since I’m me, I took some pictures of the Boardwalk/Yacht Club/Beach Club area:

We disembarked from the boat and made our way over to the International Gateway.

What did we do when we got into Epcot? You’ll have to wait and see!

Coming Next: In France We Eat Medals

 

[Wood Nymph]

• Overall, we enjoyed it. One of the most fun courses I’ve done in the last few years. I’d definitely recommend it for people who like mini-golf or who just want to try something new outside the parks.

It looks like a fun course. We were hoping that we could squeeze it in on our June trip, since we had the free vouchers, but it didn't work out. But it is nice of you to post pictures. I've only seen it from the road.

I remember that Sunday. I think it was the day that the weather started off nice and then a cold front moved through around late morning or early afternoon. There were a lot of people who weren't prepared, especially some runners in their shorts and new medals

 

[fallonkendra]

That mini-golf course looks awesome! Congrats on beating your sister haha.

Did you end up spending the entire day at Epcot? Because we were there that same day! I wonder if we crossed paths at any point?!

 

[rteetz]

Yay for winning!

I haven't done Mini-golfing at Disney before but it looks like a lot of fun. The course looks very well themed.

I agree with your snack choice.

 

[SarahDisney]

It looks like a fun course. We were hoping that we could squeeze it in on our June trip, since we had the free vouchers, but it didn't work out. But it is nice of you to post pictures. I've only seen it from the road.

It's definitely a fun course, and I'm glad we made the time to do it (this was our third "planned attempt" and first time we actually managed to get there).
I'm glad you appreciated the pictures! We also had only seen it from the road (and even then ... only once or twice), so it was nice to see how it actually looks!

I remember that Sunday. I think it was the day that the weather started off nice and then a cold front moved through around late morning or early afternoon. There were a lot of people who weren't prepared, especially some runners in their shorts and new medals

Sounds right. We were wearing long sleeves, so we were okay, but it definitely got chillier as the day went on.

That mini-golf course looks awesome! Congrats on beating your sister haha.

Thanks! This may actually have been the first time I've ever beat her at mini-golf

Did you end up spending the entire day at Epcot? Because we were there that same day! I wonder if we crossed paths at any point?!

Minus the mini-golf, we were at Epcot the whole day. I wonder if we just missed each other ... hopefully I'll have another update posted in a few weeks (I haven't started the next one yet, but hopefully I'll start it soon) and we'll see if we were in the same place at any point!

Yay for winning!

Thanks

I haven't done Mini-golfing at Disney before but it looks like a lot of fun. The course looks very well themed.

It was definitely fun, and probably one of the best themed mini-golf courses I've seen in a long time (which is not surprising, since it's Disney).

I agree with your snack choice.

It really was the best option!

 

[Saphire5742]

Looks like a fun mini golf course. Very whimsical, which I love. Including the mini poems/instructions before each hole.
Congrats on the win.
And you are right, that is the best post mini golf snack. I'm still kicking myself for forgetting to get a Mickey bar while I was there (among some other things). Next time I need to be better prepared with a snack list!

 

[disneywlf]

Love how much of an awesome time you had mini golfing at Fantasia Gardens, which looks very whimsical and your post game snack choice of a Mickey bar could not be better!