"There's only ONE Wreck-It Ralph!" Our Oct 2012/F&W TR *3/11 FINAL update!*

[khertz]

Great update! You hit all of the mountains first thing in the morning...success! And that is really awesome that they let you in for lunch at BoG. Love the pics you got of the FLE. I can't wait to see it all in person! The details there look amazing. And so does BoG! I hope we can get lunch there without waiting an hour in line. The line outside looks nuts!

 

[kdka421]

I know I'm a little behind on your TR, but I really enjoyed your last update. You got some great pictures in Fantasyland with some really nice details. I was over there in October, but never got to see the inside of Be OUr Guest. Very nice. My DH and I have an ADR for dinner there in June and I'm really looking forward to it. Is that a line of people waiting to get in the restaurant?

I love all the stained glass inside. Very nice. Sorry the potato leek soup was a bust. That sounds like one of those things which could turn out very bad if not prepare properly.

Fun update. Thanks!

Thank you! It really was a fun morning to get to spend that time in New Fantasyland. I hope you enjoy your time at Be Our Guest!
Yes, that was a line of people waiting to get in - however, I'd hope that isn't a regular occurrence! I'm sure someone who's been recently would be able to say for sure. I'd guess it's just because it was the first day.

Great update! You hit all of the mountains first thing in the morning...success! And that is really awesome that they let you in for lunch at BoG. Love the pics you got of the FLE. I can't wait to see it all in person! The details there look amazing. And so does BoG! I hope we can get lunch there without waiting an hour in line. The line outside looks nuts!

Thanks!! It was so awesome that they let us in, I was so excited the whole time we were in there. I am sure you are going to love it! It is definitely very awesome to see in person.

 

[kdka421]

Day 7: Magic Kingdom, continued. Or, How Sandy Changed Everything...

We left off enjoying a wonderful lunch at Be Our Guest. After lunch, we left FLE, and stopped to enjoy a performance of Mickey's Philharmagic. Wonderful, as always. Next, we wanted to just relax for a little, so we headed back to walk around Main Street for a while. We got a few more Photopass pictures done at the hub although none came out exceptionally well. We then wandered some of the shops, and also took in performances by the Dapper Dans (my father's favorite!) and the Main Street Marching Band. Then, we're not particularly ones to stop at characters, but we decided to see Mickey at the Town Square Theater (never been to that M&G before). The wait was short, and it was a great M&G - I love how they take photos all throughout the experience, so you get a few nice candids as well.

After meeting Mickey, we did one more Photopass session at the main entrance, since the photographer here was having technical issues when we tried to get these pictures during MNSSHP:

At this point, around 2:45pm, we decided it was time for an afternoon break. As it was, we were kind of winding down the trip, and had checked off most of our must-do's. And, well, here's where the story gets interesting. We had been keeping an eye on our flights home, that were scheduled to leave the next afternoon, because we knew there might be an issue with the impending storm. Our returning flight connected through Dulles (DC), then back to Albany NY. Well, literally while we were on the bus, the second leg of our flight from DC to NY was cancelled. Argh!

Well, that put us in a bit of a tailspin. At that point, we could get to DC, but then had no way of getting back to NY...not to mention, there was still a strong possibility the first leg of our flight would get canceled as well. And even if we did make it to DC, we didn't want to be there with no plans on how to get home, even though we had friends we could stay with, we'd rather not spend all day at the airport trying to figure things out. So, instead of relaxing back at CSR, we literally spent the next 3 hours on the phone, trying to figure out our options. I spoke with United, while Aaron talked with Disney. This was Monday, and we were supposed to leave Tuesday -- well even though we were on top of the situation, the flights on Wednesday to Albany were already all full, there was no way to get us on a flight to Albany until Thursday! And, joy of joys, the ONLY one available was the red-eye leaving Orlando at 6:40am! [And of course, it had an almost 3 hour layover in Chicago.] So we had no choice but to book that flight (thankfully no fees for switching or anything, since it wasn't our fault). Aaron spoke with Disney, and they were offering a significantly discounted room rate for everyone who was stuck there because of the storm. So, although we hadn't planned for the extra expense, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, so we went ahead and booked 2 more nights at CSR. Finally, I spoke with my boss and got the okay (not that any of us could really do anything about it) for the 2 extra vacation days.

This was beyond stressful - I love plans and organization, and having to switch everything around last minute, occur unexpected expenses, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I was briefly in tears at the ridiculousness of everything, and I vividly remember posting on Facebook that I was "laughing and crying at the same time".

The other thing we had to figure out was meals. Our free dining plan only extended through the end of Tuesday - we spoke with Disney, but they unfortunately couldn't extend the promotion for us at this point. That was disappointing. We had a 2-credit dinner booked for this night at Narcoossee's, and Tuesday afternoon we had just planned to grab something simple at Epcot before our late afternoon flight. But now, those 2 credits had to stretch...and we'd still have a full day (Wednesday) that we'd now have to pay for out of pocket. So, with regret, we canceled our dinner at Narcoossee's, and they nicely waived any last-minute cancellation fee. On the one hand, it was the meal I was least excited about, but on the other hand, I had been dying for the cheesecake I had heard so much about!

Coming up next -- where we ended up having dinner, and the special group of people we met later that evening!

 

[teekathepony]

I love those PP pics, they're so cute! Especially the hug with Mickey!
What a headache with the cancelled flights! But on the up side, more Disney days! Although cancelling Narcoossee's sounds disappointing. Hope you made up for it somehow!

 

[homeschoolmomof4]

Love the picture of Mickey hugging you!!!

 

[MEK]

Great pictures.

Sorry about all the stress in the afternoon, but fortunately you got enough warning to so you could change your flights a day early.

And - Narcoossee's isn't that great anyway, so I'm glad it helped to stretch things out a little.

I hope your next two bonus are awesome.

6:20am flight or was that 6:40am? Doesn't matter - it's still too early either way!

 

[kdka421]

I love those PP pics, they're so cute! Especially the hug with Mickey!
What a headache with the cancelled flights! But on the up side, more Disney days! Although cancelling Narcoossee's sounds disappointing. Hope you made up for it somehow!

Thanks! It definitely was a major headache. More Disney days was nice, but in all honesty, after a few trips we've figured out just the right number of days for us, and adding on more time kinda put us over the edge. I mean, I'd certainly rather be stuck at Disney than back at work, but the additional days were not as enjoyable as the first part of our vacation.

We did make up for cancelling Narcoossee's...lots of good stuff still to come!

Love the picture of Mickey hugging you!!!

Thanks I love that one too.

Great pictures.

Sorry about all the stress in the afternoon, but fortunately you got enough warning to so you could change your flights a day early.

And - Narcoossee's isn't that great anyway, so I'm glad it helped to stretch things out a little.

I hope your next two bonus are awesome.

6:20am flight or was that 6:40am? Doesn't matter - it's still too early either way!

Yeah, good point, I'm glad we were able to get everything figured out rather than not finding out until we reached the airport. Very thankful for smartphones and the internet.

The new flight left Orlando at 6:40am, so our Magical Express pickup was ridiculously early. Ugh...we are not early-birds!

 

[kdka421]

Day 7: Magic Kingdom, continued

We had just canceled our dinner at Narcoossee's, and at this point, it was getting late (or at least, the day was quickly going by) - it was already 6:15 - and now we had no dinner reservations. We wanted to find a place we could use one of our table service credits - but didn't want to do any of the options in Magic Kingdom, where we were headed back to that evening [I don't honestly remember if there were open ADRs online, or if we were being picky...]. We decided to take a bit of a gamble...one of the restaurant options I had considered early in my planning, but didn't make it onto our list, was The Wave at the Contemporary. We checked to see if they had an ADR available, and they didn't...but we decided to head there anyway, and see if they could fit us in as a walk-up. So we caught the bus to MK, then took the monorail over to the Contemporary. We got to The Wave, and asked the CM if there was any way he could get us in for dinner. He was able to get us in with only a short wait, hooray! So around 7pm we sat down for dinner at The Wave.

I knew very little about this restaurant, and we had never eaten here before. I knew they featured a lot of local/seasonal/etc ingredients, and that's about it. First, however, let me say that we were extremely pleased with our waiter, Jeremy (as far as I can tell, he's the only waiter I made note of his/her name, that's how much we were impressed) - he was very knowledgeable, gave us a lot of information and suggestions, and also was very pleasant and helpful.

He brought out bread, which was accompanied by fresh butter with sea salt (something we haven't seen in any non-signature Disney restaurant), so that was a special touch. Both were delicious. We also got a couple glasses of sparkling red wine, celebrating our strange misfortune

Aaron was toying between the two different fish options - and chose the "Grilled Sustainable Fish", which happened to be swordfish (one of his favorites), served with creamed corn and wild mushrooms. I opted for the beef tenderloin, served with potatoes and butternut squash. We both loved our entrees.

For dessert, there were 4 options, and each one was a dessert-trio. Other than the no-sugar-added option (hah) they all sounded great. Aaron picked the "Fall Ice Cream Trio", and the flavors were: pumpkin pie with maple glazed pecans, double chocolate chip, and salted caramel swirl. I chose "Creamy Indulgence" which included Butterscotch creme brulee with espresso macaroon, New York Cheesecake with apple-cranberry compote, and Olive-Oil infused chocolate truffle mousse with salted caramel sauce [not listed on the menu, but it was topped with gold leaf!]. Don't these descriptions just sound DIVINE?! Well they were! The desserts were truly out of this world.

All in all, this was a fantastic meal. Aaron has proclaimed this to be his favorite meal of the trip, beating out even the signature restaurants. How's that for a recommendation!

We toyed with the idea of staying to watch Wishes from the Contemporary, however since this was our only opportunity to see regular-Wishes up close and personal, we rushed back to the MK. We just barely made it, and inched our way up to the hub area to catch the show. I always try to decide if I prefer Illuminations or Wishes, and can never decide - they are too different, and both are spectacular in different ways.

There was one more reason that we rushed back to MK that evening, and that was because a group of us from the DisBoards had organized an unofficial DisMeet that evening at MK! There were probably close to a dozen of us (that we knew of) in the Magic Kingdom that day. Not everyone ended up being able to make it, but we ended up with a group of 7 ladies plus a few significant others and children all getting together after the fireworks! We planned to meet right after Wishes at the Tomorrowland Terrace. We actually hung out for close to an hour, just chatting and getting to know each other. And of course we snapped a group picture. We had an awesome time, and I'm so grateful to each of these ladies for spending time with us, it was a pleasure to meet you all!

Around 10:30pm, everyone headed on their separate ways. A few were heading back to their hotels, but it was Extra Magic Hours, so a few of us were staying around the park for a while longer. One of the ladies we met up with, Lauren, was touring Disney by herself, so we invited her to join us the rest of the evening. First, we were getting hungry (as always), so we grabbed a snack and a drink at Casey's. While we were there, we spotted a Photopass photographer in an area I'd never seen before, so we grabbed a shot, and I also snapped a photo of the Crystal Palace.

Then, we just casually wandered around for a while. We took a ride on Pirates first. We then made our way over to Storybook Circus, because we hadn't yet hit the rides over there, and I was dying to get some good evening pictures of Dumbo! That area looks so awesome at night. So we took our first ride in a long time on Dumbo, the first time in its new location. This photo of Aaron is one of my favorite from the whole trip.

After Dumbo, why not, we took a ride on the Barnstormer. We then walked over to Tomorrowland, so Aaron could ride Space Mountain one more time. I sat it out this time, and just enjoyed the brisk evening. It was very quiet around the park. After Aaron and Lauren were done with Space Mtn, we were wiped our from our stressful day, so we said our goodbyes, and around 12:20 we left Magic Kingdom for the night and headed back to CSR.

Next, the day in which we don't go home, and instead go back to Epcot! Stay tuned.

 

[homeschoolmomof4]

Love the unexpected happy surprise of The Wave. Your dinner looks absolutely delish!! YUM!!

 

[khertz]

Oh my gosh, I know exactly that feeling! The same thing happened to us when we were in California for our anniversary and they cancelled our flight home (that was in a few hours!) while we were in DL! If Paxton had been with us, we probably would have worked out extending our stay, but with a storm coming and our baby home with my parents, I just wanted to get out of there! We managed to rebook for an earlier flight and had to speed all the way to LAX from Disneyland, but we made it onto the flight and got home late that night on the very last plane coming into New Orleans. Definitely THE most stressful and anxious hours of my entire life!!! At least you were able to extend your stay and your boss was understanding, although like you said, what could you really do? And it's great you were able to readjust your meals a little bit to stretch them out and ended up with an awesome meal!

 

[kdka421]

Love the unexpected happy surprise of The Wave. Your dinner looks absolutely delish!! YUM!!

We were so pleased with this dinner. I was uncertain and had read mixed reviews, which is why this had fell off my list originally, but after this dinner I'd recommend it to anyone.

Oh my gosh, I know exactly that feeling! The same thing happened to us when we were in California for our anniversary and they cancelled our flight home (that was in a few hours!) while we were in DL! If Paxton had been with us, we probably would have worked out extending our stay, but with a storm coming and our baby home with my parents, I just wanted to get out of there! We managed to rebook for an earlier flight and had to speed all the way to LAX from Disneyland, but we made it onto the flight and got home late that night on the very last plane coming into New Orleans. Definitely THE most stressful and anxious hours of my entire life!!! At least you were able to extend your stay and your boss was understanding, although like you said, what could you really do? And it's great you were able to readjust your meals a little bit to stretch them out and ended up with an awesome meal!

Wow, yup, that sounds so familiar. So incredibly stressful. We really had no choice, so we tried to make the most of it.
I'm so glad this meal ended up going well, and we actually ended up with a great lunch reservation the next day as well...stay tuned!

 

[kdka421]

Day 8: EPCOT

As I've said, we expected to have only a few hours in the parks on this day, but all that changed the day before, when our plans got rearranged due to Sandy. At this point we had basically been prepared to wind down our tri...so we decided to start off the day on a slow note - we slept in until 9:15am. The first thing we did was head down to the lobby, because we had to check out of our old reservation, and check in to our new reservation. They had told us that they couldn't guarantee we could stay in the same room, but when we made the switch they told us that we would be able to after all. Yay!

Now, the day before we had to make a few decisions. 1) Did we want to add on an extra day to our park passes? Our passes were valid through this day (Tuesday), but we would not have any passes for Wednesday. We decided that was okay, even though it wouldn't have cost much to add on, we were content with the amount of times we had spent in the parks, and just wanted to relax at this point. 2) We had to figure out our remaining meals! Due to cancelling Narcoossee's, we had 1 more TS credit, and we had a few snack credits remaining, but that was it. So, actually while we were at dinner at The Wave, I was browsing the Disney mobile app to figure out where I might be able to snag a last minute reservation. And amazingly, I scored quite a catch - noon lunch reservations at Le Cellier! I was stunned to see it listed. We ate there for the first time on our last trip and really enjoyed it, and knowing this was the last time we could eat there for 1 TS credit, we jumped on it.

So at 11:15 we caught a bus to Epcot, leaving just enough time to head to the World Showcase for our last minute Le Cellier lunch! We knew what we wanted to get - we shared a bowl of the cheddar cheese soup, then we each got the filet and mushroom risotto, and then we also each enjoyed the maple creme brule. We enjoyed our lunch - however it wasn't as "up to par" as the last time we had dined there. Unfortunately we had an inattentive waitress, pretty slow service, and then the weirdest thing was, neither of our steaks were cooked quite as we had requested, each were fairly overdone. I prefer a medium steak, and this was at least mid-well. But since the service had been slow, we were hungry, and just decided to eat them as they were. Not the worst, but strange for a steakhouse not to cook the steaks to the right temperature.

After lunch, we took a quick detour back to Future World to pick up FPs for Soarin before it got to late, but then we really just wandered around the World Showcase for a while. We watched the 360 video in China, I believe for the first time, and I got some fun shots inside the China pavilion which has just gorgeous colors.

We then went to America, where Aaron wanted to see the American Adventure - I'm sorry to say that I nodded off a little during the show. Maybe partly due to the content, but I think mostly due to my full belly Looking back at my notes, at this point I just have written down "World Showcase" - so I think we just wandered around pretty aimlessly for a few hours. As we were winding down for the afternoon, we decided to hop on Spaceship Earth again, and then explored the few shops in the main entrance area. It was here where I stumbled upon one of my favorite pin trading finds of the trip - I got an awesome Epcot 30th anniversary cast member exclusive pin. You can see it here on pinpics.


We left Epcot around 5pm to head back to the resort for dinner. We had no real dinner thoughts, so we decided to grab a small bite at Pepper Market, and then nibble on a few final things at the F&W Festival. For dinner they were back to the a la carte menu, so we just ordered a pasta alfredo with chicken to share. With the required "service charge" (even though we didn't get drinks or anything from the waiter) this ended up costing about $15 for a very small portion of (pretty bland) pasta. Oh well.

6:25pm we headed back to Epcot. We wanted to try out the last few booths we hadn't gotten a chance to try the previous day. We started at Australia with the pesto lamb chops with potato crunches, and WOW!! This was hands down both of our favorite dishes of the entire F&W festival. We devoured it. We then tried the beef and sweet potatoes at South Africa (not bad), but then decided we wanted to spend our last credit on another serving of the lamb, so we headed back to Australia!

It was the weirdest thing, but we honestly were just "done" with our trip at this point, mentally at least. So we wandered around some more, made our way over to Germany to get a bag of caramel popcorn, and then just before 8pm we actually decided to sit down and just wait for Illuminations. We sat behind one of the gift shops near the entry to the World Showcase. We made friends with a family from Britain, and their daughter got a kick out of listening to Aaron talk and asking him to say certain words and answer silly questions.

After a wonderful showing of Illuminations, we went to take one final ride on Soarin, and then headed back to CSR around 10:30pm.

Up next: our last full day! Any guesses what we did?! Here are a few small hints...we saw some sort of evening entertainment, and we ate in 2 restaurants that were brand new to us.

 

[homeschoolmomof4]

What a shame about Le Cellier! Unfortunately I've read a few times now that the service and the food quality are slipping. I've been wanting to try it, but my boys are not interested in table service meals unless it involves a buffet! LOL!

 

[khertz]

Sorry Le Cellier was not as good as you expected. But at least you capped off the day with some F&W fun!

I'm interested to see how you spent your bonus Disney day!

 

[fizbobunny]

I love that evening pic of the two of you together

 

[kdka421]

What a shame about Le Cellier! Unfortunately I've read a few times now that the service and the food quality are slipping. I've been wanting to try it, but my boys are not interested in table service meals unless it involves a buffet! LOL!

All in all, the meal was good, the food was tasty; but definitely not as good as the last time we were there. Still we were happy with the meal. I don't think I'll go back though, now that it's 2 table service credits.

Sorry Le Cellier was not as good as you expected. But at least you capped off the day with some F&W fun!

I'm interested to see how you spent your bonus Disney day!

We definitely had a good time at F&W, it was nice to get a little more tasting in, especially since we discovered our favorite dish of the festival!

I hope to update with my bonus day soon

I love that evening pic of the two of you together

Thank you! It wasn't one of my favorites, so I appreciate the compliment! It was a unique place that I had never seen a photopass photographer before though, so that was pretty cool.

 

[kdka421]

Day 9: Miscellany (Halloween), and Day 10: Travel Home

We're finally at the end - thanks to those who have been patiently following along with my saga! Day 9 happened to be Halloween. I should have been back at work, but instead it ended up being our last full day at WDW.

As I already mentioned, we had decided not to extend our park tickets for another day (also, our dining package ran out the night before, so we were on our own now for food). We instead opted for a totally casual day. We started off by sleeping in, getting up at 9:30. We then simply relaxed around the room/resort.

At noon we caught a bus to Downtown Disney. First stop was lunch at Cookes of Dublin. This was one of the things that had fallen off of our list, but I had read about an amazing food that I was dying to try, so it ended up on our Miscellany day agenda! I ordered the original fish & chips, subbed in the garlic parm chips, and Aaron ordered the beef/lamb pie, subbed in onion rings. And finally, the item I was waiting for - cheese and bacon dip. Our entrees were both good, but WOW that dip was everything I'd hoped for! Of course I burned my mouth on it, but it was simply amazing to dip the fries in. Very rich and filling, of course.

After lunch we explored around the various shops, spending most of our time in the World of Disney store, I don't think we ended up buying anything though. We headed back to CSR around 2pm (so I guess we really weren't at Downtown Disney long at all). This picture of Aaron on the bus I think sums up perfectly how we were feeling at that point.

Again, we ended up just lounging around at the resort for a while. We ordered Papa Johns pizza delivery for dinner (they deliver down to the lobby, just had to go there to meet him and pick it up) which worked out very conveniently.

Around 6:30pm we caught a bus to the Magic Kingdom to start our final adventure. At the MK, we caught the monorail over to the Grand Floridian. We spent some time hanging around that resort, exploring their shops (we were still on the hunt for cufflinks, and actually found our first pair there, but they had a GF monogrammed on them, which wasn't really meaningful to us) and listening to the band play in the lobby. We also explored the grounds a little - they were playing a Disney movie on the lawn, looked like a nice setup, they had blankets out for people to sit on. I also took this awesome photo of the moon over the Contemporary Resort:

We then headed in to...Narcoossee's! We sat at the bar, and ordered drinks and dessert. I got a yummy chocolate martini, not sure what Aaron had. We had an amazing bartender, and he literally made my night when he gave me a Mickey straw in my glass of water! For dessert, Aaron stuck with his favorite, the cheese course. But me, I opted for the one thing that I was most disappointed about missing when we had to cancel our dinner reservation here - the almond cheesecake with cherries. And like the dip at Cookes - this was everything that I had anticipated! I can't say enough good things about this dessert. It was sweet, and the candied almonds added an amazing crunch.

While we were enjoying our dessert, we saw the electrical water pageant going by. This photo has a bad reflection of the flash, but it gives you a good example of the view we had from the bar out to the lagoon.

And shortly after that, it was time for Hallowishes. We, and a few other people (not too many since it was somewhat cold out still) went out to the balcony to watch the fireworks. They pipe in the music, so we could hear everything well. The view is odd, kinda like watching it from California Grill, you see the fireworks spread out all over the place (especially with Hallowishes, with those 360 degree fireworks, the area in which the fireworks were appearing was huge). As always, it was neat to get a totally new experience. I was glad to be able to catch Hallowishes again, since we only saw it our MNSSHP night.

After the fireworks, we caught the monorail back to MK, and breathed in the MNSSHP atmosphere one more time. Enjoyed the lights, and everyone's costumes. And then at 10:30 we hopped on the bus back to CSR, and called it a night.

And that's the end of our Disney vacation! I can sum up the next day really quickly. We almost didn't stay out at Narcossee's so late because our wake up call came at a terrible 3am. We simply woke up, threw on clothes, and headed down to the lobby. Magical Express picked us up at 3:45 (and the bus was basically full). Our flight left Orlando at 6:41am, stopping in Chicago for about a 3 hour layover, and then our flight to Albany left at 11am. And to bring everything full circle, when we arrived at MCO, we ran into the family that we bumped into in Newark airport on our way down, that had also come from Albany and had basically the same itinerary as us - they too were delayed (of course) and we ended up traveling back on the same flights together.

Hard to believe this was already 4 months ago (and that it's taken me this long to get everything down). We don't have another trip in the works at this time, but I enjoy living vicariously through everyone else's trips. Thanks again for sharing this journey with me!

 

[MEK]

I really enjoyed your TR and enjoyed reading about your wonderful trip. Too bad Le Cellier was not a great meal.

I have to say that I think your idea to have drinks and dessert at Narcoossee's was excellent. I would love to watch the fireworks from there.

I'm also glad you enjoyed Cookes of Dublin. I have been wanting to try that for awhile.

3am? Painful!

Thanks again for a great report.

 

[missangelalexis]

I enjoyed your trip report and am sad to see it come to an end!

 

[hobbs6799]

I am so sad to see your TR end....it's almost like having mt own trip come to an end.

it was a great TR, thank you so much for sharing.