TR: And now for something completely different - a WDW Family did DLR *(new - 4/15: HK Disneyland)*

[hokieinpa]

Lunch a Blue Bayou sounds amazing all around - yummy food and a great view of the water!

I will say, I missed the "non-alcoholic" portion of your drink description. When I read the part about servers refilling drinks from pitchers I was all like "one ticket to California, please!" because that does sound just about perfect. But then I scrolled back up and saw that the drinks are without the fun stuff. They still sound yummy!

I'm glad Olivia was so excited about BTMRR. I know that the WDW version will be down for refurb for most of the spring (and for our May trip, sadly) so hopefully some of those changes will be coming to the MK version!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Phil! Seriously in love with this TR. It's bringing back so many memories from my Disneyland trip! Granted, it was several years ago, but I remember eating in Blue Bayou and loving it!

And I agree, DL BTMRR is so much better than the WDW version. The Pirates of the Caribbean at DL is better than the one at WDW, too. But, tragically, Disneyland does not offer a PeopleMover.

Kids are cute as always and looking forward to the next update!

aw, thank you - glad you are enjoying it!

BTMRR had a complete re-do at DLR so the track is much smoother plus the explosion scenes - rumors are the WDW version is getting the explosion scenes this spring, but not redoing the tracks.

Good point about the people mover - though the tracks for it are still up, which is kinda weird - almost like it smacks you in the face that it used to be there

Thank you! Next update coming soon, though will be a brief intermission to discuss plans for our next trip!

Blue Bayou food looks pretty good! Glad you enjoyed it. I am not so big on the cajun flavor so i can't decided if it is something i want to do. Although the atmosphere itself looks awesome and worth a trip.

These look delicious!

This photo cracked me up, she's like "dad, really, let's get on the ride already" Very cute!

All your gifs are awesome! the lady in the middle is the best haha

There was a decent range to the food at Blue Bayou and the spice level wasn't super high ... but if you really don't like that type of food might not be the best place for you. Maybe do it once just to check it out and split food or something to keep costs down if you aren't sure you will like it?

I think Olivia especially looked that way as that is from the second round of photos I tool. I took a few in that spot but then when I saw the train coming, I asked her to go back to re-take the picture

Thanks! I didn't even notice her until I was reviewing the video but it is pretty funny ... it goes on for longer too as she is trying to balance taking video of her kid behind her and not losing her lunch!

Awesome! I'm glad it worked out!

Your lunch certainly looks good. I'm glad you got to try it, and get your waterside table. We didn't eat there, but I loved the ambience of the restaurant as we sailed past in our boat. It was a beautiful setting!

I'm glad to see that she apparently got over you calling her mayor.

I love the explosion sequence on the final hill. I was thinking about it while riding BTMRR in MK just a couple of weeks ago. They could really give it a nice upgrade with just that one little thing.

Eating waterside at Blue Bayou was one of the very few specific dining plans I had so I was relieved it all worked out as well as it did. The atmosphere definitely carried through the entire restaurant and while you are eating there. From a theming immersion standpoint they definitely nailed it!

Yeah, I didn't keep up the "Mayor" thing too long as it was annoying here - I just got such a kick out of her waving to every single boat!

My understanding is that when BTMRR at WDW goes down for a few months this spring they are adding the explosion effects ... not confirmed yet though but it definitely would cool!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I'm so glad you enjoyed the Blue Bayou! I know we certainly enjoyed our dinner there.

Still regretting not being able to try the beignets! Glad to hear they were good!

Love the pics of Olivia getting on BTMRR. That gif you mentioned is too funny!

I was a little nervous heading in as I had read a few mixed reviews (I know Pete on the podcast is not a fan) - but it definitely came through big time and I am so glad it worked out as it was one of the few specific meals I wanted to work out!

The beignets were quite good - though I think I prefer the ones they have at Port Orleans in WDW (though it has been a few years since I have had them) - and they definitely don't live up to real ones in the real New Orleans

Thanks! Yeah, I love finding funny things like that when reviewing my photos and video!

Lunch a Blue Bayou sounds amazing all around - yummy food and a great view of the water!

I will say, I missed the "non-alcoholic" portion of your drink description. When I read the part about servers refilling drinks from pitchers I was all like "one ticket to California, please!" because that does sound just about perfect. But then I scrolled back up and saw that the drinks are without the fun stuff. They still sound yummy!

I'm glad Olivia was so excited about BTMRR. I know that the WDW version will be down for refurb for most of the spring (and for our May trip, sadly) so hopefully some of those changes will be coming to the MK version!

We definitely had a great lunch - and I am glad I decided to get the special option

oh, yeah - it would be amazing if it was refills of an alcoholic drink! Actually, coming up I have our plans for our July WDW trip and it does include eating at a place with all you can drink alcoholic beverages!

my understanding is that they won't be redoing all the track like they did at DLR but they will be adding the explosion parts to the WDW GTMRR while it is down this spring

 

[NJlauren]

Happy to hear you liked Blue Bayou as its on my must eat list, but i was thinking of doing dinner... Can't decide if i should do dinner or lunch....

Its not cheap, but I also think it may be heavy for lunch for us.

I am loving all the WDW/DL comparisons, even if DL seems to be getting all the praise here.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Happy to hear you liked Blue Bayou as its on my must eat list, but i was thinking of doing dinner... Can't decide if i should do dinner or lunch....

Its not cheap, but I also think it may be heavy for lunch for us.

I am loving all the WDW/DL comparisons, even if DL seems to be getting all the praise here.

So ironically one reason I wanted to do lunch was to get the monte Cristina sandwich - and then I would up not getting it. Other reason was seems like booking first lunch time is highest probability to get waterside table

I think for many attractions that are in both locations they just seem to take more care with them at DLR so that is why they are winning many comparisons. BUT I do prefer Cinderella Castle and EPCOT is still my favorite park. Guess I'd say I prefer DLR to Magic Kingdom but would pick a week at WDW over a week at DLR (if that helps)

 

[annie170]

Your lunch at Blue Bayou looked delicious! I'm glad it worked out for you to get the waterside table. The theming there does look pretty amazing.

I know I've said this before, but I'm really impressed by DL. Being a huge fan of WDW, I'm not sure why I've never made it a priority to visit DL.

 

[NJlauren]

That is a major plus to lunch, the waterside table..... I need to weigh my option I guess...

But I mean in my opinion EPCOT > then just about everything in the world.....

 

[TheMaxRebo]

That is a major plus to lunch, the waterside table..... I need to weigh my option I guess...

But I mean in my opinion EPCOT > then just about everything in the world.....

I knew there was a reason I liked you

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Chapter 33 - Upcoming Trip Plans​

The promised parade update is coming right up but I thought I would take a slight detour and discuss some upcoming Disney related trips we have coming up. I don't think I will do a full Pre-Trip Report for any of these but thought some of you might find some interest in this - and definitely welcome any feedback you have!

Mid-April 2016:
My team at work is part of a global group and ever year the senior members have a global off site. In the past it has always been in Zurich, Switzerland (which is where we are headquartered) however this year we found out that the off site will be held in Hong Kong. Now, I can't go all the way there, be that close to a Disney park and not go - so I am taking a day to head up to visit Hong Kong Disneyland. From some research I have done it is only a 45 min train ride from downtown and is small enough to do in one day - and I think that will work out well.

Priorities for me are spending time in Mystic Point and riding Mystic Manor, ride the RC Racer in Toy Story Land and ride Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars. And hopefully be able to stay to catch Paint the Night as well:

June 2016:
Coming up is the 3rd annual Hershey DISmeet for GKTW and we plan to attend again. These have been pretty fun in the past and this year they are adding an unofficial event at Troegs Brewery so even better!


July 2016:
The plan is to be at Disney World for the DISunplugged 10th anniversary events - which are happening from July 22 to July 26th - with the official podcast taking place on the 25th. I didn't take any time off really last summer, and we just did the week in California in October so I am planning to do a longer vacation this year. So given that, and motivated by the awesome TR that @MarbleBob has been chronically here - we are going to road trip it! And since we are going to plan out stops along the way, why not do it around breweries?!?!?!

I also just finished booking the ADRs and got everything I was hoping for, so pretty pumped for that!

So the plan is:
- Saturday July 16th - Drive to Judi's family to drop the dogs off

- Sunday the 17th - Drive down to the Dogfish Head Inn in Lewes, DE and tour the brewery and eat at the brew pub that night

- Monday the 18th - drive to Walterboro, SC (seemed about half way) just for the room/sleep

- Tuesday the 19th - drive to Boca Raton, FL and spend the 3 nights in Boca visiting with family (and maybe trying to sneak up to the Funky Buddha Brewery in Oakland Park, FL)

- Friday the 22nd - drive to Orlando and check into Wyndham Bonnet Creek resort! I was able to exchange our timeshare for a 2-bedroom unit there, which should work out great!

• Eat lunch at Disney Springs, first getting drinks and Apps at Jock Landry's Hangar Bar, then a pm ADR at Morimoto's (both are new to us)
• Relax at the resort and then head to the Poly for drinks/apps at Trader Sam's (this location is new to us) and then dinner at Kona Cafe
• Watch Wishes from the Poly beach

- Saturday the 23rd is Hollywood Sudios Day

• Hoping to get Peter and Olivia into the Jedi Training. They definitely want to meet Chewbacca as well
• Early lunch (11:30am) ADR at Sci Fi (new to us, the kids seem excited), then relax back at resort
• Come back to park and eat at the Brown Derby Lounge area (that is new to us) and hopefully there will be fireworks at night

- Sunday the 24th is rest day

• 9:05 ADR for breakfast at Kona Cafe (new to us) and then go to church
• 4:00 ADR for Hoop De Doo Revuew (new to us)

- Monday the 25th is a flex day

• This is to be the day for the main DIS event so keeping it open, though if it is in a park, anticipating this will be either Magic Kingdom or EPCOT and then whichever isn't this day we will do on Friday
• In case this is a MK day I did make a 5:45 ADR at Be Our Guest (we never made it for dinner despite trying each our of previous trips so getting in here for dinner is a priority)

- Tuesday the 26th is Animal Kingdom Day

• Have a 8:05 pre-park opening ADR for Tusker House
• Expectations are that Rivers of Light will have started by then so that will be a priority for the day
• May look to eat at Tiffins if that is open by then - especially if there is a dining package for Rivers of Light as seating appears limited for this show. Otherwise may look to have a meal at Sanaa

- Wednesday the 27th is EPCOT

• Have a 8:15 pre-park opening ADR at Akershus (so this will be the princess meal)
• Also booked a 7:45 ADR at Spice Road Table (new to us) with plans to watch Illuminations from here
• Contemplating to the Behind the Seeds tour this day or our other EPCOT day

- Thursday the 28th is Magic Kingdom

• Have a 8:15 pre-park opening ADR at Crystal Palace
• Definitely want to eat at Skippers Canteen (new to us) either today or other MK day
• Also have a 5:45 ADR at Be Our Guest (which ever day we don't use I will cancel, once more details for DIS event is out)

- Friday the 29th we check out and will either do EPCOT or MK - whichever we don't do on Monday

- This night we need to decide where we will stay - depends on how long we think we will be at the park and either get a cheapish hotel room in the area or head north a bit

- Saturday the 30th - drive to Athens Georgia:

• Hoping to hit up both Creature Comfort and Copper Creek breweries
• Eat dinner at Trappeze Pub

- Sunday the 31st - drive to Asheville, NC:

• stop at Oscar Blues Brewery on the way
• 3pm tour of the Wicked Weed Funkatourium; dinner at Wicked Weed Brewpub

- Monday August 1st - Drive to Judi's parent's

- Tuesday August 2nd - Drive home

- Wednesday August 3rd - rest

Overall the trip will be about 49 hours of driving (plus rest stops) but I think will be a lot of fun and only one day do we have planned more than 8 hours of driving:

Anyway, that was a high-level view - definitely welcome any thoughts though!

TTFN

 

[missangelalexis]

Wow, getting to visit Disneyland Hong Kong will be awesome for you!

And yay for having another WDW trip planned! Sounds like it will be quite the epic, but fun, roadtrip! Your plans sound great, you have a lot of good things lined up!

 

[Volunteer]

HK DL and WDW! Nice! Will look forward to your HK DL review, I'm hoping to make it there this year. Hong Kong is one of my favorite cities, so I'm sure you'll enjoy the rest of the city as well.

 

[Dugette]

Upcoming trips sound great! I don't think I've ever seen a TR on Hong Kong Disneyland, so I am really looking forward to that. And you have quite the epic road trip coming up this summer...but sounds very do-able and well thought out. Looking forward to hearing all about these!

 

[Li Li]

First, yay for coming back to Hershey!!

Second, wow, Hong Kong! Soooo jealous! Everyone is going to be waiting for that TR!

The road trip looks great! And yay for new Disney restaurants. Isn't crazy how there is still alway something new to you to try? We tried Sci Fi for first time last November and really enjoyed it. We also hit Skipper's Canteen a few weeks ago and it was great. And I bet the kids will love Hoop Dee Doo! Sounds like a great trip already!

 

[afwdwfan]

Wow! Looks like you've got some fun trips coming up! I'm excited for you having an opportunity to go check out Hong Kong Disneyland. You're absolutely right... you just can't be that close and not go!

The road trip / 1000 mile (+) brew pub crawl looks like another fun one as well!

 

[annie170]

Disneyland Hong Kong sounds like a great idea! You can't be that close and not visit.

It's interesting that Rivers of Light will now keep AK open in the evening. It sounds like an amazing show and am looking forward to seeing it myself. We actually skipped AK our last visit for lack of time, but the new attractions will get us back.

Your road trip sounds like a lot of fun. Your route back through the mountains in North Carolina and Virginia is a beautiful drive.

You've done your homework on the breweries along the way!

 

[TGM]

This sounds like a lot of fun!

By the way, where did you get that shirt? I'm so jealous!

 

[Disney Khaleesi]

Looks like you've got a fun year ahead of you!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Chapter 34 - Disneyland - Part 14
October 17th
Lots of parade fun!​

and now back to our regularly scheduled trip report ....

After some swim time and resting back at the HoJo we returned to Disneyland park (we were gone for about 1.5 hours in total) and walked in to people lined up several rows deep for the afternoon parade - so we decided to join the pack for the fun (this was about 15 minutes before the parade was to start). We were right by where you come in on the right side, so near Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, across from the flag pole. The set up they had there was to have ropes about 5 feet back from the curb and so those who were waiting for the parade would wait inside the rope leaving the rest of the space for others to move about. Only issue with this was people then squeezing into the roped area close tot he parade time (so, seems like a good idea, not sure if execution was the best).

Anyway, we were towards the back of the roped area given when we came and other then having to ask some late arrivers to take off their giant Goofy hats, we had a pretty good view. Judi manned (womanned) the GoPro (so the gifs are from that) while I took still photos ... and get ready for parade photo overdose!

Unlike most Disney parades I have seen, this one actually starts out with Mickey and Minnie in the first float. The parade is called the Soundsational parade - so music is the theme with most of the floats being shaped like a drum and/or other instruments and Mickey even has a drum set up with him:

It then went into an Aladdin scene with Genie walking, etc. I'd also add that there was a common theme song through the parade but then it would shift/alter to be for the specif float:

and then into the Little Mermaid. This shot is from where the floats come in (so we were at the beginning of the parade) and you can see the Matterhorn in the background peeking up from the Main St. buildings:

The seat that Areil was on could flap back some so she could wave her tail, and she took that very seriously:

(oh and you can see Peter on my shoulders so he could see - we were at the back of the ropes and if anyone came up we made sure we weren't blocking anyone - everyone seemed fine with this and it worked out well, otherwise he really wouldn't have been able to see - he's such a shorty)

Next was Donald along with the other 2/3rds of the Caballeros - though they had to walk while Donald was on top of the float. That was one thing we loved about this parade - some characters that don't normally get a lot of love in parades had their own section or were at least included:

Then the main princess float. It was themed for Repunzel but also featured Snow White, Aurora, Belle, and Cinderella:

The the Lion King section (or as my kids tend to call him - the Lion Guard's Dad). The float may look familiar to those that have seen the festival of the Lion King Show as the animatronic Simba is the same/similar:

The dancers at the back were very colorful and on stilts so the kids loved them:

Coming up ... more parade!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Chapter 35 - Disneyland - Part 15
October 17th
Even more parade fun!​

Then a section for Tiana - and I loved how they had the river boat made up of different instruments:

Then one of the more fun sections of the parade with Peter Pan and Captain Hook and friends:

You'll notice at the beginning of the above gif that Peter does a bit of a leap - well I got some lucky timing with my camera and captured one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken (at least of those not including any of my kids):

Oh, slight tangent, but we were ordering some t-shirts for the upcoming Disney trip and Judi ordered this one ... I find it very punny


This section ended with Tinker Bell on the actual float:

The last section was for Mary Poppins - and how neat is that not only does Mary Poppins have a section in a parade, but it actually is the big finale?!?!?

I love the faces a few of these performers are making. And Mary and Bert were riding carousel horses, which was super cool too!:

The rest of the float was very cute with a lot of penguins and there was this big roll of colored paper that had "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" all over it

And with that the parade ended. It wasn't life changing or anything but we really enjoyed the parade and it was nice to see some different characters get attention in it. The music was catchy as well.

We followed the parade up Main St. - and this may give you some idea of what the crowds were like:

Coming up ... let's meet some royalty!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Chapter 36 - Disneyland - Part 17
October 17th
Peek a boo!​

We got up near the Castle and noticed that the line at the Royal Hall to meet the princesses didn't appear that long. It was typically over 45 mins while we were there so to see it at only 15 minutes we jumped at it. So might be a tip that the line here goes down during the parade.

I didn't get any pictures while on line as we were giving Olivia and Emma a bit of a wardrobe change. While online there was another little girl just a bit older than Emma in line who took a real shining to her and would keep giving her hugs. It was one of those "aw, that's cute ... ok, might be enough, careful ... aw, super cute ... ok, go easy on her" type moments.

Anyway, in probably just over 15 minutes it was our turn and we first met Belle. She was very interactive with the kids and we got some nice Photopass Pictures (they had a PP photographer with each princess).

And Peter got a nice hug at the end - I always love when the characters get down on the kids level:

We then went to meet Snow White and while I love meeting Ariel and Anna, Snow White will always hold a special place in my heart. She was the first princess Olivia was ever really into and we just always seem to have great interaction with her. First she came out and got Olivia and brought her back to the meeting spot, and then make some great faces:

Then had this ridiculously cute exchange with Emma to get her to smile:

Then the family photo:

And one more curtseying with Olivia:

Last up was Cinderella, and while she was pleasant and nice, she didn't compare to the first two. I think because we had taken some extra time with Snow White they may have been trying to move us along a little bit. Still, a nice family picture and another good hug for Peter:

And with that we were done. I had read of some less than stellar expereiences here (nothing bad, just felt a bit rushed) but I think ours were pretty good with 2 of the 3 being excellent (and Cindy wasn't bad, just not as good).

After this Judi tool Emma to change her and while we waited we noticed a couple cool little things. Up in one of the windows were a couple of little animatronics of Figaro and a bird:

(definitely a reminder to always look up when at Disneyland)

And one of these motion scene machines. This one was for the Hunchback of Notre Dame and I had to help the kids out a bit to really get it moving, so you don't get to see all of it in this gif, but it was pretty cool and just a nice little "extra" they had):

Coming up next - Peter finally gets on his beloved train!

TTFN