Trip Report May 2016 - It's Not Your Monitor, It's Just My Camera

[Jen_G]

Hello, Disboards! My name is Jen, I’m 32, and in May I took my first trip back to Walt Disney World since high school. Welcome to my trip report, I hope you find it enjoyable.


So a little bit of background information before we get into the thick of things. I went back to college two and a half years ago, got my associate’s, and am now three semesters away from finishing my bachelor’s (hooray!). Because I’m trying to finish up my degree as quickly as possible, as well as applying for internships, winter programs, etc, my schedule tends to be pretty packed. So when I realized that I had a week free in between the end of my last final and the start of my summer classes, I leapt at the chance to go on a trip someplace. When did I realize this, you ask? Why, in the middle of studying for my finals, so about six days before I would be due to leave. Not a whole lot of time to plan or pack, but on the plus side not a whole lot of time to stress out about it either. I asked my mom if she wanted to come with me and make a girl’s trip out of it (especially since I was going to be leaving on Mother’s Day) and she said yes, so the two of us were going to Disney!

Ohhhhhh… Right. I suppose I should mention something before we start. See that picture up there? That’s what most of my photos end up looking like. My phone’s a Samsung Galaxy S4, and it’s great, but photos that look fine when you take them don’t always translate well to computer screens. If you’re someone who truly loves the art of photography, you may want to hit the backbutton now and save yourself from having to see the horrors to follow. If you don’t mind photos that are blurry, out of focus, too-dark messes, then welcome aboard! I’ll try to make it an entertaining journey.

 

[Jen_G]

Table of Contents​

Day One:
Arrival
Tale as Old as Time
Terror of All Sorts
Muppets and Fireworks

 

[Jen_G]

Arrival

Our flight left at 9 am, so we didn’t have to wake up too early to catch it – I think we left the house at around 6:30 or so. Dad dropped us off at the airport, we got through security smoothly, and then we were off!

The plane ride went well – it’s only three hours, so Mom read her book and I played around on my cell phone until we arrived. Then we were off on the faux monorail to try and find the Magical Express!

We’d never taken the Express before (I don’t think they had it the last time I was there?), so it took us a little while to find it. The line was enormous, stretching all the way down the terminal. Fortunately, the CMs were good about keeping the line moving and shuttling people off to where they needed to go. All in all, the massive line probably only took twenty minutes to get through, and then it was off to the All-Star area to wait for the bus to arrive.


At this point, Mom decided she wanted to snap a picture of me to send to Dad, so I passed her my phone. Hi Dad!

Uh… Well, okay, let’s try that again, shall we?

Better, but uh… Okay, one last try.

…You know what, that’s good enough. (Did you think I was joking about our picture taking skills? I wasn’t.)


At this point, we gave up on photos and spent the rest of the time chatting with the family in line next to us until our bus arrived. We left the airport at about 1 PM and headed to All-Star Movies. We’d arrived!

 

[Jen_G]

Soon enough, the bus pulled in to All-Star Movies and Mom and I collected our bags and headed into the lobby. The resort was really nice! I had been a little worried since I wasn’t sure what we were going to get at a value resort, but I was honestly impressed with it. Our room wasn’t ready yet, but we were able to pick up our Magic Bands and then headed over to the food court to grab some lunch. I had set the PIN on Mom’s band but forgot to tell her about it – whoops! She had plenty of time to scold me about that since my sandwich took forever to prepare. If I hadn’t been able to see it cooking I might have thought that they needed to go catch the fish themselves! These were just some small hiccups, though. (Our BIG mistake was yet to come.)


We finished up lunch, and since our room still wasn’t ready yet, we headed over to the luggage area to store our bags while we hit up Hollywood Studios. Mom picked up the scooter she had rented and we walked around the corner to the bus stop.


(Can I just stop for a moment and say how great everyone at Disney was about accommodating people who were operating PMDs? My mom has trouble walking and standing up, especially from low seats, and all of the CMs were incredibly helpful to her. They made sure to tell her what to expect when getting on or off a ride, and to ask what they could do to make things easier on her. Our bus drivers, especially, were all terrific, and helped her get her scooter on and off the buses safely. I was so happy and grateful to them for their care of her, and it made the whole trip that much better.)


After a short bus ride, we made our way over to Hollywood Studios! I had some fast passes for Tower of Terror and Rocking Roller Coaster for later on, but we had about forty-five minutes to kill before they started, so where did we decide to go first?

Yep! Over to see Beauty and the Beast, live on stage! This is something I definitely wouldn’t have done on my own, but I’m glad that we did. The actors were great, and I enjoyed the transformation sequences. Even sitting up close, I couldn’t quite see how they managed them. I’m guessing someone just runs out from backstage while the blanket is obscuring things? I also managed to snap this pic right as Gaston accidentally backhands LeFou.

Through the mists, through the woods, through the darkness and the shadows, it’s a nightmare but it’s one exciting ride~!

I spent the rest of the week humming that song. I’d forgotten what an earworm it is! Say a prayer, then we’re there, at the drawbridge of a castle and there’s something truly terrible inside~!


Ugh! But true love won in the end, just like we knew it would. <3

And then it was off, to my first Fast Pass+ at the Tower of Terror!

 

[ariane37]

Joining! How awesome to go back after such a long time, and on such short notice too - not stressful at all lol!
And about your pictures! Actually the majority that you've posted so far are good! Glad you guys were happy with your resort, although don't like the foreshadowing about your "big" mistake that's yet to come

 

[Jen_G]

Joining! How awesome to go back after such a long time, and on such short notice too - not stressful at all lol!
And about your pictures! Actually the majority that you've posted so far are good! Glad you guys were happy with your resort, although don't like the foreshadowing about your "big" mistake that's yet to come

Welcome aboard! It was great to be back. There was part of me that was a little worried that I wouldn't find things as incredible as I did when I was a kid, but Mom and I still had a great time together. There was just so much new stuff to see and do! The last time I had been there, Animal Kingdom hadn't even opened yet, so that would have been back in February of 1998. I couldn't believe it had been so long once I sat down and worked that out.

Ahahahah, I'm glad you're enjoying my pictures. Sometimes my phone takes some really crisp, amazing shots, and then the rest of the time everything comes out a blurry mess. Unfortunately, when you're squinting down at your phone in the middle of the blazing Florida sun, it's hard to tell which one you've gotten. Don't worry too much about our mistake - it wasn't a trip-ruining goof up by any means, although it definitely made Mom and I cranky for a while. It's coming up pretty soon, within the next two or three posts.

 

[Jen_G]

Terror of All Sorts

It was finally time for my first Fast Pass+, so I headed off towards the Tower of Terror while Mom went to get herself an iced coffee. We decided to meet up by the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster once my Fast Passes were done. I didn’t take any pictures of the Tower, but I’m sure everyone knows what it looks like. Edit from a year and a half in the future: I ended up going back with family a year after this trip and bought an annual pass, so I was able to download my ride photos before they expired. Enjoy!

I do love the theming inside, but I can understand why Disney might be interesting in changing it to something different. I’m not sure if The Twilight Zone is as well-known these days as it used to be when the ride premiered.

The standby line wasn’t too bad, so I rode twice, once on each side of the Tower, and then grabbed an ice tea from the vendor just outside the exit. I really needed it by this point, my water bottle was inside the basket of Mom’s scooter and even in though it was only May, the temperature was scorching. After that it was off to the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, with a brief stop on the way to check in with Mom (and let her finish off the rest of my iced tea).

This is another ride I had never been on before, since it wasn’t around the last time I was there. Holy crap, it was awesome! As soon as the shoulder restraints came down I was hoping it would be an upside-down coaster, and it was! Is it the only upside-down coaster at Disney? Regardless, I loved it. I ended up riding it at least two more times later in the week. Bless you, single rider line.

It was getting late and there was a lot more to see, so we wandered out of that section of the park and headed over towards the Star Wars / Indiana Jones areas. Along the way, we stopped to get a picture of the stone lions (dragons?) next to the ATM. My mom has a picture of my brother and I posing with them when we were kids, and she really wanted to get a new picture now that I was an adult. We took our picture and then continued on.

Please don’t ask me what my face was doing in this photo, I have no idea.

So, where to next? I’ll give you a hint: dun dun dun-dun, dun dun dun. Dun dun dun-dun… dun dun dun DUN DUN.

The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular!

I vaguely remembered bits and pieces of this from when I was a kid, but I kept getting it mixed up with the Studio Backlot Tour (maybe because both of them featured fire?). I also didn’t remember the audience participation portion: when Mom leaned over and whispered to me that one of the chosen audience members was a plant, I thought to myself that she must be misremembering things. Shows what I know! The show was a lot of fun, and the stunts were impressive to watch.

After that it was off to the Great Movie Ride, another ride that I had almost no memory of. For some reason I thought there was a part of it that dealt with dinosaurs? Like the tram was going to move through a Lost World sort of area with apatosauruses. I have really concrete memories of a ride like that, but I have no idea what I might be thinking of (if anyone has any ideas, please let me know, it’s driving me crazy). Edit from a year and a half later: I was thinking of Ellen's Energy Adventure, which I never got the chance to go on again before it closed.

So yeah, the bit where our tram was “hijacked” by gangsters? I had no idea that was coming. I guess that’s one of the highlights about going back again after so long, everything is new to you!

By this point it was getting to be dinner time, so we started looking around to see where we could eat. Mom decided that she wanted to eat at Mama Melrose’s, so I went onto the Disney app to see if I could get a reservation. There was one available for 9:10 PM, so I scooped it up, even though that was almost two hours away. We’d had a late lunch, so both of us were okay with a later dinner. We headed over towards that section of the park so that I could hit up Star Tours while we waited.

On our way over, we spotted a crowd forming near the Star Tours entrance. One of the Jedi Training sessions was just about to start. Since neither of us had kids in the program, we didn’t want to get too close and accidentally block a parent’s view, but we hung around for a bit watching. Some of the kids were so tiny. They could barely hold their lightsabers up! It was absolutely adorable. The program lasted for a long time, and eventually I decided to just head in to Star Tours while everyone outside was busy.

(Look at them! They're little peanuts!)

I had a fast pass for Star Tours because I remembered the line being really bad when I was a kid, but I guess it’s been overshadowed by the other rides these days. I got up to the front, picked my row, and waited. There was a family in line waiting next to me with a little boy who kept asking me if I thought the ride was scary (even though his Mom kept telling him that he had been on it before last year). I did my best to reassure him, and he kept nervously chatting to me about what the ride was like until finally the Now Boarding sign lit up and the doors… stayed shut?

Huh.

At this point the adults were looking around curiously and the little boy was getting more and more concerned. We waited there while another boarding sequence came and went – maybe another ten minutes? – before a CM came over and asked us to follow him over to the other ride vehicle. We followed him over and lined up, waited for the Now Boarding sign to come up, and the doors… Yeah. Didn’t open. At this point the CMs apologized and gave us all paper fast passes that we could use to go on Star Tours again once the ride was operational (much to the relief of the boy, who was now thoroughly freaked out), and shooed us all out. I said my goodbyes to the family and headed out to meet up with my mom and see what else she wanted to do before dinner.

 

[Jen_G]

We still had more than an hour and a half before our dinner reservations, so we decided to head over to the Muppets 3D theater. I loved the Muppet Show when I was a kid, even though I’m sure a ton of jokes flew right over my head. I thought the show effects were very well done, and I loved when Sweetums came out searching for Bean Bunny. It made things feel real in a way animatronics still can’t.

After the show was over, it still wasn’t time yet, but by now we were really pretty hungry, so we decided to just show up and see if they had any tables available. The worst they could do would be to say we had to wait for our reservation time, right? But fortunately for us, we only ended up waiting maybe ten minutes, max, before we were seated.

This was our first sit-down meal at the parks. Mom and I both ordered the chicken parmesan, and it was awesome. The oil for dipping your bread in was great too, it had a nice flavor to it and wasn’t bland. I hadn’t bothered to make many ADRs because I had assumed that Mom would want to stick to snacks or quick service meals, but she surprised me: when given a choice of where to eat, she consistently chose the sit down restaurants.

After cleaning our plates, we headed back towards Echo Lake. Star Tours was operational again, so while Mom sped off to try and find a good spot to watch the fireworks, I headed over, planning to burn my fast pass. When I got there though, the CMs at the front gate told me to hold on to it, since the standby line was a walk-on. (I don’t think we ever made it back to Star Tours after this, so as far as I know it’s still buried in my luggage somewhere.) I made my way back through the queue, and this time when I got to the front, the doors actually opened. Hooray! The new video was really cool, and I liked how they incorporated one of the audience members in to the ride as a bounty. I guess there are actually multiple videos that can play during the ride? I wish I had known that at the time, because I would have ridden it more than once. Oh well, something else to do next visit.

I wandered around Echo Lake until I met up with Mom again. She’d found a pretty nice spot with a bench and a not-terrible view, and no sooner had I sat down than the lights went down and the music started up. I actually ended up moving down a little bit closer to the lake just to see the fireworks better, although the lack of visibility really made that more difficult than it should have been. The fireworks were superb, and I loved how they integrated the music and dialogue from Star Wars in to the show. There was one point in particular where the fireworks turned all red and then Darth Vader began speaking, and it was just so well done I got chills. I took a few pictures, and managed to snap this shot totally by accident. I like the way the firework almost looks like a hidden Mickey (or a heart, if you prefer that).

After the fireworks were over, I returned to the bench and we sat down for a while to wait for the crowds to thin out. Mom was really not eager to try driving her scooter through the mass of people that were all trying to exit, so she read her book and I screwed around with my phone until it looked like things had improved. Turns out it was just a brief lull, and we were back in bumper to bumper traffic as soon as we stepped out onto the main road. Bah. We made it out of the front gates and headed towards our bus terminal, but the lines were so long we couldn’t even make it to our stop – the lines for Music and Sports completely blocked the entrance to Movies. Mom finally managed to scooter her way to the handicap line, and I hopped up on top of the curb next to the bushes in order to join her.

There were a number of other people waiting at the handicap entrance, and since there’s a maximum of two PMDs per bus we knew we were going to be waiting for a bit. Fortunately, the people at Disney knew how to handle the crowds, and it wasn’t long before we were able to board one of the accordion-style buses and head for All-Star Movies. The fireworks show was at 10, and I think it was about 11 by the time we reached our hotel.

I’d gotten an e-mail at about 3:50 saying that our room was ready, but I didn’t actually see it until around 6 since I’d had the wifi on my phone turned off. There was a slight hiccup where I tried to guide us in the wrong direction, but fortunately we figured out something was wrong before we’d gone too far. (Mom: “At least you stopped once we reached the parking lot. If I’d been with your dad we would have been in Epcot by now.”)

When I reserved the room, I’d had two requests: The Mighty Ducks wing, if possible, and close to an elevator. I’ll let you judge for yourself how we did. We were in room 6854, in the Love Bug section. I’ve circled it in red on the map.

So yeah, not the Mighty Ducks section and about as far away from an elevator as you could get. I was a bit annoyed about that last part (getting a different section I thought was more understandable, I bet a lot of people request that wing and we had booked really late), but you know what? It was a vacation, and we were at Disney. Ultimately, walking (or scootering) another fifty feet down an outside hallway wasn’t a big deal at all. Nothing was gonna bring us down!

We got to our room. Our MagicBands worked, huzzah! We hustled inside, glorying in the feel of AC again after our walk. Our bags weren’t there.

Oh crap.