1st Disboards trip report / 1st trip back after AP expiring 📸 Photo Report

[chewiebar]

Hello! Long time lurker here, hope I am posting this correctly!

I had an AP from August 2019 - Jan 2021 and flew down 10x, this was my first time back after my AP expired.
(I had a one day park hopper from a fundraiser I wanted to use before it got too hot! I plan on buying another AP when I can hug characters and watch fireworks!)

I flew in Thursday April 15, 2021 and flew out April 19th.
Friday, April 16 was my one day park hopper ticket where I walked 38k steps / 17.8 miles in one day , stay tuned for that part!

Thursday, April 15, MCO, I thought I would be clever and go to the starbucks by baggage claim, since the others looked crowded, bad idea as they were closed.


Took an uber with my rolling suitcase and all right to the vineland premium outlets to ropedrop the character warehouse. The WH opened at 11, CM was there at 10 to help people join the virtual queue.


No line at starbucks.


Got a text from the virtual queue to come back, I think they let 60 people in the store at a time, but I could be mistaken.


Random assortment of alphabet collection, luckily they had a trinket tray for my mom and myself!


Crowd update


Head to shirts first if you want specific sizes, i saw some sizes of the popular designs getting bought up quickly.


Ever wonder what happens to extra epcot festival prize march?


Since the new little mermaid ears came out, they had SO many of the old design.


Ariel ears and these 2 below were the only ears they had.

 

[chewiebar]

ALSO - I opened the website for the DL virtual queue to buy tickets on safari and chrome on my phone sometime before the character warehouse opened at 11, forgot about it since I was shopping!

I took an uber back to my off property hotel and the room was ready at 12:15, and somehow my DL queue had one minute left on chrome when I looked at it after getting to my hotel, so bought my tickets for that! (safari was still loading hours and hours later, and I had opened up chrome after safari originally)

Outlet haul, $108 total including the 2 wrapped trinket trays.


Took a nap then got to disney springs around 3:45, no wait to get into World of Disney. It was slightly drizzling which I used as an excuse to shop and hide from rain. Giddeons had no virtual queue around 5p, but I wanted to go resort hopping before the sun went down, so I didn't wait in the normal line and regretted it when I saw they had a 3.5 virtual queue Saturday afternoon!



I wanted to go see the animals at animal kingdom lodge since I wouldn't be going to DAK on my park day, I got my fill of giraffes in at least!


The gift shop had zebra domes in the fridge, I enjoyed them out on the rocking chairs on the second level overlook.


view from rocking chairs


I had never been to Animal Kingdom Lodge before, so it was cool to see it and all the details!


The final part of my day was sort of a mistake, I wanted to go to all star movies to take photos but there were cheerleaders swarming everywhere!!
I caught the DAKL bus to DAK and then hopped on the ASM bus.



Ubered back to my off property hotel, and tried to go to bed early before getting up at at 5:45am the next day to rope drop MK!

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Isabelle12345]

Following!
Can’t believe you got all that stuff for just 108$ at the character warehouse! Wow

 

[chewiebar]

Magic Kingdom Day: Friday April 16

Offical park open: 8am


I usually wait and do 7DMT at the very end of the night, but since I would be park hopping, I wanted to do it at rope drop.


Peter Pan I heard usually opens early but seemed to be having technical difficulties. Small world was open.


I've seen various videos and reports on splash not opening before 8am, risky to do rope drop here if they don't open right away, wasting precious rope drop minutes!


I've seen that the posted wait times for BTMR have been greatly exaggerated in the afternoon (like posted 35 min was a walk on apparently!) so this might not be the ideal touring strategy if you are staying in the park all day.

 

[chewiebar]

My luck for rides ran out after BTMRR. At least splash had reopened, the app I don't think had caught up to the down time though. When I saw the app changed to 50 minutes, I got worried and didn't really think the ride was worth 50 minutes of precious early morning time, but it was moving at a pretty good pace. I got on at 8:40.



I had never seen the characters on the train station before (always too busy with rides) so I made a point I wanted to hang out by the front of the park for a good portion of time.
You can see my character details in my other thread: https://www.disboards.com/threads/character-sighting-tips-frequencies.3834767/

I was really happy watching them interact with kids below, best option we are going to get for interactions for a while, they were up there for about 10 minutes per set and were trying their best to communicate with everyone below.



Based on the cavalcade schedule on the app, I wanted to hang out until the first Mickey parade. (cavalcade tips also on thread linked above)

Summary of all of the app vs actual times below for 3 parks, all pretty accurate factoring in time spent on route.


I went around and took photos and got PhotoPass pictures (shoutout to my friend with an AP for downloading)

I went to take pictures near dumbo and never noticed this outdoor covered area at story book circus. Looks ideal for a nap! (but no time for naps today for me!)


I saw the first princess cavalcade of the day @ 12:28p, then went to get a snack at sleepy hollow (pre - mobile order) and saw the newly re-named magic kingdom cavalcade while waiting in line.

1p, got a citrus swirl and had a photoshoot with this new wall!


Decided against any more rides since DL has most of the MK rides and will be going soon (and hoping their lines are shorter LOL). People watched and took more pictures / PhotoPass photos.

Had a really sweet PhotoPass CM and knew I wanted to leave her a cast compliment so I asked to take a photo of her name tag, brought the photo to guest relations, very easy to leave a cast compliment there and I'm sure they are much appreciated! (side note, also started crying to the poor GS CM because I was so sad I was leaving with no trip planned until things get back to more ~*normal*~ I was like please don't tell them I was crying in my report LOL)


I thought about taking an uber from the contemporary to epcot because i was worried the bus line would be packed, luckily I got in line at 2:08p at the bus station, and a bus came within 10 minutes and I was the last person to fit on the bus.

TBC.

 

[chewiebar]

Epcot during the day:
(spoiler alert, I came back at night for rides.)

I had a few goals for Epcot during the daylight, starting with photos of Mickey topiary at the entrance & the pylons which were a new sight to me, getting the orange bird shoulder plush, and then more topiary photos It’s hard to keep up a Disney instagram page when you are only there for one day

At the Mickey entrance topiary and the pylons, it was easy to find groups to trade for photos of each other. (I didn’t see photopass around)

I had wanted to spot Mickey and Minnie at the entrance since that was also new to me, but literally forgot to look because I was busy with other photos I have no idea how often they


Made my way over to mouse gears, stopping to take a million photos on the way.



I found the orange bird shoulder plush at mouse gears, after looking at world of Disney and the emporium (I really wanted him for a photo in MK with the new wall!)
Ears are from Ali express


I’m the world’s pickiest eater so the food part of Epcot festivals never really strike my fancy (I live for the photo ops if you couldn’t tell) but I love most desserts and sweet drinks, especially in less generic flavors like cherry blossom, rose, matcha, lychee, so I really had high hopes I would love the violet lemonade....
I ... did ... not like it. It was like too sweet maybe? I don’t know how to describe it. I kept drinking thinking it might magically get better? Nope.

and yes I bring my own plastic straws to the parks.



A happy surprise to see characters!

I missed this topiary last year in Italy and wanted to make sure I saw it this year! Stupid barges in the back now

 

[RooDoll99]

Awesome photos!

 

[BeeBopp717]

Really great shots! Following along even though I was literally there are the same time as you