6 nights in CCV 2BD plus 1 night in BWV studio!

[kgou]

We thought the fireworks view was just meh. Maybe @kgou had a better experience.

Yes, the fireworks view is just okay. With the lack of speakers by the better viewing spot, it was not as great of an experience as it was during our trip 2 years ago at BRV.

 

[kgou]

Day 2 - AK, pool break, hop to HS

This might have been the first trip where our first park day was at AK! After having some quick breakfast and coffee in the room, we were ready to rock. Since we had our car, driving seemed like the best option rather than waiting for the bus or ordering a Minnie van. Parking at AK couldn't have been easier! We were only about a 5 minute walk from our parking spot to the gate. The car locator feature in MDE was very handy!

Our plan was to try and ride standby on Everest and Dinosaur before crowds got crazy. We were walking in by 8:45ish. Not rope drop by any means, but still earlier enough that both rides had really low waits. As we were walking into Asia, I noticed it was very quiet and no activity seemed to be happening on Everest. Checked MDE and sure enough, ride was down. We pivoted and stopped for cold brews and the stuffed pancake sandwich, and then made our way to catch that dino.

By the time we reached Dinosaur, the wait had built to be about 20 minutes. Still not bad at all and we hopped in line. First time for my spouse and kiddos and I am glad they all got to experience it before the retheme! From there, we had a LL for Kilimanjaro Safaris followed by Navi River Journey. We took a quick lunch break at Satu'li Canteen which I wrote about upthread. Highly recommend! After lunch, we hit our ILL for FOP. Our LL for the new Zootopia show was cancelled during this time, and I was super disappointed about missing it. We decided to head out after FOP, and we passed the Zootopia entrance on our way out. The attraction had JUST come back up and the standby wait was only 10 minutes so we jumped in line. Sadly the Clawhauser animatronic was not working and that was the main draw for me. Overall the show was cute but a bit hard to understand the dialogue IMO. We'll have to catch the Clawhauser animatronic on a future visit.

We hit the main pool at WL during our break and while it was busy we were able to grab some chairs without an issue. The kids had a great time splashing around and doing the slide. We stayed at the pool longer than I planned and our park hopping to HS was later than I planned as a result.

We took the bus over there and missed our reservation for Oga's by about 5 minutes. The cast members allowed us to get back on the waitlist, and we were seated in about 15 minutes. The entire experience at Oga's didn't feel as immersive as it had on past visits, so we'll probably not be back any time soon. From there, we had our reservation at Sci-Fi which I also wrote about upthread. Do not recommend at all for reasons already shared. This will be a one and done for us.

I had stacked some LLs for after dinner, and we were able to ride Runaway Railway, Rock n Roller Coaster, and Smuggler's Run. The kids were begging to jump in the standby line for Star Tours, but I was exhausted and told them we'd have to wait until the morning as we were back at HS.

Overall, it was a great first park day and it was fun to try some new-to-us experiences!!

 

[kgou]

Day 3 - HS, pool break, hop to MK

After our experience at Sci Fi, I started releasing some of the sit down dining that I had booked. On this day, we had a dinner reservation at Tony's that I dropped. Given the wait time, caliber of the food, and the expense at Sci Fi, parsing down our sit down dining experiences on this trip seemed like the best route.

We caught a Minnie Van over to HS and were dropped off by 9:35am. As promised to the kids, we did the standby line for Star Tours. Posted 5 minute wait and wound up being 15 minutes. Up next was a LL for ToT, and we did rider swap as that is the one of the only ride my youngest won't do. After that, coffee was necessary and we grabbed the Epic Cold Brew Spectacular! from Epic Eats. This is the one with the Indiana Jones hat. It was fine, wouldn't go out of my way to get it again. We parted ways so my oldest and I could do our ILL for ROTR. The ride went down on our walk there, so we pivoted and stopped for a frozen coke and a Mickey pretzel. She had a bit of a headache and I was hoping the caffeine would help. We swung by First Aid and they gave her some medication to help with her head. Next up was the Indiana Jones show, also a first for my spouse and kids. It was nice to get a break in the shade and sit for a bit. Everyone enjoyed the show and after that, ROTR was back up so we jumped in line to redeem our ILL, which had converted to a "use at any time" pass since it was down during our original return time. We don't do ROTR very often, and definitely enjoyed it!

We had LLs for Slinky, Toy Story Mania, and Swirlin Saucers (can't bring myself to use the abbreviation, lol) in the mid afternoon. We started with Toy Story Mania, did a late lunch break at Woody's Lunchbox, and from there did Slinky and Swirlin Saucers. I was beyond ready for a break by that point, and a bus pulled up as soon as we were approaching the bus stop. Great timing!

The kids enjoyed some more pool time and while they swam we made our gameplan for Magic Kingdom. Our priority was to see the Starlight parade while grabbing some food at Pecos Bill's and maybe the fireworks and a ride or two. By the time we were ready to head there, I checked the bus schedule in MDE and saw that a bus would be arriving momentarily. More great bus timing!

We got a great spot for the parade right by Pecos Bill's and I was able to also get my beloved jalapeno poppers from Westward Ho while we waited. Overall I think I prefer catching parades in the Main Street area because the vibes are 10/10. But Frontierland is a great spot too and less congested. We did a quick ride on Dumbo, filled up our popcorn bucket, and headed to the boat for our trip home. We caught some of the fireworks while waiting at the boat launch. Since we had MVMCP the next night, I wasn't trying to be at MK super late, which kind of pained me as wait times were not long. Trying to relax on my park warrior ways now that we are DVC!