An overnight trip to WDW for some FL Sunshine...where is my sunshine? June '24 trip report (updated and COMPLETE 6/21)

[kittylady1972]

Summary:
Flights: $44 RT each (we booked for 3 adults) - $132 total
Hotel: FREE (we used our DVC points for a night at the Polynesian) - $0
Rental Car: ~$47

Meals: Dinner at La Hacienda, Breakfast at Steakhouse 71, Lunch at Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar
Parks Visited: EPCOT and Magic Kingdom (free with our Annual Passes)

I'll try to return later for a quick summary and my opinion of Tiana's Bayou

 

[kittylady1972]

What do you do when you have a day off from work for a holiday, an early release the day before that, an available DVC room, and can book RT flights for $44 each? You plan an overnight trip to Walt Disney World of course! No just me?

We booked this trip about a month ago...and a few days after we booked I learned we had the chance to do a DVC Preview of Tiana's Bayou. We got lucky and scored a 9am reservation to ride it on Wednesday June 19th.

Flights were booked via Spirit airlines at the airport, where you pay no additional fees.

Yes we fly Spirit quite often (this is probably my 6th flight this year).
No we aren't concerned about them, in fact we've had very good experiences with them for the last several years.
No I don't care that they charge me for food or drinks on the flight...I either buy them at the airport before boarding or I pay for a drink and/or snack on the flight...and I get the FULL CAN of the drink...and they have a cheese tray I buy which I enjoy as well.

No we don't pay for seats or bags. Yes we all still get to sit together. Yes I have several "Spirit friendly" bags I back for my trips, and then I can't I simply pay a little more for my bags. When my flight each way costs me $22, I don't mind if I have to pay $50 for a carry-on bag...that's still cheaper than any SWA flight I can book.



It's about a 2 hour flight for us and they fly 2 or 3 direct flight to Orlando each day from our airport.

So while not quite a STAYcation for us, it was a pretty cheap trip.

Weather was NOT so great...we left sunny weather behind and landed in cloudy/overcast weather and the next day had all day off and on rain. No sunshine was seen in the sunshine state for us, but it kept the crowds somewhat low...maybe? We have annual passes so we don't need to do ALL of the things anyway.

Flight departed on-time around 12:45pm Tuesday, we landed around 3pm and were at the Polynesian around 4:15pm, dropped off our bags, then hopped the monorail over to EPCOT to seek food. Oh we did book a GotG ride because we had no other chance to ride it and it's a favorite. We hopped on that around 6:30pm, then decided on dinner and did a walk-up reservation at a favorite for us...La Hacienda.



Chips and Guac were good as always, a round of drinks for each of us, and some food and we were done. Weather was looking iffy, our bellies were full, so we decided to do a quick ride on Spaceship Earth and then head back to our resort.



Coming up: Do we really end our day like this...or do we try for another park?

 

[kittylady1972]

So despite our afternoon flight, and mostly sitting a lot in the airport and on a plane, we were still pretty tired after our short visit to EPCOT. We came back to our resort (Polynesian) and I stopped in at the lobby to put some cash down towards our bill (we had charged La Hacienda to the room but I had cash to use) and also have one of my Magic Bands activated (which took forever because I have about 999 Magic Bands on my account and I always find an older one I want to use). We stopped in at the store in the lobby where I grabbed a Mickey Bar and we got some waters to take to the room.



Normally for longer stays we buy a case somewhere, but this was an overnight trip so it killed me to pay what I did for a few bottles of water.

My daughter and I decided we'd like to just head to MK to catch Happily Ever After. She was nursing a migraine or I think she would have wanted to stay and do more, but we left my husband in the room to chill (he also wasn't feeling great) and we headed to MK.

We decided it would be cool to view them from the end of Main Street for the first time, normally we take the "back" road behind Main Street and stand there, and last time we came to the park we did the dessert party (a birthday gift to me from my daughter) so we viewed from the special area for that.

It was a nice view:



I do enjoy this show so much. We did have a woman behind us who complained almost the entire time, and even exclaimed "the Hogwarts Castle show was better" but whatever...we loved this. Due to the slight rain and wind, Tink did not fly this evening, but we still enjoyed our time. Once over, we decided to just head back, shower, and get ready for the next day. We actually hopped the resort boat back to the Polynesian...love the many WDW transportation options. Also love our DVC room at the Polynesian and the studio room with TWO bathrooms...so we could shower at the same time before heading to bed for the evening.

Up next: Tiana's Bayou or bust?

 

[kittylady1972]

Day 2 -- AKA the last day of our 2 day trip -- and our goal for today was to attend the DVC Preview of Tiana's Bayou. Our reservation window was 0900-1000 and so we got up, packed up our room, and debated breakfast options before I made the executive decision to go to Steakhouse 71. We've done S71 a few times...with mixed results. We love the bacon and cheddar grits, it is what brings us back, but they can be hit or miss sometimes. We packed up the car and decided to drive over to the Contemporary as we were a little short on time for our 8:20am reservation.

Thankfully this was a good experience for us, great server and great food. I don't have photos of all, but my husband got the seasonal pancakes which were peach...and I tried them and they were delicious. My daughter and I split the ham and cheddar omelet, the grits and we got a fruit plate which was more than enough for all of us to share.



Breakfast complete, we walked over to MK where a light rain was starting to form. It was probably 9:15am when we entered the park and we went right to Tiana's Bayou...which we could see was not doing well. People were stuck in boats and CMs where evacuating them. Ok then. We decided to try something else and come back (they said our preview pass would be good all day) and so we hit Space Mountain, but we did stop off for my husband to have one last "shot" at the Shooting Gallery since it is closing soon.



Our wait for Space showed 45 minutes, but I think we waited 30 if that. Do you think we know we are having our photo taken?



After SM, we decided to head back to Tiana's, but the rain was picking up now and TWO of the THREE of us seemed to forget we were going to FL where it always rains (to be fair our last two trips have been oddly rain free). We stopped in to get them some ponchos first (surprisingly reasonably priced...of course I have tons of them at home already) and then made our way to the ride...again.

BEFORE PONCHOS:


AFTER (oh I BROUGHT my lovely Tinkerbell raincoat!)



Tiana was still not running, so we turned back to Haunted Mansion, where we could wait mostly under cover and get out of the rain for the ride.



This also showed a 30 or 45 minute wait, that was really closer to 20-25 minutes. Oh well we got out of the rain for a bit.



Once off the ride, it was closing in on 11:30am and the rain was still off and on with no signs of breaking. We decided to leave the park but would try ONE LAST TIME for Tiana...and I could see across the water that boats were running...empty but running...so we made haste and got in line!



I won't post a lot of photos to give away the ride, as I didn't want it spoiled for me, but we did enjoy it and at least we had ponchos to not get eve MORE wet!

(continued)

 

[kittylady1972]

Here we are on the ride finally!


One cool shot from the ride:


Ride photo:


Once off Tiana, the rain was still around, so we decided to head back to our car and seek out some lunch elsewhere.

The rain cleared up enough for us to walk around Disney Springs for a little bit. We were debating lunch options, wanting to eat outside somewhere as air condition + wet clothes = miserable us. We had switched out our wet tennis shoes for flip flops (2 of us) and hoped our shoes would dry a bit while we were having lunch.

We chose Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar as this is a nice place with outdoor seating...and we tend to share meals anyway so the small plates work. We ordered the loaded pretzel, the flatbread and the deviled eggs and had some drinks. Everything was good, and we barely made a dent in the pretzel. What was also cool was that it was so dead there that we thought it was closed...we were able to walk in and seat ourselves. Every time DH and I have visited Jock we have had to be put on the waitlist. This was nice.

Our food:





We knew we couldn't sit here forever, even though it wasn't busy. We paid the bill and headed back to our car...but first decided on one more stop: The Ganachery

DH and I stopped here for our last trip and brought a bunch of chocolates back to our room, so this time we got the box of 9 chocolates, each of us picked 3, and I got this cool gift for my 19yo son who was at home with our pets:



Anyway it was around 2pm when we finished lunch and with the rainy weather we just decided to head back to the airport for our 5:30pm flight. We had a rental car and we would have to stop and fill up the tank (but I do that at the airport travel stop) and at the airport we knew we would change out of our wet clothes and rearrange our stuff again. One thing about Spirit travel is that when you just use the "free" personal item it means just that...one ITEM. I use a small backpack in the parks, but I have to put that into my Spirit "bag" before getting on the plane to make it one item. It's easy enough, and when you have done this as many times as I have, you get good at it. Then I always check my bag at the Spirit gates to make sure it fits well enough in case some items are too bulky and I have to move them around.

This is worth it to me for the $44 RT flight, especially when it's a short trip.

For longer flights, I will sometimes pay extra for a bag which allows me to bring two (personal item plus carry on) and that is a little bit easier.

So thankfully everything at the the airport went smoothly, we returned the rental, got to our gate in plenty of time, and chilled until our flight. Our return flight was fully booked (as was our flight to FL) so Spirit was asking for volunteers to take the exit row seats free of charge, but my daughter HATES the exit row so we had to pass on that offer. We already had our FREE seats together in row 9 which was fine by us and soon we were on our way back home with an on time departure despite the fact that for some reason TSA had a huge crew of people AT our gate. They insisted that before boarding the plane we all showed our IDs again AND our boarding passes (this was a first for us) AND they were doing random luggage inspections at the gate as well. This process was longer but still not bad and this time I did NOT get flagged by the Spirit agent to check my bag size (wow) because, as I said, I always KNOW my bag is legal as the "free" item before I hit the gate.

Anyway we were back home before 8pm or so, having left for our trip at 12:5pm the previous day. It was a nice little escape, and the next day we were all back at work! Gotta save our money for our next trip!

 

[summerlvr]

Great trip report! Please tell me where you were able to get a rental car for $47!

 

[kittylady1972]

Duplicate.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

What a fun mini getaway! Glad you guys were able to eventually get on Tiana’s.

 

[2xcited2sleep]

What a great quick trip. Bummer about the rain but you made the best of it. How awesome to score a walkup at La Hacienda - that's one of our favorites. If you're a fan of Mexican food and usually have a car (or don't mind rideshare) I highly recommend Ceiba over at the Conrad Orlando. Amazing views, lots of delicious shareables, and spectacular cocktails. Can't wait for your next trip!

 

[kittylady1972]

Great trip report! Please tell me where you were able to get a rental car for $47!

Thought I posted this as a reply:

Keep in mind I barely had my vehicle for 24 hours (in fact maybe just about that) but I've returned to using Thrifty for now and that was the price for their compact car (we had a Kia Soul) for one day. I think Alamo was charging closer to$60 for the same timeframe. I shop around my rental cars right before my trip, but this price was pretty much the same since I booked it a month earlier.

 

[summerlvr]

Thought I posted this as a reply:

Keep in mind I barely had my vehicle for 24 hours (in fact maybe just about that) but I've returned to using Thrifty for now and that was the price for their compact car (we had a Kia Soul) for one day. I think Alamo was charging closer to$60 for the same timeframe. I shop around my rental cars right before my trip, but this price was pretty much the same since I booked it a month earlier.

Thanks!

 

[skysmom99]

That's pretty impressive. I have dreams of being able to just take a quick trip. This gives me hope.

 

[kittylady1972]

That's pretty impressive. I have dreams of being able to just take a quick trip. This gives me hope.

Honestly I love the quick trips, 2+ hour plane ride and we can be in our happy place, and even better when the airline tickets are so cheap for us. Sadly sometimes I still feel like we are tired after just the first day. It sucks getting old but we still make the best of it.

 

[flowergirl45]

Love your trip! I could pack that light in a heartbeat, but my husband never could lol. Thanks for sharing!

 

[kittylady1972]

Love your trip! I could pack that light in a heartbeat, but my husband never could lol. Thanks for sharing!

Very interesting. The backpack my husband took on this trip was actually almost like a day backpack...but of course he didn't pack a raincoat OR extra shoes (we pack at least a pair of flip flops/sandals in case it rains so we can dry them out and not walk around in wet shoes). Our next trip we will make sure he packs something a bit bigger...just so he can help carry some of our stuff! LOL!

 

[sheilafri]

I rode SDMT in the pouring rain. It was a blast and it’s been awhile since I laughed that hard for that long. Cudos to you for riding TBA in the rain.

 

[cheryllarsen]

Our best Disney trips have been in the rain! It definitely thins the crowds.

 

[cheryllarsen]

Thanks for posting. I enjoyed reading your trip report.