And I think to myself: "It's a wonderful World!" UPDATED: (post 238 & 239)

[~Piglet~]

We've been twice at the end of April beginning of May, but we would like to see some of the Halloween decorations etc so we're thinking of October, is there much difference in temperature / crowds?

 

[2Tiggies]

We've been twice at the end of April beginning of May, but we would like to see some of the Halloween decorations etc so we're thinking of October, is there much difference in temperature / crowds?

April is typically less humid and not quite as hot as early October, but last year we went mid to late April and it was hot, although not humid. This was our first time in October and really nice to see the Autumn theming since we have only seen the spring things. This October so far has not been as warm as it usually is at this time of the year. It was hot, but I took a cardigan with me many nights this year - more than last April as it got cool in the evenings. The weather is all over the place at the moment so it's anyone's guess really.

Aside from the weather I would do October again without hesitation, but if I had to pick one or the other I would go with mid to late April, even spilling into the first week of May.

In terms of crowd levels, although wait times made it clear that we were nowhere near Easter crowd levels, the parks were just as busy during fireworks/parades and the CS restaurants didn't appear horrendously busy, but I have never fought for tables like I did this time. That said, depending where Easter falls, if you arrive after Easter, April/May I would think to be more managable. But again, Disney is all over the place with new promotions and discounts so it is impossible to tell. I don't book a trip to avoid crowds. I am a bit strange - I like a bit of atmosphere and I find very busy with everything running at full steam and extended hours is much easier to manage than moderately busy with limited hours and operations. But then I think I am the exception to the rule. A lot depends on what you are used to.

 

[DISWolves]

Loving your report so far
Great pics.....scarecrow is brill
Do you know there are other rides besides BTMR
we always find Peco Bills busy so tend to go straight to Columbia HH
Great way to review the end of each day with positives & negatives

We want more!

 

[2Tiggies]

Loving your report so far
Great pics.....scarecrow is brill
Do you know there are other rides besides BTMR
we always find Peco Bills busy so tend to go straight to Columbia HH
Great way to review the end of each day with positives & negatives

We want more!

Thanks Nigel! Oh BTMR Last year it was 39 rides on Splash Mountain You know how kids are when they have a favourite - you do it again and again .... and again! Actually this was the first year we did pretty much everything. DD was always one to latch on the a few things she liked but she was much more adveturous this year

I started getting more confident with my camera after a couple of days although most of my indoor shots were awful and I never did get the white balance or flash compensation right. Then the motor in the lens packed in on the last day so it is now lens-less. I was going to get a new lens anyway but I didn't want it to be dictated to me when.

The next day is a fairly uneventful one so more pics than talk. I want to get that up tonight when I have edited a few more of my 1005 Photopass photos

 

[Marl]

Loving your trip report, also just read your pre-trip report (great aswell).
We have been looking at flight prices etc almost daily since we returned from POR at the beginning of Sept. I am so excited to say that we have just booked 2 weeks for next August at POFQ. So can't wait to read more of your trip report. Gorgeous pics BTW!

 

[Disneymad]

Super pics again - lovin them!

We didn't have any problem with MK crowds while we were there however our touring plans revolve around avoiding EMH like the plague and visit the park the following morning when hopefully a lot of people will skip it because they'd done it the night before etc. No problems that is *apart* from the night we did MSEP and Wishes which was basically rammed.

I think it's the flipside to the Halloween parties which then funnels everyone else into the remaining nights and I'm sure the fact the EP is still relatively 'new' that people are making that extra effort to go and see it - I know if it had been Spectro I'd have probably just saved myself the hassle of dealing with the mobs that night.

 

[Chilly]

Looking forward to reading more. I found the park levels very odd this year, one day it was packed the next it was empty.

 

[2Tiggies]

Looking forward to reading more. I found the park levels very odd this year, one day it was packed the next it was empty.

We never saw 'empty' parks but yes, there were spells during many of the days when it was fairly quiet. I think, as Disneymad pointed out, the party nights bring a bit of havoc into play as people are almost forced into what park to do on what day not only from a crowd calendar perspective, but also from a cost point of view - especially those who have not purchased park hoppers.

Sorry, I didn't finish typing my next day on my TR. Had a raging headache last night (must be lack of sunshine ) and fell asleep. Will definitely do it tonight.

 

[Chilly]

Sorry, I didn't finish typing my next day on my TR. Had a raging headache last night (must be lack of sunshine ) and fell asleep. Will definitely do it tonight.

You are doing better than me, i've done 2 days a well but I was home a week before you!

 

[florida sun]

Great report Lee, Im all caught up now and looking forward to reading more

 

[2Tiggies]

Great report Lee, Im all caught up now and looking forward to reading more

I am so glad you are all enjoying it. I am loving writing it (I knew I would). I have wondered a few times if it is a bit too detailed though and whether people may prefer more pics and less talk.

 

[florida sun]

I am so glad you are all enjoying it. I am loving writing it (I knew I would). I have wondered a few times if it is a bit too detailed though and whether people may prefer more pics and less talk.

Its great the way it is Lee, you have a nice balance of text and pictures, havent seen many of you yet though

 

[~Piglet~]

I have wondered a few times if it is a bit too detailed though and whether people may prefer more pics and less talk.

The more detail the better it make's me feel like i'm back in the parks, and you can never have too many pictures

 

[2Tiggies]

Thanks Piglet. I am almost done typing out the next day, after countless interruptions tonight. It WILL be posted in the next hour - just waiting for the other photos to upload.

 

[2Tiggies]

We were pretty tired from our first two days. I think we also hadn’t really caught up on our lost sleep from the flight and arrival day so this had been intentionally planned as a chilled out day. Typhoon Lagoon was where we were headed and since it only opens at 10 am there wasn’t the same pressure to get there early as with the other Big Four parks.

We took our time getting moving and only headed down for breakfast around 10 am. We stopped by Sassagoula Floatworks and ordered a Bounty Platter with no bacon or eggs again. We did this a few times during the course of our stay and due to the unusual nature of the request, the platter varied in contents and volume quite considerably. It didn’t matter – we could never finish it between us in any form. We took pictures of all our breakfasts but for some reason I don't seem to have any of the platter.

By 10.20 am we were out waiting for the bus, which arrived quite soon after we did. The TL bus goes to DTD as well and also makes all the Riverside stops so it took over half an hour to get there, dropping us at the waterpark just before 11 am. We’ve been to Blizzard Beach but this was our first trip to Typhoon Lagoon so we took a leisurely stroll through the entrance, stopping to take in the theming which is very different to Blizzard Beach’s wintery display.

DD had been itching to do Crush n Gusher, so after exploring the park for a while we made our way over there, leaving my backpack on one of the chairs there. I didn’t hire a locker this time as the only things in the bag were our shorts and shirts. I had one of those waterproof cases for our KTTW cards, a bit of cash and of course a couple of naughty cigarettes and lighter. I also had a waterproof camera pouch for my compact camera so anything worth nicking was kept on me at all times. It made life a lot easier not having to trek back and forth to a locker whenever we needed something – and saved us $8 (after refund of deposit) in the process.

There was no real line for Crush n Gusher and the only time spent waiting to ride was walking the route up the stairs to get to the top. We had several goes on that and decided that we liked Pineapple the best.

After about 45 minutes of this DD wanted to go to the wave pool so we grabbed out things and moved in that direction. She loved this and I quite liked it too because I found a chair right in the front row where I could sit and keep an eye on her when I felt like some sunshine. I forgot to mention, this was probably the ‘coolest’ day we had while we were there. It was hot when the sun was out but there were a lot of clouds in the sky and a moderate breeze so when the sun disappeared behind the clouds it was a bit chilly standing around all wet.

It was lunch time by now and we made our way to Leaning Palms for lunch. I ordered the chicken salad which was amazing. It was different to the typical CS chicken salads and had beans and corn on it as well. With it I ordered a fruit pot and a coffee. DD had a kids pizza with fries and a cookie. We weren’t terribly hungry and one of the primary reasons for getting lunch when we did was so that we could acquire a sandpail and shovel for DD to play with, however the food was surprisingly fresh and tasty and we ended up eating most of it, saving the dessert for later.

Now kitted out with our sand equipment, we went back to the sandy area at the wave pool and spent the next two hours between the pool and the sand.

I wanted to leave the park by 3 pm as we had a House of Blues reservation at 5.45 pm and we were certainly not in a presentable state as we were. We stopped to get a couple of smoothies to drink on our way to the bus and left the park to return to our resort.

A quick shower and change of clothes had us on the DTD boat by about 5 pm.

Chatting to a couple on the boat we mentioned our HoB reservation and they suggested we took that water taxi across to the West Side and were horrified when I told them that we had actually opted to walk.Someone nearby even queried whether we were aware of the distance. It’s such a lovely walk and granted, we had pushed our time a little so we had to keep up the pace, but I think you miss so much otherwise. I really wanted some photos but the glare from the afternoon sun was incredible and it was pointless even trying at this stage.

Ha! I have too many images to post. Continued in next post.

 

[2Tiggies]

We got to House of Blues about 5 minutes before our reservation. I wasn’t too worried because I doubted they would be busy at that time and they weren’t. We were seated immediately.

Please excuse the misty shot, but one this was taken through glass

This is a fabulous restaurant. The food was incredibly good and you will see from the pics that I couldn’t decide what I wanted so I had several sides/appetizers

On the table was:

Kids macaroni cheese
Side order of sweet potato fries
House of Blues side salad
Special soup of the day: spicy chicken and rice
Rosemary cornbread with maple butter.

What little piggies! Between DD and I we almost finished the fries which were fresh, perfectly seasoned and slightly crispy on the outside while still fluffy on the inside.

The soup sounded interesting and it was very pleasantly flavoured. It was mildly spicy with tiny, very tender chicken pieces in it. I think it was tomato based. The flavours worked well together and it would make a perfect appetizer on a cool evening.

The HoB salad was just their basic salad, but they had a good variety of ingredients on it instead of the typical lettuce, tomato and cucumber. With the side order of soup I could easily have made a meal of it.

The cornbread .... OH! It was out of this world! Of course it is quite filling so I managed about a fifth of it and had to take the rest away with me.

DD’s macaroni was pretty tasty too. We just put everything on the table and sampled from our very own family style buffet. I was taken aback at the portion size for the child’s meal. There was quite a lot of food left on the plate and we were full.

We thoroughly enjoyed this meal. The decor is really interesting too although the lighting is not on the bright side, all in keeping with the atmosphere, so I was a little hesitant with photos as it can be annoying for others trying to eat with a flash going off all the time. We had a restaurant.com certificate and in spite of all the food on the table, we were still $1 short of our minimum spend, so I ordered a coffee which I had no room to put, just to get the tab up. Even without the certificate, the prices aren’t bad at all and I really wanted to go back again this trip, but we just ran out of time ... don’t we all?!

We left HoB, ready to take our time on a leisurely stroll back to the Marketplace. We stopped in at the Candy Cauldron. I don’t think we have ever been in there as Goofy’s usually stops everyone in their tracks upon arrival at DTD. They had a better selection than I expected, even though it is much smaller than Goofy’s.

DD took some photos and she wants to see some of her pics posted on the DIS so here you go, courtesy of my 8 year old.

I found it funny that she took this one - Happy Hour means something different to an 8 year old I suppose

She also took a photo of the display case. It was interesting with her using her camera this trip. She took some different photos and I didn't even realise she had taken some of the shots she had.

There was also a singer with his guitar. DD was fascinated by him and was most indignant when she snapped a photo of him and some woman walked right into the frame. I think the guy saw this and as soon as the offender moved off he stood smiling broadly as he sang, waiting until she had her picture. I thought that was so sweet of him. You could see he was trying to help her out.

Oh and somebody asked why there are no photos of me. Well the pics posted so far are from my camera, but DD did take a few sneaky ones so this should keep you all quiet for a page or two

We wound our way along to the Marketplace where I went to get our MNSSHP tickets to save us having to stop at Will Call on the party night. By now we were feeling a bit cool in the evening air and at about 9.30 pm we trotted along to the boat dock to make our way back to POFQ.

We filled our mugs with some hot cocoa at the foodcourt and went up to our room to sit and chat. I think we were in bed by midnight. Not the most eventful day, but it was pretty darn near to perfect. It always feels even better when you know you have nearly two weeks stretched out ahead of you too.


Got it right:
We gave ourselves a later start in the morning which did wonders for us. We also made sure we left the waterpark when we intended. Despite knowing the ins and outs of WDW distances, transportation etc, I find I am still inclined to underestimate the time needed to get from one place to another and this year it was a priority to ensure that there was no unnecessary pressure put on us by lingering when it was time to get somewhere.

Could have done differently:
With a chance for a re-do, this is one day I wouldn’t have touched. We kept to our schedule perfectly and felt so refreshed afterwards – all ready for our early start tomorrow. There was no way to have planned this ahead but if I could have predicted, I would have swapped today with Thursday’s trip to Premium Mall purely because our shopping day was very hot and may have been a better waterpark day.

Next up: Day 4 – Magic Kingdom and Epcot, including an early Crystal Palace breakfast and preferred viewing of Illuminations

 

[PJB71]

Just caught up with your TR Lee

Really enjoying reading it along with the pics, especially DD's, bless her

 

[Pugsly]

I'm hooked! You're doing a great job, Lee.

Bring on Day 4!

 

[florida sun]

Great update Lee, really enjoying this report, and great to put a face to a name, lovely photos

 

[strawberry blonde]

Great report. Looking forward to more. Nice to see what you look like.