Anniversary trip pandemic-style January 2021

[VandVsmama]

Welcome, happy campers to a great trip report! Let's first start off with the basics:

Who & Why...
This trip involved just me & DH. I'm 47, he's 48. Had our 25th wedding anniversary last summer, but thanks to the world turning upside down, our trip to Hawaii got postponed and then we just outright cancelled. Hawaii's mandatory COVID testing 72 hr before you fly there was the nail in the coffin that sealed the deal. We couldn't justify coughing up almost $500 in testing fees at the last minute before a trip like that and still run the risk of not getting test results in time...and then end up having to quarantine inside our condo the entire time. Not worth it! Hawaii will still be there. It isn't going away any time soon.

Anyway, the kids (ODD-14, YDD-12) did not go with us on this trip. My awesome sister stayed with them for the week at our house!

And sorry, folks, but there won't be any photos of DH or I in this trip report for privacy purposes. I have plenty of other awesome pics to share though!

So what sort of Disney tripper is DH? He...

• normally hates roller coasters
• hates drop rides (so no Tower of Terror!)
• gets Theme Park Fatigue pretty bad. Thankfully, I've developed strategies for this thanks to all of our Disneyland trips.
• favorite ride - Mr Toad's Wild Ride and POTC at DL.
• is tired of going on Disney trips.

My mission on this trip was to make sure that DH had a good time, enjoyed himself, got to relax and decompress from the stress of work and everything. Stay tuned to find out if we succeeded.

Then there's me. I...

• would buy into DVC if I could convince DH of it.
• could go on a Disney trip every year and not get bored.
• love it all. Except for drop rides & roller coasters that go upside down.
• favorite ride - POTC at DL, HM, Radiator Springs Racers at DCA.

Where
We stayed at Pop Century! First time here! We reserved a preferred room and ended up at the end of Building 1 a stone's throw from the MDE bus stop/Bell Services. Holy cow, that was awesome to be so close to the main building. We were on the 2nd floor. REALLY enjoyed staying here...even DH, who normally is of the "Ugh, Disney AGAIN?" mindset. He liked it so much that he asked if we can switch from ASMovies to Pop Century for our family trip in early June with the kids!

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more about your adventures.

 

[VandVsmama]

In preparation for departure day, I finished some packing and the cat decided that she wanted to go with us...



My alarm was set for 4:30, but I woke up all on my own at 4:05 TOO EXCITED TO SLEEP!

(side note)
The weather report changed at the last minute. Now the forecasted high temps called for 82-84 on Mon, Tues, & Wed! Eek! Everybody on here who's said that you have to be prepared for all kinds of weather in Florida in January were right! The high on our arrival day was about 67-68. Anyway, I'd previously purchased a solar umbrella off of Amazon and decided to bring it at the last minute in case the high temps climbed even higher. I have a friend who uses one at her kids' swim meets in the summer and she swears that it's a good 10-15 degrees cooler under that umbrella. My DH teased me about it. I jokingly told him that he won't be laughing too much come June when we're back at WDW and he's begging to share the solar umbrella with me!

Our first flight left bright and early at 7:05 am on Saturday, 1/23. We left out of the Phoenix airport since we live in that metro area. The kids stayed home on this trip. My sister watched them and we are forever in her debt from that! It was really nice to get away. Left the house at 5:00 am so we'd have plenty of time to park the car in the long term lot and get to our gate. As we started to taxi towards the runway, the sun was starting to come up.



Our flights to Orlando were on United. We used United credits that we had from our cancelled Hawaii trip, so this half of the airfare didn't cost us anything extra. Had to change planes in Denver and our flight to Denver was about half empty. Plenty of clouds along the way to Denver!



I slept a lot on the plane and used the United app to watch TV and movies the rest of the time on both flights. By comparison to PHX-->Denver, the Denver to Orlando flight was a lot more full. In Denver, we arrived at gate B43 and had to hoof it to B9! We lucked out and did not have anyone sitting in our row with us, so DH & I got to spread out a little bit. I learned on this trip that N95 masks are annoying around my ears. AND after awhile wearing an N95 mask, I feel a little nauseous. I'm glad I brought a few different types of masks for the trip.

Almost there!


DH & I both brought carry on luggage, so we didn't need to go and collect any bags from baggage claim. We took the fake monorail to the main terminal, then it was pretty quick getting to ME on the 1st floor. The airport was pretty dead compared to when we went to WDW in 2018. This was our 'wait' at ME!




That's it! Just 1 or 2 group in front of us! And there was a bus waiting right there. No 30-45 min wait before getting on Magical Express. The CM told us which row to sit in. Everything was super easy and orderly. This was our first time using Magical Express. DH loved not having to figure out how we were getting to the hotel, loved not having to rent a car and wait in a long rental car pick up line. I know that the free service is going away at the end of this year, but I can see us being willing to pay a fee to Mears for airport transfers. Not needing to rent a car and deal with that hassle was really nice.

This was the 'line' behind us. LOL! Look at all of the people!


Our bus made 3 stops. It went to AOA first, then Pop, and Caribbean Beach last. Left the airport at 3:45 and I hadn't received our room assignment yet. Got the push notification from the WDW app 25 minutes later just before we pulled into AOA. Five minutes later, we were at Pop! I had no idea that the CMs all clap when a ME bus arrives. That was pretty cool.

We went straight to our room, bypassed the front desk and everything since we already had our Magic Bands which had arrived the week before in the mail. That was pretty nice! Our room was at the end of Bldg 1 just next to Bell Services where the ME bus drops you off. SO CLOSE to the main building! Paying the extra for a preferred room was totally worth it. In 2018, we stayed at ASMusic in a standard room and oh man, that room was a 7-8 minute walk from the bus stop...after a long day, that walk got really old really fast.

I am VERY glad we paid for a preferred room.

We were on the 2nd floor. I think that for our next stay, I'll ask for a 1st floor room so we don't have to deal with stairs. And yeah, I know that there's an elevator, but the elevator is in the central part of the hub & spoke building and our room was on almost the very end of the spoke, so using the elevator would have meant twice as much walking (heck, one day we walked almost 10 miles!).

 

[VandVsmama]

Saturday 1/23:

By 4:30, we were in our room and getting settled and I placed a mobile order for dinner at Primo Piatto at the Riviera. DH balked a lot at first about having to do mobile order. But I explained to him that resistance was futile and he should just go along with it.



DH moaned and groaned a bit about me wanting to get the heck out of the room right away and explore. "But I've been cooped up in an airplane all day. I don't want to go anywhere." Too bad! Are you hungry, DH? Yes? Well, if you want to eat, then come with me. Or you can stay in the room and pout by yourself. I'm leaving in 5 min.

And after much grumbling, he agreed to come along. Haha! A little after 5, we arrived at the Riviera by way of the Skyliner gondola. There was no line at Pop for the Skyliner. As you can see from some of these pics, it was a gray and slightly drizzly late afternoon. Not drizzly enough to actually need an umbrella, though.



There was a 5 min line when we had to switch to the Epcot line at the CB station, though. No big deal.


We arrived at Riviera! This resort is very elegant and relaxing. I wouldn't mind staying there some day.


Now it's time for some food pics! YAY! We purchase 2 refillable drink mugs and with the amount of coffee and soda that DH consumed in those 1st two days, it basically paid for itself by the end of the day on day #2 of our trip! Definitely doing that again when we go back in June with the kids!

I had a sandwich with tomato soup. OMG, the sandwich was SO good. The soup was some of the best tomato soup I've had in a long time.


DH got the greek salad with chicken and some tomato soup (I didn't get a photo, though). The salad dressing was really good on his salad. We both decided that we'd definitely eat here again either on this trip or the next one.

Side note about social distancing in this restaurant:
It was REALLY easy to stay away from people. The tables are REALLY far apart from each other. Plus, there wasn't that many people in the place. AND there's places to sit outside if you don't want to eat inside right now. It was nice to have some options like that.

Anyways, we were done with dinner #1 and decided it was time to head over to Epcot since we had park reservations there. DH tried grumbling a teeny bit, but I promised it would be worth his while since the art & food festival was going on, so there would be plenty of great things to try if he wanted. And we agreed that we didn't have to stay until park close if we didn't want to. Had ZERO plan and decided to just wing it!

Here's some signage that was in the walkway as you made your way toward the Skyliner station.

 

[cheryllarsen]

Great read. Thanks for posting!

 

[cheryllarsen]

Looks like a fantastic time!!

 

[VandVsmama]

And then in practically the blink of an eye, we were off the Skyliner at Epcot! DH really liked the Skyliner...enough to ask me to switch our resort in June from ASMovies to Pop Century (which I did just yesterday!). However, I am a little apprehensive about how hot the Skyliner will be in June. It was very pleasant with January weather!

There was no line for the temperature screening tent. And I goofed when going through security by not getting my umbrella and cell phone battery charger out of my purse, so I got selected for additional screening. That didn't take too much time. The security CM told me what to do next time (hold it out in one hand straight in front of you).

I must say, I REALLY like the new security screening system. It's a LOT faster!

Once we got into Epcot at the International Gateway, we headed into the World Showplace building/tent and tried some of the ratatouille. This was REALLY good!


And then we had some of this wonderful blood orange tart. The green stuff was white chocolate. This was VERY refreshing. Very light, not filling. It was super good!



Then we spent some time exploring the various art booths in the World Showplace building. While we were there, a pianist started playing some Disney tunes on the piano on one of the stages.


There was SO much great Disney art at this festival. We really enjoyed looking at all of it.


I REALLY wanted to bring this home (or at least the print of it), but we were looking for some Star Wars art for this hallway in our house where we have some of DH's Star Wars Lego's displayed. So Ms. Tiana will have to wait until next time.



And I really loved this Up-themed painting, too.

 

[VandVsmama]

We then decided to head towards Future World because I thought maybe we'd go on a couple of rides in Future World since the wait times over there weren't too bad. And I wanted to go look in the Mouse Gears store in the hopes of finding this People Mover toy that I'd seen pictures of online. So we browsed through one of the shops in the UK pavilion. Oh man, there were a lot of people just standing around there! LOTS of people waiting to get some fish & chips. LOTS of people with beverages in hand looking for a place to sit down. So we didn't hang around there very much. The back corner of the UK pavilion was practically empty, though, and Alice from Alice in Wonderland was doing a socially distanced meet & greet.

Eventually, we made our way here and DH asked, "What's that silver ball thing over there?" This was his first time at Epcot. I told him that it's a ride. He said, "There's a RIDE in there?"



There were a lot of art booths all throughout Epcot. This one had this really cool sculpture for sale...


And I thought this Moana painting was really neat because the frame went along with the theme of the painting itself. So creative.



Then we looked at some sidewalk chalk art...


All the lights at night at Epcot are pretty...


The structure of these trees is pretty cool looking at night...


We then headed over to Mouse Gears and just browsed. Did not find the People Mover toy I was looking for. Mouse Gears was busy enough that they were managing traffic flow of how many people could go into the store at one time. That being said, it was easy to stay away from people in that store, so I think they did a good job with that. We didn't have to wait long to go into the store. I tried to tempt DH with a ride on Test Track, but he was a little panicked by how fast it sounded and we had full bellies from dinner #1 and progressive dinner #2. So we passed on that. Also tried to get on Spaceship Earth, but that was shut down for some reason.

We then stopped at the Joffrey's that's right near the entrance to World Showcase since DH needed some coffee. DH wasn't feeling up to going on ANYTHING in Future World. Darn it. That's ok, we'll just treat this like a date night. I took a look at ride wait times for 3 Caballeros and Frozen and this is what it said:



20 minutes for Frozen? 2 years ago when we went to WDW in June 2018, this ride was consistently a 90-120 min wait! DH just wanted to go back to the room at this point, but I told him that we couldn't come all this way and not go on at least ONE ride, so Frozen it is!

Side note: the walkway in front of the Mexico pavilion was a little cramped. We didn't hang around. The lines for getting margaritas were LONG! The lines for the Mexico food booths were also long. So we just skipped all of that. There were a LOT of people taking pics & selfies in front of the Mexico pavilion in complicated poses. It was comical to watch.

 

[Bama Mom]

Sounds like a great start to your trip. My husband and I took a 25th anniversary trip in 2019 and loved an adults only trip. He isn't much of a Disney fan (or any amuzement park for that matter) but since we honeymooned there, he agreed to go back for our 25th annoversary trip. We just took some down time and took it slower so he also got what he wanted as well.

 

[VandVsmama]

So....we decided to get in line for Frozen. Neither of us had been on this before. The end of the queue was outside, but the weather was nice (not hot!). It wrapped around the outside of what I think is Akershus.



And this was the practically empty walkway before we got in the queue... Where did everybody go? They were all getting margaritas in Mexico!


I really love this replica of that famous wooden church in Norway...


Oh! I spoke too soon. Some people showed up...haha!


We spent about 5 min in the outside portion of the queue before heading into the building...

 

[VandVsmama]

One thing I really love about the Frozen queue is how it feels like you're outside:



Then before you know it, we were going through the trading post. Although I must say that lutefisk doesn't look like this in real life. I've had it before...it's truly disgusting. Has the consistency of tough jello but tastes and smells like rotten fish. Had to eat some one Christmas many moons ago at my grandma's house. It was vile!



The posted wait time for Frozen was 20 minutes, but it felt more like 10 minutes. I have NO photos in the actual ride because since it was our first time on it, I wanted to experience it without an electronic device in front of me. We've never been on its predecessor either (Maelstrom). We really enjoyed Frozen. DH is a big fan of rides that don't go super fast and don't have big drops in them, so this was totally his speed.

some time after that, somewhere, I took this pic, but I don't remember exactly where we were when I took it. LOL!


We walked past the Japan pavilion, but did not venture in. It was a ghost town in there! We had a 2nd day at Epcot, so there was still plenty of time to explore later in the trip.


DH then decided that he was ready to continue progressive dinner #2, so we stopped at the art festival food booth near Japan and got some of the vegetable gyoza. These were really good. I'd get these again for sure.


We also tried the 'sushi donut.' Sushi in the shape of a donut. We liked this, too.



Now DH was full and declared that his progressive dinner was done, he was all tuckered out, and wanted to go. I was tired, too, since we'd both been awake since 4:30 am Mountain time. So we passed the Morocco pavilion...totally empty.



And I snapped a pic of this because I just loved the orange glow through the metal doorway.



Stay tuned to find out how long the wait was at the Skyliner to get out of there!

 

[VandVsmama]

So after our Japanese treats, we were super full and pretty tired. We decided to head out. I would swear that I thought the Epcot closing time that day was 8:00 pm. We headed across the bridge at the edge of France to head towards the International Gateway and DH said, "WHY are you taking a picture of fence parts?" Because, dear husband of mine, I think it looks neat. And because sometimes, you have to stop and appreciate the little things that make a Disney park so great.



The line to get on the Skyliner was SO LONG! Long enough that it felt like we were going to walk halfway towards one of the Epcot resorts. I mean, holy cow, it was long. I think we probably waited 15-20 min to get on the Epcot Skyliner. The line was moving the whole time (you know, the whole stop-start-stop dance as you move from 1 socially distanced marker to another).

We finally made it here...


Once we got off at the Pop Century station, we saw this sign alerting to the Skyliner being out of commission for a couple of days. I overheard a CM tell another guest a couple of days later that it was down because a software upgrade and they apply the software upgrade to one line at a time. Thankfully, we weren't going to be affected by this because Sunday was going to be a MK day and Tuesday we were going to Epcot, not HS.



Surprisingly, there were people in the Hippie Dippy pool despite the cooler weather...they must all have been from the frozen north (Minnesota, North Dakota, etc., etc.)! I'm a delicate desert flower, so we didn't even bother bringing bathing suits on this trip!

On the short walk back to the room, we stopped in at Everything Pop to get drink refills. I'm glad that we plunked down the $40 to get 1 for each of us. At $3.50-4.00 per fountain drink, if you're paying for those one at a time, it adds up pretty fast! After that, we took showers, got comfy in bed, and hit the hay!

So there you have it for Day 1! Tomorrow is our MK day!

 

[tundra1]

Happy Anniversary! Thanks for sharing! I think the crowds have gone down quite a bit since our trip there in November of 2020. Glad you enjoyed your stay at Pop Century! Looking forward to reading more!

 

[VandVsmama]

Happy Anniversary! Thanks for sharing! I think the crowds have gone down quite a bit since our trip there in November of 2020. Glad you enjoyed your stay at Pop Century! Looking forward to reading more!

Thanks! It was REALLY easy to stay away from people on this trip!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

My alarm was set for 4:30, but I woke up all on my own at 4:05 TOO EXCITED TO SLEEP!

(side note)
The weather report changed at the last minute. Now the forecasted high temps called for 82-84 on Mon, Tues, & Wed! Eek! Everybody on here who's said that you have to be prepared for all kinds of weather in Florida in January were right! The high on our arrival day was about 67-68. Anyway, I'd previously purchased a solar umbrella off of Amazon and decided to bring it at the last minute in case the high temps climbed even higher. I have a friend who uses one at her kids' swim meets in the summer and she swears that it's a good 10-15 degrees cooler under that umbrella. My DH teased me about it. I jokingly told him that he won't be laughing too much come June when we're back at WDW and he's begging to share the solar umbrella with me!

I slept a lot on the plane and used the United app to watch TV and movies the rest of the time on both flights. By comparison to PHX-->Denver, the Denver to Orlando flight was a lot more full. In Denver, we arrived at gate B43 and had to hoof it to B9! We lucked out and did not have anyone sitting in our row with us, so DH & I got to spread out a little bit. I learned on this trip that N95 masks are annoying around my ears. AND after awhile wearing an N95 mask, I feel a little nauseous. I'm glad I brought a few different types of masks for the trip.

We went straight to our room, bypassed the front desk and everything since we already had our Magic Bands which had arrived the week before in the mail. That was pretty nice! Our room was at the end of Bldg 1 just next to Bell Services where the ME bus drops you off. SO CLOSE to the main building! Paying the extra for a preferred room was totally worth it. In 2018, we stayed at ASMusic in a standard room and oh man, that room was a 7-8 minute walk from the bus stop...after a long day, that walk got really old really fast.

I am VERY glad we paid for a preferred room.

We were on the 2nd floor. I think that for our next stay, I'll ask for a 1st floor room so we don't have to deal with stairs. And yeah, I know that there's an elevator, but the elevator is in the central part of the hub & spoke building and our room was on almost the very end of the spoke, so using the elevator would have meant twice as much walking (heck, one day we walked almost 10 miles!).

It's like that Disney commercial from several years ago!

Solar umbrella.....I'm going to have to look into that, because I often travel to WDW in late July/early August. It's reliably rather warm at that time of year.

The B concourse at DIA is soooo long.

All Star Music has a really long and skinny campus, and it's the one time I booked preferred at a Value resort. Yeah, I got bumped to standard and was nearly in the back.
I got assigned to a first floor room once at All Star Sports and I thought I would dislike being on the first floor, but I actually really enjoyed it.

And then in practically the blink of an eye, we were off the Skyliner at Epcot! DH really liked the Skyliner...enough to ask me to switch our resort in June from ASMovies to Pop Century (which I did just yesterday!). However, I am a little apprehensive about how hot the Skyliner will be in June. It was very pleasant with January weather!

Then we spent some time exploring the various art booths in the World Showplace building. While we were there, a pianist started playing some Disney tunes on the piano on one of the stages.
View attachment 553936

There was SO much great Disney art at this festival. We really enjoyed looking at all of it.
View attachment 553937

I REALLY wanted to bring this home (or at least the print of it), but we were looking for some Star Wars art for this hallway in our house where we have some of DH's Star Wars Lego's displayed. So Ms. Tiana will have to wait until next time.
View attachment 553938


And I really loved this Up-themed painting, too.

View attachment 553939

I've ridden the Skyliner I think once, and it was in August. It actually wasn't bad. There was enough air flow that it was fine. The bigger issue was that it shuts down in high winds and lightning, and there are a lot of thunderstorms in summer. I was not staying at a Skyliner resort, but I wanted to go visit Riviera and was unable to the night I had time to do so due to the weather.

Also, the more I learn about the Festival of the Arts, the more I really want to go!

So after our Japanese treats, we were super full and pretty tired. We decided to head out. I would swear that I thought the Epcot closing time that day was 8:00 pm. We headed across the bridge at the edge of France to head towards the International Gateway and DH said, "WHY are you taking a picture of fence parts?" Because, dear husband of mine, I think it looks neat. And because sometimes, you have to stop and appreciate the little things that make a Disney park so great.

View attachment 554473

I enjoy taking these kinds of photos also, especially at Disney World where things are generally in very good condition.

Here's some sort-of-similar ones:

I'm enjoying your report so far!

 

[VandVsmama]

DAY 2 - SUNDAY 1/24 - MAGIC KINGDOM!
And just like that, we are into day 2 of our trip!

I woke up at 5:30 am. Not with an alarm. All on my own. TOO EXCITED TO SLEEP! But...must not wake the sleeping husband or else the Theme Park Fatigue symptoms will pop up before we're even in a theme park today!

DH's Theme Park Fatigue occurs often on a daily basis on our Disney trips. Symptoms include:

• crankiness
• grumpiness
• refusal to go on another ride
• talk of "We're not coming here again next year!" and "Do I HAVE to?"

Thankfully, there are methods one can use to keep the TPF symptoms at bay each day. This involves:

• rope dropping whenever possible
• daily breaks at the hotel room
• naps
• feeding the DH things he likes to eat
• going on plenty of rides that DH enjoys
• NOT going commando style all day long

How will we succeed with keeping the TPF at bay on Day 2? Let's find out!

So there I was at 5:30 am. Too excited to sleep. Can't fall back asleep. What to do? Surfed the Internet in the dark on my phone! LOL! I think around 6:15-6:30, I got up and took a shower. There are a couple of things about the Pop Century room that I really liked when it came to getting ready in the morning...

First of all, there's a sliding door between the bed area of the room and the sink/countertop area. So it's easy to quietly get showered, dressed, etc. and not wake everybody else up in the room with the bright bathroom light.

Secondly, when you have the bathroom lights off, there's a little nightlight in the bathroom that gives off JUST enough light that you can find your way, but it doesn't keep everybody awake.

At 6:45, I placed a mobile order for breakfast at the Pop food court...total came to ~ $22 for a sad omelet and a Mickey waffle, bacon, & sausage platter.


What else do I do every day on a Disney trip? I check the weather! This is what the forecast was for Sunday and the days after that...


DH & I laughed over how often I checked the weather on this trip!

I finally woke DH up, who grumbled a little about how I wasn't letting him sleep in on vacation. He quickly got over that, though, when I told him that breakfast was already ordered and all we had to do was go downstairs to get it. This is how far away the main building was with the food court...



I'm also a sucker for bamboo (I grow it in our backyard in AZ). This little section of it was a stone's throw from our room!



On our arrival day, we purchased 2 of the refillable drink mugs and after eating breakfast on Day 2, DH had already had enough refills to basically pay for the mug! He was a thirsty dude! I thought the refillable mugs were great. We're definitely getting those on our next trip.

My original plan was for us to be in line for the MK bus by 7:30, but we didn't pick up our breakfast mobile order until 7:25, so that plan went out the window! Ah well, that's ok. We took our time enjoying breakfast. He had a couple of cups of coffee. Then we went over to the bus stop...



There was hardly a line at all. Just a couple of groups of people in front of us and just as we walked up, a MK bus pulled up! NICE! When we last went to WDW in June 2018 and we stayed at ASMusic, we ended up waiting ALL THE TIME for buses from ASMusic. So this was a real treat to not have to wait!

The process this morning at the bus stop was the driver would ask you how many people in your group and then he'd assign you a number. You'd get on the bus and everybody in your group sits in seats marked with that number. No one ends up standing up at all.

And that was that! We were off to the Magic Kingdom! AAAHHH!!!! SO EXCITED!

Coming up next...what will our first ride of the day be?

 

[VandVsmama]

Sunday 1/24 Magic Kingdom:

I took a couple of days off of trip reporting because life got in the way. Plus, yesterday I got my 2nd COVID vaccine! YAY! I'm very relieved. Felt lousy enough afterwards to take the rest of the day off of work, but it was totally worth it. DH's vaccination group will hopefully open up soon in our area.

Back to Magic Kingdom! Here's our view walking from just getting off the bus towards the temperature screening tents at MK:



No wait to get your temperature taken!


After that, we went through Security. And I forgot to take out the umbrella and DH's spare battery (to charge our cell phones). So I got selected for extra screening. As you can see, it was packed with people. This was going to be a theme all week...



Then we were in! Here's our first view of Town Square and Main Street! Where are all of the people? Not at MK this morning! When we go to Disneyland and we rope drop DL, this is often what we see when we first walk into that park. I love it and it always makes me smile. I love the music that MK and Disneyland play on Main Street.



And holy cow, there's hardly anybody in front of us either!



Once we hit the hub, we swung a right because I wanted to see what the line up for 7DMT was like (probably long since we weren't there right when the gates opened).


Up next...first ride of the day and other fun stuff on our 1st MK morning!

 

[nascargirl]

Loving your trip report. Makes me want to book a trip really soon.

 

[VandVsmama]

We decided to skip 7DMT for now since the line went all the way over to Dumbo. So we headed left and saw a totally empty Fantasyland!



Hm...maybe we should try Peter Pan first? DH gave that a big thumbs up. Usually at Disneyland, once you're at 5 minutes after park opening, the line for Peter Pan is a good 45 min to an hour and stays that way all day long!


According to my phone, we got in the queue at 8:35.




DH liked this version of Peter Pan, but prefers the Disneyland version just a tad more. The WDW Peter Pan is definitely a longer ride, though! The interactive stuff in the queue for Peter Pan appeared to be mostly turned off, but it's still pretty cool. We got in line for this just about 8:30 and it wasn't running yet. But you could see and hear the ride vehicles moving. Barely 5 minutes later, they opened up the ride!

We were off of Peter Pan by 8:45 am. I needed a quick pit stop at the ladies' room, so stopped in at the Rapunzel bathrooms...which, by the way, are SO well themed!





Oh look! There's 2 people!



Hm...maybe we should head over to Frontierland next? Hey DH, do you want to go on Splash Mtn or Fast Choo Choo next? DH said, "I don't know. To be honest, I don't really want to go on either one, but if you really want to, I'll do it once."

OKAY, HERE WE GO!



The week before our trip, the river was basically empty and totally dry because they were fixing the track that the river boat runs on. So it looked today like they were gradually refilling the river! Sadly, there was no river boat to go on this trip and we couldn't go over to Tom Sawyer's Island yet either. We'll have to save that for next time!

 

[Paulaparm]

Loving your report DH and I are headed down in 2 weeks. We also have a preferred room at POP reserved. Only 3 nights in the middle of 2 beach stays. Can't wait!!
Happy Anniversary !