Blood, Sweat, and no Tears! (maybe) Disney World July 2014

[G@ston]

Great blog!

 

[rteetz]

Great blog!

Thanks I hope to wrap it up very soon it's been a long time but I've been incredibly busy.

 

[rteetz]

Hello, it has been a long time since an update and I am here to finish this TR. I have been very busy now with school and then sports (football) but I finally have some time to finish this up. The only bad part is its the end of the trip and time to go home.

Well after we defeated evil Emperor Zurg we went and got some smoothies in Tomorrowland, and headed for Main Street to do some final shopping before we would head out. We all got the same strawberry flavor. Once finished with that we took some final photos on the Tomorrowland bridge.



My sister tried blocking me with her arm...



The sad but slow walk out began.

A photo of the main street fire truck



One last photo of the castle.



We headed into the emporium and some other shops on the way out to buy some last minute things, my mom bought a new Dooney and Bourke. My sister bought one last pressed penny.

As we left the emporium the Street Party was passing by.



We left the MK at about 1:15 pm and waited for our bus to come



Someone fell asleep on the bus ride back...



Once back at POR we headed back to the food court to use our last Quick Service meals from the DDP. After we filled our bellies we headed to Fulton's General Store to use up out final 9 snack credits. We got a bunch of bags of candy and pretzels.

We got our bags back from bell services and sat in the lobby waiting for our bus and Birdie the door man came by to talk to us. This would be the second time we have had a chat with him and I really wish I would've got a picture of him. He was one of the nicest CMs we had met our entire time there. He told us he was 86 and loved working for Disney. We had told him we lived in Wisconsin and he said he and his band used to travel around Wisconsin for gigs. I believe he told us he was from out east maybe Pennsylvania but I don't remember for sure. He also told us he had two kids he took care of who were both under 10! Birdie said they always wanted to play and they really tired him out but he loved taking them to the parks. And of course sooner than wanted our DME bus had arrived to take us back home...

The Tragical Express as many here on the Boards call it arrived at 3:30 pm. It stopped at POR, POFQ, OKW, and Saratoga Springs, then we were off to MCO.



And then we waited at our gate loaded on to the plane and headed back to Milwaukee.







Out the window I spotted all four parks and DTD as well as most of the resorts and just wished I could go back as soon as possible. Our plan ended up being 20 minutes early and we arrived around 5 pm Milwaukee time.

Coming up next: Final thoughts and my next adventure.

 

[SusieBea]

Nice TR! I enjoyed every bit of it. I'm ready for you to go back.

 

[rteetz]

Well that trip is now officially over now that my very first Trip Report is done. This is one of my most memorable trips and it hooked me even more than before on Disney.

This was our first time doing the DDP and our thoughts were pretty much the same, it was worth it, it helped us experience some restaurants we probably would have never done otherwise. On normal vacations for us we don't eat large sit down meal we are more of the quick service family and have a couple snacks. Would we do the DDP again yes most likely.

Out of our 5 sit down restaurants we went to here is our order from best to least
1. Ohana'
2. Crystal Palace
3. Via Napoli
4. House of Blues
5. Sci-FI Dine IN
That being said we did not have a bad meal or bad service out of any of those.
Our best quick service was Be Our Guest even tho my sister didn't like the food it was the best experience and the rest of our food was great.

Our take on Port Orleans Riverside,
We loved it, this had been our first moderate since i was a baby so I don't even remember it otherwise we had stayed at Values and the Dolphin. We would definitely stay there again (and I am!). The food court was great, pool was very well themed, and service was great everywhere. Only downside I guess was the resort being so spread out but that really didn't bother us too much. I would rate POR a 8.5 out of 10.

New Fantasyland was the biggest new thing for us and we loved it all especially the Mine Train even though its not a true Disney E-Ticket. The only thing we didn't get to try unfortunately was Enchanted Tales with Belle. Also during our stay we missed Astro Orbiter, PeopleMover, and Its Tough to be a Bug because of refurbishment.

My review of MyMagic+...

We did not experience any problems with it whatsoever. So many have complained about it but we did't have any major problems, the occasional wifi problems in the park but nothing major. All of our FP+ reservations were there and we got all the ones we wanted for the most part. We did use legacy FP but not as much as some did so I thought FP+ worked very well for our family.

The other final thing we all decided was we would like one more day in Disney normally we go 7-8 days this time was only 6, we all decided that extra day would've been very nice.

Now whats next...

Well in April I signed up to run in the 10k during Marathon weekend in January in WDW. Only one problem I did;t have anyone to go with because my dad can't take off of work during the winter being a snow plower and my mom wasn't going to take three kids by herself of course. So in May for my birthday my Aunt and Uncle gave me my favorite present of all time a trip to Disney of course. The rooms and rates weren't available for January in May yet but they were set to take me and my grandparents were coming along too!. My Aunt and Uncle don't have any kids and they usually cruise Royal Carribean they also hadn't been to Disney since the early 90s and My Grandparents hadn't been since the early 2000s so we are all going and staying at POR! So instead of being in snowy blistering cold Wisconsin in January I get to be in hopefully warm and sunny Orlando. This being my first running race ever I have been training pretty regularly running a few miles or so every other day. Since the group I am going with hasn't been in so long I am the main planner for this trip.

So far this is what we have
1/7/15-1/12/15
DDP- Yes regular plan again
4 day base ticket, our flights don't really let us have a 5 or 6 day ticket and my uncle didn't want the park hopper
We have 5 ADRs set
Portabello Dinner at DTD
Kona Cafe Dinner at Poly
Coral Reef Lunch at Epcot
50s Prime Time Dinner at DHS
Boma Breakfast at AKL

I have not eaten at any of those, I do plan on trying to get a BOG FP again to eat there.
Our FP+ window opens Nov. 7th and I will be booking then to get what I want.

My race is on Jan. 9th and I plan to do another TR on that first experience and it being my first trip without my parents.

As for trips with my immediate family we are taking 2015 to save up again to go to Disney but hopefully this time not just WDW but Disneyland! We have never been and we really want to go and see Walt's park.

Thanks for following along on this journey of my first TR and hopefully I can find you in the next one.

 

[rteetz]

Nice TR! I enjoyed every bit of it. I'm ready for you to go back.

Thanks for following along. I am ready to go back too only 62 days now!

 

[melduckie]

How exciting to be going back in January!! Good luck with that BOG FP+ tomorrow!!!

 

[NancyLuvsMickey]

You wrote a great trip report and I really enjoyed reading it... Thank You!!!

And have fun in January on your next trip to Disney!!! You have the best Aunt & Uncle ever!!!

 

[rteetz]

How exciting to be going back in January!! Good luck with that BOG FP+ tomorrow!!!

Thank you! Yes I will be sure to try to get that FP.

 

[rteetz]

You wrote a great trip report and I really enjoyed reading it... Thank You!!! And have fun in January on your next trip to Disney!!! You have the best Aunt & Uncle ever!!!

Thanks for following along. Yes I owe them for a long time!

 

[WillJenDisney]

I know it's been a while since you finished this, but I just read it and really enjoyed your report, thanks for sharing. We did the half marathon back in 2010 and it was an awesome time (hopefully you don't experience the record lows we did, it actually sleeted on us while we waited for the race to start).

Good luck with the race and have a great time, there's no better place on earth.

 

[rteetz]

I know it's been a while since you finished this, but I just read it and really enjoyed your report, thanks for sharing. We did the half marathon back in 2010 and it was an awesome time (hopefully you don't experience the record lows we did, it actually sleeted on us while we waited for the race to start). Good luck with the race and have a great time, there's no better place on earth.

Thanks for reading! I do hope it's nice when we are there for the marathon in January because I'll be coming from the cold and snowy weather I definitely don't want to go to another place like that lol.

 

[cuteepi2003]

That should be fun!