Carnage, Mayhem & Pixie Dust: a “frightful” & delightful Halloween-Inspired, Offsite TR (Oct. 2015)

[Lynne G]

A big shout out to DS for the scholarship. Proud mom indeed. Enjoy the night, and don't worry, the DIS will be here waiting. (and so will we )

 

[KathyM2]

Loving your TR so far!! Especially from a fellow Cannuck!!

Plans called for us to visit the Cheesecake Factory for the first time, so we plugged the address for the Walden Galleria into the GPS and headed to the mall.

One of my all time faves. In fact, I may or may not have driven from Toronto just to go there for lunch.

nd the “Smoke Stack” burger

Wow. That is the hugest thing I've ever seen.

healthy lunch at Sweet Tomatoes.

Love this place. We always go in Fort Lauderdale.

I would give my right arm to have this chain here in Canada

We did have Chili's for a while up off the 400...but I guess it went the way of the Olive Garden in Canada...sigh...

Just when you think that Krispy Kreme can’t get any better

Another healthy option we Cannucks don't have anymore lol

we headed out to IHOP.

Love the IHOP!! You are hitting all my "Canadian in the US" faves!!

 

[thr33boys]

All my good intentions to get a second entry up today are probably going down the tubes. Its been another wonky day at work, and I'm out of the house all evening. My boy learned about a week ago that he has won himself another scholarship through the college, and tonight's Awards Night . I'll be celebrating his accomplishments this evening rather than posting on the Dis. Ya never know, I may pop in later with a proud mom photo .

That is awesome! Enjoy your evening.

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

Hope you all had a great night. Your 'boy' is doing good!!!

 

[dancin Disney style]

And remember past-ies are for eatin', paste-ies are for twirlin'. Never get the two mixed up, even if they are spelled the same.

Excellent advice! That gets 2 thumbs up.

Ummmm.... who's going to field this one for Gina?

See, I knew I'd be sorry I asked .

Darn it....I miss all the good stuff

 

[ArwenMarie]

Sounds like a great day so far!
I'm hungry for pancakes now lol

Looking forward to your party report

PS Congrats to your son!

 

[jennasmommyinMS]

I'm really loving this trip report! I do have a Groupon question or two, though, and I'm thinking that this might be a good place to ask since you are the Groupon Queen. I've seen some things that we'd be interested in doing, but they seem to have an expiration on them. Do you wait until a couple of months prior to your trip before purchasing items? It does say that the amount paid doesn't expire--what does that mean?

 

[Callie]

Can't wait to see your review of the party! We went back in 2001 and I still remember how much fun it was.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

A big shout out to DS for the scholarship. Proud mom indeed. Enjoy the night, and don't worry, the DIS will be here waiting. (and so will we )

Thank you Lynne!! It was a lovely evening. It's so nice to see hard working young people (and some mature students, too) get rewarded for their hard work.

Loving your TR so far!! Especially from a fellow Cannuck!!

One of my all time faves. In fact, I may or may not have driven from Toronto just to go there for lunch.

Wow. That is the hugest thing I've ever seen.

Love this place. We always go in Fort Lauderdale.

We did have Chili's for a while up off the 400...but I guess it went the way of the Olive Garden in Canada...sigh...

Another healthy option we Cannucks don't have anymore lol

Love the IHOP!! You are hitting all my "Canadian in the US" faves!!

We get to see all the mouth-water advertisements for these places all year long (I think we probably watch more American TV than we do Canadian channels)
so its always fun to actually dine there when we get the opportunity. Good value (and good food) for sure!

That is awesome! Enjoy your evening.

Hope you all had a great night. Your 'boy' is doing good!!!

Thank you both!

Excellent advice! That gets 2 thumbs up.

Darn it....I miss all the good stuff

I can't believe that whole conversation occured without you, nor did you initiate it. Shocking!!

Sounds like a great day so far!
I'm hungry for pancakes now lol

Looking forward to your party report

PS Congrats to your son!

Thank you, my friend!

I'm really loving this trip report! I do have a Groupon question or two, though, and I'm thinking that this might be a good place to ask since you are the Groupon Queen. I've seen some things that we'd be interested in doing, but they seem to have an expiration on them. Do you wait until a couple of months prior to your trip before purchasing items? It does say that the amount paid doesn't expire--what does that mean?

I always check the expiry before purchasing to make sure that it will still be valid when we travel. The vouchers can be all over the place with expiry dates....30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, or even date specific ("December 17th"). Some we have even had a full year to use. So its always worth looking .

"The amount paid never expires" means that if you don't end up using the voucher before the promotional period is over (the expiry date), the vendor has to honour the voucher for the price you paid for it (at minimum). So if you paid $10 for a mini golf voucher for two (worth $20), and it expires before you use it, the voucher is still worth the $10 you paid at that location. So if you went to mini golf afterward, they would credit you $10 off the charges. Its like the paper Groupon voucher just became a $10 bill.

Can't wait to see your review of the party! We went back in 2001 and I still remember how much fun it was.

I will try to get it up today.....cross your fingers that my day is less chaotic than yesterday!!

 

[dancin Disney style]

I can't believe that whole conversation occured without you, nor did you initiate it. Shocking!!

Occasionally I actually have to work. Perhaps in future you could could give me the heads up (or pasties up) when something is happening in my line of expertise.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Occasionally I actually have to work. Perhaps in future you could could give me the heads up (or pasties up) when something is happening in my line of expertise.

My pasties will be staying right where they are, thank you very much .

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

I hope you will permit me a few pics of my young man from yesterday's Undergraduate Awards Ceremony. A long night (those types of things always are) but it came with a wonderful honour and a much-needed $1000 cheque....so well worth enduring the speakers and dignitaries!!







(Yes....that's the new girlfriend....and we ADORE her, she is awesome!)

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Congrats to your DS and congrats proud mama!

 

[Lynne G]

Than new GF needs a different than sweetie as her code name.

Very nice pictures and any money towards school is always appreciated. Way to go!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Congrats to your DS and congrats proud mama!

Than new GF needs a different than sweetie as her code name.

Very nice pictures and any money towards school is always appreciated. Way to go!

Thank you both!!

Lynne, funny you mention the code name.....Steve just looked at me last night and says "we can't call this one Sweetie.....so what ARE we going to call her?!" .

We will have to put our thinking caps on and come up with something appropriate.....'cause using her actual name just seems so wrong . The suggestion box is officially open for your best ideas.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

It was a perfect day for swimming. Sunshiny and hot , but with very reasonable humidity. It wasn’t an oppressive, sticky day…..rather, just delightfully warm and ideal for a couple of hours by the pool.


Eventually we decided we should grab a quick lunch before getting dressed for MNSSHP. We had Fastpasses for 3:30-4:30, 4:30-5:30 and 5:30-6:30 pm, so it was doubtful we would take time to enjoy any Disney grub until at least 7 o’clock. Neither one of us felt like heading offsite to dine right at that moment, so we opted to have our mid-day meal at the Tacky Tiki Bar & Grill, located right beside our beloved Fountains Pool.





Out of all our vacations at this resort, we had yet to try the Tiki Grill. I think our epic fail at Zimmies on our first SVR stay made us a little gun shy. It was high time we tested the quality of the vittles from the restaurant located in the section in which we own .





We had the place to ourselves when we arrived. We walked right up to the counter, placed our order, and milled around for a bit while they cooked our food. The young lady at the counter was super friendly and smiley and eager to please. Very customary of the type of service we almost always have from SVR staff….on the whole, they are an awesome bunch .








The restaurant has a very beachy, surfer kind of vibe. The music and décor all work very well together to be bright and fun and relaxing. There’s lots of seating available, too. Its a very casual atmosphere where you could show up in a swimsuit and cover up and still not feel out of place.














Some of the tables were actual surfboards. Kind of a fun touch.





I should also note…..the restaurant was SO CLEAN. Like, eat-off-the-floor-at-your-momma’s-house clean . I am not normally super impressed by the cleanliness of fast food establishments (because normally they never hit a standard that impresses me!), but this one was noteworthy.


Just outside the glass doors to the pool area, there’s a wonderful fire pit that’s lit every evening. It’s definitely a popular spot for those looking for a warm place to relax with a beverage from the bar .





Our order was ready in about 10 minutes. We kept it simple…..our big breakfast negated the need for a massive lunch. Steve had a cheeseburger and fries:





I had the chicken fingers basket.





The pictures don’t show it well, but the portions were really quite decently sized. There were additional chicken fingers under my fries, enough that Steve got to enjoy some too. Speaking of the fries, they were really, REALLY good…not sure if they were battered or coated in some way, or double-fried, or what…..but they were so crispy and tasty. By the time we polished off our meals, we were seriously stuffed full (again).


Including the large fountain beverage that we shared, the total cost of our lunch with tax was $25.19. I think we could have received 10% off with our SPG membership, but I totally forgot to apply it. D’oh!


After lunch, we headed back to the villa to transform ourselves from plain-old Steve & Gina to the much more exciting Blackbeard and his Pirate Wench . Just as we were about to leave the villa, housekeeping knocked loudly and shouted their "housekeeping!" announcement (it was time for our mid-week tidy, apparently). I opened the door looking like this:





And Steve was hot on my heels in full pirate garb:





The poor housekeeping staff almost fell backwards down the stairs . I don’t think they were expecting anyone to be around in the mid afternoon, let along that two pirates would answer the door!! They didn’t speak very good English, and we don’t speak ANY Spanish, so we had a comical and animated discussion (with lots of hand gestures) about our outfits that I’m sure neither side could understand. Knowing that they wanted to get started on our room servicing, we hurriedly grabbed our accessories, ticket, wallets, car keys and headed out the door promptly at 3 pm….exactly when we had wanted to depart the Vistana, to ensure we had lots of time to get to the Magic Kingdom before 4 pm. We had never driven to that park ourselves before, so navigating the TTC, the tram and then the monorail or boat would be new experiences for us.


We zipped along the roads and encountered no traffic or delays , so it wasn’t long before we saw this…..





….and then this…….





Let the party begin!!!

 

[Lynne G]

Cutie?

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Cutie?

I like it!

 

[bankr63]

oooh Gina, I might get banned for showing you what a twirlin' pastie is - but think what hula dancers do with their hips, is done with the top half instead, with little coverings of well, you know what.

Thank you all for so tactfully answering the question. I am ROFL in my office right now; I hope I'm laughing WITH you Gina because Lynne described that so well! It was cruel of me to drop that line at the end of lunch yesterday and then just disappear.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Arriving at the TTC parking lot, we gathered our belongings, locked the car, and in a true display of Disney magic, an empty tram pulled up to whisk us off to the main building. Seriously, like right at that very moment. We didn’t have to wait even 30 seconds to board. As we made the short journey on the tram (and I was stowing Steve’s keys and wallet in our pirate bag) I realized that in our housekeeping haste I had forgotten to grab the cell phone . I had plugged it in to charge before we went to the pool (so it would be ready for a long night at the parks….go figure!!) and totally forgot to put it back in my purse. I had also walked out without the printed list of our fastpass selections….I was such an idiot!!


Steve smugly asked if I had remembered the actual tickets . I threatened to pierce his heart with my sword . Smart alecks will walk the plank. Yes, I had the tickets. Sheesh.


I let Steve decide if he wanted to take the boat or monorail, and he picked the monorail without hesitation. It turned out to be a marvellous choice as again we had absolutely no wait…..an empty monorail pulled up just as we approached the platform.


All this good timing meant that we danced up to the Magic Kingdom gates by 3:30 pm. Despite the early arrival, there was a decent crowd of folks already waiting to gain entry with their party tickets in hand. We joined the lines to await the opening of the turnstiles and had fun chatting with all the other excited party guests….we were getting tons of compliments on our costumes from both other visitors and CM’s alike. Several little folks stopped to ask if our swords were real. Steve greeted a couple other wee pirates with his best pirate Arrrghhh!!! which made a few of them giggle and scared the crap out of few more . We were completely delighted when a cheer went up from the crowd…..at exactly 3:42 pm…..to signal that the turnstiles had been opened to party guests and we were on our way into the park.


We received our bands and trick-or-treat bags and we were off!!





We stopped first at Town Hall to check our Fastpass times. I knew which rides we had selected (Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean, Big Thunder Mountain) but we weren’t certain of the order. This turned out to be a much quicker stop than we expected as a friendly young CM directed us to a little kiosk (even provided us with a marker and paper to write on) and a quick tap of our tickets on the Mickey Head brought the list up for us to write down.


We were now free to enjoy the park at our own schedule….well, with the Fastpasses in mind, anyway .


It was so awesome to see the park, in person, all dressed in its Halloween finery. I have seen many photos of the decorations for the Halloween Party, but seeing everything live and with my own eyes was a really cool experience. Main Street is charming all on its own, but even more so when its decorated for MNSSHP .








It was crowded, though . Holy moly . All the people coming and going in that reasonably narrow area sure made us wonder if the throngs of people were going to dampen the enjoyment of the party .





We wormed our way through the bodies and headed in the direction of our first Fastpass: very fittingly for us as party guests, it was the Haunted Mansion.

Even once we had made it down Main Street and away from the hub, it was still pretty crowded as we approached the Haunted Mansion. The lengthy standby line (I think it was posted at 40 minutes) made us soooooo glad we had Fastpasses for the ride. With the sun still out, and decked out in our costumes (even though they were made of light material), we were really feeling the heat. It was wonderful to sail past the lengthy line of park guests and get on the ride with just a short and very tolerable wait.

I have to say, I think this ride is so cute and so well done. Considering the theme, it also seemed like just the perfect way to kick off our very first Halloween party experience. After back-to-back vacations where Universal was a very big focus, the “mildness” of the ride was a nice relief for me (I was afraid Steve would be asleep by the end, but happily, he enjoyed himself immensely as well…..he definitely let his inner child loose and approached our first Disney park day since 2009 with the gusto I was hoping for).


After the ride, we had our photos taken by the Photopass photographers that were stationed outside. These HM Photopass pics are probably my least favourite photos taken by the park photographers over our both party dates, so I’ll only show you the one. It’s the writer’s prerogative .





Taking a quick peek at the time, we knew that it would be almost exactly time for our Pirates of the Caribbean Fastpass by the time we made the short walk over there (especially since we were still trying to get the lay of the land…..it had been nearly 7 years since we’d set foot in MK, and our memories were cobwebby….and a wrong turn was probably likely somewhere along the way). We stopped at a washroom en route (I do not recommend water rides when your bladder is full ) and then were ready for our next swashbuckling adventure.


More to come!