Coffee on the Verandah -The Last Slide, Recap & Souvies 5/29 - Link to Aulani TR 5/31

All caught up!!!

:thumbsup2

The paddle boats look like fun. What a scenic trip on them!!!

It was lovely! I am really glad we did it.

OKW looks lovely. We need to stay there. We scored two nights of our thanksgiving trip at beach club. We have never stayed there so I am looking forward to that. So many DVC resorts to discover!!!

I think you've been spoiled between BLT, BWV and now the BC. It might seem far away for you! It was lovely for us, for just that reason since it wasn't a park trip and I would stay there again in a heartbeat. It will be hard to stay at some of the others after this though as I know they are all smaller! Evan AKV, as cool as it was (and plenty big), didn't have as functional of a kitchen layout and cozy dining space...to me at least. It was great for a trip where we were actually using that eating and living space

Glad you had fun at DTD. I have never spent that much time there.

We really did, and now I can skip it for a bit. :rotfl:

We could have coffee too. Where are you staying again? I'm don't eat really early either but I've got my crew to contend with and prefer to be gone while they're entertained/sleeping. ;)

We are at VWL the first part of the trip and then BWV so we are literally right there. Kouzzina does have an amazing breakfast! But I'm totally flexible :)

It looks like the RnC meet is a decent possibility too. :goodvibes

Oh I hope you make that!

Keeping up with the chatter befors going in for job #2 !! Fridays are soooooo long and I have to go in early tomorrow as well BUT I am getting out early Oh yes I am !!!!:rotfl2:

SOOO long is right! My head is spinning. 6 presentations on wildly different subjects and 4 proposals today.

I'm all caught up!!

I need to get over and do the same!


I love Paddle Boats! I would love to try them in Disney some day! It seems like such a different part of Disney that very few people ever see! I love the drama that went down within the trip down the river! :rotfl: So typical!

It really is a different part and I just loved it. Very TSI ish. It was typical huh!

Wow, I caught up with you! I'm really enjoying your TR, I feel like I'm right along with ya!

Hi and :welcome: so happy to have you along for the ride.
 
Despite a late start, it had been a very full day. Shopping, swimming and pedaling like we'd never pedaled before. Needless to say, we had worked up an appetite!

When we planned our trip, we had planned a couple of dinners to be made in the villa. This was for a few reasons. Cost, obviously, but also convenience and fitting in with the "theme" of our trip. This wasn't a park trip, or at least as far as the kids knew. It was a condo type resort vacation and anywhere else, that would mean the majority of food would be eaten..in the condo. Or in this case, villa. We’d originally booked just one night at OKW, thinking we would get a car in the morning and head to Vero. Changing that by one night, moving that Vero night to OKW and delaying the car by 2 days saved…quite a bit of $$. It did mean however that we’d be dependent on a grocery delivery and so I tried to plan our meals based on a fairly streamlined grocery list. Ideally the food I had delivered to OKW, would be eaten at OKW and not much leftover to take to Vero.

When I originally started my meal planning, it went something like this for the 3 nights I planned to cook. Fajitas, Ribs and Grilled Fish as the main courses. In a cost cutting measure I decided to ask the E's what they’d like. I didn't mention cost cutting but all 3 meals on my list were on the pricier side for ingredients so I figured it couldn't hurt to see if the kids had something else in mind, even if I thought it was lame.

Their list?

Burritos, Grilled Fish and Burgers. Ok, works for me. We still get our Mexican and our meat but their selections cost quite a bit less, were faster to make and as a result, a win win. I had decided that doing burritos at OKW made the most sense in terms of grocery ordering. The rest I'd be getting at Vero. Arriving back at the villa I got busy cooking and shortly, we were seated and eating our very first dinner "home".

On the bus ride back to the villa we’d discussed our options for the evening.

On the table were the following:
  1. Watch Wishes from the beach at the Poly. That had actually been the plan for the first night but we were too tired and opening ceremonies had been calling our name.
  2. Head over to POR and check out Yee Haw Bob. The E's were LOVING that idea
  3. Watch the Olympics. Kendall was all over that…she was wanting to see Michael Phelps again, bad! He’d barely qualified for the 400 and she wanted to see him swim.
  4. Homework. Ok, that wasn't on Kendall’s list of fun things to do at all. But she had quite a bit to do.
Jeff weighted in pretty hard on this one. He'd stay at the villa with K, she would get some reading done, a geometry unit..and watch some swimming. The boys and I would head to….Yee Haw Bob!

Now I have no idea why, but I didn’t take a single picture of our dinner in the villa! Nothing fancy, turkey "buracos" as the boys like to call it. Which to them is a cross between a soft taco, and a burrito. It hit the spot and it was nice to just cook a quick meal, sit down, relax and eat as a family and have the luxury of splitting up after. Dinner finished, the dishes done we decided to head out. As you might imagine, we'd gotten back from our paddleboat adventure by 7:30 but then had swam, eaten marshmallows, bought a drink we couldn’t take on the bus, gone back to the villa, cooked dinner and eaten. Suffice to say it wasn't exactly early. Though to us…it still was. Especially when you think of how late the kids had gotten up (in FL time) and our day had started. We felt pretty fresh and up for it. Fresh being relative mind you as we were going straight from pool, to dinner to POR but good enough I guess. Not exactly time to shower and dress up. LOL! Bob plays from 8:30-11:45. Pretty late! So even though we weren’t leaving the villa till 9:45 or so, I figured we'd get about an hour of show in and that would be good and still worth making the effort to get over there. It was pretty funny how excited the E's were. They really didn’t know what Yee Haw Bob did. They just liked his name. And they liked knowing that James (Glennbo’s son) who was their age, enjoyed the show. As did his sisters, who were Kendall's age. Yep, I shamelessly use my DIS friend’s kids to tell my kids how much they might like something. And ever since the Hoop De Doo Review…they've bought it, hook line and sinker! Thankfully they actually have liked whatever it was, every time, so I’ve never been proven wrong.

More supreme awesomeness I guess.

I'd done a little bit of research on this one to try and figure out the best way to to get to POR from OKW. I'd figured out my options were:
  1. Cab
  2. Boat to DTD, Boat to POR
  3. Bus to Epcot, Bus to POR
It had been suggested that the last option, would be best. Or at least best, for free. So that was the plan. We headed out, and waited for the bus. Relatively quickly, one showed up! We got on.

And were asked where we were going. Well, Epcot of course, it was an Epcot bus.

"Epcot is closed, this is my last run."

Oh.

Gee, that little detail hadn't occurred to me. I was operating under the impression that buses ran for 3 hours after park closing (think it’s actually only 1 hour but I’ve had a 3 hour thing stuck in my head for several years for some reason).

Well…ok. I guess we will just ride to Hospitality House and I will figure it out. I’m thinking it's cab time.

"Where are you going?"

Port Orleans Riverside

"Ok"


He makes his rounds and pulls up at HH. We start to get out.

"Hold on"

"I'm calling to see if I can run you over there"

"I'm done for the night, it should be ok"


And it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Talk about pixie dust!

With the most magical bus driver ever, who would NOT take a tip, we were at POR in nothing flat and seated by about 10:15. Though I stayed at POR for one night on my girls trip in 2011, I'd never been into the River Roost Lounge, or for that matter to any of the other dining options there. It is darn cute in there!

So…sit back, and enjoy the show! Disclaimers up front. I used both my regular camera, and my phone. VERY hard to get decent shots in there so you'll have to have a little commentary to explain the..blurs.

For those who have no idea who this yahoo is, I mean Yee
Haw…YEEEHAAAWWW..a little bit about Bob.

Bob combines his great boogie woogie piano skills with comedy and singalong to create a unique audience interactive experience.

Bob was at the piano when we arrived.
P7285312.jpg


P7285317.jpg


P7285319.jpg


P7285320.jpg


I have no idea but it appeared we arrived not long into the 2nd set and were quickly brought "in" to the show.

Evan wasn't quite sure what was going on

P7285313.jpg


Eric was entertaining himself

P7285314.jpg


P7285315.jpg


Which was a pathetic attempt to get pressed pennies to stick in his eyes.

Funny part is I can't recall when he made them and didn't think he had two by that point but must have done one at DTD and one at OKW? I should go look.

Ooh! Evan's getting intrigued and answering to something.

P7285316.jpg


Now we'd discussed dessert at the show. However the River Roost didn't have a dessert menu (big miss on their part if you ask me for the show goers) so milkshakes had to do.

IMG_0308.jpg


They look miserable don't they?

P7285318.jpg


For me? Well I went this route. Since I'd had to share my margarita with Jeff so we could get on the bus, I figured I'd earned it. Liquid dessert.

IMG_0310.jpg


IMG_0309.jpg


Bob, Bob gets you moving.

It was time to

Bring Back Bonnie

My video timing (and recall of how to work video on my devices) was pathetic at best. The video I thought I took, which was a riot, was to Riders on the Storm. Evan raced around that room like no ones business, riding away, perfect posture. Eric skipped and I about snorted my drink I was laughing so hard.

But no, I think I forgot to hit record and instead got this

IMG_0315.jpg


And then got blurry pictures of the next one

IMG_0318.jpg


IMG_0317.jpg


IMG_0316.jpg


And I took this video, which clearly was the tail end of that.

Not sure what he was doing to this poor guy

IMG_0314.jpg


But he made us all choke on our drinks with this one

And apparently run around some more

IMG_0306.jpg


As the show drew to a close, Bob invites folks up for photo signing and picture taking. Evan, despite his enthusiastic crowd participation, wanted nothing to do with it and turned back into Joe Cool. Eric on the other hand, wanted to do it

IMG_0321.jpg


And we got a picture with our camera. Or in this case, the phone. As you can see the pool to villa, cook dinner, rush to POR = hat time for me. LOL!

IMG_0320.jpg


I completely missed going on to his website to look for the picture they took (think we were still on vacation lol), oh well. We'll always have this one though!

YeeHawBob.jpg


With that, it was time to go home. A quick cab ride and we were at the villa. Jeff and Kendall were still up and we commiserated about the Phelps 4th place (I’d been getting texts during the show and texting pictures back lol). It had been productive for them to stay back, K had gotten a couple of chapters read and a full unit in Geometry which she'd ended up needing quite a bit of help from Jeff on anyway. We got beds out, made, everyone settled and all headed into bed at about midnight. A late night but a great one!

Except for one thing that we noticed as we settled into bed, in our now quiet and dark villa......

We were next to the quiet pool. It was after midnight.....

It was NOT quiet.

At all.

I didn't know what the hours were for the quiet pool were but we were both positive it didn't go until midnight, nor was unlimited. I was also pretty sure that unless I called, it wouldn't quiet down on its own until folks left. Do I call? Do I wait it out? Do I yell from the verandah?

I'm not big on confrontation with strangers who are also on vacation. And while loud to us, probably didn't seem so to them and it wasn't like some wild crazy party. We chose to wait it out with the agreement that if it went on too long…we’d call. And while it did go on longer than we’d like, and apparently didn’t seem to keep the kids awake, it did stop and we did sleep. Well and deeply, those beds are comfy!!!

Up next
Dancing in the Hemisphere
 
I am VERY late joining in, Cynthia, but you started your trip report on the first day of my vacation. :rotfl2:
We have been back for a week, but getting back to the real world and WORK after 4 weeks of Florida fun was NO fun what so ever. ;)

Okay, going back 30 pages :scared1: to catch up here. ;) :thumbsup2
 

Great Yeehaw Bob update! It is one of the things that I forget that they are there. Need to keep it in mind for the next trip!!

I think it is funny how your time difference makes late nights good for you. For me it is just the other way around. Since 6am is 12pm for me, rope drop is no problem. But staying up after 10pm, that's another story...

I do find the cooking at the villa interesting, something I might want to do as well if I ever have a one-bedroom. I just wonder how you do it as there are none of the basics like oil, salt, pepper etc.? Do you bring those from home or did you get them with your grocery order?
 
Yay, I'm so glad you got to see Bob! And you took my, and my kids' advice...that's great that it helped convince the E's to go. I hope they liked it. I looked through the pictures first (on my phone) and was a little worried when I didn't see Evan in your picture with Bob. Hopefully it's just the Joe Cool factor, like you said.

Did Bob stop the show to ask you where you were from?

I was just thinking, I don't know that I have pictures of our in-villa meals either. Doh!
 
All caught up, Cynthia! :woohoo: I cannot believe I made it through 30 pages, but I DID!!!!!

Your vacation sounds FUN so far. Glad you liked Olivia's, we LOVE it there and went twice this vacation.
AND I am so happy you got your dual bathroom entrance! :thumbsup2 We did too and I only requested it when doing online check in. ;)

I cannot wait to read more and since I am about to start MY trip report, I'll give you a shout once it's up! :goodvibes ;)
 
Your story about the bus driver taking you to POR reminded me of one time when there was along line for the bus at EPCOT I decided to take the monorail to the TTC only to find that the MK was closed so I walked over to the poly to get a bust to DTD. Well waiting for it there were some buses parked in front to take people back to trier resorts from the luau, which got canceled for the night. One of the bus drivers who had asked us were we were heading (myself and another couple) where we were heading earlier approached us and asked if we wanted a lift to our resorts me to PORFQ and them to OKW I think.
 
Great pixie dust with your bus ride.:thumbsup2

We stayed at POR in Feb and didn't get to catch the show. I'm so disappointed, I really want to see this some day. I'm so glad the E's enjoyed it.
 
Will there be food porn of some of the villa meals later in your trip? Somehow, food that you cook yourself does not seem as photoworthy as what is served to you. Plus, that was a pretty full itinerary you had that evening!

What a score on your private bus taking you where you wanted to go!

Sounds like everyone had a good night- or at least what was needed. Some studying, some fun.

Sorry you came back to some noise from the pool when you were trying to sleep. The biggest disturbance we every experienced on vacation was when we were staying in Jamaica. On our last night, as we were trying to get some sleep before our early return home, there was a concert going on in an alley outside our room. None of us could sleep to the pounding bass and amplified singing- from Sean Kingston!
 
What a great bus driver! pixiedust:

Yeehaw Bob sounds like a fun time. I will have to add that to my list of things to check out someday.
 
You know, I have yet to see Bob (despite having stayed at POR/FQ three times....). It looks like a fun evening! I've seen the jazz guy at FQ and that was a really good show.

Really enjoying your TR!.....keep it coming!!:goodvibes
 
It sounds and looks like the boys really got into Yeehaw Bob show! It's so fun to see boys who normally think they are too cool or too old to participate let loose and just have fun.

I'm glad to hear that the ruckus at the "quiet" pool didn't last too terribly long.
 
Wow! What a really nice bus driver!! :woohoo: for the pixie dust!!

It sounds like such a fun night! We've been tossing around staying at POR on our next trip. We'll definitely have to make a point to see Yeehaw Bob one night during our trip!:thumbsup2
 
Looks like a great night. We've stayed at the POR twice and had drinks at the River Roost but never during Yeehaw Bob's show. He sounds like a great entertainer. That's one of the things I love about WDW, there are so many things to do beyond the parks. I'm hoping to follow suit and really enjoy all 3 resorts were staying in. :upsidedow Split stays sure look better on paper. Hope our transitions run smoothly.

Did K get all of her work done and enjoy the Olympics while you were enjoying the show?


Kouzzina sounds good. I'll make an ADR. :thumbsup2 For the 22nd. I'm a little scattered.
 
I had been catching up on my phone during yesterday's Field Hockey play day and am so glad that I was home on my PC to read your peddal boat experience -- I'd been waiting for it since E's big let down ;)

This photo is beautiful --


I have not been pedal boating in a very long time. I think the last time was on our honeymoon (20 years ago!). I remember it was a lot of work :lmao:(although we at least did not tip that boat like we did the canoe!)


You should have gotten a prize for going further than anyone had ever gone before, don't ya think? LOL That looks like an amazing river to go down--your photos are great.



Like this?

spearman.jpg

:lmao::rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2::lmao::lmao::rotfl2::rotfl2:


mmmm liquid dessert, my favorite type!

(Your video links didn't work - looks like your links to them are missing double quotes before & after)

Sounds like a great night where everyone got to do what they wanted (well I'm sure Kendall didnt WANT to do homework, but she did get to watch Michael Phelps. and maybe Jeff was ready for a little kick back time, too?:rolleyes1

YeeHaw Bob looks like fun, and even Mr. Cool seems to get down a bit (like on the floor? can't wait to see what exactly that was all about!)

What sort of cookware do they have in the villas? I'm guessing a fry pan, a sauce pan, maybe a medium sized pot? We'll be renting DVC points for our next trip & plan to use the kitchen a bit so it never hurts to plan way out (even if we have over a year to wait WAAAHHH)

as always LOVE your TR's C!
 
You sure packed a lot into the afternoon and evening.

:cool1: For pixie dust for the bus driver.

YeeHaw Bob is a great show. I really need to get back there and experience it with a large group. And probably have a few to drink. :rolleyes1
 















Receive up to $1,000 in Onboard Credit and a Gift Basket!
That’s right — when you book your Disney Cruise with Dreams Unlimited Travel, you’ll receive incredible shipboard credits to spend during your vacation!
CLICK HERE







New Posts







DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest DIS Tiktok DIS Twitter DIS Bluesky

Back
Top