COMPLETE 9/29 -10th Anniversary at the Contemporary! - May 2024 TR

[alohamom]

YAY for another trip report, following along and belated congratulations on your 10 year anniversary!

 

[PAsFab5]

Happy Anniversary!!! Excited to follow along

 

[Araminta18]

LOVE reading all your reports and get excited when I see you did a new one. Sorry if I haven't mentioned before. Love that you go so often. I only do about 3 main trips a year plus while snowbirding in Cocoa Beach for 3-1/2 months we do either go back & forth (55 min if I4 cooperates) or stay on site if I have points left.

Adult DD and I were there during your last Disney trip and you guys were walking in front of us. I think it was in Epcot and I almost said hello but didn't want to bother you. My husband: "Don't bother them". Anyway, it was fun seeing someone from the Trip reports. I'm sure we all had a great time there.

Thanks for reading!! I'm so glad you enjoy them. Your trips + Cocoa Beach sound awesome! We don't usually go this much - this was definitely us taking advantage of having annual passes LOL. Aw, you should have said hello - definitely wouldn't be a bother to meet someone from the Dis!

Joining in! Love your report and every picture!
Have you ever looked into the auto train?
We live in Lancaster PA and it is the only way we travel down. You board in Lorton, leave at 5 and the next morning you are in Sanford.

Thanks for reading! I have looked into the auto train, but the one or two times I looked it was way more expensive than just flying, and wouldn't be worth the benefit of having our car with us. We live super close to Lorton too, so I definitely would be open to it, but the price just wasn't worth it. But boarding at night and then arriving the next morning sounds awesome! I'll have to look at it again.

Love your trip reports, and my husband and I started flying out Friday after work a couple of years ago. It's so nice to just wake up at Disney and start your vacation.

Thank you for reading! Yea...I'm really liking the Friday night flight. Not always something we can swing, but I agree with you 100% - so nice to wake up and just be there!

YAY for another trip report, following along and belated congratulations on your 10 year anniversary!

Thank you for reading, and for the congratulations!

Happy Anniversary!!! Excited to follow along

Thank you!!

 

[Araminta18]

May the 4th Begins! - Saturday May 4th, 2024 (part 1)​

We woke up a little before 7 to do all the lightning lane stuff, and then we (me ) were too excited so it was time to get up and pack and get ready for the day!

But first, look at our view in the daytime!

So nice to have those two windows there.

I'd successfully gotten us a virtual queue for the Star Wars/May the 4th merchandise; it said it was going to call us at 11:30 am-ish and we weren't planning to be at Hollywood Studios until 4/5ish, so I was hoping either the queue would move super slow or they wouldn't care about us being late. You'll have to wait and see!

I had started us stacking Lightning Lanes as well (got us a Slinky Dog for like 6 pm!), and then I realized - some of the May the 4th treats were available via mobile order! So I started doing some mobile orders for way later in the day (6/7pm ish) - the puff bread from the Milk Stand, some of the other treats from Docking Bay 7, and then realized that the stormtrooper helmet popcorn bucket was available via mobile order too. Woo hoo! Trevor wasn't sure yet if he wanted it, but I figured this would be the best way to make sure he had the option if he decided he did want it (I'd checked on our other mobile orders and we could cancel them if we decided we didn't want them, so I figured it would be the same for the popcorn bucket too). Yea, definitely a bit of FOMO. BUT. While I was ordering it asked me which popcorn flavor I wanted, and while I was googling to try and figure out the difference, it timed out and when I went in to re-do the order, the popcorn bucket wasn't there!!

But I kept trying as I was getting ready and about 15 min later I was able to order it - woot! I didn't dither on popcorn flavor this time. So doing pretty good!

Our plan this morning was to drop our bags at Bell Services for them to transfer to the Contemporary, and then get beignets for breakfast! Woot. By 8:10ish we were heading to the lobby. Look at this detail in the elevator!

I didn't notice the night before, but I love that little crown there. So cute.

Port Orleans French Quarter is such a pretty resort. We really like it. So nice. And we got that whiff of the honeysuckle again...delicious.

We dropped our bags at Bell Services (including Trevor's lightsaber) - we wanted to have the lightsaber to take with us to Hollywood Studios that evening but we didn't want to carry it around all day, and they said that it should be over there by 3pm, which worked with our plans, so we dropped it off and crossed our fingers that it would make it on time. I also checked with the front desk about our refund and they said it would go back to my credit card, which was weird cause we paid with a gift card but *shrugs* ok. So, all the logistics done, time for beignets! The line was kind of long so Trevor got in line while I went and filled up our refillable mug (fill #2) with powerade (gross, but Trevor likes it) and grabbed us a seat.

By 8:30, we had beignets!

(and milk )

Beignets are delicious, as always. They're so good! If you stay at POFQ, definitely get beignets. They may even be worth a special trip. We like ours with just powdered sugar (no dipping sauce), but they have some, I think. Also notice the Gideon's insulated bag to my left...hint on where we were going!

After breakfast, we did a little bit of shopping in the gift shop and got some pins and such (which we also dropped back off with Bell Services, shout out to them for adding it to our bags to take over to the Contemporary), and then time to head to Disney Springs! Sadly the water level was too low for the boats ( ) so we headed over to the bus stop. It was like *right* before 9 and there were no Disney Springs buses on the board.

Cool vending machine though! I appreciate that level of theming.

Back to the bus situation though - right as it turned 9 am, a Disney Springs bus pulled up! Woo hoo. It was wrapped with the BB8/Galaxy's Edge wrap, which was appropriate for the day. And we pulled away pretty quickly, which was nice, instead of hanging around like the buses sometimes do. The bad part was that we did go to both Riverside and Typhoon Lagoon. Oh well - you win some, you lose some. We got to Disney Springs at 9:23, and we of course headed right to Gideons. How long was the line?

Not too bad - we've definitely waited in longer Gideon's lines. It was down to the corner but at least not around the corner.

We had about 30 min til Gideon's opened, so I stayed in line while Trevor went over to see what if anything the Lego Store was going to do for May the 4th. The internet had conflicting info.

When he got over there, there was another line going and still some confusion about what they'd be doing - they had been doing little lego figures for free but it wasn't clear if they would still do it today. They had some exclusive sets and discounts though, but Trevor decided it wasn't worth waiting. He came back to join me a little bit before 10 am - look how much the line had grown!

Turned the corner and ALL the way down there to that brick building. Woof. But it opened at 10 and moved pretty quickly - we got in at 10:25 and got the cookies and the strawberry bites (the strawberry cookie bites were what I was excited for. )

Then, it was time to divide and conquer! Trevor headed back to the Lego store now that they were open to see what they were actually doing, and I looked in the Ganachery, the Ever After Jewelry Store, and Uniqlo (they had some cool Star Wars shirts that I texted Trevor about 'cause he was back in line at the Lego store), and then World of Disney. I was looking for the Queen Amidala ears at World of Disney and they had a bunch. Woohoo! And better than that, the Amidala ears were part of the promotion they were running, where you could buy 2 ears for $30 each instead of $35. So I bought the Cinderella ears I'd been kind of looking at for a while. Woot!

Then I joined Trevor at the Lego store - they were doing the free Star Wars figures and they had both Princess Leia (the one I wanted) and Darth Vader (the one Trevor wanted ), which is why he was waiting. He had made it inside the store at least - yay air conditioning - and the CM was kind enough to let me in to join him. I did talk him into a Star Wars lego set while we were waiting, but not enough to get the fancy bag with Lego written in Aurebesh.

 

[Araminta18]

Lego and Wine Bar George Brunch - Saturday May 4th, 2024 (part 2)​

They also had some fun Star Wars lego figures - not sure if they have those all the time, but it was neat.

Obi Wan! And Trevor creeping back there in the background

Then it was time to build our Star Wars figures!

It's not a mini-fig, it's like an actual tiny set. Trevor is concentrating really hard.


Success!!

We then decided to head over to the Lego mural wall to do that, if the line wasn't long. And it wasn't! We walked right up.

For this, they gave you a little lego flat plate with colors on it and you just found the little lego in the right colors to put on those spots. So not hard, but fun. They also passed out R2D2 hats. I made Trevor wear it.


Bwahahaha. I think he looks good!

So that was fun! It was a little bit after 11 at this point, and we had a couple more stops to make, so we split up again. Trevor went to Uniqlo to look at the shirts, and I went over to Amorette's Patisserie:

I needed to get us that Stormtrooper cake! So adorbs. Then I was looking in the Marketplace Co-Op where they had the Vera Bradley Beauty and the Beast collection, but specifically the silhouette pattern from that collection, so I bought it. Woot! I also looked in the art store but they didn't have anything new - everything they had I'd seen at FARTS just a few months before, so I didn't buy anything. I did also stop in to the Christmas store and bought the Tarzan ornament that I'd seen online (I love Tarzan and there's like no merchandise!), while Trevor was looking at the Star Wars store there at the Marketplace side. He didn't end up buying anything though.

And then, our last stop: Goofy's Candy Kitchen to get the "make your own" rice krispies that we love. We got there at 11:55, only to find out that they didn't open that part of it until 12 noon. So good timing! We waited a few minutes and then got our krispies, and then it was time for lunch. Where were we going for lunch?

I know you're shocked if you've read any of my previous trip reports, but Wine Bar George! I was really excited to finally be able to try brunch. We did get there a bit early for our reservation, but they sat us right away, in the upstairs area right by the balcony but inside so we got to enjoy the air conditioning. We like that area 'cause it's a nice view and tends to be a little bit quieter.

We got our normal drinks (the mocktails - orgeat lemonade and the cherry smash. These are so good, especially the lemonade. We even bought orgeat syrup so we could make a version of it at home).

Then we had a hard time deciding on food (they really should do a food flight so you can try all the dishes!), but I ended up getting the Wine Country Omelet: corn / tomato / grilled asparagus / bacon / Havarti / crispy shallots

Ok, so Wine Bar George is one of the few restaurants where we're like "just bring the dish as it comes" even if it has something weird or something we don't like, because we'll probably like it. And this was one of those - I don't love asparagus and corn on an omelet sounds weird. But it works! It was delicious. I would have added a bit more cheese, but overall, yum.

Trevor got the sausage gravy and biscuits:

Also delicous! And more filling than you'd think. Trevor liked how well seasoned the gravy was, with just a little bit of heat. I thought the biscuits were just a teeny bit dry but with the gravy it worked out.

Overall, a delicious lunch.

Trevor rocking his R2D2 hat. And also we got the AP discount at brunch which you don't get at dinner, so bonus! I definitely want to eat brunch here again. So delicious.

From here, the plan was to really split up. We originally were going to go to the outlets (since they're right there by Disney Springs), but Trevor was kind of flagging, and we had bought several things so we had lots of bags, so we decided that he'd head to the Contemporary with the bags and wait there til check in and I got back. And I would go to the outlets cause I like shopping and my inner sense of efficiency is hurt by going from Disney Springs to the Contemporary then to the outlets, cause the outlets are right by Disney Springs.

So that was the plan! And I had been using the airtags in the bags to track and see where they were, hoping they'd make it over to the Contemporary before 4...so far, looking good!

You'll have to wait and see if the outlet haul was any good this time.

 

[Araminta18]

Outlets and Room Tour - Saturday May 4th, 2024 (part 3)​

So, plan set, we stopped by the Ganachery for their chiller chocolate drink, cause it was hot and it's delicious.

So good!

And then it was time to split up - me off to the outlets and Trevor to the Contemporary. Though Trevor did stop and look at the fancy Star Wars Citizen watches. As I was walking from the Ganachery to the marketplace side where the Uber pickup is, I checked the airtags on our bags, and it said everything was at the Contemporary. Yay! That meant we'd be able to pick up the lightsaber and take that with us to Hollywood Studios. Huzzah!

I got to the Outlets at 1:45, and found this:

a line. womp womp. Though it doesn't look too bad!

Oh wait, just kidding. Definitely a line. I texted Trevor that it was good he'd gone to the hotel, cause lines to do shopping is really not his thing. But his text back told me that the bus still hadn't arrived, after him waiting about 20 minutes. A few minutes later the bus did arrive for him, but they had to wait for a new driver. And then the new driver came and they let everyone on (standing room only) but were still just hanging around. Trevor finally was on the bus, with it on it's way to the hotel, after 30 minutes. But at least he got a seat!

I made it inside at about 2:18, so about a 30 min line. But! There was lots of good stuff - I was sending Trevor all sorts of pictures of stuff I thought he was interested in, and eventually we did a video call to iron out which things he wanted. They had a bunch of stuff I wanted too, including some things that had been there for a while but that I was waiting for the price to drop (and it did!). So, it was a good trip.

I was in an uber heading to the Contemporary at 3, and 20 minutes later I was seeing this view:

So exciting!!

Trevor met me at check in, and we got all checked in. It was a bit of a production cause I was paying off the room balance with gift cards, but the CM was great - I requested a room with a bathtub and the CM found us a room with a bathtub that was available right then! So that was super nice.

We got room 4329 - 7th floor, closer to the convention center than Bay Lake Tower.

First view from the hallways looking down into the concourse. So cool! I also really liked the Incredibles art, though I know some folks don't. It was actually super helpful for finding our room again - we just had to remember which picture was by our room.

Anyways, room tour!!

From the hallway.


This picture doesn't make it look very big, but it was - lots of space.

Another cute little anniversary message.


The view! Hi there Grand Floridian!

And Magic Kingdom!! Look at those perfect fluffy white clouds.

 

[Araminta18]

Room Tour Continued! - Saturday May 4th, 2024 (part 4)​

Ha, as if that's all the pictures I'm gonna give you of the view and the room.

There will be a lot of balcony view pictures, not gonna lie.

Hi Trevor!

And the bathroom, cause guys this was an awesome bathroom, specifically the tub.

This picture doesn't tell you how big this tub is - it was HUGE. and deep. Like when I took a bath, I it was so deep I floated, and sitting in it my feet couldn't reach the other end of the tub. SO NICE. A+. Best bathtub ever.

The doors to the room with the toilet - why the doors split in the middle I don't know but it caught my attention.

I do like this picture of Jack Jack in that room though.

Hello! And the monorail on the mirror.

Ok, that's it for now. We were pretty excited - great view (we could even see Magic Kingdom from the bed!) and lots of space. We called for our luggage and they brought it up super fast, which was nice (in our experience bell services usually takes a while to bring the bags). So we got the lightsaber, put the treats we bought at Disney Springs in the fridge, and then, off to Hollywood Studios!

There will also be a lot of pictures of the grand concourse. Cause it's awesome. It was fun to just look down into Chef Mickey's and Contempo as we were walking to and from the room.

This print was right by the elevators - I liked it a lot too.

There was a Hollywood Studios bus unloading right as we got to the bus stop, so we were able to hop right on with no wait. The bus driver was nice, and wish us Happy Anniversary as we got on - and then did it again (very intensely ) over the intercom. It was nice! Once we got to Hollywood Studios, the plan was to go to the May the 4th store - we'd joined the virtual queue earlier and our window had expired, but I figured we'd at least try and see if they'd let us in. After that, we had a fastpass for Slinky, and then I figured we'd do all the food orders that we'd scheduled via mobile order. My plan was to try and go slow/not be my intense touring self...you'll have to see how I do. And as a fun note - I used my voicememos on my phone to take notes, and so when I recorded that comment about taking it slow, I told Trevor he'd have to help me and he jumped in saying he could do that, cause he's slow.

Anyways! We got to Hollywood Studios and right as we got off the bus, it started sprinkling. And OF COURSE it did - I'd left the ponchos in the room and Trevor wasn't even wearing a hat! He always wears a hat! LOL That's the way it goes. Thankfully it was only sprinkling for a little bit and then let up.


Rocking our Star Wars shirts, buttons, ears and lightsaber. We were ready!

I got stopped at security, and then of course something happened where my magic band wouldn't scan to let me in to the park. But we made it! So back to the Studio store we headed - passing the Star Wars statues on the way.

Sometimes the statues work with the magic bands and sometimes they don't...but good luck today!

Back at the studio store, they thankfully didn't care that our slot had expired - they just cared that we had a slot at all. So we got to go in and look at the stuff they had for May the 4th. They had a lot of pins and shirts and things - Trevor got a "you are here - HOTH" water bottle, and then we got a pin and a tumbler with the May the 4th Boba Fett logo. Trevor was intrigued by the Darth Maul lightsaber with the fancy wooden box, but not $400 intrigued, so we didn't get that one.

We exited and got to see some fun Muppets theming that I haven't seen in a while -

Hi Gonzo!

Next up - treats!

 

[Paulaparm]

Love your t-shirts!!

 

[alohamom]

Ohhhhh thanks so much for the pics of the Contemporary Room, concourse, etc...
I have seen a few before but I really like the minimalism.

That mirror selfie is so cute, your shirts are perfect!

 

[Araminta18]

Love your t-shirts!!

aw thank you!

Ohhhhh thanks so much for the pics of the Contemporary Room, concourse, etc...
I have seen a few before but I really like the minimalism.

That mirror selfie is so cute, your shirts are perfect!

you're welcome! There will be more

Thank you!

 

[Araminta18]

Rides at Hollywood Studios - Saturday May 4th, 2024 (part 5)​

A couple more Muppets pictures - the theming is so fun. I don't remember ever seeing this stuff.


Makes sense that the chaos was Animal.

And Miss Piggy as a giant clock!

We were heading to Slinky Dog by way of Galaxy's Edge - it was cool to walk through. Pretty crowded, but so many cool costumes. People go all out! We also saw a photographer out by the transition between Toy Story Land and Galaxy's Edge, so we stopped and got a few pictures.

Serious face.


This was apparently a special photo op for May the 4th - the puck is real, the hologram is the magic shot. We actually had to go to the Photopass help shop/whatever at the front of the park at the end of the night because the picture showed up with no magic, and I wanted to see if they could add the magic. Luckily and thankfully they did!

As we got into Toy Story Land, Slinky Dog went down and our fastpass turned into a multi-experience pass. We hoped that Slinky Dog would come back up, so we went to use our Toy Story Mania fastpass instead, swinging by Woody's lunchbox to get some water 'cause hot. We didn't have a super long wait, but I do want to know why Mr Potato Head always seems to be working when we're in the fastpass line and never seems to be working the times we go in the standby line?!

Pro tip: when you're in line for TSMM as a party of one or two, keep an eye out for CMs near the loading area asking for parties of one or two - you can sometimes get pulled ahead of a bunch of people. And that's what happened to us - we jumped about 15 people or so 'cause they were larger parties and we were just two. Woot!

We didn't get to see our scores for the last game cause it glitched, but overall we did pretty well.

I squeaked out a win ahead of Trevor by 4000 points! Woohoo! I'm not competitive at all.

Now we had a Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway fastpass, and walked right into the merge point. MMRR always has such a long queue after the fastpass merge point, which I guess makes sense so you get to see the little cartoon and that awesome effect. But then you have that long queue there - we waited about 15 minutes. But then we got the front row on the second car, which turns into the first car for basically all of the ride, which was super cool. I even noticed some details I hadn't noticed before, like how the disco ball in the dance studio is mickeys! Cute.

At this point Slinky Dog had come back up, so back we went to Toy Story Land, but first had to stop and get some pictures in front of the theatre.


Then back to Slinky Dog. We got a car near the back of the train, which is always my goal. Such a great ride.


At this point, it was time for the real Star Wars festivities to commence. We headed back to Galaxy's Edge and were ready to start picking up all the snacks we'd mobile-ordered earlier in the day. First up, the milk stand! I grabbed a seat in the shade against the blast door there - they really need more seating!

See all the crowds and the lightsabers? You can't really see all the costumes, but they were there.

(aaaaand picture limit...sorry!)

 

[Araminta18]

May the 4th Treats! - Saturday May 4th, 2024 (part 6)​

This was the first time I've really tried to pre-order food this far in advance, and honestly, I highly recommend it for limited edition treats and such. It was a little hard trying to guess the time that we'd be in the park and wanting the snacks, so for normal days when you're just ordering when you're ready, not need to do it in advance. But if you want to make sure you get the special treat, this can be really reassuring, make sure you don't miss out.

First up: Tenoo Swirl Crunchies Cereal

This isn't a limited edition treat, but we hadn't had it yet. It's blue milk topped with raspberry jelly and mini rainbow crunchy candies (aka nerds). We really liked this - I've always thought the blue milk was missing something, and this added some sweetness and got rid of that blandness. The tartness and pop of sugar was great with the blue milk. This will be the only way I get blue milk in the future. Though Trevor did want to get a regular blue milk just so he could compare. I know why they don't do a milk "flight" but man they really should.

Next, polystarch puffbread! Croissant topped with Blue and Green Milk Craquelin served with Yuzu-Passion Fruit-Coconut Dipping Sauce.

This was...unimpressive. It was just a croissant - a good croissant, but still, a croissant. i couldn't really taste the coating/crackling. The dipping sauce was good but I don't usually dip my croissants so that was just kind of weird. Trevor said he could kind of taste the coating but it was just regular fruity and sweet - didn't really have a strong flavor and didn't really add much.

Next up, Docking Bay 7! We ordered the Mossberry biscuit: Biscuit topped with ube and matcha icing, ube micro sponge cake, sprinkles, and dehydrated blueberries, and then I added the Crispy Herbed Yucca cause I like yucca fries.

The yucca was good, but it was $5 for that teeny tiny portion! Only 5 pieces and one was a half piece - one dollar per piece? Woof. But it was good with the ranch. Just too pricy.

The mossberry biscuit was...fine. Nothing super special, kind of bland. It was a bit dried out, and the frosting didn't have a super strong flavor. Meh.

Then, time for the popcorn from Kat Saka's Kettle.

Obviously the bucket was the main point of this - Trevor was a little drained from the heat at this point but excited for his bucket. This was the one I was really glad we had mobile ordered ahead of time - they were definitely sold out by the time we got there.

And then the popcorn itself! We went for the sweet and spicy popcorn - red was spicy and purple was sweet. Trevor kept making a face when he tried it - "interesting". The first red one he tried had some purple on it so it was like a combined flavor. The purple was grape, but the red was cinnamon-like - not quite straight up cinnamon (you'd expect straight cinnamon to be a bit sweet but this was spicy). I tried it and blech - did not like it at all. Gross. Neither of us ate too much of it.

So that was it for the snacks! We decided that the only "win" was the bule milk with the nerds in it. The other stuff was interesting - fun to try but we wouldn't get them again (though we wouldn't tell people not to get any of them) (except I'd tell people not to get the popcorn and Trevor would tell people not to get the yucca, but that's a "to each their own". ).

Next up? Star Tours! There was a huge standby line, so I was even more grateful for the fastpass than normal. What else was I grateful for? We didn't get Naboo as one of the scenes! That never happens! We got podracing, then Mando and Grogu in the interstitial scene (Grogu ate a frog and then spat it back out at us ), and then space whales with Ahsoka. No Naboo - woohoo! We always get Naboo.

The crowd in the gift shop as we exited. The crowds were definitely stepping up as it got later. We looked around for a bit (Trevor got some sunglasses and a Star Tours hat); I saw this cool bus toy:

It's got that BB8/galaxy's edge wrap on it! That's cool. If they had one that was the Cinderella wrap (obviously not here in this gift shop ) I totally would have bought it.

Anyways! At this point, the plan was to go to Sunset Boulevard, maybe ride Tower of Terror, definitely look in the gift shop, then put all our stuff in a locker and enjoy the night of May the 4th at Galaxy's Edge. We did take some photos with the Hollywood Tower Hotel suitcase on Sunset Boulevard, but they didn't turn out, so in a first, I'm not including one here. And I did a brief peek in the Tower of Terror gift shop, but nothing interesting. So back up at the front, we dropped all our stuff in a locker except for the lightsaber, and headed into the park!

Still just a tad too light for the lightsaber pictures but we took one anyways.

Then, back to Galaxy's Edge! It really started getting dark as we headed back there, into the mass of people and lightsabers.

All the lightsabers and all the costumes. We even found a photographer in front of the droids (the very first time I've ever seen that). There was a bit of a line, but we figured it was worth waiting for. And the line wasn't too bad - only about 10 minutes.

And definitely some fun shots! The lighting is always hard with lightsaber shots, but we had fun. And we got lucky cause it got too crowded for the photographer to keep taking pictures one or two people after us. Even here there were so many people not paying attention and walking between us and the camera, etc.

(and picture limit )

 

[Araminta18]

May the 4th Chaos - Saturday May 4th, 2024 (part 7)​

This post is basically gonna be all lightsaber pictures. #sorrynotsorry

After having our pictures taken in front of the droid, we headed towards the Falcon by the path by Oga's, and just dived into the massive wall of people.

It was crazy! So neat to see but man, SO CROWDED.

I was a bit worried about Trevor's anxiety, but he and I both wanted to see the Falcon, so we pressed on.

We ended up getting stopped here, looking in at the Falcon, but we couldn't really see what was going on or why we weren't moving. After a few minutes I noticed that they only seemed to be letting folks in to the courtyard who had a Lightning Lane for the Falcon, and I realized that I had managed to get a Falcon lightning lane that was still good! So I managed to get us through to the CM, showed her our fastpass, and got into the courtyard. Phew!

It was waaaaaaay less crowded in the courtyard. I assume they were trying to manage crowds there but it just moved the chokepoint to the pathway trying to get into the courtyard, which seems more dangerous to me. But *shrugs*. We did blow off our fastpass and just wandered around taking pictures and enjoying the ambiance.





There was a small group of people there right in front of the Falcon that were doing things like turning off their lightsabers and turning them all on at once, and even some lightsaber jousting (folks on the scooters ). We didn't join that crowd, but it was fun to watch. It was fun just to be in there with the excitement and energy.

I compiled a bunch of clips, so you can kind of see the chaos and the crowds and there's even some of the jousting.

I do think Disney needs a better way to logistically handle all of this, especially since they hype of May the 4th so much, but it was fun. We'll never do it again. At least not til they do something to handle the logistics better.

After our time in the courtyard, we left Star Wars land - we needed out of the crowds! We were heading towards Toy Story Land - I'd gotten us a late night Slinky Dog fastpass after our earlier one had anytimed, so we were gonna use that one. On the way we passed the photographer where we'd gotten the magic shot that didn't work earlier, so we hopped back in line, only for the photographer to end after he finished with the group he was with when we joined the line. The line was kind of long so there were a lot of disappointed people - again Disney, logistics.

Then we headed over to Slinky Dog - we saw a bunny hopping around in the foliage by the line!

So cute.

We asked for the last row cause that's our favorite -

Ending the night with Slinky - a good way to end!

And on the way out of Toy Story land there was a photographer by the Toy Story Land sign so we got some pictures - even one with the lightsaber!

This magic shot is always hit and miss for me - during the day it's so hard to see the army man parachuting down with the light, so this was kind of cool.

Lightsaber!

We then slowly headed to the front of the park.

Everyone was walking with their lightsabers out and ignited - it was just a lot of fun. We grabbed our stuff from the locker and went to the bus stop where we had excellent luck - the bus was waiting when we got there and we still managed to get a seat. The only bad thing was the bus shared with Wilderness Lodge - I feel like deluxe resorts shouldn't share, what with the prices Disney is charging!

(one last post and that will do it for the day )

 

[Araminta18]

Dinner with a Magic Kingdom View - Saturday May 4th, 2024 (part 8)​

While on the bus we realized we were hungry, so we mobile ordered dinner from Contempo Cafe. We'd actually stopped at a popcorn stand on our way out and got a popcorn refill since we had the bucket (not in the bucket though cause MESSY!), but despite eating that we were still hungry.

We got back to the hotel at like 10:25, and I headed to the sundries shop to get some milk (cause we had lots of cookies and treats and I love milk) while Trevor picked our food up at Contempo (and refilled the mug for time #3).

This isn't related to anything; I just thought these decorations in the window of the gift shop were super cute.

We headed up to the room:

Monorail!

The plan was to eat our food on the balcony, enjoying the view.

Cause look at that gorgeous view!

Fun fact, the seats were just low enough that that bar on the balcony blocked the view of the Magic Kingdom, but the Edna Mode/Frozone pillows on the bed (with leathery feeling covers) came in clutch - we put those on the seats and sat on those, and that fixed the view problem. Phew!

Food!

We got the Jack Jack Cookie Num Nums cupcake (we had this back in August and it was delish, so had to get it again) - it fell over a bit in the bag though, which is why it's kind of on its side. Trevor got the Pepperoni flatbread kids meal, and I got the 4 cheese grilled cheese with tomato soup. I love grilled cheese and almost never eat it anymore, so I saw it on the menu and was like "YES".

It was a good meal - my grilled cheese was AMAZING. The soup was fine, but the grilled cheese was delicious. I want one right now. Trevor liked his though he said the pizza crust was a bit overdone/burnt. And the cupcake was just as good as we remembered. Contempo is a great quick service - highly recommend.
And of course the view just made everything amazing. We loved watching the lights on Tron, and Astro Orbiter (though Astro Orbiter doesn't run as often as I'd like - when it runs it just adds some fun movement to the view). And then the Grand Floridian in the distance - though we did see fireworks way over that way behind it, and we couldn't figure out what those fireworks were from (still haven't figured it out) - 10:45 at night, and I don't think there are any parks over that way? It was a good show though

So yea, just a really great way to end the day, and a nice relaxing way to come down after the chaos of Hollywood Studios. Well and the whole day, not gonna lie - it was a hot busy day. But we loved the room, we loved the view, and were excited for the rest of our week.

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 22090 steps (8.5 miles)
Ride count: 5 (Toy Story Midway Mania, Runaway Railway, Slinky Dog x2, Star Tours)
Savings due to AP discount: $91.90 (merch )
Refillable Mug Tally: 2 fills today (3 total)

 

[alohamom]

WOW-that sea of lightsabers is wild!

 

[Araminta18]

WOW-that sea of lightsabers is wild!

right? crazy!

 

[Araminta18]

Breakfast of Champions - Sunday May 5, 2024 (part 1)​

We slept pretty good, and woke up at about 7:15, to this gorgeous view:

Beauteous!

Trevor had done a timelapse overnight:

Didn't quite catch the sunrise, but still pretty.

We made our lightning lanes, and then time for breakfast!


Cake and cupcake for breakfast - breakfast of champions. That Jack Jack cupcake is really good with the cookie dough mousse.

We also did another soda refill - #4 if you're keeping track. Gotta make use of that refillable mug!

At about 8:40 we were ready for the day, so we headed out.

I loved being able to look down into the concourse - you can see all the folks at Chef Mickey's. So fun! There will be more of these pictures.

We were heading to the bus stop, but we stopped at the DVC booth in the concourse on the way, so we could sign up for a tour, cause they were offering a $200 gift card if you did the tour. Heck yes! And it was super easy to sign up, which was convenient. The plan was to do it later that afternoon, after we'd gotten back from the park and had a chance to rest.

So by 9 am (after a short 5 min wait for a bus) we were on our way to Animal Kingdom! 20 minutes later we were there, and tapping in at the tapstiles. First up? The safari!

Well, I lied - really pictures were first up. Obviously. The ones in front of the Tree of Life didn't turn out so I'm not including them, but I took a picture of the new mural:

Super neat!

And then there was a photographer on the bridge into Africa so we got some more pictures there.


Then, we got to the Harambe area only to see the Lightning Lane line backed up all the way to the stage!

Isn't that crazy? It moved decently, but even once we got in the actual queue they had some of the extended queue areas open for the lightning lane, with a bunch of switchbacks and such. They must have had an animal in the road for a while or something - it was a 20 minute wait in the lightning lane. Which still isn't bad, but definitely long for this lightning lane.

Once we got on the ride, that confirmed our theory - we had quite the delayed ride. It was awesome for us, but probably not great for the folks waiting in line. Once we got to the savanna, the giraffes were very much in the road.

One of them stayed there a lot - we figured he wanted the treats they get when they are in the middle of the road. Then while we were waiting, the engine on our truck died for a few minutes, but it came back alive (thankfully - how would they even do an evacuation on the savanna? Or would they tow us? now I'm curious!) While we were waiting though, more giraffes!


We kept going once the engine was back alive. We saw one of the baboons with the colored butt, which I almost never see out and about so that was pretty cool.

You can just see him there in the center, back behind the bush.

And that's the picture limit...but our crazy safari wasn't over quite yet!

 

[Sajchinook2015]

Love your breakfast. I would need coffee Togo with it. LOL!

 

[Araminta18]

Rhino Fights and Camera Flashes - Sunday May 5, 2024 (part 2)​

So the Safari kept going - we saw the cheetahs!

Never seen one of them out there just sunning themselves in full view.

And then we kept going, and ran into the rhinos. This was where it really got interesting. The rhinos were play fighting right by the road, and right by our car, and ended up shoving each other into the road and just kind of hanging out for a bit. it was really fun to watch! A more exciting rhino experience than I've had in a while.

I was glad we were in the second row and could see all of it - it was lots of fun. We had to wait for a truck to come and essentially herd the rhinos off the road. And then right as they were off the road, one of the rhinos peed on the tree right by the road. Trevor wants me to tell you it was a LOT of pee. And that's the kind of detail I bring to my trip reports - you're welcome.

So yea, that was awesome. I highly recommend early morning Safaris.

Of course, we got off and it was about 10:25 am, and we had our lightning lane for Flight of Passage that would end at 10:35 am. And since we were back at the exit of the Safari, we decided to see if a Guest Experience umbrella could change our LL for FoP to like 1 pm, so that we could keep going around the back of the park vs running over to Pandora. So I got in line but the person in front of me was having significant issues with their Disney account (people weren't showing up, tickets weren't showing up, etc) and they were doing the "turn the wifi off and back on again" type troubleshooting so I was like "oh yea this isn't going well." So I stuck it out while Trevor kept walking to find a new Guest Experience umbrella. I hadn't moved when Trevor called me to come over to where he was, and the CM at the other umbrella was super helpful - changed our Lightning Lane to be valid anytime, vs a specific hour window, which was super super nice of her. Really appreciated that, cause our plan was to ride Kali and Everest and Dinosaur before circling back around.

That squared away, we went over to Everest and used our lightning lane.

and had a very exciting ride. I like how my arms are totally outstretched and Trevor was trying to stretch his arms out but didn't quite make it.

After Everest we were heading over to Kali River Rapids, but literally right as we got there it went down. Womp womp. So we decided to head over to Dinosaur, hoping that by then our Kali lightning lane will have turned into a multi-experience pass.

But on our way, we passed a photographer (in front of the Everest mountain, near the Finding Nemo show), so of course we had to stop. And it was an amazing experience! She saw our 10th anniversary buttons and really took her time with us, doing a bunch of various poses. It was a lot of fun!





So much fun! We definitely left her a Cast Compliment - thank you to Britt from Peoria!

And by the time we'd finished the photo shoot, our Kali Lightning Lane had turned into an anytime fastpass so we could book a new one.

 

[Araminta18]

Love your breakfast. I would need coffee Togo with it. LOL!

Oh yea fair - we don't drink coffee hence the milk and all the sugary things, but pro tip - I've heard don't put coffee in your refillable mug or it will taste of coffee the rest of your trip!