Dec 2020 Universal Disney Megatrip!

[Lilias]

WHY HELLO, FRIENDS

I lied to you.

Sorry!

We took pictures on my husband's phone instead of mine because his fancy Google phone took better pictures, and when I sent them to myself they got out of order. So I didn't have the energy to sort through all the photos to finish this TR.

BUT I HAVE DONE IT

Behold, EPCOT AND CHECK-IN TO ANIMAL KINGDOM LODGE VILLAS JAMBO DAY

I did the mobile check-in thing for AKV, and we just went straight to Epcot, hoped the luggage would be fine in my car (it was), and rope dropped Epcot (which is easy to do at 11:00 AM ha).

I REALLY wanted to ride the Frozen ride because we hadn't been to Epcot since 2012 (!!) which means we had ridden it as Maelstrom. Unfortunately, we were sat in the back row behind plexiglass and had a bad view I still loved the ride, though, and look forward to riding again when we come back in March 2022.



We devoured some tasty Festival foods (husband loooved the curry in China), saw some cavalcades (I got mowed over by a small child while Elsa was trying to tell me that she loved my Bruni ears), visited World Showcase. We got really pooped around 3 or 4 PM, and noticed that our room was ready! Yay!!! So we ran to the car to check in and take a hotel break.

So, Jambo House was still pretty much closed while we stayed there (only DVC was open). AKV is the cheapest points-wise for DVC I think (we rented points), which makes it really affordable for families. I thought that, since we'd be with other Studio rooms, that it would be pretty quiet? No. The other families in our hallway were pretty obnoxious, so that put a pall on our stay. The room was nice, but smaller than Portofino Bay at Universal (the price was the same with rented points and our Orlando Informer rate for PB) so that was a bummer.

BUT THAT VIEW AMIRITE



We LOOOOVED that balcony. It was so cool just checking up on the animals every day!

So we chilled for a little bit, hung out in the room, and then headed back to Epcot later in the evening for our reservation at San Angel Inn! We hit up the Seas with Nemo and Friends and explored the aquarium area before our reservation, because ocean animals are my favorite. I fell in love with a silly hammerhead shark, and a cast member was so excited and told me all about the shark, which was a lady shark, and a bunch of other information that I have sadly forgotten.

We had to wait quite a while for our reservation, which was fine because we shopped around the gift shops in the pavilion and purchased a precious rainbow crystal lizard friend! <3

This restaurant gets kinda bad reviews, so I almost cancelled my reservation, but I'm so glad I didn't!! I got the Pollo a Las Rajas and I think husband ordered the Camarones a la Diabla? We also got the queso fundido app because I gotta get everything cheese. We devoured all of our food and LOVED IT. I forgot to take food pictures because I am bad.

We had a table with a view! And our server was so GOOD and made us feel so FANCY.



We were excited that Disney was shaping up to be much better than Universal re: Covid and were actually able to enjoy our vacation! Yay!!!

Next, Animal Kingdom day!

 

[Lilias]

Animal Kingdom / Disney Springs Day

We woke up bright and early to rope drop AK, because back in 2020 the parks were regularly opening like an hour before official open and it was glorious. We rode almost all the things, then had a disappointing lunch at Yek & Yeti. Husband loves curry so he ordered the seafood curry, but it was basically a bowl of cilantro lol. And he has the cilantro thing that makes it taste like soap. I told him he should have it sent back, because nowhere on the menu does it list cilantro, but he didn't want to be a bother and just pulled all the cilantro out for like 15 minutes. There wasn't much left of the curry after that, and it's expensive! I had the kobe beef burger minus the mushrooms and liked it.

After lunch we went to Pandora to finally get in line for FOP, which was around an hour wait all day. We just decided to go for it. We almost bailed on the ride right at the end because the warnings get kind of ridiculous! Like DO NOT RIDE THIS IF YOU'RE EVEN KINDOF NOT 100% A NORMAL HUMAN. I've been dealing with an undiagnosed something that makes me dizzy/makes my vision weird sometimes, so I was like dang maybe I should bail on this?? Husband is also kindof claustraphobic so we thought maybe that would be an issue. But nope, it was fine. The ride was great and we loved it! It reminded me of Forbidden Journey over at Universal, but you don't have to go upside down! I love that ride, but I always get anxiety about getting stuck upside down on it :x We then rode Avatar Boat Ride and that was GREAT. Reviews of this ride were pretty meh everywhere, so my expectations were low, but it's so pretty!!!! 10/10 will ride again!



After procuring a cute banshee shoulder friend and grabbing some tasty night blossom dranks, we bid adieu to Animal Kingdom. Hopefully by March it will be open late enough that we can see Pandora at night, which we still haven't seen ( Husband is very anti-people, and said that so far Animal Kingdom was his favorite park, followed by Epcot and DHS. He HATES Magic Kingdom. HATES it. You'll read more about that later, because tomorrow is our MK day haha.

I'm going to say things people will probably not like and/or try to argue with me about below. If you are offended by any sort of complaining about Disney, just skip this part to the Disney Springs section. I'm not interested in arguing about this Thanks! <3

So we went back to AKV to relax a bit before going to Disney Springs. We had rejected housekeeping service because we didn't want other people in the room due to Covid, so when there was some banging on the door with "housekeeping!" being called, we said "No thanks!" and just ignored them. Well, they were insistent. Just crazy door banging while just saying "Housekeeping!" over and over again. We figured it was a language barrier, so we kept saying NO and OCCUPIED, stuff like that, because we thought they were trying to get in to clean the room that we were very much currently using. They finally left. Husband went to take a shower and I had to drop some kids off at the pool, if you catch my drift, and our phone rang. Of course we didn't get to it in time, and no message was left, so I shrugged it off and went to enjoy the balcony while husband finished off his shower.

The housekeeping manager then just straight up OPENS OUR DOOR, and we had the swing latch thing on it, which is the only thing that prevented her from seeing my naked husband just emerging from his shower.

At this point we are pretty mad. She's mad. Everyone's mad. I tell her in exasperation that we didn't want any housekeeping and to please stop harassing us, and she says this isn't housekeeping, but an inspection. And I was like ???? for WHAT? And she just said to make sure nothing Icky was happening in the room. Exact quote. She said they just take a look and leave. And I'm like oooookay? And she asked when a good time to come the next day would be, and I said to come in the afternoon because we planned on sleeping in the next day.

I don't want to put a pall on the rest of this TR, so I'll just vent about it here, but they managed to come at the worst possible times literally every day for the rest of our trip. We weren't expecting them until the afternoon that next day, and let's just say they banged on the door in the middle of some morning stuff and ruined basically our entire day because the manager had to come and treat us like literal human garbage because we couldn't (literally couldn't xD) open the door when they came. It's like she thought we were Up To Something and came when we told her not to on purpose. She treated us like suspicious criminals for being noncompliant. I cried. The next day she came when we were in the room getting ready/showering on our checkout day, and she made a point to be like "SEEEEE this isn't so hard is it??"

We told the front desk staff when we checked out about the horrible experience we had, and they just shrugged and said sorry and that's just how it is.

We are going to be staying Onsite again in March, at BWV, and am hoping that this experience was not typical. Every time they came, we were in the room. And there was so much time that we weren't in our room when they could've come! But if we have issues like this again we will no longer be staying Onsite at Disney. The housekeeping manager treated us like she thought we were children (I am 32 years old but I look much younger, so I get this a lot) and didn't approve of us being alone in a room together or something. Maybe they thought Husband was trafficking me. It was bad.

END. RANT.


Disney Springs~

As a holiday gift, I told husband he could have the A5 Wagyu from Morimoto Asia. I had issues getting this reservation on Disney's website, but had no problems getting one via Open Table on Morimoto Asia's website.

While waiting for our reservation, we of course did some shopping. I wore a Kingdom Hearts shirt, as that's been one of my favorite game franchises ever, and I got gatekept on it by a CAST MEMBER in one of the stores. I think it was the DStyle store. It was a super cringey experience. He asked me if I was a fan, so I said yeah?? Obviously?? And he asked me if I planned on playing the new rhythm game in the franchise, which I wasn't interested in because I just play RPGs, so I said no.

M I S T A K E (nerd rambling below, lol)

Queue him mansplaining to me for like fifteen whole minutes about how if I was a True, Real Fan (tm) that I would buy and play that game to uncover like an extra 5 seconds of Tetsuya Nomura badly explaining some plot point that doesn't make sense. I made it VERY clear that I wasn't interested in the conversation, but he kept following me around the store. Husband kept trying to pull the conversation onto him (also a Kingdom Hearts fan), but the dude didn't care about him having the same opinion as me. I had the audacity to be a fake female gamer and I had to be TOLD. Ha.

SO WE RAN OUTTA THERE. I didn't feel like reporting him to his manager or anything because I don't like confrontation (clearly, haha).

As it happened, our server at Morimoto Asia was ALSO a male Kingdom Hearts fan, and you know what he did? Asked me what my favorite game of the series was. We had a fun chat about it. No gatekeeping, no being a jerk. <3

I am lame and got the very expensive orange chicken, but it was super tasty. I also got the melon soda float, which was fun but I probably wouldn't get it again. Husband got the A5 Wagyu and also some ramen. The A5 Wagyu is an EXPERIENCE, which we weren't expecting. You get a certificate of authenticity and everything!



They prepare it tableside and then give you a special sauce and instructions from the chef on how to enjoy it properly. I tried some and wasn't impressed, but I just don't care for steak. People say my umami is broken because meat just tastes like nothing to me! I have to cover any meat I eat in dairy or sugar (aka bbq sauce) or carbs in order to eat it

Husband was speechless, which I mistook for him not liking it, either. He says to this day it's the best food he's ever put in his mouth. The meat was so tender that it split apart with chopsticks!


He got so much crap for wearing his Hogwarts shirt at Disney xD

After a fantastic meal, we went to the ganachery and holy crap that chocolate is GOOOD. Wow. We were planning on taking it home but ate it all that night. Oops. Should've bought more!

NEXT UP: Magic Kingdom~

 

[fabfemmeboy]

I'm sorry they were so obnoxious about the room check! I mean, it's not bad enough that they do this ridiculous security theater thing, but then they get irritated at people for not being thrilled to do it (because it's stupid and pointless and does nothing to fix the very real problems in the world)...ugh. Also - getting mad at people for saying "no, we didn't want housekeeping" when announcing yourself as "housekeeping"? Seriously?

(Also, what a jerk at Disney Springs! Seriously? Who thinks that's ok?)

I'm glad Morimoto went so well! We enjoyed it when we were there, but my palate isn't nearly fancy enough to try any of the extra-special meat-stuff.

 

[Lilias]

Right?? I'm hoping it won't be as big of a deal in March because we'll be able to parkhop. Parkhopping wasn't an option in 2020, so we were in the room a lot more than usual.

And I'll go ahead and allow housekeeping next time, since rejecting it seems to make you suspicious or something :\