"DIS meets galore!" - Oct 15-23, 2016 -Link to New TR added - March 2nd

[skier_pete]

Very nice!! Seems like a pretty relaxing morning in MK really, with no waits and doing what you wanted. We are such rope-drop people for that reason!! Hope your lunch was great! I look forward to reading about it

It really wasn't too bad at all. I was sort of surprised how long the crowds held off in the morning. It was one of those days that was scheduled from 8 AM to 11 PM, surrounded by THREE nights of MNSSHP (Thurs,Fri,Sun) so I thought the park would be packed! It actually was eventually, but for much of the morning the crowds weren't bad at all.

 

[skier_pete]

I should have the final posts soon - but here's a link to my Pre-Trip report for our next round of Disney trips...yes we are planning Four in a 12 months period in 2017/2018.

The Disney Quadrillogy.

 

[skier_pete]

Onto the Skipper’s Canteen

We were given a pager and sent to the waiting area. The amount of theme-ing in the restaurant is incredible. This is just the waiting area.

The menu. I have to say, while I love the idea of more out of the norm dishes, the problem with this menu is that that’s ALL there was. We had a real issue with DD, who is now too old to want to eat off the kids menu – there’s was really nothing on the menu that she liked.

They started the meal with this weird tasting bread – we thought it was OK. The salad was fine of course.

DD ordered the “Skip’s Beefy Baked Pasta”. We actually thought she would really like it, but the beef ended up being fairly spicy, and it pretty much turned her off to the whole thing, so she didn’t really eat much.

DW ordered the “S.E.A. Shu Mai”, which was basically Shrimp and Pork Dumplings. She thought this was pretty good, though not great.

I ordered the “Char Sui Pork” The pork was not bad, sort of a sweet and sour flavor, but the rice was extremely bland, and there wasn’t enough sauce to mix in.

Overall, we weren’t really keen on the food. We love exotic flavors, but the food just wasn’t that good. The selection of the “normal” food was in short supply as well. I’m afraid we probably won’t be rushing back too soon.

Again, the theme of the rooms was really cool, though! Here’s some shots from the restaurant.
Here’s the main room where we were sitting.

There were noises coming from upstairs offices, but really what was disappointing is that the wait-staff did not do any sort of Jungle Cruise shtick. We were expecting there to be some joking around, but really none and at. Perhaps it was just our waiter.

There was a library corridor that led to a “trophy” room.

Hmmm..where have I seen that temple before??

There was a third room that didn’t seem to be in full use today:

To be continued in next post...

 

[skier_pete]

We had been trying all day to squeeze in the Hall Of Presidents. Though it was before the election – we wanted to see Barack Obama before he was ousted from the hall. This was one we hadn’t done in ages. I won’t be rushing back to see Trump, that’s for sure.

At this point, we had to meet “the gang” for our last activity of the day. We took a photopass picture on our way out. Right after this I went and bought a new hat. I wanted to track down a 28th and Main one with the Nautilus on it.

So, our activity for today was to rent a pontoon boat and take a ride around bay lake and seven seas lagoon. Keith, who works for DVC, was able to get an employee discount so it only cost us like $9 per person. We had to meet over at the dock by the Contemporary.

Bay Lake Tower from the side. Hopefully we will check this out from the inside on an upcoming visit!

DD was fascinated by this little guy – he ended up riding all around the entire lake with us!

First we swung out towards Fort Wilderness. The rest of the group was going to see Hoop Dee Doo tonight. We had bowed out because of the price – the trip was already pushing our budget, and another $200 was more than it could take, but DW was later sorry that we didn’t join in. (She said she didn’t realize it was the LAST thing we were going to do as a group, but I think more it was because we were having such a good time with our friends she didn’t want it to end. )
Anyways, we next drove by the Abandoned Water Park – River Country. DW and I actually spent a day here on our first trip in 1997. By the next time we came it was closed.

Next up was Wilderness Lodge. There’s a lot of construction going on here with the DVC expansion. The new cabins along the water look beautiful, but probably as unaffordable as the Poly Cabins.

I think the Building in the front is the new restaurant that opened this week at WL. At the time we were speculating that that is what it would be.

The less finished cabins. The last four closest to the MK are going to be sold as “Fireworks View” cabins.

Heading over the water bridge to 7 Seas Lagoon.

This would be a great view for the fireworks, right?

Next we swung by the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian.

Then it was back to the contemporary to depart:

All-in-all we spent close to 2 hours on the water. It was warm but not overly so, really a good day for this, and we managed to not get sunburned.
After this we headed back to the Magic Kingdom bus stop, and then took the bus over to our hotel again. DD was not interested in going out that evening, so we got some dinner. (Ordered a bread service from Sanaa, YUM!) DW and I wanted to go back to the park. I didn’t drag along my camera so all we had was the phone.

I know it was around 8 PM when we headed for the park, because we had wanted to use our Space Mountain FP+ that we had moved so many times. When we got there, there was a MASSIVE line for the ride for FP+ return!

Fortunately it moved fast, the standby I think was 50 minutes. Who waits in these lines?
Once we had finished here, we decided to head over to Fantasyland to do Mickey’s Philharmagic, which we hadn’t yet been able to do this trip.

It was not about 9:00 PM, and the park was really packed. We were debating about staying in the park for Wishes, or trying to go over to the Top of The World Lounge on Bay Lake Tower. We decided to do the latter, so went out and hopped the monorail to the Contemporary and took the bridge over…made it to the lounge with about 10 minutes to spare! Here’s the deck, it was actually a bit chilly this evening.

And here’s the view.

After fireworks, we decided on a drink. DW had this drink at the Yeeha Bob show with strawberries that she really liked, so she ordered it again here. I had some sort of fireball cocktail.

We also ordered the 12-layer cake. This was GOOD, and HUGE!

The lounge was pretty busy right after the fireworks, but eventually started to empty out.

After a while, we left and took a taxi back to the hotel. We found another gentleman waiting for a taxi that was going to AKL, and so we saved some money on the cab. With that, we eneded the trip. We are happy to say that the next day went by uneventful…we packed up for a fairly early Magical Express departure. (8:30 AM leave for a 11:30 AM flight) and we were home by around 4 PM in the afternoon. Never a happy day to be going home.

Overall, the trip was another great one. We enjoyed staying at our “home” for the first time as our actual home. The weather was a teeny bit on the hot side, but typical mid-October and very little rain which was definitely the best. (We only missed hurricane Matthew by about 10 days, so definitely no complaint THERE.) Hanging with freinds has become one of the great things we love to do at Disney World, and seeing friends from all around the country / world made it extra special. Even DD had a good time most of the time despite her usual teenager mood.

Though this report is NEARLY wrapped up, I will point you to the pre-trip report I just started for our FOUR Disney trips planned between Novermber 2017 and October 2018. And also though I don't have a PTR, I will post a link on here to my NEXT trip report - which will mostly involve Universal, which is practically new to us, but will also include a little bit of Disney in there!

Thanks for reading along and stay tuned!

 

[NJlauren]

I'm not sure I ever checked in when you started this report, and then I took a small DIS break so I wasn't around much, but I just did a major catch up and it seems like just in time!

Looks like an overall good trip, and getting a lot done! I also hate waiting longer then 20 minutes but it does happen now and then!

I have been thinking about DVC resale in the future and some of your points here really sold me on it.... but not just yet maybe a few years down the road.

4 trips in 2017-2018! Amazing going to Check out that PTR!

 

[franandaj]

Wow! I got really far behind and you just blazed through those last chapters!

I don't think I'll ever get Fran to Skipper Canteen for the same reason your DD didn't like it. I'm glad you replaced your Diamond Anniversary hat. Fran lost a hat on EE, so I never wear one on a ride.

The boat ride sounds fun! Have they released the point charts for the new WL DVC properties? I'm afraid to look!

We fly to FL on 2/24, so we'll actually be there around the same time. But we head out on a cruise the next day.

Sounds like you really had a great trip! I'm glad I was able to play a small part in it!

 

[skier_pete]

I'm not sure I ever checked in when you started this report, and then I took a small DIS break so I wasn't around much, but I just did a major catch up and it seems like just in time!

Looks like an overall good trip, and getting a lot done! I also hate waiting longer then 20 minutes but it does happen now and then!

I have been thinking about DVC resale in the future and some of your points here really sold me on it.... but not just yet maybe a few years down the road.

4 trips in 2017-2018! Amazing going to Check out that PTR!

Hey cool. Yeah, 20 minutes is my standard for "acceptable wait". I am shifting that slightly next week at Universal since we will be without FP/FOTL passes. I will consider the occasional 40 minute wait acceptable.

The killer with DVC is paying for 45 years worth of stays up front. If you can get over that hump, it is wonderful!

Wow! I got really far behind and you just blazed through those last chapters!

I don't think I'll ever get Fran to Skipper Canteen for the same reason your DD didn't like it. I'm glad you replaced your Diamond Anniversary hat. Fran lost a hat on EE, so I never wear one on a ride.

The boat ride sounds fun! Have they released the point charts for the new WL DVC properties? I'm afraid to look!

We fly to FL on 2/24, so we'll actually be there around the same time. But we head out on a cruise the next day.

Sounds like you really had a great trip! I'm glad I was able to play a small part in it!

I've been getting behind a lot lately. I can't say as I really recommend Skipper's Canteen based on the one visit. We love Sanaa, not just because the food is unusual, but because it is delicious. Skipper's was unusual, but not delicious, so two strikes...

The boat ride was really nice. It was really not that bad even without the employee discount. I don't think I'd ever do it just the 3 of us, but if we were there with 1 or 2 other families, I would definitely consider it! Of course, I have no idea how to drive a boat, so it might be rather scary!

We will be just passing each other by it seems like, we head home on 2/25. Looks like the weather is showing as nice next week, hopefully we will both have great weather.

And hope things are OK out there in the OC - looks like you are getting some make-up for your last 4-5 years of drought. It's not our fault this time!!

 

[rteetz]

Skipper Canteen is really well themed but it seems to get mixed reviews much like yours. I'd like to try it but I'm not sure what I'd get.

The pontoon cruise looks lovely, especially seeing areas like river country up close.

 

[fallonkendra]

I just binge-read your entire trip report! Sounds like you guys had a great time!

Now to jump over to your PTR...

 

[franandaj]

And hope things are OK out there in the OC - looks like you are getting some make-up for your last 4-5 years of drought. It's not our fault this time!!

Technically I'm not in the OC, just on the other side of the Orange Curtain, it feels like we are floating away, but we're just hiding out at home with our DVR and plenty of food!

 

[skier_pete]

Skipper Canteen is really well themed but it seems to get mixed reviews much like yours. I'd like to try it but I'm not sure what I'd get.

The pontoon cruise looks lovely, especially seeing areas like river country up close.

Thanks. I wouldn't rush to get to Skipper's Canteen.

I just binge-read your entire trip report! Sounds like you guys had a great time!

Now to jump over to your PTR...

Thanks for joining in! And congratulations on your engagement. I'll join in on your TR when I get back from my trip!

Technically I'm not in the OC, just on the other side of the Orange Curtain, it feels like we are floating away, but we're just hiding out at home with our DVR and plenty of food!

Oh, sorry, I thought you were still in Orange County. It must be so weird when you hardly ever get rain to get so much. Hopefully this will alleviate the drought a bit though and you can start taking baths without having to go to Disney World to do so...

 

[Imagineer5]

Great ending, sounds like a fun evening. How nice to be able to run to a park when your teenage DD is just not as into it. Nice that she had fun with the friends though!! I love renting boats on the various lakes, we did the Pontoon over on Bay Lake - interesting you were able to visit River Country! (We love cruising past it and trying to see what we can, but I never went).

Top of the World sounds like the perfect ending to the night!

 

[skier_pete]

Hey Everyone - I've started a Trip Report for our recent Universal Trip! It will also have a review of the Moonlight Magic event at Magic Kingdom! Not to much there yet, but it's over on the Universal boards so I thought I would link it here.

"So what happened after the dragon?" a Feb '17 Universal TR

 

[kboo]

So when I last left off, we were leaving MK and headed to the Poly for our first group meet up of the trip. We let DD pick between boat or monorail over to the Polynesian.



Any water Pokemon out there?




The Tiki god of shopping: Howmuchagonnacosta!





So – our “reunion” group is made up of 6 different families. We only had one event that all 6 were able to attend, but this one came close – late lunch at the Kona Café. (I am not going to share names on here, but I got the OK from everyone to share pictures.)

One of the group actually works for Disney as part of DVC. He was able to get us a tour of one of the Poly bungalows. He indicated that the tours are about to end, as the sample bungalow is going to be reclaimed by DVC for occupation. It was pretty cool to see it, as we will never, ever be able to stay here.

For those that don’t pay attention to DVC things – a typical studio room at a DVC accommodation runs anywhere from 10 to maybe 25 points per night. We own 160 points, which SHOULD be enough for 8-12 nights a year, depending on location and time of year. This trip, we stayed “cheap” and only spent 96 points for 8 nights.

The Poly bungalows are 2-bedroom units, and run anywhere from a low season mid-week rate of 115 points per night to 227 a night at peak weekend season. Using my previous $8.42 per point calculation – that would cost us $968 to $1,911 per NIGHT. For Non-DVC, they start at around $2000 a night and go up from there.

Suffice it to say we won’t be staying in these bungalows anytime soon. That doesn't change the fact that they are very nice accommodations.

2nd bedroom:


Main bedroom:


Main bathroom:


Dining area;


Living area with Trundle down:




Kitchen




View from the veranda


Plunge Pool (this thing seems really weird to me):


The kids loved these chairs:


And these chairs:


It was very cool to see – but truthfully I am not at all envious of the idea of staying here. To me, Disney trips are about being out and about. If I ever stayed here, I don’t think I’d want to ever leave my room. We were perfectly happy in a standard studio at the Poly last year for 1/7th the cost.

When this was done – we headed to Kona for lunch. There were I think 12 of us there total.



Here’s a really not great photo of the group. The damn window prevented the flash from going off.



It was great seeing everyone again, though the environment made it somewhat hard to talk too much. This was actually our first time ever eating here – so another restaurant to check off. DD wanted to get an order of Pot Stickers, so we let her.



For the meal – she got a noodle bowl. It was of course too much food with the pot stickers, so she only really ate about half of it. (I nibbled on the rest.)



DW had a steak salad. She said this was very good.



I had the Polynesian Plate Lunch, which was a grilled chicken with Mango /Coconut sauces over rice and noodle salad. I thought the chicken was delicious, but the noodle salad was just OK.



Overall – I would rate this as very good, but not quite great. The food was all quite tasty, but nothing super memorable about it. Basically, I would go back there if someone wanted to go there, but I don’t think I would go out of my way for it.

Continued in next post...

Thank you for the pictures of the Poly bungalows! They do look amazing!

 

[kboo]

Onto the Skipper’s Canteen

We were given a pager and sent to the waiting area. The amount of theme-ing in the restaurant is incredible. This is just the waiting area.

The menu. I have to say, while I love the idea of more out of the norm dishes, the problem with this menu is that that’s ALL there was. We had a real issue with DD, who is now too old to want to eat off the kids menu – there’s was really nothing on the menu that she liked.

They started the meal with this weird tasting bread – we thought it was OK. The salad was fine of course.

DD ordered the “Skip’s Beefy Baked Pasta”. We actually thought she would really like it, but the beef ended up being fairly spicy, and it pretty much turned her off to the whole thing, so she didn’t really eat much.

DW ordered the “S.E.A. Shu Mai”, which was basically Shrimp and Pork Dumplings. She thought this was pretty good, though not great.

I ordered the “Char Sui Pork” The pork was not bad, sort of a sweet and sour flavor, but the rice was extremely bland, and there wasn’t enough sauce to mix in.

Overall, we weren’t really keen on the food. We love exotic flavors, but the food just wasn’t that good. The selection of the “normal” food was in short supply as well. I’m afraid we probably won’t be rushing back too soon.

Again, the theme of the rooms was really cool, though! Here’s some shots from the restaurant.
Here’s the main room where we were sitting.

There were noises coming from upstairs offices, but really what was disappointing is that the wait-staff did not do any sort of Jungle Cruise shtick. We were expecting there to be some joking around, but really none and at. Perhaps it was just our waiter.

There was a library corridor that led to a “trophy” room.

Hmmm..where have I seen that temple before??

There was a third room that didn’t seem to be in full use today:

To be continued in next post...

It's too bad you didn't enjoy Skipper's Canteen (although I suppose that makes for easier booking for us, LOL). We went on a whim last April, not long after it had opened. The sustainable fish was excellent, and they had bubble tea! Our server was very good, both in service, but also w the schtick. We asked him how long the restaurant had been open, and he pointed to the 1931 sign and said, "Not that long - we opened the same day as the first cruise went out!" I guess the backstory is that this is where you can get a meal while you are waiting for your jungle cruise to begin...

 

[skier_pete]

Thank you for the pictures of the Poly bungalows! They do look amazing!

Your welcome! Not many chances to get inside of those.

It's too bad you didn't enjoy Skipper's Canteen (although I suppose that makes for easier booking for us, LOL). We went on a whim last April, not long after it had opened. The sustainable fish was excellent, and they had bubble tea! Our server was very good, both in service, but also w the schtick. We asked him how long the restaurant had been open, and he pointed to the 1931 sign and said, "Not that long - we opened the same day as the first cruise went out!" I guess the backstory is that this is where you can get a meal while you are waiting for your jungle cruise to begin...

I really wanted to like Skipper's Canteen, I love the Adventureland theme. I would try it again someday, but we were just not impressed with it.