Heat, Humidity, and Our Favorite Disney Dog Was a Thug! LINK TO NEW PTR!!

[DisneyJo]

The photos with Duffy are very cute and how convenient he's right near the gift shop

Aww bless her she does look very hot, it was a good call to leave and she obviously needed a nice cool nap

 

[RGirl]

Your Le Cellier lunch sounds nice! I really think in the hot humid summer ADRs are the way to go!

It was nice - and made more nice by being such a relaxing, air-conditioned break.

Your AP plans sound good! I only went to DL once but I loved it! I would love to get to go again. My dad also works for the DOD (quality control), so I understand how you feel! He has been spending a lot of his time off hanging out with me and Charlotte. Tea parties, coloring all things I have never seen him do before!

Oh, I'm sorry your dad got up in all that craziness too. I was very lucky - my agency had enough non-appropriated funds to keep most of us working throughout the entire shutdown, but we never knew from one day to the next, which was stressful, and of course, there's no guarantee that we'll be that lucky if it happens again in February and certainly not as sequestration continues. Good times..... VERY cool, however, that your dad was able to make the most of his time and spend it with Charlotte.

I love the napping Willow pics! It's amazing how worn out they get at Disney! Can't wait to hear about dinner!

Aww - me too - even at 6, when asleep, they are still little babies. That heat just wore us both out - I have never had her nap this much at WDW before, but the heat was just CRAZY.

No wonder Princess Willow was wiped out after a hot day at Epcot. Your lunch looked really yummy and fit in quite a few rides.

It was a good Future World day; unfortunately, we just didn't plan very well for WS this year. Next time!

Brave girls for riding MS orange team. We love it, but it can be overwhelming for kids.

Willow was absolutely insistent on doing the orange side - I was totally nervous. She thought it was awesome, of course!

Can't wait for more!

Thanks Karin!

When you suggested you were going to spend an August afternoon doing Phineas & Ferb missions and meeting characters around the World Showcase I heard a sound of doom in my head. Been there and tried that. We always hang out in World Showcase in the summer evenings not the afternoons. The resort is a better idea. I'm glad that is what you decided. Willow was just plum tuckered out. Excited to hear about your evening.

We usually spend a lot of time in WS and really love it. But that dang heat and humidity - just too much for us this year. Willow was definitely beat, and we still had more to do that night , so it was the right decision.

Great early afternoon! It definitely got HOT on those EPCOT sidewalks this summer!

Right? SO HOT!!!!

Great update!

Thanks!

response to post # 273

right back at ya, Ruthie!

you know I live here, August this year was a BEAST ! considering all the running around, the princess dresses and the sit down meals I think you two did AWESOME and weren't cranky at all There were times this August I was very glad DH was over the road and NOT home I KNOW the tempers would have been flying more than usual Good Job Ladies !

It really did get to us - it was just beat-you-down HOT! I'm glad people can understand - it was just hard not to get pretty grumpy sometimes.

The photos with Duffy are very cute and how convenient he's right near the gift shop

Right??? What a lucky break!

Aww bless her she does look very hot, it was a good call to leave and she obviously needed a nice cool nap

Yep - it was definitely the right decision. It's like that black hair of hers just sucks in the heat.

 

[RGirl]

A Family Day Dinner​

When I last left off, DD had gone to sleep for a nap at about 4:30 and still wasn’t awake at 6:30! In the interim, I had gotten showered and dressed for dinner, and she did wake up soon after 6:30, and got showered and princessed up! We left the room at about 7:15 and headed down to the store to pick up DD’s Pluto Pillow Pet! After that, we headed over to the Flying Fish Cafe for our Family Day dinner at about 7:25!

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Now months prior, I had placed an order with Baby Cakes (allergen-friendly bakery with a location at DTD) for a special Family Day cake for us to enjoy at this dinner, and DD knew nothing about it. When DD was not listening, I quietly mentioned/asked about the cake to the hostess - she kind of gave me a blank stare and then muttered something about asking about it. However, she never came back to tell me what she had found out.

Setting that aside, we were impressed with how pretty it was in here.

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Unfortunately, the hostess was not the only example of less-than-stellar service here. Our server was very nice - when he actually stopped by, which was rare. He waited a very long time to greet us, never checked to see if we were satisfied with a course (all courses were actually served by another server or food runner), etc. Disappointing, but on with the meal!

DD was looking very princess-y this evening.

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The chef paid me a visit. He didn’t really offer many options - just identified a few things on the menu that were safe.

DD had fruit and yogurt for her appetizer. Sorry for the blur.

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I had a very tasty beet salad.

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Willow had grilled cheese for her entree.

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And I had the potato-wrapped snapper, which was not quite as great as I was expecting it to be.

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Tonight’s Mickey puzzle came with a cupcake!

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No idea what this was.

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At some point, I got up to track down the hostess about the cake again - couldn’t find the server. She was again very unhelpful and went off somewhere. Eventually, the server appeared and I asked him. It was getting late now (we had already been there 2 hours, I think), so when someone finally indicated that they did actually have the cake, I just asked for the box and took it up to our room.

FF was not the celebration meal that I had hoped. The food was very good, but the service was not - from doing nothing to make our Family Day special, including not even serving the cake I had special-ordered and paid for, to being completely absent through much of our meal. I was not very impressed.

But Willow did get some pretty nice selfies while we were waiting for our table:

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Up Next: One More Ride Won’t Kill Us, Right?

 

[STLMickeyMom]

what a bummer about your cake! I've been thinking about ordering one for my birthday, more as a surprise for the girls, but this is the second bad experience I've read about. i'll have to give it some more thought!

willow's selfies are very cute (she was exceptionally princess-y!) and the restaurant was very pretty! too bad the service left something to be desired. you've tried a lot of places i'd never thought to go or even heard of! it's nice to see some new places! and, even though it's late, HAPPY FAMILY DAY!

 

[Tiggerrn2]

That is really too bad that they weren't better at their service. And I know from having looked at that menu, that is not a cheap place to eat. I have never tried it myself as there wasn't anything available that I thought my kids would eat.

I hope you provided them with the tip they deserved!

Your DD did look adorable.

 

[DisneyJo]

What terrible service you received and them not giving you your cake is incredibly bad!!!

Cute selfies though

 

[jedijill]

Willow looked so hot in that picture on the way back from Epcot! I get totally wiped out from the sun. It's been unusually hot and humid down this week and the sun has totally wiped me out! Thankfully it finally cooled off today but now I have to wear a jacket to MNSSHP!

Sorry FF had such bad service on your special day!

Jill in CO

 

[RGirl]

what a bummer about your cake! I've been thinking about ordering one for my birthday, more as a surprise for the girls, but this is the second bad experience I've read about. i'll have to give it some more thought!

Oh, I would say you should go for it! At the very worst, you'll have a yummy cake in your resort room. Seriously though - FFC was really disappointing. I hope that we have a better experience the next time we try it because, if not, I would have to count it out for quite some time.

willow's selfies are very cute (she was exceptionally princess-y!) and the restaurant was very pretty! too bad the service left something to be desired. you've tried a lot of places i'd never thought to go or even heard of! it's nice to see some new places! and, even though it's late, HAPPY FAMILY DAY!

Aww - thanks so much! FFC aside, we had a wonderful Family Day together.

That is really too bad that they weren't better at their service. And I know from having looked at that menu, that is not a cheap place to eat. I have never tried it myself as there wasn't anything available that I thought my kids would eat.

It was really surprising - I had expected signature restaurant service to at least be good, hopefully excellent. But this was the second signature where our service was very disappointing.

I hope you provided them with the tip they deserved!

I have a tendency to overtip in these situations because I always question my own viewpoint. And then later, when I really think about it (or write it up!), I realize that I probably should have registered my disappointment via tip. Oh well. Hopefully, someone was just having a bad night or something.

Your DD did look adorable.

Thanks! She really loved that new Cinderella gown.

 

[RGirl]

What terrible service you received and them not giving you your cake is incredibly bad!!!

It was pretty darn bad, wasn't it? I always try to give the benefit of the doubt, and our server WAS very nice, but we hardly saw him. And that hostess! Thankfully, we had a really nice time anyway.

Cute selfies though

Aww - thanks!

Willow looked so hot in that picture on the way back from Epcot! I get totally wiped out from the sun. It's been unusually hot and humid down this week and the sun has totally wiped me out! Thankfully it finally cooled off today but now I have to wear a jacket to MNSSHP!

You know, when I saw that picture after the fact, I felt terrible! I have no idea how she was even still going. Bad mommy moment there.

I'm glad it cooled off for you today. That kind of heat can just destroy a person!

Sorry FF had such bad service on your special day!

Thanks - luckily we were able to enjoy our day despite anyone else's issues.

 

[Jackiemarie21]

I love how Willow always "dresses" for dinner! That is so cute!

I am sorry you had a bad experience at FF. I you really do expect more from any restaurant in Disney much less a fancy one like FF! I would be very angry with that cake situation! At least you had a nice lunch earlier in the day for your celebration.

 

[princessnpirate]

Subbing in. Loving your report.

 

[RGirl]

I love how Willow always "dresses" for dinner! That is so cute!

She will sometimes even wear one of those gowns out to dinner here on the rare occasion we eat out.

I am sorry you had a bad experience at FF. I you really do expect more from any restaurant in Disney much less a fancy one like FF! I would be very angry with that cake situation! At least you had a nice lunch earlier in the day for your celebration.

It was definitely disappointing. Luckily, we managed to have a good time despite the poor service.

Subbing in. Loving your report.

Thanks for reading! I hope you will continue to follow along.

 

[Luvchefmic]

I just had a lovely thought fast forward in Willows life she will never tolerate a "slob" partner coming to the meal table without dressing formally I like it !

 

[RGirl]

I just had a lovely thought fast forward in Willows life she will never tolerate a "slob" partner coming to the meal table without dressing formally I like it !

Too funny, Ruthie!! Willow is a girl of extremes - it's either pajamas all day or gowns!

 

[RGirl]

One More Ride Won’t Kill Us, Right?​

We didn’t get out of FF until about 9:45. It was pretty late, but this was our Family Day, and I felt like we should do something special - something that DD would love. Plus, she had napped for about 3 hours, so a little bit of a late night might be okay. The wait time app was showing only a 15-minute wait for DD’s favorite ride, so we decided to hop on a boat to DHS!

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I figured we could get over to DHS, ride once, and get back and be in bed before 11. We arrived at the boat dock at about 9:50, but sadly, a boat was just pulling away. Perhaps I should have taken this as a sign to abandon this ill-conceived plan. It was a beautiful night though.

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We were finally on a boat at about 10:10. DD was pretty happy with the plan.

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Realizing that we were going to be quite a bit later than I had hoped, I spent the boat ride on hold with Disney Dining trying to change the time of our early breakfast ADR. I never did get through. We arrived at DHS at 10:35, but the wait time app was now reporting a 40-minute wait for ToT. We started to veer off towards Star Tours figuring that at least we’d be able to ride something. But looking at the crowds, I decided I didn’t believe the app - there was no way that ToT could be a 40-minute wait at this point. Plus, DD deserved to do her favorite ride on our special day even if the wait was that long! So we changed course.

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When we arrived, the posted wait time was indeed 40 minutes. But it did NOT look like a 40-minute line at all. So we got in line.

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Up Next: One More Ride Won’t Kill Us, Right? (Cont.)

 

[RGirl]

One More Ride Won’t Kill Us, Right? (Cont.)​

And for once, my instincts were right - we were watching the pre-ride movie less than 10 minutes after entering the queue!!! And we were buckled in by 10:50, having arrived in the park at 10:35. I felt like a genius!

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And then nothing happened. The door was open, everyone was buckled in, and we just sat there. And sat there. And sat there. Then the overhead lights came on. And we STILL sat there. Guests kept walking by our open door on their way to other elevators. Various people in our elevator started joking around and yelling, “Send help!” to the guests walking by. Finally, a CM stepped in and told us that they were having to reset the elevator to get our seat belts to unlock - there was a malfunction with this bay of elevators and we had to get out. She left, and then the doors closed. We all kind of looked around at each other. And then the doors opened again. The CM came in and told us all to get up and come out. And we all told her that the seat belts were still locked! She looked surprised and left again.

Another CM walked by and went in the same direction as the last. And then the first one came back again and said maintenance was going to have to come and manually unlock the seat belts. At about 11:10, maintenance arrived. Everyone was excited to see this CM!

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We had been locked in our seats for 20 minutes!!! Once released, they immediately moved us to another elevator, and we had a great ride!

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It was LATE! I spent the boat ride on the internet via my phone trying desperately to change our breakfast ADR time on the Disney app - I was totally unsuccessful at getting it to do anything. That app was irritating!!! We ended up getting off at the Swan/Dolphin and walking from there - it was faster.

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DD was still looking pretty happy!

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Unfortunately, it was almost midnight when we got back to the room, and DD was a bit fired up and didn’t get to sleep until about 1:00AM. Luckily, I was finally able to change our ADR time via my computer, so we were going to sleep in a bit to try to make up for this late night.

Up Next: A Yeti-Sized Infatuation Begins

 

[Luvchefmic]

Yow Za !!@!! I do believe I would have had a stroke if I had been there locked in those TOT seats and that happened....the twilight zone theme song playing in my head yes I CAN be a chicken and have a very vivid imagination ( which is why Halloween except for MNSSHP creeps me out BIG time) I even flip through the tv when those darn Universal commercials come on this time of year I can deal with TOT but haven't been on it in a long time ...there are seatbelts ? I didn't even remember that, see what I mean ?

Willow looked very happy even given the late hour, that's nice the parks are really beautiful at night aren't they ?

So glad you got to change that ADR check in with you tomorrow & cmon over when you can more posting then on mine

 

[STLMickeyMom]

ToT creeps me out even though I have fun on it. I think I might have panicked if I was stuck in there! I love how Willow is such a brave little chick!

And I have to tell you--if my youngest saw her beautiful Cinderella dress, she would flip!! The one she has has been well loved and it shows. Lol! She would love a fancy, long, sparkly one like Willows but I'm trying to hold out until Christmas since I have little mermaid and sleeping beauty dresses stashed away! Who knew I'd end up with such a girlie girl?!?

Aren't the parks so pretty at night? It's my favorite time of day there when you start to notice everything lighting up....

 

[shan23877]

Look at me commenting real comments!



What a night! I don't know that I posted her about how angry I am at your FF server, but I'm sure that by now you get the idea

LOVE the late night ride on ToT idea, dislike the result. I can't believe that happened! Willow is very brave to ride after all that. I'm fairly certain that we'd get a "no thank you" from Maddie

I know it was a huge hassle to change that ADR. We had really bad cell service at WDW when we were with Sprint, but when we switched to Verizon it was much better. Must be more cell towers?

 

[dizneeat]

Wow! What a late night. And being locked in at ToT for 20 minutes. No fun either. But Willow really IS a trooper, smiling through all of it.

Don't remind me of the app! We tried to change some ADRs while in the parks and it ALWAYS just sent us in circles - just like a ride.