I don't think you took a picture of that....yet! (Updated 2/24)

[Where'sPiglet?]

All this good luck with no waits, just isn't translating to us waiting for updates.

Is there a special lantern we need to rub?

Your fans are waiting for an update!

Sorry!

Hmmm.... a lantern.

Bethany,

Sweetie, Please finish your trip report. I can't wait to hear all about it.

Ellen

Aww, thanks!

I was going through Disney withdrawal. I don't have a trip planned, and I didn't want to look through my notes and think about it! I also thought I'd be able to get some photo sorting and updates done while I was recovering from sinus surgery, but I was pretty much worthless for a bit there. I still don't have a trip planned, but at least I am enjoying reliving this one!

On with the show!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

Back at Pop, we took what was supposed to be a short nap, but it ended up being about 3 hours, with a brief break in the middle of the nap for me thanks to a downpour. The metal icons are LOUD when the rain pelts them, and this was the view out our window!

We woke up at about 6pm. We walked around Pop for a bit. Here are a handful of photos of the Art of Animation Resort as seen from the Pop Century side of the lake. These were taken about a month before the first section opened. From the photos I’ve seen of the completed portion, this resort looks really cool. I think the animation theme has a much wider appeal to all ages than the first half of the 20th century. The only thing I find odd is that the clever “Hourglass Lake” and “Generation Gap Bridge” now seem a little out of place with the overall theming. The bridge does have 1900-1940 on it, but they don’t appear to be renaming Pop Century as Pop Half Century, so I guess there will just be a few quirks with this pair of resorts.

We also walked around the 50s section of the resort. The Memory Lane info signs are a nice little feature. They have odd numbered years on one side of the sign and the even numbers on the other. Since we only walked one direction down the path, we only read the odd numbered years since we didn’t want to get dizzy from turning around at every sign.

We then decided we had done enough walking around the resort for now, and it was time to go catch a bus!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

Where's Piglet? 4

Where did we eat dinner?

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

I'm going to add WP? 5 up here also. A hint is that 4 & 5 kind of go together.

Where's Piglet? 5

 

[DisneyTiger]

That nap during a downpour at WDW sounds wonderful to me!! I have only stayed at POP once and for one night only. That was about 7 years ago. Maybe we need to go back!!

NO idea where Piglet is. You are tough!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

That nap during a downpour at WDW sounds wonderful to me!! I have only stayed at POP once and for one night only. That was about 7 years ago. Maybe we need to go back!!

NO idea where Piglet is. You are tough!

Of course you need to go back to WDW! Doesn't have to be Pop though. Of course, it could be! My favorite part of trip planning for me is choosing the resort. It's also the most difficult part. I over think it. This trip had THREE resorts!


Here is Piglet, zoomed out a bit.

WP? 4

WP? 5

 

[MamaPotts]

Yeah! You're back!

I'll take a guess... I'm thinking Kona Cafe and afterwards you went down by the beach to watch Wishes. I know that I've seen that pattern on the table before ... you know that it's driving me k-razy to figure out which one it is (part of me wants to say Cali Grill).

 

[scotlass]

I have no idea where Piglet is ( dinnae know were I am half the time ) but just wanted to check back in.

Did you not like POP ?

We have stayed there 2 times and loved it.

Since our stays there we have hit WL and SSR, both deluxe and while they were beautiful we wouldnt say we liked them more than POP just different.

Does that make sense !!??

We have never ate at Beaches and Cream but its on our list for our December trip.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

Yeah! You're back!

I'll take a guess... I'm thinking Kona Cafe and afterwards you went down by the beach to watch Wishes. I know that I've seen that pattern on the table before ... you know that it's driving me k-razy to figure out which one it is (part of me wants to say Cali Grill).

You are SO CLOSE!

WP5 IS the Polynesian beach, where we DID watch Wishes!

WP4.....you are soooooo close, but not quite right.

 

[reelmom]

I am really enjoying your TR. I think Piglet is at Capt. Cook's.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

I have no idea where Piglet is ( dinnae know were I am half the time ) but just wanted to check back in.

Did you not like POP ?

We have stayed there 2 times and loved it.

Since our stays there we have hit WL and SSR, both deluxe and while they were beautiful we wouldnt say we liked them more than POP just different.

Does that make sense !!??

We have never ate at Beaches and Cream but its on our list for our December trip.

You don't know where you are. I do know where I am, only because I've pretty much been stuck at home for weeks.

Yes, it makes sense. Different resorts are best fits for different situations.

I liked Pop well enough. The theme was cute and the amenities are adequate. I also liked that the buses only made ONE stop. I have stayed at Caribbean Beach before and that is just a long haul of bus stops, and same with the Epcot area resorts. The "resort tour" loses the novelty after about the second trip to anywhere.

What I didn't like about Pop is something that some people love about it: it's vibrant. I don't just mean the paint colors, but I mean in the sense of it's bustling. I have a hard time feeling like I can relax at the values. They're just busy. I think they would be a perfect fit for times I plan to do park open to close, commando style and am primarily sleeping at the resort. It's not a great fit for times I intend to spend a large amount of time at the resort. I think it was the Everything Pop that really contributed to the sense of over-stimulation, although I will give it credit for having a good selection of both souvenirs and food items.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't make me sound like a resort snob. I will stay at values and enjoy them well enough, but the moderates are really where my heart is.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

I am really enjoying your TR. I think Piglet is at Capt. Cook's.

I am glad you are enjoying the report; thank you!

You are right: we ate at Captain Cook's!

Captain Cook's at the Polynesian:

Our view from the beach:

More about those towels later....and no, we were NOT pool hopping!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

When I left off, we had walked around Pop for a bit before taking a bus to the Magic Kingdom. It should be no surprise that we again had no wait for a bus. We transferred to the monorail without entering the park (torture!!). We did have a short wait for a monorail, but it was less than 5 minutes.

This just makes me feel like I’m on the monorail!

We got off the monorail at the Polynesian and looked around for a bit before going downstairs to Captain Cooks for dinner. This resort really is beautiful. I have been there in the past during the day, but I don't recall ever being here at night.

My receipt says we ordered at 8:24pm. For some reason, we ate outside, where it was a bit wet from earlier rain showers and very dark. I suppose they are trying to be authentic with the lack of strong lighting, but it really was hard to see anything aside from the dim lighting on the pathways.

I had a pepperoni flatbread and my DH had a chicken sandwich. I thought the flatbread was quite good, although considering how late it was, anything might have tasted good.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

It was getting a little chilly, but the main purpose of going to the Poly was to watch Wishes from the beach there, so we weren’t about to leave.

Yes, 67 degrees and I was shivering like a leaf. (Don't judge. ) I went to the gift shop on the first floor to see if they had blankets for sale. I didn’t see any, but I did see this cute bag. It appears some of the resorts had resort-specific merchandise, but not all. Even though the bag was cute, I left it there.

There were more gift shops on the second floor, but I did not go to them. This sounds very lazy, but for some reason the layout of the lobby was perplexing us. We had gotten to the first floor on a slow and small elevator since we didn’t see any stairs. I didn’t want to deal with the elevators again. I think later I did see some stairs, but not when we were looking for them.

We walked through the pool area to get to the beach. Aha! They provide pool towels, so I grabbed two to use as blankets. I ended up putting one on the lounge chair since it was wet from the rain, and I used the other as a blanket. It wasn’t perfect, but it was more comfortable than nothing. As it turns out, many other people had the same idea. Since we were pretty early, we had our choice of several lounge chairs and were able to get some with nobody in front of us to block any view, which was very nice.

The beach location (the blue dot):

It was kind of strange to see the map in the daylight while we were sitting in the dark.

The view from the beach location:

I think it would be amazing to have this view from my hotel room. It certainly beats the back of the yellow metal flower.

We had a bit of time to wait for the fireworks. You might think this is a serene location to listen to the waves hit the beach. It wasn't serene at this time of night, but it WAS extremely relaxing to be on the beach and listen to the water hit the sand, the soundtrack to Toy Story, the drums from the luau, and the boats honking around the Seven Seas Lagoon.

We also caught a glimpse of the Electric Water Pageant across the lagoon, along with the ferry.

At 9:45, the Magic, Memories, and You show started. From the beach, you could only vaguely see some of the effects of the show. It really needs to be watched from up close. This vantage point does not do it justice, as evidenced below.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

Sorry that the iPhone screen shots are so huge. I use Webshots for most of my photos, but it does something weird to the screenshots. It has uploaded photos taken from the iPhone just fine, but the screenshots are all crazy! When I upload them to Webshots, the colors go all neon as if they are some crazy pop culture art piece. I remembered I have an old Photobucket account and they upload fine there.

Here is the map from Webshots. Even though Webshots is closed now, when I downloaded all my photos that they had hosted, it downloaded this way also!

And my Countdown App that I wanted to post earlier in this report but I didn't want to post this hot mess.

Webshots:

SO STRANGE!!

Photobucket:

I took that background picture with my phone on an earlier trip. I wish I had a better quality of it. You'd think I would have taken one on this trip, but I don't think I did.

Speaking of earlier trips, I came across this video of part of a parade at Disneyland in 2008. I was not expecting this kind of thing in a parade. So cool!

(Click to play)

 

[DisneyTiger]

Ok, this is making me REALLY want to go back!!! I love the idea of going on the beach to watch Wishes. We've never done that. I do love the Poly. I WILL stay there one day Sounds like a very relaxing day. Just how it should be

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

Ok, this is making me REALLY want to go back!!! I love the idea of going on the beach to watch Wishes. We've never done that. I do love the Poly. I WILL stay there one day Sounds like a very relaxing day. Just how it should be

This is making me want to go back too.

I would love to stay at the Poly one day also. I was looking at prices for a weekend next spring and it came up to $1200 something for 2 nights. Ummm, no. Guess I won't be staying at the Poly for THAT weekend!

Yes, I love non-park days at WDW. I think my next trip we will just get 4 day base tickets (one day per park) and then have at least 2 non-park days. Maybe....I always have so many WDW trip ideas.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

Right on time at 10:00, Wishes started and it was very nice to watch from the beach. It was comfortable, not crowded, we were on lounge chairs, and they pipe in the music! I think I prefer seeing it up close from inside the Magic Kingdom, but this was such a nice, relaxing place to watch from. I would like to do it again someday. My DH decided it is his favorite place to watch from.

The finale is extremely bright even from across the lagoon!

It seems that the Luau must end at about the same time as Wishes. The restroom and narrow hallway on the first floor of the Polynesian were very crowded. However, there was only one other couple at the boat dock. I guess most of the crowd took the monorail. We had a nice chat with the couple while we were waiting. This ended up being our longest transportation wait of the day at maybe 15-20 minutes. Aside from being a little chilly, it was a very pleasant place to wait. What surprised me was how small the Magic Kingdom resort boats are. While I’ve taken other WDW boat transportation before, this was my first time on a Magic Kingdom resort boat. It really is a nice way to travel.

We took the boat to the Magic Kingdom to catch a bus back to Pop. We had no wait for a bus for Pop. I guess getting caught in the restroom traffic and the wait for the boat allowed us to miss the mass exodus at the Magic Kingdom.

The strange thing, at least to me, was they were using all sorts of supplementary buses at the Magic Kingdom this night. I think I’ve only ever seen official Disney Transport buses at the official Disney Resort bus stops. We ended up on a motor coach with the big fluffy seats and TVs. They weren’t playing anything, and it seemed so quiet without the music and narration that they’ve added to the regular Disney Transport buses. It sure was nice having those comfy seats at the end of the day, and I’m sure it was even nicer for people that had spent their entire day in the Magic Kingdom.

One of the buses:

The bus we rode:

It was about 11:30 when we got back to Pop Century.

 

[jwhtewolfd]

i'm waiting for piglet to be somewhere i've been before so i have a shot at guessing where he is. i've seen the yellow mears buses out in full force at end of day at MK when the monorail has been down. it was amazing; there were two buses at every stop. the lines were long, but moving constantly. it was NICE.

a no park day? does not compute. if there's a park open somewhere, i'm in it. makes me nervous for my june 2013 trip. thinking i'm gonna have to scale that back a bit.

 

[TigerKat]

You're back!!!!!! Enjoying every update!