I May Be Just a Bit Crazy - Sept 2025 TR

[Araminta18]

Hi everyone! I'm sure everyone's probably a bit sick of my trip reports, but I'm back! I was attending the Disney Data Analytics Conference at Coronado Springs, and so of course I decided to spend a few extra days touring the parks! This was an interesting solo trip for me but I had a great time - I'm excited to share it!

If this is your first time joining me on a trip report, I go SUPER extra with the photos #sorrynotsorry - I used to use imgur to host 30 photos per post but I got burned when that whole thing went weird, so now I just upload directly to disboards, but that means each post only gets 10 photos. So that's why you'll see days broken up into like 7 or 8 posts, cause ALL the photos.

The details:
who: just me!
when: Sat Sept 6th to Thurs Sept 11th (Conference was Monday morning, then all day Tuesday and Wednesday)
where: Coronado Springs

Introductions:
I'm Tiffany, I'll be your ghost host for this trip report. I'm 38 and while I'm a librarian by education, I currently do records management, since records management is where the pay is, and I gotta pay for Disney! Favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty, but I also love Mary Poppins and Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel. Favorite rides are Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, Expedition Everest, Tower of Terror...I feel like I should stop before I just list all of them.

I'd planned on attending this conference for a while, before we ended up having the trips to Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris, so initially I'd intended to stay longer after the conference but with the other trips and other stuff happening at work, I decided to just go down on Saturday and come back when the conference ended, so not a ton of extra park time. But I had a couple goals: see the new Starlight parade, try Geo-82 and Beak & Barrel, and then as we got close, I realized that the Haunted Mansion map pin set was going to release on the Tuesday I was there so I added doing a pin-drop to my list!

 

[Araminta18]

Table of Contents

A New Hotel - Saturday Sept 6 2025 (part 1)
Jungle Cruise and Dinner! - Saturday Sept 6 2025 (part 2)

 

[Araminta18]

A New Hotel - Saturday Sept 6 2025 (part 1)​

Friday was a crazy day of finalizing things at work for while I'd be gone and then packing that night. I ended up needing to finish packing early Saturday! But I managed to get everything set and let for the airport at 10 am, getting there at about 10:40, for my 12:35 flight. Not too bad!

My flight ended up being delayed a little bit due to the incoming plane being delayed, but not too bad. Also, Trevor decided that for my birthday (it was 2 weeks after this trip) he would upgrade me to first class, a nice little splurge. It was nice! Extra room, comfy seat, and even wireless charging. Definitely not "worth it", but a nice splurge and birthday present. The flight itself was uneventful; after we landed I got my bags pretty quickly and was in my uber on the way to Coronado Springs!

It was definitely storming as we drove - we went through bands of really hard rain and then nothing and then hard rain again. But soon, we were passing under the sign!

And by 4:35 we were pulling in to Coronado Springs!

This was my first time at Coronado Springs - not gonna lie I wasn't super excited about it. I don't tend to like the super huge resorts and the theming didn't really appeal to me but since this was where the conference was, that's where I'd stay. Nice to check another resort off the list though.

I got all checked in and then headed over to my room. I was staying in the Casitas, building 3 - it's a preferred section and close to the convention center, which was nice. It did take me a little bit to find the room - the signs were not good at all! But eventually I made it. It was on the third floor, facing the lake:

Not a bad view!

The room itself was nice and big, just for me:




Not bad!

I dropped my stuff off and got ready to head over to the Magic Kingdom! I had a reservation at the Beak & Barrel at 9:10 pm, and I wanted to see the Starlight parade. I assumed it might rain a little bit more so I left my ears in the room and brought a poncho just in case. I was a little bit worried about the parade being canceled with the rain, but nothing to do but wait and see.

All ready, I just had to go find the bus stop! It was a bit confusing to find but eventually I made it - the stop was a solid 5 minute walk from my room! So far! I don't think I'd choose to stay at the resort again unless we stayed in the tower so we'd be right at the bus stop, but *shrugs*. Anyways I made it to the stop at 5:17, and the app had said the MK bus was coming at 5:23, so plenty of time. But once I made it to the stop the sign said the next MK bus was coming at 5:18, so I made it just in time. The bus came and I got a seat which was nice - my bus stop was the first one in the loop which was nice for that reason (usually able to get a seat) but then the bus does the loop. It took about 8 minutes to make the loop and head to Magic Kingdom - I would imagine if the bus stops were full it would take longer. So...pros and cons *shrugs*

Anyways, made it to the Magic Kingdom at 5:40 pm. It's so pretty to see it all decorated for Halloween!

I even saw a photographer on the sidewalk on Main Street, which is a new spot for me:

I was just so excited to be there, despite the humidity and the heat. I ducked into the Emporium and looked around a bit - they had a bunch of the Haunted Mansion merchandise I had seen online and wanted (the black bag with the white outline of the mansion, and the CM uniform spirit jersey), but I decided to live dangerously and not buy it yet (I didn't want to carry it around all night).

I stopped and talked with a Guest Relations CM at the blue umbrella about the parade maybe being canceled and she said that it does run in the rain and that she's never seen them cancel both parades, only one. So that made me feel pretty good. I was going to stop and get some cheeseburger spring rolls but when I was checking the app I saw that Jungle Cruise was posting only 20 minutes! So I decided to go for that instead.

When I got over there though, this was the line:

All the way outside the queue...they must have just re-opened from being closed and everyone had the same idea I had when they saw the short wait! I decided I didn't really have anything else to do so I decided to wait, cause why not.

 

[Araminta18]

Jungle Cruise and Dinner! - Saturday Sept 6 2025 (part 2)​

I waited for a bit and the wait time bumped to 35 minutes, but again, I figured I might as well wait, cause why not. I did join the walkup waitlist at Skipper Canteen - it said it was 30 minutes so I figured we'd see how the timings lined up.


Free kittens!

I spent a lot of the time in line playing with the little girls in line in front of me - they loved my Monsters Inc popcorn bucket, and so I kept opening the doors and they would close them. That passed a lot of the time.

At 6:26 I got on the boat - almost exactly a 30 minute wait. I actually got the "your table is ready" text right as I sat down on the boat - oh well! Hopefully they'd hold my table, but I'd have to see.

Such a great ride - our skipper was very enthusiastic and energetic. Yay!

I got off the ride and booked it over to Skipper Canteen, about 10 minutes late, but they got me checked in and seated in just a couple minutes. Yay! The menu had these great pencil drawings that I don't remember seeing before:


I love those.

I decided to just get a root beer and the Brazilian cheesy bread - wanted something light cause it was hot out.

The cheesy bread is so good! Highly recommend it. It was a great dinner.

At 7:15 i finished dinner, felt refreshed and cool, and excited to continue my Magic Kingdom night. It was still very hot outside, but the Haunted Mansion was only posting a 13 minute wait, so I decided to head over that way.

Unfortunately when I got there, it was similar to what happened at Jungle Cruise earlier - the line was much longer than I'd expect for that wait time:

It did still say 13 minutes as I actually passed under the sign-

But I heard the CM call to someone (right as we passed them) that they were about to open the extended queue and needing a bump in their wait time. Oh well!

Again though there was a toddler that was having fun playing with my popcorn bucket, so that passed the time a bit. And then we did get to go through the extended queue which I almost never get to do, so that was neat.


The grave is leaking!

 

[alohamom]

I'm sure everyone's probably a bit sick of my trip reports

NEVER! Following along for allllll the pics!

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more

 

[HappyGal]

So happy to find another trip report from you!

 

[bettertheangel]

Following along! It looks like a great start to the trip!