I really have to turn 40?!? Only if its at WDW Photo Trip Report (UPDATED 10/30!)

[TigerLaw]

Those who have followed my trip reports over the years (or those new to my writing style can see my past reports in my signature line) know I can be a long-winded in my writing, so I am going to try to make things a bit more snappy this time around! So without further ado...



The Cast: Myself, Michael, 18th visit to WDW / DL (Disney fanatic for years). Melissa, wife of the fanatic, fellow lover of WDW, just nowhere near my level (15th visit to WDW / DL)


The Time: Monday 2, 2012 to July 8, 2012


The Resort: Beach Club Villas - Studio


The Disney Family History: My wife Melissa and I first went to WDW in September, 2000. Since then we have (usually) gone every year at least once. Highlights of the different trips include Melissa surprised me with a mini-vacation to WDW for my 30th birthday and going to Disneyland for the 50th anniversary festivities. 2009 was a great year for us in terms of Disney - we went to WDW twice (first in May, then in July) and then I got to go to Disneyland in the fall as part of work trip to California.


The Planning: We were very excited for this trip, as it marked the longest we had been away from WDW since we started going (long story I won't get into here) This trip was always based around going back to WDW for my 40th birthday (which was on July 7th), but was not supposed to be one of our usual full-week trips b/c we were also planning to go down for the holiday fun right after thanksgiving. Initially, we were only going to do the 3rd through the 8th, but I talked Melissa into expanding it out for reasons I will discuss later (don’t worry, nothing earth shattering!) A couple weeks before the trip, we were both itching to build the trip out into a full trip, but it was just too expensive to move everything around.

As far as other details of note, we had weird travel plans this time (totally of my own doing) as St. Louis is rapidly falling out of the non-stop flights to Orlando category, as Southwest is the only service provider these days. I was able to get a decent price on a non-stop flight going down but couldn’t for the return, so we ended up flying down nonstop and coming back with a layover in Atlanta. Really nothing else exciting to report on - got a great car rental price just by going back to the site over and over, but that’s about it!


THE PLAN OF ATTACK

Monday, July 2nd - Check in to BCV, then dinner at California Grill

Tuesday, July 3rd - MGM regular open (9am), then pool/nap at BCV. Dinner at O’hanas, then stay for MK holiday fireworks and extra magic hours

Wednesday July 4th - Split up time - me at MK open (8am) & Melissa stays at BCV pools. Dinner at Le Cellar and then Epcot holiday fireworks at 10pm.

Thursday, July 5th - MK has 8am EMH, then over to Downtown Disney for lunch & shopping. Dinner at Via Nappoli, then drink around the world & illuminations then maybe boardwalk

Friday July 6th - Epcot EMH morning 8am. Dinner at cape may, then wishes dessert party and MK EMH night close at 2am.

Saturday July 7th (MY 40TH BIRTHDAY!) MGM EMH 8am open. Lunch at Sci Fi. Dinner at Tutto Italia & Illuminations.

Sunday, July 8th Breakfast at cape may and then get home.

COMING UP: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!!

 

[TigerLaw]

Monday, July 2nd

Parks Visited: None
Dining: California Grill (dinner)

Flight down was uneventful except that I had forgotten to book the Southwest “line up ahead of time” thingie, so we were worried about the seat locations, but we ended up sitting next to each other aisle seat to aisle seat, so no big deal. Actually arrived like 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and had no trouble with the rental car or suitcase pick ups, so we were on the road like 15 minutes after our scheduled arrival time.

Check in at Beach Club was also without any issues. I was told I had a package, but I asked if they could deliver it while we were out, as I didn’t want to deal with it having just arrived at all, and the CM said no problem. Our studio room was on the quiet pool side by the main set of elevators. While Melissa was unpacking, I headed over to Epcot. I needed to get our DVC-discount annual passes and tables in wonderland cards activated. Turns out I couldn’t do Melissa’s without her being there, so I figured we would just do it after dinner at Downtown Disney.

Once I got back, I got ready as well and drove us over to the Contemporary for our dinner at California Grill. We had a great meal and time there. Surprisingly, it wasn’t crowded at all, and there were hardly any kids there either. (We never get taking kids to a meal this expensive - a meal where the whole thing is just wasted on them and they are bored out of their minds, but I guess that’s just us ) We started out with a couple of the flatbreads as appitizers and then Melissa got the fish and I got the filet for our main meals. We didn’t order any dessert b/c the plan was to get something over at DTD, but even that plan went away when I got this early birthday gift - a HUGE piece of chocolate cake!


YUM!

Here are some more CA Grill pics:


No crowds are usually a good thing when it comes to WDW!


I can never get over just how big the Grand Floridian complex is, and that’s before DVC comes over..




Couple sunset pics I really liked
From there, we headed over to Downtown Disney to do some shopping. I got a bit lost trying to show off I knew the back roads, so initially we ended up at the front gate to the Wilderness Lodge, where the security guard was NOT AT ALL happy with us, but I got us there eventually. We tried to get Melissa’s AP activated at guest services, but the line was just too long for us, so we decided just to deal with it the next day. I think by this point, the travel day was wearing on us a bit, so we bummed around for awhile in the shops, and then headed back to BCV for the night. When we got back in to our room, we arrived to a huge surpirse - the birthday balloon set of all sets from my cousin/wanna be little sister!!



Inside this setup was a Mickey and chocolate-covered rice krispie treats. Oh, and the mylar balloon and a “hit me” spot where it then sang happy birthday to you! TOO COOL!

COMING UP - OUR FIRST DAY IN THE PARKS

 

[TigerLaw]

Tuesday, July 3rd

Parks Visited: MGM
Dining: Ohana’s (dinner)
For our first day in the parks, we headed over to MGM which had a regular 9am open. Before driving over to MGM, I walked around Beach Club to take some pictures, here’s a few:




This is my favorite view anywhere! I take this picture every trip and it never gets old (for me at least!)


Love the emptiness look here...






Ran into a couple cast members...

COMING UP - ACTUAL PARK PICTURES!!

 

[BigEeyore]

Nice photos of BCV - the light was really great that early in the day. What a great way to spend your birthday! I love California Grill too - it is our splurge restaurant.

 

[TigerLaw]

Nice photos of BCV - the light was really great that early in the day. What a great way to spend your birthday! I love California Grill too - it is our splurge restaurant.

It really was the best way to spend my birthday (we had done my 30th like this as well)!

What's funny abotu California Grill for us is that we like that flatbreads almost as much as the main meals!

 

[TigerLaw]

Tuesday, July 3rd (cont.)


First time I remember seeing greeters like this outside of MK

Once we arrived at MGM, we handled getting Melissa’s AP activated without any problems. (Dealing with the July heat was a whole other problem - its was way hot!) This was the first time we had been at the park since they started their new opening procedure of not having a rope drop and I think it did help to spread out the crowds when they opened up the turnstiles at 8:40 or so. Yes many people did a walk-run (myself included) over to Toy Story to get fastpasses, but the huge herd of people going over to Toy Story was no longer a problem. I got us fastpasses and then we headed in for our first shooting of the day - while I won, it wasn’t anything close to my all time high score.





From there we headed over to Rock n Roller Coaster, which already had a 30 minute posted wait time. We tried to do single rider line, but it wasn’t open, so we decided to just go in line, but the wait was actually more like 15 minutes. When we came out the single rider line was open, so we rode a second time. By then our next fastpass window had opened up, so I got us fastpasses for RnRC. From there we were going to split up and I was going to do Tower, but the wait time was like 30-40 minutes, so I just blew it off for later, found Melissa and headed over to Stat Tours.




More awesome Disney cast members!

This was the first time Melissa had ridden Star Tours 2.0 (I had ridden it during my 24 Hours at Disney day), so I was excited to see what she thought about it. The ride was essentially a walk on. The sequence we had (if I remember right) was Vader - Pod Race - Ackbar - Naboo. Melissa liked it OK, but didn’t love it (she did agree with me that it seemed less jerky than the old version).



Once we were done saving the galaxy, we headed back over to use our Toy Story fastpasses. By then we could really notice the crowds (outside lines at Movie Ride!):




At this point, with scores like this, I decided to just blame the heat!

Next I talked Melissa into letting me go into One Man’s Dream so I could see the new Fantasyland model (although give how hot it was outside, I didn’t have to get on the ground and beg all that much )




Can I have one of these for Christmas?!?

We didn’t stay for the movie, instead, we headed back over to RnRC and did the single rider line one more time before we used our second set of fastpasses (for a total of four rides). We then called it a morning on riding at the park, as we had lunch at the Commissary before headed back to the Beach Club.


I have often wondered if you can sit in the car, but never have actually gone up and tried...

COMING UP - JUST HOW MANY PICTURES CAN ONE MAN TAKE IN AN HOUR AT EPCOT ANYWAY???

 

[TigerLaw]

Once we got back to Beach Club, we decided to hit the pool and then take a nap. One of the things I noticed more so than ever before on this trip was just how crowded stormalong bay was (go figure with the temps in the high 90s!) I couldn’t really fall asleep, so I headed over to Epcot with my camera and just decided to do a lap around the world showcase to see what was going on. Here’s a few of those pictures:



I actually don’t remember when I took these???



Anything other than a Beatles band on this stage is just plain wrong!






My god, that furry cast member has a big eye ball!



When did the Canada pavilion become animal kingdom?!?



Sand sculptures and Scotland... yeah, sure, I get the connection!



When did all the annoying tour groups get this big???



Still don’t get the thrill (or even just the idea) here...

 

[OThopeful35]

Great Pics!! The FantasyLand Model is amazing. We skipped Disney this year but are currently planning for 2013. We can't wait

 

[TigerLaw]

Great Pics!! The FantasyLand Model is amazing. We skipped Disney this year but are currently planning for 2013. We can't wait

Yeah, I just couldn't get over how BIG AND DETAILED the model actually was! Can you imagine how much time and effort it took to make?!?

 

[TigerLaw]

Never can get enough of the lilypads in China!



You know it must be hot out when even Jasmine is having to wipe off sweat from her forehead (maybe I should have offered her my assistance!)




I had never seen an Aristocat in the parks before this day



I have absolutely no idea why I took so many animal pictures in the span of an hour or so





So after I got back and we got ready for dinner, the PLAN was to head over for dinner at O’hanas. The PLAN was to have dinner at O’hanas, watch the “4th of July even though its July 3rd” fireworks on the Poly beach and then head over to MK for extra magic hours like we had done the last time we were at WDW during July. I say the PLAN because while I was on twitter I read that security at the Poly was going to limit access to Poly guests only. I followed up on the “news” with both the front desk at the Beach Club and then after we drove over to the Poly, and no one could give a straight answer until finally I was told they were not going to do wristbands that night. Crisis averted.

ANYWAY.... we had maybe like a 15 minute wait to get into dinner, which was surprising b/c the entire top floor was full of people waiting to get into O’hanas. What was ever weirder was it wasn’t at all full inside actually. O’hanas is one of my favorite dinners at WDW (OK, in the whole wide world!), so I of course loved it! Melissa likes it, just not to my level. One thing I did this time was barely even touch the bread or salad so I could load up on the rest of the goodies (meat, its what’s for dinner)! The one thing we both love about O’hanas is the dessert. I think its both our favorite anywhere on the property. YUM!!

The only bad thing about the dinner was the windows made it really easy to see it was starting to get dark out with storm clouds. Soon the rain came down hard. We had planned to get outside on the beach like an hour before the 9pm fireworks, but the time we were done w. dinner at around 7:45 it was raining, lightening and thundering (lots of ...ing there!) so hard that the Poly pools were closed even. We ended up waiting things out and eventually by 9 or so, we were able to go outside, so I got us a couple table chairs and we set up on the edge of the pool area right in front of the beach.

Through the miracle of twitter, I was able to read that they had announced inside MK that the fireworks were going to be postponed until 10pm, so we just hung out some more until the fireworks started a bit after 10pm. While we liked the show, I at least felt like it wasn’t as a big a “wow” factor as the last time we saw them, and I wondered if the weather had caused some issues (especially with the perimeter shells). Here’s some pics:


Here you can see how most people stayed on the dry sidewalk, but others braved the wet sand





About halfway through the show, they threw on the lights to the electrical water pageant barges.


Then they started the surround fireworks












COMING UP - WE SPEND THE HOLIDAYS APART (AT LEAST FOR A LITTLE WHILE)

 

[BigEeyore]

Great fireworks photos! It really is a patriotic scene with the flag barges all lit up, hadn't seen that before.

 

[TigerLaw]

Great fireworks photos! It really is a patriotic scene with the flag barges all lit up, hadn't seen that before.

Yeah the best part was that the REALLY annoying techno music was turned off!

 

[TigerLaw]

Wednesday, July 4th

Parks Visited: Magic Kingdom (Michael only) and Epcot
Dining: Le Cellier (dinner)

On the 4th of July, Melissa and I split up for the morning - I went to the Magic Kingdom (which had an 8am early entry for everyone - resort guests and the general public) and Melissa stayed behind at the hotel to hang out by the BC pools. I like going on the 4th at open because for the first few hours, the crowds are very low. My theory is that the masses who are coming in for the holiday fireworks know they might not be able to leave, so if you have to stay all day and night, better to start your day a little later - hey, works for me! _____


Pic of crowds at opening - not bad at all!

Once MK opened, I headed over and rode Big Thunder. The cool part was that I got to ride three times in a row WITHOUT ANYONE ELSE ON THE RIDE!



From there I did Splash twice in a row, both times as a walk on (even though there was no one in the queue, they made me get off and walk around ) So that was a pretty nice first hour to the day!


Here’s a crowd shot after having rode Big Thunder and Splash (so maybe like 9am)


After Splash, I headed into Fantasyland to check out the (then) newly-opened Dumbo, first stopping for a picture with Mr. Donald Duck!



Dumbo was a walk on, and the indoor queue was totally empty. Next, I headed over and rode the re-themed Barnstormer, still no line. I also went over to check out the Casey Jr. water play area, but they didn’t have the water turned on yet?



]
I thought the “believe and soar” signage backing was really cute




The redone Barmstormer area was really well-themed too!




Once I was done checking out what was open in the “new” Fantasyland area, I headed into Tomorrowland and got a fastpass for Space, which had a 40 minute return time (if I remember right, the stand by was like 30 minutes). To kill time, I rode the people mover, got my picture taken with Chip and Dale and checked out the first running for the day of the Move It, Shake It parade, which I will discuss in a bit. One weird thing I noticed was that Buzz had a 20 minute wait, and SO DID STITCH! What were these people thinking?




Taken from the People Mover, you can see the extended queue ready for the masses.

After I was finally able to use my fastpass for Space, I crossed over the park to ride Haunted Mansion (still no wait). this was the first time I was able to do the new interactive queue, but I at least didn’t think it was that big of a deal. After that ride though, I decided to head out and hit the pool with Melissa, as the heat was getting to be a bit much....


COMING UP - WE MOVE IT, WE SHAKE IT!!!

 

[TigerLaw]

Wednesday, July 4th (cont.)

So here are some pictures from my favorite pseudo-parade / dance party of all time!















You can never have too much of Donald shaking his tail feathers!

COMING UP - WILL I EVER STOP TAKING MK PICTURES AND GET TO STORMALONG BAY?!?

 

[TigerLaw]

My last set of MK pics from that morning I promise!








Its was the 4th of July, so I HAD TO take this picture didn’t I?!?




Some pics of the new Haunted Mansion interactive queue


Pic of the crowds around noontime (starting to get more crowded - go figure)...


Music time on main street

COMIN UP - WE CELEBRATE THE FOURTH OF JULY IN... CANADA?!?

 

[TigerLaw]

Once I got back to Beach Club, I headed for the (very crowded) pool and found Melissa. We did the whole pool thing for awhile until it started raining, which led us to head back to the room for a little afternoon nap time! Night-wise, the plan was to head over to Epcot. First, we walked around the World Showcase and checked out the new wine bar area in Italy.





Unfortunately, our server knew next to nothing about any of the wines on the extensive list, so the wine drinking was a let down (could there have really have been only one pino grigio in the whole place?) Also, we saw at two different tables appetizers getting set back, so that didn’t reassure us at all.

From the wine bar, we headed back for dinner at Le Cellier (because of course you would do dinner there on the 4th of July!)


I still to this day have NEVER actually listened to Off Kilter play!

We had an AWESOME server who I unwittingly stumped on Canadian trivia by asking with the difference was between a providence and a territory (funny that I can’t even remember the answer now). The meal was very good (although Melissa missed the baked mac and cheese, which was no long on the menu). I tried one of the three beer flights, so that was fun to try different beers out.



Dinner was at 7pm and we got out by 8:15pm. The special holiday fireworks didn’t start until 10pm, but we already saw that people were staking out spots earlier than usual, so we headed over to the island between England and France and just hung out there for awhile. I got us a couple of grand mariner slushies in france and then we just waited for the special Illuminations show, which did not disappoint.






Fireworks, American Adventure style!





COMING UP - MORE PARKS, WHAT ELSE?!?

 

[Disney Princess]

I remember reading your Leap Day TR, and I enjoyed it! I'm excited that I found this one. Your pictures are beautiful - please don't apologize for posting "more"! The color is so clear and bright - especially of the parade!

 

[TigerLaw]

I remember reading your Leap Day TR, and I enjoyed it! I'm excited that I found this one. Your pictures are beautiful - please don't apologize for posting "more"! The color is so clear and bright - especially of the parade!

thanks for the kind words - more is on the way!

 

[TigerLaw]

Thursday, July 5th

Parks Visited: Magic Kingdom and Epcot
Dining: Wolfgang Puck’s Express (lunch) and Via Napoli (dinner)

Thursday morning we drove over to MK for morning extra magic hours. We ended up parking in the first row of cars, so I thought maybe it would be a slow day, but turned out it was just everyone else was using Disney transportation (Melissa hates the buses).



Once the park opened, we headed into fantasyland and did most of the rides - peter pan, pooh and dumbo with little to no waits.



Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs!


Can you ever have enough Pooh?!?


My cutie!

Once I got done showing Melissa around the new circus-land, we walked around a bit and headed over for the 9am rope drop into adventureland.






Turned out Splash was down all morning, so of course, Big Thunder was a zoo!

I still got us fastpasses for Big Thunder before we rode it twice back to back. Then after heading over to ride Pirates, I saw on the parks app that Splash was still down, so I headed back over there to get us fastpasses for later (just in case it opened). From there, we rode one of my favorites (Melissa, not so much) the classic Jungle Cruise.



Our next stop was the Haunted Mansion, which we were able to ride twice with no waits. Finally, we used our Big Thunder fastpasses, but couldn’t use the Splash FPs, as the ride was STILL DOWN!

By this time, it was getting HOT and we still wanted to get over to Downtown Disney, so we left the park and headed over to DTD. We had lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s place next to the Xmas shop and loved it! We had always written the place off before for some reason, but will be in our food rotation for the foreseeable future. I got a turkey melt and Melissa had the club sandwich. I was eyeing the pizzas, since we were having pizza that night in Epcot, I passed. After lunch we got some ornaments at the xmas shop (we have a disney-themed tree), looked around art of disney and world of disney before coming back to the Villas to hit up the (supposedly) quiet pool for some veg time!



COMING UP - WE DRINK (AND STUMBLE) AROUND THE WORLD

 

[TigerLaw]

For dinner, we headed back into Epcot and had our first meal at Via Napoli. We split a pizza (I had my usual sausage and pepperoni and Melissa had a marguerite pizza). We highly enjoyed the meal - great food, great room, and a great waitress. From there we did started our drink around the world efforts with a beer from Italy.



By the time we had downed the beer, we headed into China,


where we got another beer:




God there is something wrong with this picture!

Next, we headed into the Mexican pyramid and killed some time, even riding the Gran Fiesta Tour despite the fact that it had an actual line (something we had never seen before) Once we got done finding Donald, we got a Dos Equis from the redesigned Cantina



Continuing on, we decided to go see Captain Eo, only I forgot that the lesser attractions in Future World close early, so we walked over there for nothing. Eventually, we made it over to Impressions de France, which we both really like. After the movie, we settled in to watch Illuminations, but of course not before I got us some Grand Mariner slushies!



COMING UP - TIME TO SOAR!