If time and transportation were sports we'd never make the playoffs; 2018 spr. break TR *new TR!*

[ariane37]

Hello from Hyde Park! Love the report!

WHOO! Hello from Wappingers and Happy to have a local here

 

[Monykalyn]

Hi Ariane-I've been a lurker on many of your trip reports (especially the Thanksgiving one where you hunted for a drink to deal with family-so related to that!!!!)-just popping in to hope Ricky has a quick and successful surgery Friday!!

 

[fallonkendra]

Well, I’m finally all caught up! I didn’t quote anything, since I’m on my phone (and at work ) - but congratulations again on the new grand baby, and good vibes to Ricky on his surgery Friday!

 

[Wood Nymph]

My favorite strawberry dessert was the strawberry macaroon filled with strawberry ice cream at L'Artisan des Glaces in Epcot. The flavors are seasonal and I just happened to get lucky that they served it when we were there. I still dream about finding it again.

lol well.........kind of. It's too easy when I'm talking to her to just say "grandma", which is what her other two grandma's are saying, too. I really wanted "gigi", my cousin's grandkids call her that and it sounds so chic and cool but then I'm thinking it has to be hard to say??? I called my one grandmother "Grams", we were extremely close, so I think I'm just going to go with that

Grams is a cute name. The kids across the street called their great grandmother Gigi. And my kids called my grandmother Mimi. I don't remember how we came up with Mimi but my grandmother liked that name.

 

[ariane37]

Why am I ignoring my dining report??? I love food but for whatever reason I'm more inclined to update here! I'll get there eventually Thinking of taking my computer to the hospital tomorrow and updating while we wait on Ricky. In the meantime.....

Day 6 Part 1:
HOORAY FOR HOLLY-WOOD!
WAIT; HOLLYWOOD?
​

That's just my little dig at what has become non-Hollywood Studios, which is where Ricky and I were headed bright and early on our second to last park day of the trip. HS opened at 8am as did every park except Epcot because remember, spring break!
We were actually doing MK today and had our first FP fairly early, beginning at 9:30. But Ricky wanted to do RnRc one more time since we couldn't get any extra FP's for it all week, and our only options were going before MK today, or foregoing our final FOP FP tomorrow and doing HS RD instead. He chose RD today before MK and I was thrilled!
Steve stayed behind with Chris and the plan was now to meet up with them in MK after we got in a couple rides with Aerosmith, and I also wasn't going to leave without checking in to the Hollywood Tower Hotel, either.
We managed to arrive at the gates by 7:30 thanks to a HS bus waiting for us when we got to the bus stop, which was definitely a #transportationwin! We got in the AP line and we were this close to the entrance:



They did the usual opening procedure, letting us in to the park at 7:40, holding us by the Trolley Car Cafe until 7:50, and then walking us down to each ride. Soon we were doing this:



Twice! Only one picture because the other one looks the same And then much to my delight we did this twice:



I was trying to point out the Slinky Dog coaster to Ricky because you could see it really good from the top of TOT.

Twice was it. TOT was still a 10 minute wait which equaled a walk on after our 2 rides, but we really needed to get to MK especially since we didn't know how long our bus wait/ride would be. We did run in to Starbucks/Trolley Car Cafe for a breakfast sandwich on the way out, and then hightailed it to the MK bus stop which surprisingly isn't too awfully far away.

I know this was a totally short Disney update, but I'm going to stop here and do a real-life update on our quick trip to Pennsylvania/Hershey last weekend! Does anyone remember when there was a Mickey Bar emoji? That would have worked perfectly here since, you know, chocolate.

My sister lives in Georgia, and her two oldest had a lacrosse tournament in Hershey so we decided to go down at the same time. Luckily this was before Ricky's surgery so he'd be able to enjoy it. It's about a 3.5 or so hour drive and before going to the park I suggested visiting Amish Country, as I've always been interested in that.

Nobody else was
​

Still, I had made the decision and was sticking to it. We went here


The Amish Village in Ronks, PA. First you walked around a "pretend" Amish village which was a bit cheesy, although there was a real, former Amish school teacher sitting in the school to tell us about her life. Then you could take a tour of a model Amish farmhouse which was ok. We did learn a few neat pieces of info. like how Whirlpool is the only company that (still) makes a washing machine that the Amish can remove the electric from and rig with a lawnmower gas engine to use in their homes. They won't use electricity but will use any normally-electric appliance that they can rig up to work using gas or kerosene.
A couple pictures from around the village:





And from inside the farm house:



THIS FREAKS ME OUT!



Their dolls don't have faces It has to do with graven images which is the same reason they don't take pictures of themselves or have pictures hanging in their homes. But I think it is too scary lol!!! I would just forego the doll if mine couldn't have a face.

Everyone was still underwhelmed when we headed toward the final activity, the 90 minute bus tour. The bus was nice, small comfy and air-conditioned. There were 10 of us on it plus our driver Karen who ended up being super awesome, very knowledgeable about the Amish. This was also the absolute best part of the experience as we drove through the area and saw "real" working Amish farms, residences, visited an Amish store, etc. We saw Amish dads helping their kids ride bikes, Amish boys playing on haystacks and fixing fences, an Amish picnic going on since they're ahead in their corn cuttings, buggies going by including a couple "courting buggies", baby horses that were just born, the carriage maker and wheel fixer lol. There was more and along the way she told us really cool details. Most of the people looked straight down when we went by because they want nothing to do with us, but a few nodded. I don't blame them, I felt a bit voyeuristic staring and "oohing" at them, but hey it's weird and strange and cool how they live!

We went by their schoolhouses



All kids walk to school. There are no snow days, holidays, days off. Oh and then there's this!



That building to the right of the schoolhouse? Yeah, that's the bathroom No indoor plumbing on the Pennsylvania Prairie!!
I will add here that there is a separate school for Amish children with special needs, and this school has indoor plumbing and these kids are driven to school.

As I said this was a very interesting and thorough tour and half way through we stopped at a little roadside stand/store run by an Amish couple who were working there with one of their DIL's. They sold lots of baked goods and hand-made items. They were happy to talk with you about their store and their lives.

I have a couple more pictures to share but I'm at my limit so I'll continue in the next post (something Amish don't have)

 

[ariane37]

continued from last post

The Amish do have these though: Ok enough of that!

Back at the roadside store we bought what turned out to be some of the best caramel brownies and apple pies we've ever had. I looked around at all the stuff they had for sale and came across a shelf of these



Ah why do the men dolls cost more???? Doesn't matter, don't want one in my house!

The boys ended up proclaiming this bus tour the best part of our weekend getaway, even better than Hershey Park, which proves mom is always right even when not in Disney Speaking of Disney, once we finished here we took the monorail to our resort





Oh wait, no, wrong place! That's actually some type of wanna-be monorail that belongs to Dutch Wonderland in PA. We took Ricky there 14 years ago and it was really cute but also for really young kids. These pictures were taken from the highway right outside the park entrance on our way to the Amish Village.

Hershey Park was............ok. Of course I could stop there every day for chocolate, but we found it
-absolutely disgustingly dirty
-horrible customer service
-unorganized
-too many carnival type rides

But I guess for what it is, it's fine, minus the mess. And there's no excuse for poor customer service. We went for a few hours Sat. night and all day Sunday. The first ride Ricky and I went on was this



and holy **** it was amazing!!! I wanted to go again but Ricky wouldn't
On Sunday we took my youngest nephew Trevor, 7 with us while my mom, sister, and two older nephews finished up their tournament games. This was Trevor's first ever time at an amusement park and he was in awe; it was fun to see the excitement in his face. Here he is with my boys on one ride:



My sister and nephews are actually here now and staying until Sat. They start school again on Aug. 6th so their summer is almost over, while we still have about a month and a half!

Well that's it, thanks for following me off-track tonight. It helped get my mind off of tomorrow for a bit. We'll be fine, just sucks so bad that Ricky is going through it again and has a long, long stagnant August ahead of him He did manage to have a fun week with friends, fitting in swimming, basketball, bike riding on the trails, etc. and working at the basketball varsity camp plus finishing up driver's ed. Thank you so, so much for all the well wishes for him, I truly appreciate them

 

[ariane37]

Hi Ariane-I've been a lurker on many of your trip reports (especially the Thanksgiving one where you hunted for a drink to deal with family-so related to that!!!!)-

Hi there I remember you!! And I think you're in our "big group" about May, aren't you LOL I remember that TR AND getting that sangria in AK very, very well!

just popping in to hope Ricky has a quick and successful surgery Friday!!

for coming out and posting and thank you so much for the well wishes, I truly appreciate it!

Well, I’m finally all caught up! I didn’t quote anything, since I’m on my phone (and at work ) - but congratulations again on the new grand baby, and good vibes to Ricky on his surgery Friday!

Ugh that's how it is on my Ipad, so hard to quote for some reason! Thank you so much Fallon, I appreciate it

My favorite strawberry dessert was the strawberry macaroon filled with strawberry ice cream at L'Artisan des Glaces in Epcot. The flavors are seasonal and I just happened to get lucky that they served it when we were there. I still dream about finding it again.

Oh that sounds delicious! We've gotten ice cream from L'Arisan des Glaces but can you believe I've never tried anything with a macaroon there, despite my love for them? I'm going to have to put that on my list for sure!

Grams is a cute name. The kids across the street called their great grandmother Gigi. And my kids called my grandmother Mimi. I don't remember how we came up with Mimi but my grandmother liked that name.

Mimi is really cute, I like that Sometimes it's not so much what YOU want to be called, but what THEY end up calling you.

 

[MinnieWebster]

Good luck to Ricky in surgery tomorrow. Will be thinking about you guys

 

[pepperandchips]

HOORAY FOR HOLLY-WOOD!

Oh great now I'm gonna have this song stuck in my head all day!!!

Twice! Only one picture because the other one looks the same And then much to my delight we did this twice

That little girl in the front is too funny. Glad to see that you love ToT as much as I do! It gets a lot of hate from certain members of my family (thankfully not R though) and I could ride it over and over again! The drop sensation gives me the giggles.

It's about a 3.5 or so hour drive and before going to the park I suggested visiting Amish Country, as I've always been interested in that.

Nobody else was
​

Still, I had made the decision and was sticking to it. We went here

Ha. I've been to Amish country and was not super thrilled at the prospect either in fairness, it was part of a crazy road trip with my 80-something at the time grandfather and there were five of us squished in his car and we got lost quite a few times...

Their dolls don't have faces It has to do with graven images which is the same reason they don't take pictures of themselves or have pictures hanging in their homes. But I think it is too scary lol!!! I would just forego the doll if mine couldn't have a face.

I had a doll kind of like this growing up but she was just handmade, not creepy, and not dressed in Amish clothes. And I think she might have had eyes anyway it wasn't my favorite doll but it's kinda weird that they were even showcasing these things!

They sold lots of baked goods and hand-made items. They were happy to talk with you about their store and their lives.

Yup, THAT is what I remember about Amish country, super tasty food and baked goods!

Back at the roadside store we bought what turned out to be some of the best caramel brownies and apple pies we've ever had.

Glad everyone had such a good time on the tour and you were vindicated!

My sister and nephews are actually here now and staying until Sat. They start school again on Aug. 6th so their summer is almost over, while we still have about a month and a half

I hope you have been having a great time! R has to report back for pre-planning on July 30 I can't believe how fast his summer break has passed this year.

Love to you and yours today. Thinking of you!

 

[buzzrelly]

Thinking of taking my computer to the hospital tomorrow and updating while we wait on Ricky. In the meantime.....

Today is the big day…good luck to Ricky today! Thinking of you all and sending good vibes

Twice! Only one picture because the other one looks the same And then much to my delight we did this twice:

I'd call that a productive rope-drop!

Nobody else was

Shocking

Hershey Park was............ok. Of course I could stop there every day for chocolate, but we found it
-absolutely disgustingly dirty
-horrible customer service
-unorganized
-too many carnival type rides

Sounds fab I think WDW has forever ruined the whole amusement park experience for me. My kids drag me to Six Flags New England and I'm always confused that they don't post their wait times outside the rides. At least it's fairly clean, but all the food is gross so I usually leave sandwiches in the cooler in the car. It's just not Disney

On Sunday we took my youngest nephew Trevor, 7 with us while my mom, sister, and two older nephews finished up their tournament games. This was Trevor's first ever time at an amusement park and he was in awe;

He's never been to WDW?! I think his favorite aunt needs to remedy that, stat!

 

[cajunfan]

Saying some prayers for a successful surgery and quick, uneventful recovery!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I hope the surgery went well. Ricky is too young for all that pain. It always seems unfair when kids have to go through things like this.

I enjoyed your tour of the Amish Village. I used to be in a quilt guild and made a lot of quilts, including some Amish ones. They use solid colors only and black thread for quilting. My mom used to make miniature Amish dolls, which were really cute. The lack of a face wasn't quite to obvious in a miniature doll. We even went down to an Amish community in Iowa and had lunch in an Amish home. The house looked normal, but a little old-fashioned. And they served us very normal food, with a little more sugary items then I was used to, which surprised me. A Mennonite woman ran the quilt shop that was our primary purpose of the trip. She said that the Amish don't run the stores, the Mennonites do. At least that is what I think she said. Anyway, it was an interesting trip.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

No park compares to a clean Disney park!!! And, Timmy can personally tell you every area on Main Street where he cleaned up every disgusting bodily fluid that exists...LOL!!!Believe me, we got that tour back in March...

 

[starousse]

Totally agree with you 100% about Hershey on all levels. We'll be back there in a few weeks though for my daughter's soccer tournament. Can't wait to do Skyrush!

 

[balty74]

Dutch Wonderland might have a fake-monorail, but they DO have a REAL dole whip
I'm kind of bummed that my son is finally too old to want to go there anymore. I would suffer through hours there just for the chance of a off-disney year dole whip

 

[Raeven]

Their dolls don't have faces It has to do with graven images which is the same reason they don't take pictures of themselves or have pictures hanging in their homes. But I think it is too scary lol!!! I would just forego the doll if mine couldn't have a face.

So that's what's behind the masks on IASW

-absolutely disgustingly dirty
-horrible customer service
-unorganized
-too many carnival type rides

We felt the same way about a Six Flags park we went to after we started going to WDW. We had an awful, awful experience at SF NJ, and we had a lot of the same complaints.

We'll be fine, just sucks so bad that Ricky is going through it again and has a long, long stagnant August ahead of him He did manage to have a fun week with friends, fitting in swimming, basketball, bike riding on the trails, etc. and working at the basketball varsity camp plus finishing up driver's ed. Thank you so, so much for all the well wishes for him, I truly appreciate them

Wishing you well, and wishing Ricky a speedy recovery

 

[xlsm]

I quoted stuff but they are all gone

So this whole TR has been going on since I was absent, but now I'm caught up.

I think my eyes about fell out of my head over your stepson's declaration that he wanted to move in with these random parents. I'm sure he was just caught up in the rush of feelings at being with her for the first time. But still. I'm glad she came up there to visit, and wish them good luck.

Hayden is so cute, I loved seeing her on Facebook!!

Out of order, but we had the same server at Whispering Canyon that time it was having the floors refinished and they had the meal inside Artist Point instead (which was WEIRD)

Hmm...what else did I think while reading...Oh, I still maintain that Xavier and Chris would have a great vacation together just eating and lounging in the room
I let him be lazy for most of June, and right before we left for San Francisco he asks why we can't just have one day of vacation where we don't do anything, just stay in bed all day. I said...you mean what you have done almost every single day?? Yes mom, he says.

Still thinking about Ricky and hoping for a speedy recovery!

 

[kastoney]

Glad to see you and Ricky got some alone time and your favorite rides in. We're on the fence about when to go in April (so Jason can do the Star Wars half) and one of the weeks starts the spring break insanity. I'll have to talk to you some more before we do/don't decide to do that.

Lovin' all your creepy amish dolls. I remember doing the amish touristy stuff when I was a kid but we haven't subjected Casey to that yet. There is actually a pretty sizable amish population near where we go to the beach so see them and their horses and buggies when we are there.

For sorry to hear Hershey was a bust. We enjoyed our trip there last year but it was in the fall so maybe not quite so crowded. It definitely wasn't dirty though, but when we tried to get something to eat it was completely disorganized!

We took Casey to Dutch Wonderland as her first amusement park and she loved it. Its definitely geared for little kids. We had gone once as kids (when my parents subjected me to amish torture) but it was closed and all we could do was ride the "monorail" around the park.

 

[chunkymonkey]

My sister lives in Georgia, and her two oldest had a lacrosse tournament in Hershey so we decided to go down at the same time. Luckily this was before Ricky's surgery so he'd be able to enjoy it. It's about a 3.5 or so hour drive and before going to the park I suggested visiting Amish Country, as I've always been interested in that.

Nobody else was ​

Hahaha. I tell that to people and they are like, why are you going there? But I like going to Amish County because it is an escape from Life in NYC. I like dining in the family restaurants, browsing the farmer markets and bringing home amish products. I've been there about 3 times now and it's been a lot of fun! I did go to Hershey, but not the park, just to the chocolate world. That was not too bad, and there's that chocolate ride that you con on and you get free samples of chocolate after, LOL. It smells good in there! I've ever actually done a tour with the Amish, I did one as a kid, but I did read up a lot about them and find it all fascinating.

OK yes those dolls are freaky though!!!

And those horse buggys....driving along them is...interesting. I did have some amazing ice cream in Lancaster though, it was so good.

Glad to hear that Ricky's surgery went well. Hope he's not in too much pain and he takes his time to rest and recover!!

 

[erinch]

I live in Lancaster PA! Amish country is my life, as my job is Supervision of the Presbyterian churches in Lancaster, york and Chester counties. So I am on the back roads all the time, and sometimes pass as many as 30 buggies in one trip. Co-existing on the roads is a challenge. A bunch of the Amish kids come to our local park for killer volleyball games. It’s fun to watch the girls take out the boys, skirts and all.

That means I live 40 minutes from Hershey. And when I want a theme park we make our annual trip to Cedar Point. I have been to Hershey only 4 times in the 8 years we have lived here, and never once have I been able to actually get on rides. I got on SkyRush exactly once, after a 90 minute wait. They have an express pass you can buy. It is obscenely expensive.