If we can DREAM it, we can do it! ..... another 30 day vacation Update 02/07

[Mom&RN]

The Cars section of AoA looks amazing. I can only imagine how incredible it must be for little kids to stay there - they would have to feel like they were in the movie! Two visits ago (May 2011) when we were at WDW we had the same experience with evening EMH during the day the crowds were pretty good but evening EMH was crazy each night. It was really odd. We ended up not staying for the whole thing after the first night because the whole time we were there it was the same. Not sure why this happens some times, except maybe we were there at a time that a lot of more adult people were there (fewer families with younger kids) and most young adults are night owls... Not sure but it bummed us out!

 

[LuvEeyore]

Karin,
I am finally caught up on your report. I love your mini reports. Art of Animation Resort looks wonderful!!

Thanks for sharng!!
Lee

 

[annmarieda]

I love all your pictures of the cars section of AoA. We were not there long enough to venture that way. We did get pictures of the LM section though... but it will be a while before I get there in my TR since it was our last night.

You have me so excited to dine at the Wave!!! Your food looked like it was amazing!!!

And.. EMH has been like that for me the last couple times. December 2011, dh and ds stayed because they thought it better than getting up early. They got to ride only a couple rides in the hours that EMH was going on. Maybe there are more resort guest now than there use to be?

 

[Disney9.9.10]

I order the same thing as you at WPE, it is so delicious!

What a busy day the two of you had!

The Wave is delicious! We were late for our reservation in December too (because of our flight in) and we were also lucky enough to get in. That is a good reservation to make on an arrival day, in case you are late!

Those are some heavy crowds for EMH! I've never experienced that.

 

[wiigirl]

Just read your whole TR! Wonderful!

 

[Linda67]

Yet to try the wave but it does look lovely

Shame that EMHs was so busy, we've always been pretty lucky with short lines in the past

Looking forward to the next instalment

 

[HowieHowie]

Elaine, we so enjoyed the meeting you and Howie and the "young folk". I am keeping my fingers crossed that you will go back to WDW in August and we overlap. Have you heard from Jeff? He tries to convince Lily that he has to come to WDW in August too.

And more travel drama. Seems that flying from the NY area is a bit of a worry. And then having some problems with your rental too. Guess we will be warned now. I had NO idea Hertz took over Dollar. We have a Dollar rental in February, so this should be interesting.

Hope your parents are better and that things calm down for you!


Hi Karin....Unfortunetly, I do not think we will be in WDW for the summer. As of now, we have no plans. We still do not know where Rachel will be going to college, so we do not know when she will start. If we decide last minute, Howie is afraid that we will not get a DVC reservation and he also can't get away certain times in Aug. But, of course, if anything changes, I will definately let you know. It will be so weird, this is the first summer that we won't be there since 1990.
I have not spoken to Jeff since we have been home. I have no idea of his WDW plans, I willl give him a call soon.
Good luck with Dollar. We just got a $25 voucher to use before Jan 2014 for our trouble, so I'm assuming they are still operating. Just be aware there might be a change when you get to the counter.
We also loved AoA. We visited in the summer and then again to see the LM section when we were there in Dec. Hope to stay there one day.

 

[jenseib]

WE had the same issue with EMH too. It seemed to never die down and I think I had a touch of the flu during the trip, so we kind of gave up and went to bed. I just couldn't handle waiting another hour or 2 to see if they "might" die down. I swear I have never seen Disney so busy in my life while we were there in Nov.

 

[englishrose47]

Checking in , got a couple of hours break as I went in at 4 amSo figured I'd split the day and have a couple of hours with NO ONE HOME!!!!

 

[dizneeat]

Karin I forgot to mention how good your food looed at the Wave !!I have eaten there twice and enjoyed it both times , both of your dinners looked wonderful !! I think I would have chosen your dessert though!!

We have always had good food there and it is an easy reservation to get! Plus I really love the fact that they combine 3 desserts into one.

The Cars section of AoA looks amazing. I can only imagine how incredible it must be for little kids to stay there - they would have to feel like they were in the movie! Two visits ago (May 2011) when we were at WDW we had the same experience with evening EMH during the day the crowds were pretty good but evening EMH was crazy each night. It was really odd. We ended up not staying for the whole thing after the first night because the whole time we were there it was the same. Not sure why this happens some times, except maybe we were there at a time that a lot of more adult people were there (fewer families with younger kids) and most young adults are night owls... Not sure but it bummed us out!

They did such a great job with designing that area! And even as an adult you feel like you are stepping right into the movie, those icons are just awesome.
We usually go to Evening EMH and have always had good luck with it. The later they were, the better the were, but this time the crowds just seemed to mulitply.
Fun to hear that you didn't stay to the end either, we just left after about two thirds, too!

Karin,
I am finally caught up on your report. I love your mini reports. Art of Animation Resort looks wonderful!!

Thanks for sharng!!
Lee

You are welcome! I love to share our trips, I have found some wonderful friends that way.
We were pretty impressed with AoA. They really did a great job there.

I love all your pictures of the cars section of AoA. We were not there long enough to venture that way. We did get pictures of the LM section though... but it will be a while before I get there in my TR since it was our last night.

You have me so excited to dine at the Wave!!! Your food looked like it was amazing!!!

And.. EMH has been like that for me the last couple times. December 2011, dh and ds stayed because they thought it better than getting up early. They got to ride only a couple rides in the hours that EMH was going on. Maybe there are more resort guest now than there use to be?

I am really looking forward to your photos of the LM section, Ann. They had everything still boarded off and it was hard to see.
The food at the Wave was always really good! It is one of the restaurants we go to every trip - and I really can recommend breakfast there as well. This is the ONLY buffet breakfast I really enjoy.
It is soooo odd that crowds just grow during EMH, maybe too many people buy hoppers and just head there lateron, but these were until 2am and you would think that people with kids would leave rather sooner than later, but it was just the other way around.

 

[dizneeat]

I order the same thing as you at WPE, it is so delicious!

What a busy day the two of you had!

The Wave is delicious! We were late for our reservation in December too (because of our flight in) and we were also lucky enough to get in. That is a good reservation to make on an arrival day, in case you are late!

Those are some heavy crowds for EMH! I've never experienced that.

WPE has such yummy things and I just LOOOOOOVE that pizza! Good to know I am not the only one.

I am glad you liked the Wave! And I am glad it is not so busy to not be able to seat latecomers. It was pretty full in there though.

The crowds were just over the top and it was not even a holiday or something, just a regular weekend.

Just read your whole TR! Wonderful!

Hi!
Glad you enjoyed the trip so far ........ there's a lot more to come!

Yet to try the wave but it does look lovely

Shame that EMHs was so busy, we've always been pretty lucky with short lines in the past

Looking forward to the next instalment

Linda, you really should try the Wave. Their food is really good and a bit different from the usual offerings.
We usually were always in luck with late EMH, this was just such a shock - never ending crowds, so we fled.

Hi Karin....Unfortunetly, I do not think we will be in WDW for the summer. As of now, we have no plans. We still do not know where Rachel will be going to college, so we do not know when she will start. If we decide last minute, Howie is afraid that we will not get a DVC reservation and he also can't get away certain times in Aug. But, of course, if anything changes, I will definately let you know. It will be so weird, this is the first summer that we won't be there since 1990.
I have not spoken to Jeff since we have been home. I have no idea of his WDW plans, I willl give him a call soon.
Good luck with Dollar. We just got a $25 voucher to use before Jan 2014 for our trouble, so I'm assuming they are still operating. Just be aware there might be a change when you get to the counter.
We also loved AoA. We visited in the summer and then again to see the LM section when we were there in Dec. Hope to stay there one day.

Elaine, it's a shame that we won't get to see you then this summer. But there is always hope. I still keep my fingers crossed something will work out for you.
At least we know about Dollar now. I checked their website and they still sell their "US packages" so we will just wait and see. They should have been able to work it out in the meantime.
AoA is an awesome resort ..... just a little expensive for a value.

 

[dizneeat]

WE had the same issue with EMH too. It seemed to never die down and I think I had a touch of the flu during the trip, so we kind of gave up and went to bed. I just couldn't handle waiting another hour or 2 to see if they "might" die down. I swear I have never seen Disney so busy in my life while we were there in Nov.

Your experience seems to be the same as ours. So they ARE more busy all year round now.
It was just no fun to fight the crowds without FPs in the middle of the night.

Checking in , got a couple of hours break as I went in at 4 amSo figured I'd split the day and have a couple of hours with NO ONE HOME!!!!

I am so happy you got a few hours to relax after having to start at 4am! Hope you are having a nice weekend this week.

 

[annmarieda]

I am really looking forward to your photos of the LM section, Ann. They had everything still boarded off and it was hard to see.
The food at the Wave was always really good! It is one of the restaurants we go to every trip - and I really can recommend breakfast there as well. This is the ONLY buffet breakfast I really enjoy.
It is soooo odd that crowds just grow during EMH, maybe too many people buy hoppers and just head there lateron, but these were until 2am and you would think that people with kids would leave rather sooner than later, but it was just the other way around.

You may be waiting a while. We stayed on our last night... I think I am just about to start 9/28 and the pictures will be of 10/4... so a bit to go. I will say though, that the inside of the room was over-the-top amazing in theming. I could not imagine any more details that they could have added.

I am looking forward to trying the wave. Some how it always gets shuffled to the bottom and the off the list. Hopefully not this next trip!

And yes... I think you may be right on the EMH. People get a hopper and the jump...add in the extra resort guests that I think Disney has drawn in due to discounts of recent years and it all adds up to more and more people at EMH Stil... like you I would think that people with small kids would leave sooner rather than later. I know with Zoe... I did keep her out late last december while the guys attempted to stay. I know it was after midnight... but no later than 1pm. EMH was til 3am though...and I can't imagine having kept her that long.

 

[dizneeat]

Day 10, August 20

Fun at the Studios and a change of plans - Part 1


Since we had gotten back a little late we decided to sleep in a little. By 9am we got up and started to get ready. There was lots of food around so we decided to have breakfast in the villa. Tom made some coffee and I stuck to my trusted Diet Coke and we both had some raisin toast with butter.

We sat outside on the balcony for a while,

while we did some laundry and around 10.30am we decided to get going.

I needed to pick up some forgotten things from Downtown Disney, so that was our first stop, then we made our way over to the Beach Club resort.

We walked to the gift shop, had a good look around, then walked outside and enjoyed the beautiful setting.

We wanted to try for a table at Beaches and Cream for an ice-cream treat, but overhearing the wait times, we decided against it. We slowly walked over to the Yacht Club resort, checking out the menu for the Yachtsman Steakhouse and then having a good look around the gift shop. Once we had enjoyed both resorts we headed over to the lighthouse to take a Friendship to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

The next boat that came went to Epcot, and after a 15 minute wait we made it onto the boat. It was pretty full, but emptied out a bit once we made it to the Swan and Dolphin.

It was pretty hot inside the boat and we were happy to get off at the Studios.

To be continued ............

 

[dizneeat]

You may be waiting a while. We stayed on our last night... I think I am just about to start 9/28 and the pictures will be of 10/4... so a bit to go. I will say though, that the inside of the room was over-the-top amazing in theming. I could not imagine any more details that they could have added.

I am looking forward to trying the wave. Some how it always gets shuffled to the bottom and the off the list. Hopefully not this next trip!

And yes... I think you may be right on the EMH. People get a hopper and the jump...add in the extra resort guests that I think Disney has drawn in due to discounts of recent years and it all adds up to more and more people at EMH Stil... like you I would think that people with small kids would leave sooner rather than later. I know with Zoe... I did keep her out late last december while the guys attempted to stay. I know it was after midnight... but no later than 1pm. EMH was til 3am though...and I can't imagine having kept her that long.

Waiting is not a problem, Ann! I guess you can tell me ALL about it on Feb 21st! Can't wait, actually, we'll be on our way in three weeks time!
I really hope you keep the Wave. It is such an awesome restaurant and the food is a bit different to what they usually offer.
Ann, there were lots of people carrying their kids and sleeping kids in strollers. It was amazing to see, but there were still soooooooo many people in the park. It was a zoo!

 

[englishrose47]

Loved the Beach Club Pix !!Carol and I tried to get P &P to book us thereAnd that was the response we got !!!

 

[Minnie&Nana]

LOVE LOVE LOVE these photos, Karin!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

What a lovely, relaxed morning! Your view is beautiful! Great photos around the other resorts as well

 

[dizneeat]

Loved the Beach Club Pix !!Carol and I tried to get P &P to book us thereAnd that was the response we got !!!

It's a beautiful resort, Rosie. We have stayed at the Yacht Club and LOVED it there.
And I am SO excited to be staying at the villas in August - this should be FUN!!!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE these photos, Karin!

We just love spending time at the BW and BC/YC area. There is so much to see and it is just beautiful there.
Glad you enjoy the photos!

What a lovely, relaxed morning! Your view is beautiful! Great photos around the other resorts as well

That's the blessing of having a 4 week vacation. There is NO rush and you can just enjoy the resort. We just love to sit out on that veranda at OKW. So peaceful.

 

[WDisneyMom]

So sorry to hear about Tom's back

Yay for BCV!! I have never stayed at any of the Epcot resorts but they are all on my list and Stormalong Bay looks absolutely amazing!!