Kinda Hot In These Rhinos... an August 2019 TR (updated 1/21)

[amazingact21]

Those PP photographers at DAK needed to figure out a line system! They were all over the place that day...

Your drink game was on point that evening! The coconut and raspberry puree sounds amazing. I am writing that down in my notes to try on my next trip.

I love that giraffe photo from your safari.

Bummer you couldn't squeeze in FOP at the end of the night, but man you got a lot accomplished. It's amazing how much more you can do when you're with other adults and don't have little ones to worry about.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

(Does anyone else think the "radios" all over these buildings look like packs of cigarettes?)

Yes!! I say the same thing!

SIL has the Pandoran Sunrise and the rest of us have the Dreamwalker Sangria.

How was the sangria? I need to try that!

The photographer looked at us and said “sorry, the line is over there”, we tried to explain we were there first, but she basically ignored us and put the other group place to take a picture. We could have just waited but we were over dealing with her.

Ugh that's really annoying. We've had that happen before and the photographer just asks who was there first

Also double fisting alcoholic treats put us in a great mood.

I'm just saying, if Disney sold a lamp that looked like the turtle float, I would buy it.

Me too!

 

[NJlauren]

All Caught up!

Love some AK drinks with the girls!

Looks like a pretty great trip!

I'm just saying, if Disney sold a lamp that looked like the turtle float, I would buy it.

I mean i pretty much buy anything they sell so count me in here too!

My sisters loved this show! They all said it was better than Illuminations so I abandoned them in the park and left them to find their own way home.

KIDDING

UMMM you should have! not that i have ever seen ROL but it can not be better!

 

[cinderaimee]

Hi Friends! Sorry for being a bit absent around the boards the last couple of months. With the holidays and all the kids' activities and work being absolutely insane, it has been hard for me to find time to write posts. I hope you all had wonderful holidays!

We are in the planning stages for a late August trip with the kids! The loose plan I have in my head is 7 nights at Pop, with 6 day hoppers and a Halloween party, then 2 or 3 nights at a deluxe (AKL or Poly) without a park ticket, to actually relax and enjoy the resort. Hoping to get it booked in the next week so I'm going to start a PTR soon to get all those plans down.

For now, let's get on with this trip report!

Monday, August 19 - Magic Kingdom (Part 1)

Where I left this TR off, we had just had a really full, really wonderful day at Animal Kingdom. Our next day was our Magic Kingdom day and we had a PPO breakfast reservation at BOG, then we planned to get in line for 7DMT before the park opened.

My sisters and I are known to be a little slow-moving in the morning, so I was silently doubting our ability to all get up, dressed, on a bus and at MK by our 8:20 reservation. I knew that BOG would let anyone with a PPO reservation in starting at 8:00 so I wanted to get there as early as possible so we wouldn't have to rush to get to 7DMT.

Somehow we pulled it off and were through the tapstiles at 7:50. We were held at the train station for just a few minutes before we were let into the park. Being one of the first into an empty park is something I never, ever get tired of.

We made our way through the hub and up to the restaurant.

We had ordered ahead the night before, so we just had to go to the cash register to use our dining plan credits. Little Sister remembered that she wanted to try The Grey Stuff so she ordered that as well.

SIL and I both ordered the open-face croissant sandwich, Little Sister had the croque madame, and Big Sister had the quiche. We all got a bellini as our drink.

Since SIL ordered her cupcake separate, a plate of pastries came out with that so we had two of those to share, which was nice.

Then when we were finished eating, our server caught us packing up extra pastries in a coffee cup and offered to bring us a box, then came back up with a whole new set of pastries in a to-go box, which was so super nice of her.

Little Sister loves Beauty and the Beast, so this was a highlight of the trip for her.

After breakfast, we headed out to get in line for 7DMT. As we got closer to the ride, they were announcing that it would be having a delayed opening. I believe there must have been a mechanical issue they were sorting out because they kept running empty trains through the ride. We decided to just wait it out and see because we had no fastpass for the ride and knew the line would never be shorter, even if we had to wait a little bit.

We were still being held outside the ride when the park opened, so we got to see the rope drop crowd walked back, which was kind of interesting to see from the viewpoint of being on the other side of the rope.

As the delay went on, people kept dropping out of line in front of us, but we were fine to wait it out for a little bit. Around 9:20 we decided we would only wait another 15 minutes as we had a 9am BTMRR FP that we didn't want to miss, and they finally let us in around 9:30. It was fine as waiting 35 minutes was less than we would have waited at any other time of the day, but we had planned to hit a few other Fantasyland rides and had to skip them for the time being.

Next up, we continue our morning at the Magic Kingdom!

 

[missangelalexis]

Great early morning photos! Sounds like a great breakfast! I'm sorry SDMT opening was delayed and you had to skip some rides, always annoying when plans go off track.

 

[lvcourtneyy]

The loose plan I have in my head is 7 nights at Pop, with 6 day hoppers and a Halloween party, then 2 or 3 nights at a deluxe (AKL or Poly) without a park ticket, to actually relax and enjoy the resort.

Sounds like an amazing trip!

Somehow we pulled it off and were through the tapstiles at 7:50.

Awesome!

Then when we were finished eating, our server caught us packing up extra pastries in a coffee cup and offered to bring us a box, then came back up with a whole new set of pastries in a to-go box, which was so super nice of her.

Wow that was really nice.

Around 9:20 we decided we would only wait another 15 minutes as we had a 9am BTMRR FP that we didn't want to miss, and they finally let us in around 9:30.

Glad you got to ride even if it messed up your morning plans a little!

 

[disgeek009]

Glad you're back! Your next trip sounds great. Good idea to not have any park tickets for the deluxe days.

That's nice you were able to ride 7DMT, even if the wait was longer than you hoped.

 

[amazingact21]

Staying at a deluxe and not getting park tickets for that time is the way to go! I feel like I never spend enough time enjoying the resort and relaxing.

Glad everyone made it up and to the BOG breakfast. How nice of the server to bring extra pastries with the to-go box. Bet those made for a great snack later on in the day.

 

[cinderaimee]

Great early morning photos! Sounds like a great breakfast! I'm sorry SDMT opening was delayed and you had to skip some rides, always annoying when plans go off track.

It was just one of those things... you plan these trips so much but at the end of the day, there are some things that are just out of your hands and you have to go with them.

Wow that was really nice.

It really was nice and a little unexpected pixie dust!

Glad you got to ride even if it messed up your morning plans a little!

Just the other day my SIL was saying she really loved that ride, so I'm glad we stuck it out and waited because I'm not sure we would have had another chance without waiting in a long line.

Glad you're back! Your next trip sounds great. Good idea to not have any park tickets for the deluxe days.

That's nice you were able to ride 7DMT, even if the wait was longer than you hoped.

Thanks! I'm anxious to get the trip booked and start planning it

Staying at a deluxe and not getting park tickets for that time is the way to go! I feel like I never spend enough time enjoying the resort and relaxing.

That's how I have felt about our last stays. We are always trying to squeeze in pool time before we leave and kind of regret staying at the Boardwalk and WL and feeling like I didn't see much more of those resorts than the room and the bus stop.

Glad everyone made it up and to the BOG breakfast. How nice of the server to bring extra pastries with the to-go box. Bet those made for a great snack later on in the day.

It was super nice and unexpected! I think the pastries ended up being part midnight snack and breakfast the next day.

 

[cinderaimee]

Monday, August 19 - Magic Kingdom (Part 2)

I forgot to put this in the last post, but here's our 7DMT ride photo:



We made our way over to BTMRR, stopping at the Tangled Toilets on the way.

Our Fastpasses were booked back to back for the morning: 9am BTMRR, 10am Splash, 11am Space Mountain. We scanned into BTMRR close to the end of the window. Can we talk about how hot and stuffy the ramp down to the platform is? Can we get a fan put in there?

BTMRR is one of my favorites and it didn't disappoint!
We immediately scanned into Splash Mountain next. We had a bit of a wait in the FP line, but the queue is nice and cool out of the sun so it was fine.

We had some time before we could scan into Space, and PoC was showing a 40 minute wait, so we decided to do that next. This was probably the hottest day so far and the sun was blazing, so being in an indoor queue for the next 40 minutes was preferable to any other option, plus it gave us a chance to check in at home.

The line was moving fine until we got to the ramp down to load and the ride just stopped. I'm not sure how long it was down for, but it seemed like quite awhile, 10-20 minutes. Like at 7DMT, we got to the point where if the ride didn't come back up in the next 5 minutes then we'd have to bail out to get to our next FP. Luckily they got the boats moving again after that and we were one of the next ones in line.

We looked around the shop a bit after and I got this shirt for my dad (who believes he is actually a pirate):

We saw Jack wandering around outside the ride, then we had to get across the park for our SM FP.

Then we made the long, hot walk across the park to SM.

The FP line was moving pretty good and it wasn't too long before we were rocketing through space.

That being our 3rd FP, I got on the app and looked for our next one. I got one for Buzz for about 45 minutes away. It was just too hot to keep walking from one side of the park to the other, so we stopped at the Joffery's cart for some cold drinks and also got a Buckey popcorn refill, then did Carousel of Progress.

Our FP was open when we finished COP, so we headed over to Buzz next. Big Sister is a huge Toy Story fan and Buzz is her favorite character, so she really loved this ride.

(I love this picture so much. Big Sister looks so distraught and Little Sister is distracted)

I can't remember my score, but I know I scored very low. Next time, Zurg!

At this point it was about 12:30 and the parade had been moved to 1:00 for the season because of the Halloween parties, so we headed to Main Street to find a spot. We ended up finding a good piece of curb to sit on about halfway down the street, with a trashcan on one side and a walkway on the other, so it was a good spot where no one could squish us in.

(views from our spot)

Little Sister, SIL, and I were feeling a little snacky while we waited, so we used one QS credit to split a footlong hot dog meal from and a snack credit on an order of chili cheese fries from Casey's.

(yum!)

We had quite a bit of time to wait for the parade to make its way down to us, but we had a good spot and the street filled up quickly, so we were fine to wait it out.

While we waited, I got our next FP - Meet Ariel popped up and she's Big Sister's favorite princess, so we grabbed that.

I'll put my parade photos in the next post - there's a lot!

 

[missangelalexis]

Despite the hot weather, sounds like you guys were getting a lot done with your FPs!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

You got a good bunch of rides in that morning! Good call to stop going from one side of the park to the other - we always end up doing that way too much and regretting it lol

 

[amazingact21]

That walk from Adventureland to Tomorrowland can feel like the longest distance ever when it's a hot day! You made the right call staying in one land and taking a break on COP.

 

[ariane37]

Yay for having your next trip (almost) planned! It always feels good to know when you're going back
Glad your 7D wait didn't end up being crazy. Last Wednesday we rope dropped BTMRR only to get to the entrance of Frontierland to be told it was down It came up later for our Fp but would have been nice if they announced it being down when the park opened or something for all of us that had hightailed if over there !

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

I'm way too many updates behind to do individual quotes.

I am really impressed by your Epcot day. I couldn't have pulled that off on so little sleep.

Your AK day sounds so nice. Yay for an FoP same day! I know how thrilling that is.

Stinks that SDMT was late to start after your BoG PPO but at least you didn't have to totally bail. Plus, waiting is always easier when you don't have squirmy, whiny kids, right?

 

[KathyM2]

Trying to get caught up as usual around here but enjoying your TR!! I really want some cheese fries now!