Completed! 1/3 - MNSSHP, Star Wars Land, and a LOT of SotMK - Aug 2019 Trip Report

Araminta18

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 11, 2016
Hi all!
I've disappeared a bit from the DIs in the past few months: after they opened up registration for APs for Star Wars land preview and I got that booked, I got busy with work and then the trip happened, then my husband and I went to Germany/London to visit family and celebrate my birthday, then we got back and my work continues to be busy and my husband started a new job and basically, life is insane. :) But I wanted to write up my trip report, cause it was a great trip--especially Star Wars land! :)

Updates to this report may be a bit less frequent than my other reports, but hopefully still enjoyable. :) And now that I've got a little bit more time, I'm hoping I can catch up on all your TRs that I've missed!

So...without further ado: MNSSHP, Star Wars Land, and a LOT of SotMK - An Aug 2019 Trip Report!

First up, introductions!

I'm Tiffany. Just turned 32, and while I'm a librarian by education, I currently do federal 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 ride: uh...how can I pick just one? Haunted Mansion, Slinky, Millenium Falcon, Flight of Passage (if I didn't have to do the pre-show every time), Tower of Terror...so many! I love the theming at Disney--it just makes me happy. :)
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Also with me on this trip (for the first two days): my husband Trevor! He's 33. He loves Star Wars, but has grown to love Disney--his favorite characters are Boba Fett, Vader and Stormtroopers, and on the non-Star Wars side, Grumpy. His favorite rides are Haunted Mansion and Star Tours--he doesn't really like coasters or thrill rides, but I did get him to try Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain and I don't know that he'd call them favorites, but he definitely likes them. I think the only rides he won't ride at Disney are Everest and Rockin Roller Coaster and most of the time Tower of Terror. And I don't mind riding solo, and he doesn't have any problem entertaining himself, so it works out really well.
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(it's blurry, but otherwise, this picture is a great snapshot of his personality--exuberance about fire, grumpy t-shirt... :D You'll get lots of non-blurry pictures of him later)


ANYWAYS. Backstory for this trip, 'cause I'm always interested in how people decide to go. For our big trip last September, we'd bought me an Annual Pass, and it didn't expire until Sept 14th. I did one trip this February with my Mom, so I'd definitely gotten my money's worth, but I wanted to go again on a solo trip before the pass expired. But Trevor and I decided it wouldn't really be wise (from a financial standpoint) for me to go again--like, we have the money but it had been earmarked for other things and it's not like anyone needs to go to Disneyworld three times in a 12 month period, right? Right. So I'd resigned myself to be responsible.

And then they announced Star Wars land previews for annual passholders.
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How do I not go after that!?

I joined the thread here on the Dis that was stalking the registration page and managed to get myself registered for the Monday, 5 pm slot.
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I figured that way I'd only overlap with one other group (the 3 to 7 pm group) AND get to see Star Wars land at night (stay tuned to see how THAT worked out).

Trevor, being the awesome husband that he is, and more importantly, the big Star Wars fan that he is, insisted that I go. To be fair, it didn't take all that much insisting. I stalked Priceline and got a blind express deal at All Star Movies for $83 a night wtih tax, but only if I stayed for 6 nights. Well, if you insist! I also had enough airline points to cover one flight, so buying the other flight only cost me $95. Lookit me, being all budget-conscious. LOL HAHAHAHA that didn't last long. I would head down early early Friday morning, and leave Thursday afternoon.

Trevor was not an annual passholder, so he couldn't come with me to the preview. I did try--I called and asked if we bought him a pass if I'd be able to add him to my reservation and have him come with me, but they said no. :( We were a little wary of paying what, $1100 or so for a pass just for the preview? But since they said no it was a moot point anyways. But then out of the blue Trevor was like "hey, I could take Friday off work and come down with you for the weekend!" Which was more than slightly unexpected for my "I mean, I like Disney, it's fine..." husband, but more than welcome! I love doing Disney with him.

Trevor couldn't miss more than one day of work, so we had to book him a flight back early Sunday morning (the other flights on Sunday were RIDICULOUSLY expensive). And he didn't have an annual pass, so the next step was to figure out his tickets. Luckily, that first Friday was the very first Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party! I was originally planning to go to the second one, on Tuesday (if I went at all, though honestly, of course I was going to go), but with Trevor only coming Friday and Saturday, we decided Friday, even with it being the first party, would be a better bet, cause then Trevor could get in at 4 pm (or 2, if we found a friendly DVC member) and we wouldn't need to buy a full day ticket. Then for Saturday, we decided to buy an "after-5 pm" convention ticket and spend the early part of the day sleeping in, enjoying Disney Springs, and maybe exploring a resort or two.

Huzzah! I spent the next 2 weeks (since that's really all we had!) figuring out my plans and trying to snag fastpasses. I was checking the app CONSTANTLY, and had lots of reservation finders going for ADRs. Lots of excitement. :) And before I knew it, my alarm was going off at 3:40 am, and I was turning to Trevor saying "can we go to Disney today?" and he was saying "yes!"
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Friday, August 16, 2019 (part 1):
Travel Day and Outlets and Sanaa and pre-MNSSHP Magic Kingdom

So why were we up at 3:40 am? Because the flight was scheduled to leave at 6:09 am. Since we were checking a bag (and 'cause I'm always nervous about being late), I didn't want to take any chances. We were in a Lyft at 4:07am (per my receipt. Blergh! So EARLY. This was not my wisest decision, which became apparent as the trip went on. But in the moment, it didn't matter, 'cause Disney!
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(that's my "I can't believe I'm up this early!" face--Trevor got a ridiculously good pic for this early!)

We got to the airport at 4:35 am, which was surprisingly busy for that early on a weekday morning. Or maybe it just felt that way 'cause this terminal is super small, so even a small group of people feels like a crowd. Either way, we checked our bags, excited to take advantage (for the first time!) of having the Magical Express deposit them in our room for us.
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Security didn't take very long, maybe 5 or 10 minutes? and then we just had to wait. I did stop and get breakfast--milk and donut holes at the Dunkin Donuts. My first real line of the trip! pro tip: this milk was nasty. Don't get it. Ever. Blech.
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We boarded on time--I had B9 and Trevor had B7 since we'd booked separate tickets and thus checked in separately. To no one's surprise, it didn't make much of a difference! :) We got a window and middle seat about halfway back on the plane.
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We were slightly delayed taking off, not taking off until about 6:30 or so, though I'm not sure why. But we landed pretty close to on time, and then got to take our first ride of the trip--the monorail! Oh wait, not quite. Still a monorail, but not *the* monorail.
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We made our way down to Magical Express (passing the construction walls covering the Disney store that used to be there...) and discovered there was practically no line. Huzzah!
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We were directed to the practically empty line for All Star Movies and there we only waited for a minute or two before we were directed to our bus.
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Looked kind of like a cruise bus but I don't care--Disney!
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I didn't make a note of how long we waited before driving off (that lack of notes will be a common thread in this trip report... :D), but 40 minutes after getting on the bus (not leaving, but getting on), I saw this beautiful sight!
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We're back! Yay!!!!

We must have stopped at other resorts because the next picture I have is time-stamped 30 minutes after this picture of the sign. No idea what resorts those were though...Oopsies! This was our first time at All-Star Movies--I'd stayed at All Star Music earlier this year with Mom, but this was Trevor's first value resort. I think Movies is a good one if it's going to be your first value. Lots and lots of Disney touches--more so than Pop or Music, I think. I loved the little theatre area they had in the lobby for the kids--stadium seating and everything!
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We'd done online checkin, and our room wasn't ready yet, so we dropped our stuff at Bell Services and headed to the Outlets! We called an uber and very shortly we were arriving at the International Outlets. This was the first time I saw this sign, and I thought it was HILARIOUS.
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I'd been seeing on facebook that the outlets had started to get really busy and there were lines all the time, but we arrived about 15/20 minutes after they opened, and there was no line to get in. The line to buy things was INSANE, but we ended up buying a LOT of things. Totally worth it.

We looked at a couple other outlets quickly, but didn't stay too long. We were starting to get hungry and we had a lunch ADR we were excited about! But first we took the uber back to All Star Movies to drop off all the stuff that we'd bought at the outlets. Our room still wasn't ready so we decided to change into our costumes for MNSSHP and just wear them to lunch. Once we'd changed and everything, we hopped on the bus over to Animal Kingdom and then got lucky with a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge arriving almost immediately. Where were we going for lunch?

Sanaa! Our ADR was at 12:30; we checked in around 12:15 and got the text almost immediately. I'd asked for a window table, but no luck this time. Oh well--can't get lucky every time! And our view wasn't too bad. We did still watch the animals and had fun that way.
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I noticed for the first time that they've got what looks like tree leaves/branches on the ceiling! Super neat.
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Our main reason for going to Sanaa was of course, the bread service.
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Trevor wanted some protein though, so he also ordered the skewers. I think this is exactly our order from when we came last September. Either way, yum.
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The bread service and skewers did not disappoint--absolutely delicious. Our server wasn't the best, but the server at the adjacent table was way more present and was able to get us an extra piece of garlic naan, so it worked out. This was where the early morning started to first catch up to us a bit. We started to feel a bit tired and get a couple of headaches. But we downed some ibuprofen and on we went--no time for tiredness at Disney!

We left at around 1:30, headed for the bus to Magic Kingdom. It was raining/sprinkling a bit, but that was ok, cause it kept it from being too hot! Our original plan was to check out the Contemporary ('cause we have literally never been inside there) until Trevor could get in at 4 pm with his MNSSHP ticket, but a lovely DVC member here on the Dis was kind enough to get us in at 2 PM (DVC members can enter at 2 pm with a MNSSHP ticket).
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Magic Kingdom lizard!!

I think this was one of the first times I've seen the Magic Kingdom in the rain--it looked gorgeous.
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One of the biggest benefits of getting in at 2 pm was that we were in time to see the Festival of Fantasy parade! I was really excited, 'cause I wanted Trevor to see Maleficent breathing fire, but didn't think it would work out--either we'd arrive too late, or the rain would cancel the parade. But Tink sprinkled her pixie dust and it all lined up beautifully. We ended up getting a spot right at the rope in front of the Liberty Square Market.
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We had a PERFECT view. I've never really seen the back of Ariel's shell, but look how fancy!
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By the time the parade started, it was only sprinkling lightly, so it worked out perfectly. There were some elements that weren't in the parade (the three good fairies weren't there, and the guys on the Rapunzel float were sitting rather than standing), I assume due to the parade, but we got to see the dragon breathing fire, so it was a win! What a fantastic start to our Magic Kingdom time.

Once the parade was over, we (though really, I) decided it was time for some shopping! We ran over to Memento Mori and were looking at all the awesome Haunted Mansion stuff they had for the 50th anniversary of the ride in Disneyland. We even looked at the "ghost in a jar". But we had fastpasses we needed to use, so off we went to ride Winnie the Pooh before it expired! Such a cute fun little ride.
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But the "ghost in a jar" was calling our names--after riding Winnie the Pooh, we went back to Memento Mori and adopted Constance (the bride) in a jar. They did a super fun little ceremony where the CM asked Madame Leota if we were ok to "adopt" Constance in a jar and such. For $50 (including the AP discount) it was a bit pricey, but it's a really fun souvenir.
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After adopting Constance (and having her shipped back to our hotel--this perk is SO worth it...though maybe not 'since we do buy more than we might would otherwise if we had to carry it), it was time for our Seven Dwarves Mine Train fastpass!

The fastpass line was a little backed up, but the rain had essentially stopped by then, so we had a great ride.
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I do like that SDMT gives you two photos from two different angles so if you're blocked in one (like Trevor was...) hopefully you won't be blocked in the other. Good job Disney. :)

After SDMT, the plan was to continue the coaster theme and head to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Trevor couldn't remember if he liked it or not, so was excited to ride it again and decide for sure if he liked it. He doesn't like really high or intense coasters, so I figured Big Thunder was fine, but he wanted to double check. But first--Tangled toilets!
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Then Big Thunder! I didn't really take a whole ton of pictures, but I did take one of Trevor in line that I liked.
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His smile after the ride was just as big! He liked it a lot. Yay! :)

Next up: MNSSHP celebrations!
 
Following along! :wave2:
Welcome! So excited to have you! :)

I am here and following along!!!


Ugh, that thread was so stressful!!! So glad you were able to get a slot!
Welcome! So glad you're here! :) And yes--that thread was RIDICULOUSLY stressful. I was following the thread on the morning that people started to be able to get reservations (but before emails went out) and I was panicking that I couldn't get in and get a spot...and then it all worked out. But SO stressful. I felt so bad for all the people who couldn't get a spot.

Yay! I'm in and looking forward to it!
Welcome! So excited you're looking forward to it--I'm excited to share :)
 


I feel you on the early morning flight - I love to fly on Southwest and I always end up on a crazy early flight when traveling to Orlando. Despite the early hour at least it gives me more Disney time!

It looks like you made the most of your early arrival between your lunch at Sanaa and your early entry into MK. Hopefully you had a great time at the party!
 
Friday, August 16, 2019 (part 2):
Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party Before Dark

After riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, it was a little after 4 pm, so we decided to head to the front of the park and go through the Main Street Bypass (and pick up my Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom party card :D). I like going through the bypass--its a good way to get into the MNSSHP mood. :)
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Happy Halloween!!

We of course stopped to take some photopass shots.
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The one with Donald turned out well, but the curse of one of our heads covering Minnie's head continued. I had Trevor take some pics and he didn't realize my head was covering Minnie's face, and then a photographer took some shots of both me and Trevor and still didn't get Minnie in the shot. Oh well--guess we'll just have to go back next year. Darn. :) Also, I really like the magic shot, cause Trevor's head is perfectly positioned to replace Minnie's head. He looks good with a princess hat, don't you think?
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Bollard selfie! Hi there Mickey!
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From the bypass, we decided to head over to fastpass the Jungle Cruise. We had ended up having a fantastic cruise: our skipper was hilarious--I still remember his name. First name Skipper, last name Kyle. :) When the Jungle Cruise skippers are on, this is one of my favorite rides. With the Disney move towards automation (like replacing the photographers at some of the character meet and greets with boxes/automated picture), I hope they never replace the Skippers. The ride would lose all its charm!
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How much would it cost to stay in that hut as a hotel room? Though if I were gonna stay inside the park, I'd rather stay in the Haunted Mansion or in the Castle Dream Suite (ooooh wouldn't the dream suite be amazing? Dreams... :D)

After the Jungle Cruise, guess what time it was: Dole Whip time!
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We got the raspberry pineapple float and it was AMAZING. I loved it a lot. Still hot out, as you can tell by the rather melty photo. Still good though. Raspberry is one of my favorite flavors though so I was already inclined to love it.

After the Dole Whip, we had a fastpass for Buzz Lightyear, so we were heading through the hub when I noticed a line near the garden that they use for the dessert party. That reminded me: it was the zoom-in/zoom-out magic shot that I wanted to get! I would have totally forgot, so I was glad there was a line. We hopped in line and about 10 minutes later were done. Not too shabby! And it's a really fun magic shot--you get the close up shot, the zoomed in shot, and then a video. The line moves a bit slowly, but I think its worth it.


When we got to Tomorrowland, the fastpass line for Buzz was really long, so we decided to ride the Peoplemover!
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Trevor was really excited to get a shot of the Tron construction to send to Tim Tracker. We love watching the Tim Tracker vlogs and he does construction updates periodically, and has said that the Peoplemover is a great place to get a view of Tron construction, so Trevor was excited to see it.

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Moving pretty fast! Can't wait for it to be done--it looks like an awesome coaster.

After the Peoplemover ride, the fastpass line for Buzz had died down, so off we went to save the galaxy. Trevor is very focused. Me? not so much... :) As reflected by my score, since Trevor won. Boo :(
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At that point, it was 6:01 (per the time stamp on my photo). It was still hot enough that I thought it'd be fun to ride Splash Mountain, and since it was 6 pm and the park was officially closed, we figured the line wouldn't be too bad (since there'd be no fastpass people and so on). So back through the hub we went, crossing through Liberty Square. As we went through the square, I noticed people had started lining up at the popcorn cart--I thought they were lining up for the Wedding Cake party treat, but the guy in line that I asked said that they were waiting for the Hitchhiking Ghost popcorn bucket. Which I didn't even know they'd be selling! And as a huge Haunted Mansion fan I decided on the spot that I wanted it. But I figured it was only 6:10, plenty of time to ride Splash Mountain and then go back to get in line to get the wedding cake and (hopefully) the Hitchhiking Ghost popcorn bucket.

I was wrong. The line for Splash Mountain was SUPER long. It was posted at 40 minutes and was wrapped all the way around outside using several of the switchbacks. Trevor and I stood in line for two or three minutes, and the line wasn't moving at all, so we decided to ditch Splash Mountain and head back to Liberty Square to get in line for the wedding cake and popcorn bucket.

We got in line around 6:25 or so; the line had grown a good bit.
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It wasn't too bad a wait though. Trevor went to get water for us from Pecos Bills, and while he was gone, the CMs were walking up and down the line showing the popcorn bucket and saying the price, making sure everyone knew that this popcorn cart was only selling the one bucket and that if you wanted the other two you had to go to the other locations.

They started selling the buckets early--about 6:45 pm. The line moved really quickly, and by 6:50 I had my bucket and wedding cake! Trevor and I grabbed a seat on the stone borders across from the popcorn part and started eating. But first, instatube photos!
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It was really good--my only complaint was that I felt it needed more chocolate to balance out the fruitiness of the creme. Also, the foil plate on the black plastic base? Super slippery! We almost dropped it like 4 times. But we didn't, and it was yummy. :)

We stayed sitting there until the announcement officially starting the party. Yay Ghost Host!

Our two initial goals were to hear the Cadaver Dans and meet the Gravediggers, both things we didn't get to do last year. Well, we got to hear the last minute or so of the Cadaver Dans set, but we wanted to hear a full show. Right after the announcement, we got up and saw them come out for their first set, and got a front row view. Yay!
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I love their costumes! Especially the bowler hat guy with money coming out of all his pockets.

They are hilarious--lots of stupid jokes (along the lines of the Jungle Cruise). I loved it. And they sang the best songs! Grim Grinning Ghosts and Boo to You, as well as a couple other ones. I really really enjoyed it.

After their set, we asked several CMs where the Gravediggers were, and got several different answers until finally got told they were meeting at the gazebo in Liberty Square, which was actually where they were. On our way, we stopped for a picture, cause I have an addiction to stopping for photopass photographers, especially ones in semi-unusual places.
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Once we got to the gazebo though, the line was longer than I would have liked. Not super long, but probably 10 or so groups in front of us. It worked out though! One of the other things I wanted to do was get the hitchhiking ghosts magic shot, which was conveniently happening right next to the gazebo. We got the shot last year, but we were facing the wrong way--instead of being in line with the ghosts we were looking at them (they were facing front and we were facing to the side). This year I wanted to all face the same way. So were able to hop over, get our picture, and then hop back into the gravedigger's queue. Yay!
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We were 3 groups from the front when the Gravediggers took a break, so we chilled on the rock wall there. It was nice! Cool, the fog was starting to roll in, it was just starting to get dark...it was a nice break, actually. And the photopass photographer went down the line taking magic shots, so that was an unexpected bonus. :)
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We had a great interaction with them though--Trevor was wearing his "Beware of Hitchhiking Ghosts" pin, and they really liked that. Or seemed interested in it? As appropriate for dead/undead gravediggers, tehy were very intense, and didn't say a word. I loved it. :) If you like the Haunted Mansion at all, definitely do this meet!
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We got done with the meet and greet at 7:50, so we decided to head over to ride the Haunted Mansion. EXCEPT! We ran into a couple that had the Hitchhiking Ghost sipper cup as well as the rainbow glow cube and they were like "you can get both of these at Columbia Harbour House and there's no line and it closes in 10 minutes!" and so I decided to run over to CHH while Trevor got in line at the Haunted Mansion. There was indeed a line at Columbia Harbour House (they were not at all very organized at the counter...it was kind of ridiculous--almost everyone was ordering the sipper but they had one guy who would go in the back for each one--didn't have a box or even get two at a time, but a separate trip each time. Ridiculous), but at least I got them! Glow cube and Hitchhiking Ghost sipper. Yay! That was two of the three hitchhiking ghosts... :) And I also got a cup of Fanta Orange--gotta keep hydrated. :)
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Also, who doesn't love Madame Renata on the Haunted Mansion lawn?

I'll leave you there...next up? Haunted Mansion, Parade, and fireworks!
 
I feel you on the early morning flight - I love to fly on Southwest and I always end up on a crazy early flight when traveling to Orlando. Despite the early hour at least it gives me more Disney time!

It looks like you made the most of your early arrival between your lunch at Sanaa and your early entry into MK. Hopefully you had a great time at the party!
Right? It's that trade off of "oh my gosh so early" and "oh my gosh, more Disney time!"
We really did! It was a great party, despite being the first.

We had the skewers this time and really liked them.


You guys are too cute!!!
Oh I'm glad you enjoyed them! Sanaa is a hidden gem, I think.
Thank you! :)
 
You did so many fun things - several of which I've never seen in a party review! I especially love the pictures with the gravediggers. Hopefully the fact that you managed to get on rides and get good Photopass shots means that your party was a little less crowded than the others that I've read about lately?

Your snacks also look great! I've never heard about that wedding cake (quite charming! :laughing:) and I actually like the look of your Dole Whip Float. I had a float a few years ago and thought it was just okay... but I also love anything raspberry and perhaps its addition would improve the treat for me!
 
Friday, August 16, 2019 (part 3):
MNSSHP Boo to You Parade!

So I left off with us waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion. It was posted as a 25 or 30 minute wait, but it wasn't long at all, maybe 10 minutes? Mostly just enough time to wend your way through the line. We usually fastpass Haunted Mansion so it was kind of fun to see the regular standby queue. And the sun was going down and the fog was coming and the lights were coming up...it was awesome.
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We weren't really sure where the ride camera was...
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I was having fun trying to take pictures on the ride--not too bad!
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Afterwards, we waited in line for the picture with the ghost driving the hearse, because it was a different ghost image this year than last year. The line was not long at all (nothing at all like we waited last year), but I almost wished it were longer just to enjoy the HM atmosphere and listen to Renata and Broome interact with guests 'cause they are hilarious.
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I would apologize for all the Haunted Mansion photos but....I'm not sorry. :)

We finished and it was about 8:45 pm, so we decided to head over to Frontierland and try and grab a spot for the parade (scheduled to start at 9:15). It was way more crowded than I expected (though I should have guessed, considering this was the very first party and the first parade), but we got lucky and managed to grab a spot right at the rope. I left Trevor to guard our spot and then ran over to Pecos Bills to grab the Hades Nachos--protein! We needed protein!
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I got the big glob of sour cream because I'm a weenie about spice. But these nachos were really good. We really really liked them. Not too spicy, really good flavor--it was fantastic. A bit hard to eat in the dark (since we were trying to avoid spilling on our white clothes), but absolutely delicious. The process of getting them wasn't great--it took me 20 minutes to get them and get back (this picture is time stamped 9:05). Pecos Bills was a ridiculous madhouse. Blech. But the nachos were worth it.

Then the parade started.

Who doesn't love the horseman? :)

Since we were at the rope, we tried to stay sitting down for the parade, but one of the cast members was stationed immediately to our right and really ended up blocking part of our view. That was a bit of a bummer, but hey, all things considered, not too bad. We did end up standing up about halfway through the parade. (Also, it started sprinkling while we were waiting for the parade, but thankfully after the Headless Horseman came and it was only sprinkles, not too bad at all).

My favorite part of the parade though was the Bride in the Ghost Dancers section. SO COOL!
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(see, there's the Cast Member...*sigh*)

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We also got lucky in that the Mrs Incredible float was working perfectly for this part of the parade. It was cool, but nothing super exciting.

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I love these Buzz Lightyear dancer costumes!

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Next: Fireworks and the rest of MNSSHP
 
Friday, August 16, 2019 (part 4):
MNSSHP Fireworks and Trick or Treat Trails!

With the Parade over, we hustled our way behind the castle and through Fantasyland. Our original plan was to ride the teacups (with the overlay) and then head to the hub from Fantasyland side to grab a spot for the fireworks. But there was a line for the teacups (what?!) so we just kept going to the hub. The castle was so pretty though, I had to grab a pic.
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We ended up grabbing a spot against the railing near one of those gardens off to the side (where the red circle is). I'd watched the fireworks in February with Mom from a very similar spot (I think we were right by the little garden closest to the Tomorrowland bridge), so I figured it would be a good spot for these fireworks.
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It worked out to be a really good spot, actually. We made it there as the parade was finishing going through the hub, so there was a bit of crowd overlap from the people leaving the parade heading to something else, but there was (as expected) a fair amount of people not moving (since they also wanted to see the parade. But we weren't very crowded, at least until right before the fireworks started. And since we had half an hour til the fireworks started, it was about 25 minutes before where we were got really crowded. We took advantage to sit on the fence/rest that way a bit.
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Every so often, there was a thunder sound effect and lightning effect that would change the projection on the castle to make it look a bit scary.
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The fireworks that first night were delayed a tiny little bit (maybe 5 or 10 minutes? I can't remember); the poor family next to us had 3 kids who were just so exhausted--I felt bad for them about the delay. But when the fireworks started, they were awesome. I think most of the online complaints about needing/wanting more familiar music is right, but the projections were amazing. I loved the skeletons, but the ballroom scene was my favorite--the music was the Disney princess songs but played in minor keys. Creepy and gorgeous. I only took one picture of the fireworks--I really just wanted to watch them and enjoy them. So sorry--only one picture!
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We were even able to see the Jack puppet (we had to bob our heads around a bit), and as you can see in the picture there were a few tall people near us, but luckily they moved enough to be mostly out of our view. Overall though, we really enjoyed these fireworks. I liked them a lot better than Hallowishes--we only saw Hallowishes one time (last year) and I wasn't really impressed. But I liked this new show a lot.

Once the fireworks were over, we made a break through the crowds over into Tomorrowland. The plan was to ride Space Mountain, but I miscalculated and we went through Monsters Inc first, since I had no idea what the MNSSHP overlay was and I wasn't sure if there would be lines. So as we were racing past, I saw that there were no lines, so we ducked in. It was cute--they had Mike Wazowski's nephew up on the screen telling jokes and we got two treat stops--but I doubt there'd be any line for this at any time after the party really started. So even though we got a lot of candy, when we got out and I saw the INSANE line for Space Mountain (like, almost back to Stitch), I was kicking myself. We should have just gone right on to Space Mountain.

Well. We weren't willing to wait in that line for Space Mountain, so we headed over to the Tea Cups. We actually stopped at Cosmic Rays on the way for a bathroom break. Trevor went to the bathroom and I just went through the trick or treat trail like 10 times. Woot, candy!

But then the tea cups! No wait this time, so that was cool. I really like this overlay--it's fun with the strobe colored lights.
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After the teacups, we didn't really take any pictures, so we'll see how good my memory is! We'd pretty well accomplished everything we meant to, so at that point I think we decided to head back to Fantasyland to see Belle and Gaston meet (since Trevor really likes watching Gaston meet people). We did get a picture in front of the Little Mermaid castle.
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Then, I dropped Trevor off to watch Gaston and Belle (the line was too long for us to want to actually meet them) and I headed off to do trick or treating. I did several laps through Ariel's Grotto and then headed over to the Big Top area: did a quick lap through the souvenir shop there just to see what they had, and then did another trick or treat trail. Then I ran back into Trevor--apparently Gaston and Belle had gone to take a break almost immediately after he started watching, so we did some more trick or treating, and then we decided to head back towards Space Mountain. We figured if the line was still long, we'd duck in right before park close and then not waste park time waiting in line. On our way there we rode Tomorrowland Speedway cause the line was short. I had a good ride, but Trevor got stuck behind a kid who was only just tall enough to reach the peddles so he kept stopping. Oh well!

But then the Space Mountain line wasn't bad at all--we only waited maybe 5 minutes? And we jumped the line a bit more since they were calling out for a party of two and so we got to go. It was awesome! I really like Space Mountain in the dark.
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As we got off Space Mountain, it was like 10 minutes before the party ended, and we ran into the end of the Monsters dance party! And when I say the end, I mean we saw the characters heading backstage. Boo was so cute! Trevor ran to try and get a picture of her, but this was all he was able to get.
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We started meandering slowly towards the exit, as you never really want a day at Magic Kingdom to end. But our party night wasn't over quite yet--as we walked through the hub, we ended up seeing Tim and Jenn Tracker (of the Tim Tracker vlog)!
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There was a line to meet them--I guess an impromptu, not-really-character meet 'n' greet? :) We really like watching their vlogs, and Trevor really wanted to meet them, so we waited a bit and were able to meet them and wish them congratulations on their pregnancy/thank them for the entertainment their vlogs provide, and get a photo. It's not a very good photo--I always pose so weird!
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But we were really excited we got the chance to meet them. :)

With that, the party was over, we were tired, so we headed out of the park (along with everyone else). I took some last pictures of the fun Halloween decorations though!
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So pretty!

That last picture is timestamped 12:17am; I have no memory of how long it took to get a bus so I'm gonna say that it was probably pretty quick, 'cause if we had to wait a long time I think I would have been annoyed and I tend to remember that (no I don't hold grudges; I dunno what you mean? :D). We were exhausted--we'd been up since about 3:30am, almost 24 hours. And we're old--we can't do 24 hours straight anymore! :) But back at the hotel Trevor headed directly to the room to check if they had indeed delivered our checked bags from the Magical Express, while I waited in the lobby to pick up the bags we dropped at Bell Services. Luckily they had delivered our checked bags, and so I grabbed our carryon bags from Bell Services and headed to our room.

Our room was a preferred room, but it was probably one of the furthest preferred rooms. It was 8722: first floor in the Fantasia section. We were so exhausted that I forgot to take room pictures that night, so I'm inserting some pictures that I took right before leaving on my last day (ignore the slightly rumpled bed!). :)
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It was a refurbished room (do they have any non-refurbished ones left?) and we really liked it. Having the table was really nice, cause we only needed the one bed and so we got to have the extra space and the table. It just felt really clean and neat, but still Disney with the Mickey pictures over the bed. I would definitely stay here again.

Anyways, back to Friday night, post-MNSSHP! We got into the room and were just exhausted. We basically took showers and collapsed into bed. But first, one last photo op: our candy haul! With Trevor's hand for scale.
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Keep in mind, this is a pile (so it's even more than it looks like) and we ONLY did trick or treat trails for that very last hour. Not too shabby! I was really grateful Trevor was flying home southwest so he had a free checked bag, cause the candy was heavy! :) And we totally have saved all the snickers/candy with nuts to give out on Halloween here. Is that weird? I don't even care.

So yea, overall, a fantastic fantastic day. A bit tired in the middle of the day, but adrenaline kept us going through the end of the party. We did everything we wanted to do except for riding Pirates, and we probably could have done that if we were willing to brave crossing through the hub during that last hour of the party, but we decided we'd rather stay and do trick/treat trails and ride Space Mountain. It was the first party, so it was more crowded than the mid-week party we went to last year, but for the most part we didn't feel like the crowds infringed on our enjoyment. We even saw Cruella De Ville wandering around all by herself in Fantasyland around 11 pm or so. The crowds for the parade and fireworks were pretty intense, but that was to be expected with the new parade elements and the new fireworks at the very first party. But we'd done the planning beforehand and it worked out really well. A fantastic, fantastic time. :)

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 21684 (8.8 miles)
Ride count: 10 (Winnie the Pooh, 7DMT, BTMRR, Jungle Cruise, Peoplemover, Buzz Lightyear, Haunted Mansion, Tea Cups, Tomorrowland Speedway, and Space Mountain)

Next up: Trevor's last day! :( Disney Springs, Storybook Dining, and Hollywood Studios!


 
You did so many fun things - several of which I've never seen in a party review! I especially love the pictures with the gravediggers. Hopefully the fact that you managed to get on rides and get good Photopass shots means that your party was a little less crowded than the others that I've read about lately?

Your snacks also look great! I've never heard about that wedding cake (quite charming! :laughing:) and I actually like the look of your Dole Whip Float. I had a float a few years ago and thought it was just okay... but I also love anything raspberry and perhaps its addition would improve the treat for me!

The gravediggers meet is fantastic! I can't recommend it enough. As far as crowds, we went to the first party of the season, but it didn't sell out. So no idea how the crowds compared--it did feel crowded at the parade and fireworks, and we saw more lines at the rides (with overlays) than expected, but with our plan and being willing to do stuff in that last hour, we were able to get pretty much everything we wanted. The only thing we missed was riding Pirates with the overlay. That is caveated with the fact that we didn't do hardly any of the MNSSHP magic shots, mostly 'cause the majority were repeats from last year. Some of the lines for the magic shots (especially the hatbox ghost magic shot) seemed really long, so if we were waiting for those we may not have been able to get everything we wanted.

Oooh, yes, definitely try the dole whip with raspberry soft serve. I don't have any special feelings for the regular dole whip--I love the regular dole whip float though (I like the addition of the tart juice)--but the addition of the raspberry really makes it delicious. Hopefully you get a chance to try it! :D
 
Wow! So many great pictures of the parade! I've seen many pictures of the headless horseman in reports but not as many as the rest of the parade. Thank you for including them!

It sounds like you had a great end to your evening, between the parade, the fireworks (great single picture!), and your rides and candy haul. (Holy cow, that's a TON of candy!)

I'm impressed you were able to stay at the party as long as you did - it really is difficult to stay awake for so many hours the older you get! If only I had been as big of a Disney nut when I was in my early twenties - imagine how many more rides I could've gone on and things I could've seen as I wouldn't have needed to sleep! :laughing:
 
It was really good--my only complaint was that I felt it needed more chocolate to balance out the fruitiness of the creme.

I agree, I really liked it too, but I do like cakes that have more chocolate than fruitness.

As appropriate for dead/undead gravediggers, tehy were very intense, and didn't say a word. I loved it. :)

I love this! We didn't get to the Gravediggers, but wanted to.

There was a line to meet them--I guess an impromptu, not-really-character meet 'n' greet? :) We really like watching their vlogs, and Trevor really wanted to meet them, so we waited a bit and were able to meet them and wish them congratulations on their pregnancy/thank them for the entertainment their vlogs provide, and get a photo.

Aw, I'm glad that you got to meet them. I met Tim in Magic Kingdom a couple years ago, and he was so nice!
 
Following along. Looking forward to reading more. Nice candy haul. How cool you got to meet the Trackers . I would love to see them or any Dis unplugged member in the parks .
 
Saturday, August 17, 2019 (part 1):
Disney Springs

We fell into bed at around 2 am (had to unpack a bit, take showers, etc). The plan was to sleep in, so we didn't set any alarms. But it's me, and Disney, and I woke up around 7:30. Didn't actually get up until about 8:30 (spent an hour or so playing on my phone and trying to sleep), but still, earlier than we anticipated being up. I guess the Disney magic is infectious!

We did take our time getting ready though. I took some pictures of the outside of our room as we left to go to breakfast, and those are time stamped 9:42 am. Apparently we definitely took our time! We also stopped at the front desk so we could decline Mousekeeping and get our $50 gift card in exchange. Yes please! I don't like housekeeping coming normally, and I can get a gift card if I officially say no Mousekeeping? uh, of course! Guess how long that gift card lasted? I'll give you a hint...less than an hour.

But All Star Movies is a lovely resort, as Value resorts go. I think I liked it better than Music, but to be fair we don't hardly use any of the amenities (I have never yet been in a Disney resort pool; I should do that at some point), so it was just based on the rooms and the room at Movies was refurbished, while the Music room was not. So, take my opinion with a giant grain of salt.
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So whimsical!

But where we heading for breakfast? I'll give you a hint:
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Still need a hint?
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Mickey beignets! Best breakfast ever. Seriously. :) We did this last year and loved it, so decided we had to do it again. And since Trevor didn't have a park ticket until later tonight, we decided to Disney Springs this morning. What is better than eating a Mickey beignet while riding the boat down to Disney Springs? Not much, I'll tell you that.
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It wasn't too sunny, just a lovely day. And as we were pulling into Disney Springs, I got this picture perfect shot--reminds me of the Disney Springs background image on the Disney channel on the tvs:
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When we got to the Springs, our first stop was to the Marketplace Co-Op, specifically the Dress Shop. I'd seen articles a few days before online about how the Harvey's Haunted Mansion bag (from the Disneyland 50th anniversary celebration) was popping up for purchase here, despite being "sold out" at Disneyland. I thought about trying to stop by after we landed the day before, but figured I'd just check when we planned to be at Disney Springs anyways, rather than trying to make a separate trip. And I'd hope they had some.

Well, we got to the Co-Op about 15/20 minutes after they opened, and I saw a lady at the register purchasing one! So I got all excited and asked the other CM there if they had anymore. The response? The lady purchasing the purse at that register was buying the very last one.
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The supervisor CM (there were three there at the counter) piped up, that he'd be happy to check in the back and see if they happened to have any left. I perked up and said a giant "please!" and off he went. In the meantime I was looking around at all the pretty dresses and purses...didn't buy any, but they were lots of fun to look at!

After about 5 minutes, the supervisor CM came back, holding a large box.
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Success!! The box was full of Haunted Mansion purses. I totally bought one. With my 20% AP discount and the $50 gift card for declining Mousekeeping, it was only ("only"...hah) about $100. Not too shabby! (Also I yanked these pics from shopdisney 'cause I'm too lazy to go upstairs and take ones myself. Isn't it pretty?)
The Haunted Mansion Tote by SHAG and Harveys
The Haunted Mansion Tote by SHAG and Harveys


So that definitely started our day off on a high! We spent the next couple of hours just shopping around Disney Springs. Found some fun merchandise, including awesome Emporer's New Groove and Goofy Movie pins.
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We also made a substantial stop at Goofy's Candy Company and ended up buying 4 custom rice krispies. Cause those things are amazingly delicious. All the goodies looked so good though--lookit these:
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We also spent a lot of money at World of Disney--Mary Poppins kitchen towels, a Mary Poppins baseball cap...I'm weak! But hey, Trevor bought himself a Boba Fett Star Wars t-shirt at Uniqlo, so he's weak too. :) Though to be fair, his shirt was like $6 and my Mary Poppins stuff was....more. Still fun though.

We were getting kind of hungry after being in Uniqlo and it started raining, so we decided it was time for lunch! We speedwalked/ran between the raindrops from Uniqlo over to Jock Lindsay's Hangar Bar and managed to make it without getting too wet. And despite the rain, we ended up sitting outside cause it was cooler. They had all the screens and such down so we didn't get wet.
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Why Jock Lindsay's? Well, partially 'cause I love Indy, but because I'd seen a new dish on DisneyFoodBlog that looked super fun. What was it? Here, I'll show you, rather than tell you:
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The Temple of Bacon! Per the menu, "thick cut Applewood Smoked Bacon dipped in Ganachery Milk Chocolate and Chipotle Ganache". Trevor loves bacon, but not so much bacon with sweet things, so this was mostly me getting it for the presentation and the cool factor. And it's definitely more good than delicious, but it was pretty good. Just too much bacon to eat all at once (and also expensive for essentially 5 slices of bacon!) Trevor had like half of one slice, I had one and a half slices, and then saved the other three to eat later.
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Anyways, a couple strips of bacon dipped in chocolate does not a lunch make! So we also got the "Lomo Saltado - Peruvian Flank Steak". This was delicious. Really really good. Highly recommend.
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After lunch, we headed across the way to the Ganachery. Had to grab some of those test tubes of crispy pearls, but also the chocolate chiller!
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And in case we didn't have enough sweets, we had to stop at Amorette's Patisserie. It's now basically a tradition where I grab a petit cake from Amorette's and eat it for breakfast for a few days. This time around, we got the Unicorn cake! So cute.
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With our chocolate and sweets procured, we decided it was time to head back to the resort to drop the food off and take a nap. The late night and lack of sleep the day before had kind of caught up with us (a little bit :) ).
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Just a teeny little bit. :)

I will say the buses at Disney Springs back to the resort kind of suck--we had to wait like half an hour or so. Oh well. Back to the resort we went where we crashed for half an hour/45 minutes or so. Probably should have headed back to the hotel earlier so we could get a bit of a longer nap, but I'm still working on the whole "don't push yourself too hard on vacation" thing. And Trevor's too nice (and/or having too much fun himself) to put his foot down and be like "no, we need to go back to the hotel." Enabler.

I should probably stop here so I don't end up hitting the picture limit and having to do a weird break later. Tune in next time to see where we go after our super short nap!
 

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