So...back at home and settling into a routine. I ended up taking an extra day off to spend time with our puppy and moved up a doc appointment. Yesterday morning I had to drop Harley the puppy off for her spay surgery.
This was taken when she was home on Wednesday. Now she is currently sporting the "cone of shame"...poor thing. Hoping she heals soon.
Anyway a quick recap of our trip for you before I do a detailed day-to-day report.
Autotrain: This mode of travel was enjoyable as always. We sure do miss the days of the wine and cheese happy hour, but we brought along our own wine and enjoyed that, though not as much as another group who clearly had boozed it up from the moment they arrived on the train as walking past their room it smelled like a brewery! DH and I were seated with two burly biker guys at dinner and they seemed none-too-happy about the "meal" served as I don't think it was enough food for either of them. Still they were nice to talk to and overall we enjoyed our time. Even with sleeper cars, "sleep" on a train isn't the best but it was okay. We actually arrived early to the station in Sanford despite some delays on the trip down, and paying for priority unloading of our vehicle was worth it.
Resort (CBR): Ok so honestly don't recall what section I requested, but didn't think it was Aruba...but it could have been as I changed it so much based on readings here. Honestly it wasn't my favorite. I like the ability to grab late-night snacks like cupcakes and such and that was a challenge here. They did have a small counter service area outside of the buffet tent that was open late so I could get a Mickey Ice Cream bar one night. It was a bit of a walk over there, so I think I would have preferred Jamaica. The rooms however were fine and perfectly comfortable, no complaints there. DD and I rode the "internal" bus one day over to Trinidad North to get lunch at Spyglass Grill. I will say that place is worth the hype, ate there twice and enjoyed it both times. The tacos were delicious and I had a kids salad with shrimp that was also pretty good. We did enjoy that we had the "quiet" pool at Aruba mostly to ourselves each time we used it, so that was pretty nice. I didn't care about the construction honestly, but I would love to see the place once it's all finished.
Parks: I didn't think crowds were insane at all. We managed to snag some 4th and more FPs a few times. We did standby on things quite a bit too. I think the new TSL crowds make it easier to ride some other stuff, as we did Tower one day a few times with almost no wait for it really. It was nice to have the line not be winding outside in the courtyard area. And speaking of TSL, really loved the new area, never waited to get into the area, rode each of the new rides twice (one using FP and one using standby) and just did TSM standby a few times. The SDD coaster is adorable and fun so I had to ride it a second time at night, getting in line right before the 10:30pm park closing was key...we waited only 20 minutes then. The queues for both of those new rides though...as bad as they say, outside with little to no real air flow or fans. It would be miserable on a hot hot day, we did standby in the evening when it had cooled off a TINY bit at least and no sun. We had overall pretty good weather, a few evening thunderstorms but didn't impact us too much.
Waterparks: We visited both TL and BB, and TL was having issues with the wave pool on the day we were there which sucked. We did ride a few slides and did the lazy river there though. We visited BB earlier in the day and did some slides and lounging there as well. Enjoyed both except the lines for the slides. It's so much better to visit these parks later in the day if you want to do the slides.
Food: So we cancelled a few planned ADRs, made it to some restaurants which we hadn't visited in a long time, and returned to some favorites. I can say for sure that Sci Fi Dine-In was just...meh. I don't need to return there but it was fun to try it again after about an 11 year hiatus. Via Napoli is still a favorite, they sang Happy Birthday to my son in Italian after he polished off a pizza on his own. 'OHana was delightful, our server was fabulous, I ate way too much and I learned that I do love the Lapu Lapu drink and of course the bread pudding was wonderful. Mama Melrose was also good but I felt the service there was lacking a bit, quite slow. Skipper Canteen was just okay, the food was good but we didn't have a very fun server like DS and I had on our last trip. She really wasn't entertaining at all and that was part of what made our first visit there so great that we wanted to return. We probably don't need to go back. Sanaa was very good as always, I'm sure we'll keep returning there. Same goes for the Plaza, though it's nothing special it's still a nice "last" day at MK place to go for a meal. I had the Strawberry Chicken Salad which was good. And as for counter service, as I mentioned already Spyglass Grill at CBR was wonderful...worth the visit, though the wait times for food were always a bit long. Other than that, we had food at Sunshine Seasons (breakfast) and I know some of my family did the buffet breakfast at CBR and said it was good. Oh and I nearly forgot, our last day we did the Wave for breakfast and REALLY enjoyed this one. Fresh fruit was good, made to order omelet was also good, worth a visit for sure. My family also headed off property for breakfast a few times, one morning I took two of the kids to Dunkin Donuts to get some food before our waterpark day.
So I think that sums up most things. Any questions, ask away and hopefully I'll post more soon.