No More Cheesecake! 10/9-10/14 Pop Century

[KGH]

My first attempt at a trip report... my 748937598 attempt at a trip. Let's hope both turn out mildly successful!

So, first things first, here are the details of the trip:

Who: Me and my boyfriend, 22 and 23 respectively.
Where: Pop Century.
When: Oct. 9-14th.
We had 6 day parkhoppers and the basic dining plan for this trip, and yu'll hear about our ADRs aw we go along.

Now, a bit about day one.... we had a 7:20 flight, which meant up at 4am to get to the airport on time. Considering we both have jobs, and I'm still a full time student, we didn't get back to our apartment the night before till around 11 or so, and then there was the matter of packing... After a last minute trip to the 24-hour walmart because someone needed shampoo (not me, really!) we got roughly 30 seconds of shut eye before we found ourselves piling into the car. You know how everyone is always saying they are too excited to sleep? Bull. I'll freely admit that I get more excited about Disney than most 6 year olds do, and yet I wanted NOTHING MORE than a nap. Oh well, I booked the early flights, might as well buck up and deal with it.

So we got the the airport about an hour before our flight, maybe a little later. I am an anal retentive planner, one who believes wholeheartedly in checking in for your flight 2 or 5 hours beforehand, but the free spirited gentlemen friend in less inclined to a.) be on time or b.) get ANYWHERE early. So, we checking in to our flight (southwest) and were told we could not get boarding passes at this time. I've flown southwest approx. 95 million times in my life, and never NOT gotten a boarding pass... so I figured it couldn't be good... but we proceeded to the gate anyway, where we learned that the 2 of us were among the 3 people without boarding passes, and there were only 2 spots left on the plane. Had we been, say, 30 seconds later than we were, the other guy probably would have gotten one of our spots, and one of us would be sitting in airport... well, I can tell you which one would be getting left behind, but luckily it didn't come to that. So , anyway, we were the last 2 people to get on board, and couldn't sit anywhere near each other, but we got there, and all is well that ends well!

After a pretty smooth Magical Express process, we found ourselves checking in to POP Century. This was the first time for me to stay at a value resort, and I was a little nervous. I'd read up on Pop all around the dis, but I was apprehensive about bus lines being out of control, and the resort being loud and full of screaming kids all the time... I was VERY pleasantly suprised! I loved Pop, and already booked a return trip for September (free dining woot woot!)

Our room was ready, so we made our way there and cleaned up for our first park trip. We decided on Magic Kingdom, 'cause I had worked there as a CP and was feeling nostalgic (nostolgic for the smelly tunnels and the AVAC system... who knew!?!)

We hopped on the EMPTY bus, and made our way over to the semi-crowded magic kindgom. On my arbitrary scale of crowds, I'd give it like a 7, 10 being thnaksgiving day (aka, you can't breathe withouht ingesting atleast 50 calories of turkey leg from the guy next to you.) and 1 being absolutely empty, with myself and close personal friends being the only guests. Should that ever occur, that'd be a one.

Once we arrived at MK we grabbed lunch at Pinochio's Village Haus. It was fairly busy, considering that it was around 1:00pm. We were able to find a table and enjoyed our meals of chicken nuggets and pizza, before heading out to Frontierland and Adventureland. We checked out Jungle Cruise (as lame and amazing as ever!) and shared a dole whip. (Yeah, they're pretty good). We stopped to watch the 3:00 parade (it had been 10 months but I still know every word!)

After a few hours of sweating in the MK, we hopped a bus to Hollywood Studios, which I can't for the life of me stop calling MGM. We had a 7:00 ADR at the 50's Prime Time. It was AMAZING!

We got seated early, and Aunt Claire was our server. As she was bumbling around, she yelled out to us to keep our elbows of the table squaked around her other tables... very fun. So once we ordered, the real fun began! I had the pork with root vegetables, and dbf had fish I think. Our meals were really good, but I wasn't the biggest fan of the root veggie hash, so i tried my best to camoflauge it under my fork, but unfortunately it didn't work out. When Auntie Claire came to take our plates, she hassled me for not eating my vegtables, and tried to airplane them to me... As she got closer to my mouth with the fork, i opened it to protest, and stopped, and looked me my tongue (which is peirced, a lingering side effect of my rebellious teen years.) And she goes "WHAT IS THAT?! WERE YOU FISHIN' WITH GRANDPA AGAIN!?!?

So, she takes the plate away, and we all have a good laugh. A few minutes later, she returned with a plate heaping with whipped cream and toppings. She said, "Listen, I know your dessert is coming, but just so there aren't any hard feelings about earlier, I brought you a little sundae to hold you over." I was suspicious, but poked around with my fork a little bit. Yep. I should have guessed. There they were, my root vegtables. NOT a delicious sundae! So, we had even more of a laugh. I even tried to offer the dish to the kids at the table next to me, but there were no takers.

That was the end of our first day, and we were EXHAUSTED from all our travels. By the time we got back to our room, our luggage had arrived. Exhausted, we tucked in for the night.

Just a few short hours later, we got a phone call from the Mouse himself, telling us to get out of bed... it was time for Animal Kindgom!!!!!

 

[janloz]

Great so far!

 

[KGH]

Day 2: Animal Kingdom and EPCOT!

We were up super early, and out the door for park open. I'd conditioned dbf to believe that AK is ONLY worth it if you get there super early, and go on the Safari in the wee hours, when the animal are up and at 'em.

We got to the park, amde a beeline to Everest, and got Fatpasses. The line was only about a 10 minute wait, so we did the stand-by line and got a quick ride in. I forgot how AMAZING that ride it! We were in the very last train, and it was SO MUCH FUN. I thinkmy favorite part of that ride is that, if you turn around going up the hill, you can see the other 3 parks. I just think that's so fun!

Anyway, we then made our way over to the Kiliminjaro Safari, and had only about a 15 minute wait. The safari was pretty good, up until about half way through when my camera batteries died. No worries, we got some more... but it tunr out that was only the start of camera woes for this trip. More on that later.

We returned to Everest for our fastpass ride, and sat in the very front. I'd never sat there before, and that is a crazy seat! You can see over the top of the ride just before you drop back... it's nuts!

We got fastpasses for Dinasour, and then had lunch at Flame Tree BBQ. I'd never been, but had heard good things, so we both had ribs. I thought they were pretty good, dbf wasn't too impressed. We ate in the outdoor seating area, and there were some very ballsy birds taunting us the whole time. Apparently the family who satthere before us had small children feeding the birds, so they were all riled up when we got there. Ah, well.

We rode Dinosaur. Thrilling, fun, awesome. That ride is way scarier than I remember it... all the dark, the crazy dinos everywhere... Anywhay, we then went over to Kali, where we got fastpasses and waited to use them. We were SO HOT and really looking forward to getting soaked on Kali, so we rushed right over as soon as we could. We made it all the way to the front of the line, got seated in our raft, and then..... oh man, the ride is down. This was something of a theme during out trip. We waited to see it it would start again, but when the managers came out with a stack of fastpasses, we knew it didn't look good. We had planned on leaving after going on Kali, to relax before heading to EPCOT for dinner, but we decided to hang out for a while and see if Kali would come back online. Eventually it did, and we got our run in. We waddled, soaked to the bone, out to the bus stop and made our way back to Pop.

After a little break, we were off to Epcot. Waiting in line for the bus, disater struck. I handed my keys and camera to dbf so I could grab something from my bag. He wasn't looking, and grabbed only the keys. My digital camera crashed to the ground. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Neither of us moved for a minute... I picked it up and turned it on. It turned on fine, the start up screen was fine. phew. no screen crack. But wait. What is this? Oh, awesome. SOMETHING is broken. It was toast, and I was MAD.

We got to EPCOT and checked out what they had to offer for cameras. We debated for a while, because they only offered 2... one was a pretty crappy $100 number, no optical zoom, takes crappy pictures. the other was around $220, with a 12 mega pixels, and a 5x optical zoom... We ended up getting the better one. We paid much more than we would have anywhere else, but we REALLY needed a camera in WDW... ugh. what a waste of vacation money!!!

So anyway, the camera situation behind us, we rode misson space with a 20 minute wait, and then made otu way over to World Showcase for dinnerat the Rose and Crown pub. This was probably our least favorite meal of the trip. The food was OK, and our server was really nice and attentive, but neither of us were particulary in love with this place. Also, it began pouring while we were eating. We were seated near the pub, and as the rain started coming down people started piling into the bar area. The people began to overflow into the dining area, and I spent the latter portion of my meal sharing my personal space with some guy's dripping backpack. Meh... not y idea of a good time.

After dinner, we strolled through the rest of the world showcase, stopped for a Grand Marnier Slushy. (SO GOOOOOD!) There were EMH in the park so we stuck around in Futureworld for a bit. We figured it was our chance to ride Soarin'. I was wrong! The wait was over an hour. I'd done it a few times before, but dbfnever had, and was really looking forward to it, so we waited. We had the pleasure of waiting in line with 2 teenagers and their parents, and I'll say it wasnt the most pleasant hour of my vacation. Teenagers are fine, I practically am one... but the annoying thing was that the two of them were standing there, cracking jokes about "when we get home, we can go soarin', we can soar really high, ha ha ha." Seriously? You're in Disney World. With your parents. Surrounded by small children. And you're like 14. RELAAAAAX on the drug refrences, k?

Anyway, I trying to ignore them... and boy was i delighted when a cast member called back for a party of 2! It was a longshot, as there were alot of people in front of us, but my hand shot up faster than a speeding bullet. Thankfully,we got pulled up and led right to te preshow area. Now, I fully get whythey'd look for a partyof any certain number... to fll the seats of the ride and move people as fast as they can. But I'll never understand why they asked for a party of 2, led us right in, and then seated us... with 2 empty seats on either side... they had 6 empty seats, and they wated a party of 2 to fill them? I dunno, it seemed weird to me, but it got me out of waiting in line with the Dubie sisters, so I took it!

After SOARIN', (which was amazing!) we hit up the Living Seas with Nemo and Friends. There was a 5 minute posted wait, and i'm pretty sure that is just cause it takes five minutes to run through the queue area, which was completely devoid of human life. We boarded our clamshell, and i'm fairly confident we were the only 2 people on the ride at that time. It was cute, I enjoyed it... but I wish the fish played more of a role.... there used to be alot of great things to look at in the Living Seas, and know you only get a little glimpse of the fish at the end.

We checked out wait times for Test Track, but they were obscene, so we called it a night and headed back to Pop. Stay tuned forthe next installement: Hollywood Studios, AK, and the Magic Kingdom.