No one needs to know we are going to Disney again, right? - Update 11/20!

[amazingact21]

I love Philharmagic, as well! It's such a well-done show, and I agree that there should be more like it.
Did you enjoy Peter Pan's Flight the second time around? I've never been on it before, so I'm curious to see what other people think.
I can't believe that family almost trmapled that poor CM. I would've wanted to tell them, "The rides aren't going anywhere."
can't wait to hear where your ADR was!

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

Great pics of the MK opening ceremony - am hoping to get to watch it but not being a morning person we shall see if it happens.

Also can't wait to try Philharmagic. Looking forward to seeing where the wonderful ADR took place!

I think you need to try to make opening at least once. We try to make it once a trip which I think is plenty.

SOunds like you're having a great time so far. I have always wanted to stay at the wilderness lodge. Maybe one day...

I hope you do get to stay one day!

I'm enjoying your trip report. I moved to SW Florida a little over a year ago and the water here is terrible. I wouldn't let my dog drink it! The Wilderness Lodge looks beautiful. I'm hoping to stay there in Dec. for a weekend and go to MNSSHP..looking forward to the rest of your TR!

I hope to be a resident one day but may have to invest in a Brita Water Filter thing. Glad you are enjoying the TR! I would love to go to MNSSHP some day!

I love the opening ceremony at MK! I'm kind of sad that I probably won't see the "Let the Memories begin" decorations outside of MK, I'm assuming when I go, it will all be replaced by Halloween stuff. I'm sure I'll get over it, though!

I love Peter Pan's Flight, but the line is always so long, I can't believe it's still so popular!

I think it's really strange that some lands in MK aren't open for EMH! I'm not sure if I've ever been to am EMH at MK, so I didn't even know that!

OMG I love Philharmagic! One of my favorites!

The Halloween decorations are great though, I am sure you will get over it

Peter Pan's Flight is cute, but not standing in line for an hour cute.

I wish all the lands were open for EMH. Would be great to ride BTMR over and over again.

We were planning on taking empty water bottles to the park to fill up, is that not a good idea?

I'm with you on the ADR's I've made them for every day because I know by the end of the day if I'm tired, hungry, and God forbid hot too I will be in the worst mood ever.

WL is the one place I've just loved from the minute I saw the pictures. If I ever got a PIN code for a deluxe resort I would be all over that one. It just looks so neat!

I could just be really picky, but I really don't like the water at WDW. We always just buy water bottles. I saw try it, but know that there is always water for sale.

Crossing my fingers for you for a pin code!

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

I love Philharmagic, as well! It's such a well-done show, and I agree that there should be more like it.
Did you enjoy Peter Pan's Flight the second time around? I've never been on it before, so I'm curious to see what other people think.
I can't believe that family almost trmapled that poor CM. I would've wanted to tell them, "The rides aren't going anywhere."
can't wait to hear where your ADR was!

I like Peter Pan's Flight. It is very cute, but I would fast pass it or go during EMH. To me it is not worth standing in line for a long period of time.

I think some people lose all manors when they get excited...but I would still never be rude at Disney World!

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

Now that Frontierland was open we headed over to my favorite ride ever….Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!

Below is a link to a video of our ride. Please excuse the kid in front of us with the Justin Bieber haircut that keeps shaking his hair and his friend who keeps wooing throughout the ride.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

After our ride we headed over to Splash Mountain. I am not going to lie, I was so scared. Neither of us had ridden it before and Kyle was looking forward to it. I was nervous about the big drop since I am not a fan of heights. Kyle said we could skip it, but I really wanted to try it. So we got in line and waited, and waited…The suspense was killing me! I had so many chances to back out but I kept moving forward. We chatted with a nice English couple in front of us. The wife was also nervous and you could tell her husband was a little annoyed. He said “What’s the point of coming to Disney Land if you aren’t going to want to ride anything?” Yes, he said Disney Land.

We reached the loading area and were split apart from our new friends. Bummer, would have been nice to ride with another scaredy cat like me. They put us in the front row loading position. I quickly told the CM that I was a first time rider and preferred not to sit in the front row. They quickly moved us into the back row of the next log. We were seated with a group of four high school girls who screamed at every little drop our turn because they thought it was funny…I did not. When we reached the big drop, it was a little scary, but so much fun! I loved it! Below is the less than flattering proof that I did indeed ride Splash Mountain!

I really need to have Kyle practice smiling on rides, he tends to look a little grim in these photos.

After enjoying my second favorite ride at WDW we decided to take another go at “the wildest ride in the wilderness”. We needed to try to dry off after all.

Our lunch ADR was at 11:30 and it was almostr 11 so we headed over to Tony’s Town Square. We had never eaten here before and I was looking forward to it. We had made a point to watch Lady and the Tramp a week or so before this trip to get in the mood.

On our way we saw a little of this.

After the parade we saw this.

We walked up to the CM standing at the podium just outside the restaurant who asked what time our reservation was. We told him it was at 11:30. He advised it was too early to check and told us to come back in 10 minutes. So we took a seat at a bench and people watched.

I had a problem with using my camera this trip. I would have it on zoom mode to take a picture but would forget to take it out of zoom. I would then take a self portrait. The result is the photo below.

Take two.

It was now pretty close to 11:30 so we headed inside. We checked in and took a seat. After a couple of minutes of waiting the Daper Dans walked in! They sang Bella Notte which is in the movie Lady and the Tramp. They were so good! I really wanted to take a picture, but they were like 10 feet in front of me and I felt weird digging in my purse to get my camera. I opted to just enjoy their beautiful voices.

We were called a few minutes after their performance and were sat in one of those half booth half table things. Our server’s name was Becky and she was very friendly and nice. After taking our drink order I attempted to take a photo of the menu when Becky saw me. She said “Allow me, I have done this a time or two.”

I got a little confused when we started to order our lunch. Becky said that bread was not served with the entrée so she suggested getting the toasted cheese and garlic bread, so we did.

Very good by the way.

I ordered the spaghetti and meatballs and Kyle ordered the baked ziti.

As you can see, we got bread with our meal, hence my confusion on what Becky said. Oh well. It was all very good and the more bread the merrier.

After lunch I wanted to go back on Splash. Can you believe it? Me who was scared wanted to go back for more. Well when reached Splash Mountain, it was closed. Sad. So I went on the next best thing, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

After our ride we decided to head back to Wilderness Lodge for rest so we hoped on the boat and off we went.

 

[amazingact21]

I was just as scared to go on Splash this past May, however, I agree with you..it's so much fun! Too bad it was closed and you couldn't go again. But an extra ride on BTMRR is always a plus!

 

[TanzUnited99]

Lol at being scared on Splash! I'm glad you enjoyed the ride and oh no on it being shut when you wanted to ride again.

Love the parade pics and your experience at Tony's sounds awesome! How cool to have Dapper Dans singing 10 feet in front of you!

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

I'm here! Sooo sorry for being late but I love your updates so far! I bet they assigned you a woods and realized u booked courtyard based on the room numbers u posed. One ended in an odd and the other an even. I'm pretty sure we got gobs of bread at dinner at Tonys. They must not do that at lunch which is odd!!!! Glad you liked wcc!!! Let me know if you ever need ADR help, I'm your go-to girl for that!

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

I was just as scared to go on Splash this past May, however, I agree with you..it's so much fun! Too bad it was closed and you couldn't go again. But an extra ride on BTMRR is always a plus!

BTMRR will always have my heart

Lol at being scared on Splash! I'm glad you enjoyed the ride and oh no on it being shut when you wanted to ride again.

Love the parade pics and your experience at Tony's sounds awesome! How cool to have Dapper Dans singing 10 feet in front of you!

The Dapper Dans were awesome as was Splash! When we make it back I want to spend a lot of time on Main Street checking out all the characters.

I'm here! Sooo sorry for being late but I love your updates so far! I bet they assigned you a woods and realized u booked courtyard based on the room numbers u posed. One ended in an odd and the other an even. I'm pretty sure we got gobs of bread at dinner at Tonys. They must not do that at lunch which is odd!!!! Glad you liked wcc!!! Let me know if you ever need ADR help, I'm your go-to girl for that!

So glad you are here!
We did get bread at Tony's for lunch which was weird because she told us we wouldn't. Luckily I am fan of bread

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

I am sorry for my loooong absence. I just got very busy on the weekends and am still pretty packed until after Thanksgiving, but I am determined to finish the trip report in a timely manner going forward. Why you may ask? Because we are going back on November 12th! We are staying at our very first value resort, POP! We also got free dining. I will start a pre-trip report once I finish this report up.

We decided to spend our evening in Epcot. Before heading there we grabbed a quick bite from Roaring Forks. If you remember last time we tried to eat at Epcot, it didn’t work out to well for us. We both had a flatbread pizza. I had the cheeseburger flatbread and Kyle had pepperoni . Both were very good.

We arrived at Epcot in no time. We never had too much trouble with the buses at WL. I really love that about that resort. When we stayed at POR we had nothing but trouble. We decided to check out the wait time for Test Track, but it was too long for me so we opted for Mission Space. Green Team. I want to try the Orange side, but Kyle isn’t a fan of the spinning so we always do green.

After our moderately amusing Mission Space adventure we decided to stroll to World Showcase, stopping for a photo-op of course.

We made it over to Canada to watch Illuminations. We grabbed a couple of beers from a cart.

My camera isn’t the best for capturing fireworks, so here are the ones that kind of came out.

We decided to walk around Canada a bit and check out O Canada! We entered the waiting area and were told it would be a few minutes. We ended waiting with a ton of other people for about 15 minutes. My feet were tired and I just wanted to sit. I didn’t know O Canada! didn’t have any seats, bummer! It was a pretty good show. Martin Short was pretty funny in it.

We decided head back to the resort and rest. The next day we planned on spending the morning checking out other resorts we had not gone to before.

 

[TanzUnited99]

on having another trip planned!!! Pop is soo much fun - we have just got back from a stay here and loved it!!

I LOVED Epcot and Illuminations - seeing your pics is making me wish I was still there.

Oh no on going to watch O Canada whilst being tired. It sure is a shame it doesn't have seats but like you said it's a pretty good show.

 

[ShesAPirate]

Woohoo for having another trip coming up so soon! I loved POP when I stayed there. I think you'll have a blast!

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

The next day we decided to take the boat to the Contemporary Resort.

I have always wanted to stay at the Contemporary because I thought it always looked so cool from the outside. I still thought it looked cool, but not as much as I pictured it. It felt kind of cold. Oh well, still a nice resort.

We wanted to eat here.

Sadly, no ADR, so we were unable to get in. So we ate here instead.

We both just ordered the Bounty Platter and sat and watched the birds near the ceiling. Anyone else noticed the birds up there?
After our breakfast we decided to hop on the monorail.

Our next stop was the Polly. I thought this was cute!

Look what I spotted.

Enjoying a cup of coffee.

After our coffee we hopped back on the monorail. It was starting to rain. When the train came it was down pouring, I am glad I wasn’t walking around the park at that time. Our next stop was the Grand Floridian.

I think this resort is just beautiful! However, it feels a little too fancy for me. I think I will stick with WL. We took the monorail to MK and then hopped on the boat back to WL. Before heading to the room we walked around WL.

We then went back to the room for a little Casey Anthony trial and rest.

 

[stitches of laughter]

love! the title. my mom and i would ALWAYS get asked "why are you going AGAIN?!" our answer: because it's our laughin place.

i'm staying at POP for the second time this november. you will like it

 

[amazingact21]

Yay for another trip in the works! I bet November will be nice, because the weather will be cool and all the Christmas decorations will have started popping up.

Resort hopping is so much fun, and I agree with you, the Contemporary does look a little cold.

 

[lbuzz52]

sounds like a great afternoon for a little resort hopping!

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

on having another trip planned!!! Pop is soo much fun - we have just got back from a stay here and loved it!!

I LOVED Epcot and Illuminations - seeing your pics is making me wish I was still there.

Oh no on going to watch O Canada whilst being tired. It sure is a shame it doesn't have seats but like you said it's a pretty good show.

I am glad you love POP! I am looking forward to it.

love! the title. my mom and i would ALWAYS get asked "why are you going AGAIN?!" our answer: because it's our laughin place.

i'm staying at POP for the second time this november. you will like it

Regarding always getting asked about going to Disney again. It's my vacation (and money) I can do what I want with it right?

When are you going in November?

Yay for another trip in the works! I bet November will be nice, because the weather will be cool and all the Christmas decorations will have started popping up.

Resort hopping is so much fun, and I agree with you, the Contemporary does look a little cold.

I am hoping with nice cool evenings in November. May was really hot....

sounds like a great afternoon for a little resort hopping!

It was nice not to have a real agenda. Plus taking the monorail every where was cool. Only at Disney can you use so many modes of transportaion in one trip.

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

After a little rest we got ready to head to the Magic Kingdom.

I believe we took the boat over, but I am not exactly sure. Again, I need to take better notes on my next trip.

Our first stop was the Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade. I have always wanted to try this and since there were only a couple of other people playing I jumped at the chance.

OK, so that was something new, not something great, but something new. One more new thing we accomplished on this trip.

Up next was POTC. The wait wasn’t too long and it was an enjoyable trip as always.

We decided to go another boat cruise, the Jungle Cruise!

The posted wait time was 20 minutes which really isn’t long at all. But let me tell you, this was a complete lie. My assumption is as soon as we got in line the time must have jumped to 45 minutes. It was hot, it was miserable. People who were alongside us the whole time were eating turkey legs and it just looked gross. I have nothing against the turkey legs. In fact I have considered purchasing one a time or two. But it was hot and they were greasy and I was afraid the family would accidently touch me while we waited in line. They didn’t of course and I believe the father of the family collected the eaten turkey legs and disposed them before they loaded their boat.

Us hot and sad for our long wait.

When we were able to finally board, I was of course relived, but I barely remember the cruise because I had had enough of the heat.

We started to head toward The Plaza Restaurant for our dinner ADR. We checked in and were told it wouldn’t be a long wait. Kyle ran to the restroom and I got bored and took a couple of photos while I waited.

Kyle was back and we were called a few minutes later to be seated.

I ordered the Cheese Steak Sandwich with french fries.

Kyle ordered the Plaza Club Sandwich.

We both ordered shakes. Mine strawberry and Kyle’s appears to be Oreo, but I don’t see it listed on the menu.

This was our first time eating at this restaurant and I really enjoyed it! I would definitely go back.

After our nice dinner at The Plaza we decided to head over to Space Mountain! I had only ridden this attraction once when I was at WDW for a High School trip, so I didn’t remember much about it. We got in line and ended up leaving the attraction when we were pretty close to loading. Kyle got a little worried about the seating and didn’t feel comfortable. I am not a big coaster person anyway so I didn’t mind leaving. Ah, perhaps next trip.

We decided to take a relaxing after dinner ride on the People Mover. A little blurry, but we spotted these guys from up above.

We decided to go in for a closer look after our enjoyable ride.

We were pooped and decided to call it a night.

After getting back to Wilderness Lodge we relaxed in the room for a little while and finished the evening getting a drink at Territory Lounge.

Up next, my first ever really bad trip to Hollywood Studios.

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

The plaza looks soooo good! I'm going to have to try that soon. You can typically get an ADR for there!!! Can't believe you are coming back so soon! Any decisions on resort yet?

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

The plaza looks soooo good! I'm going to have to try that soon. You can typically get an ADR for there!!! Can't believe you are coming back so soon! Any decisions on resort yet?

I can't believe we are coming back so soon either We can be very spur of the moment type people. But honestly, this will be the last trip for awhile. We have some house stuff we need to get done next summer so we will be saving money for that. The earliest we will be back is Dec 2012 if not March 2013. That trip will be off site at a condo. We have been thinking about moving to Florida for a couple of years now so that trip will be a central Florida trip to get to know the area and see if it is for us. I am very much looking forward to it.

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

I thought about doing a pre-trip report but since I am less than a month away I thought I would just add it to this trip report!

What: It is a “I need to use a week’s vacation before the end of the year so I don’t lose it” trip. Well that’s what Kyle told me and I said, How about Disney? Which he replied,” I knew you would say that.” Well I realized they had free dining so I my first goal was to look at those dates and make sure we both could get those dates off.

When: Sunday, November 13 through Friday, November 18. We are flying Delta and out flight leaves at 7:05 am and arrives around 11 am Florida time. I originally wanted to leave on Saturday but none of the flights I found had two seats together so we decided on Sunday. Good thing actually because I was able to get free dining for the 5 days and had we gone Saturday, that day would have been out of pocket.

Where: POP! We have stayed at Port Orleans Riverside a couple of time and at Wilderness Lodge this past trip. Kyle wanted to do a deluxe again, but it was just too much money. I wanted to stay at POR French Quarter, but I wasn’t able to find any openings so we went with POP! I am hoping I love it. I kind almost want to call Disney and see if anything for French Quarter has opened up…. If anyone has stayed at both, let me know what you think.
I have some ADRs figured out and will post the day by day plans shortly.


Now on to the trip report!

This morning we were headed to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Star Tours had just recently reopened so I figured this would be the first stop for everyone. This is where I made that horrible mistake. We decided to grab fast passes for Star Tours and then run over to Toy Story Mania. We got our fast pass quickly and ran over to Toy Story Mania and came upon this.

The stand by line was huge and the fast pass line was huge. I was not prepared for the crowd. We had ridden this attraction several times on our last couple of trips, but never experienced crowds like this. We decided that neither of us wanted the hassle and sadly walked away. TSM is my favorite ride at Hollywood studio and I was bummed we wouldn’t be enjoying it on this trip.

As you can see the Streets of America was empty as everyone was at TSM!

We decided to go on the Great Movie Ride. We ended up getting the Cowboy scene. This isn’t one of my favorite attractions, but it is always enjoyable.

We then headed over to Muppet Vision 3D.

It was our fast pass time for Star Tours!

I loved it! So much better than how it was before. When our travels had come to an end we hoped right back in line and were on in less than 5 minutes. I really can’t believe how empty the line was for this attraction especially since it just had reopened.

We were a little hungry at this point so we decided to give this place a try.

We both got the same thing. I am sorry to say but this had to be the blandest hot dog I have ever had. Neither of us finished our meal and ended up throwing it away.

We headed over to the Magic of Disney Animation. This was a little confusing as they had two lines going. One was for the tour and the other was for if you just wanted to get in line to take pictures with characters and do the drawing class. We were in the tour line by accident for a little while and then hopped over to the other line and walked right in. I wanted to take the drawing class but we missed getting in by about 5 minutes. They already had enough people for the next class and they have those roped off in front of the doors. So it would be an hour before we could get it. I really didn’t want to stand in line for an hour so we both made the decision to leave.
I was pretty DHS’d out by this point. We decided to head over to Epcot for a little bit before returning to our hotel. We decided to take the boat from Hollywood Studios to Epcot. This was very enjoyable, but not the quickest form of transportation. It did give us the opportunity to see some of the hotels we hadn’t seen in person, even if it was just from the boat.

We were hungry for lunch as we had thrown our other lunch away. We decided to take a chance by stopping at Rose and Crown to see if they had any tables available. They did! We were seated outside which was fine even if it was a little hot.

I decided on two items from the appetizer portion of the menu for my meal. I ordered Pan Roasted Mussels with tomatoes, herbs, and Bass Ale reduction and the Potato and Leek Soup.

Both were great but the soup was the best! I have been dreaming about this soup since this day. We have a lunch ADR here for next month and even though an appetizer is not part of the dinning plan we are on I might have to spend out of pocket and get this soup.

Kyle ordered a burger that had a fried egg on top. I can’t find it on their menu now but I think it also had those fried onion strings as well.

We wanted to hit a couple of attractions we have not done in the past. First up was Journey into Imagination.

It was different. It seemed short. I am glad we tried it, but probably won’t be back.

Next was Captain EO. I was actually looking forward to seeing this as I love everything 80s.

I thought the video about the behind the scenes stuff was a little long, but cool to watch. I wish they would have showed that in the theater. Overall it was cool to see, but I miss Honey I Shrunk the Audience! I am hoping they bring it back.

We took the bus back to Wilderness Lodge and rested for our night at the Magic Kingdom.


Up next, Wishes Desert Party!