November 14-20 2013 Trip Report - The Bolt from Pop Century - Notes/Draft Trip Report

[kaetra]

On October 1st 2013 after browsing through pictures of previous Disney trips, I started wishing we could go back. So quite spontaneously I booked a seemingly innocent trip to The World, Pop Century and I was feeling SO happy about it.

Then I came to Disboards to see what was new. Magic Bands? Fast Pass+? What was all this? A few hours of reading and I realized I had made a big mistake in booking before coming to Disboards first.

The weeks flew by, and I was hopeful that I could still have the kind of trip I was used to with riding lots of headliners and other rides, all while testing the Magic Bands. Each day I faithfully checked all the info sources to make sure I had a good chance of being able to go to the parks and get an acceptable number of Fast Passes. This was my major worry - Will I be stuck with only 3 a day? Did I just waste thousands of dollars on a sub-par vacation?

It even came down to today, the day before my trip, and I was confident that KTTW cards able to pull legacy FP would be available until at least Spring 2014.

Then the bottom dropped out and it was announced that POP Century, and ONLY Pop Century would be moving to Magic Band ONLY on - you guessed it - November 14th. The VERY day I was supposed to check in.

Of course I was very disappointed. Of course I was shocked. This was a change that wasn't even announced to guests and the knowledge was only learned because a very kind and brave CM shared the info.

Through a series of lengthy phone calls to Disney, I was able to switch resorts. Feeling a bit better I got on with my day, packing and tracking down all those pesky charging cables for our various travel electronics.

Then I read somewhere that travel agents have been reporting their clients were being denied KTTW cards, and therefore Legacy Fast Passes, at various hotels for months.

So the nervousness starts again. Will I or won't I be able to ride Big Thunder Mountain without standing in an hour queue? Will I be condemned to roaming the park with naught to do but SHOP? *shudder*

Only time will tell. I leave tomorrow and I'm trying to stay upbeat, especially for my 10 year old daughter. WE WILL HAVE A GREAT TIME NO MATTER WHAT.

I feel betrayed by my darling Mickey. The beautiful wonderful Magic that was so real just a year ago seems tainted somehow. I can't trust him anymore, that's for certain.

Will this be our very last trip to Disney World ever? We'll see. If so, at least we're going out in style.

Stay tuned as I will definitely be reporting events as they unfold during our trip - The Bolt from Pop Century

Don't read any more if you don't want to see the spoilers in my incoherent notes below. Here is a link to the Official Trip Report - Goodbye POP, Hello French Quarter

 

[kaetra]

Here now at POFQ, sitting by the pool after a long day at AK - nearly open to close. FP were not really an issue due to low crowds.

Yesterday at Epcot. I did not use 1 of our 3 allotted FP+ as it proved to be useless and unnecessary due to not being able to repeat attractions. We stayed from RD to close a d had a blast!

Saturday at MK we pulled only 4 paper FPs and used all 3 of our FP+. We stayed from near RD to about 3pm. Rain was constant and sometimes heavy, but stand by wait times for BTM were about zero the entire morning, our last ride was about noon. We ate at BOG with a lunch FP and the food was great. More on that later.

Back to fun, just a quick couple notes before I do my trip report when we get home.

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[kaetra]

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[kaetra]

Disney transportation sucks a big banana. Seriously. Waiting 40 minutes plus for a bus to/from pofq is inexcusable.

Do you feel guilty when you're not at the parks? Like when you're hanging out at the resort on your last night.the idea is to do some relaxing I guess, but whenever I'm at the world I always feel like the meter is running. It's the commando mentality coming through I guess. Right now I'm watching my DD playing on the playground at POFQ when I really want to be back at MK. She would much rather play with these kids though. I can tell. Meanwhile Mommy might have an actual tantrum if I miss seeing Wishes on what could be my last night at MK ever. How pathetic am I?

 

[kaetra]

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[kaetra]

Nov 18 - AK. Super low crowds. Everything walk on ALL day. Great weather. Rode Everest at least 12 times, Dinosaur 3x, Primeval whirl 1x. Lion King show had new singers and they were not nearly as good as the old ones. Especially the new skinny "leader". All other performers were great though.
Ate inside Yak & Yeti. I got two sides (chick fried rice, egg rolls,) a pop and a kids meal. They charge separate for kids drink. It was over $35 for drive thru quality . Atmosphere was nice. Wouldn't repeat though. Service was slow and they tried to sell me a diners club type membership.
Left right after parade.

 

[kaetra]

Nov 19 - MK. Entered park slightly early for breakfast at Crystal Palace. My favorite Veggie Frittata wasn't there, just Sausage Fritatta and a veggie omlet station. The Sausage Fritatta was pretty good though. All characters came to our table except Pooh who never did come. We waited quite a while for Pooh but eventually gave up and left. There were many empty tables, it did not seem to be a busy morning at all. We planned on going to hotel at 2pm then returning to park in the evening, so I used MDE app to reschedule all but Splash Mountain FP+ for evening times. Then headed to Space Mountain, stand by was very short so we pulled FP- and did stand by twice. Stopped by Main Street Firehouse and signed up for Sorcerers. Chose Adventureland first for Scar mission. Also did POTC while in Adventureland. Davy Jones water screen was broken or gone maybe? And I thought Jack Sparrow used to stand on the top of the bridge but he was gone from that spot as well. Went to BTM but it was down, pulled paper FP with 12:55 return time, so we headed to Fantasyland for it's Sorcerer mission. Did Philharmagic, no wait and theater was only about 1/2 full. Did Liberty Square Sorcerer mission then headed back to BTM to use FP-. It was back in operation so we went on. At about 1:30pm did our FP+ for Splash Mountain then headed back to Main Street to do Sorcerer mission. Then got pic with Pluto at Main Street town square. Some giant lady was sitting in her scooter right behind the Pluto photo spot photobombing everyone's pic, seemed intentional because she kept switching different pairs of crazy sunglasses. Total Troll move. Thank goodness she moved by the time we got our turn because I would have had to photo shop her out of our pic!

Wanted to go back to hotel to swim/rest and come back to park around 7pm or so. Had a great parking spot from early arrival so decided (stupidly) to try to take the bus back to the resort. Went to POFQ bus line and there was already quite a few people waiting so figured bus would come soon. It didn't. After about 20 minutes waiting I asked the people in the front of the line how long they had been waiting and they said 40 minutes, then everyone started complaining about how long they waited for the bus that morning from POFQ to the park. So we bailed out of the bus line and went to the Ferry. The whole time I watched and by the time the 1 ferry running got back to us and loaded us the POFQ bus still had not come. Totally ridiculous. We made a new rule then "No more Disney transportation ever".

Go back to POFQ with our car and swam, played, toasted marshmallows and had a great time and rest. Then went back to park and arrived at about 7:00. Went to Starbucks and waited so long for hot cocoa that by the time we got it we had to find a spot for Wishes as the street was already filling with Wishes campers. We went to the pathway behind the rose bushes and sat down with a perfect spot. Watched Celebrate the Magic castle show and Wishes (*tears*) then left. Made the first ferry and got out of the park in record time. I love having a rental car!

 

[kaetra]

Nov 20 - LAST DAY *CRIES* - HS.

Since we had to be at the air port by 2pm for our flight we chose HS for the short day. Did airport check in and luggage check at resort. Got our Southwest Early Bird boarding passes position A45/A46. Said goodbye to our suitcase and drove to HS. Arrived at about 9:30. Went to Aerosmith coaster, standby was 20 minutes so used our FP+. DD loves this coaster, I do not. I love coasters, but not this one. It's an ear-basher. The music is entirely too loud (decibel levels not safe for kids at ALL IMHO) and the barrel rolls box my ears on the shoulder harness. It started to rain so we walked over to Little Mermaid and got right in. Then we used our FP+ for Toy Story. Then we had some time to kill until our Star Wars FP+ so DD played in Honey I Shrunk the Kids play area. Then we did our Star Wars FP+ and got the Ewok/Wookie mission and I was the Rebel Spy. It was fun. It was only about 11:30 after we were done so we wandered around a bit trying to find something to do. HS is my least favorite park, and DDs too so we were completely bored and decided leaving to stop and eat at a nice off property restaurant and hanging out at the airport was a better option than wandering boring HS. So that's what we did. The parking lot tram was down so we walked to our car, quite a trek. Bye bye WDW Hopefully not forever! We had a GREAT trip and I'm so glad we squeezed this potentially last trip ever in just before they take FP- away from everyone.

I'll be writing the real trip report over the next few days and adding all the pics.

 

[kaetra]

Official Trip Report has begun and it starts here:
Goodbye POP, Hello French Quarter!