Our Intentions Were Good, But The Treats Were Better: One Month in Disney (4/21-5/21) COMPLETE!

[mickey916]

Here's our cookie ranking. It was a really tight race between the Pistachio Toffee Cookie from Gideon's and the Riviera Cookie. The Riveira cookie is served warm and that gives it a slight edge but when we heated up the Pistachio Toffee Cookie in our room's microwave, it soared to the top. Either way the top four cookies are phenomenal.

Cookies
Pistachio Toffee Cookie, Gideon's	A+
Riviera Cookie, Primo Piatto	A+
Triple Chocolate Chip Cookie, Kringla	A+
Peanut Butter Cookie. Summerhouse Cookie Bar	A+
Frankenstein Bite, Gideon's	A
Bride of Frankenstein Bite, Gideon's	A
Chocolate Hazelnut cookie, Sunshine Seasons	A-
Chocolate Chunk Cookie, Les Halles	A-
Coconut Macaroon, Java (Swan)	A-
Chocolate chip cookie, Boma buffet	B+
Smores cookie, Landscape of flavors	B+
Apple Pie Cookie, Zuri's Sweet Shop	B
Cherry Pie Cookie, Sunshine Seasons	B
Banana chip cookie bites, Gideon's	B
Trail Mix Cookie, Trail's End	B
Oatmeal Scotchie, Summerhouse	B
Earl of Sandwich Chocolate Chip	C+
Chocolate Chip Pretzel Cookie, Karamel Kuche	C+
Krispy cookie, Summerhouse Cookie Bar	C
Dahlia Cookie Flight	C
Mickey Snickers, Main St. Confectionery	C
Gasparilla Signature Cookie	C-

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

Sorry, I’m having trouble with quotes. I used to know how to use them. I’ll figure it out later.

mickey916 says:
“The guy got a chuckle out of it too. The couple had been married two days. We're going on 34 years....”

Congrats to you guys for 34 years together. And many more great times ahead.
If anyone wondered about the glue that holds you two together, I’d have to say peanut butter. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

 

[mickey916]

Congrats to you guys for 34 years together. And many more great times ahead.

Thank you so much!

If anyone wondered about the glue that holds you two together, I’d have to say peanut butter. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

I think you may be onto something here...maybe with a little added chocolate too!

 

[mickey916]

Our final ratings category is specialty drinks. We mostly drank water and soda, Diet Coke for me, Coke Zero or Coke for DH. I made coffee for myself most days with a travel Keurig I bring on roadtrips so other than the delicious Iced Coffee from Trattoria Al Forno and the hot coffee from Boma & 1900 Park Fare, I didn't really order coffee (unless you count the Frappuccino). So, the remaining drinks we tried are ranked below:

Drinks
Pineapple Coconut Slushy, The Market, HS	A
Hot Butterbeer, Leaky Cauldron, Universal	A
Apple Slushy, Screendoor, Boardwalk	A
Ponche de Frutas, Dahlia Lounge	A
Pineapple Float, Epcot Pineapple Promenade	B
Shangri-La Berry Freeze, Warung Outpost, AK	B
Ghiradelli Chocolate Shake	B
Night Blossom, Pongu Pongu	B
Frozen Strawberry Lemonade, Friars Nook	B-
Starbucks Frappucino, Connections Cafe	C
Starbucks Double Chocolate Creme, Connections Cafe	C

 

[mickey916]

That's a Wrap!!
​

Well folks, that's my report of our one month trip. It was such a phenomenal trip. Our younger son was just saying yesterday what an incredible time we all had and how he's ready to go again. Before our trip I was wondering if we'd reach a point that we were there "too long" but it never happened. We just loved it so much and felt like we really had time to experience so much.

Our original plan for our next trip was to go for a couple weeks at the end of February/early March to exprience the Festival of the Arts and escape the cold and snow. Then, to do another long trip immediately after Easter into early May. When I looked at my countdown for those trips though they were just too far away. So, I convinced DH to go down at the end of October/early November just for 10 days to experience Food & Wine for the first time and see the fall decorations.

Well, DS-27 told us he wanted to ride the 611 train in Virginia which is only running from the end of September to the end of October. We decided since we were driving that way anyhow, we could add that to our trip. DS-27 also wants to see the Railroad Museum in Lancaster and ride the Cass Scenic Railroad in WV on the way, so we added a week. DS-29 wanted in on the fun and to go to Hershey Park, so he's coming along too for a portion. Then, DH surprised me with tickets to MNSSHP for my birthday so we added that in as well.

So, here's a preview of our planned itinerary, which I can't wait to write about! Lots of new to us stuff!

10/17 depart Mass arrive Lancaster, PA
10/18 Strasburg RR & Railroad Museum
10/19 Hershey Park Halloween
10/20 Hershey Gardens & Trolley Tour, visit Lititz, dinner at Shady Maple Smorgasbord
10/21 DS-29 flies home, we continue to Snowshoe, WV
10/22 Ride the train at Cass Scenic RR
10/23 Explore the area around Cass and head to Staunton, VA
10/24 Ride the 611 train
10/25 Explore Staunton area, drive to Charlotte
10/26 Drop DS-27 off at CLT, drive to Florida
10/27 Disney Springs/POFQ
10/28 Magic Kingdom, Beak & Barrel, MNSSHP (a first for us!)
10/29 1900 Park Fare breakfast, Hollywood Studios (New Little Mermaid show & Villians show)
10/30 Epcot (new Test Track!), Food & Wine, Le Creperie
10/31 Animal Kingdom, 'Ohana dinner
11/1 Epcot, Food & Wine, Space 220 Lounge (?)
11/2 Monorail Crawl, Grand Floridian Cafe, Magic Kingdom (Starlight parade)
11/3 Skyliner Crawl/Boardwalk, Boma for dinner
11/4 Epcot, Food & Wine, Via Napoli
11/5 Disney Springs, Old Key West, El Patron lunch buffet
11/6 Epcot, Garden Grill breakfast, drive to Charlotte
11/7 Drive to Lancaster
11/8 Drive home (avoiding 95).

Thank you everyone for following along and for all the great comments! I will post a link to the next report here and hope you will read along again!

 

[ddluvsdisney]

OMG I love that you have your itinerary all set already!! Wow!
And so great that the boys are joining you for part of it again! I wish my boys could do that. Maybe someday soon.
We are also doing F & W but only a long weekend. If you’ve never done it before, just know it’s a lot of food! We can’t usually even make ADRs. We share everything so we can try more. But then again we usually only have a few days.
Can’t wait to hear about this trip and that I don’t need to wait until April for a TR!

 

[mickey916]

OMG I love that you have your itinerary all set already!! Wow!
And so great that the boys are joining you for part of it again! I wish my boys could do that. Maybe someday soon.
We are also doing F & W but only a long weekend. If you’ve never done it before, just know it’s a lot of food! We can’t usually even make ADRs. We share everything so we can try more. But then again we usually only have a few days.
Can’t wait to hear about this trip and that I don’t need to wait until April for a TR!

We are planning on sharing everything and we have three full days at Epcot. Hope we get to try a lot of things! I did plan ADRs for dinners in case the lines were getting long for the booths but we may end up canceling them, especially Via Napoli. Glad to accommodate your need for an earlier trip report! Haha!

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

Oh, a fall trip! How exciting! I can’t wait!
How nice you will spend part of the time with your sons too. I like trains! You have so many fun activities planned.

I see your staying at POFQ. Now I’m sure the beignets had nothing to do with it, right?
I’ve been considering staying at POFQ at some point. I’ve stayed at POR 4x but like the idea of a smaller resort with only one bus stop, for a change. … Plus POR is just a walk or boat ride away, as you guys well know.

Thanks a bunch for the added cookie and drinks ratings!
I look forward to your autumn road trip to Disney World.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

We are planning on sharing everything and we have three full days at Epcot. Hope we get to try a lot of things! I did plan ADRs for dinners in case the lines were getting long for the booths but we may end up canceling them, especially Via Napoli. Glad to accommodate your need for an earlier trip report! Haha!

We only have 3 days too (weekend ) and I feel like we don’t have enough time. Maybe you could squeeze in another day and avoid weekends which I’m sure you will.

 

[mickey916]

We only have 3 days too (weekend ) and I feel like we don’t have enough time. Maybe you could squeeze in another day and avoid weekends which I’m sure you will.

We have one Saturday planned but the other two days are Tuesday and Thursday so I'm hoping that helps. We also plan on going for a little bit on our last day but I have Garden Grill planned for breakfast since we'll probably have to hit the road before the booths open. Hope you get to squeeze in everything you want!

 

[mickey916]

Oh, a fall trip! How exciting! I can’t wait!
How nice you will spend part of the time with your sons too. I like trains! You have so many fun activities planned.

DS-27 has been a huge train fan since he was little so most of our vacations when they were growing up involved a train of some sort. In fact, for his college graduation he chose a trip to the Durango & Silverton RR in Colorado and the Cumbres & Toltec RRs in New Mexico. We've ridden a lot of trains.

I see your staying at POFQ. Now I’m sure the beignets had nothing to do with it, right?
I’ve been considering staying at POFQ at some point. I’ve stayed at POR 4x but like the idea of a smaller resort with only one bus stop, for a change. … Plus POR is just a walk or boat ride away, as you guys well know.

Haha! I can see where you thought we were staying at POFQ but actually we're just stopping there on our first night just to get beignets and probably jambalaya. We have stayed there once in the past and we love it due to its smallness and theming (and beignets of course). I would like to try POR sometime too. We are actually staying offsite at the Residence Inn, Flamingo Crossings. One of our compromises for going often is that we save money by staying offsite, unless of course our boys are with us.

Thanks a bunch for the added cookie and drinks ratings!
I look forward to your autumn road trip to Disney World.

Thank you!

 

[cassidy57]

what a great trip report and I am hoping you will let us follow along with you in October!!

 

[mickey916]

what a great trip report and I am hoping you will let us follow along with you in October!!

Thank you! And I most certainly will be doing a TR for October!

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Great report as usual! Looking forward to hearing about your fall adventures

 

[Wood Nymph]

I recently found your trip report and just finished reading it. You had an amazing trip!

We love the weather in Orlando at the end of October. Usually, the horrible heat and humidity is gone, and you just get nice weather. I hope that is true this October, too.

 

[buzzrelly]

That's a Wrap!!
​

Well folks, that's my report of our one month trip. It was such a phenomenal trip. Our younger son was just saying yesterday what an incredible time we all had and how he's ready to go again. Before our trip I was wondering if we'd reach a point that we were there "too long" but it never happened. We just loved it so much and felt like we really had time to experience so much.

Our original plan for our next trip was to go for a couple weeks at the end of February/early March to exprience the Festival of the Arts and escape the cold and snow. Then, to do another long trip immediately after Easter into early May. When I looked at my countdown for those trips though they were just too far away. So, I convinced DH to go down at the end of October/early November just for 10 days to experience Food & Wine for the first time and see the fall decorations.

Well, DS-27 told us he wanted to ride the 611 train in Virginia which is only running from the end of September to the end of October. We decided since we were driving that way anyhow, we could add that to our trip. DS-27 also wants to see the Railroad Museum in Lancaster and ride the Cass Scenic Railroad in WV on the way, so we added a week. DS-29 wanted in on the fun and to go to Hershey Park, so he's coming along too for a portion. Then, DH surprised me with tickets to MNSSHP for my birthday so we added that in as well.

So, here's a preview of our planned itinerary, which I can't wait to write about! Lots of new to us stuff!

10/17 depart Mass arrive Lancaster, PA
10/18 Strasburg RR & Railroad Museum
10/19 Hershey Park Halloween
10/20 Hershey Gardens & Trolley Tour, visit Lititz, dinner at Shady Maple Smorgasbord
10/21 DS-29 flies home, we continue to Snowshoe, WV
10/22 Ride the train at Cass Scenic RR
10/23 Explore the area around Cass and head to Staunton, VA
10/24 Ride thain
10/25 Explore Staunton area, drive to Charlotte
10/26 Drop DS-27 off at CLT, drive to Florida
10/27 Disney Springs/POFQ
10/28 Magic Kingdom, Beak & Barrel, MNSSHP (a first for us!)
10/29 1900 Park Fare breakfast, Hollywood Studios (New Little Mermaid show & Villians show)
10/30 Epcot (new Test Track!), Food & Wine, Le Creperie
10/31 Animal Kingdom, 'Ohana dinner
11/1 Epcot, Food & Wine, Space 220 Lounge (?)
11/2 Monorail Crawl, Grand Floridian Cafe, Magic Kingdom (Starlight parade)
11/3 Skyliner Crawl/Boardwalk, Boma for dinner
11/4 Epcot, Food & Wine, Via Napoli
11/5 Disney Springs, Old Key West, El Patron lunch buffet
11/6 Epcot, Garden Grill breakfast, drive to Charlotte
11/7 Drive to Lancaster
11/8 Drive home (avoiding 95).

Thank you everyone for following along and for all the great comments! I will post a link to the next report here and hope you will read along again!

Yay for another trip so soon! Sounds amazing! My DH and I will be driving down 10/15 and going home 10/24 so we're missing you by a couple of days! So happy you get to do MNSSHP for the first time! Also, when you go to MK on 11/2 they'll be starting to decorate for Christmas and it's just so magical. We crossed over one year and went to MNSSHP on 10/31 then back to MK on 11/2 and we were shocked how quickly they had changed over. It really is something to behold!

DS-27 has been a huge train fan since he was little so most of our vacations when they were growing up involved a train of some sort.

My DS-24 always loved trains too. I remember taking a ride to PA and looking at some steam engines, and of course, whenever Thomas was in CT we had to get tickets. He loved trains so much that when he was 5 I redecorated his whole room to trains. I even splurged for the Pottery Barn quilt! Then maybe 2-3 months later he saw Star Wars for the first time and he was off trains and obsessed with Star Wars! Still made him keep that quilt for many years after spending an arm and a leg on it!

 

[mickey916]

I recently found your trip report and just finished reading it. You had an amazing trip!

We did! Thank you for reading my report!

We love the weather in Orlando at the end of October. Usually, the horrible heat and humidity is gone, and you just get nice weather. I hope that is true this October, too.

That's great to hear. We're hoping for that too!

 

[mickey916]

Yay for another trip so soon! Sounds amazing! My DH and I will be driving down 10/15 and going home 10/24 so we're missing you by a couple of days! So happy you get to do MNSSHP for the first time! Also, when you go to MK on 11/2 they'll be starting to decorate for Christmas and it's just so magical. We crossed over one year and went to MNSSHP on 10/31 then back to MK on 11/2 and we were shocked how quickly they had changed over. It really is something to behold!

That's part of the reason I picked these dates. I was hoping to catch the transformation from Halloween to Christmas. Enjoy your October trip!

My DS-24 always loved trains too. I remember taking a ride to PA and looking at some steam engines, and of course, whenever Thomas was in CT we had to get tickets. He loved trains so much that when he was 5 I redecorated his whole room to trains. I even splurged for the Pottery Barn quilt! Then maybe 2-3 months later he saw Star Wars for the first time and he was off trains and obsessed with Star Wars! Still made him keep that quilt for many years after spending an arm and a leg on it!

It's funny my oldest son was a huge Thomas the Tank Engine fan. For three years in a row I had to make him Thomas the Tank Engine cakes for his birthday. My youngest was into NASCAR and we decorated his whole room with NASCAR stuff but then eventually my oldest outgrew Thomas but my youngest suddenly loved real trains. Eventually his room went from NASCAR to trains and even though he doesn't live here any more, it's still decorated that way!

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

Your past and upcoming train excursions sound like such fun!
We were big fans of Thomas the Tank Engine too back in the day. I even remember, years ago, some dinner conversations revolving around the antics of Thomas and Friends. We absolutely loved the accidents and mishaps!
I bet the Thomas cakes you made your son were amazing.
Where does the time go? The great part is that you get to enjoy those moments all over again with grandkids, when that time comes, down the road.

Well you have less than a month now before your fall trip. I can imagine the fun you’re having fine tuning your plans.

 

[mickey916]

Your past and upcoming train excursions sound like such fun!

We always enjoy our train trips!

We were big fans of Thomas the Tank Engine too back in the day. I even remember, years ago, some dinner conversations revolving around the antics of Thomas and Friends. We absolutely loved the accidents and mishaps!

Haha! My sons from time to time still quote Sir Topham Hat "you have caused confusion and delay!"

I bet the Thomas cakes you made your son were amazing.

I'll have to see if I can find a photo of one of them. I have no training in cake decorating and back then there were no Youtube tutorials so I'm sure technically they weren't perfect but they made my son happy so that's all that matters.

Where does the time go? The great part is that you get to enjoy those moments all over again with grandkids, when that time comes, down the road.

Looking forward to those days, eventually!

Well you have less than a month now before your fall trip. I can imagine the fun you’re having fine tuning your plans.

I've been so busy lately, I haven't done much "re-planning". I guess it's good I did so much initially, haha!