Quick trip to celebrate the Most Magical Celebration! November 6-9, 2021

[Shrfleen]

This is our first trip post pandemic. We planned on going on a cruise but changed to a few park days just to be extra careful.

The travel party consisted of me, my twin sister, our mom and our cousin (it was her first visit ever).

We booked Port Orleans Riverside, a woods view, dog friendly. Since we were only staying at Disney for a couple of days we decided to bring our pup with us since we would spend the rest of the time at our Grandparent’s house on the Gulf side.

We planned to go to Hollywood Studios on Sunday and Epcot on Monday. We also purchased Genie + and I will let you know how that went in the upcoming post.

Please let me know if you have any questions about our trip!

 

[Shrfleen]

We arrived at Port Orleans Riverside shortly before 3pm. We checked in at the front desk to provide the proper paperwork for our pup. We asked our TA to put in 2 room request, the first was a first floor, since we would need easy access to the pet relief areas and the second request was building 80. According to our research this was a dog friendly building and close to a bus stop. We received our Dog Welcome Pack and headed out to find the room.



We were upgraded to a Royal Room on the second floor. It was a lot of stairs for our little guy to hop up and down but we tried to make it work. Building 80 and the other rooms in that area did not appear to be in use at this time.

After we settled in we let our pup take a nap and we headed to Disney Springs for dinner. We decided to drive because we needed to stop by the store before we got there. It was a Saturday night and Disney Springs was BUSY! We enjoyed a nice meal at Chicken Guy and went on to do some shopping. We came back to the resort and took a walk to help everyone get ready for bed.



We did have a few hiccups with the room. One of the beds clearly needs to be replaced. Every time we moved, it would make so much noise. That same bed was also very close to the wall. Maybe 5 inches or less between the bed and wall. I could not comfortably get into the bed from the side, I had to get in from the bottom and scoot up. The most unsettling hiccup occurred at 2am when we were awoken by an alarm. Now half of our party thinks it was a fire alarm (which would not be the first time we have been woken up by a fire alarm while at Disney) and the other half thinks it was a racer's alarm that was just very very loud. After the alarm went off we had to settle the pup back down and took him outside. We heard lots of toilets flushing when we returned and tried to get some more sleep.



We made it back to bed and got ready for Day 2!​

 

[Shrfleen]

Our first park day was at Hollywood Studios which had early entry at 8:30am for resort guest. We had already pre purchased Genie + and knew we wanted to pay for a Lighting Lane pass for Rise of the Resistance. We were able to secure a Rise LL and made a Genie + selection for Toy Story Mania, right at 7 AM.



We left for the park at 7:30am ish and the bus was pretty empty. When we arrived, we were able to get into the park quickly and made our way over to Toy Story land to rope drop Slinky Dog. We were the second group of people in line. We made our way onto the ride shortly after 8:30am. We walked right onto Alien Saucers and Toy Story Mania before 9am. We did not use our Toy Story Mania LL selection and instead bumped it out to later in the evening and traded it for Rock n Roller Coaster. After finishing Toy Story Land we went to wait in line for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad, we were in line for about 30 minutes right at parking opening of 9 AM.
We strolled over to MuppetVison 3D, and then made our way over to Galaxy’s Edge to do a little bit of shopping and checking the wait time for Smugglers Run which was up to 50 minutes, so we skipped it and took a little break. It was then time to use of LL pass for Rise. Definitely worth it because the wait was 75 minutes. We then took a slow stroll out of Hollywood Studios and saw Goofy and Max fishing! Got a nice cold icey and started walking to the bus stop. We waited about 20 minutes for bus and not many people were leaving in the early afternoon.



We mobile ordered lunch from Riverside Mill and took it back to the room to eat. Took the pup out to potty and on a quick walk and then napped.



We headed back Hollywood Studios around 5pm, wait for the bus was about 25mintues. We used our Rock N Rollercoaster LL pass, then watched Lighting McQueen Racing Academy, used a LL pass for Tower of Terror, had a rematch on Toy Story Mania with another LL pass and then grabbed dinner at Woody’s Lunchbox. We checked the wait time of Smugglers Run again, it was up to 45minutes. We wanted to be out of the park before fireworks and that would not have allowed us enough time, so it was the only ride we did not get to do.​

 

[Shrfleen]

Once again it was an early start to the day. We were able to secure a boarding group for Remy, right at 7 AM and selected Test Track for our first LL pass. Epcot was opening at 9:30am. We got to the bus stop shortly before 8:30am and it was packed with people getting to Epcot. The first bus was full after only letting on about 7 people and we had to wait another 20 minutes before another bus came. When we finally made it to Epcot the resort guest line was nearing the ticket booths and not moving very quickly. We made it into the park right at 9:30am. We booked it over to Frozen Ever After and we waited about 40 minutes.

Our boarding group was called while in line, so we walked over to Remy after we finished the FEA. The wait for Remy was about 30 minutes. We then had our LL pass for Test Track next, and then had a snack and nice cool drink, before heading out.



We got back to the resort, took the pup out, walked and took a nap. We left around 3:30pm to get back. We decided to drive to avoid the crazy busy bus and paid the extra $25 for premium parking, which put us right in front of the bus depot.



We had a LL pass for Soarin’, then we were able to book one for Living with the Land and Figment next. Did we need the last 2, not really but we paid for Genie + so we used it. We were able to book them all back to back.

We went to Via Napoli for dinner. They were unable to do half pepperoni and half four cheese. This must be a COVID change because we were able to have it done on our last trip. Because we don't care if the sauces mix. Following dinner we shopped around the rest of the world showcase. We only didn’t get to ride Gran Fiesta while at Epcot. We did some last minute shopping at the Creations Shop and made our way out of the park.


Since we did have our dog with us, we thought it was best to be back in the room early this night because it was already late. We took a nightly walk and starting packing up to say goodbye to Disney.

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[Shrfleen]

Round Up!

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Pros:

• Loved the mobile check out at the Creations Shop and World of Disney. Saved so much time!
• Mobile ordering for food worked out great. Never had to wait too long.
• The trackless rides were all great!
• Genie + was good because we didn't have to wait in long lines and could do a lot in one day.
• Crowds were pretty good at Hollywood Studios but Epcot was fairly busy, especially in the morning.

Cons:

• No first floor room.
• All of the parks need more water bottle stations!
• The app did have its moments where it would glitch or crash. Causing frustration.
• The 30 minute early park entry is not enough time! If we would have been allowed to queue up in Epcot at the rides, maybe.
• Bus transportation to Epcot was a nightmare in the AM. It would be great that if they bus is full, they call one to come immediately instead of waiting for the other one on the route to come by. They had the buses in a staging area nearby.

For those who have questions about brining your dog to a Disney property, feel free to shoot me a message. We already took mid day breaks so we didn't mind coming back to the room half way through the day. Other than not having a first floor room, it worked out ok. Our pup had some trouble adjusting to his new schedule and all the new sounds but we made it work.

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