Secret Honeymoon 8/21-8/29 (WDW & UOR)

[choirbird]

Hi everyone! After a two year hiatus, my HUSBAND and I are back “home”. We have our public wedding planned for June 2022 but for insurance reasons we eloped last Thursday, making this trip our secret honeymoon! It’s only secret from biological family, not DisBoards family ;-)

Day 1: Arrival & Epcot
We woke up at 5:00 this morning to catch a train to the airport at 6:30 for our 9:30 flight from EWR. The airport made a lot of announcements and we’ve been both a bit grumpy due to la k of sleep, but we had an easy flight. We had two small delays but the flight time was only two hours!!

We grabbed a Lyft to Pop - our first time staying there, usually we’ve done All Star Music but that’s not open! We got a room in Building 10 which is fairly centrally located but not RIGHT in the middle of it all. Our room wasn’t quite ready so we left our luggage at bell services and took the Skyliner to Epcot.

My first impressions of the Skyliner: a bit hot, but we rode between 2 and 5 which is clearly the worst time. Transferring at CBR isn’t bad. It wasn’t crowded at all when we used it but we’ll see about RD.

We stopped for cold brew and then rode Soarin’! LWTL was down(?) so we went to Nemo, which I enjoyed more than I remembered in other trips, said hi to our manatee friends, and went on Spaceship Earth. TT and FEA were also down. We went on Gran Fiesta Tour, which had a crazy long queue set up but only a 5 min wait. Most people were there to drink.

We were crashing and needed to head back to the hotel - FEA was back up at 35 min, and TT at 25, but we needed a break. We grabbed an orange slushy from France and a Powerade and drank those before returning to Pop via Skyliner. I think it was about 5 when we got to our room.

After an hour’s rest, we decided to go to Hollywood Studios. We browsed dining availability but there wasn’t anything that appealed to us so to the park it was! Skyliner was down for rain, so we took a bus and arrived around 7.

We got in line for MMRR at 7:06 and were able to ride and walk to Batuu by 7:36. It didn’t feel like a long wait! It was a cute and fun ride but I’m glad I didn’t have to wait more than 15 mins or so.

we got in line for smugglers run at 7:40 and got to preshow 7:48!! It was fun, but more intense/harder to steer than I expected haha.
I mobile ordered some Docking Bay 7 from line, pressed “arrived” when we finished, and we only waited a few minutes for it to be ready. We tried the wrap-less Ronto Wrap (gluten free) and the kids Tip Yip. The Ronto was great, but the Tip Yip was kind of bland - chicken, white rice, and broccoli.

After dinner, what’s better than Alien Swirling Saucers and Slinky Dog? Both were walk-on, thanks to SDD being down until we walked past it! It probably wasn’t more than a 10 min wait after that though.

We called it a night and boarded the Skyliner, eyeing the stormy weather. It’s a bit creepy at night to be honest, especially when the soundtrack doesn’t play!!

Please forgive any capitalization omissions as I’m writing from my mobile browser. Thanks for giving me something to do in line!

Tomorrow we head back to DHS, wish us luck getting a boarding pass!

 

[Ensusieasm]

Congratulations! Cant wait to read more about your adventure!

 

[choirbird]

Howdy everyone! Thanks for following along on our trip. My silly brain likes to wake me up early no matter what, so at 5:35 I watched some Tim Tracker and Mr. Morrow while unpacking the room. Husband E has to work a bit this week so we cleared off the “Murphy Desk” for that.

At 6:50 we began the quest for a boarding group. We did a speed test and found that data was about twice as fast as wifi in our room, and we both logged in while E counted down the seconds on his watch. It was stressful!

We got boarding group SIX so I was stoked. I have no idea how quickly they went today, as it’s somewhat lower crowds I think?

We left our room at about 7:50 and took the Skyliner to Studios. We rope dropped Slinky and got to a stopping point in the queue at 8:42. Off ride at 9! We almost walked on TSM and were able to ride both that and Aliens by 9:30 or so. We then went to wait for ROTR! (I’ll share my impressions later!)

Off 10:03, line for smugglers 10:07. It was nice to get to see more of the queue this time, even though some of the folks in line were a bit rowdy and not following protocols

Preshow 10:30, off 10:55. Gunners this time did 43%, last night got 25%. We were surprised to exit via elevator!

Got some blue milk, then at 11:12 got in line for Star Tours. We sort of took the long way, in retrospect. Waited about 15 mins and was off by 11:31. Got water at the gift shop and the CM wrote “honeymoon” on our buttons. We then got in line for RNRC.
—
In line thoughts: Overall I really liked ROTR but I do feel like it was over hyped? It’s very cool but it’s a bit much to plan every day of vacation around being able to ride it. It’s definitely complex with all the different parts, although some of the effects didn’t feel as “real” in person as they have in videos. I thought the animatronics in particular are AMAZING and I got really excited to see the Stormtroopers and AT-ATs. I admit I was a bit nervous about the “drop” which ended up being fairly tame.

I had more fun on SR the second time - this is probably funny to read but I feel like it’s more pressure to be the pilot. I was assigned pilot today too but switched with the guy behind me. He seemed to LOVE it so it felt good and I got to pay better attention to the story by being a gunner. If I get to ride it many times and get used to the “path” I might enjoy being a pilot again.
—
RNRC was intense but fun - it’s not something I need to do every time I’m in Studios but once a trip is good. We had a frozen lemonade and decided to just chill at a table and wait for our lunch at Brown Derby.

Lunch was good, but not amazing. We had the charcuterie board, lobster bisque, Cobb salad and wild mushroom risotto.

We rested at the hotel for a couple hours, then went to dinner at Trattoria al Forno at 5:15. We originally planned to stay through at DHS and have a 7:10 dinner but with the break this made more sense.

We shared the calamari and chicken Parmesan (both gluten free!) and our server was super nice. Calamari was quite good, chicken was just OK. I can’t fault them for GF pasta - it’s just not the same! It was cool to get to see the kitchen “behind the scenes”. Lots of (on purpose) fire.

We headed back to Epcot and waited about 30 minutes for Frozen (45 posted). That felt long to me - there was a queue outdoors. Gran Fiesta was a walk-on, and Test Track was about 15-20 minutes. It was more intense than I remembered! The car design portion was open, but we weren’t able to link our design to our MBs for some reason. It remembered E’s design from 2018!

We looked around Mouse Gear for swim trunks, to no avail, and ended the night by riding Soarin’. We boarded the Skyliner at 9:15 back to Pop!

Tomorrow, MK! and some solo time as DH works!

 

[Mich123]

Congratulations and best wishes! Looks like a great trip so far!

 

[choirbird]

Happy Monday, everyone! It’s a happy Monday when you’re going to the Magic Kingdom! E has to do some work stuff today so I’m on my own, at least for the morning! Today’s goal is watching HEA - it has special meaning for us from our first trip, and I’m bummed it’s being discontinued!

I mobile ordered myself some breakfast at Everything Pop. I pushed “I’m here” exactly at 7 and it took about 12 minutes to be ready. I asked at the Pop store about swim trunks for E - the wonderful CMs called AOA and CBR and were able to put a pair on hold at CBR!

Then I hopped on a 7:53 bus for MK - the bus times on my phone were very wrong, I should mention, but I saw them from the gift shop. Pretty good timing!

I accidentally used E’s magic band but they aren’t (yet) doing fingerprints so I guess it wasn’t an issue. Supposedly they’re starting that back tomorrow so I’ll have to be more careful!

I grabbed some iced tea and headed to the Fantasyland rope drop. They did hold us until 9:00, but by 9:12 I was on SDMT! Got in line at 9:18 for PP. The wait was listed at 15 minutes, but it was actually 22 minutes.

I headed to HM next - posted wait of 10 mins. They weren’t touring people through the cemetery area. Line 9:47, Off 10:02. 4 min wait. Got in line at 10:07 for BTMRR. If I had to pick one favorite MK ride it would be this although Splash is a close second. 3 minute wait on this one!!

Splash was a 21 minute wait, but since that line is so long it’s totally worth it. Pro tip- bring a backup mask! I was in the front row and got pretty wet. I hopped back in line for BTMRR - 13 min. Not bad! Off by 11:17 and definitely needed a drink. Time for some Citrus Swirl and people watching. After a short break, I decided to chance it with Pirates being posted at 45 min - it was only SIX! What luck. I know they manipulate wait times but I was pleasantly surprised!

E finished with his meetings for the day, stopped by CBR to pick up his swim trunks, and took the bus to MK. I decided to sit and rest my feet for a bit while waiting for him to join me. He arrived at the park right on time for our 1:10 reservation at Skipper Canteen. We shared the “secret menu” cheese bread, Falafel, and “Tastes like chicken”. They were delicious! Possibly my favorite ADR of the trip so far. The hostess, Skate, was HILARIOUS - I think she caught me off guard and I legitimately laughed at her puns! Perfect delivery. Our server, John, was great too.

We went on Pirates after lunch (waited maybe 15 mins, posted 35) and decided to go back to the hotel to rest and swim. We intended to return to MK but I wasn’t feeling the crowds so we went to GF instead and had a drink at Enchanted Rose and dinner at Grand Floridian Cafe.

I was a bit underwhelmed by both experiences, unfortunately. Our drinks were OK but they aren’t doing the “table side performances” and the decor was more subtle than I’d imagined. At GFC, my burger was dry and the server had trouble understanding my allergy needs - which so far has been very easy at WDW. He brought us a cupcake to honor our honeymoon, which is very nice, but I couldn’t eat it?

We decided we were “peopled out” and didn’t make it back into the park for HEA. I’m a little conflicted/sad about that, but it’s worth not overdoing things I suppose.

Today we’re in the Animal Kingdom!

 

[footballmouse]

 

[choirbird]

Got to park 7:02, only waited a couple mins to tap in (they’re back to doing fingerprints!) Held on Bridge to Pandora at 7:22. Held in a line at FOP 7:30. We walked through parts of the queue I’ve never seen before - granted, I’ve been lucky to always have a FP, except for when I went the day SWGE opened and crowds were low enough for me to ride 3x in a row with maybe 10 minute waits. It was cool to see the “indoor forest” and lab portions. We stopped in line at the ramp hallway lanes at 7:45. We were off the ride by 8:05 and looped around to ride again! This time the line went a bit slower and we had time to take a look at the queue scenery. Still got to the ramp hallway at 8:15 and waited about 5 minutes to start our preshow.

We took a water break and got in line at 8:57 for NRJ, posted wait 30 mins. (Interestingly, FOP is also posted at 30 mins at this time) We ended up waiting 13 minutes. I felt like the boat moved more slowly than the last time I rode it, but I could have just been appreciating details more.

We headed to our 9:40 Tusker House reservation. E had a work call so I thought I was doing the right thing by “checking in” at 9:20, but apparently I should have waited - we got our text at 9:27 but when we showed up at 9:45 we were “too late”!! Fortunately we only had to wait 10-15 mins for the next table to open up, but I felt like that was a confusing process and they weren’t too nice about it.

After breakfast we went on the safari, Everest, Dinosaur, and wandered on Gorilla Falls. Everest and Dinosaur were a little rougher than I remembered, but lines were short!

We waited about 25 mins to be seated at Nomad Lounge (which wasn’t full, so that was a bit odd/annoying?). Kinda took a long time to be served as well - two tables seated after us were served first. Maybe I’m just grumpy. Churros were DELICIOUS.
Only 10 min wait for FOP!

We then took a Lyft to the Waldorf Astoria for an amazing couple’s massage My therapist, Hannah, was EXCELLENT. We may need to go back! It was kind of funny taking the Lyft back to Pop Century afterward - we felt like we weren’t “fancy” enough. They were super nice though. I keep meaning to eat at Bull and Bear but I have to find out whether they can accommodate gluten free

We went back to Pop and I had a kids meal before we decided to go swimming and then get ready for our dinner at Topolino’s.

Oh. My. Goodness. The ricotta was INCREDIBLE. We were able to get it with GF bread and we ended up ordering two! We also got the olives, which were a LOT of olives for one person (E doesn’t like them). We shared the filet, which was super tender, and finished with the pistachio mousse. Best meal of the trip so far, and I predict it will be the overall winner but I’ll happily be wrong I also ordered the strawberry cucumber mock tail which was AWESOME. Usually non-alcoholic drinks are kind of one-note and just sweet, but this was legitimately interesting.

The Epcot fireworks didn’t seem to happen at 9, so we decided to head back to the hotel.