She's Adding All The Extras, a January 2022 Beach Club and Wilderness Lodge Split Stay Trip Report (Updated 4/24)

[AliceNDinah]

You take the most beautiful pictures, wow. Just utterly gorgeous! Love your trip report so far, your group looks like a great one to travel with--are Jon and Brandy as much fun as they look? Bring us some more trip, can't wait to read!!!

 

[suse66]

Your pictures are spectacular!

After Pirates we walked towards Haunted Mansion, but the line was really long so we didn't have enough time to ride it before lunch. Instead we hopped on the river boat.

Love the Liberty Belle!

We really debated this ADR but the food is solid, comforting, and something everyone loves.

I enjoyed Liberty Inn in the past but prefer the a la carte menu. Looks like everyone really loved their meals!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

So loving your report. Beach Club and BWI are our favorite 2 resorts.

Great, we are glad you are enjoying it, and there's lots more to come. The Epcot resort area sure is nice, we loved getting to stay there.

You take the most beautiful pictures, wow. Just utterly gorgeous! Love your trip report so far, your group looks like a great one to travel with--are Jon and Brandy as much fun as they look? Bring us some more trip, can't wait to read!!!

Thank you so much. It is easy to take great pictures with great locations like WDW offers. We're glad you enjoy following along. Yes, we have a great travel party, and we all really enjoy doing WDW our way. Brandy is a life long friend who used to hear us talk about going to Disney World and really wanted to join us some time, and then they have just kept coming back every time.

Your pictures are spectacular!

Thank you so much. I just love taking pictures at Disney World.

Love the Liberty Belle!
I enjoyed Liberty Inn in the past but prefer the a la carte menu. Looks like everyone really loved their meals!

Yeah, I used to enjoy the a la carte menu, but last time I got the burger instead of more traditional food for here and I missed it. As long as we can still get Oohey Gooey Toffee cake we're happy.

 

[Wood Nymph]

I love your pictures. It is nice to see that they put the Drawing room back in order. Last time I peeked into that room they had the billiard table covered up and moved to the wall because of Covid precautions.

We often have lunch at LTT and had a great meal earlier this week. We never thought we would like the feast instead of ala cart, but it is nice to have the extras.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I love your pictures. It is nice to see that they put the Drawing room back in order. Last time I peeked into that room they had the billiard table covered up and moved to the wall because of Covid precautions.

We often have lunch at LTT and had a great meal earlier this week. We never thought we would like the feast instead of ala cart, but it is nice to have the extras.

Thanks! It is fun to have something new to take pictures of. The villas building was really nice, and everything was open and accessible.

I'm glad LTT was good for you guys, even without a choice of what to order. It is all yummy food.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

After lunch we headed to Main Street and did some shopping in the Emporium. The park was crowded, and we didn't want to wait to ride anything.


Allie got a Pooh Nuimo and Marshall got a couple of slap bracelets before we headed back to the resort.


The store was so busy too. The number of people really caught us by surprise.


I don’t think anyone predicted it was going to be as crowded as it was though.

We got to the bus stop at 2:52, and a bus arrived at 2:57 and left full at 3:00. We got to Yacht Club at 3:13 and then Beach Club at 3:17, then our room at 3:25.

It was nice that they were actually filling buses again.

That really had to help with transportation time with so many people there. I can't imagine dealing with those crowds and half empty buses.

Yikes yeah that wouldn’t be good.

When we got back to the resort we found that the Beach Club hallways have the PERFECT spot for hiding, and then scaring people.

The first victim was Allie.



They got her good, and taught her a new trick she used the rest of the stay. Once we were back at the room, it was time to finally go experience Stormalong Bay.

We don’t have any pictures from the pool but we had fun.

We explored all the different areas of the pool while Jon and Brandy went to Hurricane Hanna's.

Allie did the slide first but Marshall was too scared. Then we walked over to the sand bottom pool, which he loved.

Next we all did the lazy river, which was warmer than Melissa remembered, but still super deep.

We did a couple of loops on the lazy river waving at Jon and Brandy as we went by.

We made our way back to the slide pool, and then Marshall had built up enough courage through challenges from his sister and encouragement from us to give the slide a try. The kids went together the first few times, and then we couldn't keep him off of it.

Allie ended up hanging out in the pool while Paul and I sat wrapped in towels on chairs and watched him go down the slide again, again, again, and again.

As soon as he hit the water he'd say "Again!" We finally told him one more time at 5:00 and collected the kids to go get cleaned up at the room.

After everyone showered and dressed we hung out for a bit but Jon and Brandy still hadn’t made it up to the room.


We were getting hungry so we figured we’d have to go find them.

We decided we wanted to head to Disney Springs, so we walked down to Hurricane Hanna's and found Jon and Brandy right where we had left them.


They had met a nice couple from San Francisco, and we met them too before walking to the buses at Yacht Club. We got to the bus stop at 6:52, and the bus came at 6:54. Went to BC, then Boardwalk at 7:05, then Disney Springs at 7:15.

We decided to have Deluxe Burgers for dinner, it’s one of our favorites for burgers. Somehow in the chaos of ordering Paul forgot to order his burger so we ended up each having half of a Southern burger and a BBQ burger.



Yeah, in managing the mobile order for everyone I didn't order mine, so we ordered another burger in a second order.

I think I’d like to propose a new burger called the Southern BBQ burger which is half of each kind because that is the best way to eat a burger.

They were both excellent, and I couldn't pick a favorite. The half and half combo worked out really nicely. I love the burgers here, and they are so different from typlical plain theme park burgers.

The fries are great too, and we love the unlimited sauces. We much prefer that to the Chicken Guy approach of pay-per-sauce.

While Chicken Guy has many more sauce options by the time we bought enough sauces to make it worth it I might as well eat at somewhere fancy.

After dinner it was time to shop, and we started with Ugg and Vera Bradley, then headed towards the MnMs store.


I didn’t get anything at Vera, I was kinda hoping still to run into the Dooney I was looking for. We did however find lots of MnMs at the MnM store.

Marshall REALLY wanted to go to the Lego store so we headed back that way but the line was so long to get into the store.

We somehow convinced him to wait that we’d be back in a couple days.

That was a good call, and we then made our way to the CoOp store. We looked for Dooney bags and DVC stuff, but struck out on both. We did find a yellow sweatshirt for Allie and a larger version of the Epcot father and Daughter print that they had looked for in May.



We also found the WDW pennant that’s framed for 200 bucks. We have a Disneyland pennant framed almost the same from 1957 so we thought this WDW version would be neat to go with our Disneyland one.

I was not excited about the price tag though.

It was really cool, and was framed just like the way we framed ours. Even with the AP discount though it was expensive. We later found a solution though, stay tuned...

Next up we walked over to World of Disney.

Man the store was a zoo.

It was busy and we didn't find much, but again Allie made out by getting a denim jacket and a Nuimo outfit.


Yeah, she’s spoiled.
I was not ready to wait in the super long checkout line so we did the mobile checkout deal.


It worked pretty good. I think they still have a few kinks to work out but I like the process. We did it several times during the trip at different stores.

They still manually check your items as you exit, but it seemed to save time. By now the kids were done, so we walked ot the bus. We got to the bus stop at 10:17 as a bus pulled out. We missed it which made Allie mad that we didn't run for it. The next bus didn't come until 10:42. I made use of the time waitiing though and found an original WDW pennant on Ebay for $25 and ordered it. I figured we could get a frame just like we did for our Disneyland one, and save over $150 since we didn't have to pay to ship the frame home.

It worked out PERFECT. It looks so cool in the frame that we got to match the one we have and it’s vintage which I like.
We’ll take pictures for ya when we get it hung up.

The bus filled to standing room only, but we had seats since we were first waiting for it. It left at 10:44, got to Yacht Club at 10:55, the Beach Club at 10:57.


Marshall had fallen asleep on the bus, so we carried him to the room and got there at 11:08.
That was a long walk carrying Marsh but you were the one carrying him. We wished the hallways were a little shorter.

We did decide to take the stroller on subsequent Disney Springs trips... It was a late end to a fun long day, and I was just about to turn another year older.

Next up, the best Birthday ever, even though it wasn’t mine. I think at this age it makes it better.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Great way to save money on the pennant!

I wonder if the reason the lazy river was warmer this time is because they heat the water in winter only?

 

[Wood Nymph]

The park was crowded,
...
I don’t think anyone predicted it was going to be as crowded as it was though.

Is this more crowded than your past January trips? It seems that WDW has been busier than in the past.

We made our way back to the slide pool, and then Marshall had built up enough courage through challengines from his sister and encouragement from us to give the slide a try. The kids went together the first few times, and then we couldn't keep him off of it.

I'm glad to hear that you had a warm enough day to enjoy SAB. Our trip was cold, too, with only our departure day warm enough for people to return to SAB. Although we did see at least a few people at the pool and kids at the big slide on the coldest days.

We got to the bus stop at 10:17 as a bus pulled out. We missed it which made Allie mad that we didn't run for it. The next bus didn't come until 10:42.

I hate it when you just miss a bus. You guys had a really busy day. I can see why Marshall fell asleep.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Great way to save money on the pennant!

It turned out great for us, and was a rare case where the original was less expensive than the new reproduction.

I wonder if the reason the lazy river was warmer this time is because they heat the water in winter only?

I think it was more that the outside temp was cooler making the water feel warmer by comparison. We did enjoy taking a couple of laps on it, but it wasn’t what we pictured like the lazy rivers at the water parks, more of a large loop shaped pool in the middle of the pool complex.

Is this more crowded than your past January trips? It seems that WDW has been busier than in the past.

It was way busier than we expected, and much closer to May crowd leveled than prior January or February trips. We spent a lot of time questioning why, and our best guess it lent up demand from COVID and people with more freedom to visit at odd times. We all felt this was the most crowded of any of our group trips, bring even worse than August was.

I'm glad to hear that you had a warm enough day to enjoy SAB. Our trip was cold, too, with only our departure day warm enough for people to return to SAB. Although we did see at least a few people at the pool and kids at the big slide on the coldest days.

Yes, it seems there’s always someone willing to brave the weather. We joked they must be from somewhere really cold.

I hate it when you just miss a bus. You guys had a really busy day. I can see why Marshall fell asleep.

We (well mostly Melissa) have a rule that we don’t run for a bus. It will likely be full anyway and not worth the effort. Sometimes we have to wait for the next one, but nobody falls down or makes a fool of ourselves. Usually the wait isn’t too bad, and in this case we did some online shopping.

 

[bambialways4ever]

Joining in now, a little late!
We are fellow Californians, our trip is in March! We'll by flying Delta out of LAX too, even!

Sounds like a super fun start!!!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Joining in now, a little late!
We are fellow Californians, our trip is in March! We'll by flying Delta out of LAX too, even!

Sounds like a super fun start!!!

Neat! We have a few followers from California. We used to spend a lot of time at Disneyland, but have switched to spending most of our Disney time in Florida since it is more of a real vacation being that far from home.
We love the Delta nonstops from LAX. We have had great luck with them, and prefer Delta over United or especially American.
Thanks for joining in, and we are just getting started. There’s lots more to come.
Is your March trip your first? We love it as Californians, even if stuff is in the wrong places in MK compared to Disneyland.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We (well mostly Melissa) have a rule that we don’t run for a bus. It will likely be full anyway and not worth the effort.

I got yelled at by the driver driver when I ran for the bus a few years ago. Now I just walk fast.

 

[bambialways4ever]

Neat! We have a few followers from California. We used to spend a lot of time at Disneyland, but have switched to spending most of our Disney time in Florida since it is more of a real vacation being that far from home.
We love the Delta nonstops from LAX. We have had great luck with them, and prefer Delta over United or especially American.
Thanks for joining in, and we are just getting started. There’s lots more to come.
Is your March trip your first? We love it as Californians, even if stuff is in the wrong places in MK compared to Disneyland.

We're big Disneyland people, but this trip may convert us!!!!

And yeah, Delta is also our preferred airline. I've been flying them almost exclusively for over a decade! Haven't flown United since childhood, but unlikely I ever will! American I can see as a bigger maybe, but Delta really has our hearts.... though they've been hard to love through the Terminal 3 remodel!!

March is my first trip, but my partner visited as a little kid! He's also from the West Coast, though, so both of us have spent most of our Disney time here! We've both also cruised with Disney (same ship, different times even!) and visited Aulani together.

We leave March 25th and I'm basically crawling out of my skin in anticipation! TRs like yours are helping me feed the beast lol

 

[KPeterso]

We're big Disneyland people, but this trip may convert us!!!!

And yeah, Delta is also our preferred airline. I've been flying them almost exclusively for over a decade! Haven't flown United since childhood, but unlikely I ever will! American I can see as a bigger maybe, but Delta really has our hearts.... though they've been hard to love through the Terminal 3 remodel!!

March is my first trip, but my partner visited as a little kid! He's also from the West Coast, though, so both of us have spent most of our Disney time here! We've both also cruised with Disney (same ship, different times even!) and visited Aulani together.

We leave March 25th and I'm basically crawling out of my skin in anticipation! TRs like yours are helping me feed the beast lol

I am doing the LAX-MCO flights in early March (3/4 - 3/11) and getting excited. I have tried them all for the LAX-MCO flights and fid Delta the best. It has quickly become my favorite airline. I used to mostly prefer United, but I grew up in Chicago and that is the United headquarters, so flights on United flew anywhere and everywhere I needed to go practically! They are my second choice with American a distant third --- I have had too many bad flights on them. I actually most miss Virgin America --- those flights were the best in my opinion.

 

[suse66]

Allie got a Pooh Nuimo and Marshall got a couple of slap bracelets before we headed back to the resort.

Those Nuimos are so cute! I want an Eyeore one.

When we got back to the resort we found that the Beach Club hallways have the PERFECT spot for hiding, and then scaring people.

We made our way back to the slide pool, and then Marshall had built up enough courage through challengines from his sister and encouragement from us to give the slide a try. The kids went together the first few times, and then we couldn't keep him off of it.

Love that Marshall got so confident! That slide is a blast!

We decided to have Deluxe Burgers for dinner, it’s one of our favorites for burgers. Somehow in the chaos of ordering Paul forgot to order his burger so we ended up each having half of a Southern burger and a BBQ burger.

Great idea to try halves!

That was a good call, and we then made our way to the CoOp store. We looked for Dooney bags and DVC stuff, but struck out on both. We did find a yellow sweatshirt for Allie and a larger version of the Epcot father and Daughter print that they had looked for in May.

Such a cute sweatshirt. Love that Alice print in the picture too.

I made use of the time waitiong though and found an original WDW penant on Ebay for $25 and ordered it. I figured we could get a frame just like we did for our Disneyland one, and save over $150 since we didn't have to pay to ship the frame home.

It worked out PERFECT. It looks so cool in the frame that we got to match the one we have and it’s vintage which I like.

That's awesome! Saving money and a true vintage original. Love it!

 

[Tess]

No, their arrival was not even close to what ours was. When they arrived I went down to meet them and led them to the room. It was at the very end of the hallway, just about the longest possible walk of any BC Villas room, with a couple of turns to keep you guessing. It was room number 251.


Once we were all in the room Bell Services brought up our bags and the groceries that we had sent to the resort, and everything made it there quickly.
I ran down and grabbed a chili dog for Jon and Brandy, and after they ate we got ready to walk to Epcot for the first time.

It was the farthest of far down the hallway. It ended up being a quiet room though.


I actually counted the steps, and it was further from the Villas elevator than that elevator is from the Marketplace. Also they don't let you come back in the stairway door at the end of the hall, so I had to walk all the way back to the lobby to get in to the building when I discovered this. It added to my step count for the first day.

OMG, we have had the room right next door to yours and it was the worst room ever! Was the elevator in the middle of the building (around the corner to the right as you walk down the hall) working when you were there? The year we had the hall to nowhere room, it was not and took forever to get back from the pool, etc.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I got yelled at by the driver driver when I ran for the bus a few years ago. Now I just walk fast.

Lol, whatever keeps you out of trouble...

We're big Disneyland people, but this trip may convert us!!!!

And yeah, Delta is also our preferred airline. I've been flying them almost exclusively for over a decade! Haven't flown United since childhood, but unlikely I ever will! American I can see as a bigger maybe, but Delta really has our hearts.... though they've been hard to love through the Terminal 3 remodel!!

March is my first trip, but my partner visited as a little kid! He's also from the West Coast, though, so both of us have spent most of our Disney time here! We've both also cruised with Disney (same ship, different times even!) and visited Aulani together.

We leave March 25th and I'm basically crawling out of my skin in anticipation! TRs like yours are helping me feed the beast lol

You should have an excellent time. You will be amazed at what Disney can do with an almost unlimited about of land. You may find MK to be a little odd since stuff is in different places than Disneyland, but that's ok. The other three parks are unique and amazing.
We are visiting Aulani in April for the first time and are looking forward to it. Do you have any Aulani tips for us?

I am doing the LAX-MCO flights in early March (3/4 - 3/11) and getting excited. I have tried them all for the LAX-MCO flights and fid Delta the best. It has quickly become my favorite airline. I used to mostly prefer United, but I grew up in Chicago and that is the United headquarters, so flights on United flew anywhere and everywhere I needed to go practically! They are my second choice with American a distant third --- I have had too many bad flights on them. I actually most miss Virgin America --- those flights were the best in my opinion.

We have had great luck and service on Delta. We also did well for a few years on Jet Blue, but that was when they had a nice option connecting in Texas rather than New York from So Cal to Florida.

Your trip is so close! Enjoy!!!

Those Nuimos are so cute! I want an Eyeore one.

They were on sale recently on Shop Disney... You might want to check them out.

Love that Marshall got so confident! That slide is a blast!

All the kids seemed to love it, and some parents too, but we were fine watching the kids do it this time.

Great idea to try halves!

Both burgers were excellent, and neither of us could pick a favorite.

Such a cute sweatshirt. Love that Alice print in the picture too.

They always have cool stuff at the CoOp.

That's awesome! Saving money and a true vintage original. Love it!

So do we! Now we just have to get it hung up...

OMG, we have had the room right next door to yours and it was the worst room ever! Was the elevator in the middle of the building (around the corner to the right as you walk down the hall) working when you were there? The year we had the hall to nowhere room, it was not and took forever to get back from the pool, etc.

That's crazy, and you know the location well. I didn't find the other elevator until later in the trip, and it was working but didn't seem to help shorten the walk to anywhere. It was definitely not an optimal location, but was very quiet being at the end of the hall (to nowhere...).

 

[GrandCalifornian]

So where were we...

On my birthday I woke up at 5:00 and decided to purchase Genie + for our group. It was $15 a person plus tax, making it almost $96, but I made the decision to give it a try. I then got up just before 6AM and went out to explore and take more pictures.


I was asleep. I also didn’t know until right now that you could pay ahead for Genie+, I thought you had to wait until 7 to do that too.

I wanted to explore the other side of our wing of the hotel, and found that it is right next to a road that led to a water bridge.




There were no signs saying I couldn't be there, and there was even a sidewalk, so I followed it under the waterway. There was barely any traffic, which was probably good because it was a big concrete hole in the ground.

I’m pretty sure they didn’t plan for guests to be walking there.

Once I got out on the other side I could see that I was headed towards the Boardwalk Inn, but the sidewalk unfortunately ended so I had to walk through the grass. Definitely not part of the planned guest experience.

Umm, no.

Once I made it to Boardwalk I got to walk around there and get some morning pictures of that beautiful resort.




Then I made my way down to the water and got some pictures from the other side of the lake.





t was very early, the sun wasn’t even up.




I made it back to Beach Club before 7, and sat outside the marketplace to make our first Genie + selections for our planned day at Epcot.


I refreshed the app right at 7, and it took me at least 5 minutes to get it to load.

I wound up with Soarin for 11:10 AM, since the first Test Track I could get was for 5PM. I also thought about a paid Lightning Lane for Remy, but the best I could do was 4PM for $11 a person. This was not fun. I was up early and willing to pay what it took to make it a great day, and the times just weren't going to work. Feeling like I wasted $96, I headed back to the room knowing that at least we would get to ride Soarin. Our approach for Remy's Ratatouille Adventure would be to take full advantage of the extra half hour for resort guests, and our resort's proximity to the ride.

I was optomistic about Genie+ but felt really bad that he felt so bad about the whole experience, especially on his birthday.

At 8AM I decided to place a breakfast order, but the next available window for Beach Club Marketplace opened at 8:45, and that was too close to our desired time to leave for the park, so instead I ordered from the market at Ale and Compass and went for a walk to go get it.


While I had no wait for a window, I did have the 10 plus minute walk over there, then some wait for the food to be prepped, then the walk back to the room.

It was a bummer that the morning was so stressful but it was about to get better.

Breakfast was good, and we made it out of the room just after 9 and into Epcot at 9:20.



Then we were in line for Remy at 9:23. The wait time showed 40 minutes, which was the shortest we had seen yet for the ride.


It was a drizzly morning and we were afraid it would start dumping rain. I think other people were too though and that ultimately helped with our wait time for Remy. It was way quicker than 40 minutes to get on the ride.



We made it on the ride at 9:54, and the walk through the queue was quick and fun. We all enjoyed the ride, especially the kids. Brandy said it was identical to the one in France, which they got to experience a couple of years ago. I got a couple of pictures that turned out better than I expected for a 3D ride.



It was a super fun ride. I can’t remember who said the mop scene was their favorite though. I’m pretty sure they don’t mop enough.

I beleive that was our daughter... That part was pretty cool though. Afterward, the kids took pictures on the motorcycle and scooter on the streets of France.


Then we went over to the little shop outside Le Halles. Boy there were a TON of people in line there. Allie just had one thing on her mind though.


I know their stuff is yummy, but there was no way I was going to wait in that line. Allie was lucky that there was almost nobody in the shop, and she found a French dress just like her other two from previous years in a size that was big enough for her.

She finally got the pink one. Pink has been off limits for many years but I think she’s finally over it.

Marshall also convinced us he needed to bring home a rat.

It was the third and last color option, but I do think she secretly liked it. I couldn't say no to an RC Rat for Marshall, so I put my Disney Rewards card to use and bought the kids a couple of souveniers.

Marshall had the choice between Remy and Emile and he chose Emile. I think he’s so cute.

I almost bought Remy for myself, but resisted the urge. Speaking of other things we didn't buy, Jon tried out the Remy mouse ears, and Brandy looked great in the cheese necklace.



Yes, they are a ton of fun.

After we finished acting like tourists in France we had to head towards the Land Pavilion for our Soarin appointment? Fastpass, no, I don’t know what to call it.

On the way we stopped at the UK pavillion because Allie was looking for a pair of Pooh ears that has a bee on them. She has been on a bee kick since the May trip.


The bee thing is something she's known for at school, so those ears were perfect. She got a pair, and then stopped to take a picture of Pooh in a British phone booth.


We also saw that Figment popcorn buckets were indeed still sold out:


We made it to The Land early, which meant we had time to hop on Living With The Land. Unfortunately it had a decent wait, but we made it on the ride by 10:45.



Marshall was so excited to ride it and on the ride he started talking about selective breeding. This kid I tell ya. There was also someone cleaning the fish tank at the end of the ride, that was interesting to see.


It is his favorite ride, which is another way in which he is just like his Mother.

You know something that was really nice though? All of those plastic dividers were gone!

Yes, it was nice to see the ride not through glarey plastic.

We got off the ride at 11:00.

After our cruise we thought it was time for a snack.

It wasn't time for lunch yet, and we had a good ADR coming, but to fill the time in between we got a lemon blueberry cake, a Remy cheese cake, and a cookie.



All were very good. The "cheese" cake was interesting, as it really looked like cheese.

It was my favorite, I wasn’t a huge fan of the lemon blueberry cake. Marshall DID NOT share his cookie.

I thought the lemon cake was ok, but nothing exceptional. I will take this opportinity to again say how much I miss the good cupcakes they have had here in the past.

Yeah, man they used to be a great spot for good desserts. I do like their strawberry shortcake though which they still have but we didn’t get this time. While we were wrapping up our snacking a whole bunch of service puppies in training came and sat down next to us. It was all I could do not to go smoosh them up.

Mmm Hmmmm. We got in line for Soarin at 11:35. The wait time showed 45 minutes, but we were on by 11:45, so we got some return from our Genie +.


Also while we were in line I was able to grab another Lightning Lane for Spaceship Earth in just a few minutes.



To be continued in next update (due to picture count...)

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I figured with all of the people in the park that the line would be pretty long for it and we wanted to ride it but wouldn’t want to wait for it.

Soarin' was fun as always.


We also got yelled at for rocking the chairs. I don’t know how it started but the stupid thing kept rocking and we kept getting yelled at.

I have never seen this, but once they started complaining about it other guests tried rocking them and it was a repetitive cycle. Finally the ride was able to start once we all behaved.

Allie was brave and made it through the ride, which she still is scared of despite loving the original Soarin Over California when she was little. This version has always scared her.

I think she sat there and closed her eyes, either way she lived and was fine.

Then we walked to Spaceship Earth in a light rain. The wait time for it was showing 30 minutes, and with Lightning Lane we were able to walk right on, so it did save us a little more time.


OH MAN but the group in front of us was a hot mess. It wasn’t us for once.

Oh yes, they seemed to have a very hard time navigating the queue, and did seem to want the world to stop and wait for them.

After we said hi and bye to Boots, and got a sneak peek into our future it was time to head to lunch.


We always wonder if it will be our last time seeing boots, but we enjoyed the ride as always. Afterward it was time for another tradition, our trip across World Showcase in an attempt to make a lunch ADR. It was still raining lightly, and we had the wallcot maze to deal with, but we headed towards Canada but diverted to hop on the boat which was waiting.

We had gotten seperated from Jon and Brandy and they had also diverted and made it on the same boat.


It always feels good to be in the same boat as your friends.

See what I did there?

Lol nice. After the boat ride we made it to Morocco at 12:44 and walked towards Japan. We actually arrived there early enough to do some shopping at Mitsukoshi before our ADR.

So here’s a little side tangent. At this point my toe was KILLING me. I had stubbed it pretty bad over the summer and it was healing and not really bothering me but it was purple. Well, the day after Christmas we were playing a very heated game of Throw Throw Burrito and I was barefoot.

And I had boots on...

Steel toe ones.

My poor toe suffered greatly and anyway is still a hot mess. Luckily it doesnt normally bother me but when it’s wet it can be excruciating.

And it was pretty wet that day, so your shoes were wet and so was your toe.

Yes, there was no way I was going to be able to comfortably get through the rest of the day let alone lunch in my current state so I divised a plan.

I knew Mitsukoshi sold socks and those socks would be delivered in a plastic bag.

So I bought some dry toe socks and shoved my foot in the bag in my shoe and Ta Da, it was almost instant relief.


I love it when a plan comes together!

We also bought some peach mochi, it was much much much better than the mochi Jon bought a couple years ago.

It redemmed itself, and wasn't even the last Mochi of the trip.

At 1:10 I went and checked in for lunch, and then we headed upstaris at 1:16 when our table was ready.

We wound up with a table to ourselves despite only being a party of 6.


We had a great waitress too.

Ken was our chef, and did a great job.

Teppan Edo is just a solid choice every time for us.



The food was fantastic, we ordered a Volcano roll, I got scallops, Allie got the Filet, Marsh got chicken.




And I of course got the Filet as well. This was my clear meal of choice for my birthday, and it didn't disapoint.


I love that steak (and yum yum sauce). Brandy again got the Wagyu, and it was tasty as always too.


Just a great meal. Because Paul was wearing his birthday button they brought him a hat and some icecream and sang to him.

Just a great meal. Because Paul was wearing his birthday button they brought him a hat and some icecream and sang to him.

Yeah, it was a little less embarassing since it was on the day... I wore the hat the rest of the time at Epcot that day.

It made him easier to spot....

Read more about the rest of the day in our next update.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

You call her Boots, and I call her Lt. Uhura. I think it's fitting that they included the communications officer in the ride about the history of communication.

"Wallcot" is an apt description, and will resonate for everyone who has been there in the past year or so.

Glad you got to celebrate your birthday at Teppan Edo! What flavor ice cream was it?