She's Five at Riverside - A September 2014 Trip Report (Completed 2/27)

[kastoney]

Last days are always so sad. Glad u got all the airline bugs worked out. I didn't know thr concierges could print the boarding passes, will have to do that next time.

Brilliant idea to let Allie play for a bit before you left. Hope it worked ; )

 

[Adgie128]

Hi, there!

I've been following your TR and am finally jumping in to say how much I've enjoyed it. I love WL, but stayed at POFQ and POR on my last two trips and had great experiences at both, as well. I recognize the bell services CM from our August trip. She was so sweet and helpful.

Thanks for sharing your report and for taking us all along on your magical trip!

 

[vleeth]

Looks like you had some really good character interactions. The pic with Duffy is super cute. I'm always so sad when its time to go home.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Last days are always so sad. Glad u got all the airline bugs worked out. I didn't know the concierges could print the boarding passes, will have to do that next time.

Brilliant idea to let Allie play for a bit before you left. Hope it worked ; )

Yeah, it is sad to have to go home, but it wasn't terrible. We felt like we had accomplished what we wanted, so we didn't have to squeeze anything in to the last day, and it was kind of relaxing. We didn't want to have to go home, but we were ok with it.

We were glad to finally get to play more on Old Man Island, and Allie loved the playground. It was perfect to do before heading to the airport.

Hi, there!

I've been following your TR and am finally jumping in to say how much I've enjoyed it. I love WL, but stayed at POFQ and POR on my last two trips and had great experiences at both, as well. I recognize the bell services CM from our August trip. She was so sweet and helpful.

Thanks for sharing your report and for taking us all along on your magical trip!

Well hello! We are glad you've enjoyed following along. We like sharing our trips, and are glad to hear that you've enjoyed POR and WL too. Disney sure does a great job setting the prices so it is hard to chose between them for the money.

The CM at bell services was really nice, although we wished she would have been there when we picked up, because we had quite a wait for the bags. We haven't gotten to that part yet though, but we should be able to post the next update soon.

Looks like you had some really good character interactions. The pic with Duffy is super cute. I'm always so sad when its time to go home.

Yes, this was definitely the trip of characters for Allie. She actually wanted to go up and see them, which was such a change from two years ago where she really pretty much didn't want anything to do with them.

It is funny, I spend a lot of the trip dreading that point when we have to go home, but I guess this time I had myself ready for it because while it was sad to go it wasn't as bad leaving as it could have been. I do wish we knew when we were going back, because booking a bounceback has always been how we dealt with the sadness before, but we do know that we will be back sometime.

 

[WDWKOOK]

NOOOO! This means the TR is almost over

I think you really maximized your drink refills. Seeing how great you are at keeping track of bus times, etc..., did you keep track of how many refills? I'll bet the Rapid Refill system did. I like the photos of the CMs working intently to get everything straightened out for you. They really seem to care about every guest and if the first one doesn't, you can usually work your way up to one who does. But, your last post means there's more to this story

Oh, BTW, I bought of you when I read recently that the Richard Petty Driving Experience is being discontinued

 

[GrandCalifornian]

NOOOO! This means the TR is almost over

I think you really maximized your drink refills. Seeing how great you are at keeping track of bus times, etc..., did you keep track of how many refills? I'll bet the Rapid Refill system did. I like the photos of the CMs working intently to get everything straightened out for you. They really seem to care about every guest and if the first one doesn't, you can usually work your way up to one who does. But, your last post means there's more to this story

Oh, BTW, I bought of you when I read recently that the Richard Petty Driving Experience is being discontinued

I know, we don't want it to be over, especially since we don't have a PTR to think about yet. Oh well, we're working on another post with the rest of that day and should have it up soon.

We didn't count the individual drink refills, but it was a lot. Those mugs are just so small... We wound up filling them a couple of times at each meal, and there's still lunch to come. Does it mean something that when the RFID reader recognized the cup instead of that beep noise it had Mickey's voice saying "Again?" Not really but I am sure we showed up as an anomaly on some beverage tracking report somewhere.

I read about the discontinuation of the Petty driving experience. From the looks of it Disney wants to do something else with the land, so likely no more Walt Disney World Speedway. I would have loved to drive on it, but oh well. R2-JD got to do it and I will now forever be jealous.

Thanks for following along and we'll post about the rest of our day soon.

 

[WDWKOOK]

I know, we don't want it to be over, especially since we don't have a PTR to think about yet. Oh well, we're working on another post with the rest of that day and should have it up soon.

We didn't count the individual drink refills, but it was a lot. Those mugs are just so small... We wound up filling them a couple of times at each meal, and there's still lunch to come. Does it mean something that when the RFID reader recognized the cup instead of that beep noise it had Mickey's voice saying "Again?" Not really but I am sure we showed up as an anomaly on some beverage tracking report somewhere.

I read about the discontinuation of the Petty driving experience. From the looks of it Disney wants to do something else with the land, so likely no more Walt Disney World Speedway. I would have loved to drive on it, but oh well. R2-JD got to do it and I will now forever be jealous.

Thanks for following along and we'll post about the rest of our day soon.

LOL about "Again?!" So true about their size, especially with plenty of ice in them

I read that they want to convert the area to something transportation-related. Well, it's certainly transportation-related now! Maybe this will be some sort of new hub or TTC II. Sorry for getting a bit OT.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

LOL about "Again?!" So true about their size, especially with plenty of ice in them

I read that they want to convert the area to something transportation-related. Well, it's certainly transportation-related now! Maybe this will be some sort of new hub or TTC II. Sorry for getting a bit OT.

No problem. I hope whatever they do with that land is more exciting than just another parking lot, but we'll see. Perhaps it will be a stop on the long awaited monorail expansion that will hit all four parks... Or maybe not.

 

[MissMaryQC]

What a great start to your last day. Nice and relaxing.

Weird about your bags though, glad it worked out.

POR is really a lovely resort!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

What a great start to your last day. Nice and relaxing.

Weird about your bags though, glad it worked out.

POR is really a lovely resort!

Yes, it was a great way to spend our last day. We loved not having to rush anywhere and we got to spend time enjoying the beautiful resort. If our flight time had been later we could have easily spent more time hanging around and walking through POR and maybe even over to POFQ, but we stayed close since our bus was coming at noon.

Nobody knew why Allie and I didn't get checked in for the flight, but their solution worked and it was nice not having to drag two extra bags to the airport.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

While Allie played on the playground we watched the clock so that we would have enough time for one more visit to the food court for lunch before we left. It hadn't been long since breakfast, but we knew the food there would be better than anything else we'd get at the airport for lunch so we headed across the bridge just after 11AM.


It was hard to pull Allie away from the playground but she reluctantly led us to lunch.

For lunch, we picked up another pair of bacon pimento cheeseburgers with Apple Blossom a la mode for dessert and a big cupcake for Allie. She had pizza which Grandma and Grandpa got for her using up the last of their dining credits.


We picked up some extra rice crispy treats to take home to use up our remaining snack credits, so when we checked out our receipt showed 0 credits remaining.


I could really go for one of those cheeseburgers right now, I think it's about lunch time.

I know. Mmmmm. We sat and enjoyed another meal at The Mill and our last few minutes at POR.


Then we headed out front to pick up our bags that we had left with Bell Services and make our noon bus pickup.


I got a little nervous when it took 10 minutes to get our bags, but they still got to us before the bus showed up so we were good. While we waited Allie played with the hula hoops and burned some more energy.


It didn't take long for that dreaded bus to come pick us up but soon we were on our way home.


Allie and I were both sad the trip was over.


Once on the bus, we began a grand departure tour of WDW. After stopping by POFQ, we headed to OKW.


We really do think we might stay here sometime, especially if we got a good deal renting points. Then we headed to SSR, where we waited for a while and picked up a few more guests before heading to the airport.


At the airport we got through security fine, although we had to wait through the long line while my parents were pre-checked so they got through quickly. Then I went to gate check the stroller through to Long Beach like we did on the way to WDW and got a lecture from the gate agent about how it doesn't work that way and I had to pick it up in Austin. Whatever, no problem, but I came to understand that I wasn't in Disney anymore.



Our flights home were pretty uneventful which was nice and we landed in Long Beach in no time.

When we landed in Long Beach it was still light out, and Grandpa and I went to get the truck and came back for Grandma, Allie, Melissa, and the luggage. Once we loaded it all up we had one place we needed to go: Disneyland!


We dropped Grandma and Grandpa off at the Grand Californian and we drove the truck over to park by Downtown Disney. Since that parking was full we wound up over by the parking structure, so we had a decent walk in to get back to the hotel.

It's not that far though and I was soaking up the last bit of our Disney vacation even if it was so close to home.

We met up in the lobby.


Then we headed for our favorite Quick Service in California.


Whitewater Snacks!
if you've followed along with any of our previous PTRs or TRs you already know what we ordered here.

Yep, we ordered our usual favorite, the beef nachos. The weather was nice enough that we got a table outside, and we enjoyed one more meal together with Grandma and Grandpa to round out the trip.


This year the dogs stayed where they were supposed to and we were able to enjoy our dinner without rushing home.

After dinner we walked through the hotel and towards Downtown Disney. We decided to see if giant Stitch was at our World of Disney store, but unfortunately (or fortunately from a storage perspective) it was not.

It is very sad, I still do not own a giant Stitch.

After World of Disney we still had some driving ahead of us, so we hopped on the tram and headed out to the parking lot.


We got home without any problems, and returned to our regular non-Disney lives for the foreseeable future.

Our non-Disneyworld lives, let's not be a complete downer.

Ahh true. Besides, we only lasted about a week before we were back at DL for another followup dose of Disney.

So this wraps up the day by day of our TR. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll be arround posting comments and summarizing our trip. Thanks for reading and we'll hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks for following along!

 

[WDWKOOK]

BRAVO and ENCORE!! Non-Disney World is right! I know you go to DLR all the time, but I can't wait for you to all go back to WDW. I always love your extra detailed and chocked-full-o-photos TRs, (though I would have liked some cute doggy photos in this one, even though no one escaped this time). It's also nice reading both your comments.

I know you don't have another trip booked, but you must have one planned in spirit? WHEN you go back to WDW, where might you stay? And, where would you like to stay that you've never stayed before? And, one more, where would Allie like to stay? She does have all the resorts memorized, right?!

Thank you both for filling some of my day with your wonderful TR and don't be strangers on the WL thread!

 

[MissMaryQC]

I'm so glad your travel was uneventful; as far as I'm concerned that's what travel should be!

How cool that you guys were able to have a little more Disney after you arrived in California. I've never been to DL but I'll get there some day; bucket list item.

Sorry Stitch hasn't yet joined the family. Maybe soon!

Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful family vacation with us. The photos of you all, the food, the resort, the parks, everything has been such fun to follow along with! Looking forward to your recap.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

BRAVO and ENCORE!! Non-Disney World is right! I know you go to DLR all the time, but I can't wait for you to all go back to WDW. I always love your extra detailed and chocked-full-o-photos TRs, (though I would have liked some cute doggy photos in this one, even though no one escaped this time). It's also nice reading both your comments.

I know you don't have another trip booked, but you must have one planned in spirit? WHEN you go back to WDW, where might you stay? And, where would you like to stay that you've never stayed before? And, one more, where would Allie like to stay? She does have all the resorts memorized, right?!

Thank you both for filling some of my day with your wonderful TR and don't be strangers on the WL thread!

Aww, thank you. We really enjoy WDW and can't wait to go back.

We have talked about lots of potential trips to WDW. We have really loved the low crowds in September so Sept 2016 would be a possibility, but it will likely be sometime after that. We would really like to go in the winter too, and maybe see the resorts decorated for Christmas.

I really like September and now with having experienced Food and Wine I'd really love to visit again that time of year. I'm not sure about a Christmas trip, life is so busy around that time of year I just can't see it happening. I like the idea of a February trip though.

As far as resorts are concerned, WL is our favorite. (Big surprise). Really though, we talk about other resorts and just can't see ourselves paying more to stay somewhere else. If we decide to save some money, POR would be a leading candidate, even in a non-preferred room if we were going by ourselves. We look at the Values too, especially POP, but just can't get over the Double beds. Since we will likely go for another long trip to justify the airfare cost, we don't want to spend 10+ nights on small beds.

I really liked POR and I'm not sure what the threshold would be to bump to WL. I just really liked saving the money and I liked the room a lot. I can't see a value resort until they do something about the beds. There just isn't enough room for me to spread out .

For an even more economical trip, we are really thinking that renting points and staying at OKW would be nice. We could handle the lack of a cancellation policy, and wouldn't have a problem staying committed to it once we make the decision to go.

I agree with renting points and staying at OKW as long as it did indeed save money over staying elsewhere. I get a little nervous about not having a cancellation policy but we haven't needed to use one yet and it'd be a pretty big disaster for us not to be able to take a trip we'd planned that long for.

Allie just wants to go back to WDW, and probably isn't as picky about the hotel. Given a choice, she would probably prefer the one with the long ramp and the bridge over the water in the lobby, so she fits right in with us. The new splash pad at WL looks really cool too.

Yeah, she just wants to be back at WDW, I don't think she'd care if we stayed in a cardboard box for a week.

I'm so glad your travel was uneventful; as far as I'm concerned that's what travel should be!

How cool that you guys were able to have a little more Disney after you arrived in California. I've never been to DL but I'll get there some day; bucket list item.

Sorry Stitch hasn't yet joined the family. Maybe soon!

Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful family vacation with us. The photos of you all, the food, the resort, the parks, everything has been such fun to follow along with! Looking forward to your recap.

Yes, we were glad it was such an easy trip home. No flight delays or anything, and we were in CA for dinner.
DL is fun, and just different than WDW. It is neat to see the original, and the parks are super close together, but to picture traveling to a resort to spend a decent length of time we would go for WDW over it every time.
Thank you for your kind comments and for following along as we shared our trip. It is neat to have a record of everything we did, but even neater that other people enjoy seeing it too.

 

[cstorm65]

You all had a great trip. It was fun reading along. So nice to be close to Disneyland though makes going home not so sad.

 

[Wood Nymph]

f you've followed along with any of our previous PTRs or TRs you already know what we ordered here.

Yep, we ordered our usual favorite, the beef nachos. The weather was nice enough that we got a table outside, and we enjoyed one more meal together with Grandma and Grandpa to round out the trip.

I think that is so cool that you end your WDW trips with a stop at the Grand Californian. We've been ending ours with a stop at Taco Bell.

For an even more economical trip, we are really thinking that renting points and staying at OKW would be nice. We could handle the lack of a cancellation policy, and wouldn't have a problem staying committed to it once we make the decision to go.

I agree with renting points and staying at OKW as long as it did indeed save money over staying elsewhere. I get a little nervous about not having a cancellation policy but we haven't needed to use one yet and it'd be a pretty big disaster for us not to be able to take a trip we'd planned that long for.

We will be staying at Old Key West in a 2 BR villa next week. It is our first time at that resort and the first time at a resort that has multiple bus stops. I'm picturing it being more like a moderate when it comes to transportation. We can't wait to try something new. We'll be with our son, two oldest grandsons, and my two sisters. It is only three nights but it should be fun. It will be the boys first time there. Technically, they were there before when they were babies and toddlers, but it doesn't really count.

Like you, we don't have any plans to return to the WL anytime soon.

We have talked about lots of potential trips to WDW. We have really loved the low crowds in September so Sept 2016 would be a possibility, but it will likely be sometime after that. We would really like to go in the winter too, and maybe see the resorts decorated for Christmas.

I really like September and now with having experienced Food and Wine I'd really love to visit again that time of year. I'm not sure about a Christmas trip, life is so busy around that time of year I just can't see it happening. I like the idea of a February trip though.

The first part of February is a nice time to go. It is still value season, it usually doesn't rain, and it can be warm enough to swim. It also can be cold, too, like today.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Last days are always tough. So sad to have to bring the packed bags down. Sounded like a good day though to relax a bit And just spend some time at the resort

And getting to stop as Disney on the back end of your trip from Disney must soften the blow somewhat.

Great job with the trip report - I really enjoyed following along!

 

[woodynjessiesmomma]

What a great trip report! Last day is sad and I'm sad the trip report is over. This does build on my excitement for our trip this September though

 

[meejay]

I just finished your trip report, after lurking along the last week - it's the first one I've read all the way through! Great job - love the details and how you shared your plans. We are heading back in September of 2015 and hope it's just as magical.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

You all had a great trip. It was fun reading along. So nice to be close to Disneyland though makes going home not so sad.

Great, we're glad that you enjoyed it. Yes, having DL close really does help, but they are different experiences for us. WDW is a complete getaway, while DL is something we often do after work. Still, it beats going a lot of other places for dinner.

I think that is so cool that you end your WDW trips with a stop at the Grand Californian. We've been ending ours with a stop at Taco Bell.

Well their nachos aren't bad either, but it's definitely not the same.

We will be staying at Old Key West in a 2 BR villa next week. It is our first time at that resort and the first time at a resort that has multiple bus stops. I'm picturing it being more like a moderate when it comes to transportation. We can't wait to try something new. We'll be with our son, two oldest grandsons, and my two sisters. It is only three nights but it should be fun. It will be the boys first time there. Technically, they were there before when they were babies and toddlers, but it doesn't really count.

We are looking forward to hearing what you think of OKW. We rode the bus to there once this trip and it was super fast, but we didn't deal with the internal stops as we got off at the first one. The boat to DTD was nice though, and it is a quicker trip than from POR or POFQ.

Like you, we don't have any plans to return to the WL anytime soon.

We'll both have to fix that.

The first part of February is a nice time to go. It is still value season, it usually doesn't rain, and it can be warm enough to swim. It also can be cold, too, like today.

Yeah, February could be nice as long as we avoid Presidents weekend. It would actually be neat to be there in cold weather for a change, but we do love going in September.

Last days are always tough. So sad to have to bring the packed bags down. Sounded like a good day though to relax a bit And just spend some time at the resort

And getting to stop as Disney on the back end of your trip from Disney must soften the blow somewhat.

Great job with the trip report - I really enjoyed following along!

Yeah, getting the packing and dropping off done was a bummer, but once it was done we had some time to sit back and relax and enjoy the resort for a bit before we had to go.

We like getting in one more Disney meal. It eases our transition back into the real world.

Thanks for your compliments. We had a great time sharing our trip and we look forward to doing it again.

What a great trip report! Last day is sad and I'm sad the trip report is over. This does build on my excitement for our trip this September though

Thank you so much. We are glad that you enjoyed it. September has been a wonderful time of year for us to visit, so you should have a great time there this year. ADR time is coming up quick! Let us know if there's anything we can answer or help with.

I just finished your trip report, after lurking along the last week - it's the first one I've read all the way through! Great job - love the details and how you shared your plans. We are heading back in September of 2015 and hope it's just as magical.

Thanks! We are glad that you found it and enjoyed reading about our trip. September should be great, as it has been for us the last three years. Compared to our first trip in June we just love the lower crowd levels, and we have done really well with weather overall too. Have a great trip, we can't wait to hear about it. Let us know if you have any questions.