She's Going Back to Back: A September 2019 and February 2020 PTR

[GrandCalifornian]

Sorry for the long absence friends. We just got back from our annual summer trip to Southern Utah!

This was the 25th year in a row that we go up there and spend over a week enjoying the Coral Pink Sand dunes, which are near Zion National park. Now that we're home, Disney is the next big thing, and at only 43 days away it is so close!

Paul was ready to get suitcases out last night.

Just about... Before we left for Utah though we did call and make our Fastpasses. It went very well, despinte not calling until about 9AM our time.

We totally blew it and forgot. While this is normally Paul's job in the wee hours of the morning we sat together and made them through MDE on my phone.

I had the spreadsheet up and was picking the order to try for them, and she grabbed them with her phone. It was nice teamwork.
The only real issue we had was with 7 Dwarves Mine Train, we weren't able to get it on our first MK day but were able to get it later in the trip. We were able to get Slinky Dog Dash and Rockin Roller Coaster for our two planned HS Fastpass Days. Slinky Dog is Marshall's must do for the trip because he wanted to do it last year but was just barely too short. He gets excited every time he sees it on Disney Food Blog videos!

We were able to get 7DMT, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mtn, Pirates, Peter Pan, and the Main Street Mickey Photo Shoot in MK, so we have the bases covered. Allie is excited to step up to riding Big Thunder Mtn for the first time this year.

I think Allie is going to really like Big Thunder. I'm a little worried about Marshall liking Slinky Dog Dash but he's a pretty adventurous guy.

At Epcot we got Soarin for right after our Garden Grill breakfast, and Test Track on our way to Teppan Edo.

For AK we got Flights of Passage in the mid morning, and also got Expedition Everest (my favorite Disney coaster) and Kali River Rapids, which we haven't done yet (probably because I worry about getting wet, although we actually got rained out from it last year...)

I think we have a great set of fast passes and left ourselves room to be flexible as well.

We like making sure that we have the big rides covered with Fastpasses, but don't want to over-schedule either. We still have a whole day that's Fastpass free, and we only picked one or two on some days because we will be switching parks fairly early in the day.

That's all for now but we are having a planning dinner this week, so we'll post some more February trip plans soon.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

On any of your Utah trips have you gotten to visit the various national parks, or did you stick with just the Coral Pink Sand dunes every time? Utah's national parks are great!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I can't believe that you missed the fastpass time!

You did a really good job with those fastpasses. You must be going at a slow crowd time to have gotten all those hard to get fps. Maybe Star Wars land won't be too crowded for you, either. We miss the AP preview dates by three days but hope to get into the land during the regular park hours.

Getting those premium MagicBands was the most frustrating thing ever. By the time I decided to buy one the website was full of problems. But luckily we had an annual band and a few trips to get bands for, and I was able able to get two premium bands for each of us. I also ordered some new vinyl covers from MagicYourBand for my old plain bands because they are prettier than most of the premium bands Disney has. Now we both have too many bands again.

 

[rdkeim]

Your plans sound good! I think it's a great idea to plan to big rides but leave room for some go with the flow stuff. SDD looks like a really fun coaster - one that the whole family can ride. Hope your DS loves it!

 

[rdkeim]

P.S. In Sept. we're going to the No. Rim of the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce. We're going to try and get to the sand dunes too. We live in a non-scenic state so we love the scenery in the western US.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

On any of your Utah trips have you gotten to visit the various national parks, or did you stick with just the Coral Pink Sand dunes every time? Utah's national parks are great!

We have done day trips to Zion multiple times, Bryce, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, River rafting below lake Powell, Cedar Breaks, and Pipe Spring. The whole area is just so beautiful that we love being up there. The Coral Pink State Park offers a nice campground in a central location, with some of the most beautiful riding anywhere.

I can't believe that you missed the fastpass time!

You did a really good job with those fastpasses. You must be going at a slow crowd time to have gotten all those hard to get fps. Maybe Star Wars land won't be too crowded for you, either. We miss the AP preview dates by three days but hope to get into the land during the regular park hours.

Getting those premium MagicBands was the most frustrating thing ever. By the time I decided to buy one the website was full of problems. But luckily we had an annual band and a few trips to get bands for, and I was able able to get two premium bands for each of us. I also ordered some new vinyl covers from MagicYourBand for my old plain bands because they are prettier than most of the premium bands Disney has. Now we both have too many bands again.

Yeah, I had a reminder in my phone to get up early, but I missed it and we were sitting on the couch later that morning when Melissa realized it was the day. Fortunately we weren't too late, and did fine.

The custom Magic Bands have been frustrating. Allie switched which one she wanted just before we ordered them, but that change didn't get saved. The system is still a little buggy, and once an order is submitted there seems to be no going back. Oh well, worst case it means we'll be looking for another band for her while we are there, so she'll have an extra band.

Your plans sound good! I think it's a great idea to plan to big rides but leave room for some go with the flow stuff. SDD looks like a really fun coaster - one that the whole family can ride. Hope your DS loves it!

We like not being over scheduled, but also generally will not wait in long lines for rides. This should be a pretty good balance. Allie was actually a little scared by SDD last year, but it does seem worse if you sit on the left (outside of the turns). We'll see what they think of it this year.

P.S. In Sept. we're going to the No. Rim of the Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce. We're going to try and get to the sand dunes too. We live in a non-scenic state so we love the scenery in the western US.

We absolutely love that part of Southern Utah. Visiting Coral Pink is nice if it fits in your schedule. It is worth the $10 day use fee to drive in and check out the dunes if you have a few hours. We really love the town of Kanab, and enjoy going into town there and checking out the small stores and eating at The Junction, a nice independent burger place. Zion is very nice to see, and we love driving through the tunnel. You should have a great time. Here's some pics of our trips:

Aerial View of Coral Pink:


Peek A Boo Slot Canyon Near Kanab:


Dune Overlook at State Park:


View of Dune from State Park Overlook:

 

[rdkeim]

Thanks for the pictures! I would love to hike thru a slot canyon. We briefly drove past the pink sand dunes once but didn't have time to stop. I hope we can find a few spare hours this time around. We're staying in Kanab for 3 nights - I've just started looking at restaurants. I'll put The Junction on our list!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Thanks for the pictures! I would love to hike thru a slot canyon. We briefly drove past the pink sand dunes once but didn't have time to stop. I hope we can find a few spare hours this time around. We're staying in Kanab for 3 nights - I've just started looking at restaurants. I'll put The Junction on our list!

That's great. Kanab is wonderful. The Junction is just a little burger place, but has become a must do for us. The Big Red burger is topped with ham and bacon, and is really quite tasty. Also, since you're in Utah getting fries and Fry Sauce is a must. They also have a new flavored soft serve machine with lots of different flavors.

The Peek A Boo slot canyon is amazing. There are places where you look up and can't see the sky because of the narrow jagged canyon. It is also nice and cool too. It is a few miles from the paved road, so you need a 4x4 or OHV to access it but there are a lot of tour companies leading trips there now. The trailhead is just off Highway 89 a few miles North of Kanab and the tour companies either meet people there or bring them in from Kanab. I don't imagine the tours are cheap, but if you want to see a slot canyon this one is pretty amazing. Here's a few more pics:

 

[GrandCalifornian]

It is very strange planning another trip when we haven't taken our next one, and one of the odd things that this brings up is picking a list of restaurants without considering our September trip experiences.

I made the suggestion that we eat at ALL new restaruants for our Feburary trip.

That was quickly vetoed by Brandy and me, who are definite creatures of habit. And we love our Trail's End.


Trail's End is delicious

Worst case we may try to make some adjustments after September, but here's what we are planning for February ADRs:

For new places, we really want to try Homecomin at Disney Springs. This sounds to be our type of restaurant, and the reviews are great.

I'm really excited to try Homecoming, We've heard great things from lots of people.

We also want to try Topolino Terrace at Riviera. Since it will be open by then, it will give us a chance to visit the newest DVC resort.

I'm super excited to check out Riviera Resort. It looks like it's going to be beautful and the views from Topolino should be amazing.

DVC is doing some good marketing there, because the concept didn't initially appeal much to me, but now I want to check it out.

Back home at WL, we also want to try the new Artist Point, with Snow White and the Evil Queen.

After the renovation Artist Point has shoved it's way to the top of our must try list. Allie loves the Evil Queen and heck, it's right there in the lobby. It's going to be fun to try this new improved version.

AP was our only ADR for our honeymoon, and we haven't tried it again since.

Another one we have wanted to try for a while is Sanaa at Kidani. We figure that by doing a lunch here we should be able to have a nice combination of great food and getting to see animals.

Hopefully we can get a seat with a great view at Sanaa and try some new and unique cuisine. Just last night Brandy was talking about the possibility of staying at AKL so it'll be great to get over there and visit.

On the steakhouse front, we figure we'll complete the circuit and finally try Yachtsman, so we can see how it compares to Le Cellier and Shula's.

Maybe when we're done we can do a great steakhouse roundup?

My question is whether any of them will surpass Teppan Edo...

Finally one that we have done, but never with Jon and Brandy is Via Napoli. Now that we know what to expect, we'd like to go back for some good pizza.

I really feel like Via Napoli deserves a second chance. It didn't really get a fair shot the first time we went there.

I agree, now that we know what to expect we could all really enjoy it.

Our returning favorites list will include Yak and Yeti, Teppan Edo, breakfast at Crystal Palace, and of course Trail's End.

It's really hard not to visit Disney without visiting our favorites and at least we know we love these so if the new ones aren't great we have our old favorites on stand by.

We all agreed that we just couldn't see skipping these ones, so there will be a fair amount of familiar food there. Now we just gotta arrange these pieces into a schedule that makes some sense. We'll let you know what we come up with!

 

[Stasieki]

I have been reading all your TRs for years. I have always loved them. And now I'm seeing I will be there same time as you in February. So I will be stalking looking for you all - hahaha.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Last time we were at Yak and Yeti we just went to the bar for pot stickers. We eat had our own serving and it was fun to watch the bartender. We are going to do that again on our next.

I think that the character meal at Artist Point will be fun. We have looked down on the restaurant from the hallway windows and they made it look like a forest.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I have been reading all your TRs for years. I have always loved them. And now I'm seeing I will be there same time as you in February. So I will be stalking looking for you all - hahaha.

That's great! We're always glad when someone continues to follow our trips, but it is even neater when we will be in WDW at the same time! We'll probably be chasing down Marshall or debating a souvenir purchase with Allie, so if you see us be sure to say hi.
From your ticker it looks like you're doing a fall trip too? It's fun to see people who share this strange obsession. Where are you staying?

Last time we were at Yak and Yeti we just went to the bar for pot stickers. We each had our own serving and it was fun to watch the bartender. We are going to do that again on our next.

I think that the character meal at Artist Point will be fun. We have looked down on the restaurant from the hallway windows and they made it look like a forest.

That's a good idea at Yak and Yeti. We have considered just doing the quick service there sometime too, but getting to sit down for a meal inside is usually a welcome break from the day at AK. We are thinking we will check out Nomad Lounge on another AK visit during the September trip, since Tiffins sounds good but we didn't schedule it.

We are really excited about Artist Point. The videos look cute, and its right there in our hotel so we are looking forward to trying it. It just missed the cut for September, but was at the top of the list for February. It will be cool to check it out and see what we can from outside the restaurant in September.

 

[dnllmz]

I made the suggestion that we eat at ALL new restaruants for our Feburary trip.

It would be fun doing a trip with ALL new restaurants but it's really hard to stray from your favorites. We each get to pick one restaurant we want to go to. My kids and dh are creatures of habit so they always pick the same ones: Crystal Palace breakfast, Garden Grill breakfast, and Via Napoli for a pizza.

For new places, we really want to try Homecomin at Disney Springs. This sounds to be our type of restaurant, and the reviews are great.

I had an ADR for upcoming trip but it got cut about 3 days after I added it. The plans for that day changed and we just never could figure out when to fit Disney Springs in. We tend to do it on the fly and never plan for it.

Back home at WL, we also want to try the new Artist Point, with Snow White and the Evil Queen.

We're doing one night at WL and this is when we are doing AP. I'm really looking forward to this one. It took some convincing to get DH and DS on board. I promised DS that he wouldn't have to take any pics with princesses. I didn't say anything about the Evil Queen and Dwarves.

On the steakhouse front, we figure we'll complete the circuit and finally try Yachtsman, so we can see how it compares to Le Cellier and Shula's.

We were supposed to do Le Cellier this August but I cut it in favor of having an extra meal credit for our last day. Plus the kids said they would rather do Teppan Edo again instead of trying this NEW to us restaurant. I'm still a little bummed about it. I do like Teppan Edo but I was really looking forward to a signature steakhouse dinner.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

It would be fun doing a trip with ALL new restaurants but it's really hard to stray from your favorites. We each get to pick one restaurant we want to go to. My kids and dh are creatures of habit so they always pick the same ones: Crystal Palace breakfast, Garden Grill breakfast, and Via Napoli for a pizza.

You can't argue with success. I'm glad to see they like both Garden Grill and Crystal Palace breakfast. We're trying Garden Grill breakfast in September and could see it becoming a thing for us like Crystal Palace is.

I had an ADR for upcoming trip but it got cut about 3 days after I added it. The plans for that day changed and we just never could figure out when to fit Disney Springs in. We tend to do it on the fly and never plan for it.

There is so much good stuff at Disney Springs that it is hard now. We have a night there in September where we will just wonder around and try stuff. I really enjoy D Luxe Burger, and WPE is great, but we also want to try Chicken Guy, Morimoto Street Food, and perhaps some other treats. It is tough to fit in another good DS restaurant, which I guess is a nice problem to have.

We're doing one night at WL and this is when we are doing AP. I'm really looking forward to this one. It took some convincing to get DH and DS on board. I promised DS that he wouldn't have to take any pics with princesses. I didn't say anything about the Evil Queen and Dwarves.

Lol, there you go. Most of our group isn't super excited about the characters, but we are excited that they revived this restaurant. It should be fun. Congrats on your night at WL, we definitely love it.

We were supposed to do Le Cellier this August but I cut it in favor of having an extra meal credit for our last day. Plus the kids said they would rather do Teppan Edo again instead of trying this NEW to us restaurant. I'm still a little bummed about it. I do like Teppan Edo but I was really looking forward to a signature steakhouse dinner.

We wanted to do LeCellier forever, and finally made it last trip. While we enjoyed the restaurant and loved the dessert, nobody was overly thrilled about the steak itself. We have done as well sampling the filet there from Food and Wine, which is always an option if you don't get to go to the restaurant. We're looking forward to Shula's since we've heard good things. It is tough to give up a known good place to try something new...

 

[dnllmz]

e have done as well sampling the filet there from Food and Wine, which is always an option if you don't get to go to the restaurant.

We will be at F&W and I'll make sure to try the filet there.

There is so much good stuff at Disney Springs that it is hard now. We have a night there in September where we will just wonder around and try stuff. I really enjoy D Luxe Burger, and WPE is great, but we also want to try Chicken Guy, Morimoto Street Food, and perhaps some other treats. It is tough to fit in another good DS restaurant, which I guess is a nice problem to have.

Chicken Guy is on my want to try list. We did enjoy D Luxe, WPE, and Polite Pig. I haven't seen much on Morimoto's Street food. I'll have to look into that one. We may do DS on arrival night depending on how we feel when we get in. We have a short flight but we're spending one night in the Gran Destino Tower before we move to Beach Club. WL is at the end of our trip. I'm torn with going to DS or trying the Three Bridges place at Coronado. I upgraded from All Star Movies to Gran Destino and haven't told DH yet. I was thinking it might be a fun surprise for everyone but then I also can't ask what he wants to do on arrival night. lol

 

[GrandCalifornian]

We will be at F&W and I'll make sure to try the filet there.

It is one of our favorite F&W items, and while you're there the soup is great too.

Chicken Guy is on my want to try list. We did enjoy D Luxe, WPE, and Polite Pig. I haven't seen much on Morimoto's Street food. I'll have to look into that one. We may do DS on arrival night depending on how we feel when we get in. We have a short flight but we're spending one night in the Gran Destino Tower before we move to Beach Club. WL is at the end of our trip. I'm torn with going to DS or trying the Three Bridges place at Coronado. I upgraded from All Star Movies to Gran Destino and haven't told DH yet. I was thinking it might be a fun surprise for everyone but then I also can't ask what he wants to do on arrival night. lol

Wow, sounds like a great trip! We visited Coronado Springs before and didn't love it, but the Gran Destino tower looks amazing. We would like to make it over there this trip to check it out. I'd sure be tempted to do Three Bridges if I was staying there, but heading over to DS would be fun too. Beach Club is also on our short list for eventual split stays. We love the location and enjoy taking a break there during our Epcot / HS days.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

It is August, which means we will be at Disney World NEXT MONTH! We're more than a little excited about that.

The big new thing this week though is our new travel companion.

Photography is a pretty big part of our trip. We love capturing our kids as they grow and its so fun looking back on pictures from previous trips. Also there's our trip reports, we love getting to share our trips with great pictures.

If you go back to our 2013 PTR, we made the decision to purchase a new camera (a Canon 6D) for that trip. It turned out to be one of the best purchases of our lives. We absolutely love that camera, and it has allowed us to do things we wouldn't have thought possible.

He's actually like part of the family. The lens we primarily use for Disney is getting a little tired and loose.

That happens after carrying it every day for so many Disney trips, plus all the other work it does. It makes me a little sad at first, but it is better to wear it out than to let it sit on the shelf. Also we've taken some nice pictures.





We decided we were going to rent a camera to try for the September trip just to see if it would make a good replacement for our current Canon 6D. I wasn't super ready to dump money into a new system and I just wanted to make sure that it would be a good fit before investing.

We have excitedly been following the new Canon EOS R mirrorless cameras, since they offer many of the capabilities we enjoy in a smaller package. We recently read about the latest camera in that line, the EOS RP, and had decided it was the one we really wanted to try. The only problem is we were pretty sure we were going to want one after renting it, so I started watching prices for them on Amazon and eBay.

He ended up finding a super compelling eBay auction that included everything I would want to buy plus the guy had barely used it. He bought it for a trip that he never took.

We also hadn't gotten a discount on the rental yet, so we were looking at over $300 for the rental, which gets up into making a significant dent in the purchase price.

Especially when we're pretty sure we were gonna fall in love with it anyway.

We figured out that if we didn't love it, we could re-sell it since we would be paying used price anyway.

Long story short we won the auction! The camera came in Tuesday and it's super sweet.


We are really excited about taking it with us this year. The rest of this might get a little technical, but it explains what we're excited about, and what we hope will lead to some nice shots for the trip report this year.

The camera is a full frame mirrorless, which means that it does not have the optical viewfinder of a typical SLR. It uses interchangeable lenses, and can use the lenses we already have. The full frame part means it uses a digital sensor that is as large as 35mm film, and is the same size as ours on our 6D. We are super happy with the overall quality this gives, especially in low light situations.

Our thought was that the new RP would be a lighter smaller version of our beloved 6D and therefore easier to carry all day long

The lens we got to accompany it is a 24-105 mm F4 EF lens, which was designed for the mirrorless bodies. It is a little smaller and lighter but has the exact same specs as the lens we usually use on our 6D at Disney. We like this combination for carrying in the parks. It isn't super fast, but is smaller and lighter than a faster lens would be, and has enough zoom range to cover most of what we are doing in the parks.


The weight of the camera and lens combo is about 10% lower than our 6D, which isn't a whole lot less but the body is definitely more compact. The interface is very similar to the 6D, including the wheel for setting the shooting modes. One major upgrade is the screen, which is a touch screen on the RP and allows you to touch to select autofocus points.


The weight difference is pretty negligible I would say, we couldn't tell the weight difference between the two cameras when holding them.

Yeah, overall it is just slightly more compact, but should be just as capable as the 6D. I like that we won't be giving up capability, and we get to enjoy some of the upgraded features the new body offers.

Me too, I'm looking forward to putting it through it's paces. I'll be getting more acquainted this weekend with it as I'll bring it along to a wedding shoot. I'm really excited about our new addition and hopefully it lives up to all of our excitement.

We aren't the only ones making this decision, as one of the Facebook Pages we follow (Disney Image Makers) recently posted a video about their switch to the Canon mirrorless system at:

One thing that is huge on our Disney trips is the WiFi capability to transfer pics to our phones, which allows us to share nice pics during the trip. Fortunately this works the same on both cameras, so we will be able to easily post some pics during the trip.

I am looking forward to having it on the trip, and the best part is we won't have to send it back at the end of it!

 

[Wood Nymph]

The touchscreen would be a really nice feature to have. I bet you can’t wait to try it out at WL.

Did you take the sunrise picture this past September? I watched a lot of sunrises from our balcony last year.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

The touchscreen would be a really nice feature to have. I bet you can’t wait to try it out at WL.

Yeah, the touch screen and a few other goodies they introduced over the last 6 years make it fun to play with. We really can't wait. I bet I will be up early the first morning we are there going to see what I can see. That's one part of the trip I am looking forward to the most.

Did you take the sunrise picture this past September? I watched a lot of sunrises from our balcony last year.

Yes, those sunrise pics were from September 2018, but I found lots of others from earlier trips. It is definitely something I like to capture.

 

[Wood Nymph]

The sky looked familiar. I figured that I was watching the sunrise around the same time you were walking around taking pictures of it.