SSR - 2013 Trip Begins Now!!

[eporter66]

I will be submitting some trip updates over the course of our week at SSR, tonight we are doing our final packing, going over our itinerary, and trying not to get too excited! Our flight is scheduled to arrive in Orlando at 10:45, and hopefully the Magical Express will have us to the resort by 12:30 - 1:00 and our vacation will officially begin!

We are taking a relaxed / laid back approach this trip. We plan to take it easy for the most part, although all parks will be visited! Sat / Sun are just pool (hopefully golf) and some DTD food etc.. We are going to visit a few resorts just to walk the grounds (Ft Wilderness, Port Orleans), get some Raglan Road Fish & Chips, and of course, no trip would be complete without a sandwich (or two) at the EARL!!! We also will be hitting MNSSHP, some miniature golf, AND the F&W Fest

Really needing to blow off some steam with this vacation, quite a rough couple months, and hope we are turning the corner. I know the Disney Magic will do its trick and put us in great spirits!!

Cant wait to be there!!!! I will continue to post here, hopefully some great stories to keep you all interested and excited about your next trip!

Eric

 

[eporter66]

Good first day, temp in high 80s mostly sunny. We were up at 5:00, flight was good and landed at MCO @ 10:40.
Let me say I am very impressed with Magic Express. I think we got to the line and were on bus and rolling in about 10-15 minutes. We were at the resort a little after 12 and check in was easy. Room was not ready, but we planned for that as we packed our swim gear in our carry-on. We hung @ the pool and got a text around 3:00 that room was ready. We are in the Paddock section and room is in good shape.
DD and I went back to pool, DW stayed behind to shower. She called front desk around 4:00 as our bags had not made it to the room. By 6 still no bags so another call was placed. Left at 6:45 for DTD still nothing...ugh.
Had Fish & Chips for dinner and got back to room @ 9:00. Bags finally made it. No big deal honestly, but if we had not planned ahead., could have been a long afternoon.
Long day...time to sleep.

 

[eporter66]

Taking it slow again today. Woke up to a broken toaster and dishwasher did not drain. New toaster delivered and dishwasher fixed.
Relaxing again today., spent morning taking boat ride to wilderness lodge & walked trail to Fort Wilderness. Saw a few deer.
Ft Wilderness is a great place! Lots of sites decorated for Halloween. Went to the horse ranch and got to see horses and saw them putting horshoes on one. Love that area and would like to stay someday.
Had lunch at the Earl....mmmmmmmm. now off to the pool

 

[lisaviolet]

Taking it slow again today. Woke up to a broken toaster and dishwasher did not drain. New toaster delivered and dishwasher fixed.
Relaxing again today., spent morning taking boat ride to wilderness lodge & walked trail to Fort Wilderness. Saw a few deer.
Ft Wilderness is a great place! Lots of sites decorated for Halloween. Went to the horse ranch and got to see horses and saw them putting horshoes on one. Love that area and would like to stay someday.
Had lunch at the Earl....mmmmmmmm. now off to the pool

Love walking the trail. Love FW. It IS such a great place. Hours of joy over the years over there.

Can you please edit your title?

I had no clue with the 2014.

 

[lisaviolet]

I will be submitting some trip updates over the course of our week at SSR, tonight we are doing our final packing, going over our itinerary, and trying not to get too excited! Our flight is scheduled to arrive in Orlando at 10:45, and hopefully the Magical Express will have us to the resort by 12:30 - 1:00 and our vacation will officially begin!

We are taking a relaxed / laid back approach this trip. We plan to take it easy for the most part, although all parks will be visited! Sat / Sun are just pool (hopefully golf) and some DTD food etc.. We are going to visit a few resorts just to walk the grounds (Ft Wilderness, Port Orleans), get some Raglan Road Fish & Chips, and of course, no trip would be complete without a sandwich (or two) at the EARL!!! We also will be hitting MNSSHP, some miniature golf, AND the F&W Fest

Really needing to blow off some steam with this vacation, quite a rough couple months, and hope we are turning the corner. I know the Disney Magic will do its trick and put us in great spirits!!

Cant wait to be there!!!! I will continue to post here, hopefully some great stories to keep you all interested and excited about your next trip!

Eric

I hope you are turning the corner too, Eric. Here's to a great vacation.

Laughed on the bold - this is my approach on all my WDW trips.

And I am living through you. I have an AP but no trips.

Have fun!

 

[eporter66]

Thanks lisaviolet, hope my reports will brighten your day!!! I know I love reading other peoples trip reports to put me in the Disney mood.

We got back from the Earl around 2:00 and spent the afternoon at the pool. Having a little pizza in the room and will be walking over to DTD to top off our meal with a Sundae from Ghiradelli's. Then back to the High Rock Springs pool for "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and another swim.

Hitting the sack fairly early tonight as we want to get to AK tomorrow early for the 8-9 Early Magic Hour. If we can get out rides in early, and our strolls around the animal sections, we may just be back by 3 for another swim and relaxing evening.

Talk to you all soon

PS - I could not find how to edit the subject - sorry

 

[lisaviolet]

Thanks lisaviolet, hope my reports will brighten your day!!! I know I love reading other peoples trip reports to put me in the Disney mood.

We got back from the Earl around 2:00 and spent the afternoon at the pool. Having a little pizza in the room and will be walking over to DTD to top off our meal with a Sundae from Ghiradelli's. Then back to the High Rock Springs pool for "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and another swim.

Hitting the sack fairly early tonight as we want to get to AK tomorrow early for the 8-9 Early Magic Hour. If we can get out rides in early, and our strolls around the animal sections, we may just be back by 3 for another swim and relaxing evening.

Talk to you all soon

PS - I could not find how to edit the subject - sorry

It's okay. But you press the EDIT on your first post and then choose *Go Advanced* to get to the subject line to edit. It would bring more readers over if they didn't think they were waiting until 2014 to greet you.

Lovely. A lovely night.

Weather's nice? I guess so with the swimming.

My kind of vacation.

 

[eporter66]

Weather for first two days has been high 80s. Today got a little cloudy late in the day, but no big deal. Overall week looks good a little cooler Thursday and Friday.

 

[eporter66]

Weather is still hotter than average, upper 80s again today, but considering what we are going back to, I love it.

Monday was a great day, we hit the Animal Kingdom at Early Magic Hour 8-9am. We rode Everest 3x and then went over to Dinosaur for 2 rides. I went over to Kilamanjaro to get fast passes, and met the family at Kali River Rapids. So, by 9:45 we had everything done (ride wise) except for the safari ride. We decided to hit Dinosaur again (my wifes favorite) and then head over to Kilamanjaro. I really like the Safari ride better now, I know Disney was trying to make a point about poaching and saving the animals in the wild, but it is a nice relaxing trip.

We then went through both nature walks, and hit Birds of Wonder. We skipped Rafiki this year, not sure why, but family decided to pass. We hit A Bugs Life and then the Lion King show. We decided to spend the last couple of hours just wandering through all the areas to see the animals and all those little hidden sections that many people dont see. We really love Animal Kingdom and by the end of the day we had hit just about everything!

We came back to the room and hit the pool for about an hour 6-7, and then had a little dinner in the room and went down to the pool to watch the Sword and The Stone and do a little more swimming.

Got in around 10:00, another perfect day!!! One park down!

Today is another relaxing day, but something cool happened. My wife send us up for a special DVC Member promotion, we got a chance to tour the new Grand Floridian DVC Villas today - as they open tomorrow. We went to the 9:00 preview and they had a great spread for breakfast, eggs, bacon, sausage patries - the works.

Best part of all, we won the raffle and got a $200 Disney Gift Card. How awesome is that!

Anyway - The Villas are amazing, I dont know that we could ever stay there Of course being new they are perfect, but the workers were still there doing some last minute painting etc... Our tour guide was Nicole and she was really good. If you have the chance to see them, they really are something, and the TV in the mirror was icing on the cake. They said they were offering a member special at $150 a point. We just finished our DVC loan, (paid it off about a year early), but no way we would pay that price. We are fine staying at some of the other resorts, and if we bought more we would probably try to find a contract at an existing or our home resort to add on. If we ever got lucky, maybe we could do Grand Floridian someday

We are heading over to the Congress Park area pool, looking for some quiet time today. Later we plan to hit the Earl again, and go over to the Boardwalk Villas this evening, play some minature golf and watch all the shows on the Boardwalk!!

I'll try to post tonight

 

[lisaviolet]

A free breakfast, lovely park touring, great weather AND a $200 gift card.

JEALOUS.

Enjoy.

 

[Goofy442]

What a fun trip report! A relaxing trip, well worth it. Some people don't understand how come your not at the parks everyday. .

 

[eporter66]

The heat broke today, I think it only (ha ha) got to 80. I will regret saying that when I go back to 40s & 50s in NY. It was a beautiful day for the parks, and today was EPCOT and F&W Fest. We also had friends coming in who will be with us for the next couple days to make it more exciting.

We got up at 7:00 as we wanted to get the the park at opening. I went right to Soarin' to get Fastpasses, and my DW & DD went to Spaceship Earth. We met at Test Track and to into line around 9:25 and it was listed at 20 minutes, wait was closer to 30.

But Chevy really has made this such a excellent attaction. What a great queue. Getting to look at new radical designs, and then you get to create your own car style and accessories, and see how it performs. My DD absolutely loved this - hats off to Chevy and Disney, this is how the queues should be!! Great job. Unfortunately the Fast Passes were eaten up quickly. I'm not sure how this new Fastpass+ or Magic bands are going to work for park strategy, I guess we will find out next year. We did not get magic bands so we are doing what we have always done.

We then hit Mission Space twice, never saw the queue for either green or orange get beyond 20 minutes, I love this ride, so that works for me. Not sure how/why this lost its luster, I think it is great. We hit Nemo and then over to Soarin for our fast pass. Then it was out to the F&W Fest

DW & I started off with a beer at the Craft Beer stand, we got a Sierra Nevada Torpedo and Florida Brewery Devils Triangle - really enjoyed those.

Gyro - Greece
Cheddar Cheese Soup - Canada

We went to Canada to watch the Martin Short film, all the years we've been to WDW, we have never done that. Very good. Continued to make our way around the world.

Italy - Ravoli & Sausage (DD)
Beer Stop - We tried the Grapefruit, too sweet for me, wife enjoyed this one
Empenada - Argentina

We walked out to meet our friends who arrived at the park around 2:00. Hit Spaceship Earth, Mission Space, went through Innovations and did the Hurricane simulator and the create your own ride which was a lot of fun. We waited about an hour to do Soarin again with our friends, and by this time everyone was hungry.

Mexico - Chipotle Taco
China - Everything - Pot Stickers, Mongolian Beef & The Black Pepper Shrimp

My DW topped everything off with Frozen Smores while we listened to Off Kilter. The park had extra magic hours to 11:00, but we were pretty beat and left right after the fireworks.

A great day!! Tomorrow is supposed to stay around 80, and we are just hanging out for the day, I am sure it will be a pool day for us. Our friends are coming over in the afternoon to have lunch with us and join us at the pool, and then we are all going over to MK for MNSSHP. We love the Halloween Party, really looking forward to a great day tomorrow. Weather will be perfect for the girls and their costumes.

 

[eporter66]

We are back home, and already having PVD (Post Vacation Depression). I wanted to finish up the rest of the trip report, we were out late and got busy the last two days and I didn't have time to log on.

Thursday - Another relaxing day. It was cool, high 70's and our friends came over to SSR to swim. We decided to walk over to DTD for a little bit. The day never really cleared, it stayed cloudy, but the girls still wanted to swim. So, we took them to the High Rock pool and we just relaxed. Around 4:30 we packed up, had a sandwich at the room and headed over to MK for MNSSHP. This is the 4th time for us, and we love this event. The Parade is great, love being in the park at night, and for the most part you can do most of the rides without waiting. Surprisingly Haunted Mansion stayed around 15-20 minutes, last year it seemed like we were on and off the ride without waiting. While the first parade was going on, we did Space Mountain 3x. We also hit Big Thunder Twice, Splash Mtn and Pirates. So, we got all the biggies in, walked around the new area. A little trick or treating, but we could tell our the girls were getting tired, so we watched the second parade and left after that.

Friday, our last day...ugh. We went to Hollywood Studios, and immediately hit Aerosmith and TOT for early magic hours. Got Fast passes to do Aerosmith again, and then went to our favorite Star Tours. We did that 5x in the morning, 10 minute waits was all it had. We hit Muppet Vision and the Backlot tour. Friday was a beautiful sunny day, and again we met up with our friends for most of the rides in the morning, they were not staying at Disney and got to the park around 10. We went back to SSR for another afternoon swim, and then back to HS for the evening. Got one more ride on TOT when the first fantasmic show was going in, probably 20 minutes, and then used our Aerosmith Fastpasses for one more.....We decided to skip Fantasmic as the weeks worth of touring had the girls tired again.

Saturday, our flight was not until 5:50. We packed up and got our bags checked and took in another beautiful Florida day at the pool.

We had an amazing vacation, and more than ever just continue to enjoy DVC and love SSR. A few final thoughts

Disney Transportation - We usually rent a car but did not on this trip. It amazes me how efficiently Disney moves people around. I know this is not peak season, but we thought the transportation was just great.

Magic Express - Again, no issues, bag check, free rides from and to the Airport, no hassle checking bags. Loved it

October Observations - The F&W Festival really packs them in. We were at EPCOT on Wednesday hoping to avoid a weekend crowd and it was still really busy. My memory may be foggy, but when we first started going in October around 10 years ago, I don't remember the crowds being as big as the last few years.

Wait Times/ Wrist Bands / Fastpass+ - For the big rides, wait times were high (especially Toy Story). Not sure if there is anything they can really do about this, but I am surprised Toy Story at this time of the year was 120 minutes almost all day. We skipped it this year.

All good things must come to an end, and I am sad it is over and I am back to reality tomorrow. But we had a fantastic week at WDW, and I cant wait to do it again

 

[lisaviolet]

All good things must come to an end, and I am sad it is over and I am back to reality tomorrow. But we had a fantastic week at WDW, and I cant wait to do it again

Loved it Eric, thank you.

And loved your touring/vacation style.

 

[GiantsNiners11]

I just want to dive into that pool!!