Summer Time Fun in the sun.....and the rain!! (8/2-8/5/19)

[TheSouthernBelle]

Our Quick Summer Trip (August 2-5, 2019)
Boardwalk Villas Room 2060/Deluxe Studio/Pool View
​

As of late, there were quite a few negative posts circulating about horrendous crowds, ride closures, tech glitches and bad weather but all I can say is we had a BLAST and we all have the disney blues

Our traveling party was myself, DH and two daughters ages 12 and 10. We stayed at BWV (cash booking direct with Disney). We had a standard view studio booked and were pleasantly surprised to have a luna park pool view room on the second floor, room 2060. Very convenient location to the lobby (maybe 25 steps away and not loud at all).



We did go to Disney Springs on our arrival day and were water logged by the tropical disturbance off the coast but we managed........all in the name of shopping. 🛍

We also had dinner that night at beaches and cream, was glad we were able to get a last minute ADR before their closure. Super cute, food is pretty good but of course it's all overshadowed by dessert. We've decided when we come back and it's reopened after the much needed reno, we will only order dessert and it will be the kitchen sink!

We kicked off our Epcot day (8/3) by a quick stroll to the park....having never stayed at BWV, we loved walking to the park, best part of the stay really. That level of convenience is really hard to beat. On our walk our younger daughter found $25 cash on the pathway to Epcot and turned it in to the front desk at BWI. We had told her that the money may never make it back to the original owner but it was the right thing to do. We had had a recent situation where we lost some cash and were able to get it back, so this was our good fortune coming full circle. Long story short, when we came back to our room later that day, we had a mickey celebration cake with a sweet note in our room. It was so amazing to see the look on the girls' faces. The CM at the front desk was really sweet, she let our girls pick out some trading pins too.


So, back to Epcot......we arrived around 8:40am at the IG and security and wait time was a breeze. Original plan was to RD TT but was closed for a few hours at opening and I think on and off throughout the day, we never ended up riding it. So we went over to Soarin and waited maybe 10 min and then hit up the other less popular attractions after that. There were some issues with rides but nothing that completely ruined our day. Our FP+ for Living with Land was set up as anytime since that went down, Nemo went down while we were in a 5 min line so we got another anytime FP+ as well. We took a midday break back at the resort and headed back for dinner at Via Napoli which was really good and watched illuminations. I did not see the new footage on LWTL, looks like we missed it by a day but our voiceover on the ride was messed up, again, not a deal breaker but it seemed to be a constant at Epcot and MK.

I will say Epcot (Future World) is sort of just blah right now with all the construction. Anyone visiting Epcot for their first time right now would probably not be impressed. We did not arrive via the monorail but anyone who does is greeted by a mess. Some of the walkway closures are a little bit of a hassle but all in all, Disney does a good job of making you not see the mess (sometimes). I am excited for the changes to come and I see the vision for it all but if you had never saw Epcot in its original state when it was really futuristic (back in the 80's), it's sort of underwhelming right now.

Day 2 was MK on Sunday 8/4- crowds were light and the overall theme of the day was rides being down or not working properly. None greatly affected our park touring and it was really just more of an annoyance. Ride closures throughout the day included Space, Pirates, Carousel, PhilharMagic, Little Mermaid, Pooh and 7DMT. I am sure there were more but I may have missed them. We rode 7DMT twice and both times the ride stopped on the big climb up. Beyond that, nothing greatly affected our park touring.

We had a PPO BOG breakfast which we loved. I know BOG gets a bad wrap for breakfast being a bad value, but it's less money than EMM tickets for 4 ppl and you basically get the same benefits with less money spent out of pocket. We rode 7DMT, PP, IASW and Haunted Mansion all before 10am with no waits. The park was fairly empty and did not start filling up until around 11am.































We had lunch at the Plaza and then headed back to BWV for a midday break and swim. We came back to MK around 7:30pm, it still didn't seem that crowded. We got in a few more walk on rides, had dinner at Pecos Bills and then we hit Space Mountain around close. That was the longest wait of the trip but it was a must ride for my older daughter, I think we waited about 45 min. And every time I ride it, I'm pretty sure it's gets to be rougher as I get older.

Last day was AK on Monday, we had originally planned to RD but we were tired so we didn't arrive until our FP+ time at 10:30am. In retrospect, I am glad for that since I had forgotten in was a morning EMH day and AK was a bit hectic. We did our FP+ and a few more 'have to do rides', ate at Satuuli and left. We headed back to BWV to get our car and made our way to the beach for the second part of our vacation.

We had some magical moments on this trip and learned that these boards, while helpful, are a gamble just like the crowd calendars. Someone else's experience is unique to them and over the last 5+ years of visiting WDW with my family, we've always had magical vacations and that's why we keep going back gladly giving our money to Disney. But really where else can you do what you do but at WDW?!