Surprise trip The good, the Bad and the “NO, You didn’t do that, did you?

[myhouseofmouse]

Following! Great TR! Just got back from a driving trip to Disney from Pittsburgh. Both my husband and I are Civil War nuts so instead of driving straight through, we took two days to drive down and another two to drive back so that we could get some Civil War sites crossed off our bucket lists. It was fun, but I was so eager to get to Disney that 16-ish hours in a car driving it straight through would've worked for me too.

We stayed at POFQ this time. We did stop over at AOA to check it out - very colorful! The Cars section looks so fun!

Thank you, glad you are enjoying it. That is the only down side to driving straight thru and drive over night. No time or chance to check out the sites We couldn't even check out the Florida welcome center for the free orange juice.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

I'm in and ready. Going to AoA in a Cars suite in December. I'm taking BF for his first trip to WDW. He grew up going to DL and thinks it is better. I am more excited than I have been in years and I can't wait. Until then, I read trip reports! Keep it coming!

You are going to love AOA and the Cars area is so well themed. I didn't put them on here, but I have over 30 pictures of just kids posing with the Cars and sites of that area alone. Have a great trip.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 3 Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show

It was about 2:30pm when we left Animal Kingdom and headed back to the resort. We had a little time before our 5:15 Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show, so my DS and I decided to go for a quick swim at the Ol’ Man Island pool. We really love this pool, Nice and big with a lot of water fall features and a cool slide for the kids. They also have a little splash pool for real little ones and very nice Hot tub tucked away in a corner. Every day we were there, they also have games and activities for the kids, like they did at AOA.

After swimming and at about 4pm we headed out and over the Polynesian resort for the dinner show. This was our second time at this resort and we really love the theme and feel of it. (The first time was a few years ago, we actually ran thru the resort to get to Grand Floridian. We got stuck on the monorail that broke down for 45 minutes and were late for one of those kid pirate cruises. They ended up somehow getting the monorail getting us to the Poly and we had to walk the rest of the way to GF.)

We made it to the Luau Cove and we were greeted and given leis and had a family photo taken. ( I think the package was $38.00 to buy the pictures if you wanted to purchase it.) We had a Category 2 seating and were placed at the first table on the second level near a corner. The seats were good, only issue was that there was a pole obstructing part of our view. Some info on the Luau; this is an outdoor (in an open-air theater) family style (all you can eat) dinner with a show. The show is of course a Polynesian show with some humor and a lot of dancing and capped off by a really good fire dancing routine. The food also is Polynesian inspired and very delicious. Some highlights were; first the appetizers, they were all wonderful and fresh. (There was fresh pineapple, mixed green, coleslaw and pineapple coconut bread) The main course had Chicken, Pulled pork and BBQ ribs which were all very good as well. My wife enjoyed the Pineapple coconut Bread pudding so much that she ended up getting a second one. Now if you ask, they also have a separate kids menu available. (for picky kids like my DD ) The kids menu is normal kid foods like Hot dogs and Chicken Tenders. Another nice thing is that that offer free Beer (only Bud and Bud light) and wines, along with soda products)

Overall, the food was really good, not one thing that I didn’t like. The show was also very cool and cute at the same time. I found enough value in the show to allow for repeatability. The only negative I can throw out there was that the service was just OK. Everything felt very rushed, which I’m sure is not all their fault, since they are trying to get things done at certain times. I felt that the servers were stretched too thin and we ended up waiting on things like refills and requests. Every member of our family gave this 2 thumbs up and said they would do it again.

Side Note: Even though my wife helped herself to a second portion of dessert, I on the other hand decided to save a little bit of room and stopped on over at Captain Cooks (The Poly version of a food court) and enjoyed a very nice Pineapple Dole Whip.

We got back to the resort about 8pm and while my wife took some time to unpack all of the suitcases and unwind, I took the kids over to one (one of many) of my favorite things of POR. Yehaa Bob Jackson, now My DD and I have gone and seen him during our last 2 trips and this would be my son’s first time seeing him. (My wife has not seen him yet and does not have a high opinion on him) For those who do not know, Bob “IS” Disney’s best kept secret (not the other thing!) He is a High Energy, interactive, crowd participation (remember, you are at Disney here, we are all crazy!) singing piano show. Bob has a nice variety of songs from songs my 6 year old sings everyday (like Phineas and Ferb) to songs us older folks sang while we were growing up. We got to there at 8:15pm to a packed room with no open tables and ended up sitting up at the bar. We stayed there for about an hour and half and the kids had a great time helping Bob out with the songs. Afterwards we headed back to room and ended the evening around 10pm. (Note: Bob is usually at POR every Wed thru Sat)

Up Next: Day 4 Disney’s Hollywood Studios

 

[myhouseofmouse]

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 4: Hollywood Studios



The day was another early wakeup call of 6:45am. It usually takes about 15 minutes to get myself and my son ready and about 1 hour for the 2 ladies to get ready. (That is with the extra sink area) Since we are RD people, we will do breakfast at the hotel room every morning. I pack donuts, milk and those individual cereals for the kids. (The cereals that already come in their own bowl, which is nice not having to wash and pack extra dishes.) I also pack fruit and those morning fruit bars for the wife and pack my Starbucks coffee for myself. (I did and enjoy the coffee that they set up in the room at POR, it was not great, but did the trick in the mornings.) The plan was to get to Hollywood studios around 8-8:15am for a 9am opening time. I have heard that instead of the rope drop show, that they have been opening the gates at 15 minutes early, so this plan would get us close to the front of the line for opening. Weather note the forecast was cloudy with small chance of rain and high of 75. (You could tell that there was a good rain shower over night, but not raining when we woke up.)

Now I think my family is probably in the minority, we do Hollywood Studios for 2 days during our trips to the World. It is our second favorite park close behind MK, with Epcot being my and the kids 3rd and AK last. My wife would switch Epcot to her least favorite over AK. I know there are People who would argue that DHS is not even a full day park, but because of how we tour and the fact that it would be very hard to do all of the shows in one day. We make it a 2 day park and divide out the shows and double up on the attractions that we really like. As much as we are a thrill junkie family, we also really enjoy the shows here at DHS. We also really enjoy the thrill rides; Tower of Terror is my favorite ride and 2nd favorite ride for the rest of my family.

We got to the Park and walked over to the front gates (One little tip here, is you are close enough to walk to the park, there is a side bag check station that usually never has a wait and can speed things up a little) When got to the front gates at 8am and were second in line at one of the turnstiles. The park today was going to be open 9am to 8pm, with EMH’s from 8pm to 10pm. We planned on spending the day at the park until 3pm and then go back to resort for swimming and dinner and be back at park at 5:30-6pm for Fantasmic at 6:30pm. We had FP+ for Fantasmic that night and for TSM at 3-4pm and had split our last FP for my DD and I to do RR at 11:30am-12:30pm and my wife and DS to do TOT during the same time. Now I booked my FP+ before they changed it to the tier system, so even though I heard that the FP+ for Fantasmisc was a waste, I did not want to mess with changing things a head of time. (I ended up keeping it though, to see how the whole thing worked)

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 4 Hollywood Studios Continue...

Since we did not make it to RP at AK on Day 3, I did not notice it, but here at DHS, I was amazed at how many CM’s there were at the turnstiles. They had a person in front of each one and then a person with a IPAD for every 2 turnstiles to help with issues. I thought this was over kill until we tried to get in and quickly realized why. Here is where we ran into our first MB issue. Neither my or my son’s MB worked to get into the park. After a couple of re-try’s and finger scans for me, they moved us to the side and called over an IPAD to help us out. The quickly got my son approved and after a couple more try’s they got me approved. Now the whole thing only slowed us up 5 minutes and that really isn’t a lot of time. But to a RP person, IT’S 5 MINUTES!!!!! Good news is that since we have TSM FP+ we didn’t need to rush over there. (Plus my family would not be heartbroken if even did TSM, we only go on it so I can feed my competitive side and rub it in how I can beat the rest of the family. Second though, maybe that is way they don’t care for the ride!) Anyway, we headed over to Jedi Training to sign DS up for it for the first time. Because of the 5 delay getting in to the park, I was now in a 10 minute line to sign up for Jedi (you see how this adds up now!!! 5 minutes turns into 10 to 15 and before you know it you lost 2 hours of your day because of 5 minutes in the morning!!! I’m j/k it didn’t turn out that bad.) We did end up signing him up for a 11am show

We decided (even though we were off schedule) to take a quick ride on Star tours, which was a walk on. We then headed over to Sunset Blvd. to enjoy some time on TOT and RR. Here is where we took advantage of the key cards. We ended up spending the next hour and rode TOT 2x as a family and we also split up and my DD and I rode RR twice and my wife and DS rode TOT 2 more times. During this time I did move our TSM time to 1:30-2:30pm We had to be at Jedi Training at 10:30am for a 11am show. (The kids need to be there 30 minutes early to get dressed and go over some additional training) At this time the clouds were still there and they warned everyone that if it rains at all, they will cancel the show. Fortunately, there was no rain and our son help turn away Darth Vader. The show was cute and about 20 minutes long. One interesting thing I found is that they have a Photopass Photographer there during the show and they give you a special photopass card to access the pictures. The interesting thing is that the photopass has every picture on it, including all the other kids. Now I could care less about other people having pics of my kids fighting Darth Vader, but was surprised that they would have all the kids on it.

Believe it or not, after the show, we headed back over to Sunset Blvd. for our FP+ or TOT and RR. We then had lunch at the counter service stands in front of the Beauty and the Beast Stage show. This is a nice place for our family to have a meal, because they have a few different shops (like the resort food courts) and we can each get something that we really want. Again, we ended up separating and going to two different stands by using the MB’s to speed up the order taking. After lunch we headed over to the “Lights Motor Action Stunt Show”. With a 6 year old boy, this is a must every trip. Unfortunately, there must have been an issue because they ended up only doing the first stunt correctly and cut out the big truck jump and cut the ending out altogether. We then headed over to TSM and tried to use our FP+, but the readers said that my Son and I had only had the Fantasmic one left, but my wife and DD were ok. Not sure how it messed that one up, but they ended up letting us on anyway, so no big deal. After TSM, we headed out of the park and back to the resort. As far as crowds, I didn’t feel that it was too crowded, no more than I have seen in the past. I would put it at a 5 out of 10 (10 being the most crowded)

 

[scottny]

I have yet to do the Luau, one day I will.
Good choice on getting the dole whip.
LOL. We did 2 weeks last months and I was in DHS for the total of 4 ½ hours the entire time and 3 of those hours were for a lunch.
I wish they opened the Jedi Academy to adults.
Great updates and pics

 

[myhouseofmouse]

I have yet to do the Luau, one day I will.
Good choice on getting the dole whip.
LOL. We did 2 weeks last months and I was in DHS for the total of 4 ½ hours the entire time and 3 of those hours were for a lunch.
I wish they opened the Jedi Academy to adults.
Great updates and pics

Yeah, I thought the Luau was really worth the money, good food and show.

I'd love to see how long the line would get for an adult Jedi Academy, esp. on Star Wars Weekends.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Some Hollywood Studios Pics:

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 4 Continues....

We got back to the resort and after changing into our swimming gear, we headed over to the pool. The weather still wasn’t the greatest for the pool, but taking advantage of any day that we can be in the pool. Spent about an hour in the pool then shower and changed, then headed over to the POR Riverside Mill & Market (The food court) for dinner. Now we used the food court during our last trip 3 years ago and really enjoyed it. Even though they have changed some of the food offers, I can say that it is still a very nice food court. We eat here twice during our stay and both times the food was good and the service was fast. Now it helped that both times we were at the food court, we were there between 4-5pm. This seemed to be a good time to hit the food court, get ahead of the crowd. (We noticed that the food court was packed after 8pm) Just like the AOA food court we really like the different food station options. POR food court has a Burger/Chicken/sandwich Station, a Create your own Pasta Station with pizza, a Create your own salad station and of course a bakery/ice cream station. Again, there are plenty of choices here for everyone to be able to find something they would enjoy. I tried the burger and the pasta and the burger to be good, but didn’t seem as good as the one I had at AOA and the pasta was good huge portion of pasta. I would have liked more options for the topping, so the ones they had were good and fresh.

Overall we had two good meals here, with no crowds and good hot food. The rustic sawmill look is a nice added touch to give you that kick back and relax feel.. It was also nice to be able to enjoy a meal or two away from the hustle n’ bustle of the parks and have a quiet family meal together.

We made it back to the park about 5:15pm and tried to get back to the AAA parking and was told by the CM that the lot was full. (Which is just code for; we do not have anyone working that area anymore, so you are out of luck!) They ended up parking us in a far back parking area, as it started to rain a little. A funny side note, EVERY time we plan on doing Fantasmic, we have to sit thru the threats of the voice over the loud speaker, saying that they could cancel the show due to rain. It really happens every year we go to the show; good news is that we have only ever had one show cancelled on us.

At the park gates I continued to have MB issues and had to wait for a n “IPAD” to clear me and let me in the park. Now we had the 5:45-6:15pm FP+ for the Fantasmic 6:30pm show, so we headed right over there. I have to say, I can’t be a lot of help on how the whole FP+ thing works for it, besides the fact that there is a separate line for FP+ people. But by the time we got up to the front it was close to 6pm and it appeared they started to let the stand by line in as we entered. It looked like they were trying to get everyone to go to the far left, but we just straight in and found seats a little to the right of center. The rain held off and the show was great as always.

Note: I did end up purchasing 2 of the “Glow with the show” Mickey ears for the kids. Even though there were not enough of them in the audience, I did get a kick out of the ones my kids had one and seeing how they interacted with the show. (One interesting note, is that even the 2 hats interacted differently with the show, which was cool) At the time of our visit, the ears worked with Fantasmic, Osborne light, Celebrate The Magic show and both of the Wishes show. (Tip: the ears did not work at the Tomorrowland Terrace Dessert Party area.)

 

[myhouseofmouse]

After Fantasmic, we enjoyed a couple night time rides on RR and TOT using some paper FP we picked up before we left the park for the afternoon. The TOT is one of those rides that gets even better at night. First it adds to the creepy factor, walking up to the hotel in the dark and on the ride when the doors open and then finally, you get to see the park all light up is really cool. All in all my daughter and I got to ride RR 4 times today and we rode TOT 5 times as a family. (With my wife and DS doing it 2 additional times) Our family record for TOT is 7, times in one day, which we did 2 years ago. Now with the busier crowds and the new FP+ system, I am thinking that our family record will probably be there for a long time.

We then headed towards Osborne lights and made a pit stop at Sweet Success for a quick sugar fix for the kids, then over to The Great Movie Ride, for a relaxing ride thru past movies. (I know this ride really needs an update, but we enjoy it for what it is and have our build in family moments that we recreate each time we ride it.)

Finally we made it to Osbourne lights; this is hands down, our families’ favorite holiday attraction at Disney World. This is another reason we need 2 days to enjoy this park, it gives us 2 chances to view the lights. As in years past the lights are wonderful and love how they all dance to the music. I am that guy in the neighborhood who is trying to (on a common man’s budget) to get my lights to look and feel like they do here Disney. The only negative to coming here and seeing what Disney does, is that it reminds me just how far off I still am. We like really spend some time here enjoying the lights, trying to find all of the hidden mickey’s (there were 46 of them this year) and of course try and find the “Black Cat”.

Around 10pm and after my son passed out in his stroller we headed back to the resort. Side Note: I have always been asked by friends whether they should still bring a stroller for their kids and no matter what the age, my answer is always YES. Even if they end up walking most of the day, it is still great to have it for those moments when they kids are tired and cranky and just need to get off their feet for a few moments. Plus it is great for holding bags, drinks and packages.

Only other exciting moment of the night was after getting back to the resort and carrying my sleeping son and the only my son’s MB worked to let us into the room. So I had to take the other MB’s down to the front desk and have them reset.

Up Next, Day 5: Magic Kingdom

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Some more photo's of the day:

 

[PrncessA]

Side Note: I have always been asked by friends whether they should still bring a stroller for their kids and no matter what the age, my answer is always YES. Even if they end up walking most of the day, it is still great to have it for those moments when they kids are tired and cranky and just need to get off their feet for a few moments. Plus it is great for holding bags, drinks and packages.

Loving the TR We are on the fence about this one right now. We really want to avoid pulling a stroller along with us on buses, but pulling the kids' dead weight around when they are dead tired at the end of a day doesn't sound too appealing to us either! We might end up just taking an umbrella stroller...

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Loving the TR We are on the fence about this one right now. We really want to avoid pulling a stroller along with us on buses, but pulling the kids' dead weight around when they are dead tired at the end of a day doesn't sound too appealing to us either! We might end up just taking an umbrella stroller...

Yeah I'm just a believer that the positives out weigh the negitives on that topic. Plus, if you find you don't need it, leave it at the resort, beats having to pay the park rental price if you don't bring one and end up needing it.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 5

Our first of three day at the MK has finally arrived. As much as we all love HS, there is that extra little bit of magic that comes with going to MK. It really starts with driving up to the ticket booth and seeing the big sign for the "Magic Kingdom", then it continues with either that exciting trip aboard the Monorail or boat and you start to see the sites of the castle and Space Mountain. It then all explodes out, when you step onto main street and take it all in. That feeling is right up there after my wedding day (Have to put this one first, in case my wife reads this) and my two lovely kids being born, as one of the greatest feelings I can imagine.

Day 5 was going to be another long day again; the park opened at 9am and with Extra Magic Evening Hours, the park would be open until 11pm. This was going to be our first year to NOT do the Mickey's Xmas party at MK, so we wanted to go on non-party nights to make sure we were able to maximize our time in the park. The only downfall is that is created three early and long days right in the middle of the trip. (Tomorrow is Epcot that has Extra Magic Morning hour and opens at 8am) Since we did not go to the Xmas party I cannot give a review or details about it, however like the Halloween party, it doesn’t change a lot from year to year. It is one of those things that if you have never done, you should do it at least once to experience all that it has to offer. But keep in mind that it is a special event at the park and to really enjoy it, you should plan to do the Party activities. Until we learned better we would use the party to be able to get on rides with lower crowds and really didn't take the whole event in. Now we have learned to get to the party early (even though the party starts at 7pm, you can get in with your party tickets as early as 4pm) do some rides then once the party starts, we do nothing but party activities. There is plenty to do to fill in the five hours of the party, which runs til midnight. Highlights for our family have been the dance parties, (Weather you have kids or not, there is not better place or time to really show the kid in you, then letting lose with Pluto or stitch) fireworks, special holiday season only Characters and the wonderful Xmas Parade. The other shows are good, but the best no longer exists, the old "t'was the night before Xmas" show in the old Galaxy Theater. like the Halloween party, if you are planning on doing the Xmas party, try and get a guide map ahead of time, this way you can plan your day out ahead of time to make sure you can get everything in that you want to. (and plan an early dinner, so you are not wasting party even time)

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Day 5:

Set plans we had for the Day were our FP+, (Peter Pan, Space Mountain and Story Time with Belle)) an early 4pm ADR for dinner at BOG and a surprise Wishes Dessert Party at 8pm. Besides those items, it was going to be a kind of a carefree day of trying to get as many rides in as possible on a predicted low crowd day at MK. We had an early wakeup call at 6:45am with the plans of getting to the MK by 8:15am for rope drop. The good news is that we made it to MK on time; the bad news is that we were not the second in line behind the turnstiles like we were yesterday at DHS. In fact they had already let people thru the Turnstiles and were waiting for the morning opening show to start. We actually were probably one of the last people that were able to get thru the turnstiles before they stop letting people thru until after the show started. I should have known at this point that today was not going to be a low crowd day at the MK was not going to be the 3 that Touring Plan predicted. But I was way too excited to be here to give it too much thought. We enjoyed the opening show at about 8:30am and got to take in the wonderful sight on main street and the castle, all this while heading over to Tomorrowland to hit Space Mountain. Along the way I peeked in at the bakery to check out the new Starbucks addition, but decided not to get in line and get a coffee, since I already had my morning fix back at the room. (I probably should have stopped then, since the lines were much longer during the rest of the day.)
We made our way to Tomorrowland were they had another RD line started to get into the land. After some words from a CM and an almost stampede from the crowd after a miscue from the CM, we were let into Tomrrowland at 8:45am. As a reminder this was our DS first time going on Space Mountain and he was very excited about being able to finally go on it. Also this is my wife and DD favorite ride, so everyone is hoping that DS is going to like this ride as much as everyone else, so that we can go on it many (many) more times during our trip.
Below is the first ride photo taken….

 

[myhouseofmouse]

Good news however is that he quickly got over his initial fears of not knowing what was going to happen and we ended up riding it 3 more times in a row before the line started to get a little long. You would think after 4 times my family would have had enough of SM after 4 times, but no, they still wanted to go on it again. We ended up getting paper FP to do it later to ensure everyone that we would come back to it. So we headed over for a quick spin on Buzz Lightyear so I could feed my competitive side and achieve my “Galactic Hero” status. Then it was off to new Fantasyland for a ride on the New Little Mermaid ride.
When we got to Mermaid it was posted at 30minutes and we decided to go against our no wait lines over 20minute rule to try this ride out. Good news it that the line was not even 20minutes. (so rule not broken) The queue area was really nice here. The crab interaction game was cute, but the line moved to fast to really enjoy it. The ride itself was a really great dark ride. We really enjoyed the scope and details of the whole ride and of course all of the wonderful Mermaid music to go with it all. It is really nice that Disney is keeping with the Dark Rides and using today’s technology to keep them fresh and current. My only issue in the whole ride was the “humans” that could not follow instructions and kept using flash cameras during the whole ride. I don’t know why this bothered me so much, but having a flash go off every 2 seconds was really annoying here and was a distraction from the enjoying the ride.
After our ride under the sea, I wanted to head over to Gaston’s Tavern and check out the LaFou’s Brew and treated the kids to a mid-morning snack with one of those giant Cinnamon rolls. The place is a little small, with not a huge selection in options, more of a place to get a cold drink and quick snack. I know the reviews on the Brew are either you love it or hate it, I happy to say that I am one that absolutely loved the Brew. My DD would not even try it, my SD liked it, but was just as fine with his Sprite and my wife liked it, but thought it was too sweet. I loved the taste of the combination of the Apple and Marshmellow and really like the different taste that the Mango foam added to it. I have now added this drink to list of “Must Taste” items during any of my future Disney trips.

 

[myhouseofmouse]

some more pics:

 

[myhouseofmouse]

After our snack we headed off to Frontierland to do Haunted Mansion and then off to the Mountains. The time was around 10:30am and on our way over I first noticed the line already forming for the BOG lunch. There were already 50 people in line for the 11am opening. About this we also started to notice the crowds, which continued thru Fantastyland and into Liberty Square and Frontierland. We hit Mansion then headed over and got Paper FP for Big Thunder and Splash. We then headed over to Pirates, which was closed down and over to “Jingle Cruise” which had a 40minute wait. So instead we decided to enjoy a small lunch. Now my DD only eats 3 items in the world, we headed over to Pinocchio Village Haus. We usually either go here or Cosmic Rays because of the selection. My wife got the Caprese Flatbread which she really enjoyed, while my DD got the Mac n’ Cheese. I ended sharing a Meatball sub with my son. Now when I say share, I really mean it, My Ds took one bite into his half and managed to splash sauce on the both of us. (Of course we both had white shirts on)

After lunch we ended up doing the following rides before our 4pm ADR for BOG:

Peter Pan (my Favorite Dark Ride)
Space Mountain (2xfp-)
Big Thunder Mountain (fp-)
Splash Mountain (fp-)
Mickey’s Philharmagic
The Carrousel
Little Mermaid (fp-)

Up next: BOG Dinner ADR

 

[scottny]

Great updates and pics.

Nice osborne lights pics. We did not see it this past trip unfortunately.