The 6 Days of POFQ!(with pics): COMPLETE!

[Philadisney]

A Quick Background

I have been to WDW many many times, including my 6th birthday (when I was shocked to learn that the characters didn’t all talk), a high school band trip (nothing beats marching down main street playing the ‘Star Wars’ theme on your flute), and five months on the college program (Epcot Rescue Ranger represent!). But there were still many things I hadn’t done - here are the ‘firsts’ that I am looking forward to this trip:

Kona Cafe
Soarin’
Expedition Everest
taking a boat to DTD
POFQ!
eating a kaki-gori in Epcot Japan
eating an ice cream sandwich on main street
Sci-Fi Dine in

And that’s all I have time to jot down now, as we’re heading out in seven days and I’ve got a lot of preperation to do this weekend!!! While we’re gone, you can check out my threads from last years trip:
Days 0/1
Day 2
Days 3 & 4
It was my first attempt so please be kind. If you do check them out, you’ll be pleased to know that Mr. Vacuum will be joining me again on our trip to Orlando!

DAY 1: Page 1, Post #13
DAY 2: Page 2, Posts #18, 19, 21
DAY 3: Page 2, Posts #25, 26, 27, 28
DAY 4: Page 3, Post #31
DAY 5: Page 3, Posts #38, 40, 41
DAY 6: Page 4, Posts #47, 48

 

[lovesdumbo]

How exciting for you! I just returned from a 3 night trip to POFQ with 2 girlfriends to celebrate my birthday. It was my first visit there and I really loved it. I plan to take the entire family there in Aug. I'm hoping my DH will enjoy it. We have been staying at the Poly which I do love but now that my youngest is 3 we'd need 2 rooms. I walked through the Poly last week and while it is still really nice I didn't find myself missing it all that much. I think that says a lot for POFQ.

Have a GREAT trip! I'll be at Pop with my DD celebrating her 7th birthday.

 

[Mary626]

That's so funny he still calls it Disneyland! I run into the same thing all the time with my family, ah well.

I agree about POFQ - I encountered such amazing service while I was there!! I was in the same building as the loudest person on earth and after three days of this guy's screaming and cussing, I finally called the front desk and asked to be switched, even though it was right at check out time, and they had no problem finding me another room. They also had a few surprises for me and my DH for our honeymoon, and when I had a question about our final bill the front desk lady took her time and slowly and carefully made sure everything was accurate. All that and it's a beautiful, quaint resort!!

You'll have a great time there! Looking forward to reading more

 

[Philadisney]

thank you both for the comments! lovesdumbo, i am always happy to hear that people have had a good experience at POFQ - i have read a lot of reviews that it is the best moderate if you have no kids. it is especially reassuring to know that you stayed there for your wedding trip and had such a wonderful time, mary - i've been following your trip report closely, it's great!

 

[Philadisney]

i am officially on vacation! flying out tomorrow AM! see all y'all next week!

 

[OhMari]

Disneyland, Walt Disney World-who cares right, you're going, have a good time.

 

[Philadisney]

Disneyland, Walt Disney World-who cares right, you're going, have a good time.

haha yes, i'm totally kidding about making fun of him for not knowing the difference. actually, i was 20 before i figured out which was which, and that was only because i was working at WDW then!

 

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

have an AWESOME trip! i will be watching this trip report as we are staying at POFQ!(and its nice to see some lovely comments here about it. can't wait!)

Have a GREAT time!

 

[Minniespal]

Have a fantastic trip ~ Can't wait to read more.

 

[Philadisney]

just a quick note to say we are back and had the most wonderful time ever! i'll be busy the rest of the weekend as it's DBF's birthday and memorial day, but i'll get started on my trip report ASAP! (I'll explain why i changed the title too). Absolutely wonderful trip, POFQ is AMAZING!!!!
stay tuned!

 

[bozley0621]

subscribing...oh how I wish I had taken notes. I just got back last Monday and can't remember a thing to put together a trip report.

 

[burly]

Subscribing

 

[Philadisney]

We’re back, and I’m devestated! No kidding, I cried for two days. It was the best vacation I have ever had. Perfect weather, perfect company, perfect travel, perfect resort, perfect FOOD, perfect WDW!
Our cast is just myself and DBF, early 20-somethings who have never had a ‘real’ vacation that lasted more than a long weekend. Oh, and we can’t forget Mr. Vacuum - the stuffed chicken I’ve been lugging around for the past five years becos he is just so darn cute - here’s a pic of him from last years trip, in his very favorite park:

Our trip report is called the 6 Days of POFQ because, just like in the 12 Days of Christmas, we got something exciting from our resort almost every day (including one surprise that was both bizarrely eerie and incredibly adorable AT THE SAME TIME!)

Our flight left Philadelphia at 10:30 AM on Saturday the 20th, on Southwest. I was so excited the night before I got about four hours of sleep, tossing and turning and staring at the clock. The flight was great, although I am a bit bewildered by Southwest’s loading system of ‘zones’ with no assigned seating. I didn’t like how anxious it made me feel as I was so afraid we wouldn’t get a seat together, but we did. As we landed in Orlando, the flight attendant got on the PA and sang “Zip A Dee Doo Dah”:
Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay
Thank you for flying Southwest Airlines today
Pleanty of peanuts headed your way
Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay!
we walked out of the plane and hopped on the tram, looking at the clear blue skies and the palm trees swaying in the breeze as we rode to the area of the airport where we could check in with Magical Express. We stood in a lonnnng line for our resort, POFQ. I had piled oranges, water and trail mix into my purse so we snacked on those while waiting. We pulled up to the resort around 2:30 or so, about an hour after landing.
We loved, loved LOVED the resort. I would stay at POFQ again in a heartbeat. The main building was lovely (no lines at check-in!), there were fountains and trees everywhere, we loved how all the buildings were uniquely painted to look like rowhomes, and the lake that followed the edge of the resort was lovely.

We were in room 7, which was the farthest away from the main building (about a whopping 5-minute walk) with a view of a little courtyard that I foolishly did not take a photo of. Trust me, it was lovely! On the first day of vacation POFQ gave to me - a view of a magnolia tree!
We loved being in building 7 because we could walk out of our room and, in five minutes, be either at the main building of POFQ or be at POR, we were smack dab in the middle of the two resorts. It’s a very easy walk to POFQ, a beautiful walk right along the river. Just have to look out for those horse n’ buggys running you down - it’s a very tiny path!
So it’s around 3 pm, and we haven’t eaten a real meal since breakfast at 7:30, and i am quite hungry, and dreaming of fancy sandwiches. It’s off to DTD for the evening! We stand in line for the boat - there is a boat that goes from POFQ to POR to DTD. It was a bit of a wait, but finally we were on our way. We had a ‘rookie’ driver named Bob from New Hampshire - he said that he had retired recently, and was driving through Orlando with his wife last week when he decided to stop by casting and see if they had any openings for boat drivers. Voila, here he is today. Steve was his trainer, they were very funny bantering back and forth and kidding around with the passengers. Soon DTD was in sight:

We beelined for Earl of Sandwich, where I had a Hawaiin BBQ sandwich (pretty good, though it tasted like pinneapple and ham pizza to me a bit). DBF had the Jamacan jerk sandwich and liked it. I dragged him into World of Disney where I picked up a souvenier for my friend back in Philadelphia and some gummis & cookies to share with my co-workers. DBF was much more excited about visiting the lego store and checking out the lego sculptures outside.

And I was happy that I got to meet one of my very favorite princesses

We were also mildly amused at how my yellow-and-green shirt matched the bridge by Fulton’s

Next we had to hit Ghiradellis, where we split a big berry sundae. It was much bigger than Mr. Vacuum!

We were swealtering by now in the heat, so it was back to POFQ for a dip in their very amazing pool. We kinda wanted to go down the slide, but it was a bit crowded and we didn’t see any other ‘grown ups’ using it, so we chickened out. The hot tub felt pretty amazing too. We wandered back to our room and DBF was delighted that he could walk without his shoes on. If you try to do that where we live you’ll end up with someone’s broken beer bottle lodged in your heel. After showering we checked out the souvenier shop at POFQ, then meandered up to POR to eat at Boatwrights. We did not have a PS and were given a wait time of half an hour, which was fine with us, as it gave us a chance to check out that resort. We explored their shop, which is much bigger than POFQ’s, and strolled around by the river, and poked our heads in the bar to hear the piano player (who was performing ‘Country Roads Take Me Home,’ which managed to get stuck in my head for the next thirty-six hours at least). We were seated right by the fireplace - tres romantique! They brought out the cornbread, which was phenomenal. It had actual pieces of corn in it, which blew my mind. I couldn’t get over it. I had never seen that before - probably all cornbread I had ever had had come out of a mix. It was almost as delicious as this beautiful drink I ordered, Miss Melonie’s Colada. Here they are together!:

DBF had the jambalaya and a lynchberg lemonade, I had the herb chicken which was quite good. We were far too stuffed for dessert, and pretty tired at this point, so we strolled back to POFQ for the end of our first day! I was way too excited and it took me over 2 hours to fall asleep. I wandered outside and looked over the railing for a while, past the huge white tree I could see a few lampposts dotting the street below.

Tomorrow - off to AK!

 

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

WHOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO another awesome start to what I am sure will be an AWESOME trip report! I love hearing about POFQ too!!! yea!

 

[tinkandbelle]

philadisney,
thks so much for such a wonderful start to your trip report. We will visit POFQ in Aug-my 2nd time there-your report will help me make until then...keep it up!

 

[Philadisney]

hi all - thanks so much for your replies! i promise to continue as soon as i am able. It was a great time, and perhaps it will be therapeutic for me to write about it Thank you all, and stay tuned!

 

[PrincessGeorgie]

I am very sorry to hear you latest news, especially after what sounded like a perfect trip. I will await patiently your next entry, you write beautifully.
Hang in there!

 

[Philadisney]

This was the one morning I wanted to be sure we were at the park for opening. I was nervous about being able to get on Expedition Everest, and the safari. We would have to leave AK a bit early as I wanted to go back to the hotel before heading out for DBF’s birthday dinner.
We arrived at AK shortly before 8, to a throng of people standing in line. It was packed!

That talking palm tree was roving around which was neat, I had never seen it before. I was hoping to see Devine today as well, I had never caught her before either. The talking tree amused us as we waiting in the ginormous line to get in, and then we beelined straight for Expedition Everest, along with everyone else. We got a fast pass - a lot of people were heading straight for the standby line, but for the life of us, we could not find the sign saying how long standby was! it also took us a few minutes to find the fastpass area - that queue is a bit confusing. We were excited to walk by the tea stand - we both love tea. We made plans that we’d stop by it later but never did becos it was just too hot today! It was definitely the hottest day of the trip. While waiting for our FP time, we saw ITTBAB and screamed our heads off. We went on EE and really enjoyed it - I liked the seats on that coaster, it was actually pretty comfortable. I had read too much about this ride though, and got nervous about the Yeti. So...I completely screwed my eyes shut. Never saw it. Oh well, DBF said it was neat. Yeay EE!

After that ride we FP’d Kali River Rapids, and headed off down whatever trail is near that ride to check out some animals while we waited. Now forgive me, I am totally going to mix up where we saw what animals. I think maybe we saw fish here.

Kali was great, I had brought a plastic shopping bag in my purse to wrap it in, which I was so glad I did becos stuff in the bin still got a little damp. We got soaked but didn’t care becos it was so hot.
We were feeling a bit hungry so we headed off in search of food. While walking, we saw a small crowd of people gathered taking pictures. They parted, and look who walked out!

Not much of a picture, but I’m glad I finally got to see Devine! We grabbed a FP for the safari, and next we were off to stand in the longest line we stood in that day - Tusker House. It was packed and took forever, but we were in good moods and didn’t care. I had the kids chicken and potatoes, and DBF had the veggie sandwich. Mr. Vacuum swiped some of my milk.

 

[Philadisney]

We still had a bit of time before the safari so we checked out the gorillas.

And then it was time for the best safari I’d ever been on! We saw so many animals. Like these things that look like buffalos....or something!

And things that looked kinda like deer!

I know this one...it’s a giraffe!

I believe next we headed to the Dinoland area. Now, there are two rides I wanted to avoid on this trip - Stitch’s Great Escape and Dinosaur. I’ve done them both and hated them.
My plan to avoid Dinosaur was to rip off a great trip report I read shortly before we left, by renholder777. He describes Dinosaur this way: "It’s like if a big muscled guy took you into a dark room with a strobe light and shook you for five minutes while someone else showed you dinosaur images." I shared this with DBF, and it was enough to keep him off the ride, hooray! But we got to do Primevil Whirl, which I love, and DBF insisted on getting his picture taken with the huuuge dinosaur. It was really hard to get the big creature and DBF in the photo - can you find him?

We then hit Flights of Wonder, which I had never done before. It was funny and amazing and we loved it.

It was getting to be around 2 pm by this point, so we decided to head over to Camp Minnie Mickey and see the next showing of FOLK. It wasn’t until 3 so we first killed some time by meeting Donald Duck. then headed off to eat mickey bars and wait for FOLK. It was a long wait in the hot sun, and we were excited to get in. We were in the lion section. The first couple of numbers were great - DBF liked the tumble monkeys. After that number, the cast came out and was about to go into the “Be Prepared” number when the music cut out. The theater fell silent. The cast members looked at each other for a second, then all turned around and walked out. a voice came over the PA and said “We’re sorry, this performance of Festival of the Lion King has been cancelled. Please leave the theater in an orderly fashion, we apologize for the inconvenience.” The lights came up and we all walked out. The four floats with the animatronic animals were still sitting there. It was so weird. My guess was that maybe one of the performers got hurt - we hope everything was ok.
We were very disappointed but decided not to wait around for the next show - it wasn’t for another 90 minutes and who knew if it would even go on anyway. We hopped a bus to head back to POFQ! On the way, we passed this huge McDonalds with big statues in front, enchanting.

Next: POFQ and what we found there; birthday dinner!

 

[Philadisney]

I am very sorry to hear you latest news, especially after what sounded like a perfect trip. I will await patiently your next entry, you write beautifully.
Hang in there!

Thank you