The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
An Introduction: "Nice to be Back Ladies and Gentlemen!"
Well, well, well, if it isn’t me starting this trip report over 2 months after I’ve been back home.
I had full intentions of starting this trip report a lot earlier, but life had other plans. Work, life, family- all 3 have been at a chaotic war with each other seemingly since I landed back in the robust, beautiful lush urban jungle of Northern New Jersey (/sarcasm) that I’ve had next to no free time to even start this report. But I have another trip coming up in about 60 days so, better get going on this bad boy.
So let’s get the details sorted out. The who, the what, the when, the (under)where, the why. The part that everyone skims over to get to the good stuff. Understandably, I’ll say. I’m actually not that interesting.
The Who:
Me!
My name is Courtney and I’m a 30 year old who works in Human Resources for a large retailer and lives in New Jersey. I’m a huge fan of the Office, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and anything weird, spooky, or horror related. I love trying new and interesting foods and with that being said, I am usually the food planner of all trips. I book the dining reservations and am usually always “in the know” of what new and unique snacks and foods Disney is dishing out.
Favorite Ride: Haunted Mansion (WDW)//POTC (DLR)//Big Thunder (both WDW and DLR)
Favorite Restaurant: Via Napoli (Epcot)
Favorite Disfood: Fish n Chips (Epcot)// 3 Cheese Monte Cristo (DLR)
Favorite Night Show: Fantasmic (WDW, NOT DLR. I will die on this hill)
Favorite Movie: Coco//Moana//Frozen 2
Favorite Character: Aladdin//Ariel//Tamatoa (he is not a villain, he did nothing wrong)
Favorite Villain: Hades//Gaston//Cruella
Most Looking Forward To: Haunted Mansion!
My best friend, Mel!
Mel has been my best friend for the past 12 years. She is a 30 year old auditor for a bank in Philadelphia. She loves her dog Ellie, Starbucks, Broadway shows, and being the funniest person I’ve ever met. Mel is the true planner of all of our trips- she is our own travel agent and always manages to be able to work whatever we want to do into our budget.
Favorite Ride: Pirates (WDW)//Space Mountain (DLR)
Favorite Restaurant: Be Our Guest, Dinner. But only in the west wing (MK)
Favorite Disfood: Via Napoli Pizza (Epcot)
Favorite Night Show: Hallowishes (RIP) (MK)
Favorite Movie: Moana
Favorite Character: Donald Duck and Smee
Favorite Villain: Ursula. Oogi Boogi
Most Looking Forward To: Walking Down Main Street
Together, we have been to WDW 6 times previously and DLR once. Most of the time we look like this:
But there's also a bunch of times where we look like this:
Both of those are taken on Dinosaur. I absolutely love the ride! I love how it whips you around and you feel like your about to fly right out of the car. But I've never actually SEEN the ride, since it terrifies me. I have ridden it every. single. time. with my eyes closed and my head down. LOL!
When? We flew out on October 15th, spent 3 amazing days in the parks, and flew back home on the 19th.
Where? Disney World, of course! We spent a little bit of time at Universal’s City Walk and actually stayed off property for the first time ever, but 95% of the time was all Disney World, baby!
What? A much needed escape from the chaos of the real world, if even just for a few days.
And finally, why? Mel and I have had many, many trips planned between our January ‘20 DLR trip and this trip. Some were Disney, some weren’t. But they were all cancelled. We felt empty without a Disney trip to look forward to. Finally, we just decided to go for it. We needed to. It had been too long since we had been to Disney World- almost 3 years! It was time to finally go back home.
Well, that about sums that up. Let’s get on with the trip report!
The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
Day 0
October 14, 2021
"Party of 2, Table for 6"
Ah yes, the day before vacation. The teaser. The day that takes 24 hours and somehow stretches them into somehow feeling like 90 hours.
I usually take the day before I leave for vacation off from work, but this time I opted not to. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.
I did, however, only work for about 5 and a half hours- going in at 8am and clocking out around 1:45pm. I tried to do as much as I could in those few hours but pretty much managed to just drink cold brew coffee from Dunkin’ and annoy my manager and coworkers.
On my way home, I stopped at the grocery store and CVS for some last minute items and went back to Dunkin’ to try their new peanut butter cup iced macchiato.
A life motto, I believe!
I’ve heard a lot of people claim that they hated this drink but I gotta say, I loved it. It was so sickly peanut buttery sweet. I was instantly hooked.
Coffee in hand, I went back home to finish some last minute packing and wait for Mel to wrap up work and head up to my house. Exactly at 5, Mel texted me that she had just finished work and was on her way. Perfect!
Due to fantastic rush hour traffic (/sarcasm), I wasn’t expecting Mel until 7:15 or 7:30, but at 7 I got the glorious phone call from Mel that she was pulling up to my house. Vacation could officially start!
Usually we opt for some quick sandwiches from Quick Chek or Wawa, but instead decided to start off the trip on a high note and go to an Irish bar/restaurant near me. Even though the spot is less than 5 minutes from me, I’ve never been prior to this so it was a new experience for the both of us.
I ordered a hard cider which I thought was pretty decent, while Mel opted for a coke.
Mac and Maple Champlain Orchard Cider- $7
For dinner, I chose a couple of appetizers to pick at and Mel went for a more solid option.
Bavarian pretzels (vegetarian)- served with a homemade cheese sauce- $9
2 chili-lime chicken tacos- grilled chicken, pineapple salsa, and shredded cheese topped with chili-lime sauce- $12
I’m a huge soft baked pretzel fan. In fact anytime I go to a bar and there’s a baked pretzel on the menu, 99% of the time I order it. So I am pretty much a pretzel expert. And this pretzel? Well, it wasn’t the best. It wasn’t bad, but I’ve had better. The tacos were decent. They were actually pretty dry for the most part, until the very end when a little pocket of chili-lime sauce was unearthed and ended up dripping all down my arm.
Mel thought her cottage pie was good, albeit a bit different than she was used to. She said that there was a lot of onion (which says a lot when you find out how much Mel loves onions) but the mashed potatoes made up for it.
Once we finished with our dinner, we hurried back to my house to watch Moana as we discussed our trip must-dos (must dooooos), prayed to the airport gods that for once our flight leave on schedule, and made sure we had everything we needed packed.
After a quick shower, I headed to bed around 12:30 and crossed my fingers for a smooth travel day when I opened my eyes in a few hours.
***Up next: The best of times, the worst of times. Aka Travel Day!***
The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
Day 1, Part 1
October 15, 2021
"Scaring Away Laverne With Bread Teeth"
It staaaaarts!
For the last couple of years, Mel and I have always taken early morning flights to truly optimize our travel days (and because we usually have some sort of layover, so getting an early start just makes sense). This trip though? Oh, she was different. We originally had a mid afternoon non-stop flight out of LaGuardia. I say originally because, well, things almost went horribly awry.
A couple days prior to our travel day, Southwest was cancelling flights left and right. Everyone told us to keep an eye on our flight because there was a good chance it would get cancelled.
The optimism, people! It’s glowing! But unlike our January 2020 trip to LA, the airport gods kissed us on our little fragile foreheads and said no, not this time. Imma just push it back a little.
And that’s what happened.
A couple days before our flight, we noticed that our flight time changed from a 1:20pm departure to a 2:50pm departure. No big deal. I pushed back our dinner reservations and made sure my dad was still going to be available to give us a ride to the airport.
This also meant I would be able to sleep in a bit more and Mel would be able to get some early morning work done at my house. Yes, you read that right. Mel was putting in some hard work right up until it was time to leave for the airport.
I leisurely got up at 8:15 and went to Dunkin’ to pick up another peanut butter cup iced macchiato for myself and a pumpkin cold foam cold brew for Mel as well as a couple of bagels from a nearby bagel shop.
I put on the new (at the time) Muppets Haunted Mansion as I got ready and Mel wrapped up her work. My dad was supposed to drive us to the airport at 11:45, and we ended up being only 6 minutes behind schedule. Impressive! By 11:51, the car was packed and we were on our way to my new favorite airport. LaGuardia.
If you read my previous trip report, you may know that I used to hate LaGuardia with every fiber of my being. If I had a choice between using LaGuardia and walking, I would have chosen death. But Southwest left Newark, so LaGuardia became the only option. I mean, besides changing airlines but who wants solutions when you can just complain instead!
Anyway! With no traffic (which I will never be able to say again), we pulled up to LaGuardia at 12:38 and after thanking my dad for the ride (which I later found out cost him about $40 in tolls. Oops!), we waddled up to baggage. There were only a couple of people ahead of us and within 4 minutes, we said goodbye to our luggage and said a small prayer to the airport gods that we would see our belongings again in Orlando.
Security had a terrifyingly long wait of 6 minutes, but thankfully with precheck, we managed to walk straight through. I was “randomly selected.” So that makes me the winner.
We headed towards Terminal B and our gate and took a quick look at all of the stores and food options that are open in the terminal when you aren’t flying out at 6am. Wendy’s, Tony and Benny’s, Dunkin’ (we didn’t stop, so no peanut butter cup iced macchiato for me), Juniors, Green Leafs. Endless options!
We also noticed that there was a water fountain show that I definitely don’t remember from before. It smelled exactly like the Bellagio lobby in Vegas, which I didn’t know was a smell I could pinpoint until that exact moment.
We watched the fountain show for a couple of moments before we stopped for some snacks and water at one of the shops.
Mel opted for a plain smart water and some pretzels while I went a bit out there and chose a watermelon mint smart water and some “Plain Jane” Rick Ross rap snacks. I haven’t seen or even thought of rap snacks in a good while, so seeing them at the airport was a wild time.
We managed to find our gate with no problems and charged our phones a little while we waited to board. Our flight was completely full and they were asking people to check their carry-on bags. Luckily, our flight stayed on time and pre-boarding started at 2:06.
Mel and I ended up sitting in the 5th row and by 2:40 our flight was boarded and we were on our way by 2:50 for our slightly over 2 hour flight.
Words to live by.
I watched Nightmare Before Christmas and the beginning of Luca before we landed at 5:15. By 5:25, we were off the plane and soaking in the glorious sight of the MCO airport and heading to the first ride of the trip. The Faux Monorail!
Coco!
Sitting front of the faux monorail is my favorite way to start vacation!
After a quick bathroom break and luggage hide n go seek, we were ready to get an uber and be whisked away to our home away from home. Uber was pricing us at $45, which honestly wasn’t the worst pricing I’ve seen, and they came to scoop us up in only 5 minutes.
We managed to hit slight traffic (LA traffic karma laughs in the distance) but arrived at our AirBnB key pick up within decent time. Now let’s talk about this AirBnB and the key pick up. We had actually booked a room at the Blue Heron Beach Resort through AirBnB based solely on the view from the balcony that they showed. Ok, I say solely based upon, but it had everything we were looking for (2 beds, looked relatively clean, etc etc) and then the view. The view!
The only downside we had really heard about this AirBnB was the key pick up was odd. And odd was an understatement. The key pick up was about a 5 minute drive from the actual resort and was located in a lock box on the side of an actual tire shop. Yup.
Once we got the key (and had to awkwardly explain to our Uber driver that we were just picking up a key), we headed to the resort and were quickly dropped off. We were in Tower 1, Floor 11, Room 1108.
We dropped off our bags, checked out the room, and spent a few minutes refreshing ourselves.
Mel's bathroom for the next few days, which was connected to her room
Mel's room- which was the first door to the left when you entered the room.
My bathroom, which was off the hallway
Full kitchen with a standard sized fridge and an oven. And dishwasher!
My bed, which was set up as a studio (meaning the bed was essentially in the living room) but since it was literally right in front of the balcony, I viewed it as prime real estate.
The balcony!
I cannot stress enough how much I loved this view.
The view of the pool from the balcony.
I eventually managed to pry myself away from our balcony view (which was very hard to do as the sun was setting) and we headed down to the pool area to look around while we waited on our Lyft to Universal’s City Walk.
This was the view from the walkway from the elevator to our front door. If you look closely, there are some theme park views happening. But also that sunset. Oof!
The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
Day 1, Part 2
October 15, 2021
"Scaring Away Laverne With Bread Teeth"
Our Lyft picked us up at 7:36 and was dropping us off at Universal at 7:53.
Has anyone actually played mini golf at these places? It looks super tempting- and then I remember I don't actually like mini golfing. So it's a fleeting interest.
And our jaws dropped. The line for security was huge!
I don't have any pics of the security line, but look at the traffic! I don't know if it had to do with it being a Saturday night or a Horror Nights night, OR it being a nice mixture of the 2, but wow. Wow, wow, wow.
Oddly enough, it never stopped moving and only took us about 10 minutes to get through. City Walk was decently crowded, so we decided to stop at the Universal Store to pick up a few things before we headed to dinner to get out of the sea of people wandering around.
We had gone to City Walk for one specific reason- well, besides dinner- and that was to pick up an interactive wand for my sister for her bachelorette party. I know I probably could have gotten it at the airport store but where’s the fun in that!
I chose Ron’s wand and a box of fizzing whizzbees (the candy was for me).
Ronald Weasley!
The checkout line was super reasonable for how crowded the store and City Walk were and before we knew it, we were heading back out to City Walk.
Our dinner reservation for Toothsome wasn't until 9 but we headed over anyway to see if we could maybe be seated earlier (LOL to us).
We checked in at 8:30 and they told us we wouldn’t be seated until much closer to our reservation time, since they were super busy and weren’t even taking walk ups at that point. Fair enough.
Mel and I spent our time looking at all of the candy, chocolate, and desserts that Toothsome showcases.
At 8:54, I got a text our table was ready. The host who sat us was wonderful! Sadly, I didn’t get his name but as he led us to our table, I had an amazing conversation with him about all the food Toothsome has and which is our favorite. He was so friendly!
We were sat at a 2 top on the second floor.
We both started with water with lemon to start but quickly switched to a couple of cokes. And then we made Toothsome regret ever letting us walk in the building. We decided to split a couple of apps. A ‘couple’.
We chose the chocolate almond bread, avocado bruschetta, baked brie, and the short rib flatbread.
Baked brie en croute (vegetarian)- with raspberry marmalade, served with fresh fruit, toasted almonds, chocolate almond bread, and oven baked lavash- $12.95
Short rib flatbread- braised short rib, shallot jam, fontina mornay, micro arugula, lemon zest- $13.95
Mel and I agreed that both the short rib flatbread and the avocado bruschetta were absolutely fantastic. The flavor that both dishes had were incredible and we would order these again in a heartbeat. In fact, I would recommend either dishes to an absolute stranger. So there’s that. I thought the brie was great- especially when you spread it on the lavash with some of the fruit and almonds sprinkled on top. Mel wasn’t convinced. And the bread?
Oh what a let down! I thought the bread was super heavy and didn’t even have a good flavor to make up for it. Mel thought it was decent. But no way would we order it again.
When we got the check, we were both shocked! Our total before tip was…$51. Maybe we were used to Disney prices but this seemed too low! It felt like such a steal for all the food we ate and how stuffed we felt. Disney- we need to talk about how much you’re charging here!
After we rolled ourselves out of Toothsome, we decided more food was in order. Desserts to be exact. So we started our sugar journey aross City Walk, passing the Universal globe and the entrance to Studios.
Our destination?
Did you expect anything else?
We got in the outside queue for Voodoo Donuts around 10:30 and waited about 25 minutes to get inside the store.
We both chose 3 donuts each. I don’t have pictures of the individual donuts (sorry!) but Mel chose the Maple Bar, the Portland Cream, and the Sprinkle donut. I picked what Mel considered to be the worst flavors but I thought they were the most interesting: the Grape Ape (which I had in California and thought was so delicious), Miami Vice Berry, and Mango Tango.
I took these screenshots from the Voodoo Donut website (except for the Miami Vice Berry one, it's like a myth. Only exists in the Universal bubble and no where else):
It's the best one!
Donuts in hand, we headed to the rideshare pick up area and attempted to order our Lyft. A 9 minute wait? Not terrible. Except they cancelled. So extra terrible!
Ok, attempt 2. This time we switched to Uber and our driver picked us up at 11:52. We had scheduled a quick pit stop at Walgreens for some water but the checkout line was so long, we just decided to grab some bottles from the resort vending machines when we got back instead. By 12:15, Rodrigo was dropping us off and speeding away. Fair enough.
We spent a little bit of time unpacking and just chatting before I jumped in the shower, and put a couple of icy hot patches on my knees (which ended up being such a life savor each night).
By 1:45, I was fast asleep with a 6:45 wake up time looming over my head.
Not bad for a travel day!
***Up Next: Our first park day of the trip! We're back, baby!***
The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
Day 2, Part 1
October 16, 2021
"Oh did you say smoothie? I thought you said smooth jazz"
Look at those views! I literally can't get over it, even almost 2 months later.
Ah yes, our first Epcot day!
I was woken up by my alarm at 6:45- mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared to score a Ratatouille boarding group at 7. The clock ticked ever so closer to 7 and I stared at my screen, going over in my head my strategy. I stretched my arms, I cracked my knuckles, I refreshed the page. And then 7 hit.
And I froze. I froze for only a mere second.
But it was over. All the 7am boarding groups were gone. I had failed.
Dramatization aside, Mel and I weren’t really all that bummed since we had another chance at 1pm (and on Monday, but shhh).
I told you I'm obsessed.
From the balcony, I could hear children outside screaming. At 7am.
Now that we were slightly more awake, Mel and I decided to head out on an adventure to grab Starbucks. It was going to be a long, treacherous journey- but we were up for it.
Where was this fabled Starbucks?
Oh. About 1,000 feet away.
There was a Starbucks (with a drive thru!) that was in the tiny shopping center in front of the resort. I opted for a salted caramel cream cold brew to go with one of my donuts from the previous night; while Mel went for a pumpkin cold brew and plain croissant.
All of the donuts ended up getting smushed in the box but were still edible. Just not picture worthy anymore, unfortunately.
She has seen better days.
But the taste was still the same- delicious and sickly sweet.
Our original goal was to leave the resort by 9:30 for a 10am park opening. True to fashion, we ended up being ready by 9:34, but still had to wait 8 minutes for our Lyft. Which really isn’t bad when you think about it- but when you’re so excited to finally get into the parks, 8 minutes feels closer to 8 years than anything else.
The weather was going to be in the upper 80’s and while it wasn’t blazing hot at 9:45 in the morning, our Lyft driver decided to test our limits. We’re talking windows up, A/C off. Bright Florida sunshine is beating on us. We were actually melting and we hadn’t even gotten out of the car yet.
There was also a plastic divider to stop whatever possible ounce of cool air floating around that car dead in it's tracks.
Finally after what felt like a trip to the fiery center of the Earth, we were dropped off at Epcot at 10:07 and briskly walked to security.
Less than a minute later, we were scanning into the parks and soaking in that initial joy of finally being back home. It felt surreal.
We snapped a few pictures and picked up a Food and Wine Passport before heading to Guest Relations for Mel to register for the DAS pass (or re-register?).
The line for Guest Relations was pretty long- we waited about 20 minutes- but I passed the time by deciding what Food and Wine items I was most looking forward to.
After quickly looking at wait times, we decided to head to Nemo and the roaring raging seas.
The wait time was listed as 15 minutes, which literally is about how long it takes to walk through the queue. And we were right. We constantly walked right up until we boarded- waiting only 6 minutes.
One trippy voyage through the EAC later, we were dumped out into the aquarium. I was on a mission- I’m not sure where I saw that the seas had a small jellyfish tank but I knew one thing. I needed to see it. So around the aquarium I hunted.
I saw manatees. I saw clownfish, I even saw a fish that looks like Mel. But I did not see a jellyfish tank.
Mel please, get out of that aquarium! We need to keep looking for jellyfish!
Apparently the little sea urchins pick up the Mickey ear hats and put them on. And if that's not the cutest thing you've ever read, then please re-read.
But I put on a brave face as we headed to our next destination. The Land.
More specifically, Livin with the Land.
Mel and I are huge Livin fans. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t know anyone who ISN’T a fan of Livin. It’s great.
The wait time was posted at 15 minutes, but unlike Nemo, we ended up waiting about that. I forgot to ask for a front row (which is the prime seat) and was slightly disappointed when we had to plop down in the 4th row instead. But it was still a fantastic slow moving boat ride through time and a couple of greenhouses.
The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
Day 2, Part 2
October 16, 2021
"Oh did you say smoothie? I thought you said smooth jazz"
Once upon a long time ago, in my favorite part of Livin (the fish tanks), they had baby alligators. Does anyone else remember this? Was it a fever dream or figment of my imagination (imaaaaagination)?
After Livin, we decided to head to the World Showcase since we had lunch reservations in about an hour. And we (Mel) walk slowly.
My fave!
On our way to lunch, we stopped in Norway to pick up a DAS return time for Frozen and then continued on towards Italy.
The little train town in Germany was decorated for Food and Wine- I love that they do that!
Even in our slow venture around the showcase, we still had a good amount of time before our reservation at Via Napoli so while Mel parked herself on a bench to people watch, I decided to explore the pavilion a little.
I headed into Il Bel Cristallo to take a peak around and then dived a bit deeper as I stepped into La Gemma Elegante.
Me!
Now, La Gemma Elegante is a bit of a trip in and of itself. They have tons of Venetian masks that I spent a couple of minutes soaking in their beauty.
And then I saw these.
What in the world.
I saw on a youtube video that they actually have a couple of creepy masks that they don’t have out on display, but if you ask a Cast Member, they will happily bring them out for you. I didn’t do that. These were already on display. So how creepy are the hidden ones? I may never know.
Or until I ask next time. Either or.
By now it was only 12:15 but Mel and I were growing famished. We decided to press our luck and see if Via Napoli would take pity on us by letting us in early for our 12:45 reservation. We held our breath as we checked in.
“Sure no problem”
And a mere 5 minutes later, we were being led to our table.
We were seated at the large family style table in the center of the restaurant. Our hostess told us that the large table was actually being broken up into smaller sections- each section with 3 seats on either side to help with distancing. She asked us if that would be ok.
We both agreed that the table would be fine.
Our server came by quickly to get our drink orders- a water for Mel and a strawberry aqua fresco for me. I’ve never had the aqua frescos before but thought they sounded light and refreshing.
Our signature house-made, seasonal fruit juice coolers. Strawberry. $8
And I was correct.
For our lunch, Mel and I opted to start with the garlic focaccia to share and then each went with an individual pizza. Mel went classic with the margarita, while I stuck true to my favorites and opted for the prosciutto and melon.
We both agreed the garlic focaccia was absolutely delicious and was the perfect start to the meal. It wasn’t super garlicky and had just the right amount of oil drizzle that didn’t overwhelm the flavor of the focaccia.
But these pizzas? Oh, these pizzas! I know Via Napoli is super popular and a lot of times seems overhyped. But it deserves every single ounce of hype it gets. Especially their prosciutto and melon pizza.
The salty prosciutto. The peppery bite of the arugula. The slightly sweet and bright flavor of the melon. It’s heaven. Pure heaven.
Mel thought her pizza was also delicious and on a scale of 1-10, rated it a perfect 10.
As we were happily eating our pizza, I was keeping my eye on the time for my Ratatouille redemption arc. The seconds ticked closer and closer to 1. And finally, it was my moment.
Actually it was Mel’s moment, because once again I did not got a boarding group.
But Mel did! She managed to get boarding group 134, with an estimated return time of 280 minutes.
We paid our bill shortly after and took a quick look at our table- we were the only ones at the table at this point. A family sized table that takes up the entire middle of the restaurant. Empty, except for 2 pizza sized ladies gearing up to waddle towards Norway. Talk about social distancing.
On our way out of Italy, we saw Sergio performing for about 30 seconds. I’m not a huge performance watcher but it was nice to see them starting to come back out.
We also stumbled upon Snow White while we sped through Germany and stopped for a quick hello and to snap a picture.
I know everyone’s really looking forward to regular character meet and greets to come back but I don’t know. I really enjoy the way they are now- you don’t have to do too much interacting, you can just snap a couple of pictures and get out of there. As someone who gets unusually shy around characters, making for a very awkward interaction, I much prefer the minimum contact now.
By the time we got back to Frozen, the standby line was posted at 50 minutes.
Using our DAS pass, we managed to only wait about 4. While we were walking through the former fast pass (but not yet lightning lane) line, a man stopped us to ask how we were able to “cut” the line. Mel tried to explain to him what a DAS pass was and what it was used for. The guy wasn’t rude or anything- he seemed just genuinely curious- but it still made for a slightly uncomfy moment.
Anyway, Frozen was fantastic as always.
Even though I strongly feel they should upgrade it to solely focus on Frozen 2, but I’m probably (definitely) in the minority there. We got far too soaked on the ride though- wetter than I have ever gotten on Frozen previously. I hate water rides so this was a bit of a downer for me, but I put on a brave soggy face and pushed forward.
***Coming up next: Where do I push forward to? Do I ever dry?***
The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
Day 2, Part 3
October 16, 2021
"Oh did you say smoothie? I thought you said smooth jazz"
After Frozen, we headed towards the Mexico pavilion to have a grand fiesta on the Gran Fiesta Tour. We were shocked when we got to the pavilion and saw a line wrapped around the top of the outside of the pyramid to enter. I’m not sure how long it was, but it looked to be at LEAST a few hour wait. Was this wait all for the ride? Was it just to enter the pyramid? What was going on?
Turns out the line was for La Cava. That’s right- the line for La Cava not only snaked around the inside of the pyramid. It overflowed and wound around the outside as well. All for La Cava.
There were a couple of CMs directing people to either the end of the crazy, crazy line or straight into the pyramid if you were there to do anything else but buy a margarita.
Coco!
Donald and his buddies had a wait time posted at 15 minutes, which is pretty impressive for them. It turned out to be a less than 5 minute wait and before we knew it we were setting sail.
While we had been waiting, I told Mel about how at one point the Donald animatronic was replaced by a literal potted plant. We were excited to see if we would have regular Donald or leafy Donald.
It was good old regular Don.
From there we headed towards Spaceship Earth, snapping a few pictures and cutting through the new Creations Shop on our way.
Me!
The line for Spaceship Earth looked pretty long but was only posted at 15 minutes. Mel and I both love Spaceship Earth- especially when we are in need of a nice sunshine break. I’m happy that Disney decided to push back their extensive refurb of the ride- I’m not ready to see it go just yet.
Unlike the Great Movie Ride. Which is an unpopular opinion. But oh, she was showing her age.
Anyway, like I was saying, Spaceship Earth was posted at a 15 minute wait but we only waited about 7.
Classic Spaceship Earth- the ride didn’t capture our pictures which is probably my 2nd favorite part of the ride. The first, obviously, is the smell of Rome burning.
After we landed back on earth, Mel and I were both in desperate need of hydration and relaxation so we headed towards Sunshine Seasons for a cold drink and an A/C break.
We both opted for water (for hydration) and a coke (for the caffeine boost we were both beginning to need). $15.93 later, we plopped down at a table and took a few minutes to recoup.
We took about a 45 minute much needed rest before we headed on over to Figment.
Unpopular opinion time! I love Figment. You might have noticed my ears I picked up from Etsy in a few previous pictures. I love Figgy.
Figment had a 15 minute wait, and rather shockingly, there was an actual wait. I’m pretty sure every time I’ve ever been on Figment, it was a walkthrough. But this time was different. Mel and I waited about 8 minutes- which was just enough time to look around at a few details in the queue. A first for everything!
The skunk smell was a bit intense and you could smell it throughout the other rooms in the ride. But other than that, 10/10, fantastic ride.
Random wall Bing Bong
At some point earlier, Mel had gotten a DAS return time for Test Track The wait time was posted at 60 minutes, but with DAS, we were outside of the Design Studio door within 3 minutes.
12 minutes later, we were on the ride.
A nice solid design score of 212.
Once we were off the ride, Mel scooted over to the Guest Relations tent to get a DAS return time for Soarin, and then we continued on our way back towards the World Showcase.
The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
Day 2, Part 4
October 16, 2021
"Oh did you say smoothie? I thought you said smooth jazz"
We took a quick look around the Germany pavilion and stopped for a peak inside Karamell Kuche and the Christmas store (die Welhnachts Ecke) before we headed over to the American Pavilion for a snack.
I decided to try the Half Note Float from Fife and Drum while Mel went for one of her faves, a root beer float.
Half Note Float- layered Fanta Strawberry, Minute Maid lemonade, Fanta Blue Raspberry slushy with vanilla ice cream and half note white chocolate- $6.25
I thought the Half Note was pretty good. It reminded me almost exactly of the American Dream slushy that I’ve gotten previously from the same spot. The white chocolate on the top was weird- I thought it was going to be edible, and it probably was, but there was a weird film over the top of it.
Mel enjoyed her root beer float. She said it was good, although not the best, but she would get it again. And oh, she definitely will.
We parked ourselves at one of the picnic tables that surround Fife and Drum and took a couple of minutes to sip our drinks and relax our feet while we regrouped.
Thoroughly sugared, we marched on around the World Showcase. Mel opted for another round of people watching while I headed into Mitsukoshi. I was a little shocked by Mitsukoshi this trip- it seemed really bare in comparison to previous trips. I used to always buy some Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon things for a few people back home but the options were few and far between this time. Oh well.
After meandering around Mitsukoshi, I headed into the Bijutsu-kan Gallery to check out the kawaii exhibit and gum girl
By the time I finished looking around the gallery, our Ratatouille boarding group was called! I gathered up Mel from her people watching perch and we headed towards the France pavilion.
We got on line around 6:30.
Hidden Mickey!
We were moving pretty nonstop for a while until we got to the Parisian rooftop area of the queue. And then we hit a hard stop. I don’t know exactly how long we were stopped for or even really why we stopped (I think the ride may have gone down for a couple of moments, but no one ever said what happened, so I can only speculate).
Finally, 50 minutes after we first entered the queue, we finally got to the loading area. The wait was rather hard on Mel but we found out later that there was in fact a DAS entrance that we could use in the future if we got another boarding group (*spoiler* we did).
The ride was very cute and pretty impressive with the trackless system but I’m not sure if it was worth a 50 minute wait. 20 minute wait? Sure. Almost an hour? Ehhh.
By now it was nearing 7:30 and I was growing hungry. There were a few Food and Wine booths that I wanted to check out so I figured I would cross a couple off my list.
Mel found us a small table near the Hawaii booth and I set sights on my snacks (or dinner rather). I decided to hit up the Swanky Saucy Swine since it was nearby and 2 items that I really, really wanted to try.
I decided to get the crispy pig ear salad as well as the crispy barbecue pork rinds.
Crispy pig ear salad with fire roasted tomatillo sauce, pickled red onions, queso fresco, roasted corn salsa, and avocado cream. $5.25
Crispy barbecue pork rinds with pimento cheese. $4.75
Both ended up being really good deals! I thought the pig ear salad was absolutely delicious. I’ve never had pig ear before but was more than willing to give it a try and I’m so glad I did! The pig ear managed to keep a nice crispy texture to it that gave it a crispy chicken skin quality while the pickled red onions added some nice bite. I ate the entire thing!
The pork rinds on the other hand weren’t my favorite. I thought the pork rinds themselves had a nice spice to them but I wasn’t a fan of the pimento cheese. I ate as many of the pork rinds as I could, but by the time I tossed the dish, I had only made a dent.
I still was feeling slightly peckish so Mel and I picked up and moved on.
We wound up at the Flavors of Fire booth where I picked up a bottle of water and the Corned Beef Corner Route.
Corned Beef Corner Route- smoked corned beef with crispy potatoes, cheese curds, pickled onions, and beer-cheese fondue. $5.50
We sat on the curb near the booth as I dug into my dish. I wasn’t a fan, sadly! I didn’t like the flavor of the beer cheese fondue at all. I ended up picking at some of the chips and the cheese curds, but like the pimento cheese previously, most of it went in the trash.
Once I had admitted defeat for the night with the Food and Wine choices, Mel and I decided to head back to the Land.
We decided to hit up Livin with the Land. It was only a posted 10 minute wait and we both realized we had never ridden the ride at night before. How exciting!
The ride ended up being a walk on, and I made sure to request a front row seat.
It was another excellent voyage.
After we were off the ride, we decided to finally use our DAS pass for Soarin (which had a 45 minute posted wait time). We managed to wait only about 9 minutes before we were soaring through the air.
Soarin to tower!
If you’ve read my previous trip report (about Disneyland), you would know I’m not a huge fan of Soarin. I just don’t get the hype! I always manage to get the seat that makes the Eiffel Tower look its actual squiggly-est and I think the piped through scents all smell like a bathroom air freshener.
My mind wasn’t changed time time either.
We decided to call it a night once we were off the ride and began the long trek to the Ride Share Pickup area.
We had another slight issue getting a Lyft driver to connect but spent the time peeking at the fireworks coming over Spaceship Earth.
Finally, at 10:02 we were on our way back to the resort and by 10:11 we were home.
While I showered, Mel placed an Uber Eats order for Shake Shack and decided to order herself a single cheeseburger with onions (I told you, she loves onions), fries with a side of cheese, and a vanilla and chocolate swirled milkshake. This was her first time having Shake Shack (I know!) and she thought everything was absolutely delicious. A true success!
The irony in the amount of onions on her burger but her saying her cottage pie the other night had too many onions.
By 11:45, with icy hot pads on my knees, I was drifting off to sleep in preparation for Day 3.
***Coming up: Magic Kingdom Day and I make a terrible mistake***
The One With The View
A Short but Sweet WDW Trip
October 2021
Day 3, Part 1
October 17, 2021
"I don't even have any pants on!"
My alarm was set the next morning for 6:30. Who needs sleep when you’re at Disney?
Mel. That’s who.
We both took our time getting ready as Mel had pre-booked a Lyft for 8:30.
At 8:22, Me screeched at me from her room, “Are you ready?!”
“Almost,” I answered, getting my sandals on.
“Well, our Lyft is here. And I don’t even have any pants on!”
So much for being ready early.
A few moments later Mel’s pants were on and we were on our way to Disney! Mel’s plans were to see if by the sheer grace of God, the Contemporary prison guards would let us in if we claimed we were going to pick up some food at their quick service location.
They didn’t budge.
They told us we could get dropped off at the TTC and take a bus or ferry to the Magic Kingdom and then walk over. I guess that’s what we would have to do.
As we made a u-turn out of the parking lot, our Lyft driver offered us a solution. They stated that they could just pull over on the side of the road and we could hop out and take the walkway to the Magic Kingdom.
“Are you sure that’s ok?” we asked our driver.
“Of course!” I do it all the time!” our Lyft driver answered.
So we thought it was fine.
It was, in fact, not fine.
Literally seconds after we got out of the car, we saw cops with their lights on cruising down the street. “They’re pulling over our Lyft driver,” Mel started, slight shock in her voice.
I thought she was joking. They had said it was fine!
The cops did in fact pull over our Lyft driver and we watched in horror as we continued on our walk.
So, dear reader, if your Lyft driver ever tells you to hop out of the car on the side of the road, don’t believe them. You aren’t allowed to do that. Lesson learned!
Really cute wrapped bus! I think that might have been the only one we saw this trip- but we really weren't ever near the buses anyway.
50th monorail!
We continued on our walk to the Magic Kingdom and breezed through security. We snapped a few pictures and checked out the Halloween decorations since they are some of our favorites. And the 50th decorations too, don't forget about those.
You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness monster?!
And then life karma hit. I stopped and turned to Mel, “I forgot to put on deodorant this morning.”
Now, let me tell you something. It was already warm this morning. There was no way I could go through a day in the Florida sunshine without deodorant. Not only would I be a stinky, sticky mess- but I would also spend my entire day self conscious of being around others for the fact that I’m now the smell equivalent of a bologna sandwich.
So we took a few seconds to figure out what to do- we knew that the first aide and baby care centers might have something for us, so we headed that way.
On a mission
Neither had anything, but they said we should check with the resort gift shops. Surely they would have a small deodorant for us to purchase!
Slightly dejected, we headed out of the park and took the monorail to the Contemporary (the prison guards pointing and laughing at us as we passed by them).
We checked every inch of the gift shops, we asked cast members, we prayed to the Mary Blair mural. But there was no deodorant to be found.
The cast members weren’t even sure what resort had any in stock- they suggested if we had a car, we should try the Speedway gas stations or a nearby grocery store. Neither of those sounded like viable options- not only did we not have a car, but we didn’t want to be going all over the Lake Buena Vista area looking for stinky armpit relief.
Finally, we gave up. We decided to grab a Lyft back to the resort and I ran to the room to apply some deodorant and then ran back to the car. We should have done that from the get go instead of spending almost 2 hours going from place to place.
Moral of the story, if your original Lyft driver gives you bad advice about hopping out of the car, Disney World karma is going to smack you down later. Hard.
Crisis over, we were dropped off at the TTC (we learned our lesson) at 10:40 and started our 2nd attempt to get to the Magic Kingdom.
We decided to take the ferry boat which was already loading.
We walked right on and by 10:48, we were setting sail to say hello once again to Cinderella Castle.
I can feel Mel's annoyance with me radiating off of this picture.
By 10:58 we were docking, and a mear 5 minutes later we were scanning our magic bands and heading back under the railroad.
Wait times were all very high and to be honest, we were a little bummed that we had already lost almost 2 hours of our only Magic Kingdom day, but we put on our brave faces and headed towards Pirates.
The wait time was posted at 55 minutes, but we only waited about 15. We walked through the queue the entire way.
Once we were done swashbuckling, we grabbed a couple of Smart Waters from the Pirates gift shop, said hello to Jack Sparrow, and parked ourselves outside of Tortuga Tavern in the shade to drink our waters and take a quick break.
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