"There's only ONE Wreck-It Ralph!" Our Oct 2012/F&W TR *3/11 FINAL update!*

[kdka421]

Hello everyone, and welcome to my Trip Report. We got back from our trip last Thursday, and if you followed along with my PTR, or if you're following along from the October facebook group, you already know that wasn't part of the original plan. In fact, a lot of things didn't stick to our original plan, so even if you read through my PTR, be prepared for a number of surprises.

Some basic information about our trip:
This trip was just myself, Kate, and my husband, Aaron.

This is the third trip we've taken to Disney together, in the last 5 years we've been married. We both love WDW, although with 2 trips in the last 14 months, we think it will be a few years until our next visit to the World. [Side note: that's what we said last trip...]

Our vacation dates were Oct 23-30th, although we ended up staying 2 extra days until Nov 1st. That story will unfold, but if you've paid attention to the news recently, pretty easy to deduce the reason why.

Hotel: We stayed at Coronado Springs Resort, our first time at this hotel.

Planned events: Food & Wine festival, Halloween Party, Party for the Senses

About the title: When thinking about my trip report, I was first going to name it something like "A 9th trip with multiple Firsts", [This is Aaron's 3rd trip, as mentioned above, but my 9th] since we had many things on this trip we were doing for the first time. However, even though we did all those things, it didn't really "feel" like a trip of firsts. The quote I ended up using, I'll explain it later in my trip report, but it's one that stuck with us through the trip, and makes me laugh every time I think about it.

And those are the basics! I have a ton of pictures, and especially since we're foodies and many of our goals/plans revolved around food (both F&W and our ADRs) much of this will be about food - but it will definitely involve all of our day to day plans as well. This will include the events mentioned above, plus some other majorly cool things such as the Fantasyland Expansion!!

Index of Posts:
Day 1 - arrival
Day 1 - exploring resort, lunch at Pepper Market
Day 1 - Boardwalk, dinner at Flying Fish, Jellyrolls

Day 2 - EPCOT, Future World
Day 2 - EPCOT, Food & Wine Festival reviews
Day 2 - EPCOT, dinner at Yorkshire County Fish Shop, Illuminations, EMH

Day 3 - Magic Kingdom, morning/afternoon, lunch at Sleepy Hollow Refreshments
Day 3 - Magic Kingdom, dinner at Pecos Bill, MNSSHP (part 1)
Day 3 - Magic Kingdom, MNSSHP (part 2)

Misc - Photopass pictures from first 3 days

Day 4 - Animal Kingdom, morning/afternoon, lunch at Flame Tree BBQ
Day 4 - dinner at Yachtsman Steakhouse, quick trip to DtD

Day 5 - EPCOT morning plus relaxing at CSR
Day 5 - EPCOT afternoon, lunch at Via Napoli
Day 5 - EPCOT: Party for the Senses (description)
Day 5 - EPCOT: Party for the Senses (photos)

Day 6 - Hollywood Studios morning, lunch on Sunset Blvd.
Day 6 - Hollywood Studios afternoon/evening/EMH, dinner at Fairfax Faire

Day 7 - Magic Kingdom morning, New Fantasyland preview
Day 7 - Be Our Guest lunch
Day 7 - Magic Kingdom, and changing our travel plans
Day 7 - Magic Kingdom evening, dinner at The Wave

Day 8 - EPCOT, lunch at Le Cellier, more F&W reviews

Day 9 - Cookes of Dublin, Narcossee's drinks/dessert and Wishes viewing

Day 10 - Travel home

Looking forward to sharing my trip with you! Here's a picture from us at the Halloween party. Many, many more pictures to come!

 

[Chelley00]

Oh, how I love the Swedish Chef!

 

[STAYC18]

subbing...

 

[wiigirl]

Oh, how I love the Swedish Chef!

cute!

 

[kdka421]

Oh, how I love the Swedish Chef!

subbing...

cute!

Thanks everyone! His costume was a big hit.

First updates will start soon. I have the post written up, but just need to get the first batch of photos uploaded to photobucket.

I'll be back soon!

 

[kdka421]

Here we go!!

Day 1:

Our first day got off to a very early start. The first of many firsts - this was the first time we were flying to Disney. In 6 trips with my family, all from New York, I'd only ever driven or taken the train, because my mother doesn't fly. Our 2 trips that Aaron and I took from Virginia, we drove because it wasn't nearly as long a trip from that point. However, now that we're living in New York again, we did not want to do the 24+ hour drive, and since it was just the two of us, we decided to fly! It didn't hurt that I found really cheap airfare with United; in fact, the low airfare was one of the reasons we went ahead with this trip.

In any event, our flight left the Albany airport at 6:58am. Even though the airport is never crowded, we knew we should leave plenty of time. So our alarms went off at 4:30am, with a goal of leaving the house by 5:15am. And as everyone knows, we tossed and turned all night in our excitement, so we were up right when our alarms went off, and even out the door a few minutes early. It is a short drive to the airport, we parked, and took the shuttle to the airport. I had already checked us in, so we just dropped off our checked bag, went through security, and were inside with plenty of time to spare. We grabbed a simple breakfast at McDonalds, and waited for our flight.

Our flight left right on time, and we quickly arrived at our connection in Newark. Our short connection left us just enough time to take the shuttle, walk to our gate, and get on the next leg of our flight. We even met up with another family who had come from Albany, was going to Disney; and not only that, was staying at the same hotel for the same dates. Funny coincidence.

The flight to Orlando was just as prompt, and we even landed about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. This was my first time at the Orlando airport, but the instructions on how to get to Magical Express were very clear, and we easily found our way to the area. There was NO ONE around, we got in at an extremely slow time. They checked our paperwork, and we literally walked right onto our bus. We waited about 15-20 minutes for the bus to fill up, and then we were on our way, 1st stop Coronado Springs resort!

Our Magical Express driver was great! He was really funny talking to us as we were on our way, was sure to point out the Disney World arch as we went under it, and he really got everyone even more excited. We arrived at Coronado at 12:15pm, about an hour after our plane landed. We had done online check in, so we went to registration (which also was practically empty), found out that we had gotten the area I requested (Casitas), and were told our room was ready and we could go right over!

Next segment: our first impressions of the resort, and lunch at Pepper Market.

 

[saintstickets]

Count me in for your TR! Great start!

 

[kdka421]

Day 1, continued:

After checking in, the first thing we did was head to our room to drop off our carry-on bags. We wanted to shower and change, but we had only packed our dress clothes for later in the evening in our carry on bags, so we didn't have any clean casual clothes to change into. So we skipped the shower for the time being, and headed back to the main building for lunch.

We had lunch at the Pepper Market, which has a lunch buffet. We really liked the set-up, that it was a quick service credit, but that there was still a waitress and a full buffet option. It was definitely a really good value. Our waitress was really sweet, and she took some pictures of us, and went and got our refillable mugs for us. We each sampled a number of different options from the buffet. It was pretty typical buffet food/quality, but it hit the spot. Among the things we tried were: carved pork, potatoes, beans, pasta, fruit salad, etc. As for desserts, they have seasonal ice cream flavors, that day it was gingerbread ice cream, as well as unlimited churros. YUM!

After lunch, we decided to explore the resort a little, so we walked the long way (counter-clockwise) back to our building. We loved the overall look of the resort, and it was really peaceful every time we were out and about. The first day or two we saw a lot of convention guests, and we saw others throughout the rest of our trip, but that never was a bother to us. And all in all, we never saw that many people at all, the resort felt very empty and peaceful.

As for the room itself, we really do agree with many others who say that Coronado feels more like a deluxe-moderate. The rooms seemed more upscale than the ones we've stayed in at POFQ and POR. The theming was just a little nicer, less blatantly "Disney", although still plenty of hidden Mickeys! We had 3 towel animals in our room when we arrived, and they remained in the room for the entire trip, but we did not get new ones. Hands down we would stay in this resort again, this is easily our favorite of the mods.

Our building was Casitas 5, so the furthest away from the main building. We were probably a 8-9 minute leisurely walk to the main building, which didn't bother us since we didn't spend much time there. We were very close to "bus stop 2", which is actually the first bus stop picked up and dropped off at. We loved the location. I would have been disappointed if we were in Ranchos, since the only thing it's really convenient to is the pool, which I never used. Cabanas would have been a fine location too, but being at the first bus stop was really nice. There was only one time, our entire trip, that we stood on a bus, and that was coming home from the parks one evening.

Coming up next: our evening at the Boardwalk, including our dinner at Flying Fish.

 

[MsHershey]

Subbing and looking forward to the next update.

 

[khertz]

I'm in for your TR! Looks like we were there almost the same dates. I've never been around the CSR but it looks like a very pretty resort.

 

[kdka421]

Count me in for your TR! Great start!

Subbing and looking forward to the next update.

Welcome everyone! Thanks for joining in! Should start to get more exciting with the next update, when we actually start doing stuff, haha.

I'm in for your TR! Looks like we were there almost the same dates. I've never been around the CSR but it looks like a very pretty resort.

Cool! I bumped into quite a few Disboard members this trip, so I always wonder how many I unknowingly crossed paths with.
I will have to make my way over to your TR as well!

 

[Duzzygirl]

Love the costumes!

Our trip in April will be our first flight to WDW as well. We're typical road trippers as well. I can't wait to hob aboard the Magic Express! lol

Coronado Springs looks great. Can't wait to hear more about your trip.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I'd love to join in and read about your adventures! I'm loving the CSR pictures. We have reservations at the CSR for our May, 2013 and it will be our first time there. Normally, we book the CBR but decided to mix things up a bit next trip.

 

[foodrocksluver]

Oh my gosh. I read the first bit about you guys and got giddy. Mainly because my name is Kate and my boyfriends name is Aaron. Kindrid spirits!

Love love love Coronado! And unlimited churros. Hello!!

 

[kdka421]

Love the costumes!

Our trip in April will be our first flight to WDW as well. We're typical road trippers as well. I can't wait to hob aboard the Magic Express! lol

Coronado Springs looks great. Can't wait to hear more about your trip.

Thank you! How exciting about your first flight to Disney too. I remember my very first trip, when I was 10, my brother and I drove down with my parents, while my grandparents flew. I was so mad that they left the day after us, and still got to Florida before we did!

I'd love to join in and read about your adventures! I'm loving the CSR pictures. We have reservations at the CSR for our May, 2013 and it will be our first time there. Normally, we book the CBR but decided to mix things up a bit next trip.

Thanks for joining in! Yay for CSR! CBR was the first resort I stayed in, and we almost stayed there this trip, but CSR opened up last minute, and I'm really glad we made the switch. I'm sure you'll love CSR. Let me know if you have any questions about the resort that I might be able to answer.

Oh my gosh. I read the first bit about you guys and got giddy. Mainly because my name is Kate and my boyfriends name is Aaron. Kindrid spirits!

Love love love Coronado! And unlimited churros. Hello!!

That's so awesome! I've never met another Kate/Aaron couple before! Very very cool.

Have you stayed at Coronado before? Do you have any trips coming up?

 

[Aussiesalad]

Off to a wonderful start. Count me in!

 

[foodrocksluver]

That's so awesome! I've never met another Kate/Aaron couple before! Very very cool.

Have you stayed at Coronado before? Do you have any trips coming up?

I have stayed at Coronado before. It's my family's favorite moderate resort. But being that we are DVC members we don't usually stay there for very long. Usually just for one or two nights on the weekend we arrive because points are so much higher then. It's cheaper for us to stay elsewhere those nights and then move to our DVC resort during the week.

As a matter of fact, I DO have a trip coming up! We are leaving on December 1st for a week long trip. I've got my fingers crossed for many rides on the new Little Mermaid ride!

 

[kdka421]

Off to a wonderful start. Count me in!

Thank you and welcome!

I have stayed at Coronado before. It's my family's favorite moderate resort. But being that we are DVC members we don't usually stay there for very long. Usually just for one or two nights on the weekend we arrive because points are so much higher then. It's cheaper for us to stay elsewhere those nights and then move to our DVC resort during the week.

As a matter of fact, I DO have a trip coming up! We are leaving on December 1st for a week long trip. I've got my fingers crossed for many rides on the new Little Mermaid ride!

Yay for a very close trip!! We were able to preview the New Fantasyland area twice, so stay tuned for our thoughts on all that!
So where are you staying next month?

 

[foodrocksluver]

Yay for a very close trip!! We were able to preview the New Fantasyland area twice, so stay tuned for our thoughts on all that!
So where are you staying next month?

One night at the Art of Animation in the Ariel rooms and the rest of the week at Old Key West in a dedicated 2 bedroom (we are going with my parents).

I can't wait to read what you thought of NFL. I could take or leave Belle (except for Gaston. I want a picture with him flexing and me swooning next to him) but the Little Mermaid? I'll take her in any way, shape, or form.

 

[kdka421]

Day 1, continued:
We went back to our room and relaxed for a little bit. Our checked bag arrived around 3pm, which was just about 3 hours after arriving at the resort, so no complaints there. With that having arrived, we freshened up, and then changed into our dress clothes. We were ready to get out and about, so even though it was still a while until our dinner reservation, we headed out around 4pm. We were headed to the Boardwalk, so we took the bus to Hollywood Studios, and then were going to take the boat to the Boardwalk. A boat was leaving just as we approached, so we took the opportunity to get some photopass pictures done out front in front of the Sorcerer's Apprentice topiary. [I don't have my photopass pictures yet, but when I get the CD I'll catch up with those pictures] We got on the next boat when it arrived; we got off at the Swan/Dolphin stop, and walked across the bridge to the Boardwalk.

Aaron had never been to the Boardwalk, so we had fun strolling around the resort. We explored the gift shops, and just wandered for a bit. We happened to be walking by Kouzzina when they did what must have been their pre-service meeting, they came out and did a little cheer on the boardwalk, it was cute to see that. That was at 5, and we were getting hungry and tired from a long day. Our reservations weren't until 5:55pm at Flying Fish, so we thought about sitting down for a drink inside Kouzzina, but they didn't appear to have a bar. We waited around about 15 minutes or so for Flying Fish to open, and then went in and sat at the bar and enjoyed some drinks. Aaron enjoyed a Pimm's cocktail, and I had a glass of Riesling.

While we were sitting there, we noticed that a fellow Dis'er had come in to the restaurant. I knew that Paula (smiles4stamps) and her DH were going to be dining at Flying Fish tonight as well, so I noticed that they had sat down. Of course we went over to meet them, and chatted for a while, and got the following picture before we left them alone to enjoy their dinner.

Once we'd finished our drinks, we told the bartender and they brought us over to our table. We have a mix of pluses and minuses about our dinner here. On the positive side, I think the restaurant was really pretty, and most of the food was exceptional. On the negative side, the table they sat us at was at a lousy location (right near an archway that the servers used constantly, we literally shifted the table because Aaron's chair stuck out into the pathway), and we waited a LONG time for our food, and our server was okay but far from special. The service just didn't meet up to the Disney standards we're used to.

Here's what we ate for diner. We first shared a bowl of the Guinness Cheddar Cheese soup, which they split into two bowls for us, and we both agreed this soup was delicious (even better than the similar soup at Le Cellier). The only weird thing was, the soup was so flavorful, but if you dipped your bread in it (as we like to do), the bread itself actually overpowered the soup. Weird. For entrees, Aaron debated a lot, but was tempted by the Kurobuta pork tenderloin with mac and cheese, which he loved. We really wanted to try the signature entree duo, the char-crusted strip steak and the potato-wrapped snapper, so I ordered that. I thought the fish was fantastic, but the steak wasn't anything special. It was a nice way to taste 2 separate things though. And finally, for dessert, Aaron stuck with his favorite option - the cheese course. I opted for the "sinful chocolate indulgence". The best part of the dessert, in my opinion, was the chocolate sorbet - YUM!

After dinner, we had planned to go to Jellyrolls, so we headed that way. The doors were open, so we paid the cover charge & entered. We waited a little while for the act to start. The place was pretty empty for quite a while, but started to fill up as the night went on. We ended up staying there about 2 hours, but neither of us particularly got into it. I love the idea, and the piano players are ridiculously talented, so I can appreciate that. However, the songs tended to be more of the the standard DJ type options, things like Sweet Caroline or the YMCA, and crowd-participation in things like that is not our cup of tea. Some of the songs and segments they did were wonderful and original, but it unfortunately wasn't as enjoyable as I'd hoped. Plus it was loud, and we were getting tired. (Sounds kinda pathetic, lol, but it's the truth)

We left Jellyrolls around 10, and walked the Boardwalk just a little more. We then decided to take a walk, so we circled the entire lagoon, around to the Yacht/Beach club and the Swan/Dolphin resorts. It was a beautiful evening for a walk. Once we returned to the Boardwalk, I wasn't exactly sure how we were going to get back to Coronado, since we weren't there late enough to catch any of the "late night" buses. We ended up waiting for a Magic Kingdom bus (got on around 11pm), the only park that was still open, and taking that to MK, then catching a CSR bus back to our resort. This was a Halloween party night, so we got our first look at the lights and costumes, which got us more excited for our upcoming party. We got back to our resort around midnight, and crashed for the night.

Coming up next: Day 2: Our first park day! Anyone want to guess where we started off our trip??