Very Scary, Not so Scary, and Everything In Between! 🎃 Updated 12/9. Last day**

[disneyAndi14]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Caroline and I have been writing DR and TR’s on the Dis for many years now!

It is an amazing place to learn all about WDW and too meet some wonderful friends!

We are back from a wonderful trip to Universal and WDW.

I am a RN and love my Disney “bubble vacations”, these trips allow me to forget about work life and live in the moment.

It also doesn’t hurt that I love WDW and most everything about the place!

I have so many precious memories from all of our trips!

A few pictures of a very young Andi and younger me!


I usually travel with my sweet daughter Andi. We have been traveling to WDW on mother and daughter trips since Andi was 10 years old and she is now 22! Time sure does fly!

This trip is a little different because Andi isn’t coming, WHAT?

Yes, you heard it right. My baby girl is an adult now and had adult responsibilities, how dare her

Originally, this trip was going to be Andi, myself, and my sister Donna (D). D and I decided to go ahead and do the trip without Andi.

My favorite park is AK

My favorite ride is Dinosaur

My favorite princess is Belle

D really liked AK and Dinosaur, I taught her well!

She doesn’t really have a favorite princess

D and I at our favorite park!

Now over the years, Ms. Andi has become the guide and CEO of our trips. I was left wondering, will I be able to fill that role again and be a great host and guide for D?

Well, stay tuned to find out!

This trip will cover 3 nights at Universal Studios, Halloween Horror Nights, 2 deluxe resort stays, MNSSHP, 8 nights at WDW, several visits to F&W, an awesome tour, Dis meets, and hot rainy weather!

Trip stats:

Our trip dates were 9/6-9/17/22.

Delta flights from Minneapolis

Portofino Bay resort 9/6-9/9 Garden view room

3 day park to park tickets, 2 nights of HHN with express pass for the first night. EP each day with our park tickets. This is an awesome perk Universal gives to guests staying in a deluxe resort. Umm Disney….You need to do this!

Animal Kingdom Lodge 9/9-9/17 Savannah view room

I am an AP holder and my sister had a 8 day Park Hopper ticket

Tickets for MNSSHP on 9/11/22

Lyft, boats, and buses for all transportation

Okay let’s get this party started!

D and I left my house on 9/5 around 1pm. We drove to my other sister’s house to stay the night. She lives close to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. The traffic was bad because it was Labor Day! It took us an extra hour. We were not in a rush so just went with the flow. I mean the stop and go, haha

We arrived around 5pm and we had a nice visit with our sister Helen and her husband Kevin. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we hung out on their beautiful deck. Kevin made us a great dinner and was serving us drinks! We were able to relax and enjoy the evening.

Soon it was bedtime. We had an early flight and needed to leave their house by 5am. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7am.

Stay tuned for our travel day, D did not have TSA pre check and curbside wasn’t opened this early! Do we make it in time, is it stressful, does D have to take off her shoes ??

Such riveting questions will be answered very soon!

I will be doing a little game, like @pkondz, well, not nearly as professional as his and you will get pride from me not chocolate haha

I did this game for Andi and she nailed it every time at first, until I made it way harder! She did miss a few but overall it was very hard to stump her!

I took vague photos through out our stay and she had to guess where we were! I will put these pictures in for all of you and you can let me know your answers!

I will also have several trip moments in which, D and I say where is Andi when we need her!

Travel day is the first day “Where is Andi” came into play!

Thanks for joining in! Day 1 coming up soon!

 

[suse66]

Woohoo! I am here and first! So excited to hear all about your adventures!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

So excited to hear all about your trip!!

 

[Hubie]

Count me in!

 

[DLo]

Popping over from last TR ! Looking forward reading about another one of your adventures ,

 

[SEAGULL59]

Excited for another one your trip reports!! My daughter and I are taking our second mom/daughter trip in November. I can’t wait!!

 

[Paulaparm]

I'm here!

 

[buzzrelly]

Hi Caroline!

This trip will cover 3 nights at Universal Studios, Halloween Horror Nights, 2 deluxe resort stays, MNSSHP, 8 nights at WDW, several visits to F&W, an awesome tour, Dis meets, and hot rainy weather!

Sounds fun!

 

[snikki]

Can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[missjackiemcg]

Yay, I found you!! So excited to join in on the fun!

 

[vamassey1]

I found it! I've got to go back and get caught up.

Now I'm caught up.

Exciting start so many questions to answer.

How many sisters do you have? I'm only asking because I have 4.

Your relaxing night before visiting, eating and drinking is the perfect way to start a vacation.

Do you want us to post in the trip report if we know "where" or private message?

 

[afwdwfan]

I will be doing a little game, like @pkondz, well, not nearly as professional as his and you will get pride from me not chocolate haha

And pride doesn't melt!

I took vague photos through out our stay and she had to guess where we were! I will put these pictures in for all of you and you can let me know your answers!

Great. That will work well for someone as non-observant as me.

Good to see you! I know I have been hit or miss (mostly miss) on these boards for the past few years. We actually are planning a trip now so I'm working on getting back here so I can actually learn how stuff works these days.

 

[Disneyhanna]

Joining in! The idea of taking off shoes at the airport The photo guessing thing is so cute, I think I will do very poorly at that.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

I’m here too

 

[Joy1127]

Cloe here! Joining in for another report! Excited to read all about it!

Also excited for our possible dinner/meet up in December!

 

[disneyAndi14]

Woohoo! I am here and first! So excited to hear all about your adventures!

I’m very happy to see you here!

ed to hear all about your trip!!

Thanks for joining in!

Count me in!

Good to see you!

Popping over from last TR ! Looking forward reading about another one of your adventures ,

Happy too have you here!

Excited for another one your trip reports!! My daughter and I are taking our second mom/daughter trip in November. I can’t wait!!

Yay for mother and daughter trips!

I'm here!

Glad to have you here

Hi Caroline!

Hi Kelly!

Sounds fun!

It really was a wonderful trip

Can't wait to hear all about it!

Glad to have you here!

Yay, I found you!! So excited to join in on the fun!

Hi Jackie, glad to have you here!

I found it!

Yay! Happy to have you here!

Exciting start so many questions to answer.

Yes, this was a theme, lol

How many sisters do you have? I'm only asking because I have 4.

I have two and one brother. My sister D is the oldest and Helen is the youngest. My sister D is 8 years older than me and 11 years older than Helen. My brother is 2nd born, I’m 3rd. Helen and I came a little later, back then my mom was the oldest in the maternity ward, lol

Your relaxing night before visiting, eating and drinking is the perfect way to start a vacation.

It was wonderful, my BIL is a gem!

Do you want us to post in the trip report if we know "where" or private message?

I think in the thread unless cheating happens, lol

And pride doesn't melt!

Very true! Love it

Great. That will work well for someone as non-observant as me.

I’m the same, I have lost count of how many times I have been to WDW and I’m always saying have I see this before,

Good to see you! I know I have been hit or miss (mostly miss) on these boards for the past few years. We actually are planning a trip now so I'm working on getting back here so I can actually learn how stuff works these days.

You as well, glad to see you back on the boards! Yay for a trip in your future!

Joining in! The idea of taking off shoes at the airport The photo guessing thing is so cute, I think I will do very poorly at that.

Hi Hanna! I’m glad you have joined in! I would have failed the most easy ones, haha!

I’m here too

Glad to have you, Moira!

Cloe here! Joining in for another report! Excited to read all about it!

Yay so happy to have you here!

Also excited for our possible dinner/meet up in December!

yes, I’m a little nervous and excited to do a solo trip. It will be very nice to have a dinner and meet up! I would love it

 

[amazingact21]

I'm here and can't wait to follow along!

 

[vamassey1]

I have two and one brother. My sister D is the oldest and Helen is the youngest. My sister D is 8 years older than me and 11 years older than Helen. My brother is 2nd born, I’m 3rd. Helen and I came a little later, back then my mom was the oldest in the maternity ward, lol

I'm one of 4 girls in my immediate family and I'm #2 of the 4. My mother had another daughter before she married my Dad who found us in 1996 so she is the oldest of all of us and makes me #3 with her. Middle kids UNIITE!

 

[disneyAndi14]

Travel Day and the rated G portion of the trip.

9/6/22.
It is 4am before we knew it! I had slept fairly well. I had my own guest room and everything was very comfortable. I heard my sister D up next door getting ready.

Kevin was driving us to the airport this morning. I wanted to leave by 5am. We made sure we had all our luggage ready to go. We said goodbye to my sister last night, so she wouldn’t have to get up really early.

Kevin, again, was the perfect host. He had muffins and coffee out for us. I’m always a little nervous on flight day and passed on any food at 4am. My sister D is the same. We packed up the truck and headed out by 5.

My plan was to use the Delta curbside check in, however, when we arrived it wasn’t open yet. I could see staff there but they were not ready for customers! Such a bummer. This is such a time saver, I would much rather tip the great staff out here. It is a zoo inside and always chaos at the Minneapolis airport.

We said goodbye to Kevin and thanked him for being a great host and starting our trip of really good

We braced ourselves and went through the door into the chaos of the airport! 5:20am and the place was crazy busy. Now, I travel a lot and have been fortunate enough to travel all over the world but the new procedures at the airport give me anxiety!

The do it yourself kiosks and tagging your own luggage always comes with a snag! It was our turn at the machine and of course no matter how many times I scanned my phone it wouldn’t work!

Finally I had to manually put in my confirmation number, what is the point of checking in online the day before??

I got us checked in and we tagged our luggage and herded over to the next area. I am all about efficiency and I just don’t see how this is more efficient!

We still have to weigh our luggage and show our passport so why isn’t it all done at the same place? There is a need for the agents no mater what??

Okay, time to herd up for security now. Even though I fly out of Duluth as much as I can, I know the Minneapolis airport really well.

It is a big airport and actually designed quite well. Once I saw our concourse and gate # I knew to walk further down to the other security area. I’m so glad we did because this security area was much less busy!

D had to go through regular security and I have TSA pre check. I told her I would wait for her on the other side. I breezed through in less than 10 minutes. I just renewed our TSA pre check, worth every penny! I actually got a discount for renewing early. GET THIS! I waited for D and saw her walking towards me, in no time at all. She apparently lucked out and they were letting most of the passengers in her line through like they had Pre-check! She didn’t have to take her liquids out or her shoes off!

She lucked out! Spoiler, not the same experience in Orlando for her at all!!

We headed to our concourse. We stopped and picked up some water and protein bars. We went without coffee this morning.

By this time, it was getting close to boarding. Our flight was on time yay! Once boarding was done, we took off in no time at all. I have been very impressed these past two years with Delta!

Our on time departures have been 99% of my travels.
I look tired!

I watched Jurassic World , perfect movie for arriving at Universal. The show was long, lasted almost the whole flight and was just okay. The dinosaur’s in this one, a little much, lol!

We arrived in Orlando 3 hours later. It was about 11:30 by the time we got our luggage, not bad! I was also proud of myself for finding my way to the luggage area without Ms. Andi. I usually just follow her in the Orlando airport.

Delta’s baggage carousels are right next to the exit doors for ride share. We used the restrooms and headed out to get a Lyft.

At this time, we had a where is Andi moment! I ordered the ride and it was a black Camry, well a black Camry pulls up and my phone is saying the car is here. The driver comes out as I walk toward him, he has a mask on and I thought he said Caroline, he didn’t speak much English. I say yes, we get in and he takes off and before we get to far he says you are Kelly? Oh oh, wrong car. He started talking to me in Spanish?? Andi where are you?

He turns around brings us back and dumps our luggage on the curb and takes off.

Now, I can hear Andi yelling at me, MOM, always check the license plate!! Oh boy, not the best start. I’m just glad he wasn’t a kidnapper or serial killer

Lyft in the meantime charges me a $5.50 missing your ride fee. I order a new ride and a really nice lady comes to pick us up!

I checked the license plate and she said my name very clearly.

I texted Lyft and explained the situation and they gave me my $5.50 back.

I ordered some essentials from Instacart. I got a free Instacart+ trial. The delivery was free and reduced service fee, this helped.

I ordered some granola bars, bananas, cold brew, creamer, water, chips, dip, yogurt, candy, and a bottle of premixed watermelon margaritas.

We have arrived at Portofino Bay! The weather was sunny and hot very steamy today. Real feel was 107, whoa

I went to check us in and our room was ready, yay

Area where are room is



Room pictures




Our room was close to the Starbucks. It was in a nice quiet area. I asked for upper floor, quiet, and close to the boat transportation. I got what I wanted.

The staff here was awesome! The bell service brought all our luggage and brought our grocery delivery once that arrived. The groceries came quick. If you order alcohol you will need to go and meet the delivery person to show your ID.

We had all this done pretty quickly. After this, we needed a pick me up.

We ordered a refresher at Starbucks and a pizza from Sal’s deli.

The pizza was the Salvatore, it was sweet Italian sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms.

We brought the pizza and drinks back to the room and chilled eating our pizza. It was delicious. We saved half for later.

Stay tuned for our very hot first afternoon and evening at Universal studios. This will be the G rated portion. D’s ticket isn’t working and mine needs some work as well! Yikes, will we be able to ride all the kiddie rides this evening for our G rated night??

I will let you know soon!

 

[VanillaThunder]

Let's go! Excited to hear about your trip!