We Made It! So Happy to be Here! - A July 2021 WDW / UOR Trip Report - Updated 10/11

[vamassey1]

We aren’t big parade people. We’ll watch them, but usually only if we can find a last minute spot. (Apart from the Christmas parade or evening light-parades! Those I will wait for!). So we really liked the idea of the cavalcade. But, one of my favorite part about parades are the dancers — so I do hope they bring back regular parades, but keep some “pop up” type things going on too.

I really like the calvacades too. It's like spotting a celebrity but doesn't take up too much time.

I adore this ride.

Me too!

Backstage just ended up being where the Turtle Talk show is, but since the show wasn’t running, it was a closed area and considered backstage.

She was SO nice and gave us lots of fun facts about the animals. It was totally a magical moment.

This was such a great experience.

A trip to Epcot is not complete without a ride on Spaceship Earth.

I agree with this. I cant' say I ride it every trip but I try to.

The Corned Beef Corner Route: Smoked Corned Beef with Crispy Potatoes, Cheese Curds, Pickled Onions, and Beer-Cheese Fondue

I had this last month as part of the Emile Fromage. It was pretty good, not my favorite but good. I also had the whoopie pie.

Before we went on Test Track, Henry wanted to do Mission: Space Orange. I am not a fan, so I hit Mouse Gear while the boys rode.

This would be me too. Dennis loves Test Track and not one ever wants to ride with him.

And through the help of friends I learned that it was Giannis Antetokounmpo. He had just won the NBA Finals MVP. I know very little about basketball, but it was still pretty cool! He was on vacation with his family.

I would not have know who it was either.

So not only had we seen Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Chip & Dale and famous fish that day — but also Giannis. It was a star-studded day!

It really was!

Ever since he was little he has spent a lot of time in this after-show area…. Oh gosh, when he was really little and couldn’t ride Test Track, we’d do Baby Swap here, and he would be happy as a clam just climbing in and out of the cars… he could do it for FOREVER. I’m not kidding. We’d spend at least an hour in there every trip!!! I would get sooooo bored. Even as he got older, he’d want to play all the video games, check out every car….

I spent a lot of time in here with JP while we did rider swap too. He loved it too and I was bored.

I did get a picture of this glorious cupcake! I kinda balked at Joe wanting it, it was $8!!! But, it was BIG, we all shared it… and holy smokes… delicious! I’m not big on cupcakes, but this was FANTASTIC. Highly recommend!

This looks too good to eat!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

I am following along! I am only through your first full day. I will have to catch up!

At this time in the WDW parks no masks at all were required. But, we opted to mask for a couple reasons: 1) Henry wasn’t fully vaccinated. 2) While Joe and I were fully vaccinated, we had no desire to get sick - even mildly - and not be able to fly back to Germany after our trip!

I keep saying that I will wear a mask in the grocery store this winter just so I don't get a cold. Who wants to be sick, regardless!

Our Rise Group was called as we were walking into the park, so we went right back to Galaxy’s Edge and straight onto the ride. There was virtually no wait, just walking through the queue and into the pre-show.

Perfect timing!!! Impressive!

Henry thought it was so funny that they sold little Yoda canes!

It is pretty hilarious!

Well... it broke down for 30 minutes....so it was a FULL 70 minute wait for us with that breakdown. Many people left the line, but we stayed in it, being it was something we really wanted to do and I was hoping it would have been back up quickly. Hindsight: we should have bailed and done it later, but oh well!

Ugh. It is always so hard once you are in line to decide to stay or go. You just never know.

Such a cute ride and I was thrilled that the pre-show was back on!

I can't wait to ride this!

Joe's MDE account still reads that he lives in Astoria (New York!)

I used to live in Astoria, back in the day!

An easy $100 lighter for fancy beverages in a crazy bar, we walked out happy with our experience. It's ridiculously overpriced, but it's fun. Not something we'll do every trip, but definitely something we were happy to do this trip!

We love Oga's and always have a great time. It is pricey but we never regret going.

The ride was fun. We were pulled out of line and placed with another family all wearing masks, which we appreciated! The two teen girls that were the pilots did not fly us well at all.... it was pretty comical!

That was really nice! And glad they at least try to. I am sure sometimes they just can't.

However, it wasn't worth pushing on, as it was the end of a very hot and busy day - so we were all getting tired and a little “on edge”. Hangry was definitely knocking on our door.

I am VERY familiar with hangry.... my youngest gets it bad! but we all do in Disney sometimes. We just don't want to stop to eat. We want to go go go and it catches up to us.

 

[LifeTheDisneyWay14]

Welcome to "We Made It! So Happy to be Here!"


The Timeframe:
Our dates were July 24-August 1, 2021. July 24-29 were spent at WDW in a one-bedroom villa at the Grand Floridian. July 29-August 1 were spent at UOR at Portofino Bay, Club Level.

Cast of Characters:

Me, Joe (DH), and Henry (DS - age 13)

The Setting:
We live in Nuremberg, Germany - so it was a long haul to Orlando! While the focus of this TR will be on our time in Orlando, the actual main purpose of flying back to the USA was to finally see our family in Minnesota. We spent July 10-24 visiting with them and also had the chance to see a few friends. We hadn’t seen our family since December 2019, so it was really great to finally hug them. Many tears were shed!!

Even though the US borders are still closed to Germans, since we are US Citizens who just live abroad, we are able to go back to the USA (and come back to Germany since we are legal residents). There were a couple hoops to jump through in terms of Covid testing, but nothing major.

For many months we weren't totally sure this trip would even happen with the ocean between us and COVID raging. There were so many unknown factors. But, by April 2021 we decided that as long as it was legal to cross the borders, we'd go no matter what. This uncertainty of all those months brought on a different attitude for the trip... we were honestly just SO happy to be able to go. It was a very relaxed trip and pretty much "go with the flow". We didn't sweat the details, or get annoyed at the heat or long lines (of which was in abundance!). Not everything was perfect, no major "pixie dust" happened. We were just happy and so thankful to be there. And that is where the magic was found.

On July 10 we flew from Nuremberg to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Minneapolis.
On July 24 we flew from Minneapolis to Orlando.
On August 1 we flew from Orlando to Atlanta, Atlanta to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Nuremberg.

Overall, the flights were completely uneventful, other than me forgetting my purse on our return flight…..good times.

My goal is to have this TR done before the end of October, as we are going to Disneyland Paris then! That should be enough time, right?!

Buckle yourself in, tug on the yellow strap, and let’s go!

Oh, and I like pictures. I take a lot of them! Hope you like them too. I'll try to keep the words light and let the pictures tell the story.

I was just in Bamberg last week! The landscape in that bit of Germany is so beautiful.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Ok. I am all caught up!

Even with the heavy crowds, we should easily accomplish it all before the “hopping hours” opened at 2 pm. (Foreshadowing....)

Oh no!!!

Seriously - SO GOOD. That salad was amazing! Henry loved his tacos, and Joe's grilled cheese - while good, was the weakest lin

That is good to know. I don't think we have even been inside that area!

Hello, beautiful. The Macaron Ice Cream Sandwich, raspberry. (Since I've been back in Germany, I learned a slightly-famous gelato shop here sells these! Dangerous dangerous)

YuM!!!!

Shortly after we were done eating, we walked right back out of Epcot and Skylinered back to Hollywood!

Ha! Could have been worse... The Skyliner is helpful.

We all noticed that our little “escape pod” took a different route than our one yesterday. Overall it was the same story, but just different views / slightly different experience.

It's fun that there are 2 versions.

Then we remembered all the animals that lived here in the aquariums that we learned about on the Disney+ show, “Magic of Disney’s Animal Kingdom” and decided we’d try to find some of these celebrity animals!

WE love that show as well! My daughter wants to find the tiny deer next time we go.

We mentioned that we had watched the show on Disney+ and remembered the manatees and the Spotted Rays along with a few other creatures, and this CM offered to take us “backstage” to meet a few other animals from the show! We were thrilled!

Amazing!!!

So not only had we seen Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Chip & Dale and famous fish that day — but also Giannis. It was a star-studded day!

Tons of Celbs!!

And with our bellies full, we were off to bed, tomorrow would be a WILD day….

So cute, and good. What flavor was it?

 

[brookelizabeth]

Life has been busy around here, sorry for being MIA! I am job hunting and it's just intense how long all that takes. It's like a full-time job itself! I am hoping to get the next update done this weekend.

What a great day in Epcot. Giannis is my son's favorites....he would've loved to see him shopping around.

It really was! And even though I had no idea who Giannis was, it was still neat to see him. I cannot recall if I mentioned it in the TR, but Henry immediately texted one of his basketball loving friends from NYC a pic too. He was so excited!

Is it bad that I knew it was Giannis from the first picture of the back of his head My son would’ve been in heaven.

I remember spending lots of time at TT when my son was younger too. He loved checking out the cars with his dad. They were so into it.

Looks like your trip was going very well. Can’t wait to hear about your wild day!

No! I think it's probably more normal that people recognized him, especially being that he had just won a major award.

Really enjoying following along! So glad all your travels went well when you have to deal with the stress of planning around Covid. I am dying to go on an international trip again but just too stressed about the possibility of getting a breakthrough case right before (or during) my trip!

Your villa at GF is really beautiful and feels much more modern than I thought they would. Your family has such a great attitude about crowds, and that can have the biggest difference on how much you enjoy your trip!

It was super stressful for a while dealing with Covid / lack of vaccines here. Plus all that while we endured lockdown foreverrrrrr, kinda depressing! But, we tried to just focus on knowing there would be an end eventually. I totally understand your concerns about the international trip - if you randomly catch it and get stuck in a foreign country....the sheer expense, time, the unknown! We had a plan of going to my Mom's house (she lives in FL but was in MN during our trip), in case that happened to us. It was stressful though!

I just learned they are redoing the GF Villas too! The new look is beautiful!

I'm here a bit late to the show! Just got back from Disney and on the Dream! Great report so far!

Oooh, how I miss cruising! Next year for us!

Chip and Dale are Fran's favorites!

They are so adorable!

This is a true statement.

I always get worried when they announce a refurb on it....

I remember that one being really huge and we couldn't finish it.

And I ate it all, plus most of the other one.

Unfortunately I can't wear the earrings from that section. My ears are easily irritated so for me to get earrings means they have to be the ones in the locked cases.

Aw, shucks... what a problem! I always lust after the ones in the cases, but am too cheap to usually splurge. I always say "someday".... and that day has yet to come! A friend (mutual, Ellen!) did purchase me some lovely Minnie earrings as a going away gift when I moved to Germany. She's such a doll.

Never heard of him.

I'm not alone!

I do that too!

It's so fun! We love the competitiveness of it all.

I really like the calvacades too. It's like spotting a celebrity but doesn't take up too much time.

Yes! I do hope they bring back actual parades, but also keep these!

I had this last month as part of the Emile Fromage. It was pretty good, not my favorite but good. I also had the whoopie pie.

A whoopie pie sounds DIVINE right about now... I have been avoiding sweets since we are going to Paris in about 3 weeks and I will be eating a LOT. LOL

I would not have know who it was either.

There are a few of us!

I spent a lot of time in here with JP while we did rider swap too. He loved it too and I was bored.

Right?! Zzzzzzzz. Soooo many hours logged here. So.so.many.

This looks too good to eat!

It's such a pretty cupcake!

I am following along! I am only through your first full day. I will have to catch up!

I keep saying that I will wear a mask in the grocery store this winter just so I don't get a cold. Who wants to be sick, regardless!

Yes! I don't think masks will go away here in Bavaria this winter...maybe next spring... but if they did, I think I would still as well. They do allow us to wear surgical ones now instead of FFP2 though. That's kind of a nice change! We still use FFP2 for transit and a few other things though, just for the added layer of protection.

Ugh. It is always so hard once you are in line to decide to stay or go. You just never know.

I can't wait to ride this!

Yes! I am usually one to stick it out, but it is hard to know.... the ride is SO cute! I wish we could have done it again.

I used to live in Astoria, back in the day!

Ah! That's so awesome! We were on Astoria Blvd & 43rd. I LOVE Queens soooooo much. We miss it!

I was just in Bamberg last week! The landscape in that bit of Germany is so beautiful.

You weren't far from us at all! Isn't it gorgeous?! We love it.

Ok. I am all caught up!

Yay! And I hope to get more posted this weekend!

Ha! Could have been worse... The Skyliner is helpful.

Yes! And it's like another ride, so not too bad!

WE love that show as well! My daughter wants to find the tiny deer next time we go.

Amazing!!!

It was such a great show! I hope they do another season. I think I cried every.single.episode.

So cute, and good. What flavor was it?

I think it was a passion fruit.... Definitely fruity. SO GOOD. I would buy another right now if I could!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Ah! That's so awesome! We were on Astoria Blvd & 43rd. I LOVE Queens soooooo much. We miss it!

I sadly had to look up where I was exactly... I was just off the last subway stop, Astoria Blvd and Astoria. And I think I was on 23rd But I did love Queens! All the greeks knew how to prenounce my name correctly!

 

[paradesintherain]

Just caught up! I’m on my phone so no quotes since it’s a pain! However, I love all the pictures you’ve taken! The 1-bedroom villa at Grand Floridian looks divine and that balcony would make me so happy. I also really loved the view from the top of the DVC lobby, something I’ve never seen before!

also, you drew me in initially because you’re living in Germany and I have such a soft spot for Germany ❤. Can’t wait to read more!

 

[brookelizabeth]

A WILD Day!
July 27, 2021​

Our day started as another slow morning for this crew....Henry went running (on his own this time), and we got a delivery! Our wonderful travel agent had sent us ANOTHER surprise, this one for the whole family (whereas the Candy Canes are mostly for me, let’s be honest….)

COOKIES!

These awesome cookies were themed to the World Showcase and the Food & Wine Festival!

While we didn’t have any that morning, not a cookie went to waste - they were absolutely delicious.

Eventually we left the room and we were waiting for a bus by 10:02 am.

Not our bus, but we thought it was cool!

By 10:25 am we were here!

And look at those crowds pouring in with us!

In hindsight, we should have planned this day better. Joe totally relies on me to plan our Disney trips (he does give a little input....but not much, he's mostly along for the ride!), and I pretty much failed this day. We had an ADR planned for this evening, and the park hours were so short at AK, and with the crowds…we really should have arrived sooner if we wanted to fully tackle the park. But, we also value our lazy mornings, we wanted to avoid rope drops, and AK isn’t our favorite park…. so I guess it is what it is!

It was due to rain that afternoon, so we headed first for Expedition Everest as this was one of the few MUST DO’S we had in this park.

On our walk, I spied these lovely ears:

We made it to Asia, and the line for Everest stretched across the bridge and in front of the Nemo show. It was listed at a 50 minute wait on the app. We joined the line at 10:34 am. We did see one of the Flotillas as we passed over the bridge! They are so fun!

In less than 20 minutes we were here in the queue:

I really love this queue - there are so many details and it had been a long time since we had walked through.

And 7 more minutes we were here….

It was a 25 minute wait! Totally worth that!!

Always have to take this picture....

Ah, such a great ride! We all love it.

Up next, Dinosaur! We skipped this one for many years, Henry was really scared of it when he was younger. But now it's a must do! Henry also loves Jurassic Park and most all things dinosaur, so it was definitely a must on this trip.

We hopped into the line and posted wait time was 55 minutes. I had never seen the extended queue for this ride and it’s been YEARS since we actually waited in line for it! I didn’t take many pictures, but it was really neat seeing the fossils and things. Plus, I very much remember the AC feeling REALLY GOOD here. Haha!

And were loading at 11:42 am - I didn’t record our exact wait this time, but it was only about 25 minutes if I recall correctly. Definitely lower than the posted time. We spent some time in the gift shop:

Henry purchased this

And put in a mobile order for some lunch.

We made our way across the park, making a pit stop for those Ears I spied earlier, I had been looking for a pair of new Ears for the trip and they were the winner!

We made our way into Pandora…. I was hoping to see another Flotilla here, but no such luck. Still beautiful though!

This area of the park was FAR more crowded, there were people everywhere!! But, we were happy to see that the big plant at the front of the land entrance was operating again! You rub it's side and it "spits" water / vapor. It was closed for a long time, likely due to covid, and we always have fun rubbing it's side! Henry took a minute to rub the plant, and I stood in the spraying water in hopes it would cool me off a little. (It didn't!)

Lunch today was at Satuli Canteen.... this is my most favorite QS in all of Walt Disney World and the boys don't mind it either. We strolled right in and picked up our food without issue. Finding a table was another story though - this place was PACKED! We had to do the whole, “stand with your tray of food and hover around waiting for someone to leave” dance. Thankfully it only took a few minutes and a very kind CM was right by our side and offered to clean the table.

Henry’s

Joe’s

Mine

Queue the choir….

Man, I love this dessert!!! We all got our own because all three of us refused to share.

Continued in next post

 

[brookelizabeth]

With our bellies full, at 1:01 pm we joined the VERY long queue for Flight of Passage. It was listed at 150 minutes. Almost 2 hours. Surely it couldn’t be that long…right? I mean both Dinosaur and Everest were half their posted wait times…..!

The line stretched down the bridge toward Africa, but I was still confident it would move along faster than 150 minutes.

About 20 minutes into the line it started to thunder. But thankfully didn’t rain on us!

He was being very patient and was excited to ride!

At about 45 minutes we finally passed into the main entrance queue.

I took this picture at 1:54 pm. We had already waited almost an hour and I knew how much queue we had left to go…. Dare I tell the boys?? They had walked through the queue before, but didn't remember how long it was. I don't think I told them....

There is always something to look at in this queue at least!

Well, as you can guess it took the full two hours… actually longer!

I took this picture at 2:55 pm, which is just before loading. I could swear I took more pics during the queue, but I don't have any! This queue really is pretty cool and there is a lot to see. But 2 hours is a looooong time to wait!

Much to our delight, we were selected as a party of three to be pulled out of line a little early! Into the first pre-show room we went!

I HATE this pre-show. It makes me twitch. It's just way too long - and there are TWO. But, I'm willing to endure for the awesomeness of the ride and I try to play along to make it go by more quickly and less painfully.

You know how it goes....

Everyone move around.

Hmm.... something's not right.

He disappears.

I've had this happen before. He comes back on and the sequence runs and we are matched with our Avatars.

But this time, he came back, we moved around some more, and something still "wasn't right".

Repeat.

Again.

And again.

Finally, it just stopped. Eventually everyone in the room just started to chat and swap stories. Wondering what was going on. No CM came to check on us. Did they forget about us?!

Literally 20 minutes later we all were REALLY wondering if they forgot about us, so Joe opened the door and called out. A CM quickly came in and explained they had to reset the ride. Why someone didn’t tell us earlier - no idea. But, at least we were trapped in this little room with some fun people!

Eventually it all restarted and we endured the first pre-show AGAIN. We were finally ready to… uh, fly…! Thankfully the rest of the experience was seamless!

The ride was fantastic as always, but wow. That took a LOT of our day! Had we known how long it was really going to take - almost 3 hours between the wait, the breakdown and the ride itself, we likely would have skipped it and enjoyed other areas of the park instead. But, we tried to just roll with it. We were super thirsty by the time we got off (and honestly, a little grumpy), so Night Blossoms were required! The sugar + cold would hopefully help.

Next up was the Safari! We hopped into line at 3:49 pm. We don’t always do this ride, even though it is a premier attraction. Joe is legally blind and usually cannot see the animals, as they are too far away. So a lot of times it’s just him riding around in a jeep. Over the years we have had a few really good safaris with the animals close by, but often times he doesn’t see much. We all wanted to ride this time since we hadn't been on in so long.

And we were on by 4:12 pm. There was barley a line at all. Between the Night Blossoms and the short Safari wait, we were smiling again!

Joe could definitely see that guy!

Hallo, friend

Pumba!

Remember the thunder while in line for Pandora?

Well, the heavens opened while we were on the Safari. And by "opened" I mean they O-P-E-N-E-D. No need to ride Kali River Rapids today! The Safari became a water ride. Water was literally POURING into the jeep and everyone was shrieking. The CM was pulling down the plastic sides, but it was seriously useless. She laughed about it, as did most of the guests on board. I mean what else could we do?!

The rain was epic. Wading through ankle deep water… there was no fighting it. We DID have our ponchos this time, but how much help are they in a monsoon?!

After the ride, we decided to leave the park. I was a little bummed that we didn’t get to do an animal trail or two, but we did have a dining reservation for ‘Ohana that night and due to the rain, we definitely had to change our clothing before our meal. So leaving now would give us enough time.

So we were off to the busses, in the downpour! We sort of hovered between the stops for the other monorail resorts, deciding that we’d take whichever one arrived first. The Poly pulled up first and we almost hopped on, knowing we could easily walk home from there, but that queue was packed and we might not even get on the bus if we tried. So we gambled, and thankfully a Grand Floridian bus pulled up within minutes.

We all scrambled onto the bus, and then the driver stepped off. It was shift change time. (They used to do this at Disney Springs / Downtown Disney, it seems I used to get caught by it ALL the time). I was a little annoyed knowing it would take longer, we were soaked, and just wanted to be back at the hotel. I knew this took about an extra 5-10 minutes, the new driver just needed to do their safety checks. It would be fine. We were out of the rain, on the bus - that thankfully wasn't running the AC full blast. I just had to be patient.

Except the new driver was totally MIA.

The prior driver was walking up and down the covered bus depot, spoke to what I assume is a manager, came back - hovered around our bus…no driver.

Literally 20 minutes go by. No driver. No explanation to everyone waiting on the bus.

We were now likely going to be late for our dinner reservation but there is NO way I wasn’t going to change my clothing before dinner, We were soaked to the bone! Henry was worried about them giving our table away. This had been a surprise for him (that he figured out earlier in the day) as 'Ohana his FAVORITE restaurant. While planning the trip, he requested a meal here, but at the time they weren't open and they hadn't announced the opening, then when they did announce the opening I secretly booked the meal as a surprise for him! He was really excited about it, I assured him it would work out, it was not our fault the driver was MIA and we'd hurry as much as we could.

Eventually someone came meandering down the depot and slowly boarded the bus. He was in NO rush at all. Zero. Zero apology, nothing.

I was so annoyed but tried to just roll with it and keep our attitudes in check. I was just a bit miffed they didn't apologize or even explain. The new driver acted like he didn't want to be there. Not very magical.... but eventually we made it back to the Grand, we quickly changed clothes and scurried over to the Poly.

In the end, we were about 20 minutes late. They understood and it was all fine. We had a short wait and before too long we were seated with this lovely spread in front of us!

The bread - it’s delicious. I liked the old bread too, but this is even better

Great salad

We always like the potstickers!

Perfect wings

Joe ordered a Backscratcher

I got a mule

I’m so glad they took this off. It was NOT GOOD. I was all about giving it a fair shot…. Joe doesn't like shrimp, so he didn't even try - but both Henry and I did and it was wrong. Just wrong.

We liked the full skillet, even the sausage - which is also removed right? The broccolini was undercooked, but otherwise everything else was delicious.

The steak. Nom.

While I do prefer having the dipping sauces, everything was well "sauced" and tasty. No complaints from this crew.

And the best of the best!!

We had a GREAT server. He was funny and insisted on bringing us TWO desserts AND an extra ice cream AND Rice Krispies. We did not eat it all!!!! (but made a nice dent!)

Fat and happy we rolled outta there

Joe enjoying his souvenir, and Henry wearing his new shirt from AK.

Continued in next post

 

[brookelizabeth]

We browsed through the gift shop on the ground floor. I texted someone a friend (Michael, in case you are reading @Flossbolna 's reports as well!) pictures of 'Olu…since he LOVES him (sarcastic - pretty sure I got death threats in return texts....)

I think he’s cute!

I want to go back to Aulani!

So pretty - funny story about a Lilly Pulitzer dress. Once I was at a conference at the Contemporary. We had a cocktail hour and my luggage had not arrived yet. So I quickly went to the gift shop and purchased a Lily, changed in the bathrooms in the lobby (my room wasn't read yet either!), stuffed my day clothing into my travel backpack and went off to the cocktail hour. Thankfully I had worn simple black flats that day! I got so many compliments on how I looked and how nice the dress was. They were all colleagues, so of course I told them my story and that the dress was from the gift shop!

As we walked out of the Poly, Henry wanted to take us on the route he ran that morning. It was a beautiful evening, even a little cooler (for July in Florida!) in the high 70s. Walking around the beautiful resorts sounded good to us all, so with our food babies we made our way around the paths on Henry's jogging route.

I can dream

See you tomorrow. <3

That evening we went swimming at the Grand. No pics, but we had a GREAT evening just hanging out. We watched Happily Ever After from the pool and it was magical.

The day wasn’t perfect. It was wild in more than one way. It did not go according to plan. We started late. We waited waaaay too long for Pandora. We didn't get done nearly what I would have liked to in AK. We got soaked. We were late for dinner. But, honestly - it was nothing to even think twice about. The swim topped off the day, and despite the minor hiccups, it was a great one. We were just so happy to be there.

 

[tiggrbaby]

Glad you were able to enjoy your day even with all the hiccups!

I haven't been to 'Ohana in more than 10 years! The menu looks quite different.

I feel your pain with the extra wait for Flight of Passage! On one of my solo trips the 120 minute wait morphed into 210 minutes, and after they had us all loaded onto our vehicles, they took us off and we had to wait to go into another ride room.

 

[GDubDIS]

I feel like rolling with the punches is the best way to just enjoy your Disney trip - glad you ended up having a great day despite a few challenges here and there!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Literally 20 minutes later we all were REALLY wondering if they forgot about us, so Joe opened the door and called out. A CM quickly came in and explained they had to reset the ride. Why someone didn’t tell us earlier - no idea. But, at least we were trapped in this little room with some fun people!

So strange that they would leave you in a small room like that and not tell you what was happening.

almost 3 hours between the wait, the breakdown and the ride itself, we likely would have skipped it and enjoyed other areas of the park instead. But, we tried to just roll with it. We were super thirsty by the time we got off (and honestly, a little grumpy), so Night Blossoms were required!

Well deserved after that wait!!!

Literally 20 minutes go by. No driver. No explanation to everyone waiting on the bus.

Man! You guys had bad luck this day! Again what is up with the lack of giving people heads up?!?

The broccolini was undercooked, but otherwise everything else was delicious.

I mean let's be real... no one goes to Ohana for broccolini...

While I do prefer having the dipping sauces, everything was well "sauced" and tasty. No complaints from this crew.

Did they not have the peanut sauce? I love that sauce! I think we will skip Ohana on our next trip. But we will be back again.

The swim topped off the day, and despite the minor hiccups, it was a great one. We were just so happy to be there.

Swimming at the end of the day is always nice!

 

[rdkeim]

An interesting but good day! It seems more and more being able to roll with it at Disney is the best way to be. You could have let some of the hiccups ruin your day but didn't. We were finally able to go this past March (just DH and I) and I was just so happy to be there. Looking forward to reading more!