We're here for the food! Sept/Oct Trip report! (Updated 1/16)

[Brittni__duh]

What amazing timing! In fact, we had great timing with the buses almost all trip, only once did we have to wait more than 2 minutes!

That's the best. My DH and I had that kind of luck last September. We had to wait 30 minutes only once and thats because we let someone get on the bus before us at park close and the bus reached capacity. We had to wait for the next bus.

Of course we had to stop at the photopass photographers on our way in though. We’re slightly obsessed with them!

I love that third one of you and your mom in front of the castle. There's so much happiness!

I can’t really complain though since we didn’t actually have to wait, we just had to share a log, which I guess wasn’t too horrible. (totally being sarcastic btw!)

Splash Mountain is my DH's favorite ride. I'm so jealous you got to ride it so many times in a row...and alone for most of it!

 

[VAtink]

That's the best. My DH and I had that kind of luck last September. We had to wait 30 minutes only once and thats because we let someone get on the bus before us at park close and the bus reached capacity. We had to wait for the next bus.

It was so awesome, we've never had such good luck with bus timing! That's too bad about juuust missing that bus, but only one long wait during a trip is pretty fantastic!

I love that third one of you and your mom in front of the castle. There's so much happiness!

Thank you! That actually is my favorite photo from the whole trip!

Splash Mountain is my DH's favorite ride. I'm so jealous you got to ride it so many times in a row...and alone for most of it!

It was amazing being able to ride it over and over, and my mom was thrilled since she loves the ride so much! We would go back to the party just because of this. We've never seen the rides so empty!

 

[VAtink]

Well it's official! We've decided on our dates and are booking tomorrow...We're going back to Disney World in May!

This will be our first Flower and Garden Festival too! We've never been in May, so I'm curious to see what it's like with the weather and crowds. If anyone has any input, please let me know!

 

[princessemsmom]

Loving your trip report. Can't wait to read more. We love YC and SAB!

We have gone every May for the last 4-5 years and will be back May 19th - 29th. We love Flower and Garden. Weather is hot and can be HOT. But perfect for the pool. Crowds are not terrible but do pick up as the month goes on.

I actually think it is the perfect time of year!

Let me know if you have any questions!!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I'm loving your trip report. Your MNSSHP looks like great fun. Was there a long line for Haunted Mansion? I wanted to do this ride when we were at the MNSSHP on Oct 2nd, but was worried that it would have long lines.

Crews Cup lounge is one of our favorite places to eat. We ate there twice on our short five day trip. We overlapped your trip. We were at the BC from Oct 1st to 5th.

 

[VAtink]

Loving your trip report. Can't wait to read more. We love YC and SAB!

Thank you! We love SAB as well, my mom keeps talking about the sand bottom! When we first arrive our #1 thing to do is wiggle our toes in the sand!

We have gone every May for the last 4-5 years and will be back May 19th - 29th. We love Flower and Garden. Weather is hot and can be HOT. But perfect for the pool. Crowds are not terrible but do pick up as the month goes on.

I actually think it is the perfect time of year!

Let me know if you have any questions!!

Good to know! I've come to expect general hot whenever I go. The only time I found it to be actually really cold there was in January, and half that trip it felt more like August, so I feel like the cold part was just a fluke! We're going at the beginning of the month, so hopefully crowds and temperature will be low.
I am super excited about seeing Flower and Garden. Do they change the flowers as the season goes on or does it stay the same for the whole festival? How is the food? I've seen they have a few booths, not as many as Food and Wine, but still looked like a decent amount.

 

[VAtink]

I'm loving your trip report. Your MNSSHP looks like great fun. Was there a long line for Haunted Mansion? I wanted to do this ride when we were at the MNSSHP on Oct 2nd, but was worried that it would have long lines.

There wasn't a long line at all for the Haunted Mansion. We seemed to have arrived right after a large group, but they funneled us all into the stretching room which was half full at most before they closed the doors. From there it was a walk on to the ride. It seemed like most of the party goers avoided the rides during the party, which for us was fantastic because we went for the rides!

Crews Cup lounge is one of our favorite places to eat. We ate there twice on our short five day trip. We overlapped your trip. We were at the BC from Oct 1st to 5th.

Isn't it great? We've never tried the lounges before this trip, but really loved this place! I wonder if we passed each other during our trips. I always wonder while I'm walking around if I'm passing someone from these boards!

 

[TeresaNJ]

Great report! Really enjoying it!

 

[VAtink]

Day 3, Part 2! Friday September 30th
Party Time!

After our tequila lunch we headed back to the hotel for some pool time. Once again, it was nearly empty! We absolutely love the pool at the BC and YC, and love it even more when there’s no one around!

We swam for about an hour then headed back up to the room to rest again, we had another big night ahead of us!

Around 5:30 we decided it was time to head back to Epcot for the remainder of the evening. The security line this evening was longer than we’d seen it all trip, so we didn’t get into the park until after 6.

Of course when we finally got into the park we had to do photos!

Yes, I am re-wearing the same dress from the first day. For the first time in my life I actually managed to under-pack for a trip!

Since it was still a bit early for our next special event, we ended up browsing the shops in the UK pavilion. We eventually got tired of looking at tea, so decided to see if we could check in to the event a bit early.

We made our way next door to the events pavilion around 6:20 to see if we could check in for….

The Rockin Burger Block Party!

We totally splurged on this and got the Nosh Pit seating, and we LOVED it!

When we arrived at the pavilion, they were already checking people in, so we went to the Nosh Pit line, got our massive Nosh Pit lanyards, then went and waited in line to be let into the room.

We were pleasantly surprised that they actually ended up letting the Nosh Pit in at 6:30 instead of the 6:45 as stated on the Disney website!

We found our table quickly, they are all pre assigned and have the guests name on them:

Now I suspect a lot of people who had gotten the Nosh Pit had done this party before because they all seemed to know what to do. My mom and I on the other hand just went to our table and sat…and waited.

Finally a server came up to us, poured us glasses of champagne, and asked why we weren’t getting our food. Wait what? We could get food already? Oops! We quickly made our way out of the Nosh Pit area to grab some burgers. I ended up grabbing three for my first round of tasting, the chicken and mushroom burger by the host chef Maneet Chauhan, the jalapeno cheesesteak burger, and the D-Luxe southern classic burger.

The server had also explained to us how to use the menus at our table. You'll note here the guitar pick for voting taped to the front. That wine glass was also ours to keep!:

Each food location around the room was assigned an instrument, and in the menu book the food was listed by those instruments, so if you saw something you liked, you just had to look for that instrument's symbol to find it.

You can see some of the hanging features where the instrument symbols were projected in this picture:

Now my camera seems have ate a handful of my pictures because I took pictures of all my burgers, but there are no pictures on my camera now from this night. Ugh, technology fail. Fortunately I took a few pictures on my phone and those survived, but I didn’t get any food pictures with it. Guess I’ll just have to go back next year now!

By the time I had collected my first round, the second tier of seating had been let in, but the room still didn’t feel very crowded at all.

The Nosh Pit was fantastic, we loved having our own table right by the stage, there is a separate bar and even its own food station.

Here's my mom at our table, you can see how close we were to the stage:

Anyways, back to the food. The first burger I tried was the chicken and mushroom burger and I was surprised I liked it so much! I typically don’t like non-beef burgers, but the flavors in this one were delicious! Next up was the jalapeno cheesesteak burger. This was also very good, but not quite as good at the first. Last up was the D-Luxe southern classic burger….which I didn’t like at all! Surprising since it’s the burger that won that night!

After the first three burgers my mom and I decided to try out some of the side dishes. We both ended up getting one of the cones with salads, I believe it was a watermelon salad. We also stopped by the Nosh Pit food station and got their take on grilled cheese, ie a shot glass full of cheese with a side of bread. Haha. The cheese was actually really good, but very messy! Well, most of the food was very messy, I don’t know how people do this even without having a table!

See...I'm a messy eater:

By this point we were already full, and the party had barely started! We decided to check out our bar and both ended up getting some wine. We made our way back to our table and enjoyed the music and people watching for a while.

Now my mom loves cooking and food and pretty much anything to do with either. So at one point while people watching she asked if I thought we could meet the host chef since my mom is a huge fan. I couldn’t help but to laugh because when we had gotten our first burger of the night, Chef Chauhan was working the booth and my mom didn’t even notice! In fact, Chef Chauhan was out socializing with people almost the entire party, and my mom must have walked right by here at least 3 times without noticing!

Once I told her this she was a bit upset she had missed her opportunity to meet her! I told her not to worry though since I could see she was still out talking to guests so I suggested we go over to see if we could get a picture. Well, this idea made my moms night and she jumped up and practically ran out of the Nosh Pit area! Haha. She’s so fun.

We made our way over to meet her. There was one group ahead of us, but while waiting we ended up talking to a woman who worked with the Chef and who couldn’t have been sweeter. She clearly loved working with Chef Chauhan, and raved about how nice she is and how much she loves meeting fans.

Turns out she was right, when it was my moms turn to meet her, she was amazing! My mom was acting like I would if I ever met Tom Brady, she was just gushing, it was awesome! I ended up taking a picture of the two of them, which I’m pretty certain was a highlight of my mom’s whole year!

Eventually we felt like we could fit another burger or two in, so I went to try the ones over at the STK booth. I got in line behind a few other people, and went to grab one off the pre-made plate as the people ahead of me did, when one of the workers stopped me and asked if I would prefer a specially made burger. Um, yes!

So the worker grabbed the head chef and told him I’d like a “special” burger (to be honest, the way she said it I half expected him to spit on it…). The chef grabbed a fresh bun and toppings and then, pulled out a truffle and grated fresh truffle over the top of the burger! Oh my goodness, it was so amazing! Then the chef asked if I wanted one or two burgers, so of course I said two since I figured my mom would love some fresh truffle!

Those were some amazing burgers, it was very close between the STK one and Chef Chauhan’s, but in the end I just had to vote for Chef Chauhan’s since she created a burger that I would never expect to like, but ended up loving. I actually ended up grabbing one more of her burgers before the end of the night.

Overall it was a fantastic event! I wasn’t sure what to expect since I had read mixed reviews, and even earlier that day a woman at the tequila lunch heard we were going and went on a rant about how horrible it was when she went the previous year! Lucky for us we loved it. The only thing we would do differently is instead of eating the full burger from the places we stopped at, just taking a bite or two of each so then we could have tried more before filling up.

Soon the party was wrapping up, so I went to grab one last glass of wine. This time they served it in a plastic cup…i.e. the Disney sign of “it’s time to leave.” Sure enough, a minute later the MC came on to tell everyone the event was over and to please leave. So I took my glass of wine and my mom and I made our way out to World Showcase.

We did get our guitar pick that we voted with back as we left, so that was a pretty cool souvenir!

Since I had my full (very full) glass of wine still, my mom and I made our way to the back of the UK pavilion to sit in the gardens so I could sip my wine and avoid the illuminations and Food and Wine crowds. It was actually a very enjoyable stop, there was no one back there, but you could hear all the hustle and bustle from the other side of the buildings, so it felt like a secret hiding spot!

We're allllll alone!

Once I finished up my wine we were exhausted, so decided to make our way back to the hotel to call it a night. On the way back to our room we ran into this:

Well that's odd...

I am so curious to know what was going on in this room that required the furniture to be banished to the hall! Orrr….maybe I don’t want to know. Hm.

We finally made it back to our room around 10:30, not horribly late, but we were tired from our long day so went to bed right away!

Next up, Day 4, Part 1!!!

 

[princessemsmom]

Good to know! I've come to expect general hot whenever I go. The only time I found it to be actually really cold there was in January, and half that trip it felt more like August, so I feel like the cold part was just a fluke! We're going at the beginning of the month, so hopefully crowds and temperature will be low.
I am super excited about seeing Flower and Garden. Do they change the flowers as the season goes on or does it stay the same for the whole festival? How is the food? I've seen they have a few booths, not as many as Food and Wine, but still looked like a decent amount.

That is a perfect time - you will have so much fun. I honestly do not know how often they change the flowers - but I know that a lot of topiaries are the same/similar every year - but they always take my breath away! Lots of good pics - so yo will be happy

 

[Wood Nymph]

Your Rockin Burger party sounds like a lot of fun. I love a good burger.

My only guess for the table in the hall is that the guests wanted a roll away bed and there wasn't enough room for the table.

 

[VAtink]

That is a perfect time - you will have so much fun. I honestly do not know how often they change the flowers - but I know that a lot of topiaries are the same/similar every year - but they always take my breath away! Lots of good pics - so yo will be happy

That is great to hear! Thanks!

I can't wait to see all the flowers, and take tons of pictures. We do love our pictures

 

[VAtink]

Your Rockin Burger party sounds like a lot of fun. I love a good burger.

My only guess for the table in the hall is that the guests wanted a roll away bed and there wasn't enough room for the table.

The party was a blast, I'm so happy we did it. Although I am a bit burger obsessed so I could be a bit biased

That's a good call about the table, I didn't think about that! Still funny to turn the corner and find a random table sitting outside someone's room! Well...at least it was to us, buuut there was all that wine...

 

[VAtink]

Day 4, Part 1 - October 1st
Did I mention I hate Elevators?

After a great nights sleep we woke up nice and early to head over to HS! We decided to avoid MK since we figured it would be nuts being the 45th anniversary and all. After talking to a cast member later in the trip she confirmed this was a good idea, she said it was a bit of a mad house. Plus they gave out 45th anniversary buttons at the other parks, so we could wear those and *look* like we had attended.

We left our room around 8:30 to head over to HS. It was our first ride on the Friendship boats this trip, can't you tell I'm excited?

Alright, maybe I was still a bit tired...

We weren’t concerned about hitting rope drop since we had fast passes for all of the rides we wanted to get on, so of course when we got there we took time to take as many pictures as possible!

Our first fast pass was at 9, so after our photo shoot, we made our way over to RnR around 9:30 for our first ride of the day! Being us, we of course had to get one more picture on the way.

Once we wrapped up our picture we made our way to the ride and ended up having a bit of a wait. There was a big tour group that entered just in front of us, so we got stuck waiting. Damn our obsession with taking pictures! We could have totally beat them in if we didn’t stop!

Oh well. We finally got on the ride and got all strapped in and got ready to shoot off. But then we sat, and sat. They kept doing the countdown, but every time it got to 1, nothing happened! The suspense was ridiculous! Finally, the music turned off and a cast member came on over the PA telling everyone they need to sit back in their seats and not try to stand up. Um, who on earth was trying to stand up during that kind of start??? Crazy people.

Finally the music came back on and the countdown started up again….and this time we shot off! I clearly was not ready for it this time, ha! All those stupid false alarms!

I look so ridiculous! Ha!

After the ride we had about 20 minutes until our next fast pass, so we wandered around and took some pictures (of course), did a little shopping, and slowly made our way back to Pixar place.

We didn’t have a FP+ for TSMM, and really didn’t think it was a must ride, so when we saw the wait was 40 minutes, we decided to skip it and meander back to our next FP+, ToT!!!

Fortunately we did not arrive after any tour groups and were able to get on with hardly any wait. Speaking of tour groups, I was surprised how many we saw this weekend. I expect them in the summer, but not the first weekend of October!

We love ToT, even though I am actually terrified of elevators, and love that they actually take a video now! It really is great for seeing how ridiculous you look while waiting for the drop to happen! Haha! I was a bit disappointed when we got home and signed onto the photopass site and only saw a video from ToT and no pictures, but about a week after we got home suddenly two pictures magically appeared. Oddly enough, we found about a week after we got back about 50 new photos were added, and since then a few more have also been added. Weird.

Anywho, here’s us looking scared:

Actually I look like I'm crying. Haha! I really am completely terrified of elevators, I'd rather hike up the five flights of stairs to get to my office than take the elevator!

After ToT we once again had some time before our next FP+, this time about an hour. So we decided to go see how long the wait for TSMM was again, maybe, just maybe we’d try it this trip. We made our way back to Pixar place, of course stopping to take pictures on the way

When we got to Pixar place, we saw the wait had increased to 60 minutes, but we didn’t have anything else to do until our next FP+, so decided to try it out. The wait in the first room seemed to take forever, in reality it only took about 30 minutes, but it was the longest line we’ve had all trip and we weren’t used to waiting!

When we got to the entry to the second room the cast member there asked me how many people were in my party, so I told him 2, and he pointed to the line on the right, ie the FP+ line, and told us to use that one. I was so shocked I actually blurted out, “but we don’t have fast passes!” He laughed and said it was fine, there hadn’t been a fastpass rider in a while and the line was empty. Sure enough, we went over to that side, walked up the stairs, and over to the loading area where the cast member put us right on!

I have to admit, I do feel a bit guilty that we skipped a ton of people who were there ahead of us, but the cast member told us to! It also probably cut a good 20+ minutes off of our wait, so I was kind of thrilled about that!

This was our first time riding it, and we ended up loving it! I’m so happy we decided to try it out!

Afterwards it was about time for our last FP+ of the morning, so we headed over to ride Star Tours! On the way over though I saw something I knew we had to stop for. My mom had mentioned that the only characters she wanted to meet were Chip and Dale because they were her mom’s favorite characters. So I told her if I saw them I would make sure we stopped. Of course as we’re making our way to Star Tours, who do I see? Chip and Dale!

I tell my mom we have to stop, and of course she agrees. There was a bit of a line, but it wasn’t bad. Soon enough we were hugging those chipmunks!

It was really sweet, my mom told them all about her mom and how they were her favorite and they gave her such big hugs. I seriously thought my mom was going to cry!

Once we had enough chipmunk time, we made our way over to Star Tours. It was a quick wait and soon we were flying! The best part is, I was the rebel spy! HA! It was actually a bit shocking, I wasn’t expecting it at all!

When we got off the ride my mom mentioned that she would love some ice cream, and I knew exactly what we needed to get. Mickey Ice Cream Bars! We found a booth that had them, then found a seat to enjoy.

After finishing our ice cream bars, we did a bit more shopping, I really wanted a Chip coffee cup I saw earlier, so we went back to that store to pick one up and some socks. My family has an odd obsession with socks and love to give them to each other for gifts all the time. Can’t go wrong with a good pair of socks!

We finally made our way out of the park and back to the hotel. Of course we had to do one last picture on the way out though! I heart Boston btw. Grew up just west of the city and would love to move back there some day!

After we got out of the park we were still hungry so decided to go back to Crews Cup Lounge for lunch. I ended up getting the clam chowder and a mai tai, and my mom got the grapefruit beer and the beet salad. Once again we enjoyed it all. We had a great server who we had a blast chatting with. Right before we headed out, I asked if we could possibly get a beer to bring back to our room, which it turns out we could! So I got a bottle of the grapefruit beer and we headed back to our room to rest. We didn’t swim this day, when we walked by the pool we were shocked at how crowded it was. It had been empty the last few days, so to see all the chairs full was a surprise! So instead we went to rest in the room. I ended up sitting out on the balcony enjoying my beer and jotting down vacation notes and looking through all the photos we had taken.

Up next, Day 4, part 2!

 

[annie170]

That Rockin' Burger Party looked like a blast! It's great that you and your mom were able to do so many of the fun extra events there.

You two got some awesome pixie dust on TSMM. What a nice cm.

Ride photos just crack me up! I enjoy looking at all the different reactions.

 

[VAtink]

That Rockin' Burger Party looked like a blast! It's great that you and your mom were able to do so many of the fun extra events there.

It was so much fun! We had debated whether or not we wanted to do any special events or just do the booths for this trip since it was our first Food and Wine. I'm so glad we ended up doing the events though, they really made this trip extra special!

You two got some awesome pixie dust on TSMM. What a nice cm.

Oh my goodness I know! I couldn't believe he let us do that!

Ride photos just crack me up! I enjoy looking at all the different reactions.

Yeah, ride photos are fantastic, I love how some people look totally calm while others (ie me) look terrified! I especially love the video now on ToT, I look like I'm going into a full on panic attack in it while my mom looks like she's having the time of her life!

 

[Wood Nymph]

. Plus they gave out 45th anniversary buttons at the other parks, so we could wear those and *look* like we had attended.

This was our arrival day and we decided to avoid MK for the same reason. We went to Epcot when we arrived and it was hot a very crowded. We saw the new Soarin' film and loved it. But we didn't see any 45th anniversary buttons.

When we got to the entry to the second room the cast member there asked me how many people were in my party, so I told him 2, and he pointed to the line on the right, ie the FP+ line, and told us to use that one. I was so shocked I actually blurted out, “but we don’t have fast passes!” He laughed and said it was fine, there hadn’t been a fastpass rider in a while and the line was empty. Sure enough, we went over to that side, walked up the stairs, and over to the loading area where the cast member put us right on!

Parties of two get to go to the short line. This is one of our favorite rides.

After we got out of the park we were still hungry so decided to go back to Crews Cup Lounge for lunch. I ended up getting the clam chowder and a mai tai,

We stopped for lunch at Crews Cup on our way back from DHS on Monday of our trip. It is a hidden gem.

 

[VAtink]

Day 4, Part 2! Saturday Oct. 1st.
So THIS is the rivers of light!

After our afternoon rest, we got ready to head back out around 3PM. This time we were on our way to Animal Kingdom!

We once again had amazing luck with the buses, and just as we walked up to the bus stop, the AK bus arrived! It was a quick trip over and soon we were driving into…a construction zone! Yeah, wow, there is a lot of construction going on for Pandora! It looks amazing though and pretty far along, I hope it’s open for our trip in May!

Anyways, once we stopped gawking at the floating mountains, we made our way into the park, and I’m sure you’ve guessed it, found some photopass photographers!

So earlier in the day my mom got to meet her #1 character(s), but now it was my turn! As noted in the day -1 post, I have a dog and his name is Dug, named after Dug from Up! See the resemblance?

Well, of course I had to go meet his namesake!

There was a bit of a wait to meet Dug and Russell, but soon it was my turn to meet my favorite Disney dog! (and Russell too). I actually felt a bit bad for Russell, I was gushing over Dug and didn’t have much to say to him, he actually hung his head like he was sad! Haha, oops! I told Dug that I named my dog after him and he gave me a biiiiiiigggggg kiss, it was so cute! I also told Russell that he had the best dog, that perked him up a bit J

After getting my Dug fix in, we made our way over to Expedition Everest since it only had a 15 minute wait. It was odd, the park felt super crowded, but the lines for the rides were super short. Not sure what was going on with that!

I love EE, my mom does not. So when we got off the ride to find our ride photo hadn’t worked and I told her we HAD to go on it again to get a picture, she wasn’t thrilled, but agreed. So I ended up getting a FP+ with a return time in about an hour. Since we had time to spare we made our way over to Africa, but not without stopping for some photos first!

We got to Africa to find the wait for the safari was 30 minutes, not too horrible, and it ended up being a bit less. There weren’t many animals out this time, we usually go first thing in the morning so are used to more sightings, but there were a few animals roaming around the savanna. One thing that shocked me was the bridge bit is back in the ride! It’s been years since we’ve seen them actually do the whole “ohhhh, this is an old bridge, it might fall down!” (ok, not remotely close to what they say, but you get the gist) and the bridge actually moved!

After our safari we still had some time before our EE FP+, so walked the gorilla falls trail. I love these trails, they’re so peaceful back there, and there were baby gorillas playing this time! They were SO CUTE!

When we got to the end of the trail it was just about time for our FP+, so we made our way back to Asia. By the time we got to EE, the standby line was only listed as 10 minutes, but we used our FP+ anyways. Turns out we didn’t need it, there was hardly anyone there. When we got to the loading area we lucked out with the CM loading the train, after sending the people in front of us to the front of the train he asked if we wanted a thrilling or tame ride, of course I said “Thrilling!” (sorry mom), so he sent us to the last car. Wahoo! I know the last car here doesn’t make such a big difference as it does on Thunder Mountain, but it still is pretty awesome. Thank you awesome CM!

My mom doesn’t look so thrilled with this seating choice:

After the ride my mom mentioned she was getting hungry, so I pulled up the MDE app to see if I could book us dinner somewhere nearby. The only place that had availability within a few minutes was Tiffins, so I booked it and we headed over that way.

We got to Tiffins around 6:15 to check in, and were seated immediately. It is such a beautiful restaurant, and it was empty when we got there. We got seated in a booth and ordered a bottle of wine while we perused the menu. Everything sounded so amazing, and we had a great waitress who totally sold us on an appetizer we would never have considered!

We ended up ordering the grilled octopus to split for the appetizer based on our waitress’ suggestion. It was amazing. I highly recommend it!

We were hungry so this is the best picture I could get of it…well…the plate it was on…

I promise, it did look amazing at one point!

For our entrees, my mom ended up getting the Duo of Lamb which she LOVED (I did too, we shared), and I got the Wagyu strip loin and braised short rib, which was fantastic! My mom and I kept raving throughout the meal how good everything was!

Here are our dishes:

While we were eating we kept hearing these rumbles from outside. My mom hopefully mentioned it was probably just fireworks. Haha, I wish it were just fireworks. I pulled up the weather app on my phone to check out the radar and saw that it was certainly not fireworks we were hearing! We were in the middle of dinner though, so we assumed the storm would move through by the time we were done.

Yeah, we assumed wrong. After we finished our dinner we went to leave, opened up the front door to see a wall of water. Seriously, it was a wall. I felt like I was seeing the backside of water on the jungle cruise. Since it wasn’t supposed to rain at all that day (stupid weatherman) we didn’t bring our ponchos! I took a look at the radar again, and it looked like it would be moving away soon, so we decided to wait it out in the lobby. Well about 20 minutes later the rain was still going strong, and on the radar it looked like it was just growing over us and not moving at all!

Since we didn’t really want to get drenched, we went over to the bar on the other side of the lobby. It was pretty empty so we grabbed seats in the lounge area and order some drinks to wait out the storm. After another 30 minutes it was still raining HARD and it was almost time for the park to close. With no other option, we decided to make a run for the nearest store, pick up some new ponchos and make our way to the exit.

The nearest store wasn’t too far away, but we still got pretty wet. We decided when we got there to do some shopping in hopes the rain would slow down before we made our way out. After a while we realized we were the only ones there, and we figured the CMs were waiting for us to leave to close up, so we purchased our items and ponchos and made our way out into the storm.

By the time we left there was no one around, it was actually kind of creepy! We made our way to the Oasis to exit the park where instead of paths we found rivers. Apparently they have some drainage issues there! The water was up about an inch or two above our ankles, it was crazy! Also felt slightly dangerous considering the amount of lightening! Despite the less than ideal weather, we couldn’t help but laugh as we made our way out of the park. I had to ask based on the lightening and rivers were walking through if perhaps this is what they meant by rivers of light. Haha! Ok, maybe you had to be there. We at least thought it was hilarious.

We finally made it to the front of the park and it was empty. We made our way to the buses and saw that our bus was there! We ran over just in case it was about to leave, but once we got there we realized we didn’t need to, the bus was empty. The driver ended up waiting for another 15 minutes after we got on for anyone else, but no one showed up, so we were off on our private bus!

By the time we got back to the hotel it was still pouring! Not nearly as hard as when we were at AK, but it was still coming down! I’m used to the quick storms that roll through Disney, not the ones that last for hours! Well, that’s a bit of a lie, our last trip we were there during a tropical storm and it rained non-stop for two days straight, and then off and on each day the rest of the trip. BUT that was just a fluke trip, so I don’t count it.

Since it was such a dreary night we decided to just stay in and watch some baseball, plus we had an early morning so it was good to get to bed early.


Next up…Day 5, part 1!

 

[Wood Nymph]

We have a similar experience with the rain at DHS that night. We ate dinner at Trattoria al Formo and walked to DHS from there. It started off lightly sprinkling and, like you, we tried to wait it out. We were trying to catch the Star Wars fireworks and the CM said that they were still going to have them. Finally after waiting about 45 minutes we gave up and headed out. The boat wasn't running and the bus for the Epcot resorts was full and just sitting with the driver waiting for someone or something. So we walked back to the BC and were drenched

We saw the SW fireworks from our room at 10:15, more than two hours after they were scheduled to go off. I'm glad we didn't wait for them at the park.

We have never been caught in rain like that before.

 

[VAtink]

We have a similar experience with the rain at DHS that night. We ate dinner at Trattoria al Formo and walked to DHS from there. It started off lightly sprinkling and, like you, we tried to wait it out. We were trying to catch the Star Wars fireworks and the CM said that they were still going to have them. Finally after waiting about 45 minutes we gave up and headed out. The boat wasn't running and the bus for the Epcot resorts was full and just sitting with the driver waiting for someone or something. So we walked back to the BC and were drenched

We saw the SW fireworks from our room at 10:15, more than two hours after they were scheduled to go off. I'm glad we didn't wait for them at the park.

We have never been caught in rain like that before.

Oh my goodness, wasn't the rain crazy that night? That's too bad about the bus, I can't imagine walking back to the BC in that downpour! We got soaked only walking a fraction of that distance that night!

It's awesome you could see the fireworks from your room! I was wondering if rooms at the YC/BC had views of those.