We're on a quest for fun!...Our Poly adventure Sept 10-16

[Jennasis]

I am suffering from the PDD (post-Disney Depression ) really, really bad. So what better way to combat the blues than by reliving the adventure here on the DIS for all of you ? Are you ready?? Here we gooooooo!

OFF TO NEVERLAND! ​

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But wait...first, allow myself to introduce...myself (and the rest of my entourage ). There's me , celebrating my, ahem, 40th birthday AND our 11th wedding anniversary. And speaking of Anniversary, there's DH , 42 years old and, Surprise! ALSO celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary! What are the odds?? LOL. Also along for the ride were my parents , direct from Long Island, NY (this is important later..when we talk about the weather...). I won't give their ages out of deference to them both but I will say that they were also celebrating their wedding anniversary. 45 YEARS! There was a lot of love on this trip!

We were all staying at the Poly on this trip. A first for all of us, even though we've been to WDW literally too many times to count. 30+ times for me at least. DH and I are DVC members (we own over at BLT) so we booked a Poly studio right at the 7 month mark with no problems. My parents rented points from DH's uncle (also a DVC member) at a rock bottom price per point...gotta love family!

Important to note that DH and I are small business owners. We own a horse farm, to be specific, which is a lot like running a 24 hour day care for 1200lb. babies lol! It is VERY hard to take time away from the business. But after many many years we have surrounded ourselves with great people and wonderful employees who we trust to keep the ship sailing right while we are away. It's still nerve-wracking (have had lots of disasters happen while we were gone...like the time one of my horses broke a leg, or the time a customer packed up and moved their horse out without telling anyone...but I digress). I'm happy to report that this time the only craziness that happened in our stead was a terrifying swarm of honey bees decided to take up residence in our backyard ...I am not joking...I wish I were...more on that later.

So, are you ready to rock? Ready to roll? Ready to get your Disney on with 4 nutty adult Disney fans with a penchant for practical jokes, no filter and who all cried when we met Chewbacca? Then hop on board, cause, to quote Clark Griswold, "We're on a quest...a quest for FUN!"

 

[Jennasis]

We planned this trip specifically to arrive on a Saturday (so that we wouldn't have to combat traffic, since we drive down from NC). We actually really like the drive. No seriously. YES I know it's a 9 hour drive, but we've come to think of that as more time to bond together . And we like to play, find-the-license-plate-from-the-farthest-away. Plus we get to see all our favorite landmarks like the Chik-fil-A in South Carolina we always stop at for breakfast, and that weird spot on 95 in Georgia that smells like farts...(it's actually a paper mill. One year we were driving down and I had some, umm, gas. Well we drove past the stink zone on 95 and DH whipped around and said "Is that you???" to which I responded "If it is, we clearly need to find a hospital because I'm obviously dying!" ) but again, I digress...

The drive was uneventful , and we were making fabulous time until we stopped for lunch and of course we picked the one exit that had massive construction going on. We just wanted to get to the McDonald's 1/2 miles off the interstate! Well after 10 minutes of fighting through, we finally got to Mickey D's...to find an ambulance and several fire trucks tending to an off duty construction worker having a heart attack in the dining room! Poor guy. He looked pretty spent, and they seemed to be trying to decide where to transport him. So we grabbed our food and hurried out, trying not to be looky-loos. Everything else went according to plan right up to that part of Orlando where all the traffic is...you know...ORLANDO. Oy! Took us forever it seemed to get from the downtown area to the Disney area. Don't these other drivers know I'm trying to get to DISNEY WORLD LOL??

Finally we hit our exit and made that glorious drive under the arch and straight to the Poly . We'd been texting back and forth with my parents on the drive since they had flown in earlier in the day from NY and not only were our rooms ready, but our request for connecting rooms had been honored. Aside from that request, we didn't make any others. Yeah, we're those weirdos who like playing hotel-room roulette. Frankly, we are in our room very very little so I don't care much what's outside the window...unless it's like a dumpster or something. So we handed off our luggage to the nice guys at bell services and made our way into the lobby.

Oh the lobby! SO beautiful. But even more beautiful was the sight of my parents waiting there in the lobby! Haven't seen them in months! It was a total Kodak moment as we all ran into each other's arms, crying . DH, ever the pragmatic one, grabbed the photopass photographer who was in the lobby and he snapped a bunch of lovely teary-eyed photos of us hugging. Then it was through the check-in line. No we didn't do online check-in. Every time we've done it in the past we've never gotten our room-ready text or any of our requests...besides, I was determined to get an "aloha!" and a lei! We got both. Set up our magic band pin and headed to our room.

We are becoming big fans of ground floor rooms, I tells ya. BIG fans. Our room was in Tokelau, on the first floor, facing towards the TTC, but we had nothing but lush gardens in our view...oh and the BBQ pavilion. The room was so easy to get to, just steps away from the Oasis pool, the parking lot, the Grand Ceremonial House, etc. Plus, the DVC studios here are HUGE. HUGE!! The room was in great shape. Bright. Airy. Yes, we checked for bed bugs LOL, and no there weren't any. The 2 bathrooms was a major plus for us getting ready in the morning except that BOTH of us wanted to shower in the bathroom with the rain shower. Soooooooo goooooooooood! The room also had the usual mini-fridge/kitchenette, a fold down bed under the tv yadda yadda. We spent just a few minutes admiring everything and then we dropped our luggage like a hot potato and walked to the TTC so we could catch the monorail to Epcot where we had FP+ waiting for Frozen, and dinner ADR's at Biergarten.

The walk to the TTC is a very short, pleasant, and well marked one (even at night...even if you are an avid fan of the Walking Dead and fully expect a zombie to pop out from every shadow ), and the trip to Epcot a delight via monorail as always. My Dad was super excited about dinner at the Biergarten. My parents have never tried it, mostly due to mom's general aversion to buffets, but also because as a child I would've sooner died of starvation rather than eat "foreign" food . Luckily I'm all "growed up" and understand that buffets aren't evil, and the Biergarten is the greatest thing to happen to a buffet since the chocolate fountain at Golden Corral.

HOWEVER...first we had to overcome the first of many obstacles. Number one was teaching my parents how to enter the park . This included informing them that only the one holding the bag had to go through the bag check line while the other could go through the bagLESS line. Simple, no? NO. Every. Single. Time. Every time. "No, Dad...only Mom has to go through the bag check line. You come with me." Eventually we gave up on trying to correct him...and simply let HIM carry mom's bag through bag check while mom went with me through the no-bag entrance LOL! Then we had to show them how to scan the magic band and finger. Mom got it pretty good, and dad, bless him did too...except his band was very prone to just not working on the first 6 tries. 7 seemed to be his lucky number!

So into Epcot we went, where they were setting up F&W booths and so on. We'll get to enjoy that on it's opening day later in the week, but for now, Spaceship Earth has no line, so we hop on for a trip through time. Much to our continued dismay, the "Your Future" ending of the ride is still broken like it was on our previous trip in May. One of my only complaints this trip was how some rides were in various states of neglect...things not working...lights too dim...sound too low...animatronics appearing to have suffered from a mild stroke ... But we had a lovely ride and went on our way towards World Showcase to use our pre-dinner FP+ for Frozen Ever After.

Yeah....no.

It broke. Just as we were about 6 people from loading. The evac'd the whole ride, which was neat to watch. Then the fire department guys showed up and it was less fun and more "wuh oh", so we hopped a fence and left the queue. Luckily they were handing out anytime passes to come back anytime during the month. I noted as we were waiting in the FP queue that the standby line appeared to be some sneak peak into what the bowels of Hell look like. Screaming children and angry tired parents as far as the eye could see. Beautifully themed...and straight outta my nightmares.

With our ADR for dinner at the Biergarten radpidly approaching, we hightailed it to Germany and checked in. I'm used to oddly long waits here, but they took us in within about 10 minutes and we were seated with 2 other lovely couples. My parents are VERY social...they've never met a stranger, and my assumption that this seating arraingment being right up their alley was totes correct . Dad ordered some beer that arrived in what looked like a glass barrel with a handle . The rest of us enjoyed Diet Cokes and way too much food. The band came on about 30 minutes later and just like that we made our parents into new lifelong fans of both buffets and "foreign" food LOL!

After dinner we wandered World Showcase, took in the last performance of The British Invasion (Revolution? I can never remember...) and then watched Illuminations before heading back to the Poly. What a great first day...

I think my dad may still be drinking that giant beer....