"We've gone too far"-A sister trip with surprise guest Irma! Sept 2017 - Completed 4/16

[Lesley Wake]

Hello! And welcome to my trip report! This was a trip of firsts for both me and my sister! My first time at WDW and my sister's first hurricane! You can also read my PTR here (though many of those plans were changed due to the hurricane).​

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Trip Details: ​

Where: Port Orleans French Quarter (with AP Discount of 25%)
When: Sept 9-18, 2017
Tickets: Annual Pass (me), 7-day park hoppers (sister), plus MNSSHP tickets; also one day at Universal with 2-park park-to-park tickets
Transportation: flying (me-Virgin America/Delta, sister-Southwest)
Dining plan: Nope, we considered it, but crunched the numbers and decided it wouldn't be worth it since I could get the AP discounts. But that didn't stop us in our dining decisions!
Memory Maker: Yes, it came with my AP and was the best thing ever!​

Introductions
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My name is Lesley and I'm a 32 yr old engineer, living in Los Angeles. I've been a huge Disney fan all my life and have been a Disneyland AP for the past three years (with a few month break; I also upgraded that AP to a Premier AP for the WDW benefits this past spring). Thanks to that AP and my close proximity to DLR I get to go all of the time. So, I may have a lot of comparisons between WDW and DLR, but I will try to keep that not too annoying! I may also intersperse this TR with a couple Disneyland mini-reports (specifically Haul-o-ween)!​

Despite my Disney obsession, before this trip I had never been to WDW! So this trip was a long time coming! ​

Also on this trip, is my sister:
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This is Lauren and she is a 28 yr old client services representative for a tech company that works with fundraising for higher education. She shares my Disney love, and was a DLR AP from Oct 2014-2016 and plans to get a new one soon (which she has been saying for a couple months now...). She is also in the process of applying for law school. ​

Read along to get the answers to find out the following:

• What were our favorite parks and rides? ​
• What was our favorite meal? ​
• What ride do we both vow to never ride again? ​
• What was my most frustrating experience? ​
• How many times would we get to experience rope drop? ​
• What internet writer (non-Disney) would we meet? ​
• What would we give to absolute strangers? ​
• How would September rain/lightning storms affect our plans? ​

And please, feel free to comment or ask questions!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Table of Contents

Introduction
Pre-Trip: Am I Crazy?

Day 0, September 7, 2017 - Travel
Day 0, Part 1 "Baby's First Hurricane"
Day 0, Part 2 "Have Fun" "Oh, we will"
Day 0, Part 3 "First rule of World of Disney-you don't get separated!"

Intermission: Disneyland Resort Halloween Decorations

Day 1, September 8, 2017 - Resort Exploration and Epcot
Day 1, Part 1 "How can I be expected to work at Disneyworld?"
Day 1, Part 2 "Stop giving me the side-eye, bird! I'm not causing the construction!"
Day 1, Part 3 "It's like your first day of school!"
Day 1, Part 4 "You don't need a Fastpass"
Day 1, Part 5 "We've gone too far already"
Day 1, Part 6 "Can you translate?"
Day 1, Part 7 "I can't find Remy!"
Day 1, Part 8 "Let's get them in case we have to get evacuated" or "Ice wine is not meant to be chugged"
Day 1, Part 9 "I had no idea that was here!"

Intermission: Disneyland Mickey Halloween Party Mini Trip Report
Real life update: Harry Potter Halloween decorations!

Day 2, September 9, 2017 - Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom
Day 2, Part 1 "Who's DiVine?"
Day 2, Part 2 "Do dinosaurs have nipples?"
Day 2, Part 3 "It's like you're [NSFW]"
Day 2, Part 4 "I think I will name her Irma"
Day 2, Part 5 "We have a fastpass?"

Intermission: The Most Surreal Experience Ever - Riding Star Tours with Luke Skywalker!

Day 2, Part 6 "Happy Birthday"
Day 2, Part 6b "What Type of Cake do you Like?"
Day 2, Part 7 "That mystery princess looks familiar"
Day 2, Part 8 "When you give a photopass photographer a camera"
Day 2, Part 9 "You don't have to go home...wait, you do!"

Intermission: Disneyland Christmas
Part 1: Decorations
Part 2: Entertainment
Part 3: Ride Overlays
Part 4: Food

Day 3, September 10, 2017 - Irma
"What are Chippendale dancers doing at Disney?"

Day 4, September 11, 2017 - Irma Cleanup
Day 4, Part 1 "It would be really cool to see an alligator."
Day 4, Part 2 "Is there another hurricane?"

Day 5, September 12, 2017
Day 5, Part 1 "Yes, I look like you!"
Day 5, Part 2 "Oh *@#$^*"
Day 5, Part 3 "Why are you making me order ahead of time?"
Day 5, Part 4 "You've done this before..."
Day 5, Part 5 "But how do you hear with flowers in your ears?"
Day 5, Part 6 Pre-Party Prep
Day 5, Part 7 MNSSHP
Day 5, Part 8&9 Dessert Party, Boo To You Parade, Fireworks and leaving the party early

Day 6, September 13, 2017
Day 6, Part 1 Future World West
Day 6, Part 2 Future World East
Day 6, Part 3 Sister-Sister!
Day 6, Part 4 Searching for shade in the showcase
Day 6, Part 5 First time at DHS
Day 6, Part 6 A mini resort-hop
Day 6, Part 7&8 Happily Ever After & Extra Magic Hours

Day 7, September 14, 2017
Day 7, Part 1 Crossing to the Dark Side!
Day 7, Part 2 Diagon Alley
Day 7, Part 3 Hogsmeade
Day 7, Part 4&5 "I thought I liked roller coasters!" & "Is there a small child we can borrow?"
https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...ted-3-21-brunch.3636518/page-14#post-58797745
Intermission: Disneyland update - Lunar New Year
Day 7, Part 6 Exploring the rest of USO
Day 7, Part 7 Exploring Diagon Alley
Day 7, Part 8 A Chill Evening
Intermission: Disneyland adjacent-Knotts Berry Farm

Day 8, September 15, 2017
Day 8, Part 1 "I have lost all trust in your fashion sense"
Day 8, Part 2 "Pick her!"
Day 8, Part 3 Back to Pandora
Day 8, Part 4 The Longest Safari...ever...
Day 8, Part 5 "You tired, Goofy?"
Day 8, Part 6 Rushed Evening
Day 8, Part 7 "This is totally getting cancelled"

Day 9, September 16, 2017 - 4 Park Day
Day 9, Part 1 In the Big Blue World
Day 9, Part 2 "Welcome to my spaceship"
Day 9, Part 3 Boats are the best way to travel!
Day 9, Part 4 Dismeet!
Day 9, Part 5 "Hi again!"
Day 9, Part 6 "Want a fastpass?"
Day 9, Part 7 A final romp thru Frontierland
Day 9, Part 8 A Frustrating Dinner
Day 9, Part 9 Goodbye to MK!

Day 10, September 17, 2017
Day 10, Part 1&2 Brunch with Afritude!
Day 10, Part 3 "They have a narwhal!"
Day 10, Part 4 Photopass Fail
Day 10, Part 5 Up close and personal with a stormtrooper
Day 10, Part 6 All of the Magic Shots!
Day 10, Part 7 Droid Smuggling!
Day 10, Part 8 "Knock knock knock"

Day 11, September 18, 2017
Day 11, Part 1 "Where's my phone!?!"
Day 11, Part 2 "Look at the cute bats"
Day 11, Part 3 Active African Animals
Day 11, Part 4 Pandora and Lunch!
Day 11, Part 5 A Chilly Plane Ride!

Final Thoughts

 

[dnllmz]

Joining in!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Pre-Trip: "Am I crazy?"

Now, normally trip reports start up maybe the day of (or the day before). Well, for me it starts a couple weeks before!

As most everyone knows, at the end of August, Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, especially Houston with devastating results. In many of those news stories I started to pay attention to talk about another weather depression forming off Africa. I bookmarked the National Hurricane Center (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/) and checked it at least once daily. Eventually that depression became a storm and was officially named...IRMA!

For a while there, I kept track of the storm, but tried to keep it in the back of my mind. I figured, maybe we'll just get extra rain and such, which would affect rides/shows being open, but it'll all be ok. Many of the storm forecasts, while still early, showed Irma staying east of Florida and avoiding the US entirely.

On Saturday, September 2 I started texting my sister: In one week we'll be in disney! And we were both so excited!

But then, Sunday, the forecasts started shifting, showing Florida in the cone of probability, so I started to get a bit nervous. Monday was Labor Day (and my sister's birthday), and it was looking more and more likely Irma was going to come pretty close to Florida, right around the time we would be arriving. I talked about it with my mom and basically decided, if there becomes a travel advisory, then I'll rethink things.



Tuesday morning I got a text from @Raeven that she and Josh may be cancelling their trip (we had hoped to have a dismeet). That's when I started to get worried! Someone I knew was taking it seriously! I checked the airlines and at that moment no one had an advisory for Orlando, so I hoped it would all be ok. Within the next hour or so, Southwest then decided to create an advisory for anyone traveling to Orlando; of course Alaska (who I had booked through) did not have an advisory yet! Uh oh!



So, now I had to seriously consider-what happens if our flights get cancelled (FYI, we were supposed to arrive Saturday evening)? I could do:
1) Postpone trip by a week. I didn't really want to consider this one. It would mean so many of our plans that I had diligently been planning would be gone. And we would start getting into higher crowd season, which I didn't really like.
2) Postpone trip until next year (spring). This may allow me to redo the planning. This would suck so much though! I stressed so much over this planning, I didn't want to think about doing it again!
3) Arrive earlier and deal with the storm! This was crazy, right! We would be traveling TO a hurricane! Well, we all know how that turned out...

I checked with my sister to see if she had any phone calls later that week (her job has a lot of webex's and conference calls), as well as checked my calendar to see if I had any meetings. Luckily both of our schedules were open, so I warned her to avoid scheduling anything! Most of my co-workers stopped by my office and were convinced I was cancelling my trip, and were pretty shocked I was considering going earlier!

When I got home that night, Alaska still didn't have a travel advisory. I thought more and more and after dinner turned to my sister and said-we need to change our flights! Most people would just arrive one day early, on Friday, but we decided to throw caution to the wind and arrive on Thursday! My sister was able to change for free, but I had to pay a $125 change fee (though I ended up getting a refund of 10,000 airline miles). I also was able to book 2 nights at Pop Century! using my AP discount. I considered just getting 2 nights at POFQ, but decided to save money and also get a chance to see another resort!

Ended up being a good decision to arrive earlier, as MCO would have been closed by the time our original flights were supposed to arrive, so they would have been cancelled!



So here we were, 36 hrs away from traveling! That evening started a flurry of activity! Need to pack (luckily I had done about 1/2 of it over the weekend); needed to do laundry; needed to get final supplies, as well as for a hurricane; Lauren needed to finish an order for her etsy store! Somehow in that I also was able to switch around a bunch of ADRs from Sunday/Monday (our first 2 days which would have been the most likely to be affected by the storm).

And every half hour I could never stop asking myself: Am I crazy?

 

[mamamelody2]

Following along!

 

[dvc at last !]

Joining the TR ...

 

[PlutosRHM55]

Joining in!

I still can't believe you decided to go early and brave Irma. I'm interested to see how that affected your plans, especially for a first timer.

 

[ariane37]

Joining! And fwiw I'd love to hear your WDW/DL comparisons I've only been to DL once in 1994, I'm dying to go back but DH isn't interested.

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[Raeven]

For a while there, I kept track of the storm, but tried to keep it in the back of my mind

Wow! You were keeping track of it even longer than I was! I was keeping track for about 2 weeks, and those 2 weeks drove me crazy!

Tuesday morning I got a text from @Raeven that she and Josh may be cancelling their trip (we had hoped to have a dismeet). That's when I started to get worried!

Southwest then decided to create an advisory for anyone traveling to Orlando; of course Alaska (who I had booked through) did not have an advisory yet! Uh oh!

Yeah I started to get really worried around the time that travel advisory was issued before that I was going to try to make it, but I started to think our flight would end up canceled. Then I started thinking how we'd lose so much vacation time anyway since we split our trips between Disney and USO 2 days seems like such a large portion to lose.

So, now I had to seriously consider-what happens if our flights get cancelled (FYI, we were supposed to arrive Saturday evening)? I could do:

And they would've so that was good thinking!

When I got home that night, Alaska still didn't have a travel advisory.

I think Southwest issued the longest advisory! I was even concerned about our flight the following weekend, because it was still going on.

 

[Dentam]

Joining in! We were there from Labor Day through Friday evening, also staying at Pop. We had such a great time and were lucky that our original flights got us out of MCO before it shut down. Looking forward to reading about your trip!

 

[absolutmey]

Following along!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Day 0, Part 1 “Baby’s First Hurricane?”

We woke up bright and early (4:30 am) on Thursday, September 7.

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The previous day had been full of finishing up everything at work as well as packing. We had a total of 4 suitcases: one for my sister’s clothes and stuff, one for my clothes and stuff, one for supplies (most of which were collected pre-hurricane), and one for water ! One of my co-workers does work with Disneyland and was talking to someone in Florida who said they were all running out of water, so I panicked and grabbed a case of water at the store! (It actually worked out in the end as we used that extra suitcase for souvenirs/inefficient packing!)

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My mom graciously offered to drop us off at LAX, and Lauren’s boyfriend came to help her with bags. We didn’t have any real issues with LA traffic and were able to use my EZPass to get in the carpool lane and bypass the worst of it.

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First mom dropped Lauren and her boyfriend off at Terminal 1 (Southwest), then looped around to Terminal 6 (Virgin America). No issues dropping off my bags and getting thru TSA (I have precheck from when I was doing a lot of travel for work – which, btw, if you are considering, get it! It’s awesome, lasts for 5 yrs, and just costs $80ish plus one fingerprint session).

Aside-I dislike flying out of LAX. When given the chance I much prefer Burbank or Ontario which are much closer to my house and also so non-busy I can sometimes leave my house 1 hr before flight boarding time and still have time to drive, park (or valet), security, and stop and grab a pastry at the airport before boarding my flight! LAX used to be a very dismal airport with not many amenities outside of the massive Bradley International terminal. Well in the past few years they have really been working to improve that. So now, it is still dismal in the parking garages and drop off areas, but once you get thru security, it is actually pretty nice with lots of open ceilings and good food places! Now they are trying to get a new airport-train system which will be awesome once open! End of Aside.

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I got to my gate with plenty of time to spare (my sister’s flight was leaving 1 hr before mine, so the timing was based on her flight), so pulled up Moana on Netflix on my phone! I ended up only getting thru half of it, as I kept stopping to check other things online, including the all important Dis boards!

Very quickly, it was time to start boarding. Somehow I was put in a really early boarding zone, so was probably in the first 10 people to board the plane. As I walked down the jetway I just couldn’t stop smiling, I was on my way to Disneyworld! When I sat down I realized no one was in the aisle behind me, and I took this:

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While more people did end up boarding, this is the final result. Because everyone was on board, we were able to leave almost 30 minutes early!

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And best of all…I had a whole row to myself!

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As everyone was boarding a couple with a baby ended up sitting a couple rows behind me and some random guy turns to them and goes: “Baby’s first hurricane?” “Yup, gotta break her in!” Everyone laughed and actually that baby was the quietest I have ever experienced-I forgot until we were disembarking that there she was even there!

The captain greeted us with “Good morning and welcome all you thrill seekers” which got plenty of (nervous) laughs from people!

We took off with no issues and when we turned to head east, I was able to see Disneyland!

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I ended up watching Lego Batman movie, which was pretty good (no Disney movies in the Virgin America system ). But, then for the weirdest/grossest thing to ever happen to me on flight, I felt something on my elbow. Look down and there was a foot! The person behind me decided they were going to stick their bare feet through the arm rest!

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So gross! I was so weirded out and would have said something, but they ended up taking their foot down before I did (but not before I got photo evidence).

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And weirder-during the drink service I looked to the side and they had just moved it to another seat on my row! When they took their foot down though to get a drink I made sure to lift up the arm rests so they couldn’t do that anymore!

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Well, anyways, after Lego Batman, I was getting tired, so I decided to get some rest, which I could since I could stretch across the entire row! I actually put on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and dozed in and out (but I know there was a point when I was definitely asleep because I don’t remember hearing a big section of the movie-I had already seen it in theaters though). Once that was done we were getting closer to Orlando so I decided against a full movie and watched some live TV (I think reruns of sitcoms). Unfortunately I couldn’t get a photo of Disneyworld too because it was too cloudy.

We ended up landing 30 minutes early and it felt a bit surreal when I put on my Magicband for the first time! So excited!

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[Raeven]

And best of all…I had a whole row to myself!

Woohoo!

So gross! I was so weirded out and would have said something, but they ended up taking their foot down before I did (but not before I got photo evidence).

Ew! I recently saw an article online about a woman who was on a plane and that happened and she recorded her reaction

 

[ellynsoh]

Following. Great report

 

[dnllmz]

So gross! I was so weirded out and would have said something, but they ended up taking their foot down before I did (but not before I got photo evidence).

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And weirder-during the drink service I looked to the side and they had just moved it to another seat on my row! When they took their foot down though to get a drink I made sure to lift up the arm rests so they couldn’t do that anymore!

Ewwww! Feet are gross! I hate feet. Why would someone do that? Ugh. Sorry I had to get that out. Glad the flight was otherwise uneventful.

 

[ariane37]

A friend of mine from college has a huge issue with feet and that would have sent her over the edge iI wouldn't have thought it funny if it happened to me but now-it kinda is!

I can only imagine the trill of approaching WDW for the first time it's been so long for me!! And score on the early arrival, it's like pre-pixie dust! A

 

[Lesley Wake]

Ew! I recently saw an article online about a woman who was on a plane and that happened and she recorded her reaction

I know-I read the same one! And it was someone who also had a whole row to themselves, so it was crazy deja vu and the first time it didn't even happen to me!

I checked out who was sitting there when I got up at the end of the flight and it was a couple who had the whole row to themselves, so they were snuggled up together! It was like-really, you can spread out and cuddle, you don't need to invade my row!

 

[punkin1763]

Joining in!!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Welcome everyone, and thanks for reading along!

Day 0, Part 2, “Have fun!” “Oh we will!”

Here it was, 6pm and I was finally in Orlando! Originally Lauren was supposed to arrive 30 minutes after me, but I had arrived 30 minutes early so was debating whether I should hang at the airport as planned or go to resort. Well, that was answered when my phone got service again and I got a text that her connecting flight was delayed at least 1 hr. I guess the runways in Orlando were very congested (probably extra flights trying to pick people up and whisk them away), so flights that hadn’t left yet were being delayed (mine was already in the air when they made that decision). I didn’t exactly want to spend 2 hrs at MCO which I could spend at WDW so decided to just head straight to Pop!

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Another funny story, as I was getting off the plane I noticed the guys sitting on the row across from me had a big news camera with them and were wearing a KTLA hat. My dad has been watching KTLA morning news for almost my entire life, so I’m used to seeing that channel every morning while I eat breakfast so I told them and they thought it was cool. Of course they were shocked when I said I was coming for vacation, while they were coming to film the hurricane! We wished each other good luck and they went off to film the people camped out waiting for flights (the airport was pretty packed), while I headed onto vacation!

Anyways, got off the plane and headed to the fake-o-rail, which was just opening its doors when I got there so I hopped on one right away. Because I knew I had time I decided to go ahead and pick up my luggage rather than having DME take it (remember, no yellow tags since I had changed reservations). I think baggage handlers were really on-the-ball that day (or just didn’t have a whole lot of arrivals), because by the time I made it to the carousel my bags were already coming out!

Grabbed both of those suitcases-didn’t look like water had leaked at all, which was good-and was checked into DME by 6:30. You can see how crowded it was!

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When I walked up there was literally 2 people in the entire area. Shortly afterwards another family of 5 came up into a different line. But then, 2 minutes after arriving (I had been taking time stamped notes on my phone), they put me on a bus! That bus was also super crowded, with maybe 3 people on it already , so the driver told me to go ahead and take the first row. They also boarded that family of 5 and I guess waited to see if anyone else was coming, but by 6:50 we were off!

My driver was pretty nice as he saw me messing with my camera as we approached the WDW gates, so he slowed down for me to get a photo! Unfortunately there was a cloud so I didn’t get the best shot, but oh well. I ended up giving him a decent trip, as he also had to deal with my suitcases.

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I also noticed a lot of Disney Cruise Line buses driving around the resort area that evening, I think it was the day both the Dream and Fantasy dropped off all passengers at Port Canaveral, so I’m sure there was a lot of emergency ferrying to the resort!

By 7:15 I was being dropped off first at Pop Century! 75 minutes from plane landing to arriving at the resort-not bad!

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I also checked on the status of Irma, and it wasn’t looking good.

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I hadn’t received my room ready text yet, so ended up having to go check in at the desk. Well, this was when I was pretty happy I went ahead and came to Pop before my sister as it was a 45 minute wait just to check in! Honestly, it was probably the longest line I would wait in all trip!

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Lots of people trying to check out early, and lots of people being very stressed out! I think the CM was pretty surprised to see me as I was very chill and excited! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a renovated room, as the only room type available when I booked was a Preferred room, and they couldn’t downgrade me. But at least that meant we were super close to the main building. I also declined housekeeping for those 2 nights and got a $10 gift card (kept forgetting to use that at WDW so now I just need to remember the next time I go to DLR).

I thought this sign in the queue was pretty fun:

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As I got all documents, including a Happy Birthday button for my sister and a First Visit button for myself, I made my way to our room a kid held open a door for me. I said thanks and “Have fun”. He replied “Oh we will!”

Some thoughts on Pop!
So, I know a lot of people just love Pop! However I am not one of them. I think for what it is, it is well done. It is cheaper, and more kid-friendly than the moderates and deluxes, which I can understand makes it attractive for families. But I could just tell from the moment I walked in, I probably wouldn’t stay again. Just too much noise and clashing colors and spread out and children screaming and running around (don’t get me wrong, I understand kids at Disney, and I actually don’t think there was anything wrong with them doing that at a Value resort, just not what I would choose). So I was very happy we were only spending 2 nights there.

Also, the female CM outfits-talk about sack of potatoes! Like literally it looks like a grey smock (for both women who were curvier and those who were skinny)! Some of them had maroon sweaters on, which helped things, but they just looked so uncomfortable, with very stiff, itchy fabric! For anyone who hasn’t visited Pop, here is a photo I found online-again not shaming any CM, just the uniform designers! And it seems like they do so much with the "groovy" theme, they could come up with some fun outfits!

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[Raeven]

So, I know a lot of people just love Pop! However I am not one of them. I think for what it is, it is well done. It is cheaper, and more kid-friendly than the moderates and deluxes, which I can understand makes it attractive for families. But I could just tell from the moment I walked in, I probably wouldn’t stay again.

We didn't love it when we stayed, but it wasn't because of the theming or noise really. I am curious to see the renovated rooms so maybe we'll stay there again someday, but it was mostly the buses and the walk to the buses at the end of the night that I didn't like. I didn't love the look of the old rooms either, but I do like the look of the new ones. Also on the same trip we stayed at Cabana Bay which I thought did a lot better with the retro theme, and had nicer rooms for the same price. I don't know if I'd want to stay there for a longer trip though, maybe just a day or two.

Also, the female CM outfits-talk about sack of potatoes! Like literally it looks like a grey smock (for both women who were curvier and those who were skinny)!

These are horrible! And not groovy at all! It's like they picked the most awkward shape and colors for these people.