You Are Going To Relax, Gosh Darn It! A June 2023 Trip Report

[MamaMouse0920]

Following!!

 

[tazdev3225]

I'm hoping I remember to follow along, I was there the same time you were. TI may even decide to do a trip report at some point before I head down in October for my solo trip.

 

[disney castle days]

The Best Sandwich on Disney Property? And a Riveria Room Review

Well, apparently having 2 full-time jobs is a lot more work than I expected... But we are 62 days out from our next trip so I figured it was about time I update this!

The last time I updated, we had just gotten our room number as we ran out of battery.
We headed up to our room, which was a 1 BDR Preferred View.

Of course, I took a Snapchat video of the room, but no photos.
Overall we really enjoyed the room at the Riveria. We stayed at Grand Floridan in 2022 and I found the Murphy bed to be uncomfortable, but this bed was very comfortable. I thought the layout of the kitchen made the room feel smaller than the rooms at other DVC resorts. Our view was of the water/Caribbean Beach and overall it was a very peaceful balcony.
Now let's get into the best chicken sandwich on Disney property.
I am an EXTREMELY picky eater, mostly because I am lactose intolerant and don't eat most red meats so I am usually a chicken fingers person. I had seen reviews for a chicken sandwich from Primo Piatto and it looked really good, so I decided to give it a try.

(Mine is on the bottom)

From the website: "
Balsamic-marinated Grilled Chicken with a Sun-dried Tomato Relish, Spinach-Artichoke Spread, and Mozzarella on Toasted Focaccia served with a choice of Side
$12.49".

This has got to be the best food I have ever eaten at Disney. It was a fairly large piece of chicken (I think breast?). The Spinach-Artichoke spread complimented the sandwich very well, I am typically a pesto person but this was really good.

My mom got the Cheddar Burger.
From the website: "1/3 lb Grilled Signature-blend Burger with Brisket and Chuck topped with Aged Cheddar, Shredded Lettuce, Tomato, and Garlic-Mayonnaise on a Toasted Brioche Bun served with choice of side".

I just asked my mom if she remembers it, and her quote is "it was a hamburger", so obviously she is not dreaming about it like I am with the chicken sandwich (and the wings from Bar Riva that you will hear about later).

At this point, it was getting a bit stormy out again...



I was being my typical bookworm self while waiting for the storm to subside. I was not about to go on the Skyliner by myself in the rain (as if it was running anyway...) so I did some reading while my mom tried to rest enough to go to the after-hours.

Next up: How Many Rides Can I Do In 2 1/2 Hours?

 

[disney castle days]

How Many Rides Can I Do In 2 1/2 Hours?

My mom was tired and jetlagged, so she decided to not come to the After Hours with me. As a little ball of anxiety, I was a bit nervous as I had never been to Epcot or rode the Skyliner alone.

After having watched the storms roll in and out, I figured that there was a good chance that the skyliner was not running but I couldn't tell. I headed down to the front desk to ask a cast member, who said that it should be running.

As I walked over, the sky was looking like this:



When I got to the Skyliner entrance, I was met with a fun little sign telling me that the Skyliner was down due to weather.

A wave of relief rushed over me as I headed to the Disney transportation that I am most comfortable on: the buses.

The bus people must of had the same information as the front desk, because there were no buses coming. Like none.

After waiting 35 minutes, some random dad finally asked a Magic Kingdom bus driver when they were sending an Epcot bus. The driver said that we should take the Skyliner, to which the dad said that it was closed. They finally sent us a bus and were headed to the park.

I got into the park around 7:40 after having a nice conversation with a girl who was doing the DCP on the bus.

My first stop of the day was Test Track since it had been going down all day due to the weather. The posted line was about 60 minutes, but I went single rider and waited around 20.

I was sat with a mom and a maybe 6/7 year old who was having the time of her life. We got stopped right before the launch for about 6 minutes before randomly restarting, which definitely scared the 6-year-old and totally did not scare me, a 20-year-old...

I then went over to the Seas. I honestly have no clue why I went in the order I did, but I am not going to question it. It was posted at 5 minutes, and it was a walk-on.


Ride number 3 was Spaceship Earth, which was posted at 5 minutes. As you could see in the picture, it was way before the 10 pm start of After Hours. It was 8:45 at this point. The total wait came to about 4 minutes to thank the Phonecians.



My next stop was Soarin'. At this point, it was 9:15 and they had started to check wristbands for the event. Soarin' was a walk-on. I was in the third row, which was a first for me. I was a little scared (I hate heights), but other than being afraid my shoes were going to fly off it was fine.

While in the Land Pavillion, I decided to go over to Living with the Land. The three cast members were pretty surprised anyone was going on it. I had the entire boat to myself, and I just enjoyed the calmness while trying to convince myself that I could do GOTG by myself.

I think on my way over to Figment I stopped for a Sprite and a popcorn, but I didn't write it down.

My next stop was Figment at 9:55. This was not-surprisingly a walk-on. I had the ride vehicle to myself and I think there was only other occupied vehicle in the group. I love this because I can sing (scream) at the top of my lungs without having anyone (my mother) glare at me.

Next up was:


Now I am NOT a rollercoaster person. I have ridden 2 rollercoasters in my entire life: Big Thunder and Space Mountain. I also had not really eaten since that sandwich and it was about 10:15 at this point. So imagine being hungry, dehydrated, up for 15 hours, and not super keen on rollercoasters. Yeah...

I 100% tripped up the stairs after the ride and decided that I needed to get food and sit down.

Now for my overall impression of the ride: will not voluntarily do that again. I get the appeal, but I thought I was going to fly out of the leg restraints and I was getting thrown around like a rag doll.

I grabbed a soda and popcorn, and then while trying to find a bench I dropped the soda and popcorn. So now I was
hungry, dehydrated, up for 15 hours, soaking wet, and sticky.

I knew that we were going to do the rat ride on our Epcot day tomorrow, and decided that having to walk to Frozen Ever After and the Mexico ride and then back to the front of the park (Skyliner was closed) was not going to be worth it when we had a 9:10 Garden Grill ADR the next morning (I wonder what idiot planned that... oh wait...).

Next up: Will we break the Epcot Curse?

 

[erinch]

Glad you’re back!

 

[disney castle days]

Will We Break the Epcot Curse?

I have no clue if I have mentioned it in previous TRs, but my family has a bit of a "curse" when it comes to our Epcot days. We say the curse started back in 2016 when my mom had a medical episode at MouseGears, but honestly, I remember it happening on almost every trip. Epcot just never seems to go completely right, someone always gets sick or has a breakdown.

While I would say that I broke the curse during the after-hours, I was a bit queasy post-GOTG sooooooo not sure I can completely count it

My mom was up early to get a LL for the rat ride, and I could have slept in but, I was taking this photo at 6:45 am.



Our rat ride reservation was for around 3:30, so we could sleep in buttttttt some genius (wonder who?) decided to make a 9:10 breakfast reservation for Garden Grill.

We made our way over to the Skyliner around 8:25. There was early opening (or whatever they call it) at 8:30, but there was only a few people in line.

We got into Epcot and took a nice stroll over to Garden Grill and took some pictures on the way.



The weather was not looking great, but it is June in Disney so we were expecting it.

Like I said our ADR for GG was at 9:10, but we were sat early at 8:55. There weren't many people there.




We got our first round of food. The watermelon was very fresh. The Cinnamon Bread Loaf was alright, but we both preferred the giant cinnamon roll that they used to serve here.


The main course was good. I thought the eggs were some of the best I have had at a character meal. I prefer mine to not be runny, so these were cooked perfectly. My mom does prefer her's to be a bit more runny but agreed that they were good. I don't remember much about the other food, it was fairly standard breakfast food. It's pretty hard to mess up breakfast in my eyes.





I know that we saw all the characters, but I can't find pictures of Pluto and Chip(?). The character interactions were fine, nothing super memorable. I am a bit awkward around characters, as I know quite a few people who are friends with characters now so I get a little weirded out.

I don't have the time we finished written down, but when we finished we went over to Living with the Land which was a walk-on.

Leaving the land Pavillion, we realized that it must have just rained. The sidewalk was wet (and no one was around).

We then went over to Nemo to sing In a Big Blue World, although I was a lot quieter than last night to appease my mom.

We headed to Figment next with the plan to take a break at the DVC lounge afterward. Unfortunately, the lounge was closed so we looked around the shop for a bit instead.

At this point, the sun was finally coming out, and my mom does not fair well in the heat so she decided that it was time for us to head out of the park.

We took the Skyliner back to the Riveria and headed to a meal that would change our lives...




We sat at the table that was on the sidewalk just outside of the restaurant. Our server was Mary, whom we would see multiple times this trip and cannot wait to see next trip.

We had also watched many videos about this place, so we decided to go with the chicken sandwich and sticky wings to split.



This is the same sandwich from the day before, still amazing, still one of my favorite foods on the property.

I saw one of my favorites because oh my lord THE WINGS.

From the website: "

• Sticky Chicken Wings - Drizzled with Chipotle Agrodolce and Truffle Aïoli - $14.99"

These were SO GOOD. I am not a wing fan, but these were more sweet than spicy and had a great tang to them. They did provide us with wet towels, which was much needed because they were MESSY. I 100% would get these again (and we did).

While here we also got our resort mugs. I don't have a picture but it is the basic Disney 100 purple ones. I don't remember what I got, but we both also got glasses of ice water.

The curse is somewhat broken at this point, but we have rat ride reservations at 3:30...

What can go wrong?

 

[disney castle days]

The Freaking Rat Ride

Last post we had somewhat defeated the Epcot curse and were enjoying a relaxing lunch at Bar Riva.

After a bit of a break, it was time to head back to Epcot for our first time on the Rat Ride.

I have not seen any spoilers of the ride, as I really wanted to be surprised and not influenced by the YouTuber's opinions. I believe my mom had seen videos, but honestly, I can't remember.

We headed back around 3:15 for our 2:50 ILL.

As we passed by the France pavilion on the Skyliner, we looked at our impending doom: a GIGANTIC line.

We got over to the rat ride and saw the posted standby line of 120 minutes and were thankful for our ILL. And then we looked over and realized that the line going out of the pavilion was the Lightning Lane...



The ride had broken down earlier in the day so everyone was coming back to redeem their LL at the same time.

Now mind you, it was well over 100 degrees at this point in the day.

The kids in the line in front of us were not having it, and neither was my mother. I wanted to wait, mainly because we had paid for it, but my mother was moping and moaning about how hot it was.

We wound up waiting about 30 minutes in total for the ride.

For a less than 5-minute ride. Needless to say, my mother was fuming.

I didn't actually mind the ride. I wouldn't wait 120 minutes, ever, for that ride but it was cute. Probably not worth the money of the LL (I didn't write down the cost), but cute.

Now with my mother steaming and no plans for dinner we decided to get every YouTuber's favorite festival treat: Frushi.

I was excited to try this, I am not a sushi person but I like fruit and rice so I figured I would probably like it.

There was maybe one other person in line, and we got the food fairly quickly.

We managed to find a standing table, although there were some complaints from the other person in my party about how there was no seating.



My overall thoughts on the frushi was that it tasted like rice. Like I said, I like rice but my mother was not pleased that we had spent almost $8 "on three rice balls".

It was mostly definitely time for my mother to leave the parks.

But, I was supposed to be meeting up with Gavin around this time. So I figured I would stay and she could go back. She didn't want to ride the Skyliner by herself, which inevitably caused a fight. Shocker.

I wound up canceling my plans and going back to the hotel with her, very grumpily.

I think I wound up sitting outside and reading a book or something to cool down.

Like I said earlier, we didn't have dinner plans for that night, so we ordered Primo Piato.

One of our biggest complaints with the Riveria is that the QS does not have "normal theme park food" for adults. All their lunches/dinners are very adult-y and sometimes I just want chicken fingers.

I ordered the kid's chicken tenders and my mom ordered the kid's pasta and a cheesecake.

The meal was not rememberable. It was chicken fingers and pasta.

We watched YouTube and chilled for the rest of the night and prepared for the next day.



So I am going to say that we did not break the Epcot curse.

I guess there is always a next trip

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I swear we had the AK curse for years but finally redeemed ourselves two trips ago. I feel your pain!

 

[disney castle days]

Let's do NOTHING
Hello Friends, it has been quite some time since I last updated. In fact, an entire trip has happened & another one is planned
But I figured it was about time to work on this again, and what a better way to start than a day where we did NOTHING
So at some point during the whole EPCOT debacle the day before, my mother had injured her hip. I still don't know how or what happened, but she woke up the next morning limping.
We did our favorite tradition of Disney sunrises and donuts while deciding on what to do.


We had ADRs for Sci-Fi for dinner, but decided that it was probably not going to be a park day for my mom so we canceled it.

I guess we decided that it was too late to cancel our ADR for Cape May Cafe breakfast, so we headed over there first.
Of course we had to get a picture of Donald with Harrold:

It was pretty busy this morning. Our ADR was for 10:50, which you think would be quite, but it wasn't.

For my first plate (no pics ), I had fruit, scrambled eggs, a chocolate chip muffin, Mickey waffles, and biscuits & gravy.

My eggs were a tad cold, and I am not a big fan of their mini muffins. My mom had "no complaints" about the eggs.
For my second plate, I had more biscuits and gravy.
If there's one thing you should about me, if there are biscuits and gravy in front of me, I no longer care that I am lactose intolerant. I can eat a million and still want more.
And that is quite literally all the notes I have from this day.
Based on pictures, we sat by the pool and I more than likely read my book.



Also going to guess it started to rain...

I also have another picture of the wings from Bar Riva, so going to guess that we had that for dinner.

My notes from this point on are a little iffy, but in the next post, we switch hotels to my fav, BLT!

 

[disney castle days]

Bro! He dropped the Bag!!

Sunday morning we were up by 7:00, packing the hotel room up because it was time to switch to BLT!

This was our first time doing a split-stay, and it definitely will not be our last!

I did a bit of work before 8 am, because apparently I don't take breaks.

We got Primo Piatto for a quick breakfast before dropping off our bags.


I got Mickey waffles with a side of scrambled eggs. I don't remember this meal, but guessing from the picture that I found the eggs too watery.

We then dropped all of our bags off at bell services and headed to the bus stop to catch a bus to MK.



One last picture of the Riveria. Now that some time has passed, I really like Riveria. My only "complaints" are that the gift shop seemed to be a lot smaller and missing a lot of the food that most DVCs have, and that they should have in-app alerts about if the Skyliner is running.

While waiting for the bus to arrive, there was a Sunshine Flyer bus (RIP) picking some guests up. The bus driver forgot to close the cover to area where the suitcases go, and as he was driving a suitcase went flying off the bus.

A cast member picked it up and I guess made a call because the bus did circle-back after a few minutes. But everyone at the bus stop agreed that we would be pissed if that was our suitcase.

We got to MK at a time that I did not write down, and headed into the Emporium. I was on the hunt for the Miss Piggy Pride pin for one of my roommates who was obsessed with Miss Piggy.



We were successful in the search (and it's an awesome pin!)

The park was pretty crowded this day, it was very hot, and my mother was still limping, so we were taking it very easy.

We headed onto the PeopleMover for some casual people-watching.

I have no clue what time it was at this point, but apparently we were hungry, so we went to Cosmic Rays. I got Chicken Tenders and my mom got a 1/3 Angus Burger. The line to pick up mobile orders was extremely long, I believe we waited some 20 minutes for our food.

We then headed to the train since it was our first trip since it had finally reopened.

Here I am, looking extremely sunburned (and have pretty poor posture).

We got off in Fantasyland and decided to go on The Little Mermaid, which was a 30 minute wait. The wait is always so ungodly long for this ride vs. the posted (although when we went on Christmand Eve it was actually a walk on).

At that point, I was looking like an entire tomato and it was getting HOT. It was still only 2ish, and we didn't have a room yet so we tried to buy some time by getting a frozen coke and a churro.

At this point we headed to the monorail & headed to BLT!