You Get a Suite! You Get a Suite! Everybody Gets a Suite! December 2023 Trip Report! (Updated 4/26!)

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It’s really nice to have dinner in the resort’s restaurant. I have heard nothing but good things about the wild boar appetizer.

It really is, I love just strolling downstairs to get there. That wild boar was amazing, I will definitely be getting it again, and next time I may need to get my own all for myself! It was the first time we've tried it and I'm so glad we did!

 

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Day 5, Part 1: Complete Change of Plans!​

This morning we had planned to head to Epcot first thing, but the previous night we discussed it and realized we’d rather just hang out in the room for most of the day. Crazy I know.

We had good reason though! Our original plan had been to go to Epcot in the morning, come back to the hotel after lunch to rest, and then head back to HS for Jollywood that evening. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want to be running back and forth from that area, I’d rather either hit up Epcot in the late afternoon and then head to HS, or just skip Epcot altogether and just go to Jollywood that evening.

So the previous night I brought up my concerns with my parents, and we agreed to spend at least the morning in the hotel, which meant I got to sleep in! Wahoo!

I ended up sleeping until a bit after 8:00, and was thrilled when I came out to the main living area to see that my parents had already been to the lounge and had brought me breakfast back, including two coffees, and some pog juice.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs and bacon this morning and was really good!

We had a very lazy, relaxing morning, spent some time out on the balcony, but since it was so cold we didn’t spend a ton of time out there.

A bit before 10 we headed over to the shop to get some gifts. I ended up getting my neighbors who love cats, and were watching my cats this week, a carving of a cat as a thank you gift.

I also got two giraffe carvings for myself, a big and little one since they looked like the two giraffes that spent a ton of time outside our balcony. We had thought it was a mother and baby giraffe, but thanks to the animal caretaker that was fielding questions outside our balcony the other day we learned that all the giraffes in this savanna were males, and the reason they liked to hang out by our room was because it was next to the adjacent savanna where the female giraffes were kept! The “baby” giraffe we saw was actually two years old and was the one that was born on Kilimanjaro Safari!

After shopping we took a bunch of pictures in the lobby again.





I really liked Debra the Zebra, mostly because we have the same name and they spelled it correctly





Once we wrapped up our photoshoot, we swung up to the lounge again to pick up some pog-mosas for the room.

I became a total POG addict this trip. I drank so much of it, and especially loved it in the POG-mosa!

We headed back to the room to rest more and watch more animals.



At one point we moved to the side balcony since it was sunny and MUCH warmer!



Next up: Maybe Swimming Isn’t the Best Idea…​

 

[Stacybaeasm]

Now that I have been to Animal Kingdom lodge for a visit...I just want to stay there! I'm so glad you got a relaxing morning. I took more time to relax this trip than in most previous ones and I have to say...I may never go back to park commando all the time. Coming home without my entire body hurting from walking/standing so much, having some pool time, and not being completely sleep deprived from late nights and early mornings was quite refreshing!

 

[Wood Nymph]

I became a total POG addict this trip. I drank so much of it, and especially loved it in the POG-mosa!

I could totally become a POG-mosa addict, too. I love fruity drinks.

 

[Araminta18]

I became a total POG addict this trip. I drank so much of it, and especially loved it in the POG-mosa!

POG is so good. When I did my leadership training at Disney in August, they provided breakfast every morning and there was always POG juice. On our last day, one of the gals in class asked if they could bring a jug of POG juice into the classroom alongside the water, as a kind of "last day" treat, and they did! We totally drained it. so yummy.

 

[jrmint427]

I ended up sleeping until a bit after 8:00, and was thrilled when I came out to the main living area to see that my parents had already been to the lounge and had brought me breakfast back, including two coffees, and some pog juice.

That sounds like a good idea to sleep in. And even better to wake up to coffee and breakfast!

I became a total POG addict this trip. I drank so much of it, and especially loved it in the POG-mosa!

I want to try a POG mosa! POG juice is the best.

 

[VAtink]

Now that I have been to Animal Kingdom lodge for a visit...I just want to stay there! I'm so glad you got a relaxing morning. I took more time to relax this trip than in most previous ones and I have to say...I may never go back to park commando all the time. Coming home without my entire body hurting from walking/standing so much, having some pool time, and not being completely sleep deprived from late nights and early mornings was quite refreshing!

AKL is such a beautiful resort, it's a great place to stay!

I loved the relaxing morning, we don't do enough of those on our trips! It is so true, taking some down time to actual relax on vacation (wild concept when it comes to Disney!) makes such a big difference. Although it can be hard when there is just so much to do an see!

 

[VAtink]

I could totally become a POG-mosa addict, too. I love fruity drinks.

They are so good, thankfully POG juice isn't easy to find in my area and I'm too lazy to make my own, otherwise I'd probably be drinking POG-mosas every morning!

 

[VAtink]

POG is so good. When I did my leadership training at Disney in August, they provided breakfast every morning and there was always POG juice. On our last day, one of the gals in class asked if they could bring a jug of POG juice into the classroom alongside the water, as a kind of "last day" treat, and they did! We totally drained it. so yummy.

It really is, I love that stuff! That's awesome you got the jug of POG in the classroom, I would have gotten so many glasses of it I probably would have finished the entire jug just by myself!

 

[VAtink]

That sounds like a good idea to sleep in. And even better to wake up to coffee and breakfast!

It was so nice to be able to sleep in, we were getting towards the end of the trip and I was tired! I feel like I got bonus club level service this trip with my parents brining me back breakfast for when I woke up. I was 100% spoiled this trip and I loved every second of it!

I want to try a POG mosa! POG juice is the best.

It was so good, I'm crossing my fingers I can get some on our trip in September!

 

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Mini Intermission – Virtual 10k!

Happy Sunday everyone! Just popping in with a quick mini-TR from this past week!

This week was spring break in MA, so my mom had off from teaching and decided to come down to visit. She actually does this often, but this year we decided to do something completely different, we did the virtual runDisney race! We signed up for the 10k and mapped out a route to do it around my city.

But we’re jumping ahead here, let’s rewind a bit.

So my mom’s flight down here was on Thursday morning bright and early, she was scheduled to land a bit after 7, so I woke up nice and early to get coffee ready and do one last tidying up before she arrived. Well, I wake up to find a text from her that her flight is delayed 30 minutes.

Ok, not a big deal.

Well, then I get another text from her that they’re changing her gate and getting them a new plane since there were issues with the one she was supposed to fly.

Uh oh. It sounds like my flying luck has been transferred to my mom!

She made it to the new gate, only to find out that there were mechanical issues with the new plane as well! So we waited and waited, there were other flights down I was trying to nudge her to take, like a 7am, and 8am, and 9am, etc. Seriously they have a flight every hour. But she didn’t want to bother.

I was thrilled when she finally texted she was on the plane right around 8am, so like 2.5 hours late. At that point I figured it was safe to take a shower and get the house ready for her.

Well, I was wrong. I get out of the shower and check to see where her plane is, and I see it still hasn’t left yet! She had boarded like 30 minutes before then and it’s a small plane, so I was starting to worry.

Finally at about 9am it showed that her flight had taken off! It was weird though, the jetblue app still showed it hadn’t left, but the flight aware app showed it had and was already flying. The tracking was off the whole flight, where the plane was on the map kept going back and forth, so I wasn’t really sure where she was. I like watching since I know I need to leave to go get her when they start their approach to land, but this day I had to guess based on the time passed when that would be since the tracking was soo off.

Fortunately, it’s a super short flight and I’m less than 10 minutes from the airport, so left to get her around 9:45.

I got there a bit before she did, and went to wait where she would be coming out. Soon enough I saw her! She was finally here! Yay!

We quickly hugged, then went outside to call for an uber, which came quickly and a few minutes later we were at my house where my dog, Dug, went absolutely nuts seeing her! My dog LOVES my mom, I think he may like her more than me!

Fortunately we didn’t have any big plans this day that we missed due to her being so late. We did have lunch reservations, which I modified to be a bit later as her plane kept getting more and more delayed.

After settling in a bit it was time to head over to lunch, so we walked over to the restaurant.

We went to this place right on the water with great views and food. We lucked out with the weather this day, it was beautiful out, so we decided to eat outside. I’m so glad we did, the view was amazing, and it was just a perfect day.

We of course ordered some drinks to start!





I got a margarita and mom got something with gin, I totally forgot which one it was, oops!

One cool thing about this place is the planes fly super close while landing at DCA.



Mom getting ready to get a picture of a plane flying by.

For lunch I got this pasta with pear and walnuts and mom got a crab cake with a side salad.





It was all amazing! (am I the only one who sees a hidden Mickey with the crab cake?!?)

Before leaving we ordered some food to go that we planned to have for dinner that night.

After lunch we swung by some stores on the way home to get some goodies, then made it home to do some stuff around the house.

My mom really wanted to try this lobster pasta salad I make, so we decided to get the cooking part of that done this afternoon so it would be easy to throw together for lunch the following day.

The afternoon was pretty low key, besides the cooking we did a bit of yard work, but didn’t want to do too much since we had the 10k coming up the next morning!​

 

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Intermission part 2: Virtual 10k!

Today was the day, 10k day!

I had mapped out the route a few weeks earlier which began with the first few miles along the waterfront, then finishing up in the historic district winding through the streets to see all the beautiful old houses. It ended near city hall, which is on the main street where all the shops are, so we planned after finishing to do a bit of shopping before heading home.

Since we planned to do shopping after the race, we delayed our start time to end up in town when the stores opened, which is fairly late, around 11 or 12, so we didn’t start the 10k until a bit before 10am.

I timed the race on my watch, and connected it to my phones gps, which I’m glad I did since there was construction along the route that we had to take a detour to get around which threw off the original mile marks from the route and extended the route so it was helpful having the gps to let me know when to end the race!

The first mile of the race went by really quickly, and it was right in front of the boathouse I row out of!



We continued on along the waterfront to mile 2, taking pictures along the way.




This is our latest art installation, Interstellar. They change it out every few months, which is really cool to get new art in here so often!

Finally we made it to mile 2, which was by the new waterfront area, which while nice, is kinda sterile.



A bit before mile 3 we turned away from the river and continued up under the beltway.



Mile 3 was under the beltway just in front of Jones Point Park as was mile 3.1 (halfway!!! )



Around 3.5 miles we turned back into town and started winding our way through the historic district. It’s super pretty there, and the route I made had us going up and down each block, so we got to see a lot!

The one downside is the historic district also has “historic” sidewalks, so we spent more time looking down at the ground to make sure we didn’t trip on the bricks than we did looking at the pretty houses!

Miles 4 an 5 were in the historic district neighborhoods.





Soon after mile 5.5 we found ourselves on Captains Row, of course we got pictures.





Before long we hit mile 6! Only 0.2 miles to go!



Due to the construction detour earlier in the race, we got to end about two blocks earlier than planned, which worked out well since it ended the race right in front of City Hall!



We were pretty wiped out at the end, which we had to laugh about since this was only a fraction of the distance we do during a day in Disney, but something about doing that much walking in Disney just doesn’t feel so bad!

After we finished we went to sit on a bench for a bit and eat some apples I had packed in my bag to hold us over until lunch.

Even though we were pretty tired, we still managed to make it to some stores afterwards, a spice store, and then a local wine shop to get stock up!

Afterwards we headed home for some much-needed rest!

Once home we popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate and got pictures with the medal!





We had a lazy afternoon around the house, which was very welcome!

We did have dinner reservations this evening, but fortunately the place is only like a 5 minute walk from my house, so around 5:15 we headed over.

This place is new, just opened a few weeks ago, and I had not tried it yet so was excited to check it out!

We got seated quickly and per usual ordered drinks to start.



I got basically a whiskey sour and mom got kind of a margarita. These drinks were soooo good!

For dinner mom ordered the burger and I got the short ribs.





The food was really good, I’m impressed with this new place! The service was a bit slow though, took forever to get water refills, and after we finished it took over 30 minutes for our server to appear to get the check. Overall though it was a great meal!

After dinner we headed home to rest and watch some tv. We ended up watching Wish, which we really liked! ​

 

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Intermission Part 3!

We woke up super early this morning, much earlier than I would have liked, but we had places to be! (well place to be)

Saturday mornings we have a huge farmers market in town, and if you don’t get there early it is annoyingly packed with people, so it’s best to get there before 7:30-8 if possible. That unfortunately means waking up early on the weekend.

So we were up around 6:30 to have some coffee and get ready. We were pretty slow this morning so didn’t end up heading out until a bit after 7:15.

It’s a bit of a walk over there, about 20-23 minutes, so we didn’t arrive until closer to 7:45. It was already getting fairly crowded at that point, but still not wall to wall people like it gets later in the morning, so not too bad.

We spent time wandering around, checking out all the booths. We ended up getting some veggies for dinner that evening, a loaf of berry bread (which is so ridiculously good), some hard cider from a local cider place, and some fruit. We were also given a few roses from one of the vendors, he likes to give the ladies roses when they walk by.

After getting all our goodies we slowly made our way home (our legs were tired!)

Once home we took my pup for a long walk, then decided to spend the day doing yard work since my yard was starting to get overgrown, and it’s helpful having additional hands to try to tame it!

We got a lot done, ended up with three leaf bags full of yard debris! In the end it looked really good, I’m so thankful my mom loves doing stuff like that to help me out!


My dog showing off our work, that fence had been completely covered with weeds!

In the early evening I cooked up a birthday dinner for the two of us. We like to celebrate each others birthday during this April trip since it’s close to both of our birthdays.

This evening I was making steak with a side of roasted brussels sprouts, and a mushroom sauce. It came out amazing!



We ended up eating outside to enjoy the weather and the freshly cleaned back yard!

My dog did his best job begging throughout the meal.



It was a great dinner, and afterwards we once again had a lazy evening watching some tv before calling it a day.

It was a short trip, so this morning we got up super early, again, to take my mom to the airport for her flight home.

While short, it was a really fun mini vacation! It’s always great to see my mom, and it was a lot of fun to do the 10k with her!

Alright, now back to your regularly scheduled TR!​

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Well, first your dog is beyond adorable. Second, what a fun mini vacation at home. The idea of having so many fun things within walking distance sounds so delightful to me. How clever to design yourself a 10K around the area! All your meals look and sound delicious. I LOVE a good farmer's market! Yard work, on the other hand, I absolutely hate but there's definitely a sense of accomplishment when you see it all cleaned up and can enjoy the space!

 

[VAtink]

Well, first your dog is beyond adorable. Second, what a fun mini vacation at home. The idea of having so many fun things within walking distance sounds so delightful to me. How clever to design yourself a 10K around the area! All your meals look and sound delicious. I LOVE a good farmer's market! Yard work, on the other hand, I absolutely hate but there's definitely a sense of accomplishment when you see it all cleaned up and can enjoy the space!

Aw, thanks! And Dug says thanks too! It's so nice having so much within walking distance, it's the main reason I decided to finally sell my car. It's a bit weird being carless, but at the same time it saves so much money I love it!

The food we had was all so good, there are some really great restaurants around me. I agree on the yardwork, I absolutely hate it, but my mom loves it and having the extra hands and someone to talk to while doing it does make it a bit better! And to be fair, my mom loves it so much I usually stop sooner than her and then sit out there enjoying a drink while she keeps on pulling out weeds. Yes, I'm very lucky!

 

[Araminta18]

How fun to have your mom come visit and to do the virtual race! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Paulaparm]

Doing the Virtual race was an awesome idea! Glad you and your mom had a good visit.

 

[jrmint427]

Once home we popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate and got pictures with the medal!

It sounds like a great mini vacation with your mom, congrats on the 10k!!

 

[Wood Nymph]

After settling in a bit it was time to head over to lunch, so we walked over to the restaurant.

We went to this place right on the water with great views and food. We lucked out with the weather this day, it was beautiful out, so we decided to eat outside. I’m so glad we did, the view was amazing, and it was just a perfect day.

I love the fact that you can walk to such a beautiful view with outdoor dining. It looks like being on vacation.

I had mapped out the route a few weeks earlier which began with the first few miles along the waterfront, then finishing up in the historic district winding through the streets to see all the beautiful old houses. It ended near city hall, which is on the main street where all the shops are, so we planned after finishing to do a bit of shopping before heading home.

I didn't realize that you could do your own route for a Disney virtual race. That is very cool and it looks like an interesting route.

Once home we popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate and got pictures with the medal!

Congratulations! A 10K is a really long race. I've done a few of them in my younger days.

Saturday mornings we have a huge farmers market in town, and if you don’t get there early it is annoyingly packed with people, so it’s best to get there before 7:30-8 if possible

I loved going to the Farmers' markets in downtown Chicago when I worked there. The hardest part was bringing the heavy fruit and vegetables back home.

We got a lot done, ended up with three leaf bags full of yard debris! In the end it looked really good, I’m so thankful my mom loves doing stuff like that to help me out!

It looks like you had a great weekend.

 

[Stacybaeasm]

I love that you and your mom are so close and just really enjoy spending time together. What a great weekend!!!

And your doggo is so adorable. I especially love his grey little snout.