Hello everyone, today marks the start of my first visit to Walt Disney World near Orlando Florida.
I'm typing this from a hotel room at the airport.
My flight will be in 2 stages, first with KLM from Schiphol (Amsterdam) in the Netherlands to Manchester in the UK, then transfer to a plane from Virgin Atlantic for the transatlantic flight to Orlando.
Like my DLP Trip Report last year, I'll try and make this a "Live" report, typing up the days as they come, adding in photos either on the spot or afterwards. This format worked rather well for me at DLP, and I hope it'll work out well here.
At Disney World I'll be staying at the Port Orleans French Quarter resort, which is the smallest one on property. It is however rather centrally located and all parks are relatively close using Disney transportation. I'll be making the trip by myself, much like I did to DLP.
I've got a 10-day "magic your way" ticket with park hopper, leaving one day (currently the last one) for rest and shopping, and spending the rest in the parks. As a fan of the Dining plans at DLP, I'll be on the Deluxe Dining Plan at WDW, and have many restaurant reservations made to make the most of it. ;D
Hopefully you'll enjoy the report as it develops, and do feel free to leave a comment, or ask a question. :)
Now I'm off to bed, I'll need to be up bright and early to check in on time for my flight.
Yeahhhh so excited to read this trip report, have an amazing time 😁
Yeah, hope you have a great time. The few photos I've seen make Port Orleans look really nice
Have a good flight. I look forward to reading your report.
Have a safe trip DisneyRon
Hope you have a wonderful time , and im looking forward to your trip report and pics
Today started bright and early with my alarm going off at 6 to get out of my hotel bed and down to breakfast, after that checking out and moving the ~500 meters or so to the airport and checking in for my flight to Manchester.
The flight itself was uneventful and quick.
Next up was the transfer to my flight to Orlando. Two bus rides and a pair of security checks later I was in the departures lounge of Manchester airport. At boarding time it turned out that the double boarding pass they printed for me at Schiphol wasn't recognised in Manchester, so I was quickly issued a new one. :)
Boarding the 747 took a while longer than planned, but we departed more or less on time.
However the 9 hour flight gave me some time to catch up on some movies I've been meaning to watch, and Big Hero 6, Guardians of the Galaxy and Interstellar all were quite enjoyable. :D I can recommend Virgin Upper Class to anyone, very roomy and top notch service. ;)
After landing Immigration and customs went surprisingly smooth and I was on my way to the shuttle in around 30 minutes.
After the bus had dropped me off I proceeded to check-in at POFQ, the process here was also quick, and in minutes I had my MagicBand and was on my way to the room.
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It was now approximately 19:45, and after dropping off my stuff and resting a few minutes, I made my way to Boatwrights for my first dinner reservation of my stay.
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The food here is delicious, but most dishes include fish or shellfish, so if you're not fond of those, you may find more varried choices elsewhere.
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Mardi Gras Fritters appetizer, surprisingly tasty with a little bite
After dinner I headed back to my room to get some sleep and type up the day's report. :)
Tomorrow it's Hollywood Studios time, let's see if I can be awake in time for rope-drop after being awake for nearly 23 hours. :)
Glad you liked BoatWright's. We too enjoyed the food. Hope you have a great time
My apologies for the interuption here, as the forums decided not to work for a few days, so I have some catching up to do. :D
My biological clock proved that it hadn't reset properly after the flight by waking me up at 3 in the morning, after dozing for a few more hours I got out of bed at around 6 got dressed and decided to check out the Sassagoula Floatworks food court for some breakfast. I got myself a few beignets (which taste nice, but could use some filling) and a nice big bagel with cream cheese. After breakfast I went back to my room for a little while, packing my backpack for the Studios.
At around 7:30 I walked over to the bus stop to wait for a Hollywood Studios bus and headed out to the park.
I arrived at the park around 8, and found a nice spot close to one of the entrance scanners and waited for Rope-drop.
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This is looking back from where I was standing towards the busses, and this was the quiet park for the day ;)
The park opened to guests around 8:45 and I quickly headed to the back of the park to go on "Toystory Midway Mania"
This is an extremely popular attraction, and by chance I managed to arrive well ahead of the first larger groups of people and there was basically no wait at all. The ride was indeed a lot of fun, and after it finished I quickly went to see if I could sneak in another round before the crowds hit... Well, that didn't work out as I'd hoped, by the time I got back to the queue it had already filled up the ride and was standing outside the attraction, and showing a wait time of 35 minutes.
So I decided to head off and look for something else. I didn't have a touring plan as such, I didn't want to plan things out that far, so I walked towards the "Streets of America" which were more or less entirely devoid of people. This isn't an attraction as such, just some streets from various American cities I believe, but it's a pretty nice backdrop for photos. ;)
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At the cinema here they have a replica of the coach used in the movie Cinderella, and since there was nobody waiting in line to have their picture taken with it, I decided to go for that myself. :D
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Next I arrived at Muppets Vision 3D, there were almost no people here yet, and the pre-show had only just started. Perfect timing. :D The attraction itself is a combination of live-action, muppets and computer animation, and while quite short, an enjoyable experience. :)
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By now it was time for my first Fast Pass, "The Great Movie Ride." There were quite a few people waiting inside so I feel the FP was well spent, and it reduced the wait to only a few minutes. The ride itself is interesting, with your CM "Guide" being swapped out for "actors" at various points in the ride. Though the movies featured in the ride are all quite old now, so maybe it's time to update a few of the scenes?
At this point I wandered around a little, and decided to pick up a Cinnamon Churro Milkshake I had read about on the Disney Food Blog, it's quite the thing I must say. Very filling, and rather tasty too, and it was 1 snack credit anyway, I still had plenty of those. ;)
Next FastPass on the list was the Indiana Jones stunt show, and it turns out, a Full House, combined with some technical difficulties make waiting times quite long... I spent about half an hour in the FastPass queue to get in here, the standby waiting time was even worse. To make up for the long wait we were issued an extra Fastpass to use at any point in the day (it's not valid for all rides, but a good selection of them).
The show itself is quite good, similar to Moteurs Action at DLP in terms of setup, but with Indiana Jones, rather than cars. :D well worth seeing.
By now it was lunch time, and I headed to ABC Commisary for some food.
My next Fastpass wasn't until 3 PM, so I had some time to kill, I used my extra FP to do Star Tours, and I have to say, in terms of Story I like the original at DLP better, but this version is certainly more action packed and a more intense ride. This particular showing featured Hoth.
I then went and saw the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, a combined Live Action, Animation and Animatronics show that gives you a 10 minute run of the Little Mermaid movie, including most of the songs. It had been quite a while since I last saw it, so it was fun to do.:)
By now it was almost time for my 3PM Fastpass, and I headed over to Star Tours to do just that. :) This time the destination was Kashykk (or however that is spelled, the wookie homeworld).
The sun beating down on me quite a bit, so I decided to get away from it a little while by heading back to the resort to rest a little bit as I was starting to feel a little faint. I returned to the Studios around 7 for my dinner reservation at the Sci-fi Dine-In. The waiting time was unfortunately rather long (well over 20 minutes to be seated with a reservation), however that didn't really matter much to me. This is an indoor drive-in theatre themed restaurant, with cars serving as your tables and a big movie screen playing clips from 50s sci-fi movies. Very enjoyable indeed, and some pretty tasty food to boot. :) Do bring a small flashlight or something, as the menu isn't always easy to read in the fairly low light conditions inside the restaurant. ;)
After finishing dinner I headed back home to catch some sleep, tomorrow was Animal Kingdom time. :)
Continueing with the catch-up, although I am noticing that you tend to spend a lot more time in the parks, meaning there's not as much downtime in the hotel room to type up reports. ;)
The day started off well, a light breakfast and an early bus to the Animal Kingdom, I arrived well before rope-drop and met a nice lady here, whom I chatted with and did some rides with, she was travelling with a couple, and the boyfriend had just asked his girl to marry him, so they "overslept" somewhat. ;)
Immediately after rope-drop we headed for the Safaris, as the animals are quite active in early in the day, so there would be more to see than usual. :) The wait was maybe 5 minutes, probably less. :) By the time we finished the safari (it's a little over 20 minutes, depending on the route and how many stops your guide makes), Leonore's friends had let her know that they had arrived after oversleeping, and she headed off with them, though we did exchange telephone numbers with the intention of linking up later.
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I headed off to DINOSAUR (yes, it's spelled in all caps in the park too), this is a ride with vehicles similar to the rats in Ratatouille, though not nearly as advanced. It's a relatively mild thrill ride to the time of the dinosaurs, featuring lots of huge animatronic dinos and a crazy time-travel story.
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After exiting DINOSAUR I noticed that the faintness I had felt yesterday had returned, and a little stronger this time. Just to be on the safe side I headed off to the First Aid station to have it checked out, I felt that I may have been running a fever or something. As it turned out, I wasn't running a fever, but my blood pressure was abnormally high.
A few days before leaving to WDW I had developed a nasty pain in my ankle. My doctor, suspecting it was gout again, had prescribed me diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug. The downside to these NSAIDs is that they interfere with blood pressure medication, though I've never really had any unpleasant effects from this interference, apart from an elevated blood pressure compared to the levels they're normally at with my medication.
Apparently the climate in Florida made all the difference here, and my now sky-high blood pressure was wreaking havoc with just about everything. I made the decision to stop using the diclofenac to see if that would help.
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By now it was around noon, I had cancelled my Kali River Rapids FP, as that wasn't going to do me any good.
Heading towards Yak & Yeti I considered spending some time in the cool bar area there while waiting for my 1PM lunch reservation. When I arrived at the restaurant they apparently weren't too busy and could seat me right away for lunch, rather than having me wait around for about an hour. Lunch here is rather nice, the portions are enormous though, so either share Entrees or bring some serious appetite. I had fish taco appetizers and crispy grilled duck as my entree. The crispy duck was lovely, but basically most of an actual duck, so I ended up sending almost half of it back, as I was simply full. By the time lunch was over I felt decidedly terrible, and cancelled all my afternoon fastpasses and headed back to Port Orleans French Quarter to rest.
Hopefully I would feel a little better after a few hours of not doing much, and could make it to my 8PM reservation at Jiko in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.
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Thankfully this was the case, and I headed out looking forward to a nice meal.
This turned out to be a bit of an understatement. The food at Jiko is, in a word, magnificent. As is the atmosphere of the location. There is a giant wall towards the back of the restaurant that slowly changes colour over the course of the evening, recreating the colours of the African sunset, this really sets the mood.
For an appetizer I had "a Taste of Africa", basically a bread-service style dish, with 3 different types of African flat-bread accompanied by 4 different "sauces." This was heavenly, each bread combining differently with the sauces, and each having a different stand-out combination.
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For the entree I had "Harissa Chicken", which American style, is most of a chicken, accompanied with cinnamon cous-cous (an interesting combo of flavours with the spicy chicken), all covered in a lovely rich Saffron broth. I felt like a complete monster for sending almost half the chicken back, as it deserved to be eaten in full, but I just couldn't...
For dessert I chose the "Valrhona Chocolate Mousse and Hazelnut Daquoise Cake", which is a very airy chocolate mousse cake like thing, which tasted amazing, accompanied with fresh strawberries.
During the day I had texted back and forth with Leonore a little bit, and we had decided that we'd have dinner together on Wednesday. I already had a reservation for "Be Our Guest" that evening that I'd try and get a larger party size set for. :)
And we're basically caught up again.
This morning I decided against getting out of bed bright and early for rope-drop at the Magic Kingdom, and wanted to take it a little more easy. I was still feeling a little weak, so let's not rush too much. :) Thankfully, I started to feel much better as the day progressed.
Breakfast was a slightly heavier afair this morning, as I decided to try the "build your own oatmeal" item on the menu. This turned out rather filling, but quite tasty, combined with half a bagle with jam.
I headed off to the Magic Kingdom a little before 9 AM, and arrived at around 9:10. The lines were crazy to put it mildly, I guess there's a reason you want to be bright and early at these parks. It took a good 20 minutes to get into the park from the bus stop... Any way, I did a little walking around to get my bearings as my first FP wasn't until 10:40, I had a ride with Stitch in "Stitch's Great Escape" a mild thrill ride centering around the space prison from the first Lilo and Stitch film.
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I wandered from Tomorrow land to Fantasyland to Frontierland and noticed that the Haunted Mansion only had a 10 minute wait, so I decided to go for that. It's certainly a different experience than Phantom Manor, much less coherent in terms of story, which in my opinion is a missed opportunity. The Paris attraction easily comes out on top as a result.
Next up I wandered into the Hall of Presidents, just as a show was about to start. An interesting experience I have to say, basically a 10-15 minute propaganda presentation I suppose. Interesting for it's historical context perhaps, but not too much beyond that. I did have to laugh at the line of people trying to take pictures with the portrait of Ronald Reagan... No other portrait (and they're all there) got this kind of attention. He's a bit of a hero to many republicans from what I understand.
After the Hall of Presidents it was time to wander over to Fantasyland to ride the Adventures of Pooh with my FP. It's a nice dark ride in the same style as Peter Pan or Snow White at DLP.
Wandering back into Liberty Street (yep, that's what the area's called... really), I noticed that the Liberty Belle steamer had just docked so I headed to it for a trip. It's a similar boat-ride to the DLP steamers, but it has a seperate circle to go around, rather than sailing around Big Thunder Mountain.
Next up was another ride on Haunted Mansion, this time with a Fastpass, and a good thing too, as the Standby Wait had increased to 40 minutes by now. :)
After the Mansion it was lunch time, I had a reservation at the Crystal Palace, a character buffet location with Tigger, Pooh, Eore and Piglet. They come by your table, just like they do in the character restaurants in DLP, I got a couple of nice photos from that (I'll make a big photo update round after I get home, there's not really time for that at present).
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next on my Fastpass list was Pirates of the Caribbean, the final one of my initial 3.
The ride is OK I suppose, again my preference goes to the DLP version, which I think is considerably longer, and a more interesting ride to boot. Having Captain Sparrow wandering around the scenes is fun, but he really doesn't add too much, other than a familiar face.
On the way to a Fastpass Kiosk I ran right into the "Festival of Fantasy" parade which is rather beautiful, the floats are all works of art. Though in my opinion the mechanical dragon representing Malificent needs some more green glow. :P
After this ride my schedule was basically empty until 18:45, when i had a reservation at Cinderella's Royal Table.
Heading to various FP kiosks after each ride I managed to string quite a few together, ending my final FP tally for the day at 7. I rode "Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin" (identical to the DLP one), saw Mickey's PhilharMagic, a fun musical meddley show with 3D animations. Did another round of Pirates (still disappointing), and finished off with "it's a small world", which unlike it's DLP counter part has far fewer spoken sections in various languages, mainly English and Spanish that I noticed, the rest was primarily orchestral.
Next up was dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table, which I have to say, is quite the thing.
First you get your photo taken with Cinderella, then you get called up one by one for seating.
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In my opinion I had the best seats in the house, a small table for 2 right in the middle of the window looking out over the Fantasyland square.
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Once seated you choose your dishes and as you eat the princesses make their rounds around the tables.
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The food was great. For my appetizer I had the "Royal Tasting of Cheese" which was a simple but delicious cheese platter, and for the main course I chose the Chefs fish of the day, which happened to be salmon.
For dessert, "The Clock Strikes Twelve" was my pick (I'm dining at Cinderella's Castle after all) and it had both astounding presentation and tasted heavenly as well. :D
Doesn't compare to "The Temptation of Snow White" at the DLP California Grill though. :P
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The experience is much like L' Auberge de Cendrillon really, but still rather special to see so many face-characters at once, and the attention to detail is great here.
As I was by myself the staff assigned me a Page to help take photos with the princesses, which I found absolutely fantastic. :D
Saves me quite a headache, and gets me good photos to boot. :)
The princesses tonight were Snow White, Aurora, Ariel and Jasmin. :)
As you can tell from the far more active schedule, I was starting to feel a lot better over the course of the day, and although some pain from my ankle was occasionally jabbing through now, I hadn't felt this good in a few days. Though standing up too quickly was a really bad idea, as my blood pressure was apparently dropping quite steadily, leaving me quite light-headed if I did. This should pass as the pressure stabilizes though.
After dinner I headed back to POFQ. Took a shower and typed up my reports.
I'm now off to bed, as I need to be at Magic Kingdom again tomorrow, this time for Breakfast at " Be Our Guest."
Souns so nice. Wish we could go again. I am glad you are feeling better.
When you go to Epcot (my favourite parc at WDW)do not forget that both Test Track and Soarin are ver popular. I would grab a fastpass for Soaring and wait in line for Test Track. soarin sells out quicker than Test Track. The other attractions at Epcot are fun too. It is more peaceful than all the other parcs and if you like princesses we never saw so many of them than at Epcot. And never with a long line. mulan waits near China. And Belle (and the monster) near France. Or the cat Marie. jasmin and the prince can be found near the Morrocan pavillion.
It was a relatively early day today, as I needed to get to a breakfast Reservation at " Be Our Guest" in New Fantasyland, I entered the park around 8:20 or so I think, my reservation was at 8:45, and I had pre-ordered my meal selection. Walking through the empty roads of the park was quite a nice change of pace. :) Arriving at "Be Our Guest" I could proceed directly to the main hall after verifying I had indeed a reservation, and if my pre-ordered food was correct. :)
As I had a few minutes before my food would be trying to find me, I decided to walk around the 3 large dining areas in the restaurant taking pictures as I went of the lovely scenery.
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Finally picked a table in the "Rose Gallery" section, which hold a massive music box that a statue of Belle and Beast dance on.
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After sitting down my food found me fairly quickly and I enjoyed what is probably the closest thing to a true continental breakfast in quite some time. ;)
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After breakfast it was time to head into the park, and thanks to short waits I did Pirates and the Haunted Mansion in quick succession. :) I then walked around a little exploring in the area around splash mountain, as I hadn't walked that way yesterday. While there I decided to ride the Disney Railroad to Mainstreet. Unlike DLP the magic kingdom only has 3 railroad stations, Main Street, Frontierland and Fantasyland. The CM in attendance at the Frontierland Station remarked that it was abnormally quiet today, as it was past 10 in the morning and both Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain were still well under 30 minutes for their Stand By lines. Not sure what was going on, but it was a nice change of pace from the madness of yesterday.
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Arriving at Main Street I made my way to Adventureland and picked up a Dolewhip Float at Aloha Refreshments... It's quite the tasty treat, pineapple icecream, served floating on top of pineapple juice, ice cold and very nice. :D
After finishing that I went to the Enchanted Tiki-room, which is a short animatronic show with singing birds. :) After that the Country Bear Jamboree, very corny, but a fun animatronic music show. :)
Given that the crowds were still feeling quite low, I made my way to Discoveryland to see if the wait at Buzz was manageable. Arriving there I concluded that the missing crowds in Frontierland and Adventureland had all gathered in Discoveryland, as this section of the park was almost overflowing with people. After a quick ride on the peoplemover (not the most exciting thing in the world, but useful for orientation) I headed towards Liberty Square as I had a lunch appointment at the Liberty Tree Tavern. The food here feels a bit out of place, as it's basically blistering with heat outside, but in here they serve Thanksgiving food all year round. It was tasty though, no doubt about that.
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Yup, that's me eating a potroast while it's above 30 degrees C outside ;)
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While at Liberty Tree Tavern I realised that I had forgotten to pack my medication for dinner, so after lunch I headed back to the hotel for a little while (where's I'm now typing up my report). I decided to skip my FastPass for Philharmagic, as I had seen it yesterday, I changed it to Buzz Lightyear's Ranger Spin at 7:50 instead.
This means that I'll need to be back at the park between 5 and 6 for my The Little Mermaid fastpass, and then at 6:45 I have a reservation at "Be Our Guest" for dinner. My last Fastpass of the day will be at 9:40, for the Wishes viewing area just outside the Castle. :) I hope to catch the Electrical Parade before that though. ;)
I'll update this post later with the results from Dinner and Wishes. :)
EDIT: added the last parts of the day to the report
I took the bus back to the Magic Kingdom at around 4:50 PM, and on arrival headed to new Fantasyland for the Little Mermaid ride, a fun ride, visually similar to the dark rides at DLP, but with more elaborate set pieces and more animatronics. :)
After walking around for a little while and grabbing a few photos for my Memorymaker from the local photographer population, I headed to "Be Our Guest" at around 6:30 to check in for my reservation.
The wait was relatively short, and I was escorted into the castle and seated in the West Wing, the room where the Enchanted Rose is kept.
For the Appetizer I chose a dish similar to what I'd had for Breakfast, a selection of cured meats, sausages and cheeses with bread. The Entree was a herb encrusted rack of lamb, very tasty indeed. For the dessert I made the only valid choice on the menu. Sure they have a fair number of undoubtedly wonderful desserts on offer, but "The Grey Stuff" is a must try, that song exists for a reason. ;) It was indeed delicious. :D
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Actual "Grey Stuff," and delicious too
After paying for dinner, guests were allowed to visit Beast in the Study for photos and autographs (This is the order area during quick service operations at "Be Our Guest"). This was a nice surprise, I knew Beast was occasionally present at the restaurant, but I did not know he does regular meet and greets during Dinner time.
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By now it was around 8, and I headed over to Tomorrowland for a spin on Buzz.
After that I wanted to go and find a spot for the Electrical Parade, but heard that the Wishes Fastpass Area opened around 8 for owners of a FP for wishes, and that it also offered excellent viewing of the parade. So I headed over to Mainstreet to see if this was correct. And indeed, this info was correct, very useful indeed. :D It makes those Fastpasses even more valuable.
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Cinderella's Castle, just after sunset, before the start of the parade
The Parade itself was wonderful, though I felt that the final float, a giant American Flag was a bit pointless (even if it was 3 times bigger than the largest normal float), given that every other vehicle in the parade was from a Disney film.
Celebrate the Magic and Wishes were however spectacular shows and I enjoyed them immensely. Especially the huge fireworks display for Wishes. Though the visual effect of the combined fireworks and projection for Dreams at DLP is more impactful in my opinion. :) It doesn't make this any less amazing to watch though. ;)
After wishes I made a quick round through a few attractions, and visited Tinkerbell, who only had a 5 minute wait just before Park Closure. :D
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After that I headed back to the hotel.
Tomorrow is the 1st day of Epcot, and I'm very curious to see how that park looks. :D
Thank you so much for writing this trip report. It's a treat for me!
Had a lovely day at Epcot today.
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Made it to the park in time for rope-drop and actually managed to do Test-track without a Fastpass. It's quite an amazing ride, I can certainly see now why it's as popular as it is.
I then had breakfast at Sunshine Seasons in the "Land" pavillion. Along the way taking many pictures of the gardens and various topiaries.
Next up was Mission: SPACE, I did the green side, not wanting to risk feeling unwell the rest of the day. :) A fun little adventure, and given it's relatively low waits during the day, well worth it.
Up next was my first FastPass of the day, Journey Into Imagination with Figment. This really wasn't needed as it turns out, the wait was absolutely minimal. I then went for my FP for Spaceship Earth, before heading off to the World Showcase to give that a good look.
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Starting on the Canada side I made my way around, taking pictures and have a good look at each pavilion. :) Plenty of characters around, though many with either substantial queues (though not too crazy), or just heading off to take a break. I also had a look around a fair number of the Flower and Garden festival stands dotted around the walkways.
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Canada, very recognisable if you've ever been to Quebec
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Hook, located in England
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Cinderella, France, check out the clock. ;)
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Beauty and the Beast topiaries, also in France
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Around noon I arrived at Marocco, where I decided to make a small gamble, and check if there was space at "Spice Road Table" for lunch at 12:30. This is in the opinion of several Disney food bloggers a very underrated restaurant, and as such always quite a good chance for a walk-up meal.
I continued walking, as I now had a little time to kill before lunch, and managed to complete a tour of Japan before heading back to have lunch.
The food at Spice Road Table was delicious, the mint ice tea providing a very refreshing addition to the spicier food.
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You won't find too many conventional things on the menu here, the default Disney Salad is present, as is a variety of steak, but rest of the menu is either Maroccan or northern African. Very nice indeed.
After this lovely meal I took the boat from Marocco back to Canada, as I had a Fastpass coming up for Living with the Land.
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Spice Road Table, as seen from the boat dock heading for Canada
At the land pavilion though I noticed that the "Behind the Seeds" tour was also about to set off, so I signed up for that instead, and moved the FP back a few hours to make room. These tours aren't free, but for the $20 that this one costs you do get a lot of tour. ;) About 75-90 minutes of guided viewing in the green houses at the Land pavilion, where Disney grows a lot of their own food. :) Our guide was wonderful and enthusiastic to show what she did here (as an intern she runs one entire greenhouse), and it felt good to stretch my own knowledge of Botany a little, as I deal mostly in Molecular Biology at work, and don't get to use it much anymore. :)
After concluding the tour I went to visit "Ellen's Energy Adventure" before coming back to the Land for my FP at "Living with the Land."
After that I took the boat from Canada back to Marocco and continued with my circuit of the World Showcase.
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Lion King themed topiaries at the Outpost, an African themed section of the World Showcase
Trying to time my arrival at China with my Dinner reservation at the Nine Dragons restaurant.
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Dinner here was quite loud, but the food was tasty (very sweet chinese food, not that spicy at all), and I enjoyed myself.
After dinner it was time to find a spot somewhere around the lagoon for IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth, and in retrospect, I should have settled in at the waterside in China, but I didn't realise that until quite a bit later. My final viewing spot wasn't bad, but I'd have done a lot better by staying in China. The show itself is quite the performance, and certainly a must watch if you're there.
The park closes after this, so I headed back to the busses to go home, and taking a shower and typing up the days' report.
Tomorrow is my 3rd day at the Magic Kingdom, with a little luck I can catch the soft-opening of the Junglecruise, after its 5 week hiatus.
The day didn't start off great as my left ankle had finally decided to give me a chunk of the pain I had felt there before leaving back. So walking was going to be considerably slower, as well as painful. Once in motion though it wasn't too bad, but standing for an extended period of time was followed by a few minutes of sharp pain as I got going again.
Made it to the Magic Kingdom bright and early by bus though, and then spent nearly an hour standing around waiting for rope-drop (not a brilliant decision on my part). After the opening and the march up to the hub I went off to Adventureland to see about the Junglecruise. The construction walls were down, but they weren't accepting riders yet.
So that means I'll probably go back tomorrow morning for that, and then head off to epcot.
Next up was a quick ride on Pirates and Haunted Mansion. As well as pictures with "The Great Goofini" and "The Astounding Donaldo" at the storybook circus.
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On a recommendation from the Disneyfood blog I also grabbed a cake-cup from the Chessyre Cafe, which was probably the densest cupcake sized thing I've ever eaten, incredible. Not even that tasty, but such a heavy little treat.
I had a fastpass coming up for Buzz, but didn't feel like that too much, so I decided to change it, and I managed to get one for Peter Pan instead, very short notice too. :D
This ride is almost identical to the Paris one, but there are some minor changes in some scenes, just as absurdly popular too.
After Peter I decided to just take a nice walk around the park for a while, as I waited for lunch time. Tomorrowland Terrace was open for business (a rarity) and I used it's extensive seating area to cool off a little with some water, while watching one of the shows at the Castle. :)
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Just past noon I slowly made my way to "Be Our Guest" for my lunch reservation. I found a table in the main ballroom, and completed a minor achievement in doing so, Eating at Be Our Guest at 3 different times of day, in 3 different dining halls. ;D Lunch consisted of their French Onion Soup, a Croque Monsieur and a lovely Orange Eclaire.
After lunch I decided to head back to the hotel to give my feet a little rest, as my ankle was bothering me.
Moving my afternoon fastpasses to not waste them became my next point of business. I changed one FP to Buzz for 5:50-6:50 (dinner at the Contemporary at 7:30) and ended up with a minor miracle, as I grabbed a FastPass for Anna and Elsa at 8:50-9:50. These FPs are very hard to come by, and the waits for these 2 ladies is astounding during the entire day. :)
I'll add my experiences from the evening to my report later, now it's time to rest a little. :)
EDIT:
Buzz was fun as always, though my score wasn't exactly stellar.
I exited the park and took the monorail over to the Contemporary Resort.
I arrived quite early for my dinner reservation, but after being dropped off by a CM at the 15th floor (which is the restaurant, there's nothing else up there, other than 2 observation decks for guests) I was seated relatively quickly. The menus here aren't as fancy as the DLP California Grill iPads, but the food is certainly on par. Very nice indeed.
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Yuzu-marinated Sashimi for the appetizer
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Chocolate Pudding Cake as the dessert
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The view from the California Grill Viewing deck towards the Magic Kingdom
Everything was fun until it was time to get up after paying, as my ankle basically gave out on me (probably held my foot wrong without noticing), and I literally limped out the door wincing in pain. I headed down to the 4th floor to take a monorail back to Magic Kingdom for my Anna and Elsa fastpass, but our train was delayed due to another breaking down further down the line. This meant that to make that Fastpass I was going to have to walk there.
I managed to make it back to the Kingdom just as the Electric parade was starting, which was an issue as I needed to get through most of their route to reach Fantasyland plaza voor Anna and Elsa. Luckily Disney had already opened the back passages running behind mainstreet, so I could use those to cut around the worst crowds, maybe Disney could add something like the DLP Discovery Arcades to make these permanent passageways.
Then quickly through Tomorrowland and along the concourse to Fantasyland. I made my fastpass, grimacing in pain now, with 10 minutes to spare. Anna and Else themselves were lovely face-characters and I had fun bantering with them a little bit, though I imagine I won't look great in those pictures.
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Limping out of the meet and greet I slowly made my way back through the park, determined to get home and in bed. Taking a painkiller as I got home, hoping it would help for tomorrow, which would be day 2 of Epcot.
Have a great and healthy vacation!!!
Quote from: Lavi on May 08, 2015, 10:08:18 PM
Have a great and healthy vacation!!!
The great part I can manage, I'm afraid the healthy part is not going to happen. ;)
The morning started off a little weird, as I woke up covered in sweat for some reason. The pain in my ankle was a lot less (thank goodness for small miracles), but I was feeling as if my bloodpressure was too high again (I suppose it could be a side-effect of the painkiller from last night). Not a good start, but we'll see where this ends up.
Any way, breakfast was at 7:30 with Leonore, someone I had met at Animal Kingdom on day 3, and whom I had kept in touch with through SMS. We talked about a lot of the things we had been doing, and around 10 headed off to Epcot.
First up was Mission: SPACE, still fun, though I will not risk the orange version, green is good enough for me, especially with my bloodpressure like it was. Leonore wasn't feeling too well either, so we spent a lot of time talking instead. She was heading home today, so after she left I made my way over to Marocco for my lunch reservation at Marakesh. :)
The food here is rather nice, and will recommend it to anyone, though you should bring an appetite for the exotic. There's very little normal fare on the menu here.
Wanting to get a trip on the newly reopened jungle cruise on it's first operating day meant that I had to get back to the Magic Kingdom, so I took the monorail from Epcot, to the ticket center and then on to the Magic Kingdom. :)
My ankle was starting to really hurt again, so I had to take it slow. The ride though was a lot of fun, lots of corny jokes from the captains and lovely animatronic animals and people all along the route. Recommended. :D
Heading back to the resort to rest a little, before heading off to Epcot for a character fastpass and dinner at the Norway character restaurant. :) I'll fill in those details later. Now it's time to rest first. :)
EDIT:I left the resort a little later than planned and arrived at Epcot around 6:20, quickly heading off to the character spot for my meet and greets. :) Mickey, Goofy and Minnie were here today, so that's another cool set of characters met. :D
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By now it was 6:50, and I had to walk down to Norway for my 7:00 reservation at their character restaurant. I arrived just a few minutes past 7, was checked in and brought into the restaurant just a few minutes later. :)
First up was a little surprise, Belle was holding audience at the entrance, a few photopass pictures with her later I was seated in the restaurant. :)
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In the restaurant itself Snow White, Ariel and Cinderella were making their rounds. Once again a CM was wrangled in to take the pictures (thank you Disney for accomodating single travellers). I had met this particular Snow White before at the Royal Table, and she even recognised me. :D The others were lovely as well. :)
The food here is also lovely, relatively simple Entrees, but the appetizer buffet is quite extensive and the dessert (3 different scandinavian desserts on a plate) was lovely.
After finishing up dinner I headed back out of the park, just before IllumiNations was planned to start. Once back at the resort I headed off to bed. :)
Today I had planned to spend at Hollywood studios, but I had seen most of that already, so instead I decided to take it easy today.
I got up around 9:30, had breakfast and took the rivercruise down to Downtown Disney for a little shopping.
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There a lot of cool stores here, and some very dangerously attractive Disney-art places too. I mostly browsed, though I was sorely tempted by a large picture of Malificent both as herself and in dragon form... But at $425 plus having to ship it home, I decided against it. ;D
The lego store here is a bit bigger than at DLP, but the Lego statues outside are quite a bit more numerous. :)
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yup, that's all Lego.
Taking pictures of them all I headed over to the West Side of Downtown thinking about lunch.
Around noon I had decided that I was going to try for the Wolfgang and Puck Cafe, thankfully they were accepting walk-ins and I was seated almost immediately. :) A lovely meal with Sushi later I was heading back to the Marketplace side of the area to take the boat back home. But first I had to go and pick up the Custom T-shirt I had printed. :)
Disney's Port Orleans French Quarter doesn't have it's own merchandise shirts, so I had designed one instead. ;)
The price of these custom shirts is very reasonable compared to the normal shirts you'll find in the parks, only a few dollars more will get you one.
Once more taking the rivierboat back to French Quarter, I was off to rest a little, and head out to Hollywood studios for dinner a little before 6, as I had a reservation for the Hollywood Brown Derby at 6:40.
EDIT:
Dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby was lovely, the food delicious, and the portions reasonably sized, rather than being seemingly designed for two people. :D
This restaurant unfortunately also included a low note, as the family seated next to me had a lot of trouble with their daughter acting like a totally spoiled brat. Right down to throwing cuttlery at other guests! :o Over the course of my visit I've eaten in a fair few child-rich environments, but over all the kids had been well behaved, this was quite the opposite. Guess parenting isn't what it used to be. The parents weren't exactly stopping her, which was crazy.
Thankfully I was done with dinner fairly quickly.
After exiting I headed back to the busses to make it an early night.
Tomorrow is another Epcot day. :D
Absolutely amazing report Ron!! ;D
Not sure if i'm going back to DLP next Feb anymore so totally jealous!
Can't wait to read the rest :D
I decided against an early day to make Rope-drop at Epcot, so I headed out for breakfast at around 8, and took the bus to the park at around 9:30-10:00.
First up was a Test-track Fastpass, still a fun ride, but this time my car looked quite a bit better than on my first attempt. ;)
Next was "The Seas with Nemo and Friends" at the Seas pavillion. I had a Fastpass for it, but decided to change it when I arrived at the pavillion and found the standby time to be a nice 15 minutes.
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The fastpass now went to mission SPACE in about an hour, which was showing 25 minutes plus this morning.
The Nemo ride isn't bad, but I had the feeling that the audio was somehow out of sync with the action. It all felt really messy and confused to me at any rate, which spoiled it a little for me.
The large coralreef aquariums you get to look around after the ride were nice though. Although I will say, Disney needs to work on their Coral, as it didn't seem to be in such great shape... Plenty of fish to watch though. :)
But perhaps I'm just spoiled by the large living coral reefs in a couple of Dutch zoos, I don't know how old the reefs here are.
Having spent way more time at the aquarium than I had anticipated, I headed over to Mission SPACE for another ride on Team Green. :) One downside to being a single rider on that particular ride is that you tend to end up being the Navigator most of the time. Not a boring position at all, but it does get a little samey after the first couple of times.
Exiting Mission SPACE, I needed to head on over to Japan for my reservation at Teppan EDO, a teppan yaki restaurant at this pavillion. As japan is almost exactly on the far side of Showcase Lagoon I took the boat from Canada to Marocco in order to save time.
Arriving at Japan I checked in for the restaurant, and was immediately shown inside to be seated. Teppan EDO is a restaurant in the traditional Teppan Yaki style, which means communal seating. Each table seats 8, and guests are grouped together to fill out as many tables as possible. best to bring your small talk A game as you'll need it. ;)
After being seated we were introduced to our server and she quickly got around to our appetizers (I had a small portion of ribs). Once we all had drinks and appetizers we were introduced to our Chef for this sitting, as in a Teppan Yaki restaurant, the chef prepares the meal on a hot grill at your table. He also did a quick round of introductions of the other guests at our table, though I had been chatting away with an older couple from Florida for a few minutes already. :)
After selecting the entrées the ingredients were brought out, and our chef went to work. Teppan Yaki is as much about the show and the art of the chefs cooking as it is about the food, and you'll generally be well entertained as the chef works his magic with knives, spatulas and other cooking implements.
The food was delicious, I had a Swordfish steak, accompanied with freshly baked noodles and vegetables. :)
Our chef then took his leave, and our server once again took over to arrange for our desserts.
For dessert I picked a Green Tea Cheese Cake, which turned out nice and light and very refreshing. :)
After settling the bill I made my way around the World Showcase to pay a closer visit to some of the pavilions that I hadn't spent much time at. The final pavilion, Mexico, even had a boat ride with the Three Caballeros starring in a short trip around Mexico itself. It's not really visible from the outside, as it's hidden inside the huge Aztek pyramid that makes up much of the pavilion. :) There was almost no wait here, which was nice, though the boats were illsuited to someone of my height. My legs just didn't fit properly. :P
My final fastpass of the initial 3 was for Spaceship Earth, so from Mexico I headed back into future world to catch that. Once I came out I headed for a FP+ station to try and score a Fastpass for Soarin' as I hadn't had a chance to experience that ride yet. The only option was between 8 and 9 PM, and I really didn't know if I'd want to stay that late, but I took it anyway in case my dinner at the Garden Grill took longer than I anticipated. :)
From there I took a bus back to the resort to drop off a few things and to rest a little while.
I'll be taking the bus back to Epcot in 10-20 minutes and will update the post once I get back.
EDIT
well, that didn't go entirely as planned... :)
Thanks to some bad planning on my part I missed my reservation at Garden Grill, I arrived at Epcot after the 15-minute overrun window had already passed. So checking the app I found a spot at the Biergarten at the Germany Pavillion. This is an Oktoberfest styled buffet with communal seating. Not exactly what I usually go for, but it's quite popular. :) Making a reservation for 6:35 I head down to the world showcase. The boat to Germany was just arriving, so I decided to take that, rather than walking half-way around Showcase Lagoon to get to the same spot. After checking in at the Biergarten I was seated after about 7-8 minutes with 3 other groups of guests. The food here is hearty "German" fare, some things have definitely been Americanized, but over all it was tasty food, and a well stocked buffet.
Exiting Germany I noticed that the same was a bit past 8PM already, this meant my Soarin' FP was nicely timed and positioned on my way out of the park. As I arrived at the ride itself I had to laugh though, as the Standby Waiting time had dropped to just 10 minutes, from it's average of 60-70 minutes all day. The ride itself is rather cool, I can certainly see the appeal. It's relatively gentle, but shows off some gorgeous sights around California, and adds in smell-effects too. :D Definitely recommended, but do get a Fastpass or go just before the start of IllumiNations. ;)
From there I went back to the resort, tomorrow would be my last day in the parks, Animal Kingdom being the park scheduled. :)
Glad you are enjoying your stay. What are your thoughts of the following:
1--Which is your favourite and least favourite parks
2--What do you think of the FP+ system? Do you feel it takes away some of the spontaneity?
3--The hotel resort
Quote from: grovesie on May 12, 2015, 08:08:02 AM
Glad you are enjoying your stay. What are your thoughts of the following:
1--Which is your favourite and least favourite parks
2--What do you think of the FP+ system? Do you feel it takes away some of the spontaneity?
3--The hotel resort
1) Favourite park: probably Epcot, it's quiet atmosphere and very roomy layout make it nicer to stroll around in.
I might change my opinion today as this will be the first good look at Animal Kingdom, my first Animal Kingdom visit got aborted due to health issues.
Least favourite: Hands down Hollywood Studios, it has a few fun things to do, but it's incredibly low attraction count and bottlenecked layout make it one of the less pleasant parks to be in. Also, what is up with the total lack of shade in this place. The sun beats down on this park more than any of the others.
2) FP+ is handy, but it does drive up Stand-by waits as a majority of riders will be fastpassing and it definitely takes away a little of the spontaneity of doing rides. Unless you're lucky and find a low stand-by (some rides do stay low in terms of waits), or you finish your pre-planned 3 FPs and then start adding new ones. ;)
3) Port Orleans French Quarter is a lovely place to stay, clean, nicely laid out rooms, very decent connectivity with the other parks, the in-room WiFi has been rock solid. The biggest downside is the lack of a proper restaurant, since it only has a quick service. But Riverside is only a short walk away and it does have a proper restaurant. The boat connection to Downtown Disney is also a plus, as it gives you a nice relaxed way to get there, without the hustle and bustle of dropping off at the main bus depot for Downtown. :)
I totally agree with you regarding Hollywood studios. especially the lack of shade. Glade you are have a great time. I am sure Animal Kingdom will be one of your favorites after today.
Today was my second day at Animal Kingdom, and also the final day in the parks.
Tomorrow will mostly be spent in Downtown and travelling back home.
Breakfast around 7:45, I got on a bus heading to the Animal Kingdom at around 8:50. We arrived about 20 minutes after rope-drop, but the crowds certainly weren't too bad. Heading to Africa for my first FastPass on Kilimanjaro Safaris, I noticed that the Fastpass queue was huge, and as I had nearly an hour left on this fastpass I went and took the nearby walking trail first. There are plenty of animals to spot here, and a large bird enclosure ensures plenty of active birdies flying around for your viewing pleasure.
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After finishing up this walking tour, I returned to Safaris, finding the FP queue much more to my liking. Early morning rides here are fun as the animals tend to be a little more active. :) We got to see plenty at any rate. :)
My next FP was for the noon show of "Festival of the Lion King", initially I thought this was a shortened version of the broadway musical, but instead it's a musical show themed around the Lion King, it's very similar in costume design to the musical, but the focus here is clearly the music and the songs, rather than story. Regardless, it's a very fun, energetic event filled with dancing and acrobatics that you should experience atleast once. :D
The next item on my schedule was lunch at Tusker House, but that was almost an hour away. However, I didn't want to leave to Africa area, as that's also where Tusker is. Having missed out on Rafikis Planetwatch my first day here, I decided to do that to pass the time. This location is a small distance from the main park grounds and the trains that connect it to Africa run every 5 minutes. This gives you a nice look behind the scenes of Animal Kingdom and Disney Nature and their conservation efforts, showcasing many unique animals, as well as providing information on the massive operation that goes on behind the scenes to keep everything fed and healthy in the park. Chip & Dale and Rafiki also do character meetings here, and since not many people come to the "educational" section of the park the waits are often very short (and I didn't mind taking advantage of this either).
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It's really a nice section of the park, and I get the idea that many people don't even really realise what is out here. :)
Taking the train back to Africa it was time for my Lunch reservation. Tusker House is a buffet with characters, jungle explorer versions of Goofy, Mickey, Donald and Daisy make their rounds here. The food itself is a mix of Indian and African, with a few more kid-friendly options thrown in for good measure. The desserts are wonderful, especially the chocolate volcano cakes, though the Pecan Brownies win the prize for densest chocolate thing I've eaten all week. :P
Much like other character restaurants, the characters will come to each table in turn for a quick greet and photos as well as signing autographs if requested. As these are characters in full costumes with masks, they all have their own escorting CMs, which come in handy for photos if you're by yourself. ;)
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After Tusker it was time for my FP at DINOSAUR, I really hadn't needed my FP here to be honest, as the standby line was basically empty as well, and the FP-queue rejoined the main queue before I had even seen anyone from Standby. ;) Afterwards I swung by "It's tough to be a bug" on Adventure Island, as I had to give that a miss on my first day here too. Standby wait was a nice 5 minutes. ;)
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View of the Tree of Life from the "It's Tough to be a Bug" queue, the theatre is located between her roots.
But this did mark the use of my initial 3 FPs, so it was time to add a new one. With a dinner reservation at Sanaa at the Animal Kingdom Lodge at 6:30, and absolutely no intention of missing another reservations I planned a 2nd ride on the Safaris close to the time I intended to leave.This left me with some time to kill, but also the opportunity to explore Asia, which I really hadn't done yet. the walking tour here is also beautiful, although the Tigers didn't want to come out and play, as they were hiding from the burning heat. There were plenty of other animals to see though, so this tour too is well worth walking through.
The rest of Asia is mainly filled with the Kali River Rapids and Expedition Everest. Both not really my cup of tea, though a soaking on the rapids was an attractive prospect in this heat. The wait times reflected this, as Kali had a solid 60+ minute wait all afternoon, and Everest was only at 15, despite usually being more popular.
By now it was time to once more head to Africa for my 2nd Safari of the day, the tour this time was quite different and we were even delayed a good few minutes by a group of Addax antilope that decided to block the road.
After this ride I headed out of the park to go to the Animal Kingdom Lodge Kadani Village for a visit to Sanaa, the Table Service restaurant of that section of the resort.
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I arrived almost an hour early, so I decided to have a few drinks in the Sanaa lounge first to pass the time. Once I did check in, I was seated in a few minutes.
The food here at Sanaa is very heavily Indian inspired, with a little African thrown in for good measure. It is however quite delicious, though when the menu here tells you something is spicy, it's not kidding. The food is nice and spicy, and not as bland as you often find at more Americanized exotic restaurants. :)
After dinner I headed back to the Resort to start packing and prepare for departure tomorrow.
I'm very sure I'll miss this place a great deal. WDW has been a wonderfully magical place to stay. :D
The day started off a bit earlier than planned as pre-flight jitters managed to wake me up a bit before 6.
I used the extra time to finish packing my bags and checking if I had forgotten anything.
Anyway, around 8-ish I wandered over to have some breakfast, and returning from that collected my belongings and headed to the reception to complete check-out. Now if you have a Creditcard linked to your Disney account, they'll automatically use that to settle the bill, giving you "express-checkout". However I did have to drop off my bags at the storage locker, as I wasn't being picked up until 3:40 in the afternoon.
Having done that, I headed down to the dock to take a boat to Downtown, as I arrived there, I discovered that they weren't operating just yet. So I headed back up the resort to catch the bus instead.
Arriving at Downtown I mainly wandered around, browsing mainly, with no real intention to buy anything, as I'd either need to have it shipped home, or I need to repack my suitcases after I get back to the resort.
There are many gorgeous things for sale though, and at the Co-Op especially, there's a lot of unique art stuff to be had.
Once noon came around I head to Paradiso 37, the restaurant I had made a reservation at for lunch. :) I had their signature burger and some fries, nothing too massive, it was a lovely burger though. :)
After lunch I did little browsing, and decided to head back to the resort to wait for my transfer.
As the boats were operating again, I took the boat, rather than hopping on a bus.
After waiting at the resort for quite some time, and my pick-up time having passed by more than 20 minutes, I gave Mears a call, and ended up with very little useful info, as a result, rather than waiting for a small bus, I took the Magical Express (also operated by Mears). As a result of these miscommunications I did arrive quite late at the airport, but thankfully still well on time for check-in. The TSA check was also quick, as I was directed into the expedited check line, which is much looser on security and as such quite a bit quicker.
The flight from Orlando to London Gatwick was uneventful, some turbulence caused by a steady back-wind, but nothing more.
I'm now typing this report from the Brittish Airways Terrace Lounge at Gatwick, waiting for the gate info for my flight and having a bit of a rest. ;)
What a wonderful report. We're currently saving to go to WDW at some point and this has been a lovely report to help me feel a little less daunted by it all. We also want to stay at Port Orleans so I'm glad it sounds such a lovely part of the resort to stay in. Thank you for taking the time to write all of this down. :D
Thanks so much for this DisneyRon, sounds like you had such a lovely time! We are going at the end of July and you have made it all sound a bit more doable! We have a disabled lad with us so the planning aspect of all the Fast Passes etc is freaking us out a bit but glad you hear you changed yours a couple of times without an issue
Quote from: twentythingamabobs on May 14, 2015, 01:02:17 PM
Thanks so much for this DisneyRon, sounds like you had such a lovely time! We are going at the end of July and you have made it all sound a bit more doable! We have a disabled lad with us so the planning aspect of all the Fast Passes etc is freaking us out a bit but glad you hear you changed yours a couple of times without an issue
I've had issues with changing FPs in the app though just not very often, Disney rolled out 2 big updates for MyMagic+ while I was there, and those appear to have fixed most of it. If you do run into an issue you can't immediately solve though, head to one of the FP+ centers on the map and the CMs will assist you any way they can, especially when it involves a disabled guest. :D
While flying to Orlando I spoke a lot to a family seated close to me, there were 5 of them, one a heavily disabled young man (early 20s if I had to guess), and they rented a villa just off site, as it allowed for more quiet and privacy, while still being close. They had nothing but praise for the way Disney handles their disabled guests. :)
They had been to WDW about a dozen times with him so far. ;)
Quote from: seraphelle on May 14, 2015, 12:42:07 PM
What a wonderful report. We're currently saving to go to WDW at some point and this has been a lovely report to help me feel a little less daunted by it all. We also want to stay at Port Orleans so I'm glad it sounds such a lovely part of the resort to stay in. Thank you for taking the time to write all of this down. :D
Port Orleans French Quarter is lovely and a nice small size. Riverside is much, much bigger (it has 4 bus stops), so which ever of the two you select, adding a preference for "near transportation" is really handy.
As for photos, I'll start adding those over the course of the week as I sort through my own and my Photopass pictures. :) I'll make a post add the end indicating that I've done so for convenience. ;)
The photos I want to share have all been added to the various posts.
They're all fairly large images, so this thread is now quite bandwidth heavy.
All of them are click-able for a larger size image, I hope you like them.
My apologies in advance for any trauma my ugly mug in the character photos may cause. ;)
In total I had about 500 photos of my trip, I wish I had made some more in certain locations (Be Our Guest for instance, a lot came out a little blurry). In total of those 500 about 90 were made on the MemoryMaker pass, totally worth it in my opinion. :D
The Deluxe Dining plan turned out to be a good idea, but it is a great deal of food, and I was doing on average 2 table service restaurants per day. But the far larger number of meal credits makes it much easier to do Signature Restaurants or expensive Character Meals. :) My planning paid off, as I had used all my meal credits and snack credits by the end of my last park day.
I'll be entirely honest, I can not wait to go back, it'll be a few years, but nothing is going to stop me.
The experience was magical to say the least, and I want to experience that again. ;D
Thank you everyone for reading this report and posting comments. :)
Love the report, the photos are brilliant. Particularly loving the food ones (yum)
Amazing report and now pictures to make it even better!
A truly magical read Ron :)
Quote from: Mathierson24 on May 21, 2015, 11:21:11 PM
Amazing report and now pictures to make it even better!
A truly magical read Ron :)
:) Thank you very much
Quote from: daddyof2 on May 21, 2015, 10:38:34 PM
Love the report, the photos are brilliant. Particularly loving the food ones (yum)
Happy to provide them, the food was generally lovely. :)
Excellent photos Ron, I am now determined to go if only to go to Be Our Guest and gaze at the ceiling ;D ;D ;D
Aww DisneyRon thank you! The photos are so lovely :) One of my favourite trip reports ever :D
Can I ask, did you only use the FP kiosks when the app was playing up? Or did you just happen to be near a kiosk when you rearranged things?
Quote from: seraphelle on May 22, 2015, 10:44:31 AM
Excellent photos Ron, I am now determined to go if only to go to Be Our Guest and gaze at the ceiling ;D ;D ;D
Be sure to either find a seat in the Ballroom (if you're there for Breakfast or Lunch), or request a Ballroom table (when you're there for Dinner), it's the only one of the 3 that has the gorgeous painted ceiling. The West Wing and Rose Gallery both have "normal" ceilings for the most part, but more themed stuff on and along the walls than the Ballroom does. :D
Quote from: twentythingamabobs on May 22, 2015, 11:22:59 AM
Aww DisneyRon thank you! The photos are so lovely :) One of my favourite trip reports ever :D
Can I ask, did you only use the FP kiosks when the app was playing up? Or did you just happen to be near a kiosk when you rearranged things?
Thank you, it was fun taking those photos. :D
If the app was playing up I used the kiosks, the rest of the time I used the app, and that worked really well.
The app only had issues 1 or 2 days of my stay (mostly throwing errors when accessing your fastpasses), and they quickly pushed updates to fix it each time.
There's WiFi more or less everywhere in all parks, so your Smartphone is an important tool during your stay. :)
After you use up your initial 3 fastpasses (those you can lock in 1 or 2 months in advance, depending on where you're staying), you need to use the FP kiosks to add fastpasses beyond that. So number 4 and up are always done with a kiosk, as you can only add 1 at a time, and the app doesn't have that functionality.
Thanks DisneyRon, it's a minefield this FP business when you are taking into account a disabled guest. I know we get extra FPs but not sure how many we will be allocated so can't really plan beyond the 3 a day you initally get. It's weird in WDW, they absolutely will not read a doctor's note, you just have to tell them what your problem is and they try to find a solution for you. Which is probably why they have changed the way the process works as anyone could walk into city hall, proclaim to be disabled and get on via the exits! Sorry, very off topic, I am just venting.
Quote from: twentythingamabobs on May 22, 2015, 12:16:03 PM
Thanks DisneyRon, it's a minefield this FP business when you are taking into account a disabled guest. I know we get extra FPs but not sure how many we will be allocated so can't really plan beyond the 3 a day you initally get. It's weird in WDW, they absolutely will not read a doctor's note, you just have to tell them what your problem is and they try to find a solution for you. Which is probably why they have changed the way the process works as anyone could walk into city hall, proclaim to be disabled and get on via the exits! Sorry, very off topic, I am just venting.
No problem at all, I can imagine it being frustrating.
Are the extra FPs you get going to need assigning to specific rides, or are they "all-access" FPs?
Because those exist too.
I actually was "awarded" one of those because the Indiana Jones stuntshow was delayed because of a technical issue (stood in the FP+ line for 40 minutes). They allow you access to the FP line of a wide variety of rides (not the super popular stuff, but just about anything else). If you get a cluster of those per day, then you wouldn't really need to worry about how the system works too much. :)
Fantastic trip report, great photos. Looks like you had a brilliant time, just shows you can go away alone and still have am awesome time. Haven't been to wdw since I was 13 (now 28 :o ), hope to one day take my 3 girls there. Thanks for sharing :D
Quote from: lovindisney87 on May 22, 2015, 10:42:53 PM
Fantastic trip report, great photos. Looks like you had a brilliant time, just shows you can go away alone and still have am awesome time. Haven't been to wdw since I was 13 (now 28 :o ), hope to one day take my 3 girls there. Thanks for sharing :D
Thank you, it was a wonderful trip to do alone. You can be a little more flexible when you're alone, and that works out quite well at WDW. :) Do try to make it there with your daughters, it is a very magical place and while it feels familiar it is quite a different place from DLP. ;)
Thank you so much for taking the time to post your fab trip report. It's like we were a there with you! We're two sleeps away from our third DLP trip but hoping to brave the flight to WDW when our little ones are a bit older.
Hope you are feeling better now.
Quote from: Mrsya on May 23, 2015, 12:22:51 AM
Thank you so much for taking the time to post your fab trip report. It's like we were a there with you! We're two sleeps away from our third DLP trip but hoping to brave the flight to WDW when our little ones are a bit older.
Hope you are feeling better now.
Happy to have done the report Mrsya. :)
It is a wonderful place, your little ones will love it when you can make the crossing, and so will you. :D
As for feeling better, I'm doing well, my throat is acting up a little, but I think I caught that back home, rather than at WDW. ;)
Arriving to temperatures literally 20 degrees lower than what I had in Orlando was a bit of a blow.
Thank you so much for this wonderful report, it was so lovely to read. It sounds like you had an amazing time, I was so impressed with your planning.
What do you have planned for your next trip to a Disney park? I will look out for another great report :D
Quote from: AlmostThere... on May 23, 2015, 06:46:44 AM
Thank you so much for this wonderful report, it was so lovely to read. It sounds like you had an amazing time, I was so impressed with your planning.
What do you have planned for your next trip to a Disney park? I will look out for another great report :D
Thank you so much for reading it. :D
My planning was actually fairly limited. Many people create complex itineraries for WDW, I did not.
I planned out the restaurants to visit as I needed reservations, and selected a few rides I wanted to do for FPs, but beyond I planned very little. Though I did read up on where to be on which days to get the lowest possible crowds and all that. WDW is a very different beast to visit than DLP.
As for when my next Disney park visit will be, for now it looks like that will be DLP in 2017 for the 25th anniversary.
What a brilliant report and I love the photos :D
Quote from: Andybear on May 23, 2015, 03:14:48 PM
What a brilliant report and I love the photos :D
:D Thank you Andy, glad to hear you liked it. :)
Thank you for taking the time and write the report! I loved reading it
We are going end of July, so it was very interesting reading it!
have to go through it again nearer to the date!
Question for "Be our Guest": I read they are serving all meals. But a character meal they do for dinner? Possibly meet Beast then? (my biggest wish for that trip!!!) from the Disney site I didn`t quit get it ;)
Quote from: Aurora1 on May 25, 2015, 01:30:28 PM
Thank you for taking the time and write the report! I loved reading it
We are going end of July, so it was very interesting reading it!
have to go through it again nearer to the date!
Question for "Be our Guest": I read they are serving all meals. But a character meal they do for dinner? Possibly meet Beast then? (my biggest wish for that trip!!!) from the Disney site I didn`t quit get it ;)
Happy to hear that you find it a good read. :D
Do be sure to make reservations for all restaurants that really want to visit, you can do that 6 months out, and for some it's required, as quite a few no longer accept walk-ons when it's crowded.
Be Our Guest is rather popular, so making a reservation is important.
For Dinner "Be Our Guest" is a full table-service restaurant, and Beast occasionally walks around (and that is played with by the wait-staff too, they greet him as he enters a room, and announce that the Master is meeting guests in the study), but doesn't go up to tables or anything like you'd see at an normal Character meal.
When you're done with dinner you exit through the Study, and you get to meet Beast there, and have your picture taken and ask autographs if you wish. :)
It is a very nice arrangement, and unexpected to me too, it's a fairly recent thing apparently. :D
Beast is not present for Breakfast and Lunch, as his Study is occupied by the ordering area. ;)
By the way, if you go for either Breakfast or Lunch you can pre-order your meal with your reservation (up to 30-60 minutes before the meal even), which shaves a fair bit off wait-time off your meal as you don't need to pass through the ordering area to get to a table, though you'll miss out on the Whispering Gallery. :)
Quote from: DisneyRon on May 22, 2015, 12:42:28 PM
Quote from: twentythingamabobs on May 22, 2015, 12:16:03 PM
Thanks DisneyRon, it's a minefield this FP business when you are taking into account a disabled guest. I know we get extra FPs but not sure how many we will be allocated so can't really plan beyond the 3 a day you initally get. It's weird in WDW, they absolutely will not read a doctor's note, you just have to tell them what your problem is and they try to find a solution for you. Which is probably why they have changed the way the process works as anyone could walk into city hall, proclaim to be disabled and get on via the exits! Sorry, very off topic, I am just venting.
No problem at all, I can imagine it being frustrating.
Are the extra FPs you get going to need assigning to specific rides, or are they "all-access" FPs?
Because those exist too.
I actually was "awarded" one of those because the Indiana Jones stuntshow was delayed because of a technical issue (stood in the FP+ line for 40 minutes). They allow you access to the FP line of a wide variety of rides (not the super popular stuff, but just about anything else). If you get a cluster of those per day, then you wouldn't really need to worry about how the system works too much. :)
They will be ride specific, or so I am led to believe. We will be given a booklet to take to a CM at each ride and they will give us a return time. We can't go and book other rides until that return time has passed and been crossed off the list. I'm sure we will get most of what we want done, it's just like you say WDW sounds a very different beast to DLP! Sincere thank you for your posts DisneyRon and hope you are back in good health :)
Great report and lovely pix