Adventures with Walter TR March 29 to April 2, 2016

[Scooterbritches]

Warning! This is long so if you don’t like long, you can just skip. I don’t need comments telling me this is long when I already know it is long. Hopefully, it will have some helpful information, especially for newly disabled people navigating the parks in this way for the first time.

Hello everyone! We returned yesterday from our really quick trip to WDW and WWoHP/Universal. I thought I’d write a trip report on our adventures. The characters along on our trip were me (52 yo wife and mother of 6 who LOVES adventures and roller coasters and adrenaline rushes in general….I have been skydiving), my 16 yo DD (she is my youngest and has an equal adoration of adventures as me), and my 27 yo DD (who used to share my love of adventures, but showed on this trip that she’s becoming an old lady….I say with much love and facetiousness).

Actually, it is I that is becoming an old lady because as you can see from my title we had along with us a very special friend named Walter. I’ll explain who Walter is in a moment. In the last couple of years I’ve developed arthritis and bone spurs in my back which limits my ability to stand or sit for long periods of time. I looked into getting a DAS pass but because my issues are “mobility” related and most of the lines are ADA accessible, I would not qualify. This brought me a dilemma because a ECV would not work very well for me because I need to get up and keep moving periodically in order to avoid stiffness and pain and a manual wheelchair would require my DD’s to push me in the lines, plus it is not very lightweight and easy to maneuver around corners in those queue bullpens. My 16 yo DD got a sprained MCL shortly before our trip so I didn’t want her to aggravate that. Someone suggested a rollator/walker. Disney does not offer those for rent and I was looking to outside sources to rent when I happened to mention to my 89 yo dad what I was trying to do. He walked in the other room and came out with this rollator. He uses a cane around the house but on the rare occasions when he goes out, he sometimes uses this rollator. I didn’t even know he had it. He told me it would be fine for me to borrow it. So I decided it might be a good option for me. It would allow me to sit in it during long waits in line, but also be light weight and easier to navigate for those times when I needed to be standing or moving in a line.

This is new territory for us and not easy for a young 52 yo who has always been active to be able to adjust to. My 27 yo told me that it was breaking her heart to see her mom have to use devices like this. We decided to make the best of it though. We decided to treat the walker as our friend so we named him Walter. Walter has been pretty sheltered having his only owner be an 89 year old. We were certainly providing him with once in a lifetime adventures which started out with his plane trip from SLC to Orlando.

My 16 yo DD and I live in SLC and my 27 yo DD lives in Austin, TX. We were meeting up in Orlando. Our flight was scheduled for 9:40 am so we left our home at 7:30 and were in our seats waiting to board by 8:20 and the drive to the airport from our house was 25 minutes. Gotta love SLC international! There was a lot of time to kill so we became acquainted with some folks who had experienced a prior plane scare when hail damaged and broke the windshield of the plane they were on and they had to make an emergency landing. They had a little girl with them who was having anxiety over this. They wanted to show me pictures of the plane, but by this time it was time to board so I declined. I’m not bothered by stuff like this. I really have an attitude that if something’s going to happen it will happen and I will either live through it or I won’t. No sense stressing about what could happen every time you get in a transportation device.

We boarded and sat there and sat there. They came on the speaker and said they were waiting for the required paperwork that needed to be completed before every flight before we could take off. Someone dropped the ball on this one because if this said paperwork is required for every flight then obviously this is all part of the procedure, but for some reason, ours wasn’t getting done and we didn’t take off until ½ hour after our scheduled departure time.

The flight was uneventful until we neared Orlando. I’ve been on plenty of planes in my life and experienced turbulence but this was quite the ride. My DD and I turned to each other and said we felt like we were already on Space Mountain! There was a severe thunderstorm in the Orlando area. When we landed, I texted my 27 yo DD and she said she had just witnessed the worst thunderstorm ever (and she lives in Texas where they can get pretty dicey). At one point, she thought a bomb had gone off the thunder was so loud and shook the airport.

They couldn’t let us off the plane until they hadn’t seen lightening in the area for 5 minutes so we had to wait on the tarmac for about 10 minutes. As I said, I have trouble sitting for long periods. While the plane was in the air, I tried to get up periodically to stretch, but with this being a 4 hour flight and them not letting us take our seatbelts off on the tarmac, I was starting to feel the pain.

We finally deplaned and met up with my DD in the main terminal. We went to find Walter because I had checked him at the counter instead of the plane. We waited and waited at bag claim and there was no sign of Walter. We found the Delta Customer Service Area and there he was! They said they had been paging us, but none of us had heard anything. I have a different first name that is hard for people to pronounce correctly so maybe they weren’t saying it right and therefore, we didn’t recognize the page as being for us.

So now it was off to the car rental. I had recently joined the loyalty club for Hertz but they said on my first rental after joining I still needed to go to the counter. So we went to the counter and got our car which was a Nissan Versa. There was no pressure at all to buy a Sun Pass or insurance. Those things were already determined when I registered for the loyalty card.

It was still raining pretty hard and it was during rush hour so traffic was bad anyway. It took forever to get to our hotel! We were staying at the Galleria Palms which was just off SR 192 on the southern boundary of Disney. The hotel had just finished renovations so it was nice. The rooms had refrigerators, microwaves, and blow dryers. The pool area had a pool, but no hot tub, which I was disappointed with. The area it was in was strange. Not dangerous by any means, but just surrounded by these touristy shops where they sold souvenirs for cheap. The building right by our hotel was in the shape of a huge mermaid.

We went in and got acquainted with our room and unpacked. We were hungry by this time and the plan was to go to Disney Springs and eat at Earl of Sandwich and see some of the shops. Because of our delayed flight and the rain and traffic, we were much later arriving than I had planned (one reason why you shouldn’t make ADRs on arrival day) so I asked the girls if they wanted to go to Disney Springs or just find somewhere close. We decided we wanted to get the Disney spirit and we weren’t far from Disney Springs so we decided to stick with the plan. It was about a 15 minute drive to Disney Springs and we parked and made our way out. I had studied the maps a lot before we came so I’d know where to go, but in SLC we have the mountains to help us know which direction is what. It was disorienting and I thought we were headed toward the Marketplace but we weren’t so we had to back track.

I had left Walter in the car because I don’t need help walking, just standing/sitting. We finally found our way in the right direction and got to the Earl of Sandwich. I ordered the club and chicken tortilla soup, DD ordered the chicken quinoa salad, and dd ordered the Italian. (From here on out I’ll refer to my older daughter as DD and my younger as dd. Make sense?) The line was about 20 minutes long. Obviously, I wasn’t counting on that or I would have brought Walter. I was feeling it with all the sitting on the plane and now all this standing. When we finished we visited Once Upon a Toy, Ghiradelli, World of Disney and the Lego Store. We took pictures with a giant hulk and Woody and Buzz made out of Legos and sent the pics to my 9 yo grandson who is way into legos.

The trip felt more rushed than I would have liked because of our late arrival. We still had grocery shopping to do and we wanted to get to bed at a decent hour because of the two hour time difference between Utah and Florida. We knew the early morning was going to kill us. All in all, I liked Disney Springs and wished I had more time to browse through it. Earl of Sandwich was great and I thought they did a great job of getting a lot of people served and through the queue.

I asked my DD to google map a Publix grocery store near our hotel, but she said the closest one was 8 miles away so she kept finding these little convenience store like places that charged an arm and a leg for individual sized items. We finally found a little grocery store that was really close to our hotel that didn’t have a great selection but was at least bigger than a convenience store.

We bought bagels and cream cheese, string cheese, individual sized goldfish crackers, beef jerky, pop tarts and their last box of Krispy Kremes (I love donuts)! These items were great for breakfast or to carry into the parks to eat between meals. I didn’t say healthy, I said great!

Finally, back to the hotel. We set our alarm for 5:15 (uggh, 3:15 Utah time) and went to bed by 11:00 ready for our adventures in MK the next day.

 

[SueM in MN]

I love Earl of Sandwitch! And Disney Springs is nice (and getting nicer).
Despite the 'strange' surroundings, your hotel looked very nice from the pictures.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Warning! This is long so if you don’t like long, you can just skip. I don’t need comments telling me this is long when I already know it is long

I've gotten this far so far. Are you saying this is going to be long? Are you sure? How can you be so sure (cue My Cousin Vinny)

 

[Scooterbritches]

I’m going to be talking a lot about Touring Plans, Lines, and special needs accommodations in this post. Warning to those who have ADD or are just not interested in TP….it will be long.

The alarm went off at an early 5:15 a.m. It was really important to me get the shortest lines possible to limit my standing so we needed to get to the park early. Even though I had Walter, I had never done this before since my arthritis issue and I truly didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know if Walter would help all that much or not. It’s still hard to say even now after our return because I don’t know how I would have felt without using Walter. I thought my best bet would be to utilize the shortest lines possible.

Let me digress a bit and go into some of the planning and research I did. I used the advice in touring plans quite extensively and purchased their app called “Lines”. I input several different plans and both optimized (where their computer optimizes wait times) and evaluated (where I put in the order I want and they let me know approximately how long waits would be). I found that optimizing didn’t necessarily pick the lowest waits for each ride, but more picked the lowest wait total for the day. Some plans came out with 45 to 60 minute waits for a couple of rides, but shorter for others so the total wait for the day was lowest. Evaluating helped me pick the lowest wait times for individual rides so I could control that I would hopefully wait no more than 30 minutes for any ride. Sometimes the total wait for the day would be a little bit longer doing this. But with my situation, it’s better for me to have a slightly longer day, but less waiting average per ride. I didn’t expect “Lines” to be on the dot exact, but it did help me get a general plan in mind that helped me avoid lines longer than 30 minutes. I only waited longer than 30 minutes for one ride and I will explain why later in my report.

The FPs I made for the day originally were BTMRR at 12:05, Space at 1:20 and PP at 2:20. I wanted 7dmt but it was sold out at my 30 day window. About a week before my trip, I checked MDE and found an opening for 7dmt at 4:55 pm so I snatched that and let BTMRR go. My plan was to arrive early and ride popular rides that I hadn’t FP’d in the morning, eat an early lunch (to avoid long lunch lines) and then start my FPs. I would ride less popular attractions in the afternoon. I was hoping to make it to Wishes and the Parade as well. I knew it was optimistic, but I also knew that this would probably be my last time to visit in a very long time, if again at all, so I wanted to do as much as I could.

After sharing the bathroom and eating breakfast, we were all ready to go at 6:45. My girls are not morning people and though I had talked to them and told them the importance to me of not having long lines and they wholeheartedly agreed, theory is different than practice. This first morning wasn’t too bad, but I knew it was going to be harder as the trip wore on to get them up and going. I’ve done a fair job of working through my pain issues without others being able to tell and this was all new to them so they do not yet see me as being disabled and having needs that I hadn’t normally needed in the past.

When we arrived at the park, we were close enough that we were able to walk instead of taking the tram. A cast member directed us to a bus rather than the monorail. After a short wait on the bus we were off to the main gates. We went through security and were standing in line (or sitting in Walter in my case) waiting to be let in at 7:20. The welcome show started at 7:45ish. They let us in early at 7:50.

We headed to BLY because lines for this are only short for the first hour of the day. Unfortunately, BLY was closed and the cast members did not know for how long it would be closed. My DD wanted to go over to Space which had developed a long line (I don’t think they were letting people in yet though) because it’s her favorite ride. We waited for a bit in the line and I was thinking my plan has already been foiled in the first 5 minutes of the park opening. I hate coming across as a commando so I kept quiet. We waited and the line wasn’t moving and my dd, who lives at home with me and sees more of my issues, spoke the voice of reason to my DD. She said, “We’ve got this ride FP’d for later. Shouldn’t we ride something that’s not FP’d while lines are short?” Thank you, thank you, sweet 16 yo!!! So we got back on track and headed to Adventureland to ride JC and POTC.

In using Touring Plans, I didn’t necessarily go by exact ride times, but more by what I should be able to get done in hour time frames. It said I should be able to do BLY, JC and POTC by 9:00. Then BTMRR, Splash and HM by 10:30.

JC was a walk on as was POTC. I left Walter by the stroller parking because of this. My DD loved the corny jokes on JC. I think her and I were the only ones catching on to the puns. Others in our boat were little kids and their parents and I think the jokes went right over the little kids’ heads. My dd was screaming in POTC. She thought the first little hill in the dark at the beginning of the ride was going to be a lot bigger than it was. It was so funny because as we started to go down she screamed and then when she discovered how minor the drop was she was a little embarrassed about how she carried on.

We went over to BTMRR and it said the wait time was 20 minutes. I knew the advertised wait times are almost always longer than the actual wait so I left Walter by the stroller parking again. I knew this was one ride where if you had a mobility device they would give you a return time, but I didn't want people thinking I was taking advantage. I felt sensitive to people thinking I was milking the system. I figured I could lean up against a hand rail if I had pain. That was a mistake. We got in the line and I was timing it and it was going on 25 minutes and I was feeling it. I mentioned something about how the time didn’t measure up to the advertised this time in our favor and my DD said she noticed it changed to 40 minutes right after we got on. Well, thanks for telling me!!! Anyway, the wait ended up being 28 minutes, which is almost exactly what TP said it would be! I was very glad to finally sit down on that ride. That was the last time I was going to worry about what people thought!

We went over to Splash which said the wait time was 20 minutes. It was hard to roll the rollator and use my phone to check or input touring plan info, so I just assumed it would be a little less than 20 minutes. I brought Walter this time and sat when the line was still. We waited about 5 minutes when we started to get close to some stairs. I was told on another forum to just go by what the cast members said I should do to enter each ride. I was confused because I wondered why the cast member had let me in the line if there were stairs. Soon a cast member came over and unlatched the queue rope and directed me in the exit. So we went and were put right on the ride at the exit. Apparently, you wait in the regular queue up to that point and then they’ll let you in the exit. Later in the day, it takes longer to get to that point than the 5 minutes we waited because they extend the queue as the day goes on. We discovered that later when we went back to ride Splash again, but the queue had been extended quite a bit.

We headed over to HM, which has been my favorite ride since childhood. I think the effects are awesome. I also think they do a good job of making it fun and not too scary. I love being scared, but back in the day when I used to take my kids, I was glad it wasn’t so scary that taking them was a bad idea. The wait was listed as 30 minutes. Touring plans said the wait would be 22. It was 25 minutes actual wait.

We were right on time with the TP plans to this point. It was 1030, but this is where we deviated from the plan. We were originally going to go ride IASW and UTS, but since we had missed BLY and I knew from TP that once that line built it stayed built, we decided to head back to Tomorrowland. We checked the posted time on our app and it said 30 minutes. By the time we got down there it had changed to 50 minutes. It wasn’t going to get any shorter so we hopped in the line. This queue moves pretty fast for a time and then stops for a time. I was glad I had Walter as this would have been a killer to wait in without somewhere to sit. The ride wait ended up being 58 minutes. This was the only ride the entire week that I waited over 30 minutes. In fact, most were under 20 minutes. I found that pretty incredible for how busy it was (week after Easter). I got 43,700 on the ride, DD got 38,300, and dd got 10,500. We are all very average/bad!!!

It was 11:45 so we went to get lunch at Cosmic Rays. It was crowded and hard to find a table, but the lines weren’t more than 5 minutes. It was hard to bring Walter into crammed shops and restaurants so I left him in the stroller parking. I ordered the Angus Bacon Cheeseburger, DD ordered the chicken sandwich and dd ordered chicken fingers. I thought my burger and fries were very good. Both of my girls thought their food was average.

We had about an hour to kill before our FP for Space Mountain so we walked through Fantasyland to check out times for IASW and Winnie the Pooh. Both were an hour wait. I found TP was really on target in the morning, but in the afternoon the times were somewhat off. TP had shown that Winnie was going to be about 30 minutes all day long, but here it was listed as 60 and not once was IASW listed as 60 minutes ever in my plans (more like 25), no matter what time of day. We didn’t get in either line so I can’t say anything about the accuracy.

We went to Liberty Riverboat. The wait was 10 minutes. They load special needs at the bottom before they let everyone else on. We had to wait for the people on the prior ride to get off before we could get on. I was seated in Walter near a bench. There was a puddle in front of me. This little boy and his father came walking by and the boy kept stepping in the puddle and splashing it on me. The dad just stood there and watched his son do this. Never said a word of correction to him. I can understand the draw of a puddle to a little boy, but seriously, who does not correct their child from rude behavior?

It was starting to get hot and crowded so this was a welcome rest respite. I sat on Walter near the Tom Sawyer Island side and my DDs sat on the ground to rest their feet. This woman came by and almost stepped in my DDs lap. She got up and the woman proceeded to push her out of her spot. My DD had to go stand behind my dd.

Let me say a little about what it was like to navigate through a crowded park with a mobility device. There were several times when my DDs were walking slightly in front of me and people would cut in front of me to the point where I had to stop or I would ram into them. A couple of times I did and they would give me a dirty look like it was my fault they had cut in front of me. I would easily get separated from my DDs. I finally told my DDs to let me walk in front so we would quit getting separated. Also, both Disney and Universal use cobblestone walkways. The walker would get caught up in the nooks and crannies and it was rough jiggling it over those uneven pathways. But enough rambling.

After the boat, we took the train from Frontierland to Fantasyland so we could make our way to Space Mountain for our first FP. The train was also a relaxing respite and was less than an 8 minute wait. On the way to Space Mountain we saw a child crying. People were walking past and completely ignoring him. My DD went to him and asked if he was lost. He said yes and she told him that she would help him. She took his hand and we started to go find a cast member. As we were walking by Dumbo he told my DD that he saw his mom. She was waiting in the line for Dumbo with a group and he ran to her crying. She didn’t even notice. She was talking to another adult. I don’t think she knew he was gone and she certainly didn’t notice when he came back scared to death. Wow!

We got in our fast pass line for Space Mountain. At a certain point they directed us to the special needs line where we had to wait quite a while. Many times the special needs takes longer than everyone else so no one should think that special needs is getting any special treatment. After about 25 minutes we were finally on our favorite ride in MK!

It was time for our Peter Pan FP so we headed back through Fantasyland and rode that. That was a 5 minute wait, if that. We walked by IASW again and it was still 60 minutes. I had noticed the wheelchair sign at a different entrance so I walked to the cast member at the regular stand by entrance and asked what line I should be getting into if I wanted to ride. She said to go to the special needs entrance where I would get a return time. Another cast member had come up by this time and he asked if I had a DAS pass. I said no, I just had Walter (well, I didn’t really refer to him by name) and I was wondering where to go. He proceeded to say that I should just go to the special needs and be let right in. The cast members started arguing (well, not really arguing) but disagreeing about how it should be done. She said I needed a return time. He said I didn’t. Anyway, she was more assertive so she won and they gave me a return time for an hour. Whatever! I think more training needs to be done there.

We went to Mickey’s Philharmagic which was just letting in when we got there. Nice air conditioned sit down break. It hurts me to sit for too long, but I’m also not a walking machine and even though it hurts for long periods, I still need to rest the feet.

Then we went to Hall of Presidents. They sit special needs in the very back. If you’re not tall, there’s a bar that could partially block your vision. I’m 5’8” and was struggling to see over it. Not great seats. I haven’t seen this show since I was a child. DD is very political and patriotic so she really wanted to see it. I find that we did a lot more of these types of attractions with the FP+. In the past, we used to paper FP our favorites, one after the other as soon as we were eligible and would never set foot in the less busy attractions.

By this time our hour return time for IASW had passed so we headed there. The cast member opened the gate and let us through and didn’t ask for any paper return time so I guess the male cast member was right and we didn’t need that return time. We waited about 20 minutes in the special needs line. I’ve loved this ride since I was a child. I still remember being 4 years old and my mom taking me on this ride and I thought they were live dolls. I hope they never get rid of it!

It was time for our last FP of the day which was 7dmt. We were on in 5 minutes. We weren’t going to ride this because we originally didn’t have a FP for it, but one opened up and I grabbed it and we wanted to experience it. It was faster and more fun than I expected, but just really short. They could have improved it by making it a bit longer.

It was after 5 and my DD had wanted a lobster roll so we went to Columbia Harbor House. We were disappointed to see that lobster rolls were no longer on the menu. I ordered clam chowder and fried shrimp, DD ordered the tuna sandwich and clam chowder and dd ordered the tuna sandwich. It was all really great. The coating on the shrimp was a little too crisp. Not burnt, but just too crisp, but other than that it was great.

My girls were ready to leave by now. When I talked of the parade and Wishes they were not very excited about it. I told them I didn’t mind going alone and they could take the hotel shuttle. My DD called our hotel to see when the shuttle would come. It came at 800. It was 630 so we decided to try A Pirates Treasure. I couldn’t find much about this online, but in was in the Unofficial Guide and got good ratings. My son is bringing his family in September and he has a 10 year old boy who I thought would like it so we wanted to try it out so we could recommend to my son. You go in and register your park ticket (magic band) on a computer and it assigns you one of five treasure maps. You pick up the map and follow it around adventure land. When you find the spot, you swipe your ticket over it and a special effect happens. This was a lot of fun and the only thing that made it unenjoyable was our flagging energy level.

I decided I wasn’t going to stay and watch the parade and wishes. I was walking really slowly and feeling pretty tired. I was disappointed because it seems I never get to see that. My family’s always too tired to stay that late, but the tiredness had caught up with me too by then. Suddenly I didn’t want to do it alone either. So with that decision made there was only one more thing we needed to take care of. We bought our grandkids postcards and had them postmarked with the WDW stamp. We got this taken care of at the news store just under the main street train station tracks.

We left the park by 7:30 after 12 hours of touring. I’d say Walter was a hit. Though I was tired from all the walking as any aging 52 yo would be, I was able to sit on Walter when needed.

Today, two days after returning, I went to the grocery store for my dad and he had asked me to pick up a birthday card for my brother. I was having a hard time finding just the right card so I was standing a lot by the cards looking at them. Suddenly my back seized up with cramps. This is how it hits me. And it’s weird because as soon as I grabbed the grocery cart and started leaning on it as I walked along, it improved and by the time I left the store it was gone. There’s something about standing that my back doesn’t like so I know I would have run into trouble without Walter.

Thanks for being patient and reading!

 

[Scooterbritches]

Here's some of my pics. I don't know why, but some won't post. Says they are too large.

 

[disneymom3]

I'm Enjoying your review. Very thorough information.

 

[Scooterbritches]

Today’s plan:

Disney Hollywood Studios – FPs: ToT 12:10, ST 1:25, TSMM 3:10

ADR: 50’s Prime Time 2:30

Today we got to sleep in a little because DHS didn’t open until 9. I was up at 6:30 and let my DDs sleep until 7:00.

I’ve been forgetting to talk about the breakfasts at the hotel. They were nothing special, but I didn’t expect them to be. Out of the four mornings we ate breakfast there two of the mornings had eggs and biscuits and gravy for their hot items and two of the mornings had eggs/omelets with little sausages. They had your typical bagels, muffins, toast, cold cereal and waffles (not the kind you make fresh, but more Eggo type where you warm them in the toaster). We tried to fill up on breakfast and pack a few packages of goldfish, string cheese, and beef jerky for the parks. Today was a late lunch so we made sure we had snacks to tide us over.

We arrived at 8:00 and went to the tram. Everyone else was walking, but we decided we were early enough to save our energy. We got to the security check shortly before 8:30 and when we got through they immediately started letting into the park. They will sometimes let you into DHS early and this is helpful because their FPs are on tiers. If you would like to ride a ride you weren’t able to FP because of the tiers, you can come early with lower lines.

We went to R&RC first and it was a walk on. This is my DDs favorite ride in Disney. My dd had only been to DLR previously so had never ridden before. Of course, she really liked it. We decided to ride it again while the lines were minimal so we got in line again and waited only 5 minutes. After this time, we went over to TOT and got in line for about a 10 minute wait. It wasn’t even 9:00 yet! My dd can be so funny on rides when she doesn’t know what it’s going to do. She kept saying “What’s going on?” screaming loud and holding my hand. She hasn’t held my hand in years! My DD had gotten us Harry Potter snitch necklaces for us all to wear so when the ride started going up and down those snitches were floating from our necks.

We rode GMR next and the wait was 15 minutes. We were a bit ahead of schedule because of being let in the park early so I couldn’t compare my times to my Lines printouts. We were seated right next to the driver in the front seat. Before we got on there was an elderly couple that got off the ride. They were both at least in their 80’s and I felt so badly for the gentleman because he was pushing his wife who could hardly move in a manual wheelchair. I used to be a CNA and took care of paraplegics, quadraplegics and the elderly. It’s so hard and time consuming for these people to just get through the day and do what we consider the simplest tasks. I think it’s such a shame that the theme parks have had to abolish how they used to be able to skip the lines. Someone like me with a minor disability can certainly wait, but those people should not be lumped into the same category as me and have to wait.

My DD knew a few movies that are in that ride, but my dd only knew about the Wizard of Oz. She still enjoyed it though. You don’t really need to know the movies to have it be fun.

We went to the 10:50 showing of VLM. The last time I saw this I had a little 5 year old with me. It’s cute, but perhaps could be skipped by adult only groups.

I had heard about the Starring Rolls Café so we went to get a snack. Their sandwiches looked divine, but we just got a cinnamon roll and a chocolate muffin to share. The muffin was really good, but the cinnamon roll was disappointing. It wasn’t as soft or gooey as I like. If you don’t have an ADR for lunch, I totally suggest getting one of their sandwiches. We wished we could have.

We then went to Muppetvision with about a 10 minute wait. We found we weren’t as tired at DHS as we were at MK. There’s a lot of inside stuff so you’re out of the sun. The park isn’t as big so you don’t have to walk so much. We didn’t wait longer than 15 minutes for anything all day.

We still had some time before our 12:10 FP to TOT so we decided to go say goodbye to the HISTK playground. I got a picture of the girls by the big paperclip. The line by the ant was too long and we kind of felt silly being only adults and didn’t want to take away time from the kids. We also took some pictures of the SF and NYC street scenes which are also going bye, bye.

We headed to the TOT for our FP and decided to check the time for the single rider line at R&RC. It was 74 minutes! The stand by queue was 90. So glad we rode it when we did! This time we were with a way younger crowd on our elevator at TOT. It was parents and kids ranging in age from about 5-10. One girl of about 10 asked to get off just as they were seated. After waiting in an hour line, that kind mother got off with her and didn’t try to coax her otherwise. Better woman than me! This ride was more quiet than our first. Granted, my dd now knew what to expect so she didn’t make her noisy fuss that she did the first time, but we felt like we would scare the kids if we acted too scared, especially since we were never scared but just acting like it all in fun. When we looked at our picture at the end, the three of us had our arms raised in joy and everyone else was quietly terrified. It was pretty funny.

We had some time to kill so we went shopping for my 4 mo. old granddaughter and bought her a cute Minnie Dress and my dd finally found what she wanted for her souvenir. It was a cute baseball cap with Mickey and Minnie kissing on the front.

It was time for our ST FP. My DD has been starting to have motion sickness as she’s gotten older. I tried to coax her to go to her doctor to get the patch, but between the busyness of her job and not wanting to spend $80 for a doctor visit she didn’t do it. We had Dramamine and she had taken one while we were shopping. She did fine and it only bothered her a little.

We queued for IJ and were barely able to get a seat. We had arrived by 145, but on busy days that is not soon enough. Luckily, Walter saved me from having to stand in the back and they were able to find room for us in the ADA section. I’d forgotten how large that theatre is, but it was full. I’ve seen this show every time I’ve come, but I noticed they had changed it since the last time I was there. I didn’t think the new show was that great, but my dd liked it. Perhaps, it’s just getting old school for me. I, personally, wish they’d put in an IJ ride like they have at DLR. We left the show early so we could not be quite as late for our 2:30 ADR.

We arrived at the 50’s Prime Time about 5 minutes late. We waited about 10 minutes for them to call us. I ordered the sampler, DD ordered the fried chicken and dd ordered a chicken Caesar salad. Of course, they told her to put her elbows off the table and for us to finish our homework while they got dinner ready for us. They brought our food and my goodness, was mine good! The meatloaf and pot roast were tender and flavored divinely. The chicken was good too, but the meatloaf and pot roast stood out. I was so glad I got that meal. And, the waiter (Dad) came by and told me to eat my vegetables.

We finished just in time for our FP start to TSMM. This was our longest wait that was just over 18 minutes. Touring Plans had said 15 so it was close. They had also taken us to the ADA entrance so that might have made our wait a bit longer than it would have normally been. I can’t really fairly judge TPs because many times our wait was changed by ADA entrances. It seemed fairly close and I would certainly give it an A+ for being able to give the consumer a general guideline as to what to expect at lines for certain times of the day.

I love this ride and because of the constantly huge lines I’ve only been able to ride it once at DLR and now once at WDW. I can’t remember what our scores were. They were most definitely average, I’m sure.

By the time we got out, it was already 4. We were hoping to be able to catch the Lights, Action show at 4, but knew that it would be crowded and already started by the time we got there, plus we wanted to more time to rest at our hotel before we headed up to Universal to do WWoHP.

I found I didn’t really need Walter in DHS because our waits were so low and the park takes less energy out of you. I had him anyway and he was helpful to carry our bags and give me a place to sit while we waited for VLM.


Stay tuned for the first Universal Installment.

 

[stitchlovestink]

Very thorough TR!!

 

[lanejudy]

Sounds like all your planning paid off with a great visit -- with Walter! LOL!

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

thank for posting something with such detail. I'm trying very very hard to convince my mom who is 58 and has some mobility issues due to severe knee problems to come along on our next trip. it's been 10 years for her and has since developed this problems so she's terrified of being able to get around. this offers good advice for me to share with her. she seems adamant about not using an ecv but maybe a rollator would work just fine for her.

 

[Scooterbritches]

Oh Mrsturner, I hope you can talk her into it! Though I'm not sure a rollator would be the answer for her. I have no trouble walking, just standing still, and the rollator just provided me a place to sit if I got stuck in a long line. We did 35 miles of walking over the 4 days we were there and I think her knees would be hammered. Tell her there were a ton of people there using ecv's. It does make things more difficult to use a mobility device, and though they say the lines are ADA accessible, it is one big pain to turn those corners and and steer through the narrow bull pens. You could avoid taking the ecv through lines if you stuck to a plan of arriving early and making FPs for when the lines start to get long. That way she could use the ecv to go through the park, but then park it when you got to a ride. If the lines were short, like they will be in the morning or when you use a FP, then I think her only issue would be walking through the park.

Before I went, I kept reading about how the lines had gotten so long and I was nervous about how I would do, but to be honest, my plan helped me more than Walter did. I think she would totally enjoy herself if she didn't need to worry about taking the ecv through a line. But I would definately get a wheelchair over a rollator if knees are her problem.

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

Thank you! I'm going to try to convince her to EVC thru the park and maybe a rollator would be good for the lines? She gets steroid shots in her knees which helps a lot and she might would not need the extra help in lines. She needs to have full knee replacement surgery but had to have major surgery last year and she is nervous to undergo any more surgery until she has to, so the steroid shots provide some relief for the time being. Can't wait to read more of your adventures.

 

[heaven2dc]

Enjoying your TR! I think Walter is the perfect solution for lots of us who have problems standing in lines too long (my left foot where I tore all of the ligaments in a few years ago really hurts when standing in line too long and I feel I need to brace myself but usually can't). Thanks for sharing! I have a question - in your post #4 you mentioned BLY. I usually can figure out abbreviations on the boards but this one stumped me lol