More Low Crowds for our last "trip" to WDW *FINISHED*

[Accident]

Our Last "Trip" to WDW.

Ok maybe that is a little misleading but for the foreseeable future, this is the last time we'll have to trek to WDW to enjoy it. A lifetime of joking, and 16 months of serious consideration and planning and this is our house hunt to move to Orlando Trip!!!!

When: Feb 22 - 26, 2016
Where: WDW
Staying: POFQ, Garden View Corner Room.
Who: Father/Daughter Trip.
Traveling: Amtrak from NYC (cashing in our rewards points).
Reason: Apartment Hunt, enjoy a week off work, and couple week early bday trip for my daughter. (and me, our bdays are 6 days apart).

Pre-Trip Plan:

No ADRs.
Fastpasses: (for the hard to get rides)
Monday night: MK
Tuesday night: EPCOT
Wednesday afternoon: HS
Thursday afternoon: AK
Friday afternoon: MK

The point of the trip is apartment hunting and fitting in some fun later at night if possible. Since we were going to be out and about around the Orlando area, we didn't want to take ADR slots from others so we decided we would wing it.

Since I wanted to move about easter week, combing this with our actual birthdays in march was just cutting it too close for both work and packing up home if it worked out. Using easywdw and some personal guesses on crowds with things happening, feb 22 looked like the first and possibly only low crowd week without an outside influence like weather or disaster.

We went with monday - friday to be around when it's a little easier to close an apartment deal and not overdo the spending prior to calling this home. The discounts available also fell in nice. We used a 20% Passholder Discount originally for a more expensive room and lucked out when we noticed the lower cost garden rooms open up as it got closer. A larger discount did come out but POFQ was excluded from that and we were happy with 1 more week here.

travel days....

I love taking the train to a vacation if it's within 24 hours. This trip is 23 hours. I decided to do the train because i"m not sure we'll be taking it much anymore when we're living down here and we had enough points for 2 people and a sleeper car in our accounts. Free train ride! the main reason I love it is beause I'm always exhausted when it's time to go on vacation and that's a horrible way to start a WDW trip. 23 hours with a sleep car means 23 hours to just wind down and sleep as much as you want. It works great for me and I spent most of the trip asleep so I didn't notice how long it took. The 24 hour trip back is going to SUCK!!!! this is when we would normally fly but we'll have a little more in the room fund by taking the extra day.

Since Im starting this midweek while we're here, I can say so far we've been able to find at least 1 park every day with no crowd. It's not everywhere low crowd but some smart go where the day takes you and it's low crowd. More details coming in future posts about each day..

Day 1 and some pictures coming soon!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

joining in! Happy house hunting!

 

[dlavender]

Good luck! We moved from Orlando here to Nashville 3 years ago. My wife has been eyeing a move back ever since....lol. Happy house hunting! You won't be hurting for options, that's for sure.

 

[luckylady]

Following . Hope you get lucky and find a place within a couple of days so you have more park time.

 

[Accident]

I thought with earlier close times I would have more time to post while here but looks like that didn't happen.... It's my last day here so I should start to get everything posted...

Quick updates:
We did find a house on tuesday so we had a few days of vacation to enjoy
the resort got really full thursday unto friday...
I got a good run at the parks, even thursday with mk/hs swamped, we had an amazing day at epcot
I'm happy we leave tonight and really happy we're doing the TiW preview event to hide from the crowds.

 

[TeresaNJ]

Good luck with the move! Looking forward to your updates!

 

[GoofyCdn]

My wife and I are thinking of doing this same thing at the end of the year. We are looking at doing a longer trip to the Orlando area and scoping out some areas for house hunting. I would love to pick your brain to see what areas you settled on, and what your requirements were for the areas you picked.

 

[Accident]

Things keep getting interesting here. We're going to be at riverside 2 more nights now (POFQ was sold out, the bubble more than burst) so Ill have time to finally post later..

My wife and I are thinking of doing this same thing at the end of the year. We are looking at doing a longer trip to the Orlando area and scoping out some areas for house hunting. I would love to pick your brain to see what areas you settled on, and what your requirements were for the areas you picked.

I posted this very question to the orlando forum last summer. I got a lot of really great feedback and you can find the thread here: http://www.disboards.com/threads/considering-a-move-to-orlando-area.3438574/

In sept we did the trip to check out orlando and found a bunch of "wouldn't mind trying here places". We wanted to do 1 more winter back home including holidays with the family but we were able to line up a lot of things to check out this trip. I decided I wanted to rent 1 year just to get to know orlando even better and see if we want to make this a long term thing..

 

[Accident]

Day 1: Arrival at Port Orleans, French Quarter.

Our train arrived a little earlier than expected (about 10 minutes) which was a pleasant surprise. We went to Orlando instead of Kissimee this trip. My daughter prefers the orlando station and you do get to disney faster but at the cost of a longer taxi ride. Kissimee I like better because on the ride back you have a lot less chance of traffic and can leave closer to your train time.

I was surprised to get a txt with the room number while in the taxi. I had made a room only reservation that wasn't paid in full yet. (You can make final payment at checkin for a room only reservation). They auto-charged my card in MDE Not a big deal but would have been nice to know that ahead of time when doing online checkin.



They put us in building 5. We had a garden room to save some money and I was happy with the location. I did notice on the walk over the smoking sections completely changed. The one next to food was gone, as well and the one just outside of building 4. I never liked the one next to the food but was surprised the one near building 4 where they show the night movies was gone.



I guess I was a little spoiled in sept at CBR in a newly renovated room. That room had plenty of usb ports all around and extra outlets. This room still had an alarm clock, and only 3 usable outlets. 2 near the bed and 1 near the table in the corner. (plus one in the sink area).

There was some minor renovation going on. They were redoing one of the walkways to the spa and I couldn't remember if they were fixing or adding a kids water play area. the pool was opened with a shuttle between riverside available. Apparently the riverside main pool is closed so they were shuttling anyone that wanted the main pool and not just the quiet pools to french quarter. I only noticed 1 family use it.

One thing I really noticed is there was a lack of people. We grabbed some drink cups since I'm a coffee person and my daughter likes grabbing extra drinks when she passes by.

We got ourselves settled, a quick cup of coffee and confirmed some house visits and it wasn't even noon yet. My daughter wanted to pass through MK and I had some late night fp+ expecting to be out around orlando. Since we had nowhere to be, we decided to head there for lunch...

We noticed the crowd immediately. I would say 80% of MK on Monday was marathon people roaming around with their metals on getting a quick 1 last day at MK completed. I decided to upgrade our annual passes to the new platinum ones since it was a prorated difference and not that much money. I also decided to take advantage of not being a resident yet and we got our TiW card. I also spent the extra for a second card for my daughter. We already know extended friends and family plan to visit and an extention card lets you get up to 20 people in your party with a discount if both cards are present. We also had to do everything in 3 transactions. I noticed in the new 2016 AP book that AP gets $25 off TiW. I also got that $25 on the second card so we scored there!

We went by to skippers and there was a 40 minute wait so we decided to just circle the park and look for something else.. after about an hour we decided it was more crowded than we cared for and noticed all the other parks had almost no wait times. We started to head off for epcot but ultimately went back to resort to grab lunch first.

We did notice the food quality at POFQ was better than out 2014 trip. The cast member on the grill was so good we even emailed in a compliment for him. It was still empty, I think 1 other person was getting food and maybe 3 tables in use..

In our quick break we checked out both the AP facebook and TiW info. We noticed a Flower and Garden event friday (which we did pay for and goto, more on that day 5). We also noticed a AP only Flower and Garden 1 day merch event to buy everything and it was today!!! In hind sight, we ended up not going to epcot even though we met someone in the resort that said it was really empty and they just did everything at least 3 times each in half a day. I wish we did but we'll be back when garden is still happening so not horrible.

We did decide to head back to MK. We saw some evenings with rain and we figured it was a good time to catch the fireworks and electric light parade. we also decided to check out sorcerers of the magic kingdom so we both signed up and started to do that. We also enjoyed out fp+ for a few rides now that it was later and just did some snacks and a light quick service meal.



I didn't eat at pecos bill but I noticed they were selling the mushroom swiss burger again and I didn't see the chicken bowl anymore. The rest appeared normal and the reasonable priced steak was still gone;(.

The Wishes fireworks did have some changes. it's basically in 4 parts and part 3 the story line didn't change but some of the shells they use in the star wars fireworks were added for a little more excitement and noise. I watched from my normal favorite spot in the back but also notice the carousel runs later and they moved the rope from behind the carousel to about half way up it. I got to stand closer and really have the fireworks over me.

It was also the first time I ever saw the fireworks with some light wind and no humidity. The smoke cleared out fast and it was a great show that was easy to see everything with!

Most people there was enjoying MK being opened 1 hour more that everything else (as were we) but we had a long day of house hunting so we called it a night early (and mk closed at 10).

 

[Accident]

Day 2: House Hunting, Hollywood Studios and more Magic Kingdom.

The day started out really early. We had the places we were most interested in lined up and went off to check them out. A couple houses, condos and an apartment or two. We really liked almost all of them and applied. Some of them had others who just put in a deposit pending the normal checks so we put in our applications and headed back to a break before the afternoon run to the next set.. I'm not going to get into too much detail in where as this is the internet but it's a nice single family home with plenty of room for the office I need. I telecommute and not changing jobs so that was the bare minimum need. The house is much more being near a nice lake, plenty of little shops in walking distance for pre work coffee and lunch breaks. It think we'll be happy here.

I got a call that we got our #1 choice but had to sort out a few things, nothing huge so my daughter headed to HS while I headed back to finalize some paperwork.

My daughter enjoyed a no crowd hollywood studios. She caught a couple shows she hadn't seen in awhile and hit her favorite rides and only took a couple hours to do it. She thought new Tsum Tsums came out so we met up in disney springs and walked around awhile but she had the wrong date and it was friday they come out..



Oh, the weather both monday and tuesday was near or low 80s in the day and in the 60s at night. monday night saw some rain overnight but nothing in our way..

We ended up in MK once again to spend more time checking the place out with sorcerers. Epcot had the EMH and it was showing long waits on everything but MK was 10 minutes on most and I think 7DMT had a 30 minute wait. The place was really empty and it was the perfect choice. we rode everything we wanted, including pirates as a walk on and even took space mountain for a couple whirls.. I tried to line up riding BMTR while the fireworks was going by my daughter got stuck on splash and we just missed seeing the end while on it.. I also noticed that some construction walls are now being replaced by wet paint ropes... I'm not sure wet paint is really the place to not use a wall but it was nice to see less walls than I was expecting.



I know why I always miss it,but I wanted to ride the teacups this trip.. Welp, it's down for refurb but sounds like it might be finished soon, just not soon enough. The way I walk around MK, I always cut around it but it's been 15 or so years since I even looked at it.. figures it's down.



We actually spent a lot more time than we expected. We had found a house, it was starting to sink in that this move is really happening and we just enjoyed being at MK and the low crowds. I got more and more empty as the night went on because nobody came dressed for the temp to drop back to 40 and we stopped to pick up jackets on the way back in...

MK closed at 9 but we casually strolled out at 10:30ish and nobody was asking anyone to leave and many rides still letting people on.. It was a really great night at MK...

We just headed back to the resort, decided wednesday was no alarm day and I hung out around the only smoking section with a roof and met some other travelers.. I heard horror stories of crowds at epcot (which was the park with evening EMH).

 

[Accident]

** I'll come back to fix typos and grammars after I"m done posting all the days **

Day 3 (PART 1): Rain and Animal Kingdom.

I tried really hard to sleep in but my body is too used to wake up at 9:45 and start work at 10am. I went out for my morning coffee and discovered that the storms did move earlier. Instead of an afternoon rain, I found a light rain that was suppose to get much worse (and even a tornado warning nearby). A smoker doesn't really know what rain is so I got my coffee and hung out for awhile in the covered smoking section with everyone else that slept in..

Someone I was talking with had family in tampa so we got a nearby what's about to hit us play by play. The second the wind went sideways, we all just disappeared and 20 minutes later the storm was over and sunny... It gave me a few minutes to get some actual breakfast while the worst passed by.

finally about noonish my daughter decided it was time to get up. (read: dad make a lot of noise in the room without actually waking her up) to get the day stated.

It was still warm but not 80s warm. a little overcast. I figured since it was 1pm, most got their day started and headed for rain friendlier parks so we picked animal kingdom. the MDE showed that nothing had a wait in AK but everywhere else wasn't doing so well.

There was no need for fast passes, they closed all the fastpass machines and it was standby only. there was no wait for any ride, by the time you reached the ride, you got on and enjoyed it. dinosaur was really fun. They didn't have many trucks out and the ride seems to move alone a little slower. Things lined up better with the narration...

Everest I got 15 rides on. We tried it from every single row and have to saw, this ride is really well designed to be up to speed for every seat to have a good time. There was only 1 spot rows 1-3 was a little slower but it wasn't a spot it mattered, unlike 7dmt where only the last 4 rows get the best ride..



We had plenty of time to check out the new shops and sweets.. We started to notice that most of the people visiting AK had never been there before. we met a lot of great people asking if this is how disney always is. It was really fun to people watch today to see so many kids experiencing everything for the first time (and the screams on dinosaur and everest from people that knew nothing about the ride).

There was also something I've never seen or experienced before. characters were out and being themselves. Exactly how I heard disneyland is. Goofy and pluto were trying to get someone to give them ice cream around dino land. Donald was sitting down in random food places trying to find a lost treasure.. Flick, not really sure what he was doing but he really liked the starbucks... This was the disney I've wanted for a long long time...



We didnt' stay for any shows and weren't looking to see the animals so after a couple hours it was getting closer to dinner time and watching the weather, it seemed like it might be the last night I might be able to enjoy the star wars fireworks at HS. i've never been to a star wars weekend so this was a new one for me...



it wasn't as empty as AK but it wasn't crowded. I actually had fastpasses for the big 3 rides so this lined up well. We saw the new star tours episode, walked up RnR so we got that minutes after Star Tours (but didn't need it, RnR and ToT was only 15 minute waits)...

I also did another first. I tried a turkey leg. It's a family joke that I'm not allowed to eat them because when we finally remember they sell them, as I'm walking to buy it you can see the place selling them close.. i'm always 20 feet too far away. It wasn't bad, I enjoyed it. I'm not a turkey or chicken on the bone person normally.



Yes I now that's a pretzel. We had those too..

I also got lot of compliments on my magicband. I use the grey limited edition haunted mansion band. Seems to be a castmember favorite and with the park so quiet, they all had time to strike up a conversation about it. If they don't notice mine, they notice my daughters purple jack skellington band. We met a lot of great cast members and I have to agree, they are very different than earlier years so either disney is letting them be better at what they do or the new batch of college program works are really into disney and living the dream!!!.

I've also apparently gotten my daughter addicted to Sorcers of the Magic Kingdom. She left to go get her cards and head to MK. I took the time to just walk around HS to enjoy places I know are closing or turning into backstage areas after construction before they shut them down for the fireworks.. I had a really nice time as everyone was near the front eating and I had the place to myself and all my new cast member park buddies..

I really enjoyed the star wars fireworks. I walked up to the rope and found nobody around me. Everyone was back by the desert party tables or behind it. I found myself a nice wall, sat down and waited...

i hate to saw it and I'm not sure which show came first but about 80% of the fireworks was the frozen fireworks with different colors and shells. now some of the shells were amazing and fit in with star wars (and what I saw in the 3rd section of wishes the other night). I was also really close and had nothing in my side vision except fireworks. I love fireworks so this was good and the finale was really in your face with a wall of fireworks..

I was having some camera issues so I didn't get anything usable after my daughter left and took her camera with her..

Tonight was EMH with the first midnight close of MK, it was also the first night going back into the 40s so a quick run to the resort for a jacket and off to meet my daughter we came...

day 3 Part 2 coming soon.....

 

[Accident]

Day 3 (Part 2): Magic Kingdom again?!!??!

My daughter was on a mission to finish sorcerers and MK was opened late. I figured it would be a crowded sit in the hub with coffee and people watch night...

EMH was 10pm - midnight and I got there right about 9:30. My daughter was complaining about seeing the electric light parade for the 12th time because sorcerers if you play the full length game (there is more than 1, ask when you sign up) runs you back and forth in an area for awhile so she kept seeing the parade as she knew the ways to get around the parade.



I was near adventureland when I started to notice everyone but me was walking out. It's EMH, wednesday, after a morning of heavy rain. It shouldn't be like this. by about 10:30pm everything was walk on except for 7dmt with a 20 minute wait. That's not a typo, 7dmt was 20 minutes during emh.



My daughter finished up shortly after I got to her but the sign up locations were done so she could't end the game and get her I won cards (or whatever they really call it).. We decided to take pecos bill for a whirl. It wasn't really packed with people watiing to get food but the side dining areas were pretty full. I love eating at pecos outside while watching a parade. There was no parade but we ate alone outside watching absolutely nobody go past us.. That whole back corner was very dead..

We spent some time doing splash and btmr with no wait again then we cut back to pirates. I can't remember if this or tuesday was the show your ears charity content disney did but my daughter did it. I'm 99% sure it was today as I remember it being really empty when she found her ears and a spot to show them off. If you didn't hear about it, disney was donating $100 to charity for every picture of ears sent on social media to them. There was no prize except a "you won" which was ok it was still 100 to charity for any picture sent,

We once again had a really good night.. we did our favorites all over yet again... We had nobody in our way so we just did our thing and had a good time. the only strange thing that happened was the most confused family that didn't speak english trying to figure out who would sit in the front of space mountain. none of them did and eventually they asked if we would mind the front. it was a comedy and I wish I had it on video, they did everything except jump on the track. It was also the only ride with a wait (about 20 minutes). strange night but i'll take it any trip!

We did do another first. We've never tried the different mac n cheeses at friar's nook. We didn't eat dinner yet so we got all 3 of them. I really liked the pot roast, my daughter preferred the plain. mac n cheese is that dish that I loved as a child but i'm hunting for one that takes like my grandmas now. this wasn't it but I will be getting this again....

We had some time to get some amazing alone in the parks shot even though we weren't alone, it was just empty...



I wish I was wearing something else but this may be a picture we'll never be able to take without a photobomber.. best use of photopass EVA!!!!



We got about 15 different pictures, that's not the best one but it's the one I'll post here

We actually didn't make it to midnight, we had a good 3 park day and had nobody in our way so we cut out a little early to grab some sammiches at the resort since we barely ate today...

 

[Accident]

Day 4: EPCOT

We originally thought this would be the one and only day we had to devote for a full day to the parks My daughter wanted to make it her MK day but we did that so much already that we weren't in the mood. We both work up by 10am this time and by 11am we were on our way out..

We knew we were doing the Tables in wonderland event for our last thing at WDW on friday. We also knew we didn't really have time to see anything else and I saw some pictures from the marathon that some of the topiary was already out. We decided a quick lunch and circle of epcot would be a good afternoon to check out what was there..

We recently learned that someone in the family put all our names on the epcot entrance... It took awhile to look it up but we found it..



We also decided to stop at ellen's energy adventure. i've never seen it since it became ellen and my daughter has never seen it.. We braved it and went in. Wow is it old, everyone looks like young and dated... I was also excited to see the dinosaurs since I learned on connecting with walt they are the original ones from the worlds fair.

The ride is as bad as I remember, it was so empty, they even gave everyone 5 chances to not ride it. I did find some of the humor entertaining though so it wasn't horrible but that's the last time for that.

We stopped at nine dragons for lunch after disunplugged gave it a very improved, might be the new goto review recently. It was empty, we got right in. The staff was nice. anything that wasn't common tasted great and worth the money. We did get 1 common item to compare and it was as good as our favorite local home place.. Something disunpluggd missed is your original receipt has a 20% off merch which my daughter very quickly claimed and went shopping.

The rest of the afternoon we just went from topiary to topiary. Below is some of them and we learned on friday that 50% of the show is not out yet.. (although about 50% of the show is food so not really sure what is missing here).



We actually saw the beauty and the beast back in dec 2014 being started. Back then it was only a face on the wire frame. It was during the backstage tour and it was great to see it completed.

It was getting closer to dinner and I'm surprised my daughter lasted this long.. she hates epcot. the topiary display she kept txting people pictures of worked well for her... We headed back to the resort after....

I thought this was going to be a quiet night but NOOOOO my daughter, again now addicted to sorcerors of the magic kingdom wanted to start the next game so off to MK we go its only opened for 2 more hours so hopefully we'll be able to eat too...

When we waited for the bus, that's when we noticed the bubble has burst.. POFQ was PACKED.. There was people that just got in with small kids and decided MK was the best way to spend an hour.. when we got off the bus, it was worse.. There was a wall of people leaving and a larger wall of people going into the mk...

We also noticed people getting wrist bands like it was a party we didn't know to get tickets for. turned out to be the 25th anniversary of DVC only free event. GA was until 9 but then 9:30 - whenever was the first of 2 dvc parties.. there had to be 40,000 people on main street and the hub. the rest of MK, not so bad but it appeared WDW closed down most rides to get everyone not at the party out...

We stayed for fireworks after a rough walk around to the back to find my daughter couldn't play the game because she needed to get into the closed down area behind the castle.. we got out of there pretty quick..

this was also the first night we not only had to wait for the 3rd bus to arrive, but we didn't get a bus seat.. the bubble was burst and we timed it perfect to leave... Last night, we're about to move here, and I'm happy with the week so far...

 

[Accident]

Day 5: Last day and TiW Event!

We usually leave at night and that was the case this time also. We packed up, put our bags and storage and headed to epcot for our TiW garden festival event. My daughter was acting a little slow and worn out and mentioned she felt dehydrated. She grabbed some smart water and we were off, but she was slower...



The event was nice.. It was a preview of the food and drinks coming to the Flower and Garden Show. Some speakers who went over what to expect and the history of the show.. Many of the Disunplugged staff was there and it was a ticketed event available to Tables In wonderland card holders... A little pricey but I enjoyed everything and it was my first event so I had nothing previous to compare it to and loved it. There was a parting gift of a potted edible plant.

I'm going to be posting more about this in another thread so I'll link to that when it's out. Also I suspect disunplugged orlando on tuesday or next week will cover it also..

It was a nice way to end the week although my daughter was anxious and didn't really eat much, but did calm down part way though and had a little to eat...

we were just planning to see if we could catch some rides with the big epcot crowd before we went to get out bags and get out of there.. When we got near figment, my daughter just started to sound awful and was shivering like it was -20 and she had no coat.. she didn't have a fever or anything and described dehydration to me. We took it slow with more smart water but she wasn't doing well.. she asked out of nowhere if I could get her a room so she could rest... We slowly made our way and finally sat down near the buses by a bathroom.. I was able to make arrangements with both travel and work but we now have to leave sunday night.. It took another hour before she felt she could handle the bus but we grabbed a cab that was right there instead...

POFQ was sold out (yes that full here). We got a good deal on POR, it was close to epcot and our bags. we got checked in pretty quick and over to the room.. it took me awhile to get back to our bags, move them over and then go find some food and supplies that she needed. I'm sure this is just not keeping up with the calories needed for disney + dehydration (at least for now). Her anxiety is just compounding that shes not well and not heading home even more..
We're here 2 more days but have no intention of doing anything else. It'll just be a time to post some things and catch up on tv and work unless there is some dramatic overnight improvement.

 

[Accident]

just a quick update my daughter is feeling much better but not hit the parks again better. We might try a springs night at the movies or something but we'll tackle that later. We'll be good to get home after the weekend.

I should get the horrible grammar fixed up today.

 

[Accident]

Side Bar: POFQ vs POR

My daughter is doing better and I'm not concerned anymore but we're taking it easy today to get back to normal...

Previously I posted it quick but wanted to give some more information on the new POR room we are in... I wanted to stay in pofq because it's tiny and when not well being able to get anywhere fast is a plus. it was full and por was close to epcot where we needed to get from as well as pofq with the luggage. We're in a standard room for 2 nights, and got the free 1pm checkout for Sunday to make the gap from checking out to headingto the train as small as possible. In hind sight this was the way to go, she wouldn't have made the ride to the train. on the train with our own room it would have been ok but first you have to get to it.. we also got the larger room for the way home to be more comfortable.

the only thing I'm crossing my fingers isnt' a problem is we're resting now instead of sleeping for 24 hours on the train ride home. Also I have to take care of 1 last thing for the house and the papers I need are home and that's making me nervous since I can't finalize it here (but we've been reassured the place is ours and just take out time and be well).

POR:

The last time I stayed or even saw it, it was called dixie landings. It was very new back then. the trees and such have really grown since then and it looks very different now. my daughter is really enjoying the decor more but I'm finding getting anywhere to be an extra mile of useless sidewalk curves around buildings or river. I haven't tried walking the parking lot yet and I think that's how I plan to try out tonights walk to the food.

like POFQ some smoking sections have changed but it's not as hard to find the new ones. Ones not on any map seem to be in the parking lot. I was walking a good distance in a spot I really hated near the only way to the bus stop. I don't like smoking on walkways that kids have to pass you. finding the parking lot spot is not only closer but more isolated from them.

The entire pool area is closed but the walkways through the middle are opened. I wish I knew that when the front desk said it wasn't, we would have been in a closer room then we got. There is a pool shuttle to POFQ for their main pool and the quiet pools are still opened.



We have a standard room, which includes the "fold out minibed". more rustic theme, wood like shower, etc. the alarm clocks are gone here and there is more plugs available but no usb ports to just plug into. being a more wooded theme, its wrecking havoc on my allergies (outside, not the room). I miss pofq

Food options are much better with a wider variety food court, although limited compared to other resorts like values with premade options. I was surprised on that. Most items are made to order which is nice but does take longer. the lounge is much larger as well as the gift shop. CBR still has the better gift shop for room supplies like food and such. this is the normal snacks with some other things overpriced..

because there is a table service, TiW isn't accepted in the food court. We were loving getting 20% off food at POFQ. It's something to really think about as we find food the highest cost of a disney trip the way we do it. after we move, it might still be a problem if we staycation when friends and family come down.



Getting to my bags I just walked over to POFQ. I let me clear my mind a little and give my daughter some space to rest. I got a quick ride back with bell services and our bags and over tipped that bell hop.

We've done some short walks today, grabbed some food and more electrolyte beverages. It's a do nothing stay in the room day for us. we'll take this one slow but I don't expect to much more to report except maybe some more pictures if I get the time...

 

[TheMaxRebo]

First off - glad to hear you found a house! I've been feeling a bit less than inspired at work lately so the idea of switching to a position that would allow me to work from home and move to Orlando seems very appealing to be right now

Your low crowd days seems wonderful! Definitely goes to show that it is the high crowd levels that force them to not have the roaming characters (we were at Disneyland in October with super elevated crowds and character meets were a bit of a nightmare without the organization they have at WDW)

The TiW event seems really nice - I had been seeing a number of updates and videos from the Unplugged crew in social media - I know Pete commented he thought the food was really good. It's nice they are doing events like that and the DVC 25th event

Very glad your daughter is feeling better

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Sorry your daughter got sick but glad she's feeling better. Yay for finding a house!

 

[Accident]

I did the walk from the parking lot and it was much better than the snaking paths. We're in building 28 which is directly next to the parking lot so getting to the path and then taking the path over was probably twice the distance but that's a guess. the west side bus stop is still closer so even though the parking lot bring you to the south stop we'd probably just do the walk. Of course disney spring buses will bring you to all the bus stops from the main building (and park buses from any stop to the main building bus stop).

First off - glad to hear you found a house!

There is no shortage of rentals here so it wasn't very hard once I knew where I wanted to be...

I've been feeling a bit less than inspired at work lately so the idea of switching to a position that would allow me to work from home and move to Orlando seems very appealing to be right now

That was what clinched it for me. I didn't have to find a job and in my industry, it would have been at least a 60% pay cut just because nyc is one of the places that pays the best for that talent. It lets me daugher pursue her career dream with the family safety net nearby, I keep my same job at the same pay, and there is no state income tax here so the house cost is what I used to pay in income tax, I no longer have my monthly housing costs and I'm saving money by living closer to the things we really enjoy.. The only con I found is it would be difficult to find another remote job if I needed to (but not impossible).

Im also really excited by the idea of places to weekend trip and vacation from down here. We did a lot of weekends between washingon dc and boston because it was a quick train ride and a couple hours to get there if we didn't just drive it. heading a distance south and we'd always end up at WDW. We love the idea that this is home and all this barely explored southern destinations are opened up for getaways.. Also it opens up some lifestyle changes for us, I spent over 40 years and grew up where I live now, i'm kind of in a rut and this move is going to be that kick start to just living better and different.

The TiW event seems really nice - I had been seeing a number of updates and videos from the Unplugged crew in social media - I know Pete commented he thought the food was really good. It's nice they are doing events like that and the DVC 25th event

It was the first time I ever did an event and i have to say, I hope they do these a lot. I loved it and would pay that price again. like pete, I felt at first it was a rip off but then the way the food was being plated, the chefs right there, tweaking it if there was anything you didn't want. Anyone with an allergy (they asked ahead of time), they not only had all you can eat alternatives for them, but enough for everyone to try it the other way too.. I tried everyting, I left full eating some of the best food disney has ever produced and they could have easily had 300 more people help finish what was leftover.

I even had the people who make the food choices available and coming to me asking how evertthing is. I was able to do some compliments of recent improvements to some restaurants and let them know I look forward to having the food standard at all epcot destinations improve.. (politely say the food suck but your off to a good start in changing that).

Their video really showed it off well,

 

[Accident]

Final thoughts and the trip home.....

The weekend went as expected and barely did anything. We had 4 hours between checkout and leaving for our train home. We just did a lazy resort meal, then a short boat ride and walk for part of springs and got back to the resort to wait out the rest. The train itself went smooth, I surprisingly slept a lot. This turned out to be a good way to get my daughter home, a private room and restroom and she was able to be nautilus in peace. She wasn't bad, slept most of the way. The train surprised us and went from 20 minutes late to 1 hour early once it hit DC and can quickly leave stations and run faster on the trains. It's 2 days home and shes still a little weak but no longer that sick feeling and alive..

The trip was nice. We're still dotting the i's and crossing the t's but I think we're in a good spot with a place to live. That gives us about 4 weeks to pack up and head back down. We were going to originally arrive in time for easter but now we're looking at just after unless something changes. It'll be nice to do 1 more holiday with family here. We already have a pretty long list of friends and family that are "threatening" to visit. We're really looking forward to the family that isn't too far away from orlando that I haven't seen in several decades and my daughter hasn't met...

Crowds were ok, if you were willing to miss them and head to parks without them. We did a lot of firsts, either trying some game like sorcerers or getting certain snacks/food and it was nice. We weren't planned but that was our plan

The illness at the end sucked, spent more money sitting in the room the last 2 nights than the entire rest of the trip. We got home safe though and that's what really counts here.