We had a Disney December, Bahamian Xmas, NYC NYE and then some!! COMPLETED!

[lffam]

OMG I'm so thrilled to see you are back lffam! I've been checking each day so it was awesome to see your TR at the top when I checked today. I've not read it yet because I just wanted to thank you so much first but now I'm going to have great pleasure in finally getting to read about your experience at BWV

Well I hope you enjoy it and thanks for your patience!

You have some good photos of the Boardwalk.

Thanks Colin. Wish I took more now!

 

[lffam]

Day 11 cont.. Hollywood Studios, Star Wars Launch Bay

We spent our day at Hollywood Studios today. We caught the boat from the Boardwalk over. I’ll talk a bit about getting to the other ther parks on another post. We had FastPass+ for Toy Story from 11:05-12:05 and got there with 5 mins to spare on our FP+ time window! It was a great ride to start our trip with. Got Star Tours under our belt also with a short walk up line and then we also had a FastPass+ for it at 3:40 so rode it twice on our first day. These two ride are my favourite rides so to do them both right away was really great. We also went to Star Wars Launch Pad. This is similar to the one at Disneyland, it does have some different displays and is a little larger I think and a bit more artwork from memory. We got told to watch out for he Jawas, they like to steal things lol

I’m going to flood more Star Wars pics sorry, but we are massive fans!

Now we still hadn’t seen Star Wars the Force Awakens, well it hadn’t actually been released yet, so we didn’t really know some of what we were seeing. When I have gone back to look at the photos after seeing the movie on the cruise, it really added a new layer of appreciation and awe to this place.

Capt Phasma and the First Order troops

Ahsoka Tano from The Clone Wars

 

[lffam]

Day 11 cont - Walt’s One Man’s Dream

Lunch was just on the run at Hollywood Studios. We went to see Walt Disney, One Man’s Dream which was walked through Walt’s life and dream of Disneyland and World as well as a short film. Really worth while going through it.

Model for Peter Pan’s Flight

Mr Lincon Animatronics

The Jungle Cruise Model

 

[Travel Mum]

Thanks for posting the photos of One Man's Dream as we didn't see that when we were at WDW in 2011. I didn't know much about it so never built it into our daily touring planes. But, now that our girls will be older and because we are staying 3 days longer this time (12 nights compared to 9 nights) I'm going to really try to make time to go it as it looks very special. Did you have to queue up long for it?

 

[lffam]

Thanks for posting the photos of One Man's Dream as we didn't see that when we were at WDW in 2011. I didn't know much about it so never built it into our daily touring planes. But, now that our girls will be older and because we are staying 3 days longer this time (12 nights compared to 9 nights) I'm going to really try to make time to go it as it looks very special. Did you have to queue up long for it?

There was no queue to get in, but we did just miss the start of the video, which I think runs very 15/30mins from memory but don't hold me to that. We just looked around the displays. there is a lot of information to read if you want so the time went quick, till the start of the next video.

 

[lffam]

Streets of America & Trattoria Dinner

We spent some time walking around the streets of America which was all set up for The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights.

We had an ADR for dinner at Trattoria, one of the restaurants on the Boardwalk part of the Inn. It was really great. We had a very friendly waitress. The food was hearty and wholesome and very filling. I did an Italian wine tasting! There are a number of different wine tasting you can do I chose a Tour of Italy. It included three, 2 ounce pours(approx. 60mls)

It was great value and tasting too! I really recommend it (I did it again the next time we went there also!)

Veal Schnitzel

Slow Cooked Lamb Shank

Fettuccini Carbonara

We got into a conversation with the waitress about coffee. She assured me that they made espresso and could make whatever coffee we liked. I said I would just take an espresso. It came out and it was disappointing, it had no crema on it whatsoever. That said, I did tell her it was the best coffee I had tasted on our trip so far, which it was but still fell way short of what we can so commonly and easily get her at home. But hey, were in Disneyworld so really didn’t worry too much about it!

 

[lffam]

Day 12 – Minnie's Beach Bash Breakfast at Cape May Café

We started our day with a stroll along the Boardwalk and over to The Beach club for our character Breakfast at Cape May Café. It was a beautiful day, our reservation was for 9:15, we arrived around 9am. and were seated about 9:30. Prior to sitting down we had a look around the lobby and in particular the gingerbread carousel.

The restaurant was quite busy still. Large buffet with the usual hot and cold fare, but they also had a crepe making station which had chef making crepes to order with lots of yummy fillings. This was a great little treat and we all partook in some sweet delights! Characters a bit light on, we only got photos with Goofy, Minnie & Donald so pretty sure that was all there was. Nonetheless, we enjoy the character dining and while all in all it may be a little overpriced, it’s a nice experience and we are on holidays after all.

 

[Travel Mum]

Awesome you are back on a roll now. Thanks heaps

 

[lffam]

Awesome you are back on a roll now. Thanks heaps

Let's hope so ! I must say looking at the photos again bring back so many great memories. Some of the details and specifics are getting a bit sketchy now given the time gap. next time I will definitely go old school and keep a little notepad/journal to be able to record in the moment and share more detail later.

 

[Travel Mum]

Oh and I just realised that you also visited Washington DC and New York which is great because we are doing them too on this trip so I'm keen to read all about your times there too We have 4 nights in DC and 6 nights in NYC but that's before our Orlando stay.

 

[lffam]

Animal Kingdom

After our breakfast at Cape May Café, we caught the bus to Animal Kingdom. This was one of our favourite parks from 2013. We had FP+ for Kali River Rapids, one of our favourite rides and also form Kilimanjaro Safaris.

We started the day at the bat enclosure for some reason, don’t really know why as not a big fan of them, apart from the Batman lol. We also went to see a few different animals, including some birds and some sleepy tigers.

The safaris do depend on the quality of your driver/guide. Unfortunately, ours this time wasn’t as good as we had had in the past, but we did get to see some great animals and get some great shots.

Hyenas

 

[lffam]

Animal Kingdom cont..

Cheetah

When the Lion doesn’t want to move, nothing you can do about it!

Looks a bit like he was going to charge!

 

[Travel Mum]

Looking at these AK photos makes me realised that all of your TR photos are so amazing - you must be so proud of them!

 

[lffam]

Looking at these AK photos makes me realised that all of your TR photos are so amazing - you must be so proud of them!

Thanks for the compliment @Travel Mum on the photos. I am pretty happy with them I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to photos though! It was the first time I really used my new dSLR and while I still am not sure I would take it again for a trip like this, I am glad I did for this one.

I was actually a bit disappointed with many of the PhotoPass photos we got taken. I know in particular the AK ones the photographer was new ( we knew that because he had a person shadowing him) most of he AK photos were not exposed properly which we were quite disappointed with. We also had the same problem at Hollywood Studios.

 

[ColinA]

I was actually a bit disappointed with many of the PhotoPass photos we got taken. I know in particular the AK ones the photographer was new ( we knew that because he had a person shadowing him) most of he AK photos were not exposed properly which we were quite disappointed with. We also had the same problem at Hollywood Studios.

I totally agree. We get the photopass free with the annual pass. I would not bother paying the extra on a normal ticket.

A lot of the photos were not good. The ones they took with our camera with Mickey and Minne at the Boardwalk were far better than the photopass photos.

 

[lffam]

I totally agree. We get the photopass free with the annual pass. I would not bother paying the extra on a normal ticket.

A lot of the photos were not good. The ones they took with our camera with Mickey and Minne at the Boardwalk were far better than the photopass photos.

That's really disappointing to hear . Especially with what they charge for it. We really didn't utilise it very well. Where it would have been really good , when DS was doing Jedi Training. there was a stuff up so we didn't get many photos of him, but I'll get to that in a few days!

 

[lffam]

Mickey’s Backyard BBQ & The Wilderness Lodge Lobby Decorated

Dinner was at Mickey Backyard BBQ. I didn’t really take any photos. Apart from a couple of DW embarrassing DS singing at the table. The show itself is very geared towards younger kids I’d say 10 and below. It was a Country Western style show, bit of fun, but nothing to really rave about in my opinion. We tried to book this for our 2013 trip but couldn’t get a reservation then. The food was great, buffet style, lots of it. The price included drinks (beer, wine & soda) and also dessert. Seating was long communal tables. I can’t recall if we were allocated a table, but DS seems to think we were not and we just had to find our own.

On the way back we went to The Wilderness Lodge to see this resort again. You may recall that we stayed there in 2013 and we loved it, so I wanted to back and see it all decorated for Christmas

 

[lffam]

Day 13 – Magic Kingdom. Jungle Cruise

Today we started off with breakfast in our villa. We bought croissants from the bakery on the Boardwalk the night before. There is a drip filter coffee machine in the villas so this was enough to get us started for the day and then off to the bus for our trip to Magic Kingdom. The bus station at Boardwalk had screens showing the times for the next buses going to each park. I am not sure how long these screens have been up, but I know in 2013 at Wilderness lodge they did not have them. We had a short wait and then got on to the freezing cold bus!

Our first FP+ was for the Jungle Cruise or Jingle Cruise. Not much has changed, same corny jokes but we do it every time, so it is still enjoyable.

 

[lffam]

Be Our Guest

Lunch was early and was somewhere we had not been before, Be Our Guest. We had read a little bit about it, but not too much. There was quite a line up. Walk ups were being turned away as they said they were fully booked. When we got inside we could see what they meant.

We lined up and then when we got inside we started to see the theming and it was really very well done. We were all ready to order using the touch screens and then we were directed to a vacant cast member who took our order. We walked through all the rooms and ended up sitting in the Rose Gallery. Sorry I can’t say too much about the food as I didn’t take any photos or keep any notes about it. The experience for lunch itself was very enjoyable and the theming is simple quite amazing. I’d like to see what dinner is like next time.

 

[Travel Mum]

Did you have an ADR for your lunch at Be Our Guest?

For our trip, since we won't have free dining like last time, we will need to be eating very frugally. So TS restaurants will be out this time except I've given each of our girls the chance to choose one TR restaurant for us to eat at (hence 3 x TS meals during our trip). DD18 has chosen BOG and, knowing I will have to book that ADR as soon as the booking window opens, I could not believe it when I calculated what date our booking window opens to find that we will be enroute to Malaysia on that day!