Happy New Year Caroline! I'd fallen behind on your TR but was able to catch up over the holidays! So excuse my very delayed reactions!
Oh my, I've never seen the Tarzan M&G and I'm kind of surprised that this costume is still around. Wonder what that casting process is like
I have some exciting news about my January trip. I was checking prices this morning on the Disney website and found The Destino Tower for about $160.00 a night with a water view. I jumped on this for our last 4 nights at WDW.
Can't wait to hear your thoughts on Gran Destino. I have a room booked here in July (if I decide to brave the heat) and it looks so beautiful! 160 is such a great rate, even POP costs that much these days!
We tried the Polite Pig on our recent trip and absolutely loved it! We haven't done a ton of dining in DS but now we'll probably just be going back there instead of trying anything new, oops! The brussel sprouts were our favorite surprisingly.
Your room at the Grand looked so pretty, we hope to stay there some day if the price is right. Love the idea of being able to hop on the monorail. We tried visiting from the MK to see the gingerbread house and realized there is no bus. The monorail line and boat line were so long at the time since
MVMCP was starting, we wondered if that would ever be a downside (unless they add buses when it's that busy)?
Yak and Yeti was on our radar for dinner. We flashed our Landry’s card and had a table in no time. We were on the lower level this time. It was okay not as nice as the tables upstairs with the view.
I think I will have to try Yak & the Yeti one of these days! Your food always looks good and I signed up for a Landry's card since we have so many of those restaurants here in Minneapolis.
It is a balmy 12 degrees this morning, we have fast forward to January temps already. To say I am not thrilled, is a huge understatement. I have today off and I am planning to lounge around today.
I forgot it got so cold so early (November 7th!) this year! It feels like we've had a heat wave lately with the high 20s. Makes me wonder what's to come...
We use to come here with virtually no crowds and ride Dinosaur over and over! I think our record was 9x in a row and Andi’s Everest record was 11x in a row, those days are gone now!
Oh my!
I forget if you gals have been to
Disneyland or not. I loved Indiana Jones and it's supposed to be the same as Dinosaur, but I rode Dinosaur for the first time in December and they felt so different. Not sure I could ride either more than a few times in a row without a massive headache or whiplash
Rino tour sounds awesome, I like the idea of the shorter and cheaper tours. One day I'd like to do Keys to the Kingdom but a 5hr commitment sounds like a lot, especially if weather is not great!
Sanaa looks so good, we did a short stay at AKL and missed it because we loved Boma so much we went twice! That bread service keeps calling to me though, I will have to make the trek out on an AK park day.
I am thinking of adding a day at US in January so we can try to ride Hagrid’s, get macarons and Vodoo Donuts.
Hagrid's is AMAZING, I hope you can ride it! The lines are so much more manageable now, I waited 50 minutes over lunch (which seemed to be the lowest wait). I also tried the macarons thanks to your reviews, so delicious! I wanted to buy everything at Toothsome's!
We decided to buy junk food item #3, some Lays potato chips and dip in the gift shop. Contemporary has a bigger store with food items. This is the best deal at Disney
Right around $5.00 with AP discount. This is cheap and a good deal for the best potato chips around!
We noticed that the gift ships are such a "deal" compared to the food court. They had a full size cereal for like $6. Compared to the tiny cereals and milk they sell at breakfast that aren't even a full serving for practically the same price!
We did Buzz twice, the second time Andi was a galactic hero, yay, again, happy for her.
I need some tips from Andi. I read a guide on which targets to aim for and I still struggled to hit one 100k target
I'm much better at Midway Mania since I can see my shots, ha!
The tea room was not very busy and with our seating luck, we were brought to a table less than 6 inches away from another table of two. We found out they were also a mother/daughter traveling team. We talked to them for awhile. They had just arrived from South Carolina. They were enjoying the tea except the daughter was a little cranky and short with her mom, huh, imagine that. I had no idea what the poor mom must be feeling!
Every mother/daughter duo must be like this! Sometimes I wonder how my mom has the patience to put up with my snappy moods.
Tea looks scrumptious, I did the holiday tea at the St. Paul hotel recently with a friend and had a fabulous time. If I do tea in WDW I'll make sure to pick something decaf, we made that mistake and never again!
When we arrived at Launch Bay, Chewbacca had a low wait. We decided to visit with our favorite SW friend. I did forget the box was taking our pictures now. It was a little distracting and I did get several pictures of my back.
Nice going picture box.
Ugh, I so hope these tests are a fail and they don't add anymore boxes! PhotoPass is so expensive so it's kind of ridiculous! So many people want to work for Disney so I don't want them to take more jobs away, I'll pay more for tickets if I have to
.
The family we hitched a ride with in the diner was from Britain and very nice. I do believe they were a little shocked we would be sitting in the back of the car. I don’t believe they understood the whole hitchhiking thing.
Sooo awkward! We were hitchhikers as well, luckily the family did not even react to us. Kind of a similar story, I picked up a solo FP to Slinky (mom doesn't ride big rides sadly) and got put in a row with a woman with her two little girls in the row ahead of us. She went to sit in the first seat and I had to awkwardly tell her I was supposed to get in her row too. The struggle!
We shared the oreo milkshake too and thought it was so good!
The Epcot tour seems so interesting, I didn't realize they did this. I definitely am guilty of overlooking everything in the WS. I've been in all the shops and tend to skip most of them apart from Mitsukoshi in Japan.
We decided to order a pizza from Flippers. This was the first time we have ordered something from off property. I was a little leary because of all the scams I have read about with Pizza delivery. It actually worked out really well. I just paid cash so no need to give a credit card and the ordering process online was pretty easy!
We split a pizza with cheese, mushrooms and pepperoni on my side. It did take about 1 hour from the ordering to the delivery. Andi went to the main lobby to pick up and pay the driver!
I will have to try ordering food in sometime. We usually end up doing a few food court meals at the resort but sometimes you just need something different! I hear that Uber Eats and those services deliver to the resorts so maybe I will do that next trip! Did you watch Finding Dory on the room TV? Our room at Coronado had Chromecast(?) and some Disney movies, it was so nice having that and I hope more resorts add that feature (and all hotels in general, it is 2020 after all!)
We have received 44 inches of snow since the week of Thanksgiving. This is more than double what is normal for a 2 month period.
It is crazy! I am use to snow, I have lived in Northern Minnesota and Northern Michigan my entire life, however, I am not impressed! It seals the deal for me to move to Florida soon! I plan to work from home, once Andi graduates from college, and live in Florida for 3 months each year! This is my goal and in reality it could happen as soon as 2 years from now, yay!!
How amazing would that be! I keep telling my mom she needs to do this, either in FL or AZ.
We decided to walk the Gorilla trails next. I highly recommend spending time on these trails. The morning is the best time, less crowded and you can see more of the animals and interact with the CM’s. We stopped to watch the CM feed the big turtle, he likes worms. The cute meerkats were fun to watch for awhile. We stopped to look at all the beautiful blue cichlids. We spent time talking with the CM at this exhibit. These fish came from Africa and they were dying rapidly there for some reason. Once at Disney, they thrived, in fact there are so many, Disney is giving some to Busch Gardens for the new African exhibit. Did you know, Disney autopsies every fish? They do, the CM explained how important it is to do this. It helps detect possible diseases and also if it was just time for the fish to die. We really enjoyed visiting with her and of course, learning more interesting things about AK. I highly recommend these trails, so fun!
I need to explore AK more! Usually we are so tired we don't do a lot of the trails.
Andi and I decided to try Nomads lounge. We were able to snag a table outside in the shade. The chairs are so comfortable. This was heaven, it feels like you are on a private veranda in Africa.
I definitely plan on trying this out on my solo trip! My friend recommended this to me as well, I've always wanted to try Tiffins but this seems like a more solo-friendly option. I'm a little worried the servers will not pay me much attention if I am alone and not on the dining plan, so the lounge would probably ease that fear!
We shared a compartment with 2 brothers. The boys were worried about missing Soarin FP. They were cutting it close. They didn’t know about the 15 minute grace period and I explained it to them and they were so happy to hear this!
We used this grace period more times than I'd like to admit on our last trip! I tend to book our FPs back to back so we can get them done by lunch time and make extra FPs but this means I'm always late to the next one, ha! It amazes me how many tricks there are that no one knows. Even the extra FPs, I'd be curious how many people have no idea because I always see people in long lines even early in the day.
Our entree was the vegetable enchiladas, we really enjoyed these. It was so much food for the 2 of us. We got a big bowl of black beans and these were so flavorful. I honestly don’t know how 1 person could eat this whole meal, it was a lot of food. Our meal and service were two big thumbs up from us this evening.
That's the biggest bowl of beans I've ever seen! I LOL'ed at the booth, we twosomes really do get the short end of the stick at WDW. Although, sometimes being so close to other guests does provide a source of free entertainment for the meal
Some people have asked me if you can use airport check inif you aren’t using the DME, yes you sure can! It is such a time saver once you arrive at the airport. So if Uber or Lyft are your preference no problem, still use airport check in at your Disney Resort!
We loved using airline check in for the first time! I think we either weren't aware or were not flying one of the necessary airlines on our last trips. It was nice not having to wait in line to check a bag at the airport.
We decided to head over to WtP and this was about a 15 minute wait, not bad. This ride also makes me happy!
My favorite ride, we always make sure to get a picture by one of the Gophers signs!
I wanted to try the Cheshire Cat tail and slushy. We headed over to this kiosk and ordered both. It was nice and quiet in this area. We were able to sit for a few minutes and enjoy our sugary breakfast. I really enjoyed both, the candy Straw was not to our liking so we tossed that.
This is on my list to try! I wish the straw was like a hollow candy rope though, seems like a design flaw to just cover a paper straw (already terrible) with candy!
Our first FP was for PPF, this is a must for me as many times as possible, Andi not so much, she tolerates it for her mom.
There's hope for Andi, this ride is slowly growing on me!
We decided to go in the Hall of Presidents to cool off. It sure was hot otherwise there is no way I can get Andi in this attraction, to boring she claims. We did have a nice cool down in here and it was the first time we saw Donald Trump
We did this for the last time for a while in 2018, we enjoyed the montage of #44 but had no need to see #45 again. Have you heard the rumors that originally made the animatronic based on a certain someone that was projected to win, and then had to make do at least minute? We thought this was the case when we saw it
Andi enjoyed her noodles, way to much for her but I am not giving up my delicious nachos to share another vegetarian dish, no way!
Those noodles look so good, I will have to make a special trip to try those if I'm not feeling CHH or Pecos Bills.
That is so funny! They hardly even tried
Glad you both had such a fun trip despite the crowds and weather! I'm nervous to go in the summer but am contemplating a 4th of July trip (crazy right). I feel like as long as you manage your expectations you can always have a good time. The people that have a bad time are the ones trying to ride every ride and see ever show in one trip, just not possible unless you are there for an entire month!
Can't wait to hear about your upcoming trip, the crowds should be nice and low! Thanks for posting such a fun TR! Reading about Disney sure does make the time between trips feel a lot shorter!