15 Days With My Sweetheart

[Cindylieu]

My husband and I spent 15 days on a Disney trip that celebrated both of our birthdays, his retirement, and our 25th wedding anniversary. We went from January 20 to February 3 and stayed in the All-Stars. We bought Genie plus and used the individual lightning lane. We also took the keys to the kingdom tour and ate out at fun restaurants nearly every day. Enjoy our completed report!

 

[Cindylieu]

Day 1- Travel

0215: Awake for a 0400 departure from home. Home is Boise Idaho. Our travel day. Looks like it will be a long, long day. Mom and Dad coming to pick us up.


Masking: We are nurses and are seeing a big surge in Covid and Influenza, so we are masking today and using thorough had hygiene in airports/plane.

We will see whether we decide to mask at the parks.

0700: Slight delay, but in the air. Headed to Dallas and a 4hr layover.

1800: Landed. Got bags.
We were intending to do carry-on the entire trip, and we did just bring carry-on bags. Decide to gate-check our bags on the way out because we were getting on the plane last and thought there might not be room for our bags. It turns out that that was unnecessary and we could have easily put our bags in the overhead storage. It turned into a little bit of a delay when we landed or in Orlando and I wouldn't do the same thing next time. Carry-on all the way, baby!

1840: In line for Mears Connect
The Mears Connect process was smooth and easy. We probably waited 10 or 15 minutes for our bus to arrive and then another 10 minutes to get loaded up.

1852: On bus

1900: On the road. We are the 3rd stop of 4.

We felt like the bus process was essentially the same as the old magical express, but without the Disney cartoons. Cartoons. They had a few old timey cartoons and then some information about other things to see in the Orlando area. All in all, it kept us entertained during the journey and was the same bus that it had been. We only stopped it. The Coronado and the All-Stars. It was a very smooth and quick trip. They handled our luggage easily and we picked it up at the hotel when they dropped us off. I appreciated it having it pre scheduled so that we didn't have to worry about trying to catch an Uber. I'm sure that it took a little bit more time, but for my sake the convenience of a pre scheduled ride made it worth it.

1950 Arrived at All Star Music.

2005: In room.


Room on backside of Broadway building on 1st floor (I requested this building via the chat feature, about a week before our trip)- clean, quiet, so comfy. 2 queens.
Settled in and explored room. Sorted luggage. Organized pins for trading.

I really love to pin trade when we are in a Disney park. I find it a little bit addicting. I traded almost every day during this trip, but I did try to keep it not too intrusive on my honey's fun. I ended up with almost a full exchange of my 50 pins I came home with a lovely set of pins for this trip. I gave away four or five pens to cast members who expressed some interest in pin trading but said that they didn't have a pin to trade. I thought that sucking them into my personal darkness sounded like a pretty good idea to me! Plus it was a nice way to give a little fun to a cast member who was doing a great job.

2100- food court for quick meal of orange chicken bowl and first sticker shock (would have been $26 for just the food. With drinks x2 and a fruit cup it added $20 and came to $46!) GETTING the mugs tomorrow!!
We thought that with it being a 14-day mug and our trip being a 15-day trip that we had to wait one day before we could get it. Turns out it would have been fine to get it on the first day of our trip as it kept saying it would last until February 4th and we were leaving February 3rd. Oh well, you live. You learn.

Wandered hotel and took some pics. Pin trading. Cool temps, light breeze. Warmer than Idaho!

2200 In bed

Walking:
Didn't check mileage. Not much though. Maybe 2 miles?

 

[Cindylieu]

 

[Cindylieu]

Day 2- rest day (yep!)

0715 Awake and coffee in room.
Classic cartoons.

BEST DECISION EVER to make first day a true REST day! Since we were traveling so far yesterday, we decided to make today a rest day and exploration day. It meant that if our flight was delayed or there were any difficulties with travel, it would not affect any reservations or park plans. This was absolutely the right decision for us! We were able to sleep in a little bit and wander through Disney Springs and just get acclimated to the time difference on this first day. The wonderful thing about such a long trip is that we did not feel rushed in any way to jump right into parks and reservations.

0830 Coffee mugs and coffee
0923 Epcot bus to find the monorail

0950 Rope dropping the monorail
Rode all lines (Epcot, MK, resorts) and then got off at Grand Flo to take bus to Disney Springs (Skyliner closed until next week)

1100 off monorail at GF (wandered and Memory Maker photos)
1135 Disney Springs

1140 Guest services for help linking Key to the World Cards to park tickets and Memory Maker (Birthday buttons)

Snack- poutine
Merch- new hoodie (mobile checkout)
Entertainment - Woodbridge HS string orchestra
Popcorn bucket

1330 Boat to French Quarter for a beignet
Ray spotted a BOBCAT along the banks of the sasagoula by the treehouses! I saw its back and short tail!

1345 French Quarter and 3 beignets. Pin trading.

(I tripped and fell on the boat dock and spilled all of my root beer!)

1515 Back to DS and on the bus for Fort Wilderness

1530 Fort Wilderness
Tri-Circle-D Ranch.
Met Vader (pony)
Saw Percherons
We always like to stop at the Tri-Circle-D in Fort Wilderness every time we go. We love seeing the horses and sometimes being able to pet them. This was no exception. The percherons were getting ready to go out and do some work. One of the wranglers brought out a black tiny pony for us to pet on the head. They do such a good job with the animals and the stables are so clean and nice. One other fun thing about being over there is that we saw four deer come out of the woods and graze near where the horses do their little pony rides. They are such small deer in this area! We are used to the big mule deer in Idaho, but these are just dainty little critters.

1630 to docks for Wilderness Lodge
1655 to hotel. Wander and look at details (Old Faithful spouting)
The Wilderness Lodge is one of my absolute favorites. It is very loosely based on the old faithful inn at Yellowstone national Park. We thoroughly enjoyed wandering around and looking at all of the details. The geysers were running and it was fun to stand there and watch them spout.

1805 Whispering Canyon- Megan so fun and nice. We did NOT ask for the ketchup.
Inconsistent food. Delicious first round. Dry and tasteless second round.

Boulder Ridge - Walt's train. Looking at carvings.
We had heard about Walt's backyard train being on display somewhere in the Wilderness Lodge. We found it in the Boulder Ridge lobby and enjoyed poking around there for a little while. It is worth it to explore the hotels and look for details that you perhaps would normally overlook.

1950 on bus to AK for transfer to ASM....found out AK is closed, so hopped off and walked from Contemp to MK and watched fireworks along the way! Short wait and on our way to ASM by 2025.

Hot cocoa and a quick pin trade.

Shower and bed by 2120

6.2 miles

 

[jo-jo]

Didn’t read anything yet. Just wanted to awwwwwww to the title.

I’ll save the reading for later.

 

[Cindylieu]

 

[Cindylieu]

Day 3- Animal Kingdom

Up at 0500

0615 Coffee and on bus

0630 AK security

0640 in line, FIRST PLACE!!
Never before have. We actually been the very first people in line, but on this day there was not a single person in front of us at the turnstiles.

(Early entry 0730 but in at 0715. Walked to Pandora at 0720)
Because we were first in line, we had no trouble walking quickly with the crowd over the flight of passage.

FOP line at 0725

Never stopped walking at a steady clip.

At the inside section at 7:30 and still walking

At stopping point at 7:35 and we're about 40 people back in the line. 3 min stop and up to our row.

Seriously though! We were only 40 people back on flight of passage and were just waiting for the ride itself to open. Flight of Passage is one of my very favorite rides and we were so jazzed to be able to do it as the first ride of our trip.

Off the ride at 7:55 and straight to Navi River journey with a 15 minute wait.

(Animatronic was working) This is the only time we rode Navi River journey on this trip, and I was very pleased that the fancy schmancy animatronic was working just like it was supposed to.

FoP ILL scanned in at 0830
Back at 7:00 we had purchased the flight of passage individual lightning Lane for this day, not knowing that we would be first in line. So on this day we rode Flight of Passage twice! We loved it both times.

Off at 0857

0907 Safari line says 70 min...let's see.

(Just spotted local celebrity Jim Duthie and his family in the Safari line. We joked with them for a minute)

1015 on truck....just what they said.
Nice safari!

1045 Tried for Lion King but wait too long. Would have been the 1200 show.

1100- Ray sat down at Feathered friends in flight and I went for popcorn

1130-1200 bird show (popcorn)
We love a good show and this was not a disappointment. It was fun to see the birds flying above our heads. And it was nice to sit down and rest for a little while with a bucket of popcorn in the shade.

12:05 Dinosaur line (back up after being down- 15min wait)
1212- in "orientation room"
1230 off ride
This is the only time we rode dinosaur on this trip. A fun journey, but not something we would go out of our way to do once. It does jostle you a bit.

1245-1330 Nemo show
We have loved this show in the past and enjoyed it this time too. I will admit that I could see some wear and tear on some of the puppets. I think they need to give it a little bit of love and spruce up things of it. But we were sitting down front and could see everything clearly. It was fun!

1400 Tusker House character meal and way too much food!
Be able to visit with all of the characters at this meal. We love African and Indian inspired food, and this is always been a special favorite of ours. We would do it again!

1511 gorilla falls exploration trail (gorilla family at glass, saw Grace)

1600 tiger trail- chuffing male
Evidently one of the females is in heat and the mail was well aware of that! He was pacing back and forth in front of the door and chuffing the whole time!

1700 SR Everest
Turns out this was the only time we got to write Everest on this trip. The second day we were in the park it was down. I'm glad that this ride was fun for us on this day.

On at 1720 (SB line was 30min)

1740 Wander to Pandora and see it at night. Watched sunset and Pandora changes. Sat on bench. Take pics in Pandora

We sat and soaked in the ambiance on this first evening in the park. Our feet were pretty darn tired by this time and we were glad for the excuse to just rest and watch. We make good use of the photo pass photographers and had a lot of fun watching the park start to glow as the sunset.


1845 Projections on Tree of Life

1905 bus to hotel and back in 10 min.

today's close time - 1900

Relaxed and showered. Called family

10 rides or attractions total
9.6 miles

 

[Cindylieu]

 

[Cindylieu]

Day 4- EPCOT (with Genie)

0615 up for 0715 bus stop

0700 SUCCESS: guardians VQ for 1100 and Remy's LL for 1250

0805 at rope drop for 0830 entrance. Rope drop Soarin
0833 in line for Soarin

Because we had VQ and LL for the rides we really wanted, Remy's and Guardians, we decided we would rope drop Soarin, another favorite of ours. We were able to spend most of this day in the front of the park, doing rides like Nemo, Test Track, Guardians and Living With the Land. We really only ventured back to the world showcase for our lightning lane for Remy's. The nice thing about spending 3 days in Epcot on this trip is that we felt no urgency to rush through things. We knew that we would have plenty of time back in the world showcase on future days.

0855 Livin with the land

0930 Moana- fun to play with the water. Fun to watch the little kids.
I really found this new water feature to be delightful! We were able to see it both during the day and the evening on this trip, two very different experiences for us. It was fun to watch the children play and it was fun to get in there and play ourselves. It was a nice little diversion.

0940 guardians WOW!!! Amazing. A TEENY bit queasy.
off ride at 1020
We were absolutely blown away by Guardians! What of fun ride! We're very pleased that we will be in this park more days and we'll have another opportunity to ride it again. I usually get sick on spinning rides, but this one did not cause me any trouble at all. Well... maybe a tiny bit queasy but nothing worth mentioning.

1038 test track- single rider
One fun thing about going with just adults is you can ride the single rider line without any worries. Ray and I rode in separate cars but were just one right after the other and had a great time.


All FP gone for Frozen. Chose Soarin'.
Since all of the fast passes sold out for Frozen very quickly, we ended up just skipping it. We've ridden it in the past and although it was enjoyable, it wasn't anything that we felt we had to ride again.

Killed 90min with Festivals art, painting, aquarium.
Festival of the Arts was going and this was our first taste of some of the extra fun. We didn't do a whole lot with the festival this day, but we did get to paint the mural and that was a good time.

1236 soarin (all good LL taken and all other return times "now") will wait until return times are later

By about noon, all of the "good" fast passes were used up. Everything that was left or rights that we could walk on. We realized quickly that Epcot is a park who's fast passes are less valuable than others. We decided that in subsequent days we will not be using Genie plus in this park.

1300 boat to France (instead of hoofing it to Remi's)
1311 landed in France

1318 Remi's LL

DELIGHTFUL!! Remy's astonished and delighted me! I was so surprised by this ride and it's quality. I loved loved Loved it!

Les Halles- Napoleon, strawberry tart, lime and raspberry macaroni
On this first day we started our" snack around the world" journey in France. These three little patisseries were quite yummy. Our very favorite of all three was the Napoleon. Highly recommend!

1400 Boat back
1420 rested on a bench (to kill 30 minutes)

1450 Test Track LL

1600 Rose and crown-relaxed meal. Sticky toffee pudding
Oh my goodness! If you've never had the sticky toffee pudding in the rose and crown, you're missing out! I believe that this was our favorite dessert of the entire trip.


1730 Wander to all the front things we haven't done. Walk on with Fast passes


In order, all with LL, all walk-ons. It was the principle of the thing:

Figment (not quite a awful as I'd remembered)

Pixar film festival (surprisingly cute!)

Living with the Land (Fast pass because we CAN!)

Awesome Planet (movie)- pretty nice and a chance to rest our feet

Nemo-2nd time

Turtle talk- really good! Some belly laughs

Mission Space(green)- fun

2030 in place for Luminous

2100 Luminous and leave (photo retrieve for guardians on the way out, the guy at the camera center was great. No line. Helped us for a number of minutes and was successful)


Luminous was cool! I am always a sucker for tear jerker songs and they had some. The fireworks were great! We jetted out of there and we're at the hotel by just after 2200.


Today's close time - 2100

15 rides or attractions total

9 miles

 

[Cindylieu]

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[Cindylieu]

Day 5- Keys to the Kingdom day

Oh man, we are so tired and in pain!

0600- up for 0900 Key to the Kingdom Tour day

0725- bus stop but missed 1st bus (That's okay though because we don't need to be there for rope drop this time)

0815 through gates

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

0900 Darlene tour guide - met Walt as a child in Disneyland where her father worked.

DETAILS:
Swiss Fam Robinson area uses ship parts for set decoration

Rode jungle cruise (we stole a boat!) with backstage info from Darlene.

Back stage I was most impressed with the huge trash compactor that the park uses for all the trash. It's like a giant vacuum tube that goes to my trash compactor the size of a house.


Electrical water pageant barges - although on this trip we did not see the water pageant, it was fun to see the barges backstage. They truly are built out of chicken wire and Christmas lights. What a hoot!


Huge dragon float- this is the dragon that breathes fire in the parade that was going on while we were there. It was fun to see it up close and hear how it works and then see it in the parade later that same day.

Columbia Harbor House lunch upstairs

Rode Haunted Mansion front of the line. It was really quite fun to be allowed to skip the line and feel like VIPs! Although Darlene told us a lot of secrets about this ride, it was difficult for us to find the secrets she spoke of. In the end we just sat back and enjoyed.

Seen in Utilidors- Rapunzel in her bloomers, Merida chatting with Jasmine, many cast members at ease, sewing room walked under nearly all of the world.

Unbirthday cupcake- at the end of our tour they were very kind and brought us each an unbirthday cupcake to celebrate the fact that none of us actually had birthdays that day. A sweet treat that was not expected but was very appreciated.

1430 Popcorn, ice cream, pretzels and wait for 1500 Festival of Fantasy Parade- We arrested for a while on a bench at the hub and waited for the midday parade to come through. It was very fun to see the dragon that we had just talked about backstage. He breathes fire! Wow!


1545 ride train round and round and get off in Frontier land

1615 Liberty Belle

1645 Country Bear Jamboree (x2)
This was the second to last day, I believe, of the Country. Bear Jamboree as we know it. It is now shut down to be refurbished. It was fun to be there. There were a bunch of drunk people there the first time over through, so we cycle back in with her a second time so we could hear the bears and not just the drunk people singing.

1745 Hall of Presidents

"Bob Day"- My dad's name is Bob and this was the kind of day at the park. He would have appreciated. Slow moving, lots of sitting and waiting.

Wander down mainstreet and buy new sunglasses for Ray.

1845 bus stop for hotel- We made today an early end. Our feet are hurting in our bodies are tired. This is a day we have a mission to just go where we wanted, to do what we wanted, and come home when we wanted.

FEET HURT SO BAD!!

1920 Mobile order pizza for the room while still on the bus. It was finished by the time we got to our hotel and we just picked it up on the way through.


Finding Nemo and pizza, IBUPROFEN and elevate legs.

2130 SLEEP
6.16 miles and 15,000 steps
Today's close time -2200 (left way early)
6 rides or experiences and a 5-hour walking/standing tour

 

[Cindylieu]

 

[jo-jo]

Your REST day made me tired.

Love all the details.

Great pictures. Except the one with drinking coffee out of a paper cups. I'm a snob. I'd buy or pack a real mug.

Did you use dining plan? Just curious if you did, how did you do cost wise?

 

[Counting Stars]

Loved your trip report! Concise but detailed enough that we get a good idea of your experience. Great pictures too! It sounds like you got a lot done without injuring yourselves . Sometimes it really is all in knowing when to quit Thanks for taking the time to share. Enjoyed reading about your experiences.

 

[Cindylieu]

Your REST day made me tired.

Love all the details.

Great pictures. Except the one with drinking coffee out of a paper cups. I'm a snob. I'd buy or pack a real mug.

Did you use dining plan? Just curious if you did, how did you do cost wise?

Thank you for your comments! Our rest day made me tired too.
As for drinking out of a paper cup, that was some tea at my bedside on a morning when I was just relaxing in bed for a few minutes.
We did not do the dining plan. I did the math on what we would likely eat, and the dining plan just did not make sense for us. We eat plenty of food, but even with eating well, we ended up spending at least 6 or 700 less than we would have if we had the dining plan. We were also able to eat precisely what we wanted without feeling pressured to order something that was more expensive or higher in calories. It just made better sense for us. What we did do is we put our money on Disney gift cards that we got from Target and saved 5 percent. It's a little bit of a pain to do that, but it was worth us for the savings.

 

[Cindylieu]

Day 6- MK ride day

0600 up and about
My achilles tendon attach point was on FIRE
Cold pizza and coffee, ibuprofen

Got Tron boarding group 37 and Jungle Cruise 1200

0715 bus
0805 in rope drop crush for Mine Train
0825 in line
0900- 0904
Seven dwarfs mine train is such a sweet ride! Love it!

(Thunder Mtn down)

0914 pirates line
On at 0927-0937- classic! I love the differences between the Disneyland and World versions.

***0940 Haunted Mansion line
1026- fun to look at this ride differently after the tour the day before.

1033 thunder Mtn line
1115 off ride- can't go wrong with this ride. Miss the dynamite that they have in Disney land

***1130 Tron VQ called , in line
Off 1220
HOLY CRAP!!!! THAT WAS INTENSE! MY FACE FROZE IN THAT POSITION! (See pic below)

1245 Jungle Cruise LL- PRETTY LAME JOKES. Lamer than usual.
1305 Haunted Mansion LL
Paused at spooks at 1319
Off at 1322

1400 Liberty Tree Tavern- food was delicious!! We loved the pot roast, potatoes. Dessert was delicious, but too rich for us to finish

1550 pirates. Off at 1610
1610 Thunder Mtn LL

1630 Train around and around. Bumping time for next LL to accommodate rest

Explore storybook circle. Wander through fantasyland

1750 small world LL

1830 photo retrieval at Theatre
(Tron pics are AMAZING!)

1910 bus to hotel

17500 steps/ 7miles

 

[Cindylieu]

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[Cindylieu]

Day 7: Hollywood Studios

0545- Up and hobbling about
0730 on bus

To park by 0750 for rope drop. Not too far from the front of the pack.

0821 Mickey and Minnie SB line started (0840 off)

Impression- cute, amusing. I'd do it again with LL but wouldn't rope drop it or wait more than 20 min. Great for kids. Interesting for adults. I like the old style animation of Mickey and Minnie, not so much the current style.


0840 Toy Story SB (off 0925)
We loved this! So much fun.

0938 Smugglers Run (SR line) posted 60min SB wait 0948 (10min) at ride

Saved us 50 minutes and we got to ride (as engineers) on the same ship. An Italian family with two little girls. One got scared and cried. We crashed our way through the ride, but still did better than I've ever done as a pilot in that ride. Made Ray a little queasy. Didn't ride again.

1015 ogas- fun, interesting. VERY overpriced for two fruit juices and a jello. We were there about 30min. (One and done for us)

1116 star tours- fun! Always love C3PO as pilot. Ride has a lot of nostalgia for me. (seeing Rex at Oga's was fun for me)
It made Ray queasy though, so probs won't do again.

1124 frozen sing-along--fun and silly. Hard for us to hear the jokes of the lady historian, but the guy was amusing. Glad we got right in without a wait. It was a great, cool place to rest our burning feet.

1200 Indiana Jones (standing room only)-always fun. Would have liked to sit.

1230 Mickey vacation cartoon-fun. Good to sit in the darkness.

1300 star tours LL immediate entry- made Ray sick again....so definitely not doing again.

--while there, slinky dog turned to anytime, which is GREAT since Ray is sick and was considering not riding. Now we can rest and go on Slinky later. Sat on bench and listened to music by 50s primetime. Shade, breeze, mist, drink of water. Waited for 1400 lunch reservation. --

1340 checked in for lunch

Amazing lunch! Mom's sampler platter. Chicken pot pie. Peanut butter shake. Apple crisp. Such a nice server and we had a lot of silliness with her. Very sweet.

1500 slowly heading over to Tower of terror

1522, off tower. Made me queasy, but I was soon ok. LOVE this ride. I screamed and screamed! Hee hee!

1540 Slinky Dog LL line (backed up but moving fast) 140min standby wait

This was such a a FUN roller coaster. Just a little more intense than Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. So much fun!! 100% will do again!

1611 chillin, waiting for Toy Story LL @1620


1620 in LL for toy story - took longer than we anticipated and we were really pressing it to get to Beauty and the Beast before our LL window passed.

1700 RAAAAAN to Beauty and the Beast....UUGHH!

Show was fun. We remember going to it three times when Emma was a kid. Fun to see it again in the same theater.

So tired and feet in agony!

1800 Skyliner: we rode around to rest our feet until 1900

Tendon on top of left foot is like a knife to my foot with every step. Rested it, massaged, tried to make the pain go away.

1900 to fantasmic (2000 start)

Got in semi-row with neighbor holding seats for her friends. Cast put us here and she was trying to push us out. it was ok in the end with no more words.

Show was great! Love the water features and the pyrotechnics. Mickey is always. Winner. Disney knows how to ramp up the nostalgia, and they did it well here. Good times!

2030 Relaxed stroll out. Bought popcorn And got some water. Sat in the outdoor seating at Hollywood Brown Derby and let the first wave exit the park. Left at 2115, before the next Fantasmic show let out.

2200 back to hotel.
7.3 miles/18,500 steps
13 rides, shows, or attractions (including Skyliner)

 

[Cindylieu]

 

[Cindylieu]