First time back in 14 years!

[Disney Addicted]

Yes - 14 years since our 1st visit staying on-site. September 2010 and now September 2024. Now, we did have a Universal Studios on-site trip in 2019 and snuck away twice to visit AK and MNSSHP, but it took us 14 years for a 2nd full Disney trip. I wish we had made it back sooner but ah well, that's how things work out sometimes. However, having said that, I told everyone I am not going back to Disney again until we have grandkids. And then, I'm only taking the kids (and my husband), not their parents! In 2010 our kids were 6 and 11. Now 20 and 25. I loved it more when they were kids!

This trip came about as I had won a Virgin Voyages cruise through Virgin Radio 99.9 (Canada) in 2019. The ship was ready in 2020 but Covid came along and grounded all ships. In 2022 I finally went on the cruise. My daughter was going to come with me but her passport had to be renewed and we didn't know when it would arrive. Finally we gave up and my aunt came with me. Virgin had to book the flights and couldn't wait any longer. Turns out her passport arrived the week before the flight/cruise. In any case, I told her I would take her on another trip later. In December 2022, she started pushing for a Disney trip instead of a cruise. Her aunt tried to talk us into a Disney Cruise instead (oh yes please!!) but did not commit to a date (even roughly), and then my husband started asking when I was going to book the trip. Fine - I'll book the trip!

This was now January 2024 and I thought I was going to lose my job (a lot of people did - thankfully I did not). So I booked a shorter trip than we originally talked about using a room discount (ASMu); booked the flights when I could not convince everyone to drive; then months later booked the Canadian Resident tickets.

Monday, September 16th finally arrived! I ordered 2 cases of water and a bottle of sunscreen to be delivered to Bell Services through Instacart and off we drove to the airport. I was very stressed about flying. I'm not normally but after my experience in 2022 getting to Miami for the cruise, I was convinced something was going to go wrong. Back then, my aunt, husband & I woke up at 2 AM to find out Air Canada sent a text message at 1 AM cancelling our flight! They rebooked us on an evening flight the next day, which would have had us landing AFTER the cruise ship departed! My husband dropped us off at the airport and it took about 3 hours to get rebooked on an evening flight leaving that same day. We ended up at the airport for 17 hours before departing. When I get stressed, I get gas in my chest and it hurts. Ugh. However, our flight to MCO took off on time and everything went smoothly.

Here's our plane and pictures I took as we arrived at our resort.



Ohh and here's something funny. I had asked for Rock Inn, hoping to get the side closest to Jazz Inn as I didn't want to pay for preferred rooms. We not only received that (building 3 - 3rd floor facing building 2 Jazz) but they gave us connecting rooms. I only asked if possible to keep our 2 rooms close to each other. That was a nice bonus. When we got there, we looked in through the windows and saw our room had a King bed and table. Nice! Then checked out the kids' room and it was the same! I had specifically advised they were brother & sister and needed 2 Queen beds. Off we trooped to the Front Desk and explained the issue to one of the Cast Members. My son told her he did not want to sleep in the same bed as his sister - lol. The CM said she would get us new rooms and went off. When she came back, she said they were both 2 Queen bed rooms. At my puzzled look she said the table is where the second bed - a murphy bed - is, and just pull it down. OMG I laughed so hard. I swear I knew that but after the stress of getting there, I had completely forgotten!

We never heard noise from the rooms on either side of us. One night someone was out on the balcony/walkway talking on the phone and that we did hear. That same night someone fast rapped on our door around 10:30 pm and took off.

I loved how quickly the soap bars became foamy. The shower pressure was awful however. The 2nd night the shower wasn't draining fast enough (pooled up around the ankles) but ASMu fixed it the next day while we were in the parks.

Safe was big enough for everything we wanted to put in it.

Air conditioning worked great. My husband likes it cold so I had to ask for a blanket. I was surprised there was no blanket tucked away in the room somewhere.

Here's the view from outside our door, and then outside looking up. Top floor - 2 rooms in the blue section.




I had ordered (from Instacart) 2 cases of water and a bottle of sunscreen to be delivered to Bell Services. It was there when we arrived. When we brought it back to our room and opened the plastic bag containing the sunscreen, we discovered the lid was off the bottle and almost half the sunscreen all over the inside of the bag... This was our first time using Instacart.

 

[Tina1]

Can’t wait to hear more

 

[Disney Addicted]

Before I go into Day 2 of our trip, I want to mention a couple of things.

We liked ASMu and had no complaints whatsoever. Our first trip we booked at Coronado Springs Resort as it was our first real family vacation (besides Great Wolf Lodge) and my husband & I wanted a more quieter, peaceful, toned down vibe. The values looked to be more attracted to kids. The deciding factor became the queen beds at CSR instead of double (we were sharing beds with the kids, then 6 and 11), and we booked the Free Dining and received the DDP instead of QuickService.

This time, since I was trying to keep costs down, I thought we'd book the room discount, discounted park tickets and pay for dining. So we booked ASMu to save money. I wanted POP but it was about another $500 per room.

However, this trip we discovered we (my husband & I) want a moderate resort in the future. There is so much stimulation in the parks that we do not want it at the resorts. We want the peaceful, serene, vibe before and after the parks.

Also, we discovered we prefer the Free Dining. Yes, we would pay full rack for room & tickets but we missed the sit-down table service meals and not watching our wallets. Now, I had made up a spreadsheet before booking to compare the cost if we had Free Dining or how much the same meals would cost OOP with the discounts instead. Surprisingly the totals came out very close. Since our daughter does not eat much anyways, we thought we would give OOP a try.

Theory was different than real life. We started questioning our meal decisions and avoiding places we originally intended eating at. I cancelled an ADR I very much wanted due to price and avoided booking others.

Future visits will be with Free Dining. Quick-Service breakfast, a snack or two at lunch, and an air conditioned sit-down table service dinner. Or swap the QS and TS sometimes. Years ago I was told TS meals would take at least a couple of hours but we were never there for 2 hours. We really missed the TS.

I know Free Dining has multiple debates on value, but for us, it works and we like it.

 

[Disney Addicted]

Since Tuesday was a MNSSHP, and we have already done that twice, we decided MK would be our park day that day. I had read that a lot of people (without hoppers) will skip MK on party night, making the crowds lighter during the day. Since we're not big thrill riders we figured we could ride everything we intended from about 10-7 pm. I did not purchase hoppers. Honestly, I cannot see the point of leaving one park for another park and wasting park time on transportation. We spend the entire day in one park.

Here's some more resort photos as we walk to the front to call an Uber:



I left a Kona Cafe review in the Disney Restaurant section already so some of you might have read it already. I stalked MDE for about 2 weeks to get a 7:35 AM breakfast at O'hana and succeeded. However, since we booked a room discount and Canadian Resident tickets, this meant we did not have Free Dining. I ended up cancelling O'hana. I could not justify at least $60 a person (multiplied by 4 people) for breakfast. Now if I had booked the Free Dining, we would have kept our O'hana reservation!

I remembered Tonga Toast though and still wanted to try it. I was able to book an ADR for Kona Cafe easily. Even though not rope-dropping MK, I still wanted as early as I could get so we didn't arrive too late at MK. I ended up with a 7:40 AM and we called an Uber to take us there.

The Tonga Toast was larger than I expected (and good) - especially with the strawberry sauce provided. My husband ordered the Macadani nut pancakes and we split our plates. Our son ordered the Tonga Toast as well. Our daughter hardly eats breakfast, if at all. The lady who took our orders told her about their seasonal pancake (pumpkin) and offered to provide her a small pancake. I think she charged her the kids' meal price as it was only about $8. The meals all came with a side - bacon or sasauge. The food was good and I'm happy we ate here. I couldn't finish all my breakfast. I tried a bite of my daughter's pumpkin pancake and it tasted better than I thought it would. I wish I took more photos there.

Now, when we arrived I was cold (wet hair, air conditioning) and planned on ordering a hot drink. However, the lady who took our orders told us about a particular shake. She said it was not on the menu but she could order it for us. Chocolate strawberry! How can you go wrong with that?! It was delicious! And presented so pretttily! By the way, the flower is edible if you want to eat it. My son did.



After breakfast we browsed the two gift shops inside Poly and, of course, traded pins. I completely fell in love with these but did not want to carry them all day! I was told they would also be in Tomorrowland at MK. Yay!



Ohh, this reminds me - I had seen a Stitch mug online (Disney store) and found it at ASMu's gift shop when we arrived the night before. It was my very first Disney purchase of this trip.

 

[Disney Addicted]

Afterwards, I asked for directions to the TTC so we could take the boat to MK. (We have not done that before). The gentleman told us to take their boat instead. So we got to walk around back and see a bit more of the resort. A great shot of the Grand Florian as well. I believe that is the resort.



According to the first photograph I took inside MK, we arrived at 9:35 AM. Main Street looks crowded to me! It didn't feel that crowded as we moved further into the park, until we were heading out around 6 PM.




We did:
Buzz LightYear
Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor
PeopleMover (1st time)
Journey of the Little Mermaid (I think)
Pirates of the Caribbean
Liberty Square Riverboat (1st time)
Haunted Mansion
MIckey's PhilharMagic
Winnie the Pooh
It's a Small World (my husband's 1st time)
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Well - my husband and son road 7DMT. I had intended to until I watched a Youtube video... Then I chickened out. Our daughter never intended to ride it. We went on Winnie the Pooh while they did 7DMT. Even though their wait time was longer, they were finished first.

When the kids were 6 and 11, they loved the Mad Tea Party! I couldn't get them on it this time around.

My husband:


I was hoping to split the Halloween Turkey Club with bacon on black sandwich bread (and fries) with my husband but I think it was at the Plaza TS and needed a reservation. We had the maple-mustard glazed salmon instead but I forgot which QS that is at.

I love how these photos came out, taken from Liberty Bell. By the way, I did not realize it runs on a track until we went on it.

 

[Disney Addicted]

We spent about 9 hours in MK on Tuesday and had a good time! It was much hotter than we thought it would be though. Like, melting hot! The Weather Network told us the temperatures would be feeling like 38 C (100.4 F) for the next 2 or 3 days. It rarely goes that hot back home for us. I like when it's 28 to 30 C (though that is when my family starts demanding the A/C be turned), but 38 C? Whew!

I had read about cooling towels and saw them at various places inside MK but scoffed at such a thing. How could those possibly make a difference? More on that later.

On the way out, we explored the Main Street shops in more detail. We did not spend much time in them in the past, even though we had 2 prior visits to MK. My daughter & I watched the glass blowing but my husband missed it to his dismay. I forget where he was but he took too long to arrive.

At some point on the way out, he and our son backttracked to get a dole whip. They started to go into the Ice Cream Plaza on Main Street but it was packed. Great choice! The orange dole whip they purchased was amazing! I wish I had gone back to grab one myself. I ended up with one in Animal Kingdom, but it wasn't orange and was not as good.

Before we left, we also backtracked to Tomorrowland where yes, I did get the Stitch bag! Not the backpack, but the bag. I love it! Earlier in the day I also saw Stitch but did not want to brave the lines.



Initally we had planned on going to Disney Springs for dinner at House of Blues. After 9 hours of walking, my husband & I said no way and we headed back to the resort. We ate dinner there around 8 PM. Sesame chicken, rice with red peppers & onions. At least my husband & I did. I think the kids had cheeseburgers.

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.