"If I Was Any Better, I'd Be Twins!" - A Diabolical, Divalicious September '24 Solo Trip *UPDATE 11/23*

[Paulaparm]

Sounds like a great meal!!

 

[nherbert]

Hi Kait, what a great TR! I am a late follower, had a tough week with illness so now living vicariously through trip reports, this cheered me up immensely. My one and only food n wine festival was over 20 years ago, sounds like you had a great time. I also love AKL, we have stayed twice and my very first visit was like yours because my favorite animal is a giraffe and my only request for my view was to be able see giraffes, and when we walked in the room there were three outside the window, so very very close! Thanks for reawakening these memories

 

[Newsies]

Interesting read about your dining experience. It seems very fair and should help prepare people planning to dine there. How lovely you could chat with the other solo diner. Sitting at the cooking class sounds pretty perfect!

It was such a great dinner! Loved just sitting and chatting with Shannon.

Appreciate your detailed review of Jiko, it has always been my go to restaurant. I'm a solo traveler and enjoy sitting at the bar and having a glass of wine and an app or 2 (love those South African wines!). I'm staying at the Dolphin next month, so I think I will give Shula's a try!

Jiko was so perfect for solo dining, I can absolutely see why it would be a fav for you! Highly recommend Shula's, that was the best dining experience I've ever had at WDW!

Awww sorry you didnt get your evac! I got stuck on Splash many years ago on a hill and had to be evaced! It was not a comfy wait, they made three adults sit in the one row, we fit, but barely!

Oh nooooo! I would have gone crazy Hope you enjoyed your special walking tour of Splash Mountain anyway! I did an evac once (?) when I was working at Pan/Small World in 2016, it was during a Halloween Party which is no fun for the guests involved and we had to get them off of Small World. I remember Peter Pan also had to be evacuated once during my program, but I wasn't involved in the evac, just had to stand outside and tell people we were closed/they could use their FP+ at a different attraction. Still waiting for the day where I get to experience the guest side of an evac!

I noticed this with the carpets. I walked down a DVC hall this week and noticed how worn out the carpet was compared to the carpet in our hallway!

YES. The carpets are the #1 tell-tale sign of hotel condition, you can see a very big difference between DVC buildings/hallways and Resort buildings/hallways just in the carpet alone.

Not bad at all! We also had one issue, and it was one that stumped EVERYONE! Somehow our door got deadbolted from the inside! Facilites could not figure it out. Management could not. We had 4 people trying to open our door at one point! They had to go get a master key to open it! I am jealous you had a tub! We just had a stand in shower, so it was tough for my little guy. He was scared of the shower head.

That's CRAZY. I've never heard of that happening before! Poor kiddo with the shower We've never been assigned an accessible room before without a tub, but I can imagine that would be frustrating with little ones!

Also, you can definitely see a difference in your journey with your shirt! I have been taking Zepbound since NYE and have dropped about 30 lbs and hit my goal weight, so I am right there with you on the healthy living path!

Thank you so much for noticing. I didn't want to comment about this in the TR, but seeing those photos with Asha was a different kind of "wake up" moment for me. I had the "wake up" moment about myself that encouraged me to start my weight loss journey, I think that's something a lot of people have before they start losing weight. But this was a new kind of "wake up" moment where I was like, "oh wow, the difference in the way my clothes fit is not insignificant, I need to start sizing down in my clothes." It's not always easy to see the progress in ourselves at first!

Congratulations on 30 lbs and hitting your goal weight! NOT an easy thing to do. I don't think I've actually said this on the boards yet but I am also on Zepbound -- it has transformed my life and I'm so happy it's helped you, too!

I’m really enjoying reading along! You’ve got me seriously considering another solo trip Looking forward to your next update

Thank you so much for being here! I'm on Team Take-The-Solo-Trip!

I really appreciate your Jiko review. I am planning on doing it with DD18 on our arrival night at AKV. I thought about possibly doing the cooking table but now I wonder if we should do the cooking table or a regular table.

Glad you liked the review! FWIW I definitely recommend the cooking place, it's unique to Jiko and it's a lot of fun to talk to the chefs and watch them prepare food, plus you might get additional "snacks" from them It just might feel a bit fancier if you sit at a table instead!

I am enjoying your trip report!

Thank you so much for being here!!!

Sounds like a great meal!!

SO good. And so different than other meals I've had on property!

Hi Kait, what a great TR! I am a late follower, had a tough week with illness so now living vicariously through trip reports, this cheered me up immensely. My one and only food n wine festival was over 20 years ago, sounds like you had a great time. I also love AKL, we have stayed twice and my very first visit was like yours because my favorite animal is a giraffe and my only request for my view was to be able see giraffes, and when we walked in the room there were three outside the window, so very very close! Thanks for reawakening these memories

Nicole, it is so nice to see you here! Thank you so much for following along. s to you -- so sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well and I hope you're doing better this week. I always feel so honored when people tell me they're "living vicariously" through my reports! The comments are so appreciated.

AKL was a really great resort! How special that the giraffes were waiting for you when you walked into your room! I love these types of memories from Disney

 

[Woth2982]

"oh wow, the difference in the way my clothes fit is not insignificant, I need to start sizing down in my clothes." It's not always easy to see the progress in ourselves at first!

Congratulations on 30 lbs and hitting your goal weight! NOT an easy thing to do. I don't think I've actually said this on the boards yet but I am also on Zepbound -- it has transformed my life and I'm so happy it's helped you, too!

That first visual is real! I did not notice until I saw some photos of myself! My dad didnt even realize it was me in one he saw posted by a friend on FB! It was a meet and greet photo with New Kids on the Block (Im also a boy band junkie) and my dad was like why arent you in this picture with your friends? I was like uhhh I am. I am wear the NEON YELLOW security shirt and NEON PINK shorts! You CANT miss me!

Between Zepbound and my major spine surgery, which is probably what triggered my insulin resistance, my life is so much better! I was never in the obese category, but my BMI was higher than it should be and no matter WHAT I did I could NOT drop weight! So I saw an obesity doctor who asked if I had been through any physical trauma after looking at my blood work. I was like uhh two c-sections and a spine surgery. I guess trauma to the body can cause insulin resistance so no matter what you do, your body won't release weight! My body thought I was starving myself so it would hold on to whatever I put in it. So crazy how modern medicine is finding new things all the time! I am super open about it too which has helped some friends and family take action too. My friend Jackie is very similar in size to me and had the same issue. She was also just diagnosed insulin resistant! She started Zep this week and is already seeing results! It is so motivating. As a former runner/swimmer/dancer, I love seeing people succeed in their health journeys no matter how they get there!

 

[Newsies]

World's Quietest Epcot Morning
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First full day of vacation!

I'm pretty sure I set my alarm for 7:00 on this day and snoozed until 7:30 or so The plan was to not go crazy and stress if I didn't make it to rope drop, so I gave myself a few extra minutes of sleep before I decided I was ready to hit the buses.

I got ready for the day and ended up at the bus stop and on the bus at 8:35. I know I said this in the intro post, but one thing I wasn't prepared for at AKL was how empty the buses were, particularly around rope drop. It was a lot different than what I'm used to at the Poly. In general, I think there are just more adult-only parties at DAKL and more people who would rather drink in the resort than visit the Parks. Staying on the monorail, you're surrounded by families who are very, very aggressive about getting to the Parks for rope drop every day, no matter what Park. It's just different at DAKL. A bus to Epcot pulled right up, the bus was barely full, everyone got a seat, and by 9 AM, I was back at the Epcot gates.

First order of business: visiting my favorite Joffrey's stand right outside the tapstyles. And that's where I had this absolutely diabolical Figment Cold Brew.

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I don't quite remember what this exact formula was, but it was a peanut butter cold brew coffee with caramel drizzle at the very least. I'm always down for a peanut butter flavored coffee, when Gideon's introduced their PB Cold Brew however many years ago it changed my life forever. It's sweet and salty and creamy and rich-- if you're headed to Epcot before the festival ends, this is not a bad way to start your day!

I tapped into the Park and honestly, I had a pretty quiet morning. With 40 minutes until my GotG ILL window, and having done most of the attractions in World Discovery the day before, I wasn't in a huge rush to do anything. I got some pictures taken in front of Spaceship Earth that didn't turn out great, then I decided to say good morning to the manatees at Seas again.

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He just makes me SO happy!!!

I really did just kind of walk around for a little while and assess the crowds. I ran into my ex-roommate from my second DCP totally by surprise and I went through Journey of Water for the first time. It was just okay, it's really just a spot for kids to play with water and influencers to make shocked/excited faces for TikTok.

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Then I walked through Creations again. I really just had a chill morning and took everything in!

Finally, at 9:40, I tapped into my ILL for GotG and was brought into the ridiculously long pre-show area without delay, then it was time to buckle in. I have to say, I have become quite the big fan of Cosmic Rewind in the past few years. I love the music and I just love that split-second moment where everything goes dark and it's time to finally find out what song you're getting for your ride!

In the past, I've gotten "Conga," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," and "One Way or Another," and today was...

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SEPTEMBER!!!

Some people hype it up as the best song for GotG -- personally, I'm a big fan of "Conga," too! But out of every choice in Guardians, "September" is the only one I have a personal connection to -- it was written by the late, great Allee Willis, a fellow proud alumna of my college sorority. And now, the "21st Night of September" is also the wedding anniversary of my cousin/best friend and her wife. Many good memories of September, and now I've added it to my GotG Cosmic Rewind collection!

So then I visited the new Club Cool for some water (didn't get a chance to try any fun sodas this time around) and it was time to tap into my Spaceship Earth LLMP. It's in my PTR notes that the original window for Spaceship Earth was 10:40-11:40, but I actually was able to bump it up closer to 10:20 somehow because I have a timestamped photo of the mural from 10:22.

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I was very surprised to see that after tapping into my Spaceship Earth LLMP (Tier 2), I was able to book a new LLMP for Soarin' (Tier 1). I don't know why I didn't expect to be able to book a LLMP from the higher category after tapping into a LLMP from the lower category, but If I had known that, I would have hustled to Spaceship Earth sooner or pushed for a 9:00 AM slot to try to book Frozen Ever After ASAP. By the time I had tapped in at 10:20, FEA was gone for the day. So I'll take that learning away for the next time I book LLMP for Epcot.

My Soarin' LLMP window opened up basically while I was mid-Spaceship Earth, but as I headed over there, I decided to stop and say hi to Moana.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Dance Moms, but while I was in line to meet Moana, Brooke Hyland walked by! I did a total double take I went to her social media to see if she had been in Florida recently, and she was definitely here in Orlando per her stories!

Then it was time for me to meet Moana, who always leaves me just as starstruck!

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She asked what I was up to, I said I had been wayfinding. She said we should find Maui and go wayfinding together! I asked what Maui was up to and she said that he was finding new animals to transform into and asked if I had any suggestions. I said that he should turn into a manatee, and she was like "that would be so much fun because manatees don't have any enemies! so everyone would love him and want to be his friend!" (That's true, manatees don't have any natural predators! #TheMoreYouKnow)

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Then it was time for me to get on Soarin' with my LLMP. No notes there.

When I got off of Soarin', the World Showcase had been open for a little while, so I figured it was time to check out some festival booths. I had a LLMP for Living With the Land at this time, but having already done it yesterday, didn't feel compelled to use it and cancelled it.

As I headed left towards Mexico, there was a Photopass Photographer on that little path behind the planter across from the Mexico booth. I know this photographer would have one of the magic shots I wanted, so I was really excited to see him!

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LOVE those wild & crazy Muppets!!!

Finally, it was time to dig deep into the hot, humid, and food-filled world of the World Showcase.

Click here to continue​

 

[2xcited2sleep]

So happy to hear you enjoyed Jiko. It's one of my favorites and I agree that the Cooking Place is a fantastic place to sit. It's so fun interacting with the chefs and other guests. That wild boar tenderloin is out of this world good. I'm kind of surprised I ever tried it, but I am SO glad I did. The servers there are uniformly excellent, and I also have had fun trying different South African wines. How awesome that you were able to just head up to your room afterward! Fun morning in EPCOT. Love your picture with the Muppets!

 

[HappyGal]

Cool fact about September! Personally, it’s my fav! Now let’s go eat…

 

[Newsies]

So happy to hear you enjoyed Jiko. It's one of my favorites and I agree that the Cooking Place is a fantastic place to sit. It's so fun interacting with the chefs and other guests. That wild boar tenderloin is out of this world good. I'm kind of surprised I ever tried it, but I am SO glad I did. The servers there are uniformly excellent, and I also have had fun trying different South African wines. How awesome that you were able to just head up to your room afterward! Fun morning in EPCOT. Love your picture with the Muppets!

Agree with everything you said!! So nice talking to the chefs and the boar was something I never would have tried outside of Disney/if there hadn't been so many recommendations for it! I also loved the Pinotage I drank -- if I go back to Jiko any time soon, it'll be to try another glass of wine! Such an amazing collection!

Epcot was so much fun!!!

Cool fact about September! Personally, it’s my fav! Now let’s go eat…

They honestly just did a great job curating the playlist for that ride! Did you hear they played September for every ride on 09/21?

Let's go see what the Food & Wine Festival had to offer me today!!

 

[Woth2982]

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Dance Moms, but while I was in line to meet Moana, Brooke Hyland walked by! I did a total double take I went to her social media to see if she had been in Florida recently, and she was definitely here in Orlando per her stories!

ummm obsessed with Dance Moms! The OGs, not so much after Chloe and Christi left. I want to be besties with Christi and Kelly. They have so much fun!

LOVE those wild & crazy Muppets!!!

I have never seen this shot! How fun!

 

[cheryllarsen]

What an amazing trip!

 

[cheryllarsen]

Thanks so much for sharing! I really enjoyed reading your trip report.

 

[Nicnicnic.nic]

Following

 

[Newsies]

What an amazing trip!

Thanks so much for sharing! I really enjoyed reading your trip report.

Thank you so very much for following along!

Following

Thank you so much!

 

[Newsies]

... Actually, the World's Quietest Epcot Day. Period.​

My first stop in World Showcase was at the China booth for a bite and a sip!

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So when I was on my first DCP in 2016, my all time favorite booth dish was the Beijing duck steamed bun from the China booth. Seriously, every time I visited Epcot during the F&W festival I would grab one... it was that good. They switch up the meats just a little bit every year, so I was giddy to see that duck was returning in some shape or form to the festival booth. This year, it was the Crispy Duck Bao Bun, which sounded even better than the 2016 one. I practically ran to this bao bun.

This, unfortunately, ended up not only being the biggest disappointment of the trip, but also the potentially deadliest thing I've ever eaten at a Disney park? The outer skin of the duck, which was supposed to be "crispy," ended up being the toughest and most impossible to chew bite of food I've ever encountered. It was like leather. It was a HUGE chunk of it that I couldn't chew through, I was going to use a napkin to spit it out but ended up accidentally swallowing it somehow. If it was any longer than it was, I probably could have choked and needed the Heimlich.

Everything else on the bun was just okay. Quality of the duck meat other than the skin was just average. Single slice of cucumber/pickle didn't make sense here. Sauce on top tasted like grocery store shelf BBQ sauce. Don't even remember eating the crispy, pork rind-looking thing. Bun was not as soft and fluffy as I needed it to be.

Womp-womp.

The iced tea that I grabbed was a mango peach bubble tea, nothing special about it. I don't know why I ordered this because I don't even like green tea like that. Bubble tea always sounds like a good idea to me and then I'm always let down by it. This just didn't hit, and I couldn't figure out what the white boba was supposed to taste like.

Double womp-womp. I have nobody but myself to blame for the China disappointment because every vlogger I saw absolutely hated this booth, but I was just blinded by my love of the bao. Instead, I should have gone to the Mexico booth. That shrimp tostada was on my festival must-eats, but the line was kind of long and I really wasn't feeling shrimp so I walked right past it. I heard this was wonderful and if I could do this day again, I would have gone to Mexico instead of China.

I sipped my bubble tea as I walked through the shops in the China pavilion. I almost never stop here but I liked these fun dog outfits.

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I also saw some of the unique Lay’s potato chip flavors, but I didn’t get any.

Finally I left China and made my way to my next Food & Wine stop, which was the India booth just next door. I got the Mango Lassi to enjoy on this hot day.

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I thought this was fabulous. Like all mango lassis, it has that wonderful creamy and slightly tangy yogurt base and the sweetness from the mango. This one also had a few warm spices blended in, couldn’t pick out the flavors individually but they added some depth and excitement to what was already a very good lassi. 10/10 I DO recommend this, and if it wasn’t so hot, I probably would have tried the samosas or the chicken too!

When I got to Germany, I decided it was time for a diabolical sweetity-treatity from Karamell-Kuche, arguably the most diabolical place in all of Epcot.

And since I had not yet tried this cookie sandwich that has gone so incredibly viral in the past 3 months, I settled on this diva:

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I grabbed a fork and a knife from somewhere in Germany, then found a table in Italy where I could crack open this case and enjoy her.

It wasn’t the best. I guess it wasn’t awful, just not as good as I wanted it to be. The chocolate cookie was “meh,” very crumbly and didn’t have that dark cocoa flavor I was looking for. The icing inside wasn’t great, either. It had that gritty sugar taste/feel – the one that’s always a 50/50 toss-up if you’ll get any time you order any cupcake at Walt Disney World. The caramel, as always, was very nice. It was like a 6/10. I hate being wasteful but I had maybe ¼ of this and had to throw it away – it was melting too quickly under the sun, the heat from Epcot was causing the cookie to crumble too fast and I knew that if I continued eating this amount of sugar, I would make myself sick, so I tossed it. Lesson learned, I should have gone for one of my old favorites in the Karamell-Kuche case – that german chocolate chip cookie or the butter bar.

I started heading towards America, I got to catch an Epcot tradition that’s very near and dear to me – a surprise character pop-up! Sometimes, it’s just a bunch of characters who want to make some magic and surprise some guests. Other times, it’s where characters help train new attendants. This is where I made my attendant debut during my program! Good memories. There were plenty of friends out and about today, and it looked like I had just caught the beginning of it. I ended up saying hi to Big Al and Gideon.

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Then I moved on to the American Adventure building. I had been meaning to take a look at the new Portraits of Courage exhibit, and while I was there, I caught a performance of Voices of Liberty. Glad I stopped to see both.

Once the Voices of Liberty wrapped up, we were now well into my window for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and it looked like it was about to start raining, so I locked in and got over to Remy as quickly as I could. No pictures of France today but I was on and off the ride very quickly.

As I started making my way towards the exit of the ride, I noticed a crowd was collecting under the exit arch, which could only mean one thing… it was raining.

It was monsooning, actually, and I didn’t have a poncho with me

First I ran out of the exit archway to the ride to hide out the rain under that little gazebo-looking thing they have in front of the fountain, where I huddled with another big crowd of people waiting out the rain. I stood around for ~5 minutes or so, and then the rain started lightening up, so I decided to continue forward.

The plan for this day was to catch the skyliner to DHS and take the bus from DHS to DAK, but with lightning in the area, the skyliner was down, so I decided I’d walk to the Beach Club from there and transfer buses from a different park.

As I left Epcot through the International Gateway, I decided there was a special souvenir in order for me this week: a nice little raincoat. I stopped in at World Traveler and picked up this windbreaker, linked here. I don’t know why this person is selling it for $99 when it was closer to $49 and there was plenty of inventory in all of the stores I saw it in. I love this thing! I hate ponchos and this guy was a lot more comfortable, very lightweight. It was hard to pack it into my hip pack with everything else I wanted to bring, but it fit into my loungefly with no problems. There was a very light layer of mesh inside that I really liked, it was a bit more durable than a typical windbreaker.

Newly protected from the elements, I started walking towards the Beach Club so I could get on a bus to a park and head to DAKL from there. I sat and waited for a bus for about 20 minutes – I was also the only person sitting at the bus stop, so I was very confused and wondering if buses were even running from Beach Club? And every time on the bus monitors showed most buses were 30 minutes away. But eventually, one bus finally pulled up for Magic Kingdom. It wasn’t my dream today to head to Magic Kingdom to head back to DAKL, but I needed to get home, so I hopped on the MK bus and transferred to DAKL when I got there.

I was exhausted from the day when I got home! I was supposed to head back to Epcot that night with my friend Em, but I wasn’t feeling it with the rain, so I asked if she’d like to meet me at DAKL so we could get dinner here and head to a different park if the rain was going to stop. Em is on her own DCP right now, so she can get anywhere she needs to get by bus from the DCP apartment complex, it was just going to take her a little while to get here! While I waited for her, I stopped by The Mara for the first time on this trip to pick up a bag of chips and some Zebra Domes to put in the room for later. I also saw these two greeting guests in the lobby!

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When Em got here, she was ready for dinner and I was honestly a little hungry myself, so we went back down to The Mara for the first of two real meals I’d have on this trip.

I ended up not having any photos of The Mara for this entire trip but I was not a fan of anything here. Getting to and from my room was a bit awkward as I had to go down to the lobby, cross over the Victoria Falls bridge, go down the stairs to the Boma/Jiko level, and then walk outside (under an awning, so not terrible). Not the worst walk in the world and preferred it to walking from, say, a Poly longhouse to Cap’n Cooks, but there were just a lot of “steps” involved. The space itself is very dark and maybe not the most up-to-date QS location on earth, it was definitely giving campus cafeteria vibes, moreso than most other resort QS stops. I never say this about anywhere in Disney, but honestly, just being in there was kinda depressing so I tried to stay away.

I can always appreciate when a resort QS restaurant brings out something unique to the hotel that’s different than the typical cheeseburgers and flatbreads, but the bowls just didn’t do it for me – the Chermoula-spiced shrimp, Oak-grilled chicken, yellow rice, vegetable bowls just aren’t appealing to me, and the rest of the menu was your standard burger options, flatbreads, some salads, some cold cut sandwiches. Just nothing terribly exciting here, and late into the evening, you really only had the option of flatbreads or a ham sandwich if you’re coming back from the parks, so I did my best to eat before I came back to the hotel every night OR come back with a diabolical snack.

Prepackaged snack options were fine, nothing out of the ordinary here. I did see some exciting dessert options from the refrigerator cases (and of course, hello, zebra domes!) and the bakery case also had some fun things to try.

Anyway, I had chicken fingers and french fries and a bakery case “brookie” (brownie/cookie hybrid) for dinner tonight. The chicken fingers and fries were pedestrian this evening. Universally, these are pretty good at Disney but they weren’t fresh today so they were a miss. The brookie was just okay. Again, I didn’t “vibe” with The Mara so I would end up not having another meal here again until breakfast when I checked out.

Em and I sat there talking over dinner for a while, then it looked like it stopped raining so hard, so we decided to see if we could get to any park that wasn’t Epcot. She had availability to get into Hollywood Studios with her CM pass, so we hopped on a bus over there!

Stitch was meeting guests just outside of the tapstyles, so of course, we had to say hi to him. He was so funny and ended up jumping in all of the puddles and splashing water all over his attendants!

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Then we went to Tower of Terror since it only had a 20 minute wait.

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After Tower of Terror, we went to the Pandora store on Sunset Boulevard and we met this lovely Pandora CM named Sarah who we spoke to for quite a while. She was so much fun and just wanted to shout her out!

We stopped quickly again at Starbucks so Em could get a drink, and then it was time for us to say goodbye. Em had to get back to her apartment so she could get ready for work the next day, I was quite tired, so we hugged and went to our respective buses home.

I must have gotten back to my hotel room closer to 8:00, where I showered, had a little snack, and went to bed so I could rope drop Magic Kingdom the next day!

Phew. What an update! All in all, it was a pretty lowkey day and I didn’t get to take a lot of photos. I just didn’t think I had enough material to split the rest of this day into two parts, so I hope you enjoyed this extra long update! Coming up next: Magic Kingdom/MNSSHP!

Click here to continue!​

 

[disneyAndi14]

Following along. We were there around the same dates. Our dates 9/5-9/11. I’m sorry your food choices this day were a miss! It is hard to throw away some of the food with such high prices, ugh!
We always enjoyed the Mara in the past but honestly we haven’t eaten there in quite sometime pre pandemic I think.
I might do a solo trip late April or late May!

 

[Newsies]

Following along. We were there around the same dates. Our dates 9/5-9/11. I’m sorry your food choices this day were a miss! It is hard to throw away some of the food with such high prices, ugh!

Caroline, so great to see you!!! Thanks for joining along!!! I'm so behind on yours/other's TRs on the boards -- I have to go catch up and see how this week was for you!!!

As far as the food goes, it's completely fine. I didn't go hungry and nothing was truly terrible... just sort of dangerous at points

We always enjoyed the Mara in the past but honestly we haven’t eaten there in quite sometime pre pandemic I think.

I think I just miss pre-pandemic dining at the resorts. Like, if the Mara was open earlier/later and had more options for those earlier/later dining times, I might have been able to enjoy some more time there.

I might do a solo trip late April or late May!

We loved visiting the parks in late May! Keep us in the loop for your solo trip!

 

[VAtink]

A bit late, but I'm joining in! Can't wait to read more!

 

[Disney102015]

So fun you got to meet some unique characters! I have never been a big fan of The Mara, either. Definitely a cafeteria feel!

 

[Newsies]

A bit late, but I'm joining in! Can't wait to read more!

Debbie, thanks so much for joining in! A queen is never late, everyone else is simply early!

So fun you got to meet some unique characters! I have never been a big fan of The Mara, either. Definitely a cafeteria feel!

I love the surprise m&gs because you truly never know who you're going to run into -- there are always one or two characters you can't usually see in the Parks!

The Mara was so odd to me. I think the reason it didn't work for me, personally, was that it had the cafeteria stations and vibes of a Value or a Moderate resort QS court, but it didn't have the variety of options that Values/Moderates do. I say this all the time -- if more Deluxe QS restaurants had more spaces and could offer the options for build-your-own breakfast bowls, pasta dishes, etc. that Value/Moderates did, it would be such a huge unlock!

 

[Newsies]

The 10-Minute Theory​

I woke up at 7:00 on Tuesday for my longest day of the trip, Magic Kingdom in the morning + MNSSHP in the evening!

By 7:50, I was on a bus to Magic Kingdom for 8:30 Early Entry ahead of a 9:00 AM opening. I had it in my notes that I waited a few minutes for a bus, but again, I really didn’t experience any type of drama getting to and from the parks during regular-degular park hours.

We made it to Magic Kingdom just a hair before EE started and there was truly no line to get through security, no line to get through the tapstyles. Then, I was finally reunited with my favorite pumpkins.

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It was a very pleasant morning. It wasn’t super hot, it wasn’t super crowded, and I was just happy to be there.

I have a theory that within the first 10 minutes of entering Magic Kingdom, no matter what time of day you get there, you’ll be able to confidently predict how the day is going to go for you. If I rope drop a park and I’m overwhelmed and frustrated by the time I made it to Fantasyland, I’m going to be overwhelmed and frustrated for the entire day. If I rope drop a park and I spend 10 minutes chilling on Main Street, waving to the Dapper Dans, and getting ready to grab the hands of other guests and start singing Kumbaya in the middle of the Emporium, that’s the vibe I’ll have for the rest of the day. My attitude can shift and turn around at other parks, I’ve had rough start mornings at DAK that turned into great days and good mornings at DHS that turned into rough evenings – but my attitude first thing in the morning at MK has always set the baseline for the entire day.

And I had a really nice first 10 minutes.

Even the Main Street Starbucks didn’t have a line, albeit the drink station was backed up as usual and I did some waiting for my tall iced Pumpkin Spice Latte. Did I care?

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Nope, not even a little bit. A divalicious start to a divalicious day.

We still had about 10 minutes until the park formally opened, so I went on it’s a small world to kill some time before Gaston’s Tavern opened for breakfast. I really wanted to try the Creme Brulee croissant since I had heard so many good things about it!

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The line for Gaston’s Tavern was insane when I arrived at 9:08 and took that timestamped picture above . I don’t typically eat here, so I don’t know if this is common or not but judging from the lack of other acceptable QS breakfast options at this park, I’m going to go ahead and assume this is the norm.

I took the below picture of the creme brulee croissant in my hand at 9:28, so I ended up waiting about 20 minutes, which feels a bit unreasonable for park opening, but what can you do? It would end up being the only line I waited in that morning, so I can’t complain.

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So this is the creme brulee croissant that everyone has been raving about. It wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t get it again! When I think of “creme brulee,” I think about than crispy, paper-thin coating on top. So I was imagining a fresh, flaky croissant with a crisp coating of burnt sugar on top. Alas, the pastry was a bit doughy and chewy, and the coating on top was gelatinous. Very sticky and hard to eat. The flavors were decent, it just didn’t have the texture components I wanted! The vanilla custard in the middle was perfect – cold and sweet but not too sweet, good for balancing out the sugar gel on top of the pastry. I give it like a 7/10. It was decent but not as good as everyone has been raving about. I’d like to come back and try the ham and cheese one, too!

So after I finished my croissant, it was time for me to head to my 7DMT ILL. I’ve been on 7DMT enough times in my life that I really shouldn’t be prioritizing this ride and spending $10 to ride it, but I was on a personal mission this morning.

I’ll put this part of the TR in purple because it’s related to my weight loss journey, so scroll down to pink if you don’t want to read about this! Over the past few years, it’s become increasingly difficult to ride 7DMT at my weight/size. The restraints have been tight against my legs, which makes it a pretty painful ride to go on because the carts rock your body back and forth, so my knees are constantly bumping into the restraints.

The family didn’t do Mine Train in May, but I’ve been working so hard to lose weight this year, I had to get an ILL just to know if I could ride it without feeling any pain.

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Pictured above: a very happy girl on a pain-free ride I don’t know how many of you have ever lost the amount of weight I’ve lost/am still trying to lose, but the one thing that all of the professionals have told me about over the past several years is to cherish these “non-scale victories,” these wins that come separate from the milestones of actual pounds lost. Getting back the ability to ride Mine Train without any pain… THIS has been one of my biggest non-scale victories so far!

After I got off Mine Train, I stopped at Sir Mickey’s to get pixie dusted, then I started making my way down the castle “alley” towards Liberty Square. And who else was walking up the alley at the same time? Our dear friends the Step-Sisters.

“Hi divas!” I waved to them as they walked by us.

“Ooh, I like that!” Anastasia said to Drizella. I made a mental note to check back at the fountain at 10:45 to see if they were going to be taking photos with friends.

I had a Pirates of the Caribbean LLMP to head to, but I had to stop at Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe first. If you read my May TR, you already know what I was at YOCS for... a new pair of customized ears!

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I grabbed a pair of these pumpkin ears off the wall, headed towards the check-out counter, went a little crazy with the customization form, and then said “bye-bye” to them for a few hours. Are custom ears from YOCS my new traditional trip souvenir? Only time will tell…

Then I went on Pirates of the Caribbean with my LLMP, and I will leave you all as I so often do: with a duck face/peace sign photo from the PotC boats.

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