It was literally TOO HOT TO TROT! - Updated x 2 Thursday 10/16

[ElenaJane]

Yay, can't wait to read another of your TR's. Subscribing now. Great start so far. I'm glad you didn't have any issues getting there and it seems like a fun start to your day. Love MK so can't wait to hear more.

Hey Kelley! Jet Blue has never failed me so far. Getting up so early is not fun, but having no one else on the roads makes it an easy drive to the airport.

When I think of Disney, I always think if MK, so my trips are usually pretty heavy on the MK side of things!

 

[ElenaJane]

So glad that the CM's are making up for your negative experience last trip - and yeah for your room being ready!

I agree that 7DMT is great - but short. If it was like 30 secs. longer with just one more cool aspect or spin or something it would perfect. Still pretty darn good and just nice for all the construction in Newish Fantasyland to be done!

While I love some of the newer attractions the 2 rides I must go on each drip to The World are Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise - just classic Disney and feel like rides you wouldn't find anywhere else

I think I would have liked another dark scene at least with 7DMT. I like the aspect of storytelling and I thought that was not as developed as it could have been. I did learn during the ride it is "Hi Ho It is HOME from WORK we go". Thought they usually sang it the otter way around!

The CMs were all so much nicer! I spoke to guest relations about 2 in particular. I was so happy to be able to do that. I think less crowds had something to do with it!

 

[ElenaJane]

Will’s energy was starting to drain (likely combo from a bazillion degree temperature and carbo loading from LTT!) and we had some time left in our FP window for our next ride (SM). We decided to make a pit stop at Starbucks and then take the train from Main Street to Fantasyland.

After we left the station in Fantasyland, it was just a quick turn next to the Barnstormer to the “secret” smoking Tomorrowland back path to SM!

Looks like it was fixin’ to come up a storm!

We managed to stay dry on our rocket ship!

I read a week before the trip that there is a photo booth available in the SM gift shop that accepts MM as “payment”! Who knew? I didn’t!

When we left the gift shop, it had definitely rained, but the sky looked like it was not done with us yet. We decided to take a break for a bit and head back to WL. I scheduled a 4th FP before we left, for BTMR.

You could literally see the wall of rain coming!

Fortunately, our boat was right there and we got to WL before the first rain drop. Looks like this little snake was going to hide from the rain also. This was actually the patio from our one night stay in July. Made me glad to be on the 7th floor this time!

We made it to our room to relax, unpack, and change for the evening. We were going to have our Anniversary dinner at the most romantic place ever!

Victoria and Alberts you ask?

Nahhhhh, Crystal Palace!

 

[ElenaJane]

After about 2 hours, we boarded the boat to head back to MK. By now the sun was past its peak and the temperatures were going down...some. We didn’t want to get sweaty all over again, so we waited for the Main Street train to take us to Frontierland.

I think we were both too busy enjoying BTMR as neither of us took any pictures! We did have a great time and the adventure worked up our appetite even more.

There are two check-in lines for Crystal Palace. One that is next to the entrance, a little window to the left of the entry. The other is the podium you see in this picture:

I bypassed that line and went to the other check-in window and there was no wait. No wait to check-in at least! Because once we got our pager, we waited…

and waited….

To quote Josh from EasyWDW “It’s artsy because it’s tilted!”

and waited…

You can actually see how it is getting darker.

All the waiting certainly increased our appetite which I guess is perfect for a buffet!!

Kind of awkward where you are sitting while you wait. You can turn and look right in on the happy people and their food. I think I looked like this to them:

We were more than ready when our name was called!

Most Sommeliers agree that Buffet options pair well with a chocolate milk.

First character appearance, Tigger! He had to stop bouncing long enough for this picture!

Piglet moved away before we could actually get a shot!

But whatevs Piglet, because honestly, I was there for Eeyore!!!

He kissed the top of my head after I told him he was my favorite. Not a lot of men are cool with this on their anniversary date with their wife, but Will is understanding.

This may work as our Engagement photo:

Sadly, Eeyore had to move on to his other friends. But Pooh was up next!

As much as I love those guys, I was a little relieved when we were done so that we could focus on the food and dessert!

Once we wrapped up dinner, we took a stroll around the Hub, and took some “over the fence” shots.

What Disney wants you to see:

What is behind the fence!

We had enough time to head back to WL for second dessert at the club lounge (OMGeeez Strawberry-Peach cobbler!!). I love being able to say "second dessert" like it is a normal thing. It is in WDW.

We also wanted to see Wishes from our room!

It was just the “kiss goodnight” we needed! After being up for 19 hours, we ready to crash...and sleep in!!

Short Youtube video of Fireworks from our room

Up next, our first Halloween par-tay!!

 

[stacy~**]

I really enjoyed your last report so I am excited to follow along once again!

Your pre-arrival post had me LOL several times but I especially loved your partying like rock stars...or pooh stars.

I'm glad your resort check in went smoothly. I feel like the last time or two I have been checked in by less than magical CMs. Nothing wrong exactly just not the level of magic I have had in the past. OR maybe its me, maybe my excitement is SO overly amped that they can't even compare.

Cute Snow White Disney bound and seems super appropriate for your first
7DMT ride!

I'm obsessed with that Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake. I have had to cancel our lunch reservation for LTT the last two trips....I will not be leaving next time without trying it.

Wait...that is a snake on that porch?? Yikes! Scary.

Crystal Palace Anniversary dinner seems pretty perfect to me! (well except for the wait!).

Great first day!

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Enjoyed your Polynesian resort report and now also this one. You two sure stay in style! LOL about the romantic restaurant -- I thought you were going to say California Grill!

At MNSSHP or anywhere else, did you ever find Donald and Daisy posing together with guests? Or were they always separate?

I'll be going to WDW in a month!

 

[horse11]

I was just thinking to myself," I wonder when Elena is going on her trip?" long and behold you are back and I am just catching in on the fun. I am a little late but I am now here for the ride.
So glad you had a good experience checking in. That just seems to set the mood for your trip some how. I wish all CM's understood how important that check in process really is. We were very lucky and got a great CM at our check in at CBR.
So glad to see you are Disney Bounding this trip as well. Can not wait to see more!
I also love your MB. I am inspired by the creativity people have with those magic bands. I even started decorating some myself.
So funny you say you have been working out to get ready for this trip. I have actually lost 12 pounds for my upcoming trip in October just so I can enjoy eating around the world at EPCOT. Now that is preparation at it's finest
I have been dieing to find out what costume you guys decided on and can not wait for it's revealing!!!!

 

[DopeyDonald]

No way! We went Trail riding on the 14th, at 2:30pm. That would have been quite a coincidence if we were there at the same time. If you guys were, then you remember how hot it was!!

Nope, we weren't trail riding on the same day darn it. The 14th was my daughters bday and YES it was SO hot. I had one daughter in a Merida costume - I thought she was insane - that sucker is long sleeved!! I will be sharing many a pink faced pic from that day!

Still interested to see if I show up in the background of any pics at the lodge....

 

[KelleyK75]

That's great you could escape the rain inside SM. I hadn't heard about the photo booth taking MM. How fun! Eek, good thing you guys weren't in that room where the snake was hanging out.

What a fun anniversary dinner at CP! I love that place and we hit it at least once every trip. That stinks it to awhile to get in. Last trip we were there for lunch and it took FOREVER to get seated. But once inside it was pretty fast for the characters to come around.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

I've been seeing lots of comments lately from people who had an ADR for CP but still had a long wait to get in.

 

[ElenaJane]

Something really changed in my touring style in the last year. Maybe as I have gotten older and have gone to the parks more frequently, I have started enjoying sleeping in on vacation. So wrong!!! I know!!! FP+ haters will roll their eyes at me, but it is nice to be able to secure a few FPs for later in the day and not have to dash in a park to start getting them.

Today we did not even have a full park day planned, so I got to do this for a while:

We slept in to 10am!!! This is super late for us, but was glorious. Those black-out curtains are amazing!

I wanted to try Whispering Canyon for a meal during the trip. However, the lunch and dinner menus did not sound very vegetarian appealing. So, I scheduled a breakfast reservation at 11am to count as our lunch! Culinary genius over here!

There were about 5 other families in the entire restaurant. When you are seated, you are given a coaster that let’s you choose the level of antics you want. You can leave it on the green side which means “bring on the antics!!” or the red side that says something like “we’ll just watch from the sidelines”. We placed it on the red side as we are not ones for the antics. Our waiter, who was super nice, ignored our plea for no antics.

He was such a talker!!!! I learned all about his multitude of pets, his financial shape, former wife….

And then Will asked for Ketchup...

I warned him not to do this! Our waiter yelled out “KETCHUPPPPP” and asked for everyone in the restaurant with ketchup to come to our table. The funny part was, there was only one other family with ketchup, so this young boy came over and gave us...one bottle.

Will got the breakfast skillet with fruit instead of meat:

I ordered the Banana Bread French Toast!

It had a banana fosters sauce that was to die for!!

Pleasantly full, we had several hours to kill before the MNSSHP of that night. Will wanted to take a shower, so I volunteered to head to Contemporary Grounds to get some ice coffees.

The Contemporary was just a short boat ride away!

No need to adjust your computer screen. Those pink donuts were really that big!

Once the coffees were secured in their traveling container, I waited out of the sun for the boat back to WL. Why is there no cover for this pier I wonder?

Selfie taking to pass the time

My shirt is from the 10th anniversary of MK. I was not there for that, but some older CMs stopped me saying they were there for that! That was in 1981 I think? Speaking of retro, who picked out the playlist of music for the “Contemporary”? I was rocking out to Sting, Color me Bad, and Savage Garden (“Sweet like a chic-a-cherry colaaaa”).

Fresh 90s beats

The amusing music selection did help pass the time and right before it looked like the sky was about to burst open, the boat came!

Again, like yesterday, I just made it to WL when it poured! The picture does not capture the amount of rain. One of my new favorite things is watching thunderstorms from the balcony of the WL!

As Will finished getting ready, we planned our next move...

 

[ElenaJane]

Will was now showered and we were both properly caffeinated and ready to go on a little adventure! I wanted to again check the status of my “home resort” (okay no, I am not a DVC member!) the Polynesian.

Just to mix things up a bit, we took a bus to MK (instead of a boat, and decided then and there we much prefered the boat), and then caught the monorail to Poly.

I barely recognized the place!!! I did not even pick up any of the Poly smell.

No waterfall in the lobby. No stream outside. No pool.

To try and focus on the positive (while I wipe my tears), my traditional photo spot was still there!

And there is still some nice vegetation:

And in the gift shop I got the Koozie of my dreams. Where has this been all my life?! Tad bit impractical (you have to line up the drink opening right, or you will get a mouthful of ear!), but I love it.

And now there is a store, whose sole purpose of existing is to sell you Dole Whips.

When in Rome...errr the Polynesian

Ironically, this was bigger than anything that I would have “self-served” myself, so Disney lost money on me by not letting it be self-serve!

We did not have much longer to hang out with our Pineapple treat, as we needed to head back for a literal costume change!

Up next, our first MNSSHP!

 

[ElenaJane]

I really enjoyed your last report so I am excited to follow along once again!

Your pre-arrival post had me LOL several times but I especially loved your partying like rock stars...or pooh stars.

I'm glad your resort check in went smoothly. I feel like the last time or two I have been checked in by less than magical CMs. Nothing wrong exactly just not the level of magic I have had in the past. OR maybe its me, maybe my excitement is SO overly amped that they can't even compare.

Cute Snow White Disney bound and seems super appropriate for your first
7DMT ride!

I'm obsessed with that Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake. I have had to cancel our lunch reservation for LTT the last two trips....I will not be leaving next time without trying it.

Wait...that is a snake on that porch?? Yikes! Scary.

Crystal Palace Anniversary dinner seems pretty perfect to me! (well except for the wait!).

Great first day!

I do probably expect too much out of CMs when I check in. I am like their 100th person of the day. While I want to high 5 everyone and chest bump strangers, they are like here is your map and a list of activities, have a magical day.

 

[ElenaJane]

Enjoyed your Polynesian resort report and now also this one. You two sure stay in style! LOL about the romantic restaurant -- I thought you were going to say California Grill!

At MNSSHP or anywhere else, did you ever find Donald and Daisy posing together with guests? Or were they always separate?

I'll be going to WDW in a month!

I've been seeing lots of comments lately from people who had an ADR for CP but still had a long wait to get in.

I am so excited for you!! I hope the month flies by! I really did not see a lot of characters together at all, Daisy and Donald being no exception. I don't character hunt though, so don't give up hope! You could always take two pictures of them separately and then photoshop them together!

 

[ElenaJane]

I was just thinking to myself," I wonder when Elena is going on her trip?" long and behold you are back and I am just catching in on the fun. I am a little late but I am now here for the ride.
So glad you had a good experience checking in. That just seems to set the mood for your trip some how. I wish all CM's understood how important that check in process really is. We were very lucky and got a great CM at our check in at CBR.
So glad to see you are Disney Bounding this trip as well. Can not wait to see more!
I also love your MB. I am inspired by the creativity people have with those magic bands. I even started decorating some myself.
So funny you say you have been working out to get ready for this trip. I have actually lost 12 pounds for my upcoming trip in October just so I can enjoy eating around the world at EPCOT. Now that is preparation at it's finest
I have been dieing to find out what costume you guys decided on and can not wait for it's revealing!!!!

12lbs?! You go girl! All I have to do is think of a Gourmet Cake cup, or a Mickey Waffle, and I can turn down that extra helping.

I think you will be disappointed with our costume situation I am sad to say. But really, thinking about the costumes and planning them is like at least 50% of the actual fun for me anyway.

 

[ElenaJane]

Nope, we weren't trail riding on the same day darn it. The 14th was my daughters bday and YES it was SO hot. I had one daughter in a Merida costume - I thought she was insane - that sucker is long sleeved!! I will be sharing many a pink faced pic from that day!

Still interested to see if I show up in the background of any pics at the lodge....

Some of the costumes I saw at MNSSHP took some true commitment. Full on wigs and fur and ugh...hotness! Your DD is as BRAVE as Merida to wear her costume (see what I just did there )

 

[ElenaJane]

That's great you could escape the rain inside SM. I hadn't heard about the photo booth taking MM. How fun! Eek, good thing you guys weren't in that room where the snake was hanging out.

What a fun anniversary dinner at CP! I love that place and we hit it at least once every trip. That stinks it to awhile to get in. Last trip we were there for lunch and it took FOREVER to get seated. But once inside it was pretty fast for the characters to come around.

The long wait definitely gave us time to rev up our appetites! Kind of fun in a way to eat at a buffet when you are ravenous!!

The Photo Booth makes me wonder what else we could be missing?!

 

[ZehnJahren]

I'm glad to see you have another TR; I'm in for this one too!

So far, WOW you've been lucky getting right ahead of the rain. The Poly refurb seems to have ripped its heart out; I hope they have big plans to add some heart back in there.

I'm like you - I want my HM bag NOW!! I go in October and they BETTER have those bags when I'm there! (If not, I know which one I'm getting anyway.)

 

[KelleyK75]

The Photo Booth makes me wonder what else we could be missing?!

I know, I'm sure I've missed a lot of those little hidden treasures.

Some Disney days you just have to get a little sleep. It's too much for us to go,go,go, too. Your breakfast looks awesome, and that's great the restaurant was pretty empty.

Love your shirt!!

to all of the Poly changes.

That Mickey Koozie is just too cute!!!

Can't wait to see what you dressed as for MNSSHP!

 

[Fantasia79]

Ah!!! Finally catching up (my cat is watching me type this, so I guess she is too). Great report so far. I gotta find the photo booth when I go in February.

I haven't done a character meal since I was 11, totally got me interested in pictures with characters.

Are you anxiously looking for poly pricing rumors too?

Can't wait to see more.

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