Never say Neverland: Easter '18, May/June '18, July '18, Sept '18, Nov '18 TRs (8/22 UPDATE!)

[angryduck71]

Wish me luck this weekend! If we win our 40+ 7.0 mixed, I may try to meet up with you here and there Sun-Tues of your trip!

 

[kittylady1972]

And our departure day is here! I have to get through a few hours at work, then heading home where I'm mostly packed and ready to go.

I always hate leaving the kids behind, but it will be good to have some adult time.

I *MIGHT* have booked another ADR last night. Stay tuned to see if I keep it (it is for breakfast tomorrow morning).

In the meantime, I spent most of yesterday evening trying to arrange alternative plans for a tennis match that my team has tonight @angryduck71 will understand that. I'll be on a flight during the time a go/no-go decision is being made on if the match is to be played outdoors (unlikely...it's raining AGAIN here...it's like we were living in Seattle this year and not Maryland) or if they will move to indoor courts.

I can't wait to roll up to Bay Lake Tower in about 12 hours and hear Welcome Home!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Have a great trip! I can't believe we are missing each other by a few days AGAIN!!!!

 

[kittylady1972]

Have a great trip! I can't believe we are missing each other by a few days AGAIN!!!!

Thanks...I know...we have some terrible planning! Most likely will take a break from WDW for a while at the end of this year when our APs expire unless something compels me to return before 2020.

 

[camper06]

Have a great time!!

 

[kittylady1972]

Greetings from Cabana Bay Resort where we have reached our final day here. It has been so much fun so far and we have really done so much. We have weaved some Disney in with Universal and plan to do more of both today. That means another trip to EPCOT for Food and Wine and one or maybe even two more Disney parks. Yesterday we had a very successful rope drop Flight of Passage experience. We are in the unfortunate position of being unable to make ANY Fastpass reservations which is a challenge.

I can't wait to tell the rest of our story which will likely be titled A Room Without a Bed. Yes it is true. That was part of our experience.

For now I guess I need to get this final day started here soon.

 

[ariane37]

I was so far behind!! Glad to hear you're having a good trip even without a bed, which I can't wait to hear about

Dad and girlfriend arrive later this day and will check in at Saratoga Springs

That's where we'll be the 17-22nd, unless something else opens up with my discount.

Head to Magic Kingdom for the day.

And we'll be at MK Sunday

Animal Kingdom all day long,

And at AK Tuesday, but not until early afternoon.............

Early Thanksgiving dinner at Boma

Where we'll get to meet if we don't meet up earlier in the week!!!!

I feel like we aren't giving EPCOT much love this trip (again) and part of me is sad about that.

Same for us in Nov., simply because the boys don't enjoy it as much as they used to. Since Steve and I spend so much time there when we go without them I don't feel too bad, and we were just there, but we ARE going on Black Friday because that's what we've done on our other Thanksgiving trips so I feel like it's tradition. We'll catch some holiday storytellers and I want to see the Illuminations holiday tag for the last time.

I've never seen a message that ALL Fastpasses were already distributed for ALL parks on a given day.

OMG that is SO annoying, believe me it happens all the time I suppose I see it often since I'm making FP's for so many people, and that's sometimes our first clue that it's going to take hours to do a few days worth of FP's rather than 15-20 minutes.

Can he do Magical Express if arriving a few days later than the rest of us?

YES!

OR can catch Candlelight Processional at EPCOT

We aren't doing the CP but like I said, we'll be in EPCOT that night if this is what you decide to do!

 

[kittylady1972]

I was so far behind!! Glad to hear you're having a good trip even without a bed, which I can't wait to hear about

That's where we'll be the 17-22nd, unless something else opens up with my discount.

And we'll be at MK Sunday

And at AK Tuesday, but not until early afternoon.............

Where we'll get to meet if we don't meet up earlier in the week!!!!

Same for us in Nov., simply because the boys don't enjoy it as much as they used to. Since Steve and I spend so much time there when we go without them I don't feel too bad, and we were just there, but we ARE going on Black Friday because that's what we've done on our other Thanksgiving trips so I feel like it's tradition. We'll catch some holiday storytellers and I want to see the Illuminations holiday tag for the last time.

OMG that is SO annoying, believe me it happens all the time I suppose I see it often since I'm making FP's for so many people, and that's sometimes our first clue that it's going to take hours to do a few days worth of FP's rather than 15-20 minutes.

YES!

We aren't doing the CP but like I said, we'll be in EPCOT that night if this is what you decide to do!

Oh yes...my bed story...funny enough it reminded me of your latest experience in a way. I know, I know...not a lot of information on that but I will explain eventually...promise...how an "upgrade" becomes a room without a bed.

Sounds like we will have some overlapping plans for sure...yes! I'm sure this time we'll be able to at least meet once.

Now that we've extended to Friday, we'll see how things go as we've never stayed that long. I actually have FPs that day at Animal Kingdom...but would like to catch some of the EPCOT stuff also so we'll see. I booked a CP Dinner just in case.

Ah the MDE system and that message...so weird. I actually got it over the weekend trying to book FPs at Hollywood Studios as well. It was crazy.

 

[kittylady1972]

We are back home...and time for a quick recap of our trip....a summary until I get the time to post the details.

Tuesday: Travel day was fine, Bay Lake Tower was lovely as always, dinner at Raglan Road for the first time was nice.

Wednesday: Supercalifragilistic Character Breakfast was lovely. Royal Pacific Resort was also lovely, having Express Pass is totally worth it...and even better when you end up paying only $99 a night for your room...with NO bed! Yes it's technically true...we were "upgraded" to a Hospitality Suite...which had only a pull-out sofabed. It worked out though...and they also threw in a free dinner for us. Hollywood Horror Nights was awesome but the ONLY way to do it is with that RIP Tour which was FANTASTIC! All 10 houses and all 5 scare zones plus a show in about 5 hours and our tour guide was fantastic!

Thursday: Our 2nd day of wandering the Universal Parks..and we were done early. This continues to be really a 2 days is enough time for us vacation, but having ExpressPass is part of that.

Friday: Rope dropped FOP...perfectly. Spent time at EPCOT for Food and Wine...very nice. Tried out Pat O'Briens at CityWalk...cool place and good food also. Checked in for Cabana Bay...love the resort but the parking situation was insane as of Saturday night.

Saturday: Enjoyed more time at Universal Parks...and several ride breakdowns. Note to Universal: why would you reuse a ride vehicle concept that breaks down often at your other park at a second park for a new ride? Spoiler alert...had ride breakdowns on 2 of the first 3 rides we experienced at USF. We got out after the 4th ride and show...and finally caught the Monster Make-Up show which was fun! We also hit 3 Disney parks within that same day...yes we are crazy and EPCOT for Food and Wine on a Saturday is a NO GO for us in the future...insanity.

Sunday: We used a park day just to shop because we had it.

We spent Tues-Sunday in Orlando and had ZERO rain the entire time...mostly mid 90s heat and humidity all week. Wow. Crazy. We want to return to Universal for sure, maybe this summer, with the family. Not sure what resort we'll stay at for that one. Returned home in time to get dinner and watch football, staying up way too late and now have to get through a 5-day busy work week, only to have an upcoming weekend with my tennis team playing in the Regional Playoffs all weekend! Yay!

 

[kittylady1972]

July 2018 Celebration of Life - Day 3

So we woke up and were ready to start another full day at the parks...and today's schedule was mostly dictate by my youngest son since it was his birthday. He chose to celebrate turning 14 with some time at EPCOT and at a waterpark.

We drove over to EPCOT and arrived I think close to park opening. We headed directly to Soarin' to ride it Standby:



This was followed by breakfast at Sunshine Seasons...mine was epic:



I think we decided to ride Living with the Land next, much to the utter disappointment of my children. They suffered through it with us though.

Next we headed to visit Nemo and friends and do a quick ride on that with no wait, and wander a bit around the tanks. I'm honestly not sure what we did next...I feel like this was the day I convinced everybody to ride Mission: Space Green for fun...but they weren't thrilled about it. I don't think we did a lot because we had plans to hit a waterpark and didn't want to get there too late.

We got back to the room and changed and headed out to Typhoon Lagoon for a while. Sadly they seemed to be having issues with the wave pool there, so we had about two sets of waves and then they just weren't working. I snapped some photos though:




These also may or may not have been taken the same day. We did do another water park day at Blizzard Beach.


After some cooling off time, we headed back to the resort to change and chill for a bit. We'd be heading back to EPCOT that evening for dinner, and my son's choice was Via Napoli.

He definitely enjoyed his meal and polished off a pizza all by himself (I was hoping to help him):


They also sang to him and brought out dessert:


I think we had some FastPass reservations here for the evening, but I really wanted to check out one more thing...and this would get more cries of sheer pain from my children. Anybody's guess?

 

[kittylady1972]

July 2018 Celebration of Life - Day 3 (continued)

Since we were in the World Showcase area, I though it would be awesome to catch...a SHOW! Oh the horror from my children...but I really wanted to see the Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix...and since a show was starting soon we grabbed some seats.




I was really enjoying this show, and the music was AWESOME...but in the distance we could see some clouds were threatening and we did have a Fastpass for Test Track that we had to use that evening. When it started looking worse, we booked out of the show early to try to his Test Track.

Sadly we were too late, as due to the weather it was shutdown when we got there. Since the weather looked iffy, we decided instead to leave the park and head back to our resort.

Later that evening, I got the munchies for some dessert but there were really no options at CBR. Instead a few of us drove over to Disney Springs and decided to experience Sprinkles Cupcakes for the very first time. TOTALLY delicious...I got the cupcake sundae...it was awesome. It was just me and my DH and daughter and we enjoyed our dessert before heading back to room and going to bed around 10pm or so.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Can't wait to hear about another trip, as they are always awesome! So glad you liked Sprinkles. We love it too. I will be indulging at Via Napoli in 8 days. YAY!

 

[camper06]

Great updates!

Quick question - did you have problems with MDE while you were there? As in, your fastpasses or ADRs showing up? We'll be there next week, and every day seems like something else goes missing. So frustrating!! Today its half of our ADRs are missing...

 

[kittylady1972]

Can't wait to hear about another trip, as they are always awesome! So glad you liked Sprinkles. We love it too. I will be indulging at Via Napoli in 8 days. YAY!

I'm hoping to get around to finishing July and then getting the September Universal with Disney bonus trip up after that. Yes Sprinkles is awesome...might need to return there next month.

Great updates!

Quick question - did you have problems with MDE while you were there? As in, your fastpasses or ADRs showing up? We'll be there next week, and every day seems like something else goes missing. So frustrating!! Today its half of our ADRs are missing...

Thanks...and I don't recall anything specific. I had one day where I logged in and it showed I had Fastpasses for 2 people, but then it only showed it for me, and then the next screen both people showed up. I've had that before. I haven't seen the ADRs missing that I know of, but I haven't checked them today.

 

[angryduck71]

In the meantime, I spent most of yesterday evening trying to arrange alternative plans for a tennis match that my team has tonight @angryduck71 will understand that. I'll be on a flight during the time a go/no-go decision is being made on if the match is to be played outdoors (unlikely...it's raining AGAIN here...it's like we were living in Seattle this year and not Maryland) or if they will move to indoor courts.

Worst part of captaining -- planning around rain.

 

[kittylady1972]

Worst part of captaining -- planning around rain.

Yep...and dealing with the "but I was available...I should be the lineup" people. Those are the ones that don't make the cut for the team next time around.

 

[ariane37]

we were "upgraded" to a Hospitality Suite...which had only a pull-out sofabed.

Um.....ok WHAT?? I need to know about this! What if you were a party of more than 2???? Hospitality suites are supposed to have beds lol!

Checked in for Cabana Bay...

I really like Cabana Bay, despite EP not being included. I adore the theming and I think the rooms are cute.

and finally caught the Monster Make-Up show which was fun!

I honestly think this is my favorite thing at either Universal park!

 

[kittylady1972]

Um.....ok WHAT?? I need to know about this! What if you were a party of more than 2???? Hospitality suites are supposed to have beds lol!

I really like Cabana Bay, despite EP not being included. I adore the theming and I think the rooms are cute.


I honestly think this is my favorite thing at either Universal park!

Just for you @ariane37



On the far right...that is the "bed" that we had for this room. In this photo is the 8-person table.





On the top left of this photo is a hallway leading to a set of double entry doors and what I SUSPECT on the left side is a connecting bedroom. If you look to the right of this photo, beyond the kitchen, you'll see a single entry door...and on that far right wall is a closet and another connecting door...again suspect this is a bedroom as well. I am not sure though. I suspect they somehow "sold" the bedroom portions but as rooms and not the suite. This place was crazy big and the fold out mattress was comfortable enough...I actually made them show me the room first and FOLD OUT THE BED for me before I agreed to it. At $99/night for this room for two nights...it was hard to complain.

 

[ariane37]

On the top left of this photo is a hallway leading to a set of double entry doors and what I SUSPECT on the left side is a connecting bedroom. If you look to the right of this photo, beyond the kitchen, you'll see a single entry door...and on that far right wall is a closet and another connecting door...again suspect this is a bedroom as well. I am not sure though. I suspect they somehow "sold" the bedroom portions but as rooms and not the suite. This place was crazy big and the fold out mattress was comfortable enough...I actually made them show me the room first and FOLD OUT THE BED for me before I agreed to it. At $99/night for this room for two nights...it was hard to complain.

Ah ok, that makes sense! I still find it weird that they'd book you in a room with no real bed, but for $99 a night, yeah. And you are correct that the hallways lead to bedrooms that are normally booked WITH the portion of the suite you had lol

 

[kittylady1972]

Ah ok, that makes sense! I still find it weird that they'd book you in a room with no real bed, but for $99 a night, yeah. And you are correct that the hallways lead to bedrooms that are normally booked WITH the portion of the suite you had lol

Agreed...and I tried to push back hoping maybe they would upgrade us to something else...but it didn't seem like that was going to happen. So in the end, for the huge cost savings, we just went with this room and it wasn't bad at all. It's not like we spend much time there anyway, which is a shame because we could have hosted a LOT of people in that room!