The roster:
Me
Wife
Son 15 - seventh time at WDW with one day at Disneyland/Cali Adventure
Daughter 11 - sixth time at WDW with one day at Disneyland/Cali Adventure
The plan:
First and last night at grandparents house in Atlanta.
Six nights at POFQ
Two nights at Royal Pacific Universal
Two nights in a condo on Longboat Key
Sunday May 24th:
We started off driving from ATL to WDW. About an hour before our identified check in I got a text informing me that we were assigned to room 1315 at POFQ. The only request I had made when I reserved was for a room in Building 4. I thought with roughly 14% of rooms falling within my request, I had a good chance of getting it. It appears I was wrong. I called Disney and a very nice CM told me she would look into availability in Bldg 4. Ten minutes later I get a second text with our new room assignment in Bldg 4. I know this will not always work out for us, but this cements me on online check-in.
Everything works as it should so we unloaded the car, unpacked a little and headed to the MK. This is the perfect situation for FP+. We're arriving at the park at 5:00 and already have three FPs in place. The FPs were later in the day in case we had travel issues. First thing is dinner since we had lunch several hours before. We used to have a number of sit down ADRs. As we have cut down the number of WDW days we have opted to reduce on sit down meals. Cosmic Ray's was the choice today. Cosmic Ray's is a pretty standard place. I'll say, for a counter service they serve a pretty decent roasted chicken. Sonny Eclipse seemed tired. He was tilted over and not playing the whole time we were there.
Our FP+s were scheduled later so we hit Buzz first. The wait was a bit longer than posted which wasn't bad. The bad part was my son had a higher score. On to the Tea Cups. I was amazed at seeing FP+ at the cups and a standby of 25 minutes. I had read about the longer waits for non headline attractions, but it still shocked me seeing it for the first time. Our first FP+ was Space Mountain. My kids have grown to really like this ride and it didn't disappoint. There was minimal wait after walking through the FP queue. The next attraction was Seven Dwarves. The FP+ line was fairly long. We drove through some rain driving to storms coming in and I surmised that the ride was down a little earlier. It moved quickly. Overall I was impressed with the ride. It had a bit more thrill than I expected and some of the show elements were very entertaining. We fit in Little Mermaid and Dumbo before hitting the last ride of the day was BTMRR. I prefer riding at night and seeing the residents of Tumbleweed dancing and shooting up the place. Off to POFQ.
Monday May 25th: Happy Memorial Day
We park hop almost every day we are Disney. This morning was DAK followed by and afternoon/evening at World Showcase. I have had a couple of experiences of the gates not being open when driving to DAK so we took the bus. Usually we get to the park early, have some granola bars and apply the sunscreen. We arrived at DAK about 8:15 and they were already letting people into the park. I wasn't aware that was the rope drop process there. We headed over to the safari. We have skipped the safari the last couple of trips. My kids spend at least 20 days a year at our local zoo. It is still a great attraction even though we see almost all of the animals (except the black rhino) in natural habitats locally. we had a little time to kill before our Everest FPs so we headed to Primeval Whirl. Our daughter loves this ride and the only time she rides outside Disney is at a local fair. The waits approach an hour there. This was my second introduction to the lines. Two years ago we rode this four times in a row without having to exit the ride vehicle. This time we had to get off after the first ride, The line was short so we did it again. On to Everest. My wife doesn't like roller coasters or simulators so she didn't ride. This was my daughter's first time on Everest. She yelled "I hate this" several times as we were riding but want to get right back on after she was done. On to Kali. I like the locker option they have added. It was the same short, wet ride. We had never done Flights of Wonder so we headed right over. I thought it was very entertaining. My wife told me that they had recently seen 75% of the show at the local zoo. I guess the script has been approved by the US Ornithological Society. Lunch time. Bummer, I though Flame Tree was supposed to reopen in April. Back to POFQ for lunch.
The afternoon/evening was set aside for World Showcase. My wife and split time with doing Phineas and Ferb adventures at a few of the pavilions. In my free time I explored the pavilions and watched some of the acts. I think the entertainment at Canada and Morocco is not as good as in the past. I am a fan of Donald and had watched The Three Caballeros recently so I rode the Gran Fiesta Tour. It really is not much of an attraction. For dinner my wife and I got fish and chips from the UK, my son had sushi from Japan (apparently the Japan pavilion has Magic Band scanners but doesn't seem to use them) and my daughter ate a hot dog at America. This was probably the hottest and most humid day of the whole trip. The air conditioning in the Liberty Inn was nice. To cap off the night, we had our first really good view of Illuminations. Usually we are running around until right before the show. It's interesting. My wife and I prefer Wishes. Our son prefers Illuminations. And our daughter prefers Fantasmic. Off to POFQ to complaing because their ice dispensers are almost always empty.
Me
Wife
Son 15 - seventh time at WDW with one day at Disneyland/Cali Adventure
Daughter 11 - sixth time at WDW with one day at Disneyland/Cali Adventure
The plan:
First and last night at grandparents house in Atlanta.
Six nights at POFQ
Two nights at Royal Pacific Universal
Two nights in a condo on Longboat Key
Sunday May 24th:
We started off driving from ATL to WDW. About an hour before our identified check in I got a text informing me that we were assigned to room 1315 at POFQ. The only request I had made when I reserved was for a room in Building 4. I thought with roughly 14% of rooms falling within my request, I had a good chance of getting it. It appears I was wrong. I called Disney and a very nice CM told me she would look into availability in Bldg 4. Ten minutes later I get a second text with our new room assignment in Bldg 4. I know this will not always work out for us, but this cements me on online check-in.
Everything works as it should so we unloaded the car, unpacked a little and headed to the MK. This is the perfect situation for FP+. We're arriving at the park at 5:00 and already have three FPs in place. The FPs were later in the day in case we had travel issues. First thing is dinner since we had lunch several hours before. We used to have a number of sit down ADRs. As we have cut down the number of WDW days we have opted to reduce on sit down meals. Cosmic Ray's was the choice today. Cosmic Ray's is a pretty standard place. I'll say, for a counter service they serve a pretty decent roasted chicken. Sonny Eclipse seemed tired. He was tilted over and not playing the whole time we were there.
Our FP+s were scheduled later so we hit Buzz first. The wait was a bit longer than posted which wasn't bad. The bad part was my son had a higher score. On to the Tea Cups. I was amazed at seeing FP+ at the cups and a standby of 25 minutes. I had read about the longer waits for non headline attractions, but it still shocked me seeing it for the first time. Our first FP+ was Space Mountain. My kids have grown to really like this ride and it didn't disappoint. There was minimal wait after walking through the FP queue. The next attraction was Seven Dwarves. The FP+ line was fairly long. We drove through some rain driving to storms coming in and I surmised that the ride was down a little earlier. It moved quickly. Overall I was impressed with the ride. It had a bit more thrill than I expected and some of the show elements were very entertaining. We fit in Little Mermaid and Dumbo before hitting the last ride of the day was BTMRR. I prefer riding at night and seeing the residents of Tumbleweed dancing and shooting up the place. Off to POFQ.
Monday May 25th: Happy Memorial Day
We park hop almost every day we are Disney. This morning was DAK followed by and afternoon/evening at World Showcase. I have had a couple of experiences of the gates not being open when driving to DAK so we took the bus. Usually we get to the park early, have some granola bars and apply the sunscreen. We arrived at DAK about 8:15 and they were already letting people into the park. I wasn't aware that was the rope drop process there. We headed over to the safari. We have skipped the safari the last couple of trips. My kids spend at least 20 days a year at our local zoo. It is still a great attraction even though we see almost all of the animals (except the black rhino) in natural habitats locally. we had a little time to kill before our Everest FPs so we headed to Primeval Whirl. Our daughter loves this ride and the only time she rides outside Disney is at a local fair. The waits approach an hour there. This was my second introduction to the lines. Two years ago we rode this four times in a row without having to exit the ride vehicle. This time we had to get off after the first ride, The line was short so we did it again. On to Everest. My wife doesn't like roller coasters or simulators so she didn't ride. This was my daughter's first time on Everest. She yelled "I hate this" several times as we were riding but want to get right back on after she was done. On to Kali. I like the locker option they have added. It was the same short, wet ride. We had never done Flights of Wonder so we headed right over. I thought it was very entertaining. My wife told me that they had recently seen 75% of the show at the local zoo. I guess the script has been approved by the US Ornithological Society. Lunch time. Bummer, I though Flame Tree was supposed to reopen in April. Back to POFQ for lunch.
The afternoon/evening was set aside for World Showcase. My wife and split time with doing Phineas and Ferb adventures at a few of the pavilions. In my free time I explored the pavilions and watched some of the acts. I think the entertainment at Canada and Morocco is not as good as in the past. I am a fan of Donald and had watched The Three Caballeros recently so I rode the Gran Fiesta Tour. It really is not much of an attraction. For dinner my wife and I got fish and chips from the UK, my son had sushi from Japan (apparently the Japan pavilion has Magic Band scanners but doesn't seem to use them) and my daughter ate a hot dog at America. This was probably the hottest and most humid day of the whole trip. The air conditioning in the Liberty Inn was nice. To cap off the night, we had our first really good view of Illuminations. Usually we are running around until right before the show. It's interesting. My wife and I prefer Wishes. Our son prefers Illuminations. And our daughter prefers Fantasmic. Off to POFQ to complaing because their ice dispensers are almost always empty.
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