So after all the preparation, and a drive that started at 3:45am, we were finally about to arrive on property! Our friend arrived via Magical Express at Pop Century a couple hours before we would. I tried something new on this trip, Online Check-In. I’m not sure exactly what my reservations about utilizing Online Check-In had been before. I read on the boards that many people prefer to check in once they arrived at their resort, and felt they got a better room selection if they did. However, I wanted to try it out for this trip. At the time I checked in online, I requested a room close to the main building and in the 60s.
I figured that because the reservation was made in my name that I would have to be the one to go to the Online Check-In desk to get our room number. However, our friend who arrived before us went to see if she would be able to pick up our info so she didn’t have to wait around. She walked up to the desk and within two minutes, she had our room info and was walking to our room. We had the Magic Bands in the car with us, so they made a temporary key for her to be able to get into the room.
Back in the car, we were just getting into Orlando and things were getting seriously nostalgic! I know for most people, the excitement of the road trip is passing through the Disney World arches, and feeling like you’re officially in the magic. But for us, we loved seeing all of our old haunts. You might not realize it, but when you exit the highway in Orlando by the theme parks, you drive right by College Program housing. So of course we loved seeing where we used to live, and a lot of the places we used to eat and shop. It felt like no time had passed and we were right back in our glory days. Except this time, we weren’t on our way to a long shift in the hot sun; we were on our way to a vacation with absolutely no responsibilities or a care in the world!
Getting into and through Orlando there was a bit of traffic, as always, but we made our way to those most magical arches. The arches that make me smile until my cheeks hurt. The arches that tell you it’s okay to leave the stress and worries of your daily life behind. The arches that turn back time to your childhood. The arches that say WALT DISNEY WORLD!
We were so excited and Pop Century is close to the front of the property, so we made our way there very quickly.
The man at the security booth on our way into Pop Century clearly didn’t understand, we just arrived at DISNEY WORLD! By that I mean, his attitude was less than magical. A gruff “ID?” was all he could muster up. We were on our way to find parking and I had never stayed at Pop Century before, so I wasn’t sure how it was structured. We parked in the main parking lot in front of the lobby building. I was sure that this parking lot couldn’t be the closest one to our room, but Scott assured me that it was. So we parked, grabbed our belongings (which felt so cumbersome as all I really wanted to do was jump for joy at the moment) and started the walk to our room. Our friend told us what our room number was and we started to walk that way.
Our room was in the 60s, in the Mowgli and Baloo building, on the second floor, in the back corner, facing Hourglass Lake. I LOVED our room location. It was a five minute walk to the main building and the bus stops there. I liked the Hourglass Lake view as well. Of course, it’s the only room at Pop Century that I’ve stayed in, but I felt like we had a really good set up.
The view from outside our door:
We went up to the door and were greeted by friends who were waiting inside. We got our stuff situated and pulled out the Magic Bands to test on the door. Our friend’s band worked, Scott’s band worked, but alas mine…did not work. In that moment, I was a bit crushed. I felt like if this was happening now, that it was going to be happening our whole trip.
So after a few minutes catching up with our friends, we headed to the front desk to have them look at the problem. A very friendly cast member scanned my band and immediately said that she saw what the problem was, and that it was a “coding error.” It made me feel good to know that she had located the problem. Rewind back to planning our trip, I noticed at one point that it seemed as though I had somehow ended up with two My Disney Experience accounts. I believe this happened while I was working at Disney and making lots of hotel reservations with visiting family. I could tell that there were two accounts attached to my name, because they had different character pictures. So sometimes I would see Mickey next to my name, and sometimes I would see Kermit. At the time I noticed this, I called Disney for
MDE help and a very friendly cast member told me that he merged the two accounts. After this, I just had Kermit next to my name on the app. However, fast forward back to the Magic Band not working, I’d have to guess that is where the issue stemmed from. The first cast member at the Pop Century desk played around with the band for awhile, and then went into the back to find someone else who took my band to a different area to work on. Then that person went to find someone else to look at it as well. I was getting scared. My whole trip is on that band! What would I do if it didn’t work?
After about 15-20 minutes of people playing around with my Magic Band, they finally brought it back and told me the problems were all fixed. Phew. I will go ahead and tell you now that they were right, whatever issue the band was having, it was now fixed. That first day was the only time any one of us had an issue with our Magic Bands. Even with that hiccup, we were big fans of MDE and Fastpass+ on our trip.
Okay so now we had our park bags ready to go, Magic Bands on and working, stuff put away in our room, what’s left to do but head to Downtown Disney? Which might be a little easier said than done. Disney Gods have banished Downtown Disney to a construction purgatory that makes it a less than desirable location to drive to. Because of this, I suggest that if you aren’t familiar with the area, I would ride the bus to Downtown Disney and avoid the headache. But as people who had driven to Downtown Disney many times (but not in the last year and a half to know what the lay of the land was), we figured it would be fine. We had heard all about the new Orange Garage built at Downtown Disney, and we wanted to try it out.
But getting there wasn’t easy. We didn’t know exactly where to go so we missed the turn in for the Orange Garage when we first passed it. Ok no big deal, we’ll just turn around when we can. Well, the next place you’re able to make a left or turn around is far down the road. So we finally got back to the turn in and made our way in to the garage. I realize that parking garages aren’t really sources of inspiration. But this is one awesome parking garage. There are signs telling you how many spots are available on each level and row. Then, above each spot, there’s a light telling you if the spot is open. So, no turning down rows unnecessarily. Although, we easily found a spot on the bottom floor, so we didn’t have to do any searching at all. At this point it was about 3pm on a Sunday, which you would expect to be a busy time, but there was a lot of availability in the garage. So definitely keep it in mind if you decide to be brave and drive to Downtown Disney. Once you get out of the car, it’s a little difficult to know where to walk. You have to go up an escalator or stairs and then walk across to go back down an escalator or stairs, and then you will be inside Downtown Disney by the movie theater.
Wow, so much has changed here since we left! Yes, there is still so much construction going on, but the sections of the reimagined Disney Springs that have been revealed are truly special. I much prefer the concept and aesthetic that Disney is moving this area towards. I think that this reimagining makes Disney Springs unique, and separates it from the many similar shopping areas in Orlando.
We were hungry and on a mission towards one of our favorite places to eat: Earl of Sandwich. So, we did a quick walk from the West Side over to the Marketplace. A walk where I kept asking “Wait, where are we right now?” and “What did that building used to be?!” We were happy that there wasn’t a huge line up at EoS and we placed and received our orders pretty quickly. We were with a friend who is still a cast member and she was showing us that there is an Earl of Sandwich app where you scan a code on your receipt in order to receive a free sandwich (after ten sandwiches I believe). Basically it’s just a digital punch card, but it could be useful to those who visit Downtown Disney and Earl of Sandwich frequently. Or maybe you are lucky enough to live near a chain of EoS yourself, in which case the app would be quite useful.
Scott didn’t take pictures of our sandwiches (though don’t worry, we have food pictures from all the other meals) but he ordered the Holiday Sandwich and I ordered the Chipotle Chicken with Avocado Sandwich. We’ve both had these sandwiches many times before, but we just love them!
We were in Florida in early June during the afternoon, so obviously it was raining outside, which severely limited our picture taking abilities. However I had a new rain jacket and hat in my backpack, so I put them on. Because I was wearing Chacos, I didn’t care if my feet got wet, so the thin rain jacket and hat kept me totally comfortable and covered in the rain. After we finished eating, we went into the shop connected to Earl of Sandwich, Mickey’s Pantry. I bought one of the things I had on a list that I had to get while in Disney, a tin of Mad Tea Party tea. I love drinking hot tea and my mom gave me a big set from WDW one Christmas that has all of the different teas in it. Scott and I drank all of the tea, but I have to say that the Mad Tea Party blend was the only one we felt like repurchasing. I bought the loose leaf tea, which comes in a tin that I’ll be able to use after the tea is gone.
I first tried the Mad Tea Party blend while at afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian. Sadly we skipped tea this trip but if you’re ever looking for something special to do, or maybe an activity for a birthday or arrival day, I highly recommend the afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian! Or you could spend a non-park day visiting the monorail resorts and have tea while at the GF. You need a reservation, and they go quickly because the room is pretty small, but it’s such a fun thing to do. That is, if you enjoy a bit of frivolous tea drinking. Men reading this trip report: take your significant other to tea at the GF as a special surprise and they will love it!
I love purchasing something on vacation that I can use slowly while at home and reflect on the memories from the trip I acquired it on. I think that Mickey’s Pantry is a great place to find a souvenir that you’ll use time and time again. They also have a very interesting selection of specialty salts that you could take home and use while cooking to remember your trip.
After we left Mickey’s Pantry, we started working our way through the shops. We walked through the Christmas shop trying to find a Disney ornament for our tree this year, but nothing really jumped out at us. Next we went into Art of Disney, which is one of our favorite places to just go in and look around.
After that, we walked across the new bridge across the lake. Again, all of the sections that I’ve seen redone as Disney Springs are absolutely gorgeous. Next time I go to Disney World, I really want to eat at The Boathouse! The menu is a bit pricy, but I absolutely love the look and theming of the restaurant. We spent some time in the gift shop, which has many very cool things to look at. We all liked a lot of The Boathouse specific merchandise, but I felt funny buying a souvenir from a place I hadn’t eaten. Maybe next time we’ll treat ourselves to a meal there and then pick something up from the gift shop in order to commemorate the occasion.
There were so many new shops to look in. We all had fun in the hat store, which was packed full of people trying on hats.
We made our way to D-Street, where we had our hearts broken. We tried to trade a Vinylmation and found out that Vinylmations are no longer traded anywhere.
We had seen this coming for a while, but we were still let down. Trading Vinylmations was a hobby we picked up while living in Orlando. We would get a Vinylmation on sale at the Cast Connections store and just walk around a park trading it at each place we could, taking pictures of each new Vinymation throughout the day. We’ll really miss trading Vinylmations! But speaking of trading, at least we could still trade our pins. D-Street also used to have a special pinboard with Vinylmation pins (both the 3D and flat versions) where you could trade one Vinylmation pin for another. We’ve had some good finds there in the past, like Master Gracey and Muppets characters. But alas, this board was also gone! Bummer. D-Street used to be one of our favorite places to go while at Downtown Disney for these reasons, but it’s lost a bit of its appeal now.
We went into the new Superhero Headquarters store, which is the Marvel themed shop that just opened. As we were walking into the store, there were two cast members with pins in the doorway, one with a lanyard and one with a Captain America shield as a pin board. Scott found a Gus Hitchhiking Ghost pin! We already had a Phineas Hitchhiking Ghost pin from the same series, so that brought us to two out of three of the ghosts! After that, we were one the lookout for an Ezra pin to complete the set!
After leaving the shop, the 3am wakeup call and heat were catching up with us, so we headed back to Pop Century.
When we got to our room, I tested my newly fixed Magic Band on the door and it worked! That was a weight off of my shoulders. We spent a few hours just hanging out with our friends and talking about everything that had happened since we last saw them. As we were talking I got a pit in my stomach when I realized that we hadn’t gone into the Marketplace Co-Op at Downtown Disney. The store opened after we moved, so we hadn’t ever had the chance to look around in there and I had really been looking forward to it. When we crossed the bridge earlier, we ended up skipping that section of shops.
So at about 9pm, Scott and I decided we would go back to Downtown Disney. Crazy I know, but we were both so full of Disney Energy that we wanted to do something! Downtown Disney closed at 11pm, so we had just enough time to get over there, run into a few shops, and get back to Pop Century for our early wakeup call. We drove again, but parked in a different area this time. We parked on the opposite side of the street from Downtown Disney, behind the Hess Station, so we had to walk up to an area where we could cross the street, which was a bit of a walk.
We went straight to the Marketplace Co-Op and spent a good bit of time in there picking out what we wanted to buy.
We absolutely love Disney cups and mugs, and there are so many to choose from at this shop! I kept going back and forth on what I wanted. I loved the Dole Whip container, but I didn’t know what I would do with it. Of course, the Skipper in me really wanted the Big Shot ceramic (the statue of the elephant from the Jungle Cruise) but I already have a ceramic elephant, so it’s a little redundant. I finally decided on two glasses that I absolutely adore. They are the Mickey’s Pantry and Minnie’s Bake Shop glasses. I love the style and classic design of the cups, and for $9.95 each, they weren’t too pricy either.
Scott really loved the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Stein that they had. He wasn’t going to get it, as we’ve never been able to ride that ride. It closed at WDW before we ever visited and the Nemo reimagining of the ride at Disneyland was down for refurbishment when we were there. However, I loved the look of the stein as well, and it was only $12.95, so I talked him into getting it. We both love the artwork on it, and Scott loves enjoying a beer out of his cool Disney stein.
After leaving the Marketplace Co-Op, we poked around a bit in Tren-D. There are always a couple of things I like in Tren-D, but this time the prices were just too high for me. Or maybe I just didn’t like anything enough to splurge.
After that, we stopped by the very first place we met, which happens to be a random area to the right of Guest Relations/Photopass, near where Ghiradelli is. We sat on a bench there and snapped a few pictures for posterity. Thanks for my happy ending, Disney!
We also stopped in Starbucks to get a look at the You Are Here mugs they had for sale. We collect these mugs from Starbucks when we like the design. At the Downtown Disney Starbucks they had a Florida You Are Here mug and an Orlando You Are Here mug. We debated getting one or both of them, since Florida holds a special place in our hearts. But we decided against it, knowing we’d pick up the mugs from the Starbucks inside the parks to add to our collection.
At this point we decided to head back to Pop Century and made our way back to the car. After arriving back at the resort, we decided to try out the Everything Pop food court for a late night bite before bed.
Because it was pretty late, they only had the Italian serving station open. We decided on a Buffalo Chicken Flatbread and took it back to the room to eat. We enjoyed the flatbread and I was impressed with the food court experience.
After eating, we hung up the decorations we brought from home in our room’s window. We brought sticky tack, which worked okay. It was fun seeing our decorations every time we came in and out of our room. It was also fun seeing all of the decorations in other people’s windows! This time we just got a pack of Monsters University party decorations. But next time I want to come up with something more creative for everyone to see as they walk by.
While I’m talking about our room, I have a random tidbit to include. I brought a pop up hamper with us in the car and if you are driving, I cannot recommend bringing a hamper for your room enough! It was so easy to just throw the dirty clothes in there, throw the hamper in the trunk when we left, and then throw it all in the wash upon returning home. It also made packing up to leave way easier and unpacking at home a breeze, since everything left in the suitcases was clean.
With that, our first day at Disney was coming to a close. We had crossed a couple shopping must-dos off our list. We loved our room at Pop Century. We had big plans for the next morning, which involved a very early wakeup call, so with that I bid you adieu!
See ya real soon!
