It’s Disney, Four Hours of Sleep is Normal! Mother Daughter 2018 F&W TR! (Updated 9/22!)

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I believe Spice Road Table has the same hummus fries that are sold during Food & Wine Festival. Those things are delish!

Oh really? We've never ate there, but if they have those hummus fries we'll have to stop by now!

Italy used to have a really good ravioli during F&W. I haven't seen it for a few years now. I think that rigatoni replaced it. Glad your mom liked it.

I think I would have preferred the ravioli! My mom loved the rigatoni though, so that's good!

Were all rides open during DAH? I know EMM is limited on which rides you can go on, but I've wondered about DAH. I would be like your mom with trying to get your monies worth on snacks! Why not?! I take it this was on off night from a Halloween Party?

I believe most rides were running, at least all that we were interested in going on were! Wondering if maybe ones like the Tiki room weren't running? It was a great event, and yeah, my mom wanted to make sure she got as many free snacks and drinks that she could! Yup, this ended up being on off night for the Halloween party.

Keys to the Kingdom? I love that you do so many extra events at Disney! I still want to do the progressive monorail dinner you and mom did a year or two ago.

Yup! We did so many events this trip, too many actually. Out next trip will be much more relaxed (well, that's what we're saying now at least!) I totally recommend the Highway in the Sky dine around, it was so much fun. We may even do it again one of these years!

 

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Day 6, Part 1: Keys to the Kingdom!

We woke up this morning painfully early, especially after the late night at DAH! We had booked the Keys to the Kingdom tour 180 days in advance, and then of course the DAH was released much closer to our trip, not wanting to miss out on either, we decided to suck it up and deal with a short 4 hour night of sleep!

So we ended up waking up at 5:30, not so fun.

We got ready and I checked the bus times on MDE. I was shocked to see a bus would be arriving for MK at 6:11! I had no idea buses ran that early!

It was 6:08 at that point and we were ready to go, so I told my mom that if we hurried we might be able to make that bus! So we rushed out of the room and down to the lobby. This was the one time we hated the location of our room, it was in the wing that looks out over Epcot, so basically the furthest you could possibly get from the lobby. Not great when you’re trying to catch a bus!

We ran out the front door and were on the bridge over to the bus stop juuuust in time to see the MK bus pulling away.

Well, silver lining, the app totally got the bus timing right!

The app didn’t list any time for the next MK bus, so we settled into a bench to wait. While waiting, two AK buses came and two HS buses came, yet no MK. What???

When the second HS bus came, we went over to ask the driver if he could change to a MK bus because clearly there was no demand for people going to HS at 6:20 in the morning. He told us he couldn’t and that buses were dispatched based on demand. Um. Really? There had been zero demand for AK or HS while we were waiting. That seems wrong.

Anyways, we ended up waiting until 6:42 for the next MK bus! We totally could have slept an extra 30 minutes. Oops!

Not surprising, we were the only ones on the bus. We made it to MK in amazing time, arriving at 6:58! Guess there’s no traffic that early in the morning!

When we got there they still had not opened security, so we got in line to wait. We didn’t have to wait long, about 5 minutes if even, before they opened up and we started moving through. We then headed over to the line for ADRs and tours. Since this was an EMH morning it was pretty crowded nice and early. We also noticed they let people there for EMH in the same line as those of us with ADRs and tours.

At around 7:25 they let us scan our bands and enter the park, but they held us just before the train station until 7:45. It wasn’t a bad wait though. One of the CMs came out with a speaker system to go over opening procedures, but was quite the comedian and had us all laughing in no time. She was really awesome and made the wait fly by!

I hate to admit it, but once again I did a horrible job planning, and never found out where we were supposed to go for our tour! Oops! Fortunately the funny CM making the announcements asked if anyone had booked a tour that morning, so of course my mom and I raised our hands, so she was awesome and told us just were we needed to go!

Finally at 7:45 the CM announced the park was open, and the masses started their charge up main street! We immediately split off from everyone else and made our way over to the theater to check in for our tour!

We were one of the first to get to the theater to check in. The CMs there were wonderful and got us checked in quickly. We found our nametags and picked up our headsets, then made our lunch selections. Once we got that all settled we headed to the little seating area to wait for the tour to start. There were two tours waiting there that morning, the Keys to the Kingdom group and the Marceline to the Magic Kingdom tour.

Our tour was supposed to start at 8:00, but we ended up waiting until 8:05 since there were people missing (who never did show up). We started out in front of the theater where our guide introduced herself, then went over the 4 keys, discussed the rules of the tours (no pictures backstage!), then began talking about how it’s all a show.

I won’t divulge too much info here on the tour since it’s nice to hear firsthand!

We slowly made our way up Main Street with our tour guide pointing out the names in the windows and discussing who they were. We finally got to Walt’s window where we all stopped for a few minutes to hear what our guide had to say (again, no spoilers!)

After our stop below Walt’s window, we made our way over to the path to Adventureland. We got to walk past the rope drop crowd waiting to get into the land which was pretty cool!

Our first stop was the Tiki Room! We didn’t actually go in, but our guide did point out that the “thatch” roof is actually made of aluminum! Sorry for the spoiler, but I just thought that was so cool! You’ll have to take the tour though to find out why!

We then headed down to the JC for our own private ride. It was really cool to find out about the workings of that ride. Fun fact, they dye the water there so you can’t see how shallow it is or see the track!

After the JC, we walked back to Frontierland to the backstage entrance next to Splash. We headed back there where we got to hear all about parade preparation and then went to see all the floats! It was really cool. We even walked back to the canal where they keep the Electric Water Pageant Floats where our guide talked a bit about that show as well.

We then walked back over behind Splash where we got to check out the water holding tank for the ride. I was shocked to learn that there is less water used for Splash than there is for JC!

Next we made our way back into the park and over to Pecos Bills for our lunch. We had a short wait out front while they set up for us, but soon we were brought inside.

The lunches we had ordered earlier were already set up at the tables for us with name tags to show us where our seats were. My mom and I quickly found ours and settled in for lunch. At the center of the room they had a topping station with a ton of toppings. I had ordered the salad with chicken and my mom got the chicken lettuce wraps. I ended up grabbing a bunch of guacamole from the topping station as well as some salsa and some corn.

Lunch was fantastic, and it was a nice break in the AC! We got our Keys to the Kingdom pins there as well, they were attached to the nametags at the table.



After lunch we made our way over to the HM where our guide talked about the building design before leading us backstage into the ride. We got to ride it, then afterwards we all met up outside.

Our next stop was Fantasyland where we got to enter the utilidor! It was really cool to see, and not remotely what I expected! We walked around down there for a while, and eventually came back up to the surface in the backstage area that opens up for the Halloween party. This is where we said our goodbyes, handing in our headphones, then made our way out from backstage into the park!

It was a really great tour, we loved seeing all the backstage areas. A lot of the stuff that the guide told us we already knew, but there were some things that we had never heard so it was nice to get some new information!

Next up: Tea Time!

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[Araminta18]

Sounds like an awesome tour! Disney does such a great job with the tours. I'm super curious about some of the things you mentioned; guess I'll just have to book the tour next time!

 

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Sounds like an awesome tour! Disney does such a great job with the tours. I'm super curious about some of the things you mentioned; guess I'll just have to book the tour next time!

It was a good tour, went by so fast! There was a lot our guide spoke about that we already knew, but there was some new info sprinkled in there. Plus it was cool to see the backstage areas! Makes me want to try all the other ones they offer!

 

[annie170]

I'd love to do the Keys to the Kingdom tour. There just never seems to be enough time.

Admittedly, I'm fascinated by the utilidors. I've watched videos and google imaged them for years. I know I would have ruined the magic for myself in that aspect of the tour. What did you think they would look like?

Do you think KTTK was worth the price?

 

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I'd love to do the Keys to the Kingdom tour. There just never seems to be enough time.

Admittedly, I'm fascinated by the utilidors. I've watched videos and google imaged them for years. I know I would have ruined the magic for myself in that aspect of the tour. What did you think they would look like?

I'm not really sure what I expected with the utilidors. I think I expected them to be less utilitarian? Haha! Also was surprised by the music down there and how much activity there was!

Do you think KTTK was worth the price?

I think it was worth the price. I do wish we could have explored more of the backstage areas, like they could have cut down on the time looking at the pictures in the utilidors and shown us some other places, or gotten into some of the workings of the place. That would have been really cool. Still a great tour though!

 

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like you guys had so much fun at the DAH event! So many rides on Splash! And awesome photos of a nearly empty Main Street!

Glad you enjoyed the tour!

 

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Sounds like you guys had so much fun at the DAH event! So many rides on Splash! And awesome photos of a nearly empty Main Street!

It was such a great event! Anytime we can ride Splash over and over again my mom and I are happy!

Glad you enjoyed the tour!

Thanks! It was a lot of fun, even though we were exhausted from the prior night!

 

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Day 6, Part 2: Tea Time!

After the Keys to the Kingdom tour we had planned on heading over to Splash to use our FP+, but by the end of the tour the lack of sleep was catching up to us as was the heat, so we decided to see if we could go to our ADR early.

We ended up leaving the MK and hopped on the monorail to the Grand Floridian!

We had reservations for the tea room at 2:30, but we were in need of a break much earlier, so got there around 1:30 instead.

Luckily, they had room to seat us early! Yay! We were quickly seated and given our menus.

We weren’t really sure how the menu worked, but fortunately our waitress came over shortly after we were seated to go over them.

I ended up with the Cheshire package and got the nutty chocolate tea, champagne, and the blueberry dessert. My mom got the Devonshire package and got the earl grey tea and the strawberry dessert.

Shortly after ordering the tea and my cheese plate came out. My mom, who refused to order the Cheshire package (ie the one that comes with the cheese plate) because she thought it was "too much food", ended up eating almost all of my cheese! Thanks mom!

Soon after the sandwiches came out as well.









The sandwiches, cheese, and tea were fantastic! I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this. This was one ADR that my mom had wanted that I could have easily passed on, but I’m so glad we did it!

After finishing up with the sandwiches, our dessert was brought out!



Oh my goodness, this was amazing! Plus it was so much food! It was so much that we had to doggy bag it for breakfast the following day!

After our second lunch, we were exhausted, so I called for a Minnie van to take us back to the BC for a nice long nap!

We had a super relaxing afternoon just hanging out at the hotel, and later that evening we made our way over to our favorite nighttime entertainment – Jellyrolls!!!



We ended up staying at Jellyrolls until close and had so much fun!

Next up: Painting is Quiet, Right?

Total Steps for the day: 13,898

Total Miles: 5.53 (really slacking today!)

Next up: Painting is Quiet, Right?
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[missangelalexis]

I've always wanted to do tea at the GF! Glad you enjoyed it!

 

[annie170]

Glad you two enjoyed your tea at GF. This is why I love your trip report. You do everything I want to do and never have enough time.

 

[xlsm]

I loved reading about Keys to the Kingdom!!I can never decide if I want to do that one or the Marceline to MK tour the most.

I am fascinated by anything backstage, it was the best part of the day we had our guide - just looking at the backs of buildings

It makes me happy how much fun you and your mom have together. My mom and I aren't close, and while we had fun on the trip we took together, I spent most of my time worrying if she was ok or not, if she was having fun/too tired, etc. I think it'd be different if we went again, I'd be more cool about it and less of a nervous wreck, LOL!!

The tea sounds really great, I need to find a way to work it into a visit!!

 

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I've always wanted to do tea at the GF! Glad you enjoyed it!

I was really surprised how much I liked it! I'm not a huge tea fan, and don't typically like sandwiches, so I wasn't too excited to try but my mom really wanted to so I was happy to tag along! It ended up being one of my favorite meals this trip! I actually even bought some of the tea I had there when I got home!

 

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Glad you two enjoyed your tea at GF. This is why I love your trip report. You do everything I want to do and never have enough time.

Haha, thanks! It's funny, there are SO many other experiences my mom and I want to do, we actually have a growing list. What we end up doing is each trip we book at least one item that's been on our list for a while so we're slowly working our way through. This year that item was lunch at the tea room! Next year we're finally having dinner at Le Cellier, that has been on the list since 2013!

 

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I loved reading about Keys to the Kingdom!!I can never decide if I want to do that one or the Marceline to MK tour the most.

Well, I've never done Marceline to MK, but I would definitely recommend KttK! Even though a lot of the stuff that was brought up we already knew, there was still a fair amount we hadn't heard before, and it was so cool to go backstage, especially in the utilidors. The only thing I wish we saw were some characters down there!

I am fascinated by anything backstage, it was the best part of the day we had our guide - just looking at the backs of buildings

HAAA! I totally get it, every chance I get to go backstage I get so excited! Later on in this trip we got to ride around the backstage road in Epcot and I was totally geeking out. We got to see the Ratatouille building up close during construction too which I found so fascinating!

It makes me happy how much fun you and your mom have together. My mom and I aren't close, and while we had fun on the trip we took together, I spent most of my time worrying if she was ok or not, if she was having fun/too tired, etc. I think it'd be different if we went again, I'd be more cool about it and less of a nervous wreck, LOL!!

Aw, thanks! I'm sorry you spent so much time worrying about your mom! It's very similar when my dad comes, we worry about him the whole time, he seems to always be having health issues, and he's not really sold on Disney. It's still great to have him there though, but we've learned some days it's best just to leave him in the room to relax while my mom and I head out to have fun!

The tea sounds really great, I need to find a way to work it into a visit!!

It was really fantastic! I was surprised how good everything was, especially the cheese and dessert! Plus it ended up being a lot more food than we originally expected. Definitely recommend it!

 

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Day 7, Part 1: Painting is Quiet, right?

Our seventh day of the trip we finally got to sleep in! Well, at least we didn’t have plans before noon, so in theory, we should have been able to sleep in…

So, for anyone who read my TR from our Flower and Garden trip, this morning will be very déjà vu-y.

We had received notice when we arrived that they were doing painting work on the BC during our stay, but it wouldn’t start until after 9, and well, it’s painting, how loud could that possibly be?

HA

Now, in our whole trip, we hadn’t heard anything, we saw the scaffolding up and everything, but never actually saw anyone working, and never heard a thing. Well, the one morning we can sleep in, it seems the workers arrived, and were ready to work hard!

After such a long trip of early mornings and late nights, we were looking forward to not setting an alarm for this morning and catching up one some much needed sleep. We were both sound asleep, when we were jolted awake by what sounded like someone banging a hammer onto our balcony railing, followed soon after by what much have been power washing the façade next door.

The noise was ridiculous, and even louder than our F&G trip at the YC where they had gutted the floor below us and were actually doing heavy construction to fit it out!

Who knew painting could be so loud.

Anyways, after the rude awakening, we decided to just get ready for the day since there was no way we’d be able to sleep through the noise.

As it was our last day there, we also got our DME info slid under our door overnight. There was an issue with that though, they only had my mom listed, not me. So our first stop of the morning was to the concierge to get that worked out. It didn’t take long, and soon we had our new papers printed out and we were on our way to the parks!

Now, this day was a Saturday, and even though we were well aware that this was a crazy plan, it was our last day, so decided to head to Epcot for one last trip to the food booths. Plus, my goal for the year was to try something from each booth, and I was only 3 or 4 booths away from hitting that goal, so I couldn’t be talked out of trying to make it!

On top of that, we were doing PFTS again this year, and the email we had received earlier in the trip noted that we could pick up our credentials at 11:00AM in front of World Showplace, so we didn’t have to stand around out front waiting later in the evening like last year which we wanted to take advantage of.

So once we got our updated MDE papers, we made our way over to Epcot to start the day!

Next up: Saturday Morning at the Food Booths!

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[missangelalexis]

Ugh that stinks that you couldn't sleep in!!

 

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Ugh that stinks that you couldn't sleep in!!

Yeah, we weren't too happy about that, but I guess it was nice to get the day started so we could do more!

 

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Day 7, Part 2: Saturday Morning at the Food Booths!

Happy snow day everyone! With it being such a snowy day here in DC, it's a perfect time to focus on getting this TR completed! This may be the fastest I've ever finished a TR! But before we get started, just have to share a cute pic of my pup in the snow!



Ok, on with the snow...er, I mean show!

We made it to Epcot just before 10:30, and were happy to see the food booths were already open! Guess that’s one plus for going on a Saturday! Crowds were pretty much non-existent at that point as well, which was a pleasant surprise.

Our first stop of the day was the New Zealand booth where we picked up the lamb meatball for my mom. She took that and went to grab a table while I went over to the Almond Orchard to pick up a Dom Perignon and the spinach artichoke dip.





My mom loved the meatballs, they were the same as last year though so I wasn’t too interested in trying them again.

The Dom Perignon, well, it was ok. I wanted to try it simply because I will never be able to bring myself to buy a bottle of it, I am more of a Trader Joe’s $6 bottle kind of girl. Glad I got to try some, but really nothing special.

Now the spinach and artichoke dip, wow. That was so good and so much food! It had to have a full chicken breast in there, and it was cut up in slightly larger than bite size pieces. It was delicious, but so filling. I had to throw half of it out, it was just too much!

While eating, this little guy came to visit us.



He was pretty chill being so close to us, and actually almost crawled onto my hand when I was resting it on the railing!

Once we finished eating it was getting close to 11, so we headed over to World Showplace to get our credentials for PFTS WVL. We found a shaded table right out front and waited.

At 11:03, the CM’s came out and started setting up. I went over to ask them if they were there to hand out the credentials, which they were, and were very impressed that we were so on top of things! HA! Oh they have no idea.

We got our lanyards and ended up chatting with them for a bit about that night’s event. They let us know that the WVL guests would be let in at 6:15, and we could also get a Minnie Van to pick us up from our hotel, and drop us off backstage for free included with WVL!

I had read in the email sent a day or two earlier that free Minnie Van transportation would be available, but I figured it would drop guests off at the front of the park, so didn’t think it made sense for us coming from the BC. Well, upon hearing that the van would drop us off backstage at World Showplace, I immediately regretted my decision to not schedule one before the deadline. Fail.

Oh well, a fail at Disney is still better than a fail in the real world.

Up Next: Final Stretch of Food Booths! Part 1

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[Araminta18]

Snow day! We're enjoying it too.


Also can't wait to hear about PFTS!