January mini-vacay before work (01/14-16 2020)

[Lizgistix]

I purposefully delayed starting a new job until after this vacation because I didn't want to cancel anything! Also the weather in January can be yuck, so I thought the time would be better spent at home with family.

This little trip was going to be a fun mini vacation before I head back to work, so since the last mini vacay was Epcot and Hollywood Studios, this mini vacay would be Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. So this way we're back up to speed with being in the parks and getting caught up on everything we missed over the last several years!

Day 1, part 1 (continues below)
Day 1, part 2: Hippo butt
Day 1, part 3: Rivers of Light
Day 2: Can this room be any smaller?

This trip was a little more budget friendly. No fancy-shmancy dee-lux resort, oh no! But we're still staying at a resort we've never been at before:
Port Orleans French Quarter!



We arrived around noon-ish, dropped the puppers off at the Pet Resort, picked up our scooter from Gold Mobility, and checked in at POFQ. We waited in line to get the parking fee refunded since we have a handicapped tag. While waiting, we were told our room in building 6 wasn't quite ready yet (I should have been more specific when I requested "near transportation") but another room in building 3 just became available, so the lady at the front desk assigned us to that room instead. Y'all, building 3 is the place to be! It's next to the main building, near the arcade and general store. From the elevators, it's a straight walk to the food court. It was perfect! We were placed in room near the corner of the building as well, so had we not needed the elevator, there were stairs right around the corner we could go down and we'd be right next to the arcade. Perfect location!

We did notice all the rooms had these in the windows though. Every room had these in the window.


We walked in and were immediately greeted by another mickey. A Mardi Gras Mickey, if you will.

Fun and festive!

Here are a few more room pictures if you're curious:



It was a nice room! Good size, not too big, not too small. We parked the ECV in front of the adjoining room door, it was perfect!

Then we headed down to check out some more of the resort and we passed this in the arcade!

HOW COOL IS THAT! My only regret is not having tried it.

Inside the food court, I was entranced by these up in the ceiling:

I guess they're like Mardi Gras beads and they look cool. Another thing that is really cool that I didn't take a picture of were the mask tiles in the food court bathroom. Incredibly unique and something we've never seen before!

Alrighty! So now that we've done a quick tour of the resort, it's time to head over to Animal Kingdom for a fun half day, which I will get to hopefully in the next couple days and not put off doing it for two months like the other trip report that I just recently finished.

 

[Lizgistix]

Day 1, part 2: Hippo butt

Hi again! So the first post covered part of the first day: checking in to POFQ, dropping the dogs off, picking up the ECV from Gold Mobility and lunch at the food court (which I probably didn't mention).

After all that, it was time to head to Animal Kingdom! Last time I was here, Expedition Everest was still fairly new, Camp Minnie Mickey was still around, and Primevil Whirl was operating daily. It's been a while.



Had to take this picture, although I'm questioning why I didn't also take a pic of the dragon since I was over in that area. Fun fact: Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios have the most smoker-friendly smoking area placement of all 4 parks. They're just outside, off to the side a bit. It's not a major trek to get to them. It made for a quick break as I prepare to go into the park and go without nicotine for 7 hours.

Once inside, you'd think the big tree would be there to greet you but no, you have to wander the paths past fenced in wildlife (fishes, etc) and unfenced wildlife (other people's kids) and then AND THEN you see it, and it's magnificent.



My camera doesn't do it justice. Shout out to the ram on the left. But as if the tree wasn't detailed enough, there's also carvings over on this side of the water as well, and it's fun to look around and point out creatures that you see.



The amount of detail is spectacular. I'm absolutely in love.
But enough tree hugging! We have to go see the new land! The land of architectural majesty and extremely long wait times! Pandora! (not the jewelry, though I can see how one could confuse the two)

So we strolled into Pandora-land and I put my hand on that red spot on the vine/tree thing which I thought caused it to squirt water but it made some weird noises and I was still in awe. Speaking of awe, the floating mountains are really something to behold.



I took a pic and then fiddled on my phone in the play disney parks app to see what fun things were available in this land. I did some plant scanning and stuff but nothing too involved. We then kept making our way around the park for our FP at Kilimanjaro Safaris. On our walk over, I casually pointed out the Club 33 location. When we arrived at Safaris, we still had about an hour before our FP window opened, so I thought, hey, let's go do one of the animal trails! So I think we walked down the Gorilla Falls trail, past some birds, some animals, some really gross bugs and creepy crawlies, and eventually came to a hippo area where there was one floating nearby. I tried looking through the water and couldn't tell where it was, so I asked a cast member where it was.
"It looks like a rock with a tail"



Came all this way for hippo butt. I tried to get a better side view from one of the further away windows but the picture wasn't as good, so hippo butt will have to do. We continued along the trail, looking at animals, taking periodic rest breaks, and then talking to a nice lady from a small town in Wisconsin (we're from WI, so it's a thing to chat up people from WI). We made it all the way around the trail before I realized there was a thing to do on the play disney parks app with this trail. Dagnabbit!

Then our FP window for Safaris opened, and all those pictures are on my mom's phone but we did have a curious giraffe come very close to our truck, so we got some great pictures of it, and some other wildlife creatures. It was a very bumpy ride but really fun and great.

After safaris, we weren't hungry yet so instead of dinner, we continued around and I wanted to shoot some people with water jets on Kali River Rapids but it was closed. Sad face. We then continued on over to Dinoland USA to ride Countdown to Extinction Dinosaur! (I've been avoiding this ride since the beginning because I've heard how rough it is, but I figured, we're here, let's see how bad it is.

So, naturally, I took the obvious photo in the queue:

I think everyone takes this photo. I mean, you come into the room and this thing is staring you down, so of course you have to photograph it!
And yes, Dinosaur is a very wild ride. It starts off nice and then things progress and it becomes this wild ride where I hardly had a chance to look at everything because I was holding on so much! Even during the photo op, I don't look scared, I look like I'm bracing myself for the next sharp turn. Disney could make a few extra bucks by having a chiropractor's office in the gift shop of this ride, just sayin'.

On our way through Dinoland, I made a friend. It's nice to meet people taller than I am, it's refreshing!


Then of course I had to take some pics of Primevil Whirl. People were there at the ride controls but it wasn't operating.


and I of course took a pic of Everest.


I'm going to end this one here and save the Rivers of Light pics for the next installment.

 

[Lizgistix]

Day 1, part 3: Rivers of Light

Dinoland closed at 6p, and that's about the time it was after taking some pics in the area, so we headed back towards the Rivers of Light area for our FP. A nice CM asked us to follow him as he lead us to the ECV entrance, and we were greeted by a number of cast members and then directed to where we could park our ECV and then where to sit. We had actually arrived to the early show, and our FP was for the later show, but a CM fiddled with their tablet and changed something so we could go in. Oops, my bad.

We had good seats for the show, and had enough room to stretch out and relax, munch on some popcorn, enjoy some water, and take a load off before the show began. We had never seen Rivers of Light before and for a show without fireworks, it was very nice! Some of the projections on water seemed blurry to me, but overall it was a great show.




That last pic is probably my favorite.
After the show, well, the crowd was crazy so we had to wait for most of the people to leave before we could even move our ECV. Then we headed to the gift shop so I could buy the pins I earned from the Play Disney Parks app. On our way out, we stopped to take a few pics of the Christmas tree which I was surprised was still up, but hey, we got to see it!



We hopped the bus to Port Orleans Riverside so Ms Liz (me) could buy some Wishables plushes. I think I bought three that night, and ended up with a duplicate (which I later mailed to a friend of mine just because)

So here's a pic of one of the cutest Wishable plushes ever!


I'm running out of space, so I'll share the one pin I bought (of several) that was really beautiful:


And one of the Play Disney Parks app pins:


After shopping, we walked around a bit and passed the horse and buggy while making our way to the boat dock.
We took the boat from Riverside back to French Quarter and immediately went to the food court to get something to eat before they closed. We bought two super slices of pizza and despite coming right out of the oven, by the time we got back to our room (not a long walk, by the way), they were cold and just really not that great in general. Very disappointed! However the beignets we also bought....very good! I'm thankful for all the powdered sugar at the bottom of the bag. We brought that home because we were running low after baking cookies for the holidays. (kidding, but there was a lot of powdered sugar in that bag)

So that does it for day 1! We're both tired and exhausted, me more so because I was the one walking. While mom got ready for bed, I borrowed the ECV to ride down to the smoking section to have several and catch up on social media. While down there, the sprinklers came on so I was kind of trapped until they stopped. On the way back to the room, I turned the corner to get to the elevator and was greeted by a HUGE raccoon digging in the garbage. I didn't know what to do (I panicked!) so I backed up a little and honked the horn on the ECV. The raccoon turned, holding some kind of patty of some sort, saw me and was like "sorry, my bad!" hopped down and scurried off.

...so that's how my night ended.

 

[Lizgistix]

Day 2: Can this room be any smaller?

Welcome back! It is now day 2, the full day of the vacation, and we are spending it in The Magic Kingdom!
*checks picture folder*
I apparently was too busy/tired/excited/exhausted to take many pictures. WELP.

So, we slept in a little bit, because neither of us are morning people. Rope drop? Psh, not for us! We had a late breakfast and smart planning Liz made an ADR at 11a for lunch. File this under "bad planning". I believe we both had omelettes from the POFQ food court, and they were very good! Then we took da bus over to MK.

Okay, the original plan was to get there at 9a. Go meet Cinderella and Elena. Then go meet Ariel. Then go ride the Peoplemover and Buzz Lightyear, THEN go have lunch. What actually happened was we got to Magic Kingdom, and then just killed about 15 minutes waiting for our lunhc reservation. WELP!

But we never ate here before! In fact, both of us hardly knew this place existed! When we got to the end of Main Street and hung a right, we walked past the ice cream shop and sure enough, there it is! Completely overlooked by both of us all these years.



...and that's the only picture I took of lunch. I will say that our server was super nice. Our food was actually pretty good. Mom was able to order off the kid's menu and the tomato soup I had as an appetizer would have paired well with her grilled cheese. Lemme check my notes really quick. Nope! Didn't even write down what I ate. Let's see if viewing the menu rings a bell. Back in a second. Talk amongst yourselves a bit.

Seasonal soup, mentioned that.
Oh! The Plaza Club! Yes, it was very good. I don't know if it was $17 good, but it's Disney.
Mom had the grilled cheese off the kid's menu with, I believe, apples and bananas.

HOWEVER. We were seated in the small room to the far left. It's like a circular room. IT'S TINY! Like, I had to move our table to the side to get out. It's way too flippin' crammed in there. That was probably the only thing I didn't like about this restaurant was where we were seated. Loved the atmosphere. Loved how you could see the castle. Our server was darling. The food was decent. But good gravy we were crammed into that room.

...would still go back.

After lunch we went clockwise around the park. Jungle Cruise had an insane wait time, so we went back to do another scavenger hunt/treasure map. Mom seems to like doing these, and they're fun! I didn't like having to wait at each spot though because some overzealous kid was like "IT'S RIGHT HERE!"
*cuts in front of us*
*slams magic band on the icon*
..thanks, kid. We'll wait for the next one. In fact, we had to wait so our magicband would recognize that we were at the proper location. Didn't help that some people parked strollers in front of places we had to go, or people were camped out on the spot we had to visit. It was still neat seeing the hidden-in-plain-sight scenery come to life, though. Especially the smoking cannon or the clam shell.

We then made our way to Frontierland and found a nice spot to watch Festival of Fantasy. We had never seen the parade before and I'm surprised I didn't take any pictures! Needless to say, I was really excited to see the Rapunzel and Tiana we met last trip were the same Punzie and Tiana we saw in the parade! I really can't believe I didn't take any pictures. I also really can't believe Flynn didn't notice me. Guess I'll have to book that breakfast at the Boardwalk to get some Flynn time.

After the parade, we headed to our FP at Big Thunder Mountain. We were directed to the wheelchair access line and a really great and energetic cast member greeted us, explained the process, and guided us to the loading area. He was so great that I wrote a compliment about him after we were home. (our Plaza server, too) Best part about this loading is we get THE VERY BACK! Omg, we may have mobility issues, but they gave us the best seat on the ride! It was so much fun.

After BTMRR, we headed to our next FP at Haunted Mansion (see, my plans do work out some times) and I pointed out the Leota gravestone while we were waiting. Smarty pants Liz (me) really wants to say to these Haunted Mansion CMs at the door "why the long face?" but I stop myself every time. The CMs out front are alot more chipper, and you really can ask them the name of their bat! We also knew this time where they take the onride photo, so I pretended to be scared during picture time.

After Haunted Mansion, we went back to Adventureland to just sit and get out of the heat. I thought it was supposed to be cooler in January! It was dang near 80! I think after that we went to Pecos Bill for dinner. I kind of remember having nachos. I think we got the mini churros, too. We went through Fantasyland but I don't think we rode anything. We did have a later FP for Buzz Lightyear, so we rode that and the Peoplemover.

By then it was time to scope a spot for Happily Ever After. We sat outside the wheelchair section and waited for it to be opened. While waiting, I scooted off to the bathroom, then scooted over to Casey's Corner for some mini corn dogs, a soda, and oh! this Mint Lemonade sounds good! (it wasn't. I mean it was at first and then it wasn't). I walked back to where Mom was and....she wasn't there. WTHeck?! We had a great spot, why'd she move?! Turns out she moved when they opened up the roped off area and she still had a good spot but I had no idea where she was until I finally found her.

So we were situated in front of a nice little fountain and a Dumbo statue. I took pictures, of course.



While waiting, I'm eavesdropping on CM conversations when I suddenly hear "OMG!" and a CM scampers off. I look around confused wondering what the commotion was and then I see a guest had climbed the short garden fence and was sitting on the grass leaning back against the fountain. People, I tell ya....



Happily Ever After starts and naturally, emotional Liz (me) gets emotional. I've seen videos, I've seen pictures. I think I've put too much emotional importance to this show. I still get a little drippy-eyed when I hear the beginning (don't start humming it!). After HEA, we walked around some more and rode BTMRR one last time but this time, since it was extra magic hours, we had the entire back car to ourselves, so I asked if I could ride in the row ahead, so mom and I both had our own row. I think mom was sliding around during the turns and while I was having a blast, I could hear her behind me going "omg. omg. omg. ack!" It was the best ride of the day.

We made our way out of the park and our good day went bad. We were at the bus stop waiting for our resort bus. The unfriendly guy in charge made all ECVs go through the regular line. So we waited....and waited....and waited....and watched buses from other resorts come and go. Heck we saw 3 CBR buses go before one of ours came. One finally came and the first two ECVs loaded in and a number of people packed into the bus. We calculated it would be 2 more buses before we would finally get on.
So we waited....and waited....and waited....and waited. Finally the next PO bus came, and 2 more ECVs loaded in and everyone else in line packed into the bus.

So now it's just us. All the people waiting for other resorts had already left. We were literally by ourselves. A short time later, the PO bus arrived and it was just us 2 on the bus back to French Quarter. I think this was the night we got pizza and beignets, not yesterday. I was worried by the time we got back that the food court would be closed. I think it was close to 11p by the time we got back. Anyway, to summarize from yesterday which really should have been written here: our food court pizza was awful. The beignets were amazing.

Mom went to bed, and I went back down to the smoking area for some alone time.