LIVE TRIP REPORT: March 27-April 6 Matey's Meander to tge Darkside & WDW

[minmate]

Cast of Characters:
Me (Minmate)
Dh (Joe)
Dd1 Cali, 15
Dd2 Meg, 14
DS. Brayden, turning 13 on trip (March 30)
Dd3 Jay, 11
FUN FACT: We will also be celebrating our 17th anniversary on March 29. We got married at Disneyland (before Disney weddings were "cool")

THE SCRIPT:
Drive straight through (26 hours) to Orlando
Spend 3 days at Universal offsite
Move to Caribe Royale
Exchange old tix for RFID ones and spend 1-3 days at WDW, depending on crowds, chaos and crabbiness levels.
Will hopefully be able to enact the offsite FP+ on March 31.

I have not done a live trip report before so be gentle!

Got home from work at 4, dh arrived shortly after me. Tidied up and packed up the car. On the road by 5. Heading into Twin Cities rush hour traffic accompanied by rainy, flaky snow. Good time to get outta here! I know we'll be out of this weather soon enough. The smell of someone passing gas in the car though... That nobody will fess up to... Hope that aroma dissipates soon!

DS: "We're really doing this!!!"
DD3: (before we made it to the end of our street): "Do we have any movies?!"
DD2: "I'm hungry!"
DD1: "This is gonna be a LONG time in the car!"

 

[jenninaustin]

so glad I happened to see this! Have fun!

 

[Mcneil516]

This will be fun! Hey it's the first time I've read a trip report as it happens so don't worry!

 

[minmate]

Making pretty good time so far. Dh drove the first seven hours. I took the 5-hour overnight shift, thanks to a "truck driver bloodline" and Disomnia (the inability to sleep leading up to and during a Disney trip). Anyone else get "Disomnia?!"

About halfway there!

 

[Tiggeye]

I love live trip reports. Can't wait to hear more. Good look driving and have some sunshine when you get to Orlando.

 

[evcollins]

 

[minmate]

Been raining most of the day. Hit some traffic in Nashville and a bit again in Atlanta. Patrols out in full force on I-75 to catch speeding and seatbelt compliance. Currently listening to Disney music and feeling a little conflicted that half our trip will be on the "Dark Side." Darn that Disney marketing for working so well on my emotions!

We are in good spirits though. Under the five-hour mark. No fighting and more than just tolerating each other, everyone is getting along! If you live with four closely-spaced teens/Tweens, you know, herein lies the most magical moments of the trip!

 

[Reflections of Earth]

I'm following. Live trip reports are my favorite, can't wait to hear more!

 

[minmate]

We are in Florida!

 

[minmate]

What do you call Pixie Dust at Universal? We got some!

While picking up our tickets that were "Reissued" by UT (they sent us the wrong ones and then emailed a copy of the correct ones due to time constraints but we still had to get real paper tickets) - the guest relations person told me the park was already open and to get my map inside. I thought that was strange because it wasn't quite 8 a.m. I knew they sometimes open 15-20 minutes early but an hour?! Duh! They were opening for early admission to Wizarding World. We were already through the turnstiles before this made sense to me. So, change of plans - instead of heading to superhero section we followed the herd to WW.

Walked on, or waited less than 5 minutes for Forbidden Journey, the Hippograff and two rides (red and blue) on Dragon Challenge, Hulk and Spiderman. We did all that by 9:30 a.m. Felt a little guilty for entering an hour early b/c we are staying offsite but then again, if they wave us through, who am I to decline an extra hour?

Our wait at Poseiden's Fury was just because we had to wait for the next show. The show's actor interacted w/my dd1 and we ended up being the "chosen" family to follow along with the actor and got to be in the front row for all the action. Kinda cool!

Ate at Mythos. Changed our 1:30 ressie to 11 bc we were hungry and had already done so many rides. Got in right away and had awesome service with our server Robert. He was a very nice older gentleman. Ds1 was wearing a birthday button and Robert brought him a free Oreo shooter dessert.

After that, went on High in the Sky in Seussland. Waited in line for Cat in the Hat (about 20 minutes) and it broke down right before we got on. They cleared the que so we went back over to wait 45 minutes for Spiderman. By then it was raining and dh and I wanted to leave. Dd1 and Ds wanted to see if Cat in the Hat was open again so we did that. Had about a 10 minute wait.

It was thundering and lightning so we dashed out. Got soaked. Saw some pretty good lightning strikes. There were some areas by the front entrance that was ankle deep. But we were laughing all the way to the car. Dh is a coffee snob. Hates Starbucks so we found a Dunkin Donuts. It was closed. They had a power outage. Only store on the block without power. We joked maybe they just decided to turn the lights off and call it a day! lol...

Found another one and got hot chocolate, coffee and donuts. Made it back to our hotel and they were cleaning our room so we hung out in the lobby for about five minutes.

Took a nice 2-hour nap. Kids swam. Now we're contemplating Downtown Disney or back to IOA.

It's been fun and very manageable. I am still nervous about the WDW crowds I've read about and seen photos of on here. But I can't do anything about it so we'll see what happens over the course of the week.

 

[catigger]

following along

 

[MommaPeel]

I totally get Disomnia! Bad thing is for my next trip I have a 21 to 30 hours of flights! But on the bright side of that I am in the happy place for 17 fun filled days. We (dbf and I) are looking at going over to the dark side for 2-3 days also. Shhh don't tell Mickey!

Can't wait to read more about your trip!

 

[minmate]

I totally get Disomnia! Bad thing is for my next trip I have a 21 to 30 hours of flights! But on the bright side of that I am in the happy place for 17 fun filled days. We (dbf and I) are looking at going over to the dark side for 2-3 days also. Shhh don't tell Mickey! Can't wait to read more about your trip!

When is your trip?

 

[minmate]

Spent last night at Downtown Disney. Picked up embroidered ears for my nephew. Walked the whole strip. There was definitely a crowd. We parked at Team Disney since it was a weekend and walked over.

Guest relations updated my old park tickets without issue. I've got them linked and will try for FPs at midnight.

Today we hit up rope drop at USF. It's DS' 13th bday. We rode Rip Rocket three times in a row bc that's what he wanted to do. Waited in a 40/45 minute line for Despicable Me. Was cute but wouldn't wait that long again.

Did Shrek, Simpsons and ate there. My dh loves the Simpsons so we putzed around and enjoyed the theming of that area for awhile. Ride Mib, Mummy (2x), Transformers (35 min wait), Disaster (long show but good to do once) the kids liked it. Also did ET. Line for Simpsons later in the day said 10 minutes but looked much longer so we skipped it and finished off with another ride on Rock it.

Had dinner at NBA City. It was fine but nothing special. Back at hotel now and hitting up the hot tub.

 

[minmate]

A couple thoughts before I head to the pool...

We are staying at the Comfort Inn and Suites Convention Center. It's just your basic hotel. If you have champagne tastes, this place probably would disappoint you. I was looking for something very specific: one room/suite that fits 6 people (4 teens/2 adults), close to Universal, queen size beds or larger (many places have doubles and the kids just wouldn't cut it on doubles together), and not cost us an arm an a leg. We got the room for $95/night, which I consider a real bargain for the space and ability to accommodate 6 people! The square footage is larger than AoA suites, which were about $320 a night when I was looking at them for the same dates.

This place meets all those requirements (less than 10 minutes from Universal, 2 queens and a queen pullout sofa). The beds are extremely comfy. There's a mini-fridge that holds our snacks and leftovers and enough room for all our stuff. There's a pool and hot tub - nothing special but the kids have enjoyed it. There's a complimentary breakfast, that is average. The kids eat the waffles, cereal and yogurt from it. I had a bagel and juice yesterday. I just had a granola bar that I brought today.

There are shuttles to WDW and USF/IOA but we didn't find the times all that convenient for us since they also drop off/pick up at two other hotels. I wasn't expecting to use it anyway. It is worth it to pay the $15 parking to be able to come and go on our own time.

Last night we were a bit annoyed by three charter buses taking up a ton of parking spaces but we found a spot to park and haven't really had any issues with noise or anything like that. I am looking forward to bumping up to a 2 BDR villa at the Caribe Royale in a couple days.

As for USF/IOA, I think we could've done both parks in one day (with good weather) and been fine. There wouldn't have been time for multiple rides and we would've felt more rushed. I'm happy with how we chose to do it. We bought 2-day (one park per day) tickets with a 3rd day free. We didn't get Express Pass and honestly, haven't really needed it. Aside from 3-4 lines that were between 30-50 minutes (headliners), we've had good luck with wait times.

Will head back to USF tomorrow morning and probably cut it short after hitting some of our favorites from today (Rip Rockit, Mummy, Simpsons) to come back to the room and eat our leftovers and pack for check-out on Tuesday.

 

[MommaPeel]

When is your trip?

I will be visiting the most magical place on earth from the 6th until 22nd of September! I couldn't be happier!

 

[minmate]

Selected our FP+ at midnight last night once the offsite window opened. So far, so good. Didn't expect too much problem as I don't know how many offsiters know about being able to prebook yet. When I went over it with dh this morning on the app, I went into dining and saw a Chef Mickey's ressie available so I snagged it. That was the one place my kids asked to eat and I told them it was booked way before we even planned our little last minute trip here. I'd looked before and there was nothing for breakfast or dinner, so this will be a fun surprise Later this week, I hope.

USF this morning at rope drop. Rode rock it three times in a row, mummy twice and Simpsons, all within an hour.

Except for seeing an hour wait for Despicable Me, was a ghost town until about 11/11:30. We had no desire to do that again.

Came back to hotel for lunch and laid around at the pool. We were literally the only ones there all day (except for about an hour when a quiet elderly couple showed up for a bit).

Went shopping for souvies and food. brought pizza back to the room for dinner and watched a movie. Was another great day!

Tomorrow we pack up and go to the Caribe Royale for the rest of our trip. It is a planned pool/relax day.

Wednesday we plan to rope drop DHS, hop to Epcot to use our FPs and hop back to DHS for Fantasmic! However, we'll see how the plan holds. Vacationing with six people means the plans can change a lot!

 

[minmate]

Not sure anyone's still reading this, but I'm posting anyway, so I can at least remember!

Today, we checked out of Comfort Inn & Suites and checked-in at Caribe Royale. Our room was ready even though we checked in at noon, which was nice since dd2 had a sunburn and wasn't up for sitting out by the pool. The trade-off was we got put in the building farthest away from everything. We are in a 2 bedroom villa. I was a little annoyed at first but come to find out, my kids like the quieter pool in the villa section better than the big pool. The water is warmer and it's less crowded.

Today was a relax, do-nothing day. Got some ice cream and coffee from Baskin Robbins, swam and just chilled out. Did some laundry right in our room. The girls made dinner (soup and sandwiches).

The hotel guest relations delivered a plate of cookies with frosting and mini m&m's and a fruit basket (for our anniversary and birthday). I heard this is something they often do for their "Facebook" fans.

Tomorrow is DHS/Epcot day.

 

[disneyshea]

Subbing in late. My first live TR. At least I will catch a few days of live updates.

 

[Tiggeye]

Sounds like your having a good time! I'm happy you got Chef Mickey's.