No FP, No ADRs, No Kids! A semi-live report

[Colleen27]

Well, this is a change of pace; I'm sitting in the Flint (Michigan) airport waiting for my flight, not juggling bags and snacks and kids but just sipping coffee and playing on my laptop. A girl could seriously get used to this!

With time to spare and enough peace to entertain a coherent thought even at this obscenely early hour, I got to thinking...

Why not start a trip report?

The gate agent just announced that boarding will begin in a few minutes, so I'll give the Cliff Notes version of the background to this trip before I head for the plane.

I'm a full time college student, majoring in journalism. The Society of Professional Journalists is holding their annual convention in Orlando this weekend, and the student rate for the conference is a great deal. That was excuse enough for me to plan a trip!

This is a different kind of trip, though. With my days occupied off-site at the conference I didn't want "appointments" cluttering up my Disney time, so I have no FPs, no ADRs, and no firm plans of any sort. I intend to enjoy flying by the seat of my pants without kids or a husband in tow wanting to know when we're going to hit their favorites.

Up next... When I land in Orlando I'll post a quick run-down of how I expect I'll be spending the next five days.

 

[Colleen27]

This is how I like to fly. Got the row all to myself!

 

[Dentam]

Sounds like fun! Have a great trip - look forward to reading your updates!

 

[Colleen27]

Welcome to (not so) sunny Florida. Even in the rain palm trees always make me smile.

 

[Colleen27]

The plane landed at 9:55, a few minutes ahead of schedule, and as soon as I turned my phone back on I got the text that my room is ready. Sweet!

Of course the first thing I did was head to PortOrleans.org and look up the room number on their building maps. I've got a corner room in building 7 at Port Orleans French Quarter, which means my only request was granted.

Since my room is ready I fetched my own luggage rather than wait for it to be delivered. Jeans were fine leaving Michigan this morning - actually, I needed a hoodie too - but I'm thinking I might want to change before heading out for the afternoon.

By the time I got my bag and checked in for DME, it was 10:15. A short wait for the bus to leave and finally we were on our way through the rain and construction to my Happy Place.

 

[Dentam]

Nice! We just stayed at POFQ last week and were also in a corner room in building 7 - top floor facing the river. We LOVED it there! Hope you have an awesome time!

 

[Colleen27]

Quiz time. Don't panic, I don't mean you! I got to the room just in time to hop online to take a quiz in one of the classes I'm missing to be here. So this is how I spent my first half hour in my weekend home.

Yes, my background is bunnies. My 14 yo raises them, and when she saw the bunny theme available for Windows 10 she had to change my setting as well as hers.

Now I'm off to find some lunch. That airport mocha wasn't quite a real breakfast, and I'm getting hungry!

 

[accountingbabe08]

Looking forward to reading more

 

[disneyseniors]

Can't wait to hear more, OP. We are going without kids (ours are all grown), no adr's, and only a few fp's that we will actually use. So it kinda compares to your trip I'm on board for the ride. Love the pictures!

 

[Robbi129]

We are flying out of Flint next month. We live in the U.P., but got a great deal with Southwest so it's worth the drive. I look forward to reading more about your trip.

 

[loves to dive]

So far sounds like a good trip and can't wait to see how you spend your time with no appointments. Is this your first solo trip? Be careful you might get hooked, I did, now while I love the time grown son is with me, I find myself missing alone time and find I'm booking more solo trips.

 

[Colleen27]

We are flying out of Flint next month. We live in the U.P., but got a great deal with Southwest so it's worth the drive. I look forward to reading more about your trip.

Wow, that's a long drive. I live a few miles closer to the Detroit airport than to Flint, but the difference in traffic (going straight through Detroit vs country roads and rural highway to Flint) makes Flint the shorter, easier drive. And since SW bought Airtran and discontinued their non-stop route airfares from Detroit to Orlando are out of control anyway - only Delta and Spirit fly it non-stop now so you either get low fare/high fees with Spirit or high fares outright with Delta.

So far sounds like a good trip and can't wait to see how you spend your time with no appointments. Is this your first solo trip? Be careful you might get hooked, I did, now while I love the time grown son is with me, I find myself missing alone time and find I'm booking more solo trips.

I've done Disney solo once before, to meet up with a group of online friends. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with traveling solo. I enjoy being the one calling all the shots, but with two of my three kids in high school now I know there will be plenty of solo trips in the not too distant future when the kids are too busy with their own lives for family vacations. And I don't sleep very well when I'm away from DH even though the kids and I do a lot a traveling without him. So while I enjoy being solo every now and then it isn't something I feel any strong desire to make a habit of at this point in my life.

 

[Colleen27]

So I learned something yesterday - battery life is going to be an issue on this trip, with all the app-based connectivity and posting updates here and such. By mid afternoon I had my phone in "ultra power saver" (aka "just a phone") mode!

I'll be back with a full update later, including details of the Food & Wine Festival preview event that the conference held last night. That alone was worth coming down for!

 

[Colleen27]

Where did I leave off? Oh yeah, I'd wandered off in search of lunch.

This is what I found: chicken gumbo and a refillable mug for my caffeine fix.



I've gone caffeine free at home but for this trip I think I'm gonna get my money's worth out of that mug. Besides, I'm counting it as a souvenir for my mother, because she wanted a purple one on our June trip but our resort didn't have them when I bought ours... Of course they put them out the next morning!

The gumbo was really good except for the okra. That was a bit stringy, which kind of messed with the texture of the overall dish. The sausage and chicken were plentiful, though, and the soup was just spicy enough without being overwhelming.

After lunch I came back up to the room to unpack and check out my digs. I'm in a corner room in building 7, at the closest corner to the main building and bus stop. It is a fabulous location and I love having the extra window. I also love the vanities here with the extra shelf above the sink for all my stuff.

With all my stuffed tucked neatly away with 5 hours still left to kill before the first conference event, I got changed into capris and a tank top and headed out to my first park of the trip - Magic Kingdom, of course.

 

[Colleen27]

One last update tonight and then I'm turning in. I'm seriously going to have to brush up on my drinking skills if I'm going to keep coming to these events - two open bar nights in a row is kicking my butt!

The main reason I wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom was the new parade. In June it was just too hot to stick around the parks until 3pm to catch it, so I hadn't seen it yet and I'd heard really good things. But since I still had a couple of hours to kill until 3 I hopped on the MDE app while I was on the bus and checked out the current FP availability. Space Mt wasn't available until 2:30 so I grabbed that and then added a 1:30 time for Buzz. I don't remember what third choice it gave me; I didn't use it and there was nothing else I wanted to do since I planned to stick to Tomorrowland. Pretty much everything other than 7DMT, Anna & Elsa, and the parades/fireworks was available, though. Not too bad for last minute.

So I got off the bus and headed to Buzz straight away, with just a short stop at Guest Services to pick up my conference tickets on the way. We got two one-day hoppers with our registration, so I'm using those up first. If I need more than two days I also have a leftover two-day ticket I can use, but since the conference tickets expire I'll start with those.

It was still grey and raining off and on when I got to the park, and the lines were surprisingly long though the posted waits weren't unexpectedly high. Buzz had a 30 minute posted wait but the line stretched almost back to Carousel of Progress, I think because of how little ride and queue capacity were allocated to standby. the standby line basically went straight to the ride, with the FP return getting most of the indoor switchbacks. It only took about 5 minutes to get on with the FP, though, and I've confirmed that I absolutely stink at that ride even without a kid controlling the car as my excuse.



After Buzz I still had a half hour to kill before my Space FP time so I hit the People Mover. Even this had a line, probably because of the rain which was coming down harder now. It took 10 minutes to get on the ride. I really enjoy this one but the kids think it rather boring so I don't often ride, and it was nice to have a go-round solo.

It still wasn't quite 2:30 but I headed over to Space anyway, snapping this pic on the way. I just love these things!

It as 4 minutes early when I got to the first FP tapstile but it let me through no problem, so off I went on my rocket ride. I swear Space gets jerkier every time I ride but I still can't ever pass it up! At least it seems to work pretty consistently now; a few years ago it seemed like breakdowns were a daily event.

A few more fun Tomorrowland pictures and it was time to find a spot for the parade.

When I came into the park, around 1:30ish, people were already camped out all along Main Street waiting for the parade. I'm not that committed. I like watching from the train station, though, and it is usually possible to get a semi-decent spot there at the last minute. So that's what I did. And the parade is every bit as cool as I've heard, especially the steampunk-y dragon.

Lots of fun to photograph too. The character performers really seemed to be into it!















When the parade ended, I hightailed it out of the park and hopped the monorail around to a place I've been dying to try... Trader Sam's at the Poly. Will I get in, or will the line send me elsewhere for my supper? I'll let you know tomorrow! For now, I'm off to bed. I have a feeling 7am will be here all too soon.

 

[loves to dive]

Oh man, that ain't right to leave us hanging. Looks like you had a good day so far and I'm going to be checking out the train station my next trip.

 

[Dentam]

We also watched the FoF parade from the train station during our trip last week. Your photos of it are amazing! We went back there to watch the MSEP also. Great spot to watch the parades and not too crowded!

 

[Nanaji]

Great report. I am looking forward to your next post. I will be at POFQ in late October for the first time. It looks great! This is my third solo trip and I am so looking forward to it. I like to see the FoF Parade from the train station too. Enjoy the rest of your trip!

 

[Colleen27]

I have a little downtime, so I'll end your suspense - I did end up going to Trader Sam's for dinner. I didn't think I'd get in but somehow I lucked out.

I hopped the monorail to get to the Poly because the boat had just pulled away when I left the Magic Kingdom. That was a bit of a tactical error, I think, because the monorail was slooooow. At the Contemporary they closed the doors three times only to reopen them for new arrivals running to the platform. We finally left on the 4th try. But I did finally make it to the Poly and went straight to Trader Sams. It was about 5 min to 4 when I got there and there was, of course, a line waiting for them to open. I got in line, figuring if I didn't make it in I'd just eat outside.

As an aside, I haven't mentioned the weather much other than the one day of rain but it has been really nice here. Tropical but not unbearable, I'd guess the highs have been in the low 90s with middle-of-the-road humidity by Florida standards. Thurs and Fri were mostly cloudy but overall I can't complain (other than about going home tomorrow... I'm not ready to go back to mid-50s yet!).

So, back to Trader Sam's. Not only did I get in, so did a couple of groups who joined the line after me. I'm not sure if that's a reflection on the Sept crowd levels or if the crazy is starting to wear off, but it sure beat the long waits I've been reading about. I sat at the bar and struck up a conversation with a couple from Daytona Beach who were on their 5th visit to TS's - lucky them!

The drink I'd really like to try is the Uh-Oa, but that's labeled as for two and I'm a lightweight so I knew that wouldn't be a good idea. Maybe I'd have tried it if I didn't have the Epcot event later on, but as it was I suspected (quite rightly) that my alcohol tolerance would be sufficiently tested by the end of the night without starting off with a drink with 4 shots of liquor. So I ordered the Shrunken Zombie Head instead - three types of rum with tropical juices, cinnamon, and something else I don't recall - along with the pulled pork tacos. The drink was amazing, strong but sweet enough not to taste strong. The tacos were just okay. I'd have liked a little less meat and a little more veggies; the cabbage and pickled vegetables the menu described were little more than garnish. The shells were nice and crisp, but that made the eating rather messy. All in all it was a decent dinner but nothing I'd go out of my way to order again. Next time (tonight maybe?) I'll try something else.

As you can see, I ate one before I remembered to take a picture.

You can order the drinks without the souvenir glass, but I wanted to take this one home with me. My 14yo is obsessed with zombies so I know she'll love it. The nice part about how they do things is that you don't take the actual glass you drank out of - they let you pick up a clean, boxed glass on your way out instead.

Really, though, the reason to go to Trader Sam's is the atmosphere and that didn't disappoint. It was loud and cluttered and creative, with crazy effects going off in response to certain drink orders, and the bartenders (Mickey, as in mouse, and Kat) played their roles well, donning floaties and "swimming" around when someone ordered a Nautilus and calling out volcano warnings when someone ordered the Krakatoa Punch. One of the groups in the bar was celebrating a 21st birthday and another a bachelorette party and it struck me as a perfect venue for either of those things.

Having satisfied my curiosity about Trader Sam's, I paid the tab ($32 before tip - ouch!) and headed upstairs for dessert. For those who don't know, Tambu Lounge now serves Ohana's bread pudding during dinner hours. So I had to stop in there for bread puddling and an Island Sunset, which is a blended rum and passion fruit drink that is absolutely the perfect libation in my book. While there I struck up a conversation with an older couple who are frequent Disney visitors, and with a bartender who has worked at WDW since 1987. I can't even imagine!

Before long it was time to head back to the Magic Kingdom to catch a bus 'home' to Port Orleans. I wanted to freshen up a bit before the Food & Wine Festival preview/conference kick-off event.

 

[Colleen27]

I just realized I never did post a rundown of my rough plan for the weekend. That's okay because other than the conference sessions I've pretty much followed none of it anyway! For example, my plan for right now was to be at Epcot. But I was there last night, unexpectedly, before heading to the Magic Kingdom. And I have an interview at 6:30. So I doubt I'll get to a park at all today.

Then again, Epcot has EMH until 11 tonight. If I don't go to the conference closing party - and I don't think I will, the red solo cup crowd is not my thing - I may end up there after all.