Grand Admiral
Issa just wan go to Didney Worl
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2007
Hi everyone,
We have sadly returned home from our WDW vacation, October 23-29, 2016.
DAY 1
We began our trip on Sunday. DW had scored us some inexpensive tickets on Southwest. Flying from Atlanta is only an hour, but well worth it not having to spend 7-8 hours in the car.
We decided to take DME, as we thought our son would enjoy it. We won't be taking DME again. While the luggage delivery was nice, we spent a half hour standing in a queue before even boarding our bus. Then we boarded and sat for another half hour. Then a cast member asked WL guests to get off the bus for a different bus. A different cast member walked up and told us to get back on our same bus. It seemed kind of disorganized, and if we had taken a towncar or Uber, we would have been at WDW in the time we spent sitting at the airport waiting for DME to leave. Aside from the bus driver being nice and doing the countdown as we crossed the WDW entrance, I was wholly unimpressed.
Anyway, here's a photo of the kiddo. (Dunno why he made a weird face instead of smiling)
The upside of our DME journey was WL being the first stop. We hopped off our bus and walked inside. DS said "wow" as we walked into the lobby. WL has one of the more impressive interiors of the various resorts. It's really grand. I ducked into the restroom to change into some shorts before heading to MK and received a text that our room was ready. (about 2PM) So we were able to leave our carryon bags in our room and walked out just as the MK bus pulled up. The Villas are very convenient to the bus stop.
Our first stop at MK was to see the Big Cheese himself.
DS gave him a big hug, and unfortunately decided that it would be fun to "boop" Mickey on the nose.
So here's a photo of Mickey being a little bit shaken.
After being scolded a bit for booping Mickey's nose, DS was a little shy and refused to do the Hot Dog dance with Mickey. But it was a nice first visit anyway.
We tried to ride Haunted Mansion, as DS had talked about it for months. We had watched Youtube videos of the ride, and talked about it a lot, but once we were in the stretching room, he got himself a little too psyched out and upset and we had to exit before boarding our Doom Buggy.
We took a spin on Buzz, which he loved. Unfortunately, he somehow flipped his cap off his head during the ride, so we had to buy a new one. Expensive first ride!
We had a 5:30 reservation for Whispering Canyon Cafe, so we took a boat back to WL. It was a lovely day for a boat ride, and a really nice way to return to our hotel.
DS asked for ketchup, so of course you know what that means...
We concluded our first day with swimming in the pool, and put a thorougly exhausted kiddo to bed.
DAY 2
I planned our first full day with a visit to Epcot, and Typhoon Lagoon in the afternoon. DS is a bit young yet for a lot of things at Epcot, so we just did a morning. I wanted our arrival to be a little special, so we hopped a bus to MK, then took the ferry to TTC to catch the monorail. Unfortunately, they didn't have the monorail up and running yet, so we boarded a crowded bus to Epcot. As we were standing in the bag check line, the monorail arrived. Maybe we should have waited a few minutes.
Anyway, our first stop was Turtle Talk with Crush. DS loved it and had a great time. We then hopped onto the Nemo ride. About the time we exited the ride, we noticed it was quite a bit more crowded in the Seas. Crowd levels were high all week. By the time we did those things and wandered over to Spaceship Earth, the standby line for SSE was 80 minutes. Fortunately we had FPs.
There's Crush!
And we spent the afternoon at Typhoon Lagoon.
On the way back from TL, we stopped by the Disney store and the Lego store.
We had a relatively quiet evening back in our room while DS played with a Lego set.
DAY 3
Our Tuesday began bright and early, with Early Morning Magic. There were quite a few people heading into MK, but the vast majority of them seemed to be for ADRs.
We got a few photos with the photographer near the Walt & Mickey statue. By the time we had finished, the crowd had dispersed a fair amount.
We strolled over to 7DMT and hopped right on. DS loved it and wanted to ride again and again. We did 5 rides in a row before moving on to Peter Pan. The leg bars for 7DMT are very narrow. This is not a ride for tall people. I was barely able to get the thing over my knees and I had bruises after riding 5 times.
Oh well, it was fun anyway. Whee!
We rode Peter Pan 5 times in a row as well. As we were walking toward Pooh, we heard the Good Morning welcome song over the speakers. By the time we exited a single ride on Pooh, the 7DMT line was all the way back to Teacups.
We decided to do a couple of the slow loading Tomorrowland rides before the masses hit. We walked onto Speedway and by the time we exited, the line was quite long. We hopped on Starjets (See my shirt, Starjets 4 Lyfe) and then decided to go have our breakfast.
The buffet at Pinocchio's was good. They had a lot of options. We were able to sit by the window over Small World, so that was fun too.
Overall, I would say we got our money's worth out of EMM. We were able to ride 11 rides before the park opened, two of which are known slow loaders with long waits throughout the day. It would be difficult to ride 7DMT 5 times total in a whole day, especially with the crowds we had last week.
After breakfast, we moved on to catch our FP for Splash Mountain. We had some time to kill before using our FP for Buzz, so we grabbed a map from Pirate's Adventure. DS really enjoyed that. Searching for the clues and seeing the various things around Adventureland was quite fun. We completed 2 1/2 maps before moving on to Buzz.
By this time, MK was extremely crowded. The queue for Buzz had backed all the way out into the walkway. We did a quick ride on Peoplemover and then went back to our resort for lunch, swimming and a nap.
We had a reservation for DS at Lilo's Playhouse, and ourselves for Narcoosee's. We stopped by Trader Sam's on our way and had a couple of cocktails. I had the Krakatoa, which was delicious. We chatted with a nice couple who were locals and enjoyed the show the bartenders put on.
Our dinner at Narcoosee's was kind of unimpressive. The view of the water was nice. Our waiter was a little bit absent. I'm not sure if he had too many tables or what. I've had better seafood in Atlanta, which seems like it shouldn't be the case. I had the lobster tails. They were ok, but not amazing.
DS had a fantastic time at Lilo's, so we made him another reservation for Thursday evening. For $55 including a meal, it's a fantastic value. We can't even get a sitter for that cheap when we're at home.
We took an Uber back to WL. It's kind of ridiculous how difficult it is getting between resorts, especially ones so close together.
DAY 4
I had originally planned our Wednesday with a DHS morning and TL afternoon. We decided to flip it and went to TL in the morning, as our feet needed a break. I bought a pair of Aquasocks in the gift shop, which I highly recommend. Something about the pavement at TL is like sandpaper and made my feet very sore. Also the bottom of the wave pool is very rough.
On our way back from TL, we decided to have lunch at T Rex. It's a pretty cheesy spectacle, but DS loved it and had a great time. We also were very pleased with our food. We hadn't expected the food to be as good as it was. DW had a burger with a gluten free bun, which she said was the best she'd had. I got the steak, shrimp and scallop trio, which was very good. DS had a burger, of course. He's composed of 50% burger and 50% chicken nuggets. We sat in the ice cave room, which was pretty cool.
After a quick stop at our resort to change clothes, we headed over to DHS. By 5pm, it seemed like a lot of people were on their way out of the park. It wasn't terribly crowded.
On our way past the Chinese Theater we heard the announcement for the Star Wars stage show, so we waited to see it. You can tell by the expression that DS loved it.
We used our FP for Toy Story MWM and then strolled through the Launch Bay. DW and I had wanted to see Chewie, but the wait was 40 minutes so we skipped it.
We had FP for Star Tours but it was unnecessary. The queue wasn't even as far back as where the FP line merges with the standby line. DS loved it, so we walked back on for a second ride. We built some R2s in the store and grabbed a quick photo outside.
I snacked on a pretzel and an orange cream bar for DS while we waited for the fireworks. We viewed in a spot off to the left of the plaza, and unfortunately a small tree blocked our view of the center of the Chinese Theater. Still, the show was fantastic, and the effects were really cool. DS was thrilled.
On our way out of the park I made the mistake of waiting for the bus with a tired 5 year old. We should have walked over and called an Uber. DS had a meltdown in the line, begging us to take a car, crying. He was just exhausted after a full day with no nap. We were on the 3rd bus and didn't get back to WL until an hour after we walked out of the park. DS fell asleep on DW on the bus, woke up when we got to WL, then fell asleep halfway through his bedtime book. It was a long day.
DAY 5
This was our only non-WDW day. We planned a day at Legoland. A good friend of mine works there and was able to get us free tickets.
I went to WDW Car care Alamo to pick up our Nissan Altima Or Similar. The guy behind the counter twisted my arm really hard and forced me to get a Mustang convertible. I was disappointed, as I had been really looking forward to driving that Or Similar.
We stopped by Poly to pick up a scarf for DW so her hair wouldn't look like a chicken's behind.
We drove all the way to Legoland with the top down. Everything is awesome!
My buddy brought his family along, so DS got to run around the park with two buddies. A fantastic time was had by all. Also my buddy got me 30% discount in the gift shop. We bought a few Nexo Knights and a couple of T shirts. Score!
We headed back to WL and dropped off our Legoland loot, then went to return the car. Unfortunately there was quite a few other people returning or picking up cars, and one of the Alamo personnel was on a break. I get that people need their breaks, but right at 5pm seems like not quite the right time. Maybe there isn't a perfect time, I guess. We got an Uber over to Poly and dropped DS off at Lilo's. DW and I made another stop at Trader Sam's.
The Shrunken Zombie Head drink was delicious, but make sure you like rum. It's very much rum flavored and you taste it strongly. DW had the HippopotoMai-Tai, which was very refreshing and tasty.
We moved on to the Ohana lounge and had another couple of drinks and food. While I liked the view from the windows over the resort, I didn't like how open the lounge was to the noise of people waiting for their Ohana dinner. It could use a bit of separation, maybe some glass walls or something.
We picked up DS about 8:00 and headed back to WL.
DAY 6
DW wanted to take an easier morning, so I got myself and DS ready and we headed back to MK for EMH. It was quite uncrowded, I assume after having a MNSSHP the previous night, people may have been sleeping in.
DS and I rode the Jungle Cruise and Pirates, then completed our remaining Pirate's Adventure maps, so we had all 5. By this point we had quite a handful of FPs from completing the maps.
DW arrived in the park, so we headed over to Buzz to use our FP. We had the good fortune of the ride stopping right in front of Zurg, so we hit that bottom target a bunch.
A bit of a hollow victory, but DS was thrilled about getting "all 9s".
We rode Buzz twice, since the standby line wasn't too bad yet.
We strolled back to Adventureland to use our FP for Jungle Cruise with DW, and then on to Splash Mountain.
DS and I ended up being seated in the front row, so we got absolutely drenched. I also had absent-mindedly put my cap back on my head after removing it when boarding the ride, so it blew off during the drop.
Being soaked to the bone, we stopped by the Pirates gift shop to get some dry T shirts. At least I got a cool shirt out of the deal.
We had lunch at Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen. The falafel appetizer was very tasty. DW had the BBQ pork, and I had the noodle bowl with duck. DS had the fish with white rice, surprisingly. We were all pleased with our food. It's a nice table service option and I would recommend it if you enjoy food off the burger path.
NO BROCCOLI!
A couple at the Canteen had just got engaged, which their waiter announced. I walked over and pixie dusted a couple of our Pirates FPs to them and wished them congrats.
After lunch we used some of our FPs to ride Pirates, then headed back to WL for pool time.
We had reservations for dinner at Artist Point. This was the highlight meal of our trip.
My mushroom bisque was amazing. I wanted to lick the bowl.
DW had the beet salad with crisp ride noodles.
DW had the filet, which was very tender and delicious.
And I had the scallops with mussels risotto.
DS will be celebrating his 5th birthday in just a few weeks, so we mentioned that to the hostess and they brought him out a cupcake!
I had the Creme Brulee for dessert, and it was very tasty.
This was our best meal by far, and I wish we had eaten at Artist Point twice and skipped Narcoosee's. It would have cost about the same, and Artist Point was far superior.
DAY 7
Our final morning at WDW, we checked our bags outside the front lobby, which was a very nice service. You don't need to take DME to use this service, so make sure to take advantage of it. We left our carryon bags with the valet and headed to MK.
I was able to get a FP for 7DMT 9:10am. We rode that, then Small World, and we finally coaxed DS to give Haunted Mansion another go. After much reassurance, he went along with us. We told him he could give us hugs if he was scared. I knew he would be fine once we boarded a Doom Buggy. He hid his eyes a little bit early in the ride, but as I kept pointing out things to see, he got into it. By the time we were in the graveyard and he heard Grim Grinning Ghosts, he was doing just fine. As we made it to the end, we gave him high 5s and he was very proud of himself for making it through.
On our way around that side of the park, we used more of our paper FPs to ride Pirates one last time. As we were heading toward Tomorrowland, I pixie dusted our last two paper FPs to a couple heading the opposite direction.
My final victory for WDW was getting Galactic Hero, and I came by it honestly. The ride did not stop and I earned every target myself. I thought I wasn't going to get it and was at 987,000 until the very last room when I managed to put it over the top.
We strolled back to Main Street just as the Move It, Shake It party was at the hub. It followed us down Main Street and we got to wave goodbye to Mickey before we exited MK. It was bittersweet but a nice end to our trip.
We took the boat back to WL and called an Uber. We had an uneventful trip to the airport. We are both TSA Pre-Check, so security was smooth and quick.
We got a final photo with the Goof before boarding our plane home.
We had a fantastic trip, and it went by in a flash. We spent yesterday lounging around the house. We need a vacation from our vacation!
We have sadly returned home from our WDW vacation, October 23-29, 2016.
DAY 1
We began our trip on Sunday. DW had scored us some inexpensive tickets on Southwest. Flying from Atlanta is only an hour, but well worth it not having to spend 7-8 hours in the car.
We decided to take DME, as we thought our son would enjoy it. We won't be taking DME again. While the luggage delivery was nice, we spent a half hour standing in a queue before even boarding our bus. Then we boarded and sat for another half hour. Then a cast member asked WL guests to get off the bus for a different bus. A different cast member walked up and told us to get back on our same bus. It seemed kind of disorganized, and if we had taken a towncar or Uber, we would have been at WDW in the time we spent sitting at the airport waiting for DME to leave. Aside from the bus driver being nice and doing the countdown as we crossed the WDW entrance, I was wholly unimpressed.
Anyway, here's a photo of the kiddo. (Dunno why he made a weird face instead of smiling)
The upside of our DME journey was WL being the first stop. We hopped off our bus and walked inside. DS said "wow" as we walked into the lobby. WL has one of the more impressive interiors of the various resorts. It's really grand. I ducked into the restroom to change into some shorts before heading to MK and received a text that our room was ready. (about 2PM) So we were able to leave our carryon bags in our room and walked out just as the MK bus pulled up. The Villas are very convenient to the bus stop.
Our first stop at MK was to see the Big Cheese himself.
DS gave him a big hug, and unfortunately decided that it would be fun to "boop" Mickey on the nose.
So here's a photo of Mickey being a little bit shaken.
After being scolded a bit for booping Mickey's nose, DS was a little shy and refused to do the Hot Dog dance with Mickey. But it was a nice first visit anyway.
We tried to ride Haunted Mansion, as DS had talked about it for months. We had watched Youtube videos of the ride, and talked about it a lot, but once we were in the stretching room, he got himself a little too psyched out and upset and we had to exit before boarding our Doom Buggy.
We took a spin on Buzz, which he loved. Unfortunately, he somehow flipped his cap off his head during the ride, so we had to buy a new one. Expensive first ride!We had a 5:30 reservation for Whispering Canyon Cafe, so we took a boat back to WL. It was a lovely day for a boat ride, and a really nice way to return to our hotel.
DS asked for ketchup, so of course you know what that means...
We concluded our first day with swimming in the pool, and put a thorougly exhausted kiddo to bed.
DAY 2
I planned our first full day with a visit to Epcot, and Typhoon Lagoon in the afternoon. DS is a bit young yet for a lot of things at Epcot, so we just did a morning. I wanted our arrival to be a little special, so we hopped a bus to MK, then took the ferry to TTC to catch the monorail. Unfortunately, they didn't have the monorail up and running yet, so we boarded a crowded bus to Epcot.
As we were standing in the bag check line, the monorail arrived. Maybe we should have waited a few minutes.Anyway, our first stop was Turtle Talk with Crush. DS loved it and had a great time. We then hopped onto the Nemo ride. About the time we exited the ride, we noticed it was quite a bit more crowded in the Seas. Crowd levels were high all week. By the time we did those things and wandered over to Spaceship Earth, the standby line for SSE was 80 minutes. Fortunately we had FPs.
There's Crush!
And we spent the afternoon at Typhoon Lagoon.
On the way back from TL, we stopped by the Disney store and the Lego store.
We had a relatively quiet evening back in our room while DS played with a Lego set.
DAY 3
Our Tuesday began bright and early, with Early Morning Magic. There were quite a few people heading into MK, but the vast majority of them seemed to be for ADRs.
We got a few photos with the photographer near the Walt & Mickey statue. By the time we had finished, the crowd had dispersed a fair amount.
We strolled over to 7DMT and hopped right on. DS loved it and wanted to ride again and again. We did 5 rides in a row before moving on to Peter Pan. The leg bars for 7DMT are very narrow. This is not a ride for tall people. I was barely able to get the thing over my knees and I had bruises after riding 5 times.
Oh well, it was fun anyway. Whee!
We rode Peter Pan 5 times in a row as well. As we were walking toward Pooh, we heard the Good Morning welcome song over the speakers. By the time we exited a single ride on Pooh, the 7DMT line was all the way back to Teacups.
We decided to do a couple of the slow loading Tomorrowland rides before the masses hit. We walked onto Speedway and by the time we exited, the line was quite long. We hopped on Starjets (See my shirt, Starjets 4 Lyfe) and then decided to go have our breakfast.
The buffet at Pinocchio's was good. They had a lot of options. We were able to sit by the window over Small World, so that was fun too.
Overall, I would say we got our money's worth out of EMM. We were able to ride 11 rides before the park opened, two of which are known slow loaders with long waits throughout the day. It would be difficult to ride 7DMT 5 times total in a whole day, especially with the crowds we had last week.
After breakfast, we moved on to catch our FP for Splash Mountain. We had some time to kill before using our FP for Buzz, so we grabbed a map from Pirate's Adventure. DS really enjoyed that. Searching for the clues and seeing the various things around Adventureland was quite fun. We completed 2 1/2 maps before moving on to Buzz.
By this time, MK was extremely crowded. The queue for Buzz had backed all the way out into the walkway. We did a quick ride on Peoplemover and then went back to our resort for lunch, swimming and a nap.
We had a reservation for DS at Lilo's Playhouse, and ourselves for Narcoosee's. We stopped by Trader Sam's on our way and had a couple of cocktails. I had the Krakatoa, which was delicious. We chatted with a nice couple who were locals and enjoyed the show the bartenders put on.
Our dinner at Narcoosee's was kind of unimpressive. The view of the water was nice. Our waiter was a little bit absent. I'm not sure if he had too many tables or what. I've had better seafood in Atlanta, which seems like it shouldn't be the case. I had the lobster tails. They were ok, but not amazing.
DS had a fantastic time at Lilo's, so we made him another reservation for Thursday evening. For $55 including a meal, it's a fantastic value. We can't even get a sitter for that cheap when we're at home.
We took an Uber back to WL. It's kind of ridiculous how difficult it is getting between resorts, especially ones so close together.
DAY 4
I had originally planned our Wednesday with a DHS morning and TL afternoon. We decided to flip it and went to TL in the morning, as our feet needed a break. I bought a pair of Aquasocks in the gift shop, which I highly recommend. Something about the pavement at TL is like sandpaper and made my feet very sore. Also the bottom of the wave pool is very rough.
On our way back from TL, we decided to have lunch at T Rex. It's a pretty cheesy spectacle, but DS loved it and had a great time. We also were very pleased with our food. We hadn't expected the food to be as good as it was. DW had a burger with a gluten free bun, which she said was the best she'd had. I got the steak, shrimp and scallop trio, which was very good. DS had a burger, of course. He's composed of 50% burger and 50% chicken nuggets. We sat in the ice cave room, which was pretty cool.
After a quick stop at our resort to change clothes, we headed over to DHS. By 5pm, it seemed like a lot of people were on their way out of the park. It wasn't terribly crowded.
On our way past the Chinese Theater we heard the announcement for the Star Wars stage show, so we waited to see it. You can tell by the expression that DS loved it.
We used our FP for Toy Story MWM and then strolled through the Launch Bay. DW and I had wanted to see Chewie, but the wait was 40 minutes so we skipped it.
We had FP for Star Tours but it was unnecessary. The queue wasn't even as far back as where the FP line merges with the standby line. DS loved it, so we walked back on for a second ride. We built some R2s in the store and grabbed a quick photo outside.
I snacked on a pretzel and an orange cream bar for DS while we waited for the fireworks. We viewed in a spot off to the left of the plaza, and unfortunately a small tree blocked our view of the center of the Chinese Theater. Still, the show was fantastic, and the effects were really cool. DS was thrilled.
On our way out of the park I made the mistake of waiting for the bus with a tired 5 year old. We should have walked over and called an Uber. DS had a meltdown in the line, begging us to take a car, crying. He was just exhausted after a full day with no nap. We were on the 3rd bus and didn't get back to WL until an hour after we walked out of the park. DS fell asleep on DW on the bus, woke up when we got to WL, then fell asleep halfway through his bedtime book. It was a long day.
DAY 5
This was our only non-WDW day. We planned a day at Legoland. A good friend of mine works there and was able to get us free tickets.
I went to WDW Car care Alamo to pick up our Nissan Altima Or Similar. The guy behind the counter twisted my arm really hard and forced me to get a Mustang convertible. I was disappointed, as I had been really looking forward to driving that Or Similar.
We stopped by Poly to pick up a scarf for DW so her hair wouldn't look like a chicken's behind.
We drove all the way to Legoland with the top down. Everything is awesome!
My buddy brought his family along, so DS got to run around the park with two buddies. A fantastic time was had by all. Also my buddy got me 30% discount in the gift shop. We bought a few Nexo Knights and a couple of T shirts. Score!
We headed back to WL and dropped off our Legoland loot, then went to return the car. Unfortunately there was quite a few other people returning or picking up cars, and one of the Alamo personnel was on a break. I get that people need their breaks, but right at 5pm seems like not quite the right time. Maybe there isn't a perfect time, I guess. We got an Uber over to Poly and dropped DS off at Lilo's. DW and I made another stop at Trader Sam's.
The Shrunken Zombie Head drink was delicious, but make sure you like rum. It's very much rum flavored and you taste it strongly. DW had the HippopotoMai-Tai, which was very refreshing and tasty.
We moved on to the Ohana lounge and had another couple of drinks and food. While I liked the view from the windows over the resort, I didn't like how open the lounge was to the noise of people waiting for their Ohana dinner. It could use a bit of separation, maybe some glass walls or something.
We picked up DS about 8:00 and headed back to WL.
DAY 6
DW wanted to take an easier morning, so I got myself and DS ready and we headed back to MK for EMH. It was quite uncrowded, I assume after having a MNSSHP the previous night, people may have been sleeping in.
DS and I rode the Jungle Cruise and Pirates, then completed our remaining Pirate's Adventure maps, so we had all 5. By this point we had quite a handful of FPs from completing the maps.
DW arrived in the park, so we headed over to Buzz to use our FP. We had the good fortune of the ride stopping right in front of Zurg, so we hit that bottom target a bunch.
A bit of a hollow victory, but DS was thrilled about getting "all 9s".
We rode Buzz twice, since the standby line wasn't too bad yet.
We strolled back to Adventureland to use our FP for Jungle Cruise with DW, and then on to Splash Mountain.
DS and I ended up being seated in the front row, so we got absolutely drenched. I also had absent-mindedly put my cap back on my head after removing it when boarding the ride, so it blew off during the drop.
Being soaked to the bone, we stopped by the Pirates gift shop to get some dry T shirts. At least I got a cool shirt out of the deal.
We had lunch at Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen. The falafel appetizer was very tasty. DW had the BBQ pork, and I had the noodle bowl with duck. DS had the fish with white rice, surprisingly. We were all pleased with our food. It's a nice table service option and I would recommend it if you enjoy food off the burger path.
NO BROCCOLI!
A couple at the Canteen had just got engaged, which their waiter announced. I walked over and pixie dusted a couple of our Pirates FPs to them and wished them congrats.
After lunch we used some of our FPs to ride Pirates, then headed back to WL for pool time.
We had reservations for dinner at Artist Point. This was the highlight meal of our trip.
My mushroom bisque was amazing. I wanted to lick the bowl.
DW had the beet salad with crisp ride noodles.
DW had the filet, which was very tender and delicious.
And I had the scallops with mussels risotto.
DS will be celebrating his 5th birthday in just a few weeks, so we mentioned that to the hostess and they brought him out a cupcake!
I had the Creme Brulee for dessert, and it was very tasty.
This was our best meal by far, and I wish we had eaten at Artist Point twice and skipped Narcoosee's. It would have cost about the same, and Artist Point was far superior.
DAY 7
Our final morning at WDW, we checked our bags outside the front lobby, which was a very nice service. You don't need to take DME to use this service, so make sure to take advantage of it. We left our carryon bags with the valet and headed to MK.
I was able to get a FP for 7DMT 9:10am. We rode that, then Small World, and we finally coaxed DS to give Haunted Mansion another go. After much reassurance, he went along with us. We told him he could give us hugs if he was scared. I knew he would be fine once we boarded a Doom Buggy. He hid his eyes a little bit early in the ride, but as I kept pointing out things to see, he got into it. By the time we were in the graveyard and he heard Grim Grinning Ghosts, he was doing just fine. As we made it to the end, we gave him high 5s and he was very proud of himself for making it through.
On our way around that side of the park, we used more of our paper FPs to ride Pirates one last time. As we were heading toward Tomorrowland, I pixie dusted our last two paper FPs to a couple heading the opposite direction.
My final victory for WDW was getting Galactic Hero, and I came by it honestly. The ride did not stop and I earned every target myself. I thought I wasn't going to get it and was at 987,000 until the very last room when I managed to put it over the top.
We strolled back to Main Street just as the Move It, Shake It party was at the hub. It followed us down Main Street and we got to wave goodbye to Mickey before we exited MK. It was bittersweet but a nice end to our trip.
We took the boat back to WL and called an Uber. We had an uneventful trip to the airport. We are both TSA Pre-Check, so security was smooth and quick.
We got a final photo with the Goof before boarding our plane home.
We had a fantastic trip, and it went by in a flash. We spent yesterday lounging around the house. We need a vacation from our vacation!
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