The Quest for a Loaf of Bread - A 4th of July TR- COMPLETED 8/4/18

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Welcome to my first trip report! My pre trip report is linked in my signature too.


You probably don’t know me, I’m new! I am a Realtor and pet care business owner in Minnesota and this is my second trip to WDW this year. I also went once as a child, about 25 years ago. I’m a huge animal lover, a giant geek (Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Dr. Who, you name it), and I love to read.



Favorites:

Park- Epcot
Ride- Expedition Everest
Character- Pluto and Eeyore
Restaurant- Prior to this trip, Skipper Canteen. After this trip...stay tuned!
Show- Festival of the Lion King


Joining me on this trip are my two cousins. DC1 is also a huge Disney fan and vacations at Disney about once a year. She did most of our trip planning. DC2 just graduated from high school and we planned this trip as a celebration. We also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to celebrate the 4th of July at WDW.


The Details:

June 30th-July 6th, 2018
Port Orleans French Quarter
Park Hoppers, Disney Dining Plan, and Disney Transportation
Memory Maker - purchased during the trip because I loved our photos

We planned this entire trip on the evening of Day 60 and got extremely lucky with our Fastpasses and ADR’s.

Will our luck hold out for the entire trip? Stay tuned!

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Day 0 - June 29th


I had to work on my pet care business today as it’s the end of the month and invoices need to be sent and payroll processed. My employees are so picky about getting paid! (Who am I kidding, I want to get paid too). After the longest work day ever, I drove to pick up DC1 at her job since she doesn’t drive and we went to my parent’s house for dinner. My mom had already picked up DC2 and some pizzas. I gave DC1 and DC2 the magic band decals I’d ordered for our trip- Cheshire cat and silver metallic for DC1 and Graduation 2018 and Hollywood Hotel for DC2. I also have R2-D2 and Pluto for me.


DC1 gave us each a Disney Home tee shirt, a personal fan, a cooling towel, and some patriotic light up jewelry for the trip. I hung out there until about 8 pm and then headed home for the night. I make a quick stop at Target to get some gum for on the airplane and the Dramamine that DC2 forgot. My cousins spent the night at my parent’s house since my mom is kindly driving us all to the airport early in the morning. They told me they’d pick me up at 4:50 the next morning because we have a 6:50 flight and I only live 5 minutes from the airport. I went home and double checked all my packing, played with my pets, double checked my packing, cleaned the house a bit, double checked my packing, and then took some Benadryl because my allergies were killing me. I actually got some sleep because of it!


Next Up: See how lucky we can get with Disney Transportation!

 

[Belle stitch]

Looking forward to travel day and beyond!

 

[dvc at last !]

Good start ...

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Looking forward to travel day and beyond!

Coming soon, thanks for following!

Good start ...

Thanks and welcome!

 

[dianachaney77]

Following along!

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Following along!

Welcome to the party!

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Day 1 - June 30th, Arrival Day

You might remember that my cousins and mom were going to pick me up at 4:50 am? I set my alarm for 4am because that is plenty of time for me to get up, dressed, feed my dogs, cat, and birds, and be ready to go. Weeeelllll, at 4:35 I get a text that they are outside waiting for me. Holy cow. I ran around like a chicken with it’s head cut off trying to grab everything. I’m a super organized, double check everything type person and this is not the way I want to start my day. I am certain I’ve forgotten something important but honestly, I’m too tired to care and I want to go on vacation!

We arrive at MSP a few minutes later and head inside after saying goodbye to my mom and thanking her profusely for staying with my pets all week. DC1 surprises us with first class tickets (yay!) and we head to baggage drop. The lady at the counter tries to charge DC1 extra for her 59 lb suitcase but we get that sorted out since it’s free with a first class ticket. No issues dropping DC2’s 45 lb bag or my 30 lb bag.

Security only takes a few minutes and then we are off to the far side of the airport to find our gate. We spend the wait playing Disney Emoji Blitz on our phones and trying to stay awake. Our plane is already at the gate when we arrive so that’s a good start!

We board right on time and have seats in rows 5 and 6. I’m sitting next to a nice lady who says nothing other than Hi for the whole flight. We take off right on time and the flight is very smooth. Minneapolis was supposed to get storms this morning but we got out ahead of them. We had breakfast on the plane, mine was granola, fruit, and a croissant, plus a yogurt that I left for them as I can’t eat much dairy. It was a completely edible meal


We landed early at MCO, around 11 am, and headed for the Magical Express. Our bus was waiting and we walked right on! Hooray! About 45 minutes later we made it to Port Orleans French Quarter. I really love this resort, it’s beautiful and so small. We stayed here on our February trip and loved everything except the squeaky, lumpy beds. We’re really hoping to get a refurbished room this time around.

We check in at the front desk and get a celebration button for DC2. Our room isn’t ready yet but we expected that. We wander around a bit and DC2 changes from her warmer airplane clothes into cooler gear before we leave our bags with bell services, then we’re off to Disney Springs.

We have a mid afternoon ADR at Splitsville so we head for the ferry. We have no wait and are the only people on the boat. As soon as we get on the boat, DC1 gets a text that our room is ready, go figure. As we pull away, it starts thundering and our captain says he may have to drop us at Treehouse Village if he’s told to dock. We ask (beg, plead) for him to try and make it all the way and he agrees. Luckily, he isn’t told to find the nearest dock until we are closer to the Marketplace. Whew.


We wanted to do some window shopping before lunch but it starts pouring shortly after we arrive. We go to Ghiradelli for some free chocolate and then walk through some of the inside stores while waiting out the storm. Eventually, we have to make a run for Splitsville to make our reservation. My cousins have both talked up the food here and we’re starving! We get seated right away but we’re freezing and wet. I get a Hawaiian pizza, DC1 goes for pepperoni, and DC2 for cheese and olives. DC2 is vegetarian and also a picky eater so we planned our meals around her needs. The pizza was good and we got dessert since we have the DDP. My cousins went for the brownie sundaes but since I wasn’t feeling up to risking ice cream, I went for the cupcake. It was a bad decision, the cupcake was dry, partially frozen, and super sweet. I ate part of DC2’s brownie instead.


We decide to catch a bus back to the resort before heading to the parks to dry off and change shoes, and drop off our leftover pizza. We had almost no wait for the bus again. We get a top floor room in building 1 and it’s refurbished! The beds are so high but it was great to be able to fit luggage underneath. Our checked bags haven’t arrived yet but we bring our carry on’s up. After a quick bio break, we’re off to Animal Kingdom!


I’m super excited to spend more time at Animal Kingdom this trip. We only spent a half day here in February because it was pouring rain and it didn’t exist when I came as a child. We headed right to our first fastpass for Na’vi River Journey. It’s such a beautiful ride! DC2 had not ridden this before and I was very glad the animatronic was working.

After our trip down the river, we headed over to Dinosaur. I know a lot of people have mixed reviews on this ride but I really like it! We all wanted to wave at the Carnotaurus for the picture but 2 of us missed it. The kids in the back of our rover had never ridden before and they were laughing the whole ride.


We headed over to Everest next which had about an hour wait. I hadn’t been through the full queue before and the artifacts are very cool. Because our party had an odd number I got seated with a single rider who was super friendly. As we were heading up the hill, DC1 leaned forward to pick on me about being scared of heights (I HATE heights and I’m a big ride wimp. I almost chickened out during our Feb trip and now this is my favorite). The eyes on the lady next to me got pretty big when she heard DC1 and she asked me if I had issues with heights. I told her yes but laughed and said I’d ridden before. She was pretty sure I was going to freak out on her! We had a great trip down the mountain.




We were super hot from standing in line and the afternoon was becoming stifling so we decided to go down Kali River Rapids. I hadn’t done this one before and I’m not a huge fan of water rides but there was only a 10 minute wait. DC2 and I poncho’d up for this one but we really didn’t get wet. The British family sharing our raft got drenched, however. It was a fun ride but I think it could be longer.


Continued in next post...

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Day 1 continued

Our last stop of the day was Rivers of Light. None of us had seen it before and we got front row seating with a fastpass. We had about a 20 minute wait but the cute little anoles kept us entertained (Well, kept DC1 and I entertained, DC2 thought they were terrifying).


I was a little concerned when the pre-show started because I thought it was the actual show and the shadows on the trees was it. I really loved this show! The projections were great and I thought the music fit it very well. I’m also an animal lover and very into conservation so it was a good fit for me.







We headed back to POFQ afterwards and filled our mugs and grabbed some snacks for the night.


Up Next: Will our luck with transportation hold out? What about that bread?

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Day 2 - July 1st

We get up at a pretty good time today as our first fastpass is around 9:30 at Magic Kingdom. DC1 and I each brought some snacks to eat for breakfast but DC2 would like a peanut butter sandwich. We saw bread in the POFQ shop yesterday so we tell her we can go down to buy a loaf (we brought peanut butter). Of course, both loaves are gone when we get down there. DC2 is upset and we tell her we can try stopping at a different resort later in the day to buy some there (or, as this quest could be know, why you should just order from Amazon).

Any who, we head off to the bus stop expecting short waits like yesterday but we probably wait about 25 minutes for the MK bus. No big deal, it’s bound to happen every once in a while, right?! We head right for Adventureland and get on Pirates of the Caribbean right away. We get super wet on this ride, what a way to start the day!


The heat has already started for the day and we have about an hour until our next FP. MDE shows Jungle Cruise as a 10 minute wait so we head over but the line is out the queue and listed at 50 minutes so we skip. I suggest trying Splash Mountain since it said 30 minutes and I’ve never ridden it before. We get in line and it’s HOT. I’m not a fan of big drops but I’ve ridden some smaller log flumes around home so I’m hoping this is just as easy. The bumpy drop to the Laughing Place just about does me in and the big drop is not fun at all. We have the first two rows and get drenched as well. Now I’m shaky and have wet underwear, ugh. Plus, I can’t get my glasses clean and they’re all smeary. At least I have 2 pairs with. We head to the bathroom to try and dry off but with the 1000% humidity, no luck. We have another FP for Splash on our next MK day but DC1 says I'll enjoy it more the next time. She's usually right



We figure our next FP at Big Thunder Mountain might help dry us out and will at least raise our spirits! This is one of my favorites and we get a great spot towards the back of the train. After our wild ride through the wilderness, we decide to grab some lunch. We check out the MDE app to see where DC2 might be interested in eating since she is the pickiest. Cheese only nachos at Pecos Bill’s works for her so we head over. I had chicken tacos here last trip and wasn’t very impressed but DC1 had the fajita platter that looked much better. We both order that and DC2 changes her mind and goes for a kids mac and cheese. I really enjoyed the platter and there was a lot of open seating today.



With full bellies, we head to our last FP at Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. This is such a fun ride but there’s no way I’d wait for it without a FP. I think the listed wait time was 120 minutes. We immediately get in line for The Little Mermaid and only have about a 10 minute wait. Peter Pan has a short-ish time listed in MDE so we walk over but it was also a lie so we head in to Mickey’s Philharmagic to cool off. This might be my favorite 3D movie at the parks.




Tomorrowland is next and we get right on the PeopleMover. This is just the best and there was such a nice breeze blowing up high. I could have gone around and around but the line was too long. Even though we’ve barely been outside, it’s still too hot and we head in to the Carousel of Progress. I manage to stay awake through the majority of it! Last stop for now is It’s a Small World - short wait and air conditioning always wins even though the ride grates on me.



Continued in next post

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

We have a 5:05 reservation at Maria & Enzo’s in Disney Springs with our aunt and uncle that live about an hour outside of Orlando so we decide to catch the monorail to the Contemporary to grab that loaf of bread, then catch their bus to Disney Springs. We’ve walked about 9 miles so far and that hill up to the monorail is a killer. Just as we get there, the monorail breaks down. It seems like our transportation luck is ending. We head back down the hill to the buses and decide to go back to POFQ, see if they have bread, and catch the ferry to dinner.


The bus takes forever to come, well over 20 minutes again. There’s no bread at the shop so we wash up quickly in our room and head to the ferry. It takes a long time for a ferry to come from Riverside heading to Disney Springs and when the captain starts loading, he stops the line right in front of us. I make a sad face and mention missing our dinner reservation, as it’s about 4:40 right now. The captain walks back to the ferry, looks around, and comes back to get us! Thanks Captain Franz, you saved our evening!

I start texting our uncle right away to let him know we are cutting it super close. They’ve already arrived and the restaurant wasn’t even open yet. They also said the CM at the podium wasn’t too concerned about us being late. When does that ever happen?! We dock at 5pm and hobble as quickly as we can to what feels like the far side of Disney Springs. I think we got there at 5:07. Amazing.

Maria & Enzo’s is very pretty inside and so bright and airy for an Italian restaurant. My aunt and I got the chicken parm, my uncle got the specialty baked pasta, DC1 had the cheese ravioli, and DC2 went for the spaghetti without meat. The chicken parm was amazing and DC1 really enjoyed the ravioli. My uncle wasn’t too impressed with the pasta and DC2 barely had enough sauce on hers to make the noodles wet. We asked for extra sauce but she still wasn’t very impressed. Since we have the DDP, I got a tiramisu for dessert (yum!) and everyone else got gelato. It was so nice having dinner with family that we don’t see very often! My uncle and I are both Realtors so it was fun to compare businesses too.

After dinner, we snagged a FP for Test Track. We also still needed to find that elusive loaf of bread. I suggested trying one of the Epcot resorts since we were heading that way so we caught a bus to the Yacht Club. We waited about 20 minutes for this bus and the ride over felt long, or maybe I was just tired. We head to the store at Yacht Club aaaaaand no bread. Is bread not a thing at Disney? I suggest ordering from Amazon at this point but it wouldn’t arrive until the next day and DC2 NEEDS her peanut butter sandwiches ASAP. So, we walk to Beach Club. Lo and behold, an entire rack of bread! I swear, the angels were singing in the background!

Bread safely purchased and in DC2’s bag, we decide to walk to Epcot. I really enjoyed seeing the Yacht & Beach Clubs and everything along the way to the International Gateway, even if I was annoyed at this point.


We get into the park quickly and realize our next mistake...it’s close to the end of the night, Illuminations is starting, and we are on the wrong side of the park from Test Track. We start walking through the World Showcase but we’re exhausted. We make it as far as Norway and realize we can’t see the line for Frozen Ever After. Only DC1 has ridden this so we head in. We waited less than 10 minutes to ride and it’s such a cute ride! I haven’t seen Frozen the movie yet but this was still very enjoyable even though I got wet again.



The park is closing as we exit so we head back to the buses. We wait forever - around 45 minutes - because apparently our original bus caught fire on the side of the highway. I guess that’s a good excuse! We get back to our room and DC2 makes her sandwich. I grab our mugs to go fill them and we head off to bed. We’ve got early FP’s at Animal Kingdom tomorrow!

Will our transportation luck turn around? Will anyone get sick of Flights of Passage? Coming up next

 

[cyndiloveswalt]

Following along. Sounds like a fun trip so far! Who would have thought a loaf of bread would be such a hard thing to find, don’t know that I’ve ever looked for that. Looking forward to reading more

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Following along. Sounds like a fun trip so far! Who would have thought a loaf of bread would be such a hard thing to find, don’t know that I’ve ever looked for that. Looking forward to reading more

Thanks for following! I've never really looked for bread while on vacation (except bread baskets at restaurants) but I guess everyone has different priorities!

 

[disneyAndi14]

Following along, I am a fellow Minnesotan, live in Duluth! I also love Disney and stayed at FQ in April, we had a refurbished room and really liked it.

Sorry about your transportation delays. I do like the boat to DS.

Glad you found some bread

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

Following along, I am a fellow Minnesotan, live in Duluth! I also love Disney and stayed at FQ in April, we had a refurbished room and really liked it.

Sorry about your transportation delays. I do like the boat to DS.

Glad you found some bread

Nice to meet you! I love Duluth, it's so beautiful, but it's been a few years since I've made it up that way. FQ was nice before but it's really nice now and I think the QS food available and ferry options are spectacular

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

It’s Friday morning and I’m avoiding doing boring work by writing this instead It’s been hotter here in Minnesota the past few days than it was for our trip to WDW, and it makes it hard to get motivated to do anything. Luckily, I have a “helpful” cat and a cup of coffee to keep me going!



Day 3 - July 2nd

We got up on time today to get ready for our full day at Animal Kingdom! DC1 and I had some breakfast bars and snacks while DC2 had a peanut butter sandwich (eating that bread is now a requirement!!!!). We headed down to the bus stop around 8:40 since our Expedition Everest FP is at 9:35. The bus time board had no time listed for AK. We waited, and waited, and waited...nothing. And this was the one morning that there was no CM out at the bus stops. At 9:30 we started getting worried that we weren’t going to make our FP. Sigh, EE is my favorite. At 9:32, I get the happiest notification ever - EE is down and we have multiple experience FP’s!!! What luck lol. The bus finally arrived at 9:45, good grief.



We arrive at Animal Kingdom just in time to see Up! The Great Bird Adventure. I love the movie Up! And I used to be a veterinary technician working primarily with birds so this is a must do for me. DC2 is terrified of birds so we made sure to get seats towards the back where they wouldn’t fly over her. As a side note, every bird in Disney tried to fly at her this week. A duck even hit here in the head with it’s wing. They must know who to pick on.



I really enjoyed the show and I loved the conservation message and points about parrots making hard pets. The Dug and Russell parts were cute but the main female actress got on my nerves a bit. The Andean Condor was amazing, they are just so huge! I wish I could have been part of the “human forest” but maybe another time. (Hey, I’m looking for any and all excuses to go back!)

Continued in next post...

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

We grabbed some water after the show because it was already stifling in the park. This was probably our hottest day of the trip and my weather app showed the heat index at 107F. EE was still down so we decided to use our multiple experiences pass for the safari. You can’t go to AK without taking the safari! I wasn’t sure if many animals would be active but we saw a ton, including the painted dogs running around and the scimitar horned oryx, which is apparently rare. We had Driver Sean and he was very funny!

Continued in next post...

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

After disembarking, it was time for more water and some snacks. DC2 wanted a giant pickle and roasted corn and DC1 and I each grabbed a Mickey pretzel. Thank goodness for the free ice water today. The Festival of the Lion King was starting in a few minutes so we decided on an A/C break. I really love this show, the performers are amazing!


We were still hungry afterwards so we started looking for a place that had something DC2 would eat for lunch. Satu’li had cheese quesadillas so we started slowly walking to Pandora. I was secretly excited, I really wanted to eat here. It wasn’t too busy and DC1 got the cheeseburger pods, I got the chicken bowl with rice and the green onion dressing, and DC2 got the quesadillas. DC1 hated the filling in her pods and neither of them loved the veggie chips. I really enjoyed my bowl but the dressing was a little strong. I would totally order it again.


After lunch we headed to Finding Nemo: The Musical. I hadn’t seen this before and it was cute. Not the best show in the parks but definitely an enjoyable way to spend some time indoors.


When the show ended, we decided to get on EE as single riders since we’d missed out in the morning. We practically walked on! I love single rider. I was seated towards the front of the train next to a nice British lady whose husband and son were right behind us. As the train starts pulling away, she asks me what type of ride this is. Um, really?! I said it’s a fun roller coaster and they all get a bit worried. Uh oh. She asks if it goes upside down and I tell her no but I also spoil the surprise and let her know it goes backwards. How can you not realize this is a rollercoaster? They did great and loved the ride, they were very fun to ride with! DC1 and DC2 also had good experiences with the Yeti.

We had about an hour to wait before our final FP- Flights of Passage! MDE listed Dinosaur as a 20 min wait but when we walked over it was actually 50 min. Nope. We decided to walk back to Pandora and just find a place to chill for a while. There was tons of seating outside Satu’li so we got some pictures and watched the guy in the Avatar suit for a while. Disclaimer- I’ve only seen Avatar once and it’s not my favorite movie. I think Pandora is beautiful and was excited to ride Flights of Passage but not expecting to love it. DC2 gets motion sick on Star Tours and Mission Space so we were a little worried about her. She had also switched to the non-drowsy natural Dramamine today instead of the regular because the regular was making her super tired the past few days, to the point where she couldn’t remember parts of the day.


We got on FoP right away but waited a looong time in the preshow room. That preshow is super obnoxious but the ride was amazing!! I was really worried it wouldn’t live up to the hype but it was incredible. It won’t take my #1 ride spot but it’s way up towards the top. DC1 and DC2 also loved it and no issues with motion sickness at all.

We beat a hasty retreat out of AK after the ride since we had an ADR at the Crystal Palace an hour later and the way our luck has been with buses we didn’t want to take any chances. I still haven’t gotten to walk all the animal trails at AK but I guess that’s another reason to come back!

We had no problem getting there on time! We were seated in the outer circle of tables and had eaten our salads and main plates before the first character even got to us. Tigger, Pooh, and Eeyore came close together and we got some cute pictures! We grabbed dessert and waited. And waited. No sign of Piglet. We had grabbed a FP for Buzz Lightyear while waiting and it was getting close to time. Then they announced the kid’s parade around the restaurant would be starting so we decided to go. At least I got to meet Eeyore! The food was okay but nothing to write home about.


We headed over to Buzz and got in the FP line. We were almost to the front when the line stopped for quite a while. A CM came near us to use the phone and someone asked what was going on. He said the ride was down and wouldn’t likely be up for about 40 minutes. As soon as he said that, all the cars started moving again. Yay! DC2 kicked both our butts with her score tonight.

We grabbed another FP for Haunted Mansion and walked over as the fireworks were going off right over us. It was very magical! After our haunt, we headed to Big Thunder, which was listed as a 10 minute wait. It was definitely longer than that but so worth it to ride in the dark. This was my favorite ride on Big Thunder this trip.

The lines were picking up again but we were able to walk on to Pirates afterwards. It was another very wet boat ride for us. We finished the night by walking on to Jungle Cruise and Skipper Sarah was very funny (and punny).

It was time to call it a night and head back around 10pm- an 11 hour park day for us.

Up next: Will I enjoy Splash Mountain more the 2nd time? How amazing will the 3rd of July fireworks be?

 

[erinch]

I’m in! What is your favorite ride, if it is t FoP?

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

I’m in! What is your favorite ride, if it is t FoP?

Thanks for joining! I think Expedition Everest just barely bumps FoP out of first place and only because I find physical rides to be a little more thrilling than simulator rides. But FoP is truly amazing and I can't wait to ride it again someday!