25th Anniversary Trip.. A bit late and picture heavy

[mydisneykids]

Hello.
I am going to try this again.
I am not sure if anyone is going to want to read this, but I know I love looking at Disney pictures and I took A LOT of them this trip and will share all.
I hope to hear from other lurkers out there as that is what I usually am.


I have tried so many times to do a trip report and just never seem to be able to do it. Either I am great on the pre trip report but never follow through when I get home or start the trip report and life takes over and never seem to finish. This time is going to be different!!!!!

It has been a hard couple of years for me.
In 2013 my mother had a heart attack and became homebound and immobile very quickly. I was her primary caregiver while raising my 3 children at the same time.
She passed away in November of 2015. During that time my husband also had to close down the family business that he had worked in for all the 23 years we had been married at that point. It felt like if caring for my mom on top of sibling issues at the same time didn't break me the stress of home would. But what do you do? Carry on with a smile
I was lucky enough that years ago we had purchased and paid off DVC points. It enabled us to still travel while starting over, and that is what we did, start over.
It is a long slow road but we are making our way down it and seeing progress along the way.


In the middle of all this going on last June was our 25th anniversary. With everything going on we didn't have the time or points to go away so we waited........ And this May we finally had our Anniversary trip.
We picked the dates
May 7-May 13 and started planning.
Well for the first time in years I felt like things were going our way. A few weeks into our booking I find out that we will be there for the last Wishes......first Happily Ever After.........and we responded fast enough to get a DVC preview of Pandora on our last day before going home!!!!! The excitement really started to build and things began to seem real.

Off to cook dinner before the youngest has to pick up his prom tux and go to hockey practice. But I promise I am going to follow through on this on and post the first few days tonight.

Oh and I took a TON of pictures and can't wait to post them!!!!!

 

[mydisneykids]

A few things first.
The night before we leave I am packing and my husband, Todd, walks in with a shopping bag. Well, he has been wanting to get me this lens for years, it was my dream lens, and he was able to make it happen for this trip. So needless to say this report is going to be picture heavy!!!

Also, we are resort hopping to save points.
Night 1 Pop Century cash reservation
Nights 2 and 3 Saratoga Springs studio
Nights 3, 4 and 5 Boardwalk 1 bedroom Villa


Day 1

We live about an hour from the airport. and with a 6:20 a.m. flight we left our house at 3:30 a.m.
Only Disney could get me to do that and still have a smile on my face.








When we landed we made our way to Magic Express. I was a bit nervous. We had used magic express many times, but usually just have carry ons so this was the first time we were having our luggage delivered to the room. Hopefully it will get there with no issues.

No issues on Magic Express. We were the first stop after Art of Animation.
It was our first time at Pop and we were so excited to get started on our vacation.

The last few stays I got notices after the check in time that I needed to go to the front desk anyway even though I had done the online check in. So we got to the resort and I thought lets just see....
The line was long. We waited a few minutes then I saw a cast member with an iPad. I told Todd to stay put and ran over to see if she could check to make sure our room would be sent via text.
Well, she tapped a few times and smiles and says I found a room for you . All smiles as it is only 10:00 a.m. at this point. Amazing! We could change and freshen up before heading out.

POP
For Pop the only request I made was to be away from construction. I have bad allergies and the smell of paint for even the one night and I would have a sinus infection by the end of the week.

We got Room 3334 in the 60s Section


This is the view from the walkway outside our room.





Before heading off to Animal Kingdom to activate our APs and then to Saana for lunch we wandered the hotel a bit.

 

[mydisneykids]

 

[mydisneykids]

After we wandered the resort we took a bus over to Animal Kingdom to activate our DVC APs. For some reason we always seem to be standing at the window forever when we activate our passes. Just never seems to be easy especially when you are hungry. But the cast members are so pleasant and helpful how can you complain

Passes activated we are on our way back to the busses to hit Saana for lunch. Our main goal of this is just to get the bread service and a few drinks. I have always wanted to try this but never had the chance and Todd loves trying something new, so off we go.






It was amazing!!!!


We were lucky enough to get a seat along the window and this was our view while we ate











It was great. We started talking to our server and Pandora came up. We mentioned we were going Saturday and she had a preview that her husband won a lottery for as a cast member to go to a preview as well. She seemed as excited as us. Well, we start talking about reviews we have heard of the media events and guess where she listened to hers??? Here!!! She is another follower of the DIS
She then proceeded to tell me how last week she was serving and guess who was there dining? Joe Rohde!!! I would have died. How cool.
She was great. Really made a great lunch that much better!!!


Now it is time to head back to Animal Kingdom. Not sure how long we will last as we are going on about 2 1/2 hrs sleep. But as my family will tell you, I live for the park time, even just to walk around.

The Disney bus.... Magical transport to happiness.....



We are finally here!!!!!!!!

 

[mydisneykids]

After walking around a bit we were tired and all of our fast passes were for later. We decided to sit and rest a bit then head back for a nap.

I had heard so many nice things about the Nomad Lounge so off we went to check it out.



Such nice seating. Comfortable and cool.





Such a nice view. You could hear the sounds of the "animals and insects" coming from Pandora. And it was so quiet as it was a dead end. Guessing that will change when Pandora opens and one of the entrances is right outside the Lounge.

 

[KimBean]

Joining!

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

I love all the pictures. How is the new security when coming with the buses? Did you go through bag check at AK or before you boarded the bus?
Following.

 

[mydisneykids]

I love all the pictures. How is the new security when coming with the buses? Did you go through bag check at AK or before you boarded the bus?
Following.

At Animal Kingdom security was the same as it always has been, right before the ticket windows.
The only change we saw was at the Magic Kingdom and the Monorail resorts. And we loved that change. Never had a long wait.

Thanks

I love taking pictures and looking at others so I thought I should finally share mine.

Joining!

Yay

 

[mydisneykids]

After a rest back at the resort we decided to hit Disney Springs for dinner.
Todd and I shared a lot of meals this trip. We were trying to eat a bit healthier but also wanted to be able to eat more of a variety. I think there are only 2 or 3 times we didn't share or each pick something and snack off of each others dishes.


We wandered Disney springs for a while. I had wandered it before on trips with the kids and my solo trip, but Todd had not really soaked it in with all the changes.
We knew we were doing QS, but where to go. I had enjoyed Blaze on my solo trip and Burger Dlux looked so good. But we wandered over to Morimoto to take pictures for my middle daughter. She loves Iron Chef and Morimoto is her favorite.
After looking at the street food menu we decided to eat here.





Pork bao. This was Todd's pick. We each had one bao and one egg roll. I think this first one was one of my favorites the whole trip. It was really good.






The egg rolls were just ok. Not much different than what you would get at home. Good, but not outstanding.



And that is day 1. We were exhausted and had a lot planned the week ahead to rest up for.

 

[TXMNie]

So sorry to hear about all the troubles you all have had, but happy to hear that you were able to get away to celebrate! Sanaa looks amazing. That and Nomad Lounge are definitely on the list for next trip! Enjoying all the photos!

 

[mydisneykids]

Day 2



We started our day by taking our luggage to the drop off. We had to have them transferred to Saratoga Springs.

It was a bit more of a challenge because Todd had Disney florist send a gift. It was such a wonderful, anniversary surprise.
It was a glass wine bucket with cider and 2 Mickey champagne glasses. We were worried about the bucket getting there but they bell services took great care.


From there it was on to the Magic Kingdom.
I have a Cricut and have started making shirts. The first ones I made were for these for this trip. Not perfect but I am happy with how they came out.




This is the park I was looking forward to the most with my new camera lens. It takes great pictures in low light without a flash. I was so excited to take it on the rides. I had to reduce the resolution a bit to get them to post but they still came look good I think. I am so new at this. I think I took 700 pictures this week and maybe 200 came out. But I did notice they got a bit better as the week went on.

 

[mydisneykids]

So sorry to hear about all the troubles you all have had, but happy to hear that you were able to get away to celebrate! Sanaa looks amazing. That and Nomad Lounge are definitely on the list for next trip! Enjoying all the photos!

Thank you. It was so hard to come home(as leaving Disney always is) as this trip was so needed after what life had brought. And sharing it again here is like living it all over again.

 

[mydisneykids]

Winnie the Pooh

 

[Vowelmommy]

I love all the pictures! What a great trip, I can't wait to see more.

 

[mydisneykids]

I love all the pictures! What a great trip, I can't wait to see more.

Thank you.

 

[mydisneykids]

The Little Mermaid

 

[mydisneykids]

Jungle Cruise


Brandon our skipper. He was so good I had to tweet WDWtoday about him.





Haunted Mansion

 

[mydisneykids]

Lunch was Pecos Bills. No pictures
It was great and huge. We are able to get one order of the fajitas and when they give you your tray you can ask for an extra set of tortillas. Once you get your dish of toppings at the topping bar we each ate our pack of tortillas and there was still some of the fajita dish left. Not bad considering two of us ate lunch for around $20 once we added in the AP 20% discount offered at certain places right now, and Pecos is one of them.


It is early afternoon now and we got the text our room is ready. So we figure we will head back for a rest and check out the room.






I had requested to be in this building of the resort and they answered that. I was so happy. It is in the Grandstand. We wanted it because it is the first drop off when you come back from a park, first stop that is picked up in the mornings so no risk of a full bus, an easy couple of minute walk to the lobby to get food or the bus to Disney Springs, and it has its own quiet pool with a bar right outside our building.
And it was as good as we had hoped.

Next it was time to call and see if our luggage was here.
And it had made it, along with our Owners Lockers and an order from Amazon Prime Now.
When the bellman brought our things it looked like we were moving in for a month!!!!

Again, just like at Pop. The room and resort did not disappoint. Very clean and kept up. We loved the location as well.

 

[mydisneykids]

After a rest we decided to hit Disney Springs again for dinner, we really enjoy the dining options there now.
This time we decided to give The Polite Pig a try. It was good, my husband really enjoyed it, I thought it was good but nothing outrageous.






We shared a brisket sandwich, wings, Brussel sprouts and sweet potato tots. We both really liked the sides we each chose. I really enjoyed all the bbq sauce options and Todd liked the beer choices.

The service was very good. Todd had selected a beer and the girl at the register mentioned a local on they have. She gave him small sample sample and he went with her suggestion.
After you order you take a pager to your seat and they bring you your food. We had various servers check on us throughout the meal inquiring if we wanted anything else or if we were finished and could they take our dishes.
We sat outside under an umbrella and could have sat there and people watched for hours.

 

[TXMNie]

Food from Polite Pig looks pretty good! I come from a big BBQ area so I am always a little skeptical, but those brussel sprouts and tots look intriguing! Question about your room at Saratoga - was the door that leads into your room off a hallway or open air like at the moderates? I couldn't quite tell from the photos and am always curious!