A Sept 2018 TR...or that trip where nothing went as planned Completed 11/9

[petals]

I have this breakfast booked for our next trip it looks like so much fun and I love the way the waitress was all like go ahead and take your picture

 

[SweetSerenity]

We have the bon voyage breakfast booked for our non park day. I can't wait to try it.

 

[kaetra]

Following along. I love the pic of Miles and Ariel, so sweet

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Yay for a yummy breakfast! We're planning this too. I'm ordering this one as well. It's totally normal to decide what you're eating in five months, right?

 

[Cloe Colton]

That is too funny about your King Triton's breakfast! I wonder if anyone ever just says no to the photo haha Im glad you enjoyed Bon Voyage, that's one of my favorite character meals to date!

 

[Simba22]

I swear, I feel like my husband and I are the only two people in existence who LOVE San Angel Inn! We have gone on every trip but one since 2007 (6 times total) and have never had a bad experience. It makes me so sad that so many other people find it so disappointing! We always have great service and great food, and as a matter of fact, in 2012 we went with a total of 8 people in our party (all adults) and everyone loved it. On the other hand, everyone raves about La Hacienda and we pretty much hated it. Probably the worst dining experience we've ever had in WDW. I'm so sorry you guys didn't have a better time at SAI! ETA: La Hacienda is the second worst. Tony's was definitely, hands down, the absolute worst ever!

And yes, those F & W crowds can be atrocious! A few years ago, I made the mistake of booking dinner at Rose & Crown on a Saturday. The walkway around WS was elbow to elbow. It was awful. I had read all of the warnings to NOT go to Epcot on a Saturday during F & W, because the locals go, as well as the people there on vacation, and it's super crowded. But it never even occurred to me when I made the ADR. To this day, I still can't believe I did something so dumb!

We have yet to ride FEA! Just never really had that much of an interest in fighting for a FP for it. I was hoping to do the Frozen Dessert Party next year when we go back, which comes with a free ride on FEA, but the Dessert Party is going away at the end of this season (if it hasn't already) so I'm sure that the ride won't be included in whatever they change it to.

Bon Voyage breakfast sounds great! I was thinking of making an ADR for it for next year but we're staying at OKW and I know us well enough to be fairly confident that we'll never make it all the way over to the BW in time lol Eh...maybe I'll stick it on the schedule and see what happens lol

 

[Terra Nova guy]

Luckily, the CM took pity on us. She did admonish us to take greater care in getting to our FP's on time, but she let us through. ***Thank you, FEA CM lady! I totally know you had the power to shut us down, and you had mercy on us instead. We did not take this lightly!***

I can imagine the crowds during the first week of F&W! Nice that you managed to get in for your FP. I have been late myself but never quite managed a "blue Mickey". I always wondered if the CM would take pity. I guess it depends on the situation and the CM of course.

They have some really cool stuff in there, and we enjoyed the Coco windows in the entry.

I thought the Coco display was a nice addition.

Unfortunately, that's really all I have nice to say about San Angel Inn. Gosh, do you want me to really tell you about the food? It makes me feel kind of terrible to say. It wasn't good, y'all. It wasn't good. The chips that came out with the salsa were stale. Then, when our main courses came out, the beans and rice were room temperature. Now, the meat was good and hot. But it was vastly overshadowed by the mediocre sides.

I have never eaten at San Angel Inn. I love the atmosphere in there, but I have read too many disappointing reviews of the food.

We swam for a while, then it was time to get ready for our Bon Voyage Breakfast at Trattoria Al Forno. I was so excited for this breakfast, and I'll just put you out of your misery now -- it so lived up to the hype. Easily the BEST meal of the trip.

I had considered booking this, but didn't. I regret it now. Oh well, something for next trip, maybe.

I stared a second, very confused. What on earth was she talking about? Take a picture of what?! I looked at my food, saw the skewer, and kind of shrugged. "OK." So I took a picture. As you can see, it didn't turn out too well. She took the skewer and away she went. We thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

Hmm...kind of weird. I wonder if they had problems with people taking those skewers home? Must be something like that.

 

[KarenMG]

We all got up and got ready for church

Just curious...where did y'all go to church? Is there someplace on property?

 

[kclark9830]

I have this breakfast booked for our next trip it looks like so much fun and I love the way the waitress was all like go ahead and take your picture

It was SO yummy!

We have the bon voyage breakfast booked for our non park day. I can't wait to try it.

I hope you love it!

Following along. I love the pic of Miles and Ariel, so sweet

It was so adorable. He couldn't stop staring! Haha

Yay for a yummy breakfast! We're planning this too. I'm ordering this one as well. It's totally normal to decide what you're eating in five months, right?

Absolutely normal! LOL

That is too funny about your King Triton's breakfast! I wonder if anyone ever just says no to the photo haha Im glad you enjoyed Bon Voyage, that's one of my favorite character meals to date!

Thinking back, I feel like I should have just said no. I'm kind of curious!

I swear, I feel like my husband and I are the only two people in existence who LOVE San Angel Inn! We have gone on every trip but one since 2007 (6 times total) and have never had a bad experience. It makes me so sad that so many other people find it so disappointing! We always have great service and great food, and as a matter of fact, in 2012 we went with a total of 8 people in our party (all adults) and everyone loved it. On the other hand, everyone raves about La Hacienda and we pretty much hated it. Probably the worst dining experience we've ever had in WDW. I'm so sorry you guys didn't have a better time at SAI! ETA: La Hacienda is the second worst. Tony's was definitely, hands down, the absolute worst ever!

And yes, those F & W crowds can be atrocious! A few years ago, I made the mistake of booking dinner at Rose & Crown on a Saturday. The walkway around WS was elbow to elbow. It was awful. I had read all of the warnings to NOT go to Epcot on a Saturday during F & W, because the locals go, as well as the people there on vacation, and it's super crowded. But it never even occurred to me when I made the ADR. To this day, I still can't believe I did something so dumb!

We have yet to ride FEA! Just never really had that much of an interest in fighting for a FP for it. I was hoping to do the Frozen Dessert Party next year when we go back, which comes with a free ride on FEA, but the Dessert Party is going away at the end of this season (if it hasn't already) so I'm sure that the ride won't be included in whatever they change it to.

Bon Voyage breakfast sounds great! I was thinking of making an ADR for it for next year but we're staying at OKW and I know us well enough to be fairly confident that we'll never make it all the way over to the BW in time lol Eh...maybe I'll stick it on the schedule and see what happens lol

I wanted to like San Angel. And I'd read recent reviews that hinted at improvement. Such a disappointment .

I can imagine the crowds during the first week of F&W! Nice that you managed to get in for your FP. I have been late myself but never quite managed a "blue Mickey". I always wondered if the CM would take pity. I guess it depends on the situation and the CM of course.


I thought the Coco display was a nice addition.


I have never eaten at San Angel Inn. I love the atmosphere in there, but I have read too many disappointing reviews of the food.


I had considered booking this, but didn't. I regret it now. Oh well, something for next trip, maybe.


Hmm...kind of weird. I wonder if they had problems with people taking those skewers home? Must be something like that.

I was definitely grateful the FEA CM had pity on us!

We all got up and got ready for church

Just curious...where did y'all go to church? Is there someplace on property?

There isn't a place on property, but there are 2 in Celebration, just off property. We decided on the one with an 8am service, just for time's sake. I can't remember which one it was now! I think there is Celebration Church, and Community Presbyterian Church.

 

[kclark9830]

We all got up and got ready for church

Just curious...where did y'all go to church? Is there someplace on property?

It looks like Community Presbyterian is the one with the 8am service. You have to have your own transportation to get there, obviously .

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Great TR so far! We LOVED Bon Voyage too!!!

 

[kclark9830]

A Quiet Night "In" At the Boardwalk
​

After our Bon Voyage Breakfast (lunch! hee hee), we went up to our room to grab the stroller. It was Miles's naptime, and he quickly fell asleep in the stroller. Ashlyn had been waiting eagerly for this pin trading adventure. In prep for our trip I had bought a "lot" of pins on Ebay. We had never pin traded before, and I'd read a tip about buying pins there. Y'all, I had NO idea the culture surrounding pin trading, and I didn't know this was a major no-no. Shortly before our trip I came across a video on YouTube about it, and I was schooled. What a bummer. That set me on a mission to do everything I could to figure out what pins we had that were definitely fakes (I identified a few that I was sufficiently convinced were no good). We left those at home. The others, though, we took along to trade with CM's.

We started at Thimbles and Threads, then moved along the Boardwalk. Ashlyn was very brave and asked each CM to see their pins, or if they had a pin board. She traded a couple of pins around the BW. We were also browsing for souveniers to take home to family, but we didn't find anything we wanted at this point.



Next, we made the short walk to the Yacht and Beach Club. What pretty places! I would love to stay at either (or both) someday. Ashlyn didn't find any pins she wanted to trade for at either place, but she did find pressed penny machines outside of Beaches & Cream. She got several of those (I think there were 3 machines total).

We spent a little time admiring the pool area. Am I wrong, or do you actually have to leave the pool area to go up the slide? We thought that was a little strange.

Unfortunately, just as we started the walk back to the BW, the skies opened up and it began to POUR. This was no light drizzle. Miles was still asleep in his stroller, and he got a rude awakening. Others around us ran for cover, but we had a long way to go and we were already soaked. There was no point in doing anything but pressing on. We soon arrived back at the BW, and guess what happened just as we got to the doors leading to our room? Yep. The rain stopped. Oh well, we weren't any worse for the wear!

My sister and her husband brought their kids to us at 5PM. I'm going to share a pic of them in their MNSSHP outfits, because aren't they the cutest?!



With them out of the way, we rounded up the kids and headed down to the Boardwalk Villas community hall. This was the nicest little place to relax and enjoy some old fashioned, low key entertainment. The kids LOVED it, and asked to go back repeatedly the rest of the week.



There were video games, arcade games, a pool table, ping pong, fuseball, coloring, painting, TV, toys, and then some other crafts you had to pay to do (we did not partake in those).

Once they had their fill of that, we went swimming for a while, then went out to the Boardwalk. Our intent was to watch the movie under the stars, which was on the schedule for the village green, but there was nothing there. Instead, we got a pizza from the pizza window and ate it on the BW. Then, we went to Ample Hills for ice cream.



In the meantime, we also got a picture at the photo booth on the BW. The coolest part of this booth was that it was connected to photopass, so we scanned our MB and it saved to our photopass account! I loved that, and we used this booth several times throughout the week.



As an aside, I was SO happy with getting Memory Maker this trip, and I'll probably do it for all future trips. We had it on our very first trip, but that was because it was a Make A Wish trip, so it was free. I'm a pretty cheap person, and I don't like paying for stuff that doesn't seem "necessary", but this was worth every penny. Plus, my sister and I split the cost so it was a great deal.

After our ice cream, we watched a performer on the BW for a while. I can't remember what he did--it was something with an egg, I think. The kids thought it was hilarious. We finally trudged up to our room around 10PM, folded out the Murphy bed and the sofa bed, turned on the TV, and everyone was soon asleep. My sister and her hubby picked up the kids sometime around 12:30, I think.

Next morning, Animal Kingdom and Flights of Passage!

 

[kclark9830]

Great TR so far! We LOVED Bon Voyage too!!!

Thanks! And isn't it yummy?!

 

[Terra Nova guy]

As an aside, I was SO happy with getting Memory Maker this trip, and I'll probably do it for all future trips. We had it on our very first trip, but that was because it was a Make A Wish trip, so it was free. I'm a pretty cheap person, and I don't like paying for stuff that doesn't seem "necessary", but this was worth every penny. Plus, my sister and I split the cost so it was a great deal.

My family gets Memory Maker every trip, and I agree it's worth every penny. This last trip we got over 450 pictures.

 

[buzzrelly]

I would have loved that Tangled breakfast a few years ago, but by the time it came out, my kids were just too old for a princess breakfast. I want to bring my niece in a few years and we'll definitely eat there!

I love the MM, I'm happy it comes with my AP, though I think I'd still buy it if it didn't

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

In the meantime, we also got a picture at the photo booth on the BW. The coolest part of this booth was that it was connected to photopass, so we scanned our MB and it saved to our photopass account!

Such a great idea! My kids love photobooths, but I don't love shelling out the cash for the tiny, low quality pictures. We're getting memory maker as well, so we'll have to check out this booth.

 

[Simba22]

I completely agree, Memory Maker is completely worth it if you actively look for PP Photographers! Even with just me and my husband I always get it because if it were solely up to him to take pictures of me on our trips you would think I wasn't there So I just make sure that we hit up as many photographers as possible and it's totally worth it in the long run. I can actually prove that my husband didn't go to Disney alone!

 

[CatNipRules]

I love the faces that your kids are making. I had to laugh at Miles getting woke up by rain. That happened to my son when he was about 4. After that he hated falling asleep in the stroller. Once, my husband made the mistake of shaking some water off of his hands and it hit my son in the stroller. He shot up and looked everywhere for the rain. I was laughing so hard my sides hurt. Lets just say Chris was not amused and the looks I got from him. LOL!!

 

[Araminta18]

Loving your report so far! Sounds like you guys had so much fun. We loved the Bon Voyage breakfast too--the characters were all so good. I think Disney is missing an opportunity by not providing a Flynn and Rapunzel joint meet n greet--they're so funny together!

 

[kclark9830]

Momma Said There'll Be Days Like This
​

Tuesday morning was another sunny day in Florida. We had very little rain this week overall, which was good. We lounged for a couple of hours then headed into Animal Kingdom at 10:30'ish. This was according to plan because hubby had complained on previous trips that he never got to sleep in at Disney World.

We got to AK, and everything was going well. Good moods all around. What should we do first? We didn't have a FP until 11:30 at Kali River Rapids.

Ashlyn says she wants to see the floating mountains she saw on a commercial. My inner mom voice said, "Bad idea!" But I ignored the inner voice and instead said, "OK!" It was the day after Labor Day, and crowds should have been lighter. Right? But this was Pandora, and it was packed. And all we were doing was looking at floating mountains. And Micheal got grumpy real fast. Miles had fallen asleep in the stroller. I wanted to get PP pictures in front of the mountains but with him asleep we chose to try it later (spoiler alert, we never did it). So now it was almost 11:30, and all we had done was fight crowds and look at floating mountains.

We made our way back toward KRR. My sister and her husband texted to say they were on a bus to AK and would meet us at Kali when they got there. We reached the ride area right at 11:30, but decided to wait for my sis to get there so the kids could ride together. While we waited we did the Maharajah Jungle Trek. We'd never done this, so it was a nice change (I do wish Miles would have been awake for this. He missed all the animal life stuff, and little ones love that stuff so much!).



The tiger was the highlight, as it came right up to the glass several times. We kept trying to get a good picture with Ashlyn, but just as we'd go to shoot, the tiger would turn around! haha It's really pretty back there. Ashlyn liked seeing the bulls, which is a different type of animal from the zoos in our area.

Once we got out of there, my sister and her husband had arrived. We did the ride together, while Micheal kept Miles out to play in the little splash area at the bathroom/locker area nearby. Then, when we got off, Micheal and Ashlyn did rider swap and rode. When they got back, I changed Miles's sopping wet clothes, then we were off to DinoLand USA.

As we walked, my BIL and niece decided to do Mt. Everest. They were the only ones interested in that, so they used one of the anytime FP's we'd gotten from the DVC tour, and the rest of us continued on to DinoLand. During the walk, hubby asks where we're eating lunch. When I said I didn't have any ADR's for lunch today, he asked if we could eat at Rainforest Cafe. OK, not what I would prefer. At all. And I'd actually had Yak and Yeti reservations for this day for lunch and had cancelled them so we wouldn't do too many sit down meals with Miles.

But Micheal rarely gives any input for our Disney vacations, so if he wants to eat at Rainforest? Well, we're going to eat at Rainforest. But here I made a critical decision that would affect the rest of the day (and our date night that night) . I said we'd eat there when we finished our last FP at 2:20.

He agreed, and I thought all was well, and on we went. We stopped for a PP pic on the bridge just before the Nemo show. We talked about stopping for the show which was just starting, but decided against it.

In DinoLand, my sister kept the little ones while Micheal, Ashlyn, and I went on Dinosaur. This was our first time on this ride, and we really liked it. When we got off, Ashlyn said, "I was shaking so hard!"



We took the littles, then, and my sister and her fam rode. During that time, we browsed a gift shop and bought some souveniers for the cousins. Micheal said he was starving, and let's forget our last FP and just go eat.

Um, no. Our last FP was for FOP. That was the BIG one. We weren't just dropping it. I told him to go get some snacks to hold him over. He refused, saying he didn't want to fill up on snacks. So he got a Powerade and called it even.



We made the journey over to Pandora once again. Crowds there were still heavy. It was right at 2:20. We figured sister, hubby, and niece could ride "really quick" while we kept the little ones, and then we would go. Yeah. Not so much. They were in there for right at 45 minutes.



Then, we rode. Oh my gosh y'all! That ride is amazing! I couldn't wipe the smile off my face throughout the entire ride. I would have waited another hour just to ride again. Ashlyn also loved it. We didn't ever get to ride it again, which is a disappointment to me. But when we were done, my sister revealed that she hated it. She said she got really motion sick on it.

At this point, now, it is 4PM. We haven't eaten all day. The mood is still good, but Micheal still wants to eat at Rainforest Cafe. Inside, I'm cringing because this was our date night. I had planned to be back at the hotel by now, getting ready to go into EPCOT for our date night, and eat at the F&W booths.

I kept my complaints to myself, though, because waiting until this point to eat had been MY idea. And Micheal really asks for so little when we're at Disney. We headed into the Rainforest Cafe from the backside. The air conditioning was fabulous. We were seated right away as the place was empty. That relieved some of my anxiety. I thought we could just eat quickly and be on our way.

But, our service was soooooooo sloooooowwwww. The food was great, but we ended up being in there until almost 6pm. Miles got super grouchy from being confined to a highchair, and I finally had to take him out while Micheal waited for the check.

During that time, I managed to make a FP for Soarin' for 7:30 that night. At last, Micheal emerged and we headed to the buses. But at this point we were exhausted. Neither of us had ANY desire to go into Epcot.

Would we go? Would we stay? I'll reveal all next time! Mwaahahahaha!