Fourth Halloween in a Row, will my luck play out? (10/31-11/1 TR)

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

7 days to go! Going to start gearing up this weekend, and should be packed Monday!

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

I'm charging all my stuff (battery pack, Fuel Rods, camera battery) starting tonight so it's all ready to go before Monday evening. Should be packing either Sunday or Monday!

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

I am so pumped!

And I'm going into this with the motivation of...

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

Should be packed and ready to go this evening!!!!

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

By the way, I suddenly felt like picking up a last minute park reservation for Hollywood Studios or Magic Kingdom on Wednesday and may spend the morning/early PM at one of those before heading home....

 

[IanDLBZF from MCMagic]

Day 1 - Play Ball! (October 31, 2023)
Before I begin this report, I’d like to go into context on what I mean by “Jet Lag-Style Ballgame”....

This resort hopping adventure was more like a game of baseball if you will. No I did not have four bases, but did have two things: Balls & Strikes.
For Balls:

• If there were no characters meeting at a resort, that equaled one ball. One ball per hotel visited.
• Four balls means I end up going to the park for that particular resort area.
  • Exception will be for Magic Kingdom Resorts due to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.
  • This is equivalent to walking to first base
  • I would also have to do a challenge in that park by spinning a wheel on my phone
• This applied to resort hotels only

For Strikes:

• If I end up kissed by a character, have a character whisper in my ear, or get licked by Pluto or Stitch, that equals one strike
• One strike per set
  • If more than one character, can equal a double or triple whammy depending on how many are meeting during a particular set
• Three Strikes mean OUT. I can't meet any more characters for the rest of the day.
• Strikes applied to parks and Resort Hotels.

The inspiration for this adventure? Jet Lag: The Game (on YouTube and Nebula)! And these guys:

I was up and at them by around 4am, had a granola bar and banana and coffee for breakfast before catching an Uber to the Lake Mary SunRail station at around 4:43am and in turn the 5:13 am Southbound Train to Downtown Orlando, in turn my 6:15am Link 300 to the TTC. Security was fast, and a breeze, did have a bit of a layover before Epcot Monorail opening, during which I secured a Frozen Ever After Lightning Lane.

First order of business was to knock down Soarin, now that the OG film is back (huzzah!). I really did miss the OG which was better in comparison to Soarin’ Around the World IMHO. After that I had to make a move for the Imagination Pavilion!

Figment would end up being the first character meet and greet of the day. Even better, I had brought along a plush of him! (I also brought along a Donald Duck Wishable, and plushies of Panchito and Jose, and Chip and Dale just in case, one of those would come in handy later).

Next would be for me to knock down Test Track, Mission Space, Gran Fiesta Tour, and Frozen Ever After in that order. That’s exactly what happened, before I saw a post on Instagram showing Donald at one of the resorts!

I didn’t know which one it was at the time, but soon found out.... Saratoga Springs. That IG post convinced me it was time to start moving towards the resorts. The first stop was the Beach Club for Lunch at Beaches & Cream, and to get into my room.

I quickly got the boat to the Beach Club, and in turn had a nice lunch at Beaches & Cream.

By then I hadn’t gotten the room ready notification. So I went over to the front desk to ask, and it turns out it was! I also noted a sign stating that fire alarm testing would be performed that day (the sign said they’d begin at 11:30 and would last up to an hour, but it turns out they began closer to 1:00pm, the time which I left the resort by the time they made a PA announcement...)

I made it to my room to unpack....

And within a couple of minutes was my first call of the day... Ball 1!

The next move would be to Boardwalk via Boat.... This would be my only alcoholic beverage of the day.
Also, I decided to grab a few water bottles here as well. Now of note, I arrived at this resort to what appeared to be their fire alarms going off. I assumed at first this was a false alarm or something, and came to find out, when I was in the shop to pick up the water bottles, they made an announcement stating that fire alarm testing was completed, so apparently this was a system TEST! Twice in one day... And this meme comes to mind:

So with that, I left Boardwalk with ball 2! I had made a judgment call to go over to Riviera. I decided to hang in their QSR for a while... All before seeing a few characters out!

JUST THE LUCK I NEEDED TO BRING THIS UP! Donald, Goofy and Pluto were out!

Guess that Donald Wishable came in handy after all....

So that count was now 2 balls, 0 strikes, 4 characters met, next stop was All Star Music!

I was going in like “FINGERS CROSSED IF I MEET PANCHITO THAT NUMBER GOES UP TO 5.”

I got the Skyliner from Riviera to HWS, and in turn the bus to All Star Music. I made the mistake of grabbing the awful Monster Cupcake from Intermission Food Court as well.

I decided to stand-by and wait for something to happen.... Nothing. So that was Ball 3. Noting that I was close to a ball four, and in turn a base on balls, I decided to make my pick with scrutiny. Given the incident involving monorail yellow earlier that day, add to the fact AK was going to close soon, any wrong move could end with me getting hosed.

I decided on POFQ as my next resort, going via AK for that regard. I decided to navigate around the Main Lobby area waiting for something to happen, and nothing did happen. So with that, I called Ball 4, meaning that I was to hop back to Epcot to complete a challenge from a wheel.

The challenge I got was “DuckTales Asian Adventures” meaning I had to do the DuckTales World Showcase Missions for Japan and China. I got the bus from POFQ to Epcot, and hurried to the China Pavilion to start this mission. I quickly knocked out the China mission, albeit without the fortune cookie.

Then I went to Japan and that’s when things went down the gutter. The Japan mission started out fine, but then my bookbag suddenly opened without warning, and I had put my phone to sleep mode, causing the mission to be erased, and I couldn’t resume it in the Play Disney Parks app. Basically, I had screwed myself! I had called the Technical Difficulties clause, causing the challenge to be completed. In reality, I should’ve vetoed the challenge, and taken the 10 minute penalty before having to complete another challenge. But hey, the Polynesian was next. And I decided to grab a pre-dinner drink before heading for the Contemporary, saw some of their Halloween Activities, and caught the boat for Wilderness Lodge to have dinner at Whispering Canyon.

Dinner was okay, but I prefer Breakfast and Lunch here any day of the week! The pulled pork is so good though!

I later finished off by grabbing the bus to Disney Springs and connecting back to the Beach Club through there.

Overall, not bad for Halloween given the past three years were considered failures in my book. I think the fact that I had lunch at Beaches and Cream vs Sanna made a difference in my luck. To think if only there were more out like in 2019, maybe that count would be higher. Beach Club was nice too. Maybe I'll do even better next year...

Full video of this day