Jenny Sanders
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2007
Following along and truly loving your report. E is adorable!!!! My 23 month old niece calls me EE, so I chuckled a little that you are referring to your daughter in this TR as E.
Mooooooooove! An Irma-centric first Disney trip - COMPLETED
- Thread starter MouseFan88
- Start date
missangelalexis
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2012
Love the story behind the TR title!
Sounds like a good evening at AK, even if you had to cut it short. It sounds like your night at AKL was definitely time well spent!
Sounds like a good evening at AK, even if you had to cut it short. It sounds like your night at AKL was definitely time well spent!
MouseFan88
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2014
Oh that is so funny - my sister's name is Aly (so she is Aunt Aly), and E calls her AA. What a coincidence!
It was a wonderful last day! Once we got over the whole mess of figuring everything out, it made enjoying that last day even sweeter.Sounds like a wonderful last day...E led!!
Hope the travel day goes well too!
That E is definitely a stinker telling everyone to Moooooooooove! But she was being so stinking polite about it, I didn't have the heart to tell her to just wait patiently
MouseFan88
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2014
Day Five: Nana (x2)
Our marathon travel day began with a fueling adventure at Boma. This was originally a dinner reservation for this same day, meant to fill us up after a day at Typhoon Lagoon. Thankfully, there were plenty of last-minute reservations available for breakfast, and that saved us some money anyhow. Our reservation was for 8:15, and the place was pretty stinking empty. It did eventually fill up closer to 9.
We were seated in an area totally by ourselves near the window, and E was appropriately impressed!
Explanatory side note: E has a banana for breakfast EVERY morning. She has since well before she turned 1. She loves those "nana"s. We didn't feed her a "nana" in the room because we were headed down to breakfast almost as soon as she woke up and drank her milk. As we were riding down in the elevator, she kept chattering about her "nana". Then as we were checking in, she made sure to talk to the CMs behind the desk about her "nana". Then as we met our server and placed our drink orders, she asked about a "nana". We went up to the buffet and built our first round of plates and ..... no bananas. They had fried plantains, but no just normal fruit selections. Ha! Jeff literally had to go all the way back up to our room to get a leftover "nana" to bring back down to E.
Pro Tip: If your kid eats something "normal" for breakfast every day, make sure you pack one with you even for a buffet breakfast. You never know what you may or may not find on the buffet line!
I don't have pictures of Boma food because I think people have seen plenty of them, but I really liked the Pap (although that name just makes me thing of ... other things) and the made-to-order omelet. And, of course, the bread pudding. Yum. Jeff and I were filled to bursting and very happy with our last Disney meal. We wandered a bit before heading back to our room to finish packing. Today hurricane preparations were obviously in full force. As a Missourian, I've never seen hurricane preparations before. I was pretty floored to discover they involved mostly plastic wrap and some rope! Even trash cans were plastic-wrapped to nearby poles.
Also, each door and outside-facing window had 4 or 2 sandbags by it. Maybe those more familiar with hurricanes than me could explain the low number of bags?
We stopped by the gift shop for some last-minute purchases. E still had about $30 of souvenir money that she needed to spend. I think I've mentioned before that Jeff and I had bought a LOT of Disney gift cards from Target to save about 5% on our vacation thanks to our Red Card discount. And I'm a planner/budgeter, so the amount on that gift card was pretty much exactly what we would've needed for our original vacation. which meant that by cutting a day off, we had a little over $100 left on our gift card too. We got E a drum and a maraca thing from the gift shop because she had been playing with them a lot, and we have a dedicated "music room" at our house with lots of instruments. So we know they'll get used in the future, and they'll help us all remember this trip and especially remember AKL. Jeff did get a small carved animal, but we didn't get anywhere close to using the balance of our gift card. We determined we'd just save it and use it for Christmas gifts online or something.
We got back to our room and I finished up the packing while E demonstrated her new-found AKL expertise:
Our check-out had to happen before 11, but DME wasn't until 11:40, so we headed down to the lobby where I checked us out. I was given an itemized receipt for our stay (we didn't charge anything to the room since we just used our gift card), which was to make sure that we got the refund we were due for the last night on our original reservation that we weren't using. The CM made sure to point out that we were due $230.63, and that we should be on the look-out for it in a week or so since Disney billing was likely going to be closed or under-staffed during/after the hurricane. I also made double-sure that they had cancelled our additional one-night reservation that was made earlier in our stay when we thought we'd be staying through the hurricane. She assured me it was taken care of. (Flash forward, it turns out it wasn't. They never cancelled it, but since I never checked in for it online or otherwise, it was automatically cancelled and "refunded" since Disney was giving 100% refunds for all no-shows during this time anyway).
Also, we had quite a bit of food left over in our room and mini-fridge. When we thought we'd be riding out the storm, we started rationing the snacks/provisions we had ordered through Prime Now. And since we didn't figure out until Friday that we were leaving Saturday morning, we didn't have time to eat through everything. We ended up with over a pound of grapes, over half a gallon of whole milk, 5 yogurt pouches, and 3 bananas left in our fridge. I asked at the front desk if we could somehow donate it to a family stranded at the lodge by flights or something, but they said no. I totally understand that - it's a food safety/health issue, but it made me feel bad that people were obviously scrambling for provisions that day and we were wasting a lot of food that we couldn't bring with us
Meanwhile, E was babysitting in the lobby.
Refund handling aside: We eventually did get our full refund, but it took a lot of proactive monitoring on our part. About 5 days after we got home, we got refunded $200 to my credit card. Called Disney billing and was told they weren't operational yet. But somehow a portion of my refund went through anyway? A couple of days later I did get through, and they explained that they can only refund to original form of payment. We had only paid a $200 deposit with the credit card, and paid for the rest of our reservation with gift cards. So the remaining $30.63 had to go on a gift card. But apparently that part of the refund somehow got stuck/lost and it wouldn't have happened if I didn't call. The lady I talked to said she'd put in a request to mail us a gift card for $30.63. 2 days later I got a call from Disney Gift Card Services asking if we already had a gift card with a balance (we did) because they were going to cancel that one and send us a new one with the total balance from the old card plus the $30.63. What? Why? I called back to ask if they could just add the $30.63 to our existing card number, and they said they could. So they did.
Also, we had two unused water park tickets. They were sort of a free perk of the group package we booked through the travel agent, so when we checked at the concierge desk, they said they couldn't refund that value. I decided to email guest services after our stay just to double-check the policy, and they sent us a voucher for two water park tickets that don't expire until 2034. Yay! Actually, it was a smooth move on Disney's part, because if they hadn't given us vouchers, we likely would've just skipped the water parks on our next trip. Now we have two free tickets, and by the time we go to WDW again, E will be over 3 so we'll be "forced" to buy an additional water park ticket to use our two "free" tickets. Sneaky ... 
We hopped on our DME at 11:40 and we were the first stop. We also stopped by Pop and AOA, then were on our way to the airport. Our driver let us know it was the busiest, craziest morning they had ever had. There were so many flights added to MCO that morning it was crazy-packed and chaotic, but we were one of the last buses of the day thanks to flight timing and the airport shutting down. Thankfully, since we were one of the last flights, things had mostly calmed down by we got to the airport. We walked right up to the ticket counter, then got in line for security.
You know you planned your Disney trip right when the longest line of the entire trip is airport security ...
By the time we got through security, it was almost 2 pm and our Boma breakfast had finally worn off. We got some Chinese food in an eerily empty MCO. Lots of the food locations were shutting down imminently, and there generally just weren't many people around. There were only 3 more hours of flights departing, and even though planes were still arriving, there was no one on them - so only people headed to gates, no people headed the other direction. The airport also utilized the plastic wrap strategy for hurricane readiness!
Our flight was on time and we got to Midway (Chicago) around 5:30. My mom was stuck in some traffic trying to get to us, so we grabbed our bags, used the restroom, and headed out to wait for her. A little after 6 her car pulled up and E exclaimed, "Nana!" (that's her non-"Grandma" name). Appropriate for her day to start and end with Nanas, I think! Jeff agreed to drive home since mom had already logged a lot of driving time. Thankfully, she had just filled up on gas. We gave her our thank-you-for-rescuing-us present
, which was a perch for the Banshee she bought during her Disney trip in June. We stopped for some dinner at Chick-Fil-A (we are Chick-Fil-A addicts), and then drove drove drove. E had a good time entertaining Nana in the backseat - my mom has a car seat for E in her car, thankfully - and eventually fell asleep around 8:30 (which felt like 9:30 to her little body still on Eastern time). We managed to make good time without stopping any times after dinner and got to St. Louis' airport parking (where our car was) at 11. E woke up when we transferred her from Nana's car to ours and was VERY awake. She stayed awake the whole way home. We knew she was tired (we were exhausted), but would likely need her bedtime routine in order to fall back asleep. Only problem with that was her bedtime routine involves drinking milk, and we had none at home. So at 11:35, we stopped by Walgreens by our house, got some milk, and headed home. Bedtime routine complete, we placed E in bed and collapsed in our bed. Our marathon was over! We made it!
I'll follow up soon with a summary post with my thoughts and some pictures of my favorite lodge ever - thanks so much for joining me on this journey!
Our marathon travel day began with a fueling adventure at Boma. This was originally a dinner reservation for this same day, meant to fill us up after a day at Typhoon Lagoon. Thankfully, there were plenty of last-minute reservations available for breakfast, and that saved us some money anyhow. Our reservation was for 8:15, and the place was pretty stinking empty. It did eventually fill up closer to 9.
We were seated in an area totally by ourselves near the window, and E was appropriately impressed!
Explanatory side note: E has a banana for breakfast EVERY morning. She has since well before she turned 1. She loves those "nana"s. We didn't feed her a "nana" in the room because we were headed down to breakfast almost as soon as she woke up and drank her milk. As we were riding down in the elevator, she kept chattering about her "nana". Then as we were checking in, she made sure to talk to the CMs behind the desk about her "nana". Then as we met our server and placed our drink orders, she asked about a "nana". We went up to the buffet and built our first round of plates and ..... no bananas. They had fried plantains, but no just normal fruit selections. Ha! Jeff literally had to go all the way back up to our room to get a leftover "nana" to bring back down to E.
Pro Tip: If your kid eats something "normal" for breakfast every day, make sure you pack one with you even for a buffet breakfast. You never know what you may or may not find on the buffet line!
I don't have pictures of Boma food because I think people have seen plenty of them, but I really liked the Pap (although that name just makes me thing of ... other things) and the made-to-order omelet. And, of course, the bread pudding. Yum. Jeff and I were filled to bursting and very happy with our last Disney meal. We wandered a bit before heading back to our room to finish packing. Today hurricane preparations were obviously in full force. As a Missourian, I've never seen hurricane preparations before. I was pretty floored to discover they involved mostly plastic wrap and some rope! Even trash cans were plastic-wrapped to nearby poles.
Also, each door and outside-facing window had 4 or 2 sandbags by it. Maybe those more familiar with hurricanes than me could explain the low number of bags?
We stopped by the gift shop for some last-minute purchases. E still had about $30 of souvenir money that she needed to spend. I think I've mentioned before that Jeff and I had bought a LOT of Disney gift cards from Target to save about 5% on our vacation thanks to our Red Card discount. And I'm a planner/budgeter, so the amount on that gift card was pretty much exactly what we would've needed for our original vacation. which meant that by cutting a day off, we had a little over $100 left on our gift card too. We got E a drum and a maraca thing from the gift shop because she had been playing with them a lot, and we have a dedicated "music room" at our house with lots of instruments. So we know they'll get used in the future, and they'll help us all remember this trip and especially remember AKL. Jeff did get a small carved animal, but we didn't get anywhere close to using the balance of our gift card. We determined we'd just save it and use it for Christmas gifts online or something.
We got back to our room and I finished up the packing while E demonstrated her new-found AKL expertise:
Our check-out had to happen before 11, but DME wasn't until 11:40, so we headed down to the lobby where I checked us out. I was given an itemized receipt for our stay (we didn't charge anything to the room since we just used our gift card), which was to make sure that we got the refund we were due for the last night on our original reservation that we weren't using. The CM made sure to point out that we were due $230.63, and that we should be on the look-out for it in a week or so since Disney billing was likely going to be closed or under-staffed during/after the hurricane. I also made double-sure that they had cancelled our additional one-night reservation that was made earlier in our stay when we thought we'd be staying through the hurricane. She assured me it was taken care of. (Flash forward, it turns out it wasn't. They never cancelled it, but since I never checked in for it online or otherwise, it was automatically cancelled and "refunded" since Disney was giving 100% refunds for all no-shows during this time anyway).
Also, we had quite a bit of food left over in our room and mini-fridge. When we thought we'd be riding out the storm, we started rationing the snacks/provisions we had ordered through Prime Now. And since we didn't figure out until Friday that we were leaving Saturday morning, we didn't have time to eat through everything. We ended up with over a pound of grapes, over half a gallon of whole milk, 5 yogurt pouches, and 3 bananas left in our fridge. I asked at the front desk if we could somehow donate it to a family stranded at the lodge by flights or something, but they said no. I totally understand that - it's a food safety/health issue, but it made me feel bad that people were obviously scrambling for provisions that day and we were wasting a lot of food that we couldn't bring with us
Meanwhile, E was babysitting in the lobby.
Refund handling aside: We eventually did get our full refund, but it took a lot of proactive monitoring on our part. About 5 days after we got home, we got refunded $200 to my credit card. Called Disney billing and was told they weren't operational yet. But somehow a portion of my refund went through anyway? A couple of days later I did get through, and they explained that they can only refund to original form of payment. We had only paid a $200 deposit with the credit card, and paid for the rest of our reservation with gift cards. So the remaining $30.63 had to go on a gift card. But apparently that part of the refund somehow got stuck/lost and it wouldn't have happened if I didn't call. The lady I talked to said she'd put in a request to mail us a gift card for $30.63. 2 days later I got a call from Disney Gift Card Services asking if we already had a gift card with a balance (we did) because they were going to cancel that one and send us a new one with the total balance from the old card plus the $30.63. What? Why? I called back to ask if they could just add the $30.63 to our existing card number, and they said they could. So they did.
Also, we had two unused water park tickets. They were sort of a free perk of the group package we booked through the travel agent, so when we checked at the concierge desk, they said they couldn't refund that value. I decided to email guest services after our stay just to double-check the policy, and they sent us a voucher for two water park tickets that don't expire until 2034. Yay! Actually, it was a smooth move on Disney's part, because if they hadn't given us vouchers, we likely would've just skipped the water parks on our next trip. Now we have two free tickets, and by the time we go to WDW again, E will be over 3 so we'll be "forced" to buy an additional water park ticket to use our two "free" tickets. Sneaky ... We hopped on our DME at 11:40 and we were the first stop. We also stopped by Pop and AOA, then were on our way to the airport. Our driver let us know it was the busiest, craziest morning they had ever had. There were so many flights added to MCO that morning it was crazy-packed and chaotic, but we were one of the last buses of the day thanks to flight timing and the airport shutting down. Thankfully, since we were one of the last flights, things had mostly calmed down by we got to the airport. We walked right up to the ticket counter, then got in line for security.
You know you planned your Disney trip right when the longest line of the entire trip is airport security ...
By the time we got through security, it was almost 2 pm and our Boma breakfast had finally worn off. We got some Chinese food in an eerily empty MCO. Lots of the food locations were shutting down imminently, and there generally just weren't many people around. There were only 3 more hours of flights departing, and even though planes were still arriving, there was no one on them - so only people headed to gates, no people headed the other direction. The airport also utilized the plastic wrap strategy for hurricane readiness!
Our flight was on time and we got to Midway (Chicago) around 5:30. My mom was stuck in some traffic trying to get to us, so we grabbed our bags, used the restroom, and headed out to wait for her. A little after 6 her car pulled up and E exclaimed, "Nana!" (that's her non-"Grandma" name). Appropriate for her day to start and end with Nanas, I think! Jeff agreed to drive home since mom had already logged a lot of driving time. Thankfully, she had just filled up on gas. We gave her our thank-you-for-rescuing-us present
, which was a perch for the Banshee she bought during her Disney trip in June. We stopped for some dinner at Chick-Fil-A (we are Chick-Fil-A addicts), and then drove drove drove. E had a good time entertaining Nana in the backseat - my mom has a car seat for E in her car, thankfully - and eventually fell asleep around 8:30 (which felt like 9:30 to her little body still on Eastern time). We managed to make good time without stopping any times after dinner and got to St. Louis' airport parking (where our car was) at 11. E woke up when we transferred her from Nana's car to ours and was VERY awake. She stayed awake the whole way home. We knew she was tired (we were exhausted), but would likely need her bedtime routine in order to fall back asleep. Only problem with that was her bedtime routine involves drinking milk, and we had none at home. So at 11:35, we stopped by Walgreens by our house, got some milk, and headed home. Bedtime routine complete, we placed E in bed and collapsed in our bed. Our marathon was over! We made it!I'll follow up soon with a summary post with my thoughts and some pictures of my favorite lodge ever - thanks so much for joining me on this journey!
piglet1979
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2015
I do not live is a hurricane area but from what my friend was posting during the hurricane is that the bags are used to place in front of the doors. It can serve as 2 purposes. 1. to stop water from coming in the door if there was some flooding outside, 2. it can help to keep the doors closed. Now I could be wrong but that is what it sounded like to me.
I have loved your trip report. Your writing style is great and I loved the humor you had.
Jenny Sanders
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2007
Oh that is so funny - my sister's name is Aly (so she is Aunt Aly), and E calls her AA. What a coincidence!
My daughter is an Ali too.
Jenny Sanders
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2007
Happy you made it home safe!!!
MouseFan88
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2014
I apologize for disappearing for a few days - my grandpa has dementia, and managed to go for a drive in his truck and get lost on Saturday. The police got involved, etc. It was a big, scary situation - but they eventually found him about 15 hours after he left home. He drove to a "park" (we checked all area parks, so we think he was actually in a nearby industrial complex) then woke up around 3 am, got on the highway and started driving. A cop eventually pulled him over about an hour from home (grandpa claims he pulled the cop over ...) and he told them he decided to go fishing. Anyway ... it was an emotional weekend, but it ended well. I'm hoping I'll have time today for my wrap-up post.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my report! I'm an engineer/analyst, and writing isn't my strong suit - so it's good to hear that I didn't drive people too crazy
Thanks for the insight! That definitely makes sense as far as doors are concerned. But I still wonder about windows. Each window (on high floors, etc.) had 2 sandbags for it. Maybe they could somehow arrange them so it would prevent leaking? I don't know. I know after Matthew, Disney did a whole lot of legwork on subsequent hurricane prep, so I'm sure there were lots of new policies and procedures.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my report! I'm an engineer/analyst, and writing isn't my strong suit - so it's good to hear that I didn't drive people too crazy
It was a busy day! By the time we finally made it in bed we had been up for 19 hours. I usually find Disney trips to be pretty exhausting anyway, but this one definitely takes the cake!
missangelalexis
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2012
Glad you could at least spend your last Disney morning at a nice breakfast! I'm glad everything worked out and you were able to get on your flight with no issues! Sounds like such a long day but I know it was probably better than be stranded at Disney during the storm!
MouseFan88
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2014
Summary Time
Overall, our first Disney trip as a family of three is obviously one we'll remember, for a lot of reasons. Irma tried to get the best of us, and it definitely did put a damper on some of our days, but it's a story we can tell E for many years to come! I'd like to wrap things up on a positive note, so my summary is going to be a list of things I'll certainly repeat in the future or would go out of my way to recommend to others. I'll follow that with some of my favorite pictures from AKL that I haven't posted previously.
Becky's List of Repeats/Suggestions:
1. Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters - this allowed E to become very familiar with lots of different characters prior to our trip even starting. She likes watching movies, but we only allow about 3 or 4 movies a week (which is still a lot ...), and she usually demands Moana or Frozen, so not much variety in characters there. She was borderline addicted to this book, though. She knew all of the characters, and if there was a line before meeting them, we could pull out the book, she could look at the picture of who we were going to meet, and we could remind her about them. Then I'd ask the character questions about what was in the book and it was an easy way to have a little conversation even when E got shy. E now loves to look through the book and point out the "Maims" (names) signed on the pages.
2. First Haircut Package at Main Street Barber Shop - if you've stuck with me this far, this one shouldn't come as a surprise. Even if your little doesn't *need* a haircut yet, it's such a fun and positive experience! And I think having this one very good haircut experience should set us up well for future haircuts. She knows it's a fun time with cute results, so she doesn't have to be afraid or antsy when sitting in that chair. On top of all of that, in the grand scheme of Disney pricing, it's actually a steal. It's legitimately the only thing from this trip where I could've paid double what we paid and still walked away happy (hopefully no Disney executives read this ...) - that never happens at Disney! Usually we bite the bullet, know that things are over-priced and determine to enjoy them anyway. So overall, I would say this was a HUGE highlight of the trip.
3. Tom Sawyer Island (and Boneyard, to a lesser extent) - this one would come as a total shock to my pre-family-trip self. I penciled in TSI (and Boneyard) as mid-afternoon breaks to let E run around and get some energy out, but figured I'd be chomping at the bit feeling like we were wasting precious park time. And while that may be a little true, the joy I got from watching E run around freely without crowds and being in charge of her own path/time was sooooo worth it. Especially at TSI, where there are SO many other things to do at the park, this was a surprise to me. Spending time here meant we missed things like Haunted Mansion, Pirates, and Jungle Cruise - but I could still see us making that same trade-off in the future if our park time is limited. Even as E grows, I know she'll love running around the fort or the caves or the barrel bridge. And it's a relaxing break from the hub-bub of MK without actually taking the time to leave MK. I don't feel as pressed for time, or like I'm missing other attractions, at AK, but spending time in the Boneyard will be a repeat for us too, at least for a few years.
4. Waffles at Sleepy Hollow - I'm a big foodie, so it's hard for me to repeat restaurants, especially when we only go once every couple of years. There's so much variety that I'm missing! But even though this wasn't on the plan for this trip, we found ourselves drawn back. I just think you can't beat the view of the castle from here, and for us waffles are a fun breakfast-for-dinner type of treat. They're not the highest-quality food around, but it's a neat experience that I think for us will become an every-trip tradition.
5. EPCOT breakfast - I'm not sure that we'll definitely repeat Garden Grill again (although I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone/everyone - that sticky bun is to die for), but I've always felt that EPCOT before 11 isn't particularly pleasant. We're rope drop people, but without the World Showcase open, the headliners in Future World are much more crowded than I'd like. Because of that, I would definitely do a table-service breakfast at EPCOT before I'd do it in any other park. I just think I can make more use of those morning hours at other parks.
6. Flight of Passage and Nav'i River Journey - this one is obvious because pretty much everyone that rides FOP says it's something along the lines of the best ride ever. I still wouldn't wait hours for it, but the thrill/joy of the ride is so much fun! Nav'i River Journey was a bigger hit with our family than I expected. Again, I wouldn't wait more than 30 minutes for it, but there's SO much to see that I think it has good repeatability.
7. Harambe Market - On the whole, there weren't *many* stand-out meals or food items from this trip, which was OK. When it was just Jeff and I, we were fine spending lots of money to try lots of food and eat lots of table service meals. We were on a stricter budget this time, so we purposely scaled back our food purchases. That being said, Harambe Market was a highlight for us. The food was different and really delicious, and also filling. For some reason it also seemed better suited to the very warm early September weather than many of the F+W entrees, for example. We like Flame Tree BBQ too, but we can get lots of good BBQ in St. Louis, so Harambe Market may be our default QS in AK for the foreseeable future.
8. Animal Kingdom Lodge - there's an obvious caveat to this one, and that is price. As I've mentioned, we got a ridiculously good deal on this room (about $215/night). I don't think we'd do it again if we couldn't get a good deal like that. We didn't find the service at the Deluxe to be much better than at Values, but bus service was amazing for us (I know that is hit-or-miss), and for me nothing beats walking into that lobby after a long day at the parks. I also like that you have an "attraction" right outside of your window/porch 24/7 with the roaming animals. I'm a big fan of national parks, so we may also give Wilderness Lodge a shot if given the chance. But if it's in your budget, don't hesitate to book AKL.
I think that is a good place to wrap up and share some of my favorite pictures from AKL. Thanks again for joining me on this adventure, and please let me know if you have any questions I can answer!
Overall, our first Disney trip as a family of three is obviously one we'll remember, for a lot of reasons. Irma tried to get the best of us, and it definitely did put a damper on some of our days, but it's a story we can tell E for many years to come! I'd like to wrap things up on a positive note, so my summary is going to be a list of things I'll certainly repeat in the future or would go out of my way to recommend to others. I'll follow that with some of my favorite pictures from AKL that I haven't posted previously.
Becky's List of Repeats/Suggestions:
1. Junior Encyclopedia of Animated Characters - this allowed E to become very familiar with lots of different characters prior to our trip even starting. She likes watching movies, but we only allow about 3 or 4 movies a week (which is still a lot ...), and she usually demands Moana or Frozen, so not much variety in characters there. She was borderline addicted to this book, though. She knew all of the characters, and if there was a line before meeting them, we could pull out the book, she could look at the picture of who we were going to meet, and we could remind her about them. Then I'd ask the character questions about what was in the book and it was an easy way to have a little conversation even when E got shy. E now loves to look through the book and point out the "Maims" (names) signed on the pages.
2. First Haircut Package at Main Street Barber Shop - if you've stuck with me this far, this one shouldn't come as a surprise. Even if your little doesn't *need* a haircut yet, it's such a fun and positive experience! And I think having this one very good haircut experience should set us up well for future haircuts. She knows it's a fun time with cute results, so she doesn't have to be afraid or antsy when sitting in that chair. On top of all of that, in the grand scheme of Disney pricing, it's actually a steal. It's legitimately the only thing from this trip where I could've paid double what we paid and still walked away happy (hopefully no Disney executives read this ...) - that never happens at Disney! Usually we bite the bullet, know that things are over-priced and determine to enjoy them anyway. So overall, I would say this was a HUGE highlight of the trip.
3. Tom Sawyer Island (and Boneyard, to a lesser extent) - this one would come as a total shock to my pre-family-trip self. I penciled in TSI (and Boneyard) as mid-afternoon breaks to let E run around and get some energy out, but figured I'd be chomping at the bit feeling like we were wasting precious park time. And while that may be a little true, the joy I got from watching E run around freely without crowds and being in charge of her own path/time was sooooo worth it. Especially at TSI, where there are SO many other things to do at the park, this was a surprise to me. Spending time here meant we missed things like Haunted Mansion, Pirates, and Jungle Cruise - but I could still see us making that same trade-off in the future if our park time is limited. Even as E grows, I know she'll love running around the fort or the caves or the barrel bridge. And it's a relaxing break from the hub-bub of MK without actually taking the time to leave MK. I don't feel as pressed for time, or like I'm missing other attractions, at AK, but spending time in the Boneyard will be a repeat for us too, at least for a few years.
4. Waffles at Sleepy Hollow - I'm a big foodie, so it's hard for me to repeat restaurants, especially when we only go once every couple of years. There's so much variety that I'm missing! But even though this wasn't on the plan for this trip, we found ourselves drawn back. I just think you can't beat the view of the castle from here, and for us waffles are a fun breakfast-for-dinner type of treat. They're not the highest-quality food around, but it's a neat experience that I think for us will become an every-trip tradition.
5. EPCOT breakfast - I'm not sure that we'll definitely repeat Garden Grill again (although I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone/everyone - that sticky bun is to die for), but I've always felt that EPCOT before 11 isn't particularly pleasant. We're rope drop people, but without the World Showcase open, the headliners in Future World are much more crowded than I'd like. Because of that, I would definitely do a table-service breakfast at EPCOT before I'd do it in any other park. I just think I can make more use of those morning hours at other parks.
6. Flight of Passage and Nav'i River Journey - this one is obvious because pretty much everyone that rides FOP says it's something along the lines of the best ride ever. I still wouldn't wait hours for it, but the thrill/joy of the ride is so much fun! Nav'i River Journey was a bigger hit with our family than I expected. Again, I wouldn't wait more than 30 minutes for it, but there's SO much to see that I think it has good repeatability.
7. Harambe Market - On the whole, there weren't *many* stand-out meals or food items from this trip, which was OK. When it was just Jeff and I, we were fine spending lots of money to try lots of food and eat lots of table service meals. We were on a stricter budget this time, so we purposely scaled back our food purchases. That being said, Harambe Market was a highlight for us. The food was different and really delicious, and also filling. For some reason it also seemed better suited to the very warm early September weather than many of the F+W entrees, for example. We like Flame Tree BBQ too, but we can get lots of good BBQ in St. Louis, so Harambe Market may be our default QS in AK for the foreseeable future.
8. Animal Kingdom Lodge - there's an obvious caveat to this one, and that is price. As I've mentioned, we got a ridiculously good deal on this room (about $215/night). I don't think we'd do it again if we couldn't get a good deal like that. We didn't find the service at the Deluxe to be much better than at Values, but bus service was amazing for us (I know that is hit-or-miss), and for me nothing beats walking into that lobby after a long day at the parks. I also like that you have an "attraction" right outside of your window/porch 24/7 with the roaming animals. I'm a big fan of national parks, so we may also give Wilderness Lodge a shot if given the chance. But if it's in your budget, don't hesitate to book AKL.
I think that is a good place to wrap up and share some of my favorite pictures from AKL. Thanks again for joining me on this adventure, and please let me know if you have any questions I can answer!
missangelalexis
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2012
Thanks so much for sharing! I enjoyed reading along and am glad to hear you all made the best out of everything!!
ariel_fan76
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2016
[/QUOTE]Day Five: Nana (x2)
Also, we had quite a bit of food left over in our room and mini-fridge. When we thought we'd be riding out the storm, we started rationing the snacks/provisions we had ordered through Prime Now. And since we didn't figure out until Friday that we were leaving Saturday morning, we didn't have time to eat through everything. We ended up with over a pound of grapes, over half a gallon of whole milk, 5 yogurt pouches, and 3 bananas left in our fridge. I asked at the front desk if we could somehow donate it to a family stranded at the lodge by flights or something, but they said no. I totally understand that - it's a food safety/health issue, but it made me feel bad that people were obviously scrambling for provisions that day and we were wasting a lot of food that we couldn't bring with us
group..Q
Loved reading your trip report.. there is actually a group on FB that is where people post about food and stuff they want to donate to others BC they are leaving and don’t want to throw away.. they also have strollers and other stuff you can use that people have donated to the group
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