Surprise - We are going to Disney! August, 2014

Although I will begin the story of this trip on the day we actually left for vacation, a lot of time and planning went into it in the weeks and months leading up to departure. It required a bit more planning than usual because we were coordinating everything with my husband’s parents and because we decided to make the trip a surprise for our children. It was also planned over just a few months, so it was a condensed planning process. I am going to give just a bit of background, to give the reader an idea of what goes into planning a Disney vacation, and also to encourage last minute travelers – it can be done with good results.

Before we even decided to go, and not long after our May trip, I was playing around online and discovered that there were some nice reservations available for late August, just before the kids went back to school. I knew that they would have several days with no summer camp, and I knew that I would need to take those days off to hang out with them. What if we could hang out at Disney, I thought. So when I started looking at dining reservations, I went ahead a made a couple that I liked. I only made them for four people, fully assuming that I would end up canceling all. But then, of course, I checked airfare, and the crowd calendar, and hotel prices, and finally I convinced my husband and his parents to join us for a surprise end-of-summer trip!

Once everyone was on board, we had to choose flight times. Initially, we thought arriving very early Friday morning would work. But then we decided Thursday night. But then we figured that if we were leaving on Thursday, why not do Thursday morning! So, we set our flights for mid-morning on Thursday, arriving mid-afternoon. We strongly prefer non-stop flights, and we found some good prices on Southwest. The return would be for Tuesday morning, as the first day of school would be Wednesday.

I also quickly went to update my dining reservations to make them for six instead of four. I was able to keep the key ones that I had snagged, like a pre-rope drop Tusker House and Akershus. I also decided on trying Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue on this trip. Initially, that is all I booked. Over the course of planning and debating our plans (mostly in my head), I also decided to do an arrival day reservation at Hollywood Brown Derby, a spot that we have tried twice and enjoyed (but which does tend to get some mixed reviews). I also decided to change my Tusker House to a brunch time because I realized that it was a morning extra magic hours at Animal Kingdom, meaning that pre-rope drop was not an advantage and would in fact be a disadvantage. At some point, Disney changed that around, but I kept it as brunch because I had read that we would get to try both breakfast and lunch foods.

Packing and organizing was a real pain with a surprise trip. Luckily, my kids are fairly oblivious to my doings, so they entirely did not notice me putting stuff together and ordering shipments from Amazon, etc. At the same time, I had to get all of their back to school stuff ready because we would not have any time once we got home to do all of that.

We talked about a lot of things for the surprise, but decided to do it the morning of the trip by giving the kids a goodie bag full of stuff for the plane, plus t-shirts that said “I’m going to Disney World” and “August, 2014” on them. These were made for us by a very talented t-shirt designer, MzDiznee. Look for her on Facebook.

At the airport in the custom made shirts

Day One – Surprise!

I could hardly contain myself. We got the kids up and told them to get ready for camp. They came downstairs and ate breakfast normally. We then sat them down to give them the goodie bags. It did not go the way we expected. It took a very long time for it to fully sink in that we were going. They opened the bags, looked at all the Disney stuff, including the t-shirts, and still just seemed blase about the whole situation. Finally, I told them, and while they were excited and hyper about it, there was still a lot of skepticism. The excitement did build, though, and by the time we got to the airport, they were non-stop smiles.

The "reveal" video ended up lasting for 8 minutes and is too huge to upload. Despite my best efforts at shaving it down, I still could not get it to upload.

Our flight left around 11, so we left for the airport around 9, which is so much more sane than those 7am flights, even though those get us there nice and early.

Generally, on a short trip, we will skip Disney’s Hollywood Studios as the rides are not as kid-friendly, and I find the park a bit difficult to navigate. But the Summer Frozen Fun really pulled us in, so we decided to make it for arrival day, and, therefore, our shortest park day. The plan was to get to our hotel, Pop Century, drop off our stuff, and head out. Everything was very smooth, and though the Magical Express seemed to take forever, we landed in Orlando at 3 and we were at DHS by 5pm.

The first thing we did at DHS was split up so that I could get us a fast pass for the Frozen Sing-Along. I think it was for the 6pm show at that point. I ran to do that, and we planned to meet at Toy Story Midway Mania for our “anytime” fastpass (this had happened because we originally booked TSMM for an evening time, but due to the Frozen fireworks, that got canceled and we received an “anytime” FP on our account – it was good for any attraction that day, including TSMM). I got the sing-along tickets and joined everyone at TSMM. They all had Mickey Premiums, so we had to wait for bit for them to finish. 

Mickey Premiums!

As we were standing there, the Fast Pass line started to get way backed up. Apparently, they were having technical difficulties with the second FP reader, which is the one that actually cancels your pass, so it slowed things down. I believe we waited for about 20 minutes, but given that the standby line was around 90-105 minutes while we were there, we did not feel too bad.

Next we made our way over to the Sing-Along. This was really funny and well done. I had never been in the premier theater before, so that was new for me. We had decent seats, but we would have needed to be in line a lot earlier for the best seats, even with the FP tickets. My favorite moment was when they made a Game of Thrones joke! The singing was fun, but I was a little disappointed to see that my kids did not sing as enthusiastically as I had expected them to given how the belt these tunes out at home. After the show, we swung into the Frozen Funland where the kids got ridiculous blue frozen drinks in tall Frozen-themed souvenir cups. We missed the last ice skating time (I was frankly glad not to pay any extra), and the kids decided not to wait in line to play in snow being from New England where we can play in the snow for way too many months of the year without waiting in line!

Anna at the Frozen Sing-Along

The Official Arandelle Storytellers

We then made our way to dinner. We had to wait about ten or fifteen minutes past our reservation time to get seated, but once we got seated, service was quick and efficient. I went with the shrimp and grits for a starter, and my husband had the corn chowder. Both were excellent! I don’t think that my in laws ordered apps. For an entrée, I went with the Cobb Salad, while my husband and MIL ordered the salmon with rice. My FIL had the vegetarian entrée, which I believe was a pasta dish. No clue what the kids ordered, but it was nothing every exciting. The kid options were less interesting here than I had remembered.

The Cobb Salad is excellent, and highly recommended. The diverse flavors blend perfectly, and it arrives perfectly dressed. The ingredients are all chopped perfectly to the make the texture really pleasant. Unlike some salads, where you get huge chunks on lettuces or giant tomatoes, everything here was uniform so it’s more like eating chicken salad than a garden salad. My MIL enjoyed her salmon, but my husband’s was so bad – fish overcooked with rice undercooked – that he sent it back! He asked for a second soup, instead.

Because this trip fell within a few days of both our anniversary and his parent’s anniversary, I decided to surprised everyone with a special order cake for dessert. I was nervous because I did not want just a plain grocery-store style cake, and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I went with the middle sized cake, chocolate with chocolate ganache frosting and strawberry filling. This was the smallest size that you could personalize, and it was described as being good for 6 people. Well, this case was enormous! Very tall and dense, meaning that a small piece goes a long way. It was a nicely decorated, and the inscription was just what I had asked for. Everyone was pleasantly surprised. They also brought us sparkling wine for toasting, which was a nice touch.

Delicious surprise cake

Though the cakes are ordered in advance, you pay for them with the check, which is convenient. This cake, at $35, was a bargain. We had a ton left, which we brought with us though it was hard to fit into the small refrigerator at Pop. If you are planning more park time after dinner, you probably could ask them to hold onto it for you until you come back. This easily could have fed a group of 10 with leftovers.

By the time we left, the Frozen fireworks were about to start. We saw a cast member who recommended that we watch from back on Hollywood Blvd instead of trying to make our way into the large crowd that had already formed in front of the stage. This was a great plan. We watched back by the exit, and although the view was not perfect, it was more than good enough. These were good fireworks, fun to watch with the music, and we were able to make a quick exit ahead of the crowd to get on the first bus back to Pop.

Blurry shot of the fireworks

As expected, our bags were waiting for us when we returned to the rooms, we quickly got the kids ready for bed, and we followed not long after.

Day 2 

Happy girl on our first ride of the day - Dumbo

Our first full day was planned as a Magic Kingdom day. My in laws preferred fewer sit down meals, so while we did plan a Be Our Guest fastpass for lunch, we did not have dinner reservations. I like to split the Magic Kingdom into two parks as much as I can, meaning that I stick with Tomorrowland and Fantasyland the first day. We did not go crazy getting there super early as we had fastpasses and lots of time ahead of us. But it was not long after rope drop when we got there, probably within 20 minutes of park opening. We headed straight back to Fantasyland and did Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh, the Tea Cups, and Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. We also swung by Tomorrowland for Buzz Lightyear and our Space Mountain fastpass. I was a little disappointed because I thought that with rider switch we would be able to ride twice, but because the non-rider is tall enough to ride, they wanted us to just wait in line together and do the switch there – that defeated the purpose because my in laws did not want to ride at all. They went and did the People Mover, and we all met up at Be Our Guest.

At Be Our Guest

Be Our Guest is a very tasty counter service meal, with a very unique setting (inside the Beast’s castle) and an unusual way of getting in and ordering. Guests on property are invited to make a fastpass reservation (it did not count against our three at the time, but that may be different by the time you are reading this). It only works for each group that is part of one room reservation, so my in laws and us were on two different fastpasses, that only overlapped for five minutes! Another unusual thing is that you order in advance, but you can change things and must confirm and pay for your order there. You then take a seat with your receipt and they bring you your food. Things did go a bit wrong for us because they did not realize that we had two separate reservations, so they only confirmed and printed my receipt. When I realized that my in laws did not have a receipt, I knew that it would be an issue, but was hoping that they would solve it easily. That did not come to pass. It took a very long time for the food to come out and two separate trips to speak with a manager, plus pleas to the waitstaff bringing out the food. The four of us were done by the time their food came. The plus side is that the food is delicious. We once again had the roast beef sandwich, which I really think should be served au jus, and each of us had the potato leek soup, which again impressed. Our daughter had pasta again, which she refused to eat, and our son had the kids’ turkey sandwich, which he liked. One thing that we did not do at BOG is dessert. I have heard mostly good, though some mixed, reviews of the cupcakes and “the gray stuff” which is a reference from the movie. I initially ordered dessert for us to share, but then canceled it because there was so much great stuff out in the parks to try.

The only other odd thing about this experience was that it was a little hard to find a table for six. Nothing was available in the main ballroom, so we went next door into the library. A cast member tried to be helpful but ended up being anything but. She directed us towards two tables for four, and nearly insisted that we sit there. I said that I really did not want to sit separately, so I started to move the tables together, which caused a near panic. If it was on Twitter, it would have been #brokedisney. Finally, way in the back, we found a large table. It was actually a perfect spot with a view of the whole room and very private.

After lunch, we hit up some more rides – I am writing this so far out that it’s hard for me to even remember exactly what we did and in which order. At some point that afternoon, we all did the PeopleMover together - and saw Space Mountain with the lights on!

Inside Space Mountain - not what you might imagine it looks like

We watched the Philharmagic show, a somewhat dated but very fun 3D musical movie starring most of Disney’s best characters. It turned out to be my father-in-law's favorite attraction, so I was glad that we did it even though the rest of us had seen it so many times. We also used a fastpass for Peter Pan, somehow convinced my son to ride It’s a Small World, visited the Laugh Floor, stopped by Story Book Treats in the big top for an awesome selection of goodies – my husband and I shared some chocolate covered fruit, while my in laws got real fruit, my son got a huge “Mike Wazowski” candied apple, and my daughter got cotton candy. Another snack that we snuck in later in the day was a frozen carbonated drink over in Tomorrowland. I think that it’s called Galactic Goodies or some such thing.

Mike Wazowski Candied Apple

Then we had the moment I had been waiting for – riding the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train with our FP. Based on reports that I had read about it being tame, I encouraged my father in law, who generally is adverse to any fast rides, to check it out. I also thought my daughter would love it because she tends to really enjoy mid-range coasters. Turned out I was wrong on both fronts – he felt sick and she hated it. I myself was very underwhelmed. It was an incredibly fast ride, and while the details were very well-done, the ride itself was not especially exciting. It’s something that I will likely get a FP for in the future, but not worth a long wait if you can’t get one.

After that, we decided to take a break back at the hotel. On the way out, I got a late FP return for Space Mountain, thinking that we might decide to use it when we came back.

The break was great and just what we all needed. I now really enjoy that style of touring, where I used to be more of a marathon tourer. Several of us went swimming, we rested, we got water, and we also had a dinner at the food court back at Pop Century before heading back to the Magic Kingdom. My dinner was very disappointing – I had a salad and they literally drowned it in dressing. I think everyone else had pizza, except my mother in law who also got a salad – with the dressing on the side! Smart!!

Because we wanted to get back to the Magic Kingdom as quickly as possible, we opted to use a cab. You don’t want to take a cab to the Magic Kingdom because that will bring you to the ticket and transportation center, which then requires that you ride either the ferry or monorail to get to the park entrance. Instead, we took it to the Contemporary resort and walked from there. The path is not short but it’s not crazy at all. We got back into the park around dusk and hit up a couple more rides – the Barnstormer and the Tomorrowland Speedway. We also grabbed some popcorn to share, and enjoyed the warm evening. We didn’t have a lot of time, and we decided to head back to the hotel before it got too late. Unfortunately, the timing was horrible – we tried to exit the park just at the end of the Main Street Electrical Parade. That meant we were stuck in a massive sea of people, making it difficult to even move. We watched the tail end of the parade, wedged into the crowd, then threaded our way out.

An MK tip – if you are trying to get up or down Main St when it’s very crowded, you can sometimes save a bit of hassle by walking through the shops on one side – they all interconnect. Start right at Casey’s and head out – or, if entering the park, start at the entrance to the Emporium.

Day 3           

We decided, for various reasons including fast pass availability, dinner reservations, and crowd levels, that we would do a second day in a row at the Magic Kingdom. Today, we focused on the Adventureland and Frontierland side of the park, but hit up some more rides in Fantasyland as well. We enjoyed Splash and Thunder Mountains, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Aladdin Magic Carpets, the Swiss Family Treehouse, venturing to Tom Sawyer’s Island, and gave the kids time to play Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. This interactive card game is a huge hit for our kids! They also tried, for the first time, another interactive game in Adventureland with a pirate theme. While I had read reviews that it isn't that great, my kids loved it and we will probably have to do it every time now. In addition to the various rides, we also caught most of the Festival of Fantasy parade, which we all loved.

Watching Festival of Fantasy Parade

As for food, we started the morning with a delicious snack – Nutella and fruit waffles from a small spot near Liberty Square. Some people consider this overrated, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to. My son had to get some weird red and blue frozen drink topped with whipped cream. Lunch was at Columbia Harbor House, which aside from having AC and a nice view, the food was very overrated. I don’t remember what we all had, but while no one hated their food, no one really loved it. The vegetarian in the group ended up with what looked like the tastiest option – a couscous salad and some fresh-looking veggies.

Eating at Columbia Harbor House

Today was the only day that we did not take a hotel break all day. We had a dinner reservation at the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue, which is at Fort Wilderness and, therefore, a longish boat ride away. Before leaving the park, we tried to meet Merida, but she was unfortunately rained out. Instead, we hopped in line to meet Mickey – who actually talks! – at the Town Square Theater. Tinkerbell also has her meet there, now, but the line was too long. After meeting with Mickey, we waited for the boat and made our way out to Fort Wilderness. After the rain, it was actually quite chilly on the water, after a whole day of sweltering heat. It felt good, but weird.

Hoop Dee Doo was really probably the highlight of our whole trip. We had heard such good things about it, but it actually exceeded our expectations. The fried chicken was some of, if not the, best I have ever had. The sides were also excellent – a delicious salad, corn, mashed potatoes, and beans. And the beer came by the pitcherful, and we drank it out of mason jars! The show that they put on during dinner was hilarious, both for adults and kids. I currently have HDDR booked for my birthday and really cannot think of a better way to spend it this year!

On the boat ride

My Father in Law - the vegetarian - with the fried chicken

The Spread

The kids get in on the action with loud washboards!

YES!!

We went to the 6pm show, and I thought that we would be fine to get back to MK by our 9:15 Fastpass window to meet Anna and Elsa, but it didn’t happen. It was past ten by the time we got back, and my son started crying because we had to miss out on the experience. Of course, I felt bad, but I really thought it would be plenty of time.  The boats out of Fort Wilderness just take way, way too long. It’s probably best just to take the bus – direct from there – back to your hotel, rather than try and get back to MK. I think that this is offered after both the 6 and 8:30 shows. We ended up on the boat to the Contemporary, walked back to MK, and then just got right on our bus – huge waste of time.

Day 4

Today was our Epcot day. Since I am writing this ten months after the fact, there is a lot that I am going to forget. But I will do my best. We had booked a pre-rope drop reservation at Akershus, the Norwegian-themed princess restaurant. We had hoped that this would give us a big jump on the day, but it turned out not to really work that well. We got to the entrance in plenty of time for our 8:05 reservation, but they didn’t even let us through the gate until 8 or a few minutes after. We then walked to the Norway pavilion, trying to balance our enjoyment of the mostly empty park with wanting to hurry. Once we got to Norway, there was a long line just to check in to the restaurant of all the faster walkers. The meal started with a one-on-one meet and greet with Belle, then we were brought to our table. The breakfast consists of family style all-you-care-to-enjoy traditional American breakfast foods – scrambled eggs, a potato casserole, bacon, and sausage. In addition, there is a nice buffet of cold foods, with things like fresh fruit, pastries, and some Norwegian specialties like lox.

Ariel was the best princess - super funny.

Our first stop of the day was at Test Track, since we opted for no Fastpass for that in favor of a FP at Soarin’ later. This made sense because we knew that Akershus would be closer to Test Track and, in my experience, lines there take a bit longer to build. There was a 20 minute wait time posted, which is about what we waited, inclusive of the “build-your-own-car” aspect of the experience.

We spent much of the morning walking around Future World and enjoying The Land, The Seas, Spaceship Earth, a stop an Inoventions for Sum of All Thrills and some of the other experiences that the kids really love, as well as a ride on Mission: Space. I tried orange for the first time, and I honestly couldn’t even tell that we were spinning. I still have no idea if perhaps it was not functioning when I rode. Everyone else rode green, and we met up at the arcade part after, which my kids enjoy. It has a huge group video game and a small inside playscape, two experiences which appeal perfectly to my kids.

Our tour guide at the start of the tour

One of the highlights of the day (and trip) was surprising my husband with a backstage tour of Living with the Land - it's called the Behind the Seeds tour, it's cheap by Disney standards, and you get to
see the back of one of our favorite attractions. My husband is really into gardening, which is why I thought it would be a hit for him. It was a lot of fun, though some of the members of our group were on the odd side!

Some of the interesting and innovative growing systems being tested at LWTL

Huge vegetables of an unknown variety

Selfie with the huge vegetables

After a hotel break, we came back to see the World Showcase and have dinner. We also got into the Chase Disney Visa free character meet and greet. Characters vary, but we met Mickey and Goofy. We had tried earlier in the day, but found a very long line. Right before closing and we were the only ones. The best part is that they give you an actual printed picture before you leave the park. Here is a group shot:

After the huge breakfast, we really didn’t do anything much for lunch, though had at least one Mickey Premium, and checked out the interesting (and free) soda at Club Cool, representing Coke products sold throughout the world. We mainly just walked around World Showcase, I don’t think that we even did the two rides. We ended up in Italy for dinner and managed to get a table at Tutto Gusto, the bar/lounge side of Tutto Italia. We were walk-ins, not a common dining experience at WDW. The food was tasty – great bread, olives, and other apps, though my steak was one of the worst I have ever had – super fatty and over-cooked.

We somewhat managed to roll over to France and get ice cream sandwiches from Les Artisans de Glacee. I had heard that the brioche sandwiches were to die for, and they really were quite good. Next time, I would probably go with one of the macaron ice cream sandwiches, but the warm brioche with the cold ice cream was tasty as can be. It’s essentially thick bread with ice cream of your choice and sauce (chocolate or raspberry), put into a Panini press. The ice cream stays cold, while the bread gets toasty and forms something of a cocoon around the cool center.

Day 5

The last day is always sad to face. Today was our one and only Animal Kingdom day. Sadly, Ben’s parents were not quite up to joining us first thing, due to some serious blister action. We spent the morning checking out rides – our daughter tried, and hated, Expedition Everest. We also got faces painted, played in DinoLand USA, riding Primeval Whirl and Triceratops Spin before running over to our brunch at Tusker House. We scheduled it for breakfast, but knew that the meal would switch over to lunch while we were there and it did. This is a character meal with a buffet, and one of the better of this sort of meal. The characters are in safari gear, and we kept asking them which animal was their favorite on safari – all of them indicated lion, which was funny. The food was excellent, one of the best buffet meals that I have ever had. My son even participated in the parade with Donald around the room, being a goofball the whole time. 

Goofy faces with Goofy

Daisy was the best!

Apparently, Donald did something funny

Love those grins!

After breakfast, my in laws had made their way to park, so we did the safari ride and walked around some of the wildlife trails. The kids were also doing the Wilderness Explorers badge-collecting, which is a super fun way to get them interested in the wildlife. We also went to the Lion King show, which is such a great show though I am way more into it than the kids are, for the most part. My mother in law also loved it.

On safari

AK is a smallish park, and we were all pretty well done for, so we left around 3 and spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool, arcade, and playing ping pong. We had a little party later with cocktails from the pool bar brought back to our room, and I drunkenly booked the “bounce back” offer, which was for dates in September with free dining. Don’t know yet if we can go, but excited by the prospect.

The next day was a travel day with a very early morning. One moment of panic occurred when I thought I had left my phone in the room, ran as fast as I could back to the room so as not to miss the Magical Express, and then realized that I had it with me all along. Otherwise, it was smooth sailing, er, flying,  all the way home, and we were all able to get ready for back-to-school the next day in a reasonable amount of time.

Overall, this was an amazing trip. Crowds were fairly light, as we had hoped for at this time of year, and while it was hot and humid, we were fine. It rained a bit most days, but nothing serious. One very pleasant surprise was our hotel. We had never stayed at Pop before, but found that this was the cheapest way to do this trip with six people. It was a bit of a risk because they do not guarantee connecting rooms, and without connecting rooms, it's way less fun to go as a group. But we took the chance and it worked out. For around $100 per night per room, which includes transportation to and from the airport, all buses to and from the parks, a few pools, and nice arcade, a decent food court, and all of the awesome scenery, we really feel like this is a bargain. The rooms are small and definitely heavily used. It is nowhere near as nice as its neighbor, Art of Animation, in terms of furnishings and decor, but I am now an avid Pop fan. The main pool is on the small side, and one of the days the water was actually too warm to be at all refreshing, but the rest of the days it was nice. Again, compared to AoA, it's small and a bit dated, but for the price, it's nicer than what you would get at many hotels across the United States.