Food, Fatigue, and Fun-- A Thanksgiving/Holiday 2022 Trip Report (Report Completed 8/6/23)

[nikmasteed]

Hi everyone!
This is my first ever trip report! I've been to WDW now 5 times in my life, and this was my second trip as a father. In 2017 or so, before our last trip, I found the DIS and became a bit more enthralled in keeping up with WDW news and always now sort-of perpetually planning the next trip in my mind, even if we have no intent to go anymore frequently than every 4-5 years.

We just returned last weekend from an extended (12 night) trip with extended family (10 total people). Throughout this report, for the most part, when I say "we" or "us" I'm usually speaking from the perspective of just my immediate household-- me, my wife, and kids. So here's the beginning of my report!

POST #1: BASICS, OVERALL SCHEDULE, ETC

DATES: 11/19/22 - 12/2/2022 (12 of these nights in WDW)

OUR FAMILY OF 10:
Me: I'm the main planner and the dad, late 30's. I like to do alot and my general inertia is at a much faster pace than the rest of my immediate family, so on occasion I'd stick around the parks a little longer with some of my extended family, if my immediate family was done for the night or not ready. At the same time, I am always pretty mindful of living the moment and making sure I'm actually experiencing and enjoying the pace of my vacation.
My wife and kids: Wife is also late 30's, her 3rd trip to WDW. Two daughters 14 and 10, this was the 2nd trip for both. They all know it so I can say it-- they're all slower to get going in the morning, less apt to stay late, and I know that I need to go at their pace most of the time. My wife picks it up a bit when at WDW, at least in the morning, because I think she knows it's gotta be at least a bit of a different pace there. My older daughter (14) has a condition called POTS which we've only recently learned about that actually affects her energy level heavily. We are still only just learning about how to manage this, so it was a concern heading into a trip like this. You'll see if you follow along, it turned out fine, but I did feel bad for her as she decided to skip some rides that I think she would not have skipped otherwise. In particular, at some points she just was not up for getting onto a rollercoaster. I did pursue and receive a DAS pass for her, which was helpful. Our younger daughter, despite our best efforts, is stubbornly unwilling to even try ANY rollercoaster, even the Barnstormer. But there's so much to do it's all good. One other note about younger daughter-- she is cast as Wendy in her school's upcoming musical Peter Pan Jr, so that will come up a few times during the trip!
My mother: Mid 60's. Unfortunately, she was hit by a drunk driver 3-4 years ago and she had terrible injuries to her feet/ankles, which are all now healed and thank god it did not lead to any permanent disability, but leading up to this trip she was very concerned about how much her feet would be able to handle. She did not want to use an ECV or wheelchair, and none of us pushed on that decision, but the amount of walking did turn out to be too much for her at times and she ultimately skipped a couple of the park days to rest.
My brother's family: He and his wife, mid 30's and their 5 yo daughter. These guys are the marathoners in the group-- our niece was a major trooper the whole trip and they all stayed pretty much until close most of the park nights. This brother joins me in a good amount of the planning and Genie+ finagling.
My other brother and his girlfriend: 30's. These two came for just the second half of the overall trip, and without kids they were pretty focused on rides when in the parks, they did the drink around the world at Epcot, things like that.

THE PLANNING, OUR GOALS, ETC:
This trip was booked at the 500 day mark, in July 2021. We were not delayed by the pandemic or anything like that, we had already been looking towards 2022 for WDW for quite awhile. As you can tell, we're not frequent Disney visitors but we collectively all enjoy Disney and have enjoyed anticipating the trip together over the last 2 years. In 2018, most of this same group went to WDW-- my family went for 10 nights, the rest were there for half that. So this 2022 was a big trip for all of us. We have all always been enamored with going to Disney for the holidays and experiencing the Christmas party, so that was a big focus. And, since they are infrequent, we tend to plan long WDW trips. You'll also see that we really enjoy the Table Service dining at Disney World, so there was alot of that. Alot.

Our 2018 experience did play into how we planned this trip-- my wife and I, again due to the infrequency, have tended to view our WDW vacations as a chance to splurge on deluxe resorts. We really enjoy experiencing the various resorts and you'll see that as I write more. In 2018, we did a split-stay at WL and AKL and loved both. On our departure day in 2018, we ate at Ohana which was our first experience seeing the Polynesian. That day, we walked around that resort a bit and told ourselves THIS is where we must stay next time we go to WDW. So, staying at the Poly was a major focus in the planning-- we were pretty excited about the Moana-themed refresh of the rooms and are glad that whole resort reno worked out well in advance of our trip, since we had tunnel vision for the Poly.

But! We couldn't afford a near 2-week stay at the Poly, and we enjoyed the last split-stay so we did another! Caribbean Beach appealed alot due to the recent renovations at the resort, along with the Skyliner, so that is how we "economized" by booking our first half at CBR. My mom and brother's family stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter as their 1st week moderate resort.

In 2018, we went in August-- never again with that heat. Since we wanted to go for the holidays, we were very much looking forward to much "cooler" weather in late November. Unfortunately, we didn't quite get the 70's weather we'd been hoping for (had mostly 80's and it made a big impact), but I'm getting ahead of myself.

My two kids are major Harry Potter fans, and my wife and I are fans as well, so we also made visiting the Wizarding World at Universal a top priority, having never been. I will have MUCH more to say about this when I get to that post. Spoiler alert: it didn't work out great. Many would tell me we made a mistake by not staying a night or two at a premium Universal resort in order to get the Express Pass. I did raise this with the family when planning, but no one had any interest in switching resorts twice, so we did not go that route. But, again, much more on this later.

Finally, the last impact from our 2018 trip on our 2022 trip planning was that we wanted to build in full days to take a break from theme parks. In 2018 we were in a park every single day. Ultimately, you'll see in my conclusion post that I wish I had built even more resort/break time into this 2022 trip. But finally...

OUR SCHEDULE:

We had 8-day base non-hopper park tickets. + Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. + a 1-day two-park ticket for Universal
We stayed 6 nights at Caribbean Beach (standard view), followed by 6 nights at Polynesian (pool/marina view)

POST #2: SAT NOV 19: DRIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA TO ORLANDO (The rest of our family flew). Arrive in Orlando mid-evening and stay overnight at an economical hotel off-property.
POST #3: SUN NOV 20: CHECK-IN AT CARIBBEAN BEACH. Spend some general leisure time on-property before check-in with a table service breakfast, etc
POST #4: MON NOV 21: EPCOT
POST #5: TUE NOV 22: HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
POST #6: WED NOV 23: HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
POST #7: THU NOV 24: MAGIC KINGDOM
POST #8: FRI NOV 25: UNIVERSAL. Really just a focus on Wizarding World.
POST #9: SAT NOV 26: SWITCH FROM CARIBBEAN BEACH TO POLYNESIAN. Plan was to take it easy and get to the Poly relatively early to begin enjoying that resort.
POST #10: SUN NOV 27: Break during the day. MICKEY'S VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS PARTY at night.
POST #11: MON NOV 28: EPCOT
POST #12: TUE NOV 29: ANIMAL KINGDOM
POST #13: WED NOV 30: MAGIC KINGDOM
POST #14: THU DEC 1: HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
POST #15: FRI DEC 2: CHECK-OUT. But plan to spend most of the day leisurely at WDW, getting some final resort time in and a last table service dinner before getting a couple hours of driving north in.
POST #16: SAT DEC 3: DRIVE FROM GEORGIA TO PENNSYLVANIA

So, as you can see, we planned alot for this trip. If you've made it this far reading, thank you! Probably will be tomorrow when I write the next post or two.

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

lookin forward to hearing about your trip

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[SomeImaginationHuh]

Excited to hear more!

 

[nikmasteed]

POST #2: SAT NOV 19- A FULL DAY ON 95
LOTS OF CONCRETE, A WAVE TO PEDRO, AND MAKING GREAT TIME

So after all the planning, all the anticipation, the lead-up to the trip snuck up on all of us. It was almost unreal that the trip 1.5-2 years in the making was approaching-- life hadn't slowed down, we were still learning about how to try to manage my daughter's fatigue from POTS, I still tried in vain to finish the Christmas lights on the house, and we also had plans the weekend prior with some old college friends. I finished work on Friday and my wife and I hurriedly completed packing. I loaded up the SUV and tried to get about 4 hours or so of sleep before our planned overnight departure from the house.

At about 2:45am, we kicked off our fun old-fashion family Christmas by heading out in the old front-wheel-drive sleigh! We chose to drive (as we did in 2018) partially to save on flight costs but also because we really enjoyed having our car available to us during the last trip. Even with higher gas prices and Disney parking fees it still penciled out. I had already booked an economical hotel for the next night on International Drive in Orlando, so the pressure was on to bring the plan to fruition by doing the whole drive in one day. It's about 15 hours of driving-- with stops and all that my goal was to get to the hotel in about 18 hours, which would get us there by a reasonable 9pm. The menu for car tunes included Christmas music, Taylor Swift, and the Hamilton soundtrack. Every time I suggest playing the Back to the Future soundtrack in the car, it falls on deaf ears.... Anyway, getting through the typically busy Wash DC metro area by sunrise was goal #1, which we did with success! We stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel just south of Richmond VA just as the sun was coming up, at about 7am.



Breakfast was a great start to the daylight hours, and we set back off for about 10 hours more of driving. On a long drive like that, you just look forward to all those little milestones to break it up as best you can-- you cross the border into North Carolina and anyone that's made the drive through that state on I-95 knows that as you get closer to South Carolina you start seeing the plentiful kitschy fun billboards for South of the Border. This always brings me back to my family trips to WDW in 1993 and 1997 when we crammed 5 people into a sedan, and my brothers and I always had packs of Coca-Cola pressed up against our pillows, and similarly we always got a kick out of those billboards. At least one of those years we actually stopped there, so it always has been a fun little footnote reference for our family. During this drive, we kept the rest of our extended family up-to-date via text chain on our progress towards SOTB and at 11:45am we reached that milestone! Although, we didn't stop, as my mom texted back "Say hi to Pedro for me!" we just kept driving right on by into SC...



Those last few southern states have alot of miles... but the family held up really well and aside from quick bathroom breaks and gas fill-ups, we kept our eyes on the prize and just, kept, going. We had some minimal traffic near Savannah, but just kept going. The bridge over the St Mary's River into Florida is always a welcome sight, then you realize you still have 2-1/2 hours but we just kept going. We got to I-4 around 6pm, and things were looking good for a 7pm arrival at our hotel! Then, the Orlando I-4 traffic hit, of course right when we were most eager to get the heck out of the car. But we just... kept... going.

We finally arrive at our hotel (Rosen Inn on International Drive) somewhere around 7:30pm. With my goal having been arrival somewhere in the 8 o'clock hour, I was thrilled. Less than 17 hours! We knew what this meant... we'd be able to crash, get a good night's sleep, then start off bright-eyed and mousy-tailed on Sunday morning with a REAL DISNEY WORLD BREAKFAST!!! So after a quick Pizza Hut delivery, that's exactly what we did.

NEXT POST...
Through the gate on Osceola Pkwy, our first Disney meal, a rainy check-in, and some Frontier-style family fun!

 

[nikmasteed]

POST #3: SUN NOV 20- ARRIVAL!!
THROUGH THE GATE ON OSCEOLA, A RAINY CHECK-IN DAY, AND SOME FRONTIER-STYLE FUN

As I mentioned in the intro, the rest of my family would probably prefer a slower start to the day in most cases. With a 9:30ish reservation for breakfast at Trattoria Al Forno, I was expecting my wife to be good with that. But, when in our hotel on Saturday night and letting her know the plan, I threw out another option-- we could do that, or, although it's no guarantee, we could try to show up at 7:30 at Topolino's Terrace to take a shot at getting a walk-up character breakfast instead. My attempts at getting an advance reservation for Topolino's had been unsuccessful despite a subscription to Mousewatchers dining alerts. My wife was much more interested in starting off with characters if possible, so even though that meant a probably unnecessarily early wake-up, we agreed to give it a shot.

But first, when you get to Disney you've gotta anticipate that drive through the welcome gate! There's nothing like it! My wife was having trouble with her phone camera when we first drove through the gate on Osceola Parkway, so I happily turned around and we did it again to get the photo! Haha



Knowing that it was possible that security at Riviera resort would not let me into the lot without a dining reservation, my plan was to park at Caribbean as close as I could (since we were checking in there that day) and just walk over. However, in just following the GPS we ended up entering CBR property from the south end on Cayman Way which appeared to be restricted to staff but the gate was open, and we ended up in the Riviera parking lot anyway no problem. Two quick asides on our way from the parking lot to Topolino's-- I have a modest following on my DIY-lawncare Instagram account @hometurfconsulting and my plan for content during vacation was to post lawn/grass-focused photos into my Stories throughout the trip; so, I started my own fun right away by getting into that mode with a few quick Riviera posts. Second, I mentioned that my younger daughter was cast as Wendy in the school play for this spring. We were delighted to come upon the Peter Pan murals at the western portal at Riviera near the Skyliner. How could we pass-up this photo op:



Anyway, we found our way into the elevator lobby outside of Topolino's, where a few others were starting to gather for the 7:30 opening. Unfortunately, IMMEDIATELY upon opening the doors the cast members notified everyone waiting that they would be unable to accept walk-ups at all the entire day. We hung around until the clock actually hit 7:30 so I could at least attempt to do a walk-up through the MDE app, but the notice came up on the Topolino's page that due to high demand walk-up option would not be available that day. No worries, we knew this was a possibility. I'd keep trying for it with the Mousewatchers alerts for later in the vacation. Just before our arrival, Disney had changed the ADR cancellation policy to allow cancellations up to 2 hrs prior, instead of 24 hrs, so I had already changed our 9:30 Trattoria Al Forno res to 10am, which would give me time to cancel if we had had success getting into Topolino's. So, after the denial at Topo's I checked availability again and moved our Trattoria res to 8:15, perfect. We made our way over to Boardwalk in the car, meandered our way to the restaurant while taking in the Christmas decorations at the resort along the way. We've never been to Trattoria before, so we were still looking forward to a new experience. Turned out to be a great first meal at Disney! My older daughter stated her goal/desire to have Mickey waffles EVERY single day of our vacation. I had the breakfast pizza and I believe it was a Tiramisu french toast that my wife got. Our waitress made us feel very welcome, asking us about our plans, which helped make us feel like we'd arrived into the warm and welcoming Disney bubble. A good start!

So, since this was check-in day, and since one of the favorite parts of Disney World for both of my kids is pool time, the original plan was to basically spend most of the day at the main CBR pool, until meeting up with the rest of the extended family for dinner. Florida weather let us know early on that it would not be cooperating with our desire for sunny 70-degree days-- it soon began raining. But, we headed to the CBR lobby to just start to get a lay of the land and to hope for an early ability to get into our room (online check-in already completed, and in-person when arriving at CBR I asked the front desk if they could confirm which building we'd be in-- they were able to confirm that our request for Jamaica Building #44 had been granted!). We checked out the CBR shop which unfortunately caused us to miss an impromptu showing by Goofy/Donald/Pluto in their 50th costumes in the lobby! But we did see them briefly as they headed out the door. Since it was raining and our room wasn't yet ready, we decided to check out the Skyliner at the CBR station. Older daughter is not a fan of heights and hadn't been looking forward to the Skyliner, and once we got to the station younger daughter was experiencing a bothered stomach; so we sat on a bench and waited that out. We ended up letting younger daughter sit with one of us parents in the station while each of us parents took turns on the leg to AoA/Pop with older daughter (she did fine with the heights even though she never really came around to it). Then headed back to the CBR lobby.



Unfortunately, our check-in day plans just weren't meant to be-- we sat in the lobby the next few hours while the rain continued. My younger daughter and I kept flirting with going in the pool anyway since the rain was light, but we held off because it seemed just annoying enough. My wife also was developing a pretty bad cold and sneeze, to the point where she was concerned about being able to sit at dinner without bothering everyone with her sneezing. By 2:30, we were tired of waiting (literally! see photo of younger daughter below!), so I made the executive decision that I'd get mine and younger daughter's swimming stuff to prepare for some rainy swim time. Well, this apparently did the trick-- while I jostled with the stuff in our bags in the rain at the car, I got the notification that our room was ready! So, we abandoned the plans to swim and made our way to the room to get settled in. In texting with the extended family, who had arrived by plane + Sunshine Flyer, it sounded like their room at French Quarter was ready around the same time. While my family settled in, I made a quick grocery run at Winn-Dixie (including a blast of cold meds for my wife) and dropped off my brother's cot and stroller for him at POFQ.



Our dinner reservation was set for 8:45pm for the Hoop Dee Doo Revue at Ft Wilderness, for all 8 of us. Our family of 4 had done this on arrival day in 2018, which was our/my first HDDR experience, and we had loved it as an arrival day experience. I also knew that my mother would absolutely love this show, so it ended up being a solid plan for all of us to have our first dinner of the trip together there. We would have much preferred one of the earlier scheduled showtimes, having Epcot plans for the next day, but HDDR has remained a popular res and nothing earlier came up on MW, so 8:15 it was. But all good! We had an absolute HOOT and my wife's cold seemed to be miraculously knocked out by the meds. I loved the food there and the show was great-- the cast included our family in the song where they shout out all the states people came from.

Then, of course afterwards with the late showing we got back to our room very late, I want to say 11:30. Having the car made it easier to get back to CBR of course. We got our Magicbands out before hopping in bed to be ready for Park day #1.

NEXT POST...
Heat and Fatigue, Crowds and Crowds, and $29 Genie +, Oh My!

 

[SEAGULL59]

Excited to hear about your trip! I was also there on that rainy Sunday trying to navigate through Epcot. It was the coldest day of our trip. Hope the rest of your days were drier!

 

[nikmasteed]

Excited to hear about your trip! I was also there on that rainy Sunday trying to navigate through Epcot. It was the coldest day of our trip. Hope the rest of your days were drier!

Yep it was the coldest day of our trip too! Wish that wasn't the case because aside from the rain we couldve used several more days in that temp range. By and large, rain didnt end up being a big problem on our trip, just ruined our pool plans the first day thats all!

 

[Counting Stars]

Off to a great start - looking forward to your updates. You really took on a big task planning for 10! I thought planning for five was rough

 

[nikmasteed]

POST #4: MON NOV 21- EPCOT
HEAT, FATIGUE, AND CROWDS ATTACK, WHILE GENIE+ HAS ME BY THE...

So here was our attitude about Genie+ heading into the trip... obviously, we were no more pleased about paying for something that was included in our last trip, but I'd gotten over it. Now, were we going to buy it, and if so how often? My initial assumption was that we'd get it some, but not all the days. We knew we were coming a very busy week, so maybe we'd end up using Genie+ the first week to be able to get some things done, then maybe take it easy with the spending on it in Week 2 with less pressure to cross things off the list. As this past summer/fall developed, older daughter was increasingly impacted by something causing her incredible fatigue with limited physical exertion, and impacted more heavily in warmer temperatures and when standing for long periods of time. We now know it is a syndrome caused POTS that will need ongoing management, but that and a crowded day at Hersheypark in PA confirmed what we were going to do about Genie+. We had a pretty limited amount of fun at Hersheypark due to incredibly long lines, so we were going to need to get Genie+ at Disney. Being granted a DAS pass also turned out to be huge blessing, but on this first day I still didnt quite know how that was going to function in practice, and I also knew that it could only be used for attractions my daughter was going on and that not our entire group of 8 would be able to join under that pass (it has a limit of 6 total, the person with the DAS pass must be one of the 6).

I was prepared for a cost over $20/person, having seen the recent announcement of dynamic pricing and the new "max" of $22/person. That $22 figure was in my mind when I woke up sometime after 6am, opened the app, and saw... "Get it today at $29 per Guest" WHAT? I'm not going to get on a big soapbox here, several things about Genie+ really impacted how much I enjoyed my vacation. But two of them were a) scrambling with the system early in the morning, everyday and b) the cost being a daily surprise. I mean, in all honesty we had the mindset that cost was cost and it helped me move past it quickly, but this is a product/service you need to make a decision on in a time-sensitive manner. Given that, jacking up the price so much without having anything published ahead of time I just thought was wrong, and taking advantage of your customers. It left me with a bad taste, multiple times. Anyway, that's enough of that for the trip reports-- I will share whether I bought it each day (I did, most days) but I won't dwell on the costs.

So, park opening at Epcot was 8:30, meaning 8am for resort guests. This was our first park day, so we still needed to figure out what our morning routine/flow was going to be. My next minor frustration was seeing that Centertown Market starts serving at 7am. So, let me get this right-- if we want to take advantage of early entry, I've got to simultaneously make G+ selections while arriving at CM for breakfast, then we have a limited amount of time to eat before heading to the Skyliner. It really wasn't feasible to arrive at 8am unless you sacrifice a real breakfast beforehand. We didn't really want to do that. Anyway, breakfast at Centertown became our default routine, with me making G+ selections while my wife ordered food. Then we ate and decided to walk to the Riviera skyliner station as opposed to the CBR station.

Looking back at texts with my brother (the other planner) it looks like our family got into the park entry line at International Gateway at 8:09am. By the time we got into the park it was roughly 8:25am. So, yeah, not really feasible to take advantage of early entry. I knew that rope dropping Remy was out, which was confirmed by a standby line all the way to Morocco. We had booked a late-day LL for it, so no big worry. The rest of the family since they bussed were making their way from the front of the park toward Frozen. They got into a relatively short standby line for that while we made our trek over there. Man, Epcot has alot of walking. Us 4 did DAS for Frozen and pulled my niece and my mom onto that so they got an extra ride of it. Meeting Anna and Elsa was right there and opened at 9:15, so we figured we'd knock that out as well. Unfortunately, even though we were there right when that meet/greet opened, we weren't really on top of it I guess while we did bathroom breaks and we ended up waiting 45 minutes for Anna/Elsa. This was fine as a priority for my 5-yo niece, but ultimately I think it took alot out of the rest of us with little to show for it. Anyway, we move on.

We next went to Mexico, with plans to head to the Land pavilion after. The 5 minute line for Gran Fiesta Tour swelled a bit to 10-15 as the crowds really started to balloon all around us. The high was in the upper 70's this day and sunny, so for our family the heat was already starting to take its toll even though that temp wasnt terrible. We took a break on the walk, grabbing some Joffrey's, snacks for kids, and my brother and sis-in-law hopped into the Goofy meet line with my niece and my younger daughter while my mom and older daughter rested.



We made it to the Land. The other side subtext to our trip, especially to our first week, was my brother and I frequently fielding Mousewatchers alerts to try to get the dining reservations we were still trying to add to our plans. Space 220 was one of those elusive reservations but I think ultimately everybody that wanted to experience that we were able to achieve. At this point in the day, a reservation for 2 at Space was approaching so my brother took my niece to that, while the rest of us ate a snack/quasi lunch at Sunshine Seasons in the Land. It became the norm that we would kind of split up for long stretches and just simply meet up as a full group whenever it worked out. That was fine with all of us. We next did both Soarin' and Living with the Land. Funnily enough LWTL turned out to be one of my older daughter's favorite attractions. I do think it is a bit underappreciated.

At this point it was already like 130 or 2pm. I had gotten a paid ILL$ for Guardians for both older daughter and I-- we were not able to get the 7am VQ, but ultimately our group did also secure a boarding group with the 1pm VQ (more on that later). So right after lunch, older daughter and I did Guardians while my wife and younger daughter head over to Space 220 for our 3ish lounge reservation. Guardians is an absolutely amazing coaster! It really really did not disappoint, and was such a fun attraction. I could have ridden that 10+ times if given the chance. That said, it takes time! So we ended up needed to rush to meet my wife for the Space 220 lounge res. But, it was another opportunity to take a nice cool break. We enjoyed our experience there and purposefully did not stuff ourselves, we just got mostly appetizers.





So with a group this big, inertia is a fickle beast and time is not your friend because it takes time to move a group that big! Especially with my daughter who is fatigued easily and my mom with her feet. Next, we had gotten DAS/LL for Remy's so we were heading all the way over to France pavilion to meet the rest of the extended family who had spent a bit more time over in that area. We had a dinner reservation setup for Rose & Crown so the plan was just to linger in that part of the World Showcase for awhile. That all worked out fine in the leadup to dinner, took a few photo ops etc.



In 2018, we had an absolutely wonderful dinner at Rose & Crown where we had been able to eat outside late in the evening and stay into dessert for Illuminations. I knew that it would be unlikely to recreate that and I also knew that the location is not optimal viewing for Harmonious. But still, we were somewhat well setup to at least try for something close to that previous experience. As was typical, we had two sets of reservations for 4 each, and R&C was more than willing to seat us together but it would need to be inside, which was not a surprise at all. We had actually a pretty long time until Harmonious so the plan was to stretch it out into a pretty long meal, dessert, etc. So we did that.

I mentioned that we'd secured a boarding pass for Guardians via the 1pm VQ. The return time ended up being right at dinner seating. Most of us were more than fine skipping that (I had already done it earlier in the day), but my brother and his wife were really looking forward to that ride so we let them go run off and do that while we started dinner. I felt a bit bad for the server but he was great and didnt have any problem with 2 people coming in halfway through the meal. At the end of dinner, he ushered us to the small viewing area next to the restaurant which at least let us avoid jostling with the crowds. The viewing angle indeed was not optimal. But the show was still enjoyable and it was good to see Harmonious for the first time! Still, we knew we were missing some of the show so set it as a priority to get more optimal viewing in next week's Epcot day.

The trip back to CBR was uneventful aside from everyone being incredibly tired, and long lines at the Skyliner! It wasn't terrible, but the crowds at the park were just massive. As I type this, it seems we didn't really do a whole lot with that $29 Genie+. I didnt try to remember every LL use we got, and I may be missing something, but especially during a super busy week you need to temper your expectations pretty heavily on what you're going to get out of it. I also wasn't impressed after Day 1 how the system functions in the app. Anyway... a decent first park day.

NEXT POST...
Someone's Got a Friend in Woody, Salty Snacks, and Fantasmic Impresses

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

That sounds lake a great first day. Looking forward to reading more!

 

[nikmasteed]

POST #5: TUE NOV 22- HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
SOMEONE'S GOT A FRIEND IN WOODY, SALTY SNACKS, AND FANTASMIC IMPRESSES

For the second park day, my family was still in pretty decent shape in terms of getting up early for arriving close to rope drop. They were starting to rustle and get up as I was texting my brother about our plans for G+-- not alot of Star Wars fans in our group (nothing against SW just not super into it; still was looking forward to seeing Galaxy's Edge) so we only sought ILL for 4 of us-- myself, my brother, his wife, and their 5yo. I went for those at 7am while my brother was going to try for Slinky-- we ended up with Mickey/Minnie's Runaway Railway as the initial G+ selection (I think it was for mid-morning). Family and I were at Centertown Market for breakfast per our usual routine, where a fellow guest saw me struggling to take a selfie of all of us eating. Thank you very much to this kind person, but I just had to chuckle at how the photos they took came out.



We didn't quite succeed in getting to HS by the start of resort guest early entry (8am) but I've already shared the challenges of doing so without giving up breakfast. We still did pretty good, we were still on the skyline at CBR by a few minutes before 8 and it was super quick, getting us into the park entry line by about 8:05 and in the park just a few minutes later. My wife and I actually remarked to each other how efficient the entry process was at HS. We were all pretty excited for Hollywood Studios for a few reasons, probably the primary one being that we all love Toy Story Land. We HAD seen it in 2018, so it wasn't new, but we're all big fans of the series and characters. The others in our group were only slightly ahead of us and we all decided to make Toy Story Mania our first attraction, which we got on pretty quickly and had a great time. In the meantime, I reserved a DAS selection for 6 of us for Slinky dog for redeeming anytime after 1020am.

After Mania, we noticed that the meet/greet for Woody & Jessie appeared to be just kinda getting started and had a pretty short line. We hopped on it! I want to say we waited 15 minutes or so. This turned out to be a highlight of our trip actually-- my mom really doesn't like being in the photos, so at Photopass locations she usually just hangs back or off to the side and takes her own additional photos while our nuclear families get our photos. This time, she did the same, but after we were all done the cast members and characters swarmed her and swooped her into her own singular interaction with Woody and Jessie. We could tell she had fun and really enjoyed it even though it wasn't her intent to interact with the characters herself! It was a special moment!

After this, brother's family and my mom had an ADR at Hollywood and Vine for the Disney Jr breakfast-- with our kids older we skipped that and as far as I can tell looking back at photos, etc, our 4 basically just took things easy and got the kids some salty snacks. Chip and Dale did a distanced appearance nearby so we caught that and listened to the acapella group singing Christmas songs at the center stage. We also saw the short little cavalcade on Hollywood Blvd that featured Santa in a convertible.



Next was our Railway genie+ reservation, where we met back up with the rest of the family and this quickly became one of our favorite rides (we had never experienced it before)-- especially my younger daughter. She doesn't like roller coasters but did really take a liking to all these rides that have the trackless cars, so the Railway rose to the top of her list. Then, armed with the DAS reservation we head back over to Toy Story Land for Slinky Dog Dash. Had a great time on that!

So, I mentioned that one of our kids' favorite parts about Disney World is the resort pools. Not having had a real opportunity in the CBR pool yet, and having made a promise to the kids that we'd get in the pool today, we took a mid-day break and trekked back on the skyliner to do some swimming. My mom came with us while my brother and his family stayed in the park. The pool break hit the spot for this group for sure-- even though it was 70 and overcast it was still very refreshing and I know my mom sure needed to rest her feet. During this break, my wife and I looked ahead to our plans for the next day (which was planned as another HS day) and decided we would make it a late start and more low-key day overall (my mom would join us as well), so during the pool break I looked into making a breakfast reservation at Chef Mickey's for the next day and had success getting a 10:45am reservation.

My family wasn't quite ready to head back to HS by the time a 3:05 ILL reservation for Rise of the Resistance was approaching, and none of them were interested in that ride anyway (nor had we bought the ILL for them), so I ended up heading back to the park myself solo, somewhere around 3pm, to meet my brother. The plan was for my family to come meet us around 6-ish for another DAS ride on Slinky dog, in time for our collective 6:50pm dining reservation at Hollywood & Vine for Minnie's Holiday Dine.

In meeting up with my brother's family, we first hit Rise of the Resistance. This is such a well-done attraction that really makes you feel like you are part of the scene-- we had a great time even though my niece didn't love it (when the First Order asked her if she was going to give up the location of the secret base, she immediately said "yes" which made all of us laugh!!). Next, my brother and sister-in-law were planning on doing some more Disney Jr stuff with my niece before this small group of us had a G+ reservation for Millennium Falcon, so I head back into Galaxy's Edge truly solo in the meantime. This was some enjoyable alone time exploring for me-- again, not a Star Wars fan really but I was looking forward to taking in the Imagineering. I mobile ordered a Ronto Wrap, walked through some of the shopping, took some Photopass photos, and caught the little First Order "show" at the stage in the back of GE where Kylo Ren comes out and starts to walk amongst the crowd. During this jaunt, I also happened to see Tim Tracker and Adam the Woo together-- they weren't actively filming at the moment but I did find the video later of their day there.



So, eventually, I met up with my brother while my sister-in-law was catching the Frozen Sing-a-long with their daughter. The two of us used G+ to get into the LL for Star Tours. At this point, we had both Millennium Falcon and Slinky Dog Dash planned before the dining reservation, and time was looking tight. Slinky was the bigger priority, because my family was meeting back up with us and my mom hadn't ridden it yet, so that was where we head next. Assembling a large group again lost us some time (it just is what it is) so Slinky was all we ended up having time for and we skipped Millennium Falcon. But we got that 2nd ride in on Slinky, which as usual made everyone happy!

Dinner at Minnie's Holiday Dine was fairly enjoyable. Getting the bill was not-- characters + dinner = the most expensive combination you can find, and this was I believe our most expensive meal of the entire trip. What you get for that amount of $ is not a good value, but again Disney's got something you want so you pay what they ask you to pay. The buffet itself was fine and all the food tasted good, and the character interactions were pretty solid. The atmosphere there is fine, nothing special at all. But anyway, we had a good time due to the characters! (Sorry to the cast member that had to cleanup the soft serve ice cream station after my daughter had a mis-hap there).



After dinner we caught a nice family Photopass opportunity at Echo Lake with the christmas tree there, then head to the Fantasmic amphitheater. This was the 2nd showing for Fantasmic so we were hoping it'd be a little less crowded-- it wasn't really, but we got there relatively early, and despite the loooonnnnggg walk being pretty difficult for my mom, it ended up being worth it (for her I think too!) as we somehow scored seats in like the 2nd/3rd row front and center! This was by far the best seating we ever had for Fantasmic, and it really made a massive difference in how much we enjoyed the show versus sitting much further up. We were really glad Fantasmic was back in time for our trip-- we aren't frequent WDW visitors so aside from them obviously incorporating newer movies (Moana etc) the show seemed pretty much the same as I'd remembered from past trips. But, again, being so close, it was amazing!! We loved it, it really impressed.



Having sat up front, we let the crowd disperse after the show and took our sweet time leaving on the way out. We took it slow, the wear on my mom's feet were really taking a toll for her. But we got some more nice photos of the kids on a near empty Hollywood Blvd on the way out. Successful 2nd park day!



NEXT POST...
A Very Leisurely Jaunt on the Monorail Loop, and Dinner in the Cars

 

[Maple Moose]

Following along. Thanks for sharing!

 

[nikmasteed]

POST #6: WED NOV 23- HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS / MONORAIL LOOP
A LEISURELY JAUNT ON THE MONORAIL LOOP AND DINNER IN THE CARS

It was time to slow down a bit. Although my brother and his family were going to continue on with another go go go park day (at Animal Kingdom), my family and my mother needed to catch a breather from the feverish pace of Walt Disney World. In planning this trip, we had 8-day park tickets and, at least for my wife and I, after allocating 2 days for MK, HS, and EP and agreeing that we really and truly were okay with just a single day planned for AK, what were we to do with that 8th allocation? Switching to a 7-day ticket wasn't really going to save any money. In our minds, getting a little extra time at HS with all the newer stuff plus our love for Toy Story Land made the most sense for what we wanted out of the vacation. So, this day I now write about (Wednesday) became that "extra" day (not chronologically) at HS. That set it up as the perfect day to go at a slower pace, sleep in, do just a bit at the park, and to do alot less walking for my mom and daughter's sake. There would be no Genie+ today as we could rely on my daughter's DAS pass to get our group of 5 a few line skips.

Now, that said, I myself have more of that "go go go" in me than my wife, kids, and mother. So, I declared to my wife that I would be rope dropping Hollywood Studios solo while the rest slept in. With our late addition of a Chef Mickey's character breakfast planned for 10:45am, that would give me 90 minutes until 9:30 or so in the park before I'd need to start making my way back to CBR, help get the kids out the door, pick up my mom at POFQ, etc.

Unfettered, I set off to the skyliner station I think around 6:45 or so (it was an 8am resort guest early entry). At the entry gate to HS I was about 4 or 5 people back in the particular line I chose. So, with a prime spot close to the front of the line, what was my strategy going to be? I had already enjoyed Rise yesterday, and hadn't yet gone on Tower of Terror or Rock n Roller Coaster, so part of me figured I'd try to hit both of those quick back to back. But, that seemed too "easy" and not worthy of my having arrived so early. Plus, Rise was really that good. So, I settled on rope dropping Rise and figured I'd be able to do that with a pretty short wait. Around 7:30 (much earlier than I expected) they let resort guests into the park! Making a beeline towards Galaxy's Edge, I was expecting there to be no running and that I'd be a decent amount back behind those at the front front; but, after getting off of the main drag of Hollywood Blvd, several people were doing a light jog. So, I did too! I surprisingly arrived at the standby line for Rise and found myself 7th in line! The cast members slowly led the front of the line through the queue and by 7:40 we were parked in line waiting to enter the first room of the attraction. This was great! I thought. I'd be through the ride and onto the next thing before the official early entry time. Well, as I've said, I'm an infrequent guest so I assume in retrospect that its standard operating procedure for them to wait until the official early entry time (8:00) to actually start the rides. So, it was actually closer to 8:10 by the time they actually let us into the actual attraction. BUT, all good it was yet again so enjoyable to experience!

Still in very good shape in terms of light crowds, I head to the Millennium Falcon for Smuggler's Run and the single-rider line became my friend. I was on the attraction within 5 minutes, joining a family of 3 that asked me if I had done the attraction before. I said no, and they super graciously insisted that I act as a pilot! That was very nice of them, and I did get the sense that being the pilot increased the fun on the ride. I enjoyed it. Afterwards, still trying to be quick and efficient, I caught a quick Photopass opportunity with a photographer who had no wait, then started to make my way over towards the other side of the park.



Again, the single-rider line was going to be my friend in getting more rides in before 9:30. I made my way directly into that line at Rock N Rollercoaster which ultimately did take a bit of time, probably 20 minutes or so total. I was on the ride by about 9:20-9:25. I was off by 9:35 and started making my way out of the park to head back to CBR. I'll take yet another opportunity to exclaim how easy and efficient the Skyliner was, it made it so convenient being at CBR (especially Jamaica).

Fast forward a little bit, after collecting my family, hopping in our car, then picking up my mom at POFQ, we were at the Contemporary by 10:30ish for our ADR at Chef Mickey's. Our hearts melted a bit when we got into the elevator along with a young couple and their infant daughter who was decked out in an adorable outfit with Minnie ears. My wife vocally fawned over how cute this kid was and the parents explained that it was their child's first birthday! They were heading up to Chef Mickey's as well but without a reservation they were hoping for a walk-up. We wished them luck and crossed our fingers for them, but our hearts broke a few minutes later as we observed them getting turned away at the check-in desk. I sort of wish I could report some grand gesture on our family's part and giving them our reservation so this darling little girl could eat with Minnie on her birthday! I guess we aren't that generous it wasn't something that occurred to us I guess until they had already walked off. Oh well, don't judge me! The mom had explained that they were annual passholders so even though their birthday plans had been spoiled, they were frequent visitors.

Anyway, we usually enjoy Chef Mickey's. It always harkens back to my childhood when we viewed it as an extra special meal way back when it was located at Downtown Disney. We enjoyed our food (much more than I remember enjoying it in 2018, I think we preferred the family style) the hash brown casserole there was INCREDIBLE. Right up my and my wife's alley. My older daughter continued her streak of Mickey waffles every single day. The character interactions were GREAT. A very successful meal.



After breakfast, we decided to stop over at the couple of gift shops in the lobby there. I don't think I've explained yet my wife and daughter's respective searches for their ears. Younger daughter had already gotten a pair she liked early in the trip. Older daughter and my wife hadn't yet come across pairs that they loved yet. At the Contemporary shops, my daughter finally found a pair of Slinky Dog ears that suited her, and my wife found a pair that she was ALMOST ready to get. She held off a bit longer, because next we impulsively decided to take a ride around the Monorail loop, so she'd check at the other resorts first.

We hopped on the monorail, skipping the Poly (since we'd be staying there next week) and got off at the Grand Floridian. Although we've never stayed at the GF, it's become a must on each trip to come visit the resort just to experience the lobby. We usually get a meal at 1900 Park Fare but of course that hasn't yet reopened. So, on this trip since it was the holidays we were looking forward to seeing the Gingerbread house for the first time! It did not disappoint, it's certainly an impressive sight. My wife passed on the ear selection at the GF shops.



Soon we were back on the monorail then back at the Contemporary. My wife mulled over her selected pair of ears one more time, and ultimately held off yet again, haha. With it now being early afternoon, it was time to make our way into Hollywood Studios. Dropping our car off at CBR, we were able to show my mom the glory of the Skyliner. We didn't do a ton in the afternoon hours at HS. We hit Mickey/Minnie's Railway again with the DAS pass as well as meeting Olaf. Did Muppetvision. Looked around some shops some more. Took it easy, tried to keep it to a tight geographic area to reduce walking. It wasn't all that long before the next scheduled meal was approaching-- one of our family's all time favorites, Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater.

This had been a tough ADR to score-- ultimately for our group of 5, I had secured 3 different groups of 2 within 10 minutes of each other around 5pm. The hostess was unable to get all 5 of us together (darn!) so we had the kids go with my mom, and my wife and I got to have a "date" in our own car together. Unfortunately we were on opposite sides of the restaurant with each other, but that was okay. We all still had a great time as we love that restaurant. My wife and I shared a burger and artichoke dip, since we weren't too super hungry after our big breakfast.



After the early dinner, it was time to head back to Toy Story Land! Again with the help of the DAS pass we were able to get on Toy Story Mania quickly, followed by Aliens Swirling Saucers, which we hadn't yet done (hadn't done it in 2018 either!) but quickly became one of my younger daughter's favorites! We did not try for Slinky Dog this time. But, it is always so cool to see Toy Story Land lit up at night!



With this having been a "take it easy" day, no one really felt the need to fight crowds at Fantasmic, especially since we had already seen it with such great seats just the night before. It was time to head back to our respective resorts and get some extra rest. Which was a quite nice break for going hard, and quite needed-- as the next day, was to be our first day at the Magic Kingdom, the mother of them all. And no less, on Thanksgiving

NEXT POST...
Wendy Meets Peter, More Pool Time, and the Latest Thanksgiving Meal Ever

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Absolutely loving your report. Can't wait for more!

 

[Paulaparm]

Following along. Looking forward to more

 

[nikmasteed]

POST #7: THU NOV 24- MAGIC KINGDOM
WENDY MEETS PETER, MORE POOL TIME, AND THE LATEST THANKSGIVING MEAL EVER

So, we actually consciously planned our first Magic Kingdom day to be on Thanksgiving, one of the busiest days of the year. Why did we do this? Because we had become enamored with the thought of a family Thanksgiving meal, on Thanksgiving Day, at one of our all-time Disney favorites, the Liberty Tree Tavern. What's not to love about that conceptually, right? All of us at a big long table together, in the Happiest Place on Earth, eating that pot roast.... I mean... come on. In the actual planning of the trip, especially coming out of the pandemic and the change from 180-day planning to 60-day planning, and it being a likely VERY in-demand dining reservation on that particular holiday, we knew that again we'd need to temper our expectations. At 60-days out + whatever it was, yeah we did not get that ADR for any number of people let alone 8.

We went into the actual day with, I think, 4 (it might have even been 5) separate reservations for 4 for Liberty Tree-- one for 11:05am, one for 6:50pm, and two that were very close to each other at... 9pm. None of these were ideal because the only two (to get to our group of 8) that were close together were very late, but hey it was better than nothing. A reminder to all, keep checking availability in the days leading up to your desired dining date-- if you have an alert subscription all the better-- I count 25 Mousewatchers emails for Liberty Tree in the 2 days leading up to Thanksgiving. And yes, we were hoarding some reservations here-- but do not judge me, the system is designed to ENCOURAGE this and even moreso with the revised cancellation policy requiring only 2 hours notice with no fee. So, the plan was to continue keeping an eye on alerts and hope we'd get another res for 4 aligned close to one of our earlier reservations. We prioritized being able to (hopefully) eat together over getting the ideal time. If you read the subtitle of this post, you know where this is heading....

But let's back up to that wonderful wonderful 7am Genie Plus crunch time!!! It actually went pretty smoothly, we bought Mine Train ILL for roughly half our group and got a Peter Pan LL for 12:50. As per usual, breakfast at Centertown Market where I very much enjoyed some messy Avocado Toast:



I believe this was another 8am Early Entry time that was nearly impossible to hit-- looking at my texts it appears we arrived by bus around 8:15. This morning was overcast and crowded, so we did not bother trying to stop for photos on Main Street right away, we head back towards Its a Small World instead with a short wait. Well, not many photos at least, we snuck a quick one in...



All 8 of us went on It's a Small World together-- a favorite of both my mom and my younger daughter, of course, a nice slow boat ride! The nearby lines for Peter Pan and Haunted Mansion were already too long so we head towards Frontierland next. You might recall our first potential for Liberty Tree was scheduled for shortly after 11am, which meant we needed a second reservation to pop up successfully by 9am, which did not happen and we cancelled the 1105. I had reserved a DAS time for several of us for Big Thunder Mountain, so that group did that and next was the standby line for Splash Mountain. Now, let me tell you about my younger daughter. She is STUBBORN. We've been trying to get this girl to TRY rollercoasters for years to no avail to even get her to TRY, and the same goes for Splash Mountain, she hates big drops. I get it. But you gotta TRY at some point, right?!?!? Anyway, stubborn. She was literally the only one out of 8 that did not want to go on Splash, so all 8 of us got into the line, and I did Rider Swap, waiting with my daughter while the other 6 went then I rode by myself.

By this time it was about 10:30. The Tiki Room would unfortunately be our only ride in Adventureland for the time being as the line for Jingle Cruise was too long and I think Pirates was down (it was down alot during our trip). But the Tiki Room served as a welcome break in what was proving to be yet again another HOT HOT day in late November. My niece was funny in the Tiki Room, she kept remarking asking why the birds were talking-- she was not impressed. I forget exactly what was next but I believe it was our ILL for 7DMT.

The cars on this Mine Train ride... who designed those things? Whoever it was only had skinny rail 120-lb people in mind. I enjoy that ride but it's overhyped, is over very quickly, and those cars make it very uncomfortable to ride for many people including myself and I'm only a little overweight. Anyway, I enjoy it enough. Our LL for Peter Pan's Flight was coming up but we had a little bit of time and certainly wanted to get out of the heat again, so we did Mickey's Philharmagic. Then, we got into what was a quite long LL for Peter Pan before my older daughter realized... she thinks she left her phone behind by accident at Philharmagic. Oh no, I thought, this had the potential to be a huge headache. She and I left the LL to go back over to MP where the cast member told me "oh I was just alerted that they found a phone, if you stick around they'll be by soon." This was promising! But the minutes stretched on and eventually I told the CM "Look we're going to go ride Peter Pan since our LL is running out but I should be back in 10-15 minutes." So that's what we did (my younger daughter, again, Wendy in the school play! loved it!) then older daughter and I returned to MP. Same CM was still there, the supervisor hadn't yet come by with the phone, all good. We waited just a few minutes more and the phone was indeed hers and was back in her hands!!! Yikes, crisis averted. I think we lucked out not having it end up in what I'd imagine is somewhat of an insane central Lost & Found recovery process.

Next the two families' paths would diverge again for the next few hours. My brother had a Capture the Magic photo session scheduled and he invited us to join it, but it was HOT and my family wanted to get in some more pool time. So that was our path, and my mom would join us. But first! A MAGICAL MOMENT:

The Peter Pan meet-and-greet spot was nearby, and in looking at the app the next time was coming up! This would be a perfect time for younger daughter to meet the boy who won't grow up-- she was decked out in her "Never Grow Up" Peter Pan shirt and her Peter Pan loungefly bag, so she excitedly got in line with my wife and me. Minutes later we were watching a priceless interaction and once she shared that she is Wendy in the school play, both Peter and the cast member I think sprinkled some pixie dust and gave her some extra interaction time. I have about 1,000 photos, here's 2:




One of the special moments of our trip!

On the way out of the Magic Kingdom, we actually hit the Jingle Cruise since we had used a DAS selection on it. We had a great skipper and it was nice to be able to see the Christmas overlay.

Finally for my kids' sake, and my wife's sake, and my mom's sake, we were done with the trudging around the park for a bit and it was pool time! It was somewhere around 2:30pm when we left MK. My kids are always happy as a clam when they're in water. During this afternoon break we continued to strike out with another group of 4 to match the 6:50 res we had for Liberty Tree, so we all agreed that we'd continue to prioritize eating together and we canceled the 6:50. 9pm dinner it would be.



My brother indicated via text that they were starting run on fumes a bit, so they were still in MK but taking it easy and starting to stake out a fireworks spot, while we started to look towards making our way back to the park. It was around 5:30 or so and I figured that perhaps we'd get 1-2 attractions in before the fireworks, followed by dinner. I forget exactly why, but my wife and older daughter ended up deciding to go to MK separate from me, my mom, and my younger daughter-- I think they may have just been taking longer to get dressed after the pool. So the 3 of us set off back to the park-- we were going to take the bus, but yet again I let the 20 minute projected bus arrival time sway me towards the convenience of our very own car sitting there in the parking lot. So the 3 of us drove. Whether you save any time once you factor in the trek from the TTC, beats me.

So

Here's the first significant regret of the trip.

I knew the Magic Kingdom fireworks are a beast. I've been through them. I know the cast members operate very specific and generally abrasive crowd-control procedures out of necessity. Still, I wasn't prepared (my wife wasn't either) for how much MORE crowded the fireworks were compared to our previous experiences in prior years. I feel as though we would typically arrive at the hub 30 minutes or so before the show started and, although we'd be dealing with crowds, hadn't had any significant issue with that in the past.

With that mindset me, my mom, and younger daughter re-entered MK a little over an hour before the 8:15 fireworks start. Not one to want to "waste" time standing for the fireworks (which is no better for my mom than walking), we walked to Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin armed with a LL instead of going right to the hub. It'll be quick, we'll be over at the hub in 20 minutes, plenty of time, I thought. Well, the LL was on the lengthier side and once we were on the attraction it stopped, no joke, at least 8-10 times. I didn't know that attraction was in such poor shape-- looking it up now it's 24 years old and it shows. Talk about a waste of time.

It was now less than 30 minutes before showtime and I knew we were pushing it. We were directed down the backstage area towards the front of the park then walked back up Main St to try to meet the rest of the family in the hub. That extra walking was tough on my mom (as I'm starting to feel real bad). I got word from my wife that she and older daughter had successfully reached my brother's family in the inner hub. We got really close-- there are the "spokes" before entering the inner hub where after you get through them the trees no longer block some of the view. That's where we couldn't get any closer. So, with 5-10 minutes to showtime the 3 of us ended up finding a spot by Crystal Palace that wasn't perfect viewing but where my mom and daughter could actually sit. That may have actually been better for my mom honestly. But, I felt bad for my daughter that we couldn't see the projections on the castle very well. All in all, it was okay. You'll see by the end of my trip why I still feel bad now.



Anyway, that left our 9pm Thanksgiving dinner reservations at the Liberty Tree Tavern. Something to look forward to to close out the night! The timing would have been probably just fine, if we were able to eat close to that 9pm time. They immediately told us at check-in that they were running about 1/2 hour behind, but that yes they would try to accommodate our full group of 8 at the same table if they could, at least in the same room.

It was about 9:45 by the time we were called. We were a bit confused because we thought they were calling all 8 of us. No, I guess they didn't actually link our reservations and they were calling just 4 of us. My brother's family + mom sat, and our family followed about 5 minutes later. Surprise #2 was when they sat us almost completely out of view of our family. Well, that really didn't work out well at all, as we could have just eaten at normal times earlier in the day if we weren't going to be able to eat together! Oh well, it is what it is and combining two reservations is never guaranteed. A bit disappointing given our Thanksgiving goal, but you make the best of it and the meal was still just as delicious as we'd remembered from past trips. That pot roast...

I also had to feel for the staff at the LTT, it must have been an incredibly long day for them. It sure was a late, late dinner...



Next, we got in line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Tr.....

Just Kidding!

NEXT POST...
The $1,000 Wand Ceremony

 

[2xcited2sleep]

What a jam-packed Thanksgiving day! I appreciate your ability to temper the picture of the "ideal holiday" with realistic expectations. I think a lot of people aren't able to do that and make themselves miserable when it inevitably doesn't turn out that way. So glad your daughter got the Peter Pan moment and that the phone was returned relatively quickly without entering the lost and found process. Totally agree with you on those Mine Train vehicles. SO uncomfortable. Holiday crowds and that hub are no joke. Glad you found somewhere to sit even if not the ideal view. UGH on ADRs and ultimately not sitting together but glad it was as delicious as you remembered!

 

[nikmasteed]

What a jam-packed Thanksgiving day! I appreciate your ability to temper the picture of the "ideal holiday" with realistic expectations. I think a lot of people aren't able to do that and make themselves miserable when it inevitably doesn't turn out that way. So glad your daughter got the Peter Pan moment and that the phone was returned relatively quickly without entering the lost and found process. Totally agree with you on those Mine Train vehicles. SO uncomfortable. Holiday crowds and that hub are no joke. Glad you found somewhere to sit even if not the ideal view. UGH on ADRs and ultimately not sitting together but glad it was as delicious as you remembered!

Thanks! I really do think that just trying to be as "chill" as one can be at Disney World helps alot. It doesn't mean that disappointment won't occur, but that disappointment won't affect your experience significantly. I know that we said outloud a bunch of times, whatever the scenario may have been-- "nothing's a guarantee, but we can try" which helped everyone.

Honestly I think that all of the news and forum talk about getting less for more at Disney really does lower expectations, as sad as it is to say that.

We can only control what we can control

You'll see at the end once I'm done with my entire trip report that one of my takeaways for any potential future trip, for my immediate family at least, will be to travel there when the crowds are low as they possibly can be for WDW. It's... just... too... many... people.

 

[nikmasteed]

OOF, 11 days since my last update! Sorry about that, lost a little momentum with getting back to work after the holidays. Let's keep this going!

POST #8: FRI NOV 25- UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
THE THOUSAND DOLLAR WAND CEREMONY

I'm not even going to leave you in suspense-- our Universal Studios day was pretty close to a complete disaster. Clearly the lowlight of our trip, unfortunately. Almost nothing went well. And this was even with a focus on doing NOTHING other than The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Full admission and full disclosure, we treated this Universal day as an after-thought, through and through. Frequent visitors will probably see this post filled with rookie mistakes:

• We went the day after Thanksgiving, which is what I'd imagine to be one of the busiest park days of the year. In our planning, it made sense in our minds to sandwich Universal into the middle of the trip, when we would be shifting towards Week 2 and moving over to the Polynesian. Not that a Disney park would have been much better. We actually originally planned 2 Universal park days, which in retrospect would have probably made things even worse. In the months leading up to the trip we went down to a single day in order to gain a rest day and save a little cash.
• We did only limited planning and research ahead of time. My brother and I had gotten the lay of the land on the maps a little and gotten a good understanding of what attractions exist obviously and to know that Hagrid's Motorbike is a difficult task, but not much more than that in terms of strategy. We knew enough that we needed 2-park tickets to see the totality of WW.
• We did not get Express ride passes of any sort-- one thing that I did make a light pitch to my family ahead of time was to take our last Disney moderate resort night and instead book a night at a Universal premium hotel in order to get Expresses passes. Looking at my family of 4, the upgrade in hotel cost would have came out to about $120 extra but we would have gotten the passes. BUT, there really was absolutely no appetite among the entire extended family to switch hotels twice, including one of those times with a 20 minute drive. It would have been easy enough for my 4, but my wife wasn't keen the additional room switch either. I wasn't going to push anybody hard on it, so it died quickly.

Alright, so the day started as it usually did with our 4 eating breakfast at Centertown Market / CBR. It was nice to not have to worry about Genie+ at 7am. I believe that Universal opened 9am for non-resort guests, so the loose plan was to try to arrive at 830ish-- I'd be driving, my brother's family and mom would be Uber'ing from POFQ. I knew it would take our 4 a bit longer since we'd need to deal with parking. We were in our car by 810-815 so we were relatively close to that target. Brother/mom group were a bit behind, they ended up not arriving until about 9:05, all good.

As I've mentioned we cared about NOTHING other than Wizarding World. My brother and I had agreed that we would meet at Ollivander's in Diagon Alley, and that would be our first full-group activity. Having arrived ahead of their group, my family made our way towards the back of the park where Diagon Alley was. As we made our way back, my wife and I started getting concerned in our minds about the amount of walking for my mom. At this point in the trip, she was really feeling it with the strain on her feet/ankles. The positive (at that point in time) was that the park SEEMED pretty quiet-- NOTHING like the Disney parks! (Boy were we fooled). Arriving at DA we took a bathroom break and took in the sight of Kreacher at Grimmauld Place as well as the Knight Bus. Not a bad start, with some low-key and no-line activities.



We wandered into Diagon Alley a bit, and I went over to Ollivander's to ask about how the wand choosing experience/show worked in terms of signup or waiting-- I was informed that there was no list/signup and currently no real wait, so all good. Looking at the app, Escape From Gringotts was showing only a 15 minute wait (shoulda jumped on it, but we were waiting for the rest of the family). I had alot of optimism that this day was going to be "easy" compared to Disney. Look at my goofy younger daughter, haha...



So anyway, my wife and I were right to be concerned about my mom. The walk to Diagon Alley was rough on her. It was almost 10am by the time they all made it back there, I felt bad. But, we were all ready to get started so we went into Ollivander's. We did know that only one (usually child) gets chosen to take part in the "choosing" show, so sizing up the small group we were part of it, there weren't many kids so it seemed a good chance that one of ours would get chosen. Lo and behold, my older daughter was chosen!! This was really enjoyable and I could tell she was very excited even though she's a big introvert!



We of course spent another 15-20 minutes in the shop, while my other daughter and my niece selected their wands. Man is it a tight fit in alot of those HP/WW stores... and at this point it still wasn't that crowded.

At this point, the opportunity for getting onto Escape from Gringotts with a low wait had vanished. I dont recall what it was up to but it was over an hour. We weren't going to do that at this point in time, so we perused the shops at DA some more, and found my mom a bench to rest on a bit while the kids tried out some of the interactive wand spots in that immediate area. We were starting to get our first tastes of how fickle the wand interactions seemed to be (more on that later) but chalked it up to "not perfect" at that point. The Celestina Warbeck show happened while we were there, and crowds still weren't terrible, so we took that in even though we thought it wasn't all that interesting. Lastly, for this portion of the day, we got some ice cream at Fortescue's.

So, let's take stock of where we're at here, at around 11:30am from what I can tell looking at timestamps:

No rides, but some low-energy and relatively low-effort and low-key fun in Diagon Alley. The emphasis on shopping was clear (I did buy a shirt). So, ultimately I was already well up over $1,000 spent on this day for our family of 4 after admission, wands, etc. I didnt do the exact math but it was probably close to $1,100.

You might be able to tell how the rest of the day went based on the title...

With Gringotts still having a line longer than we were willing to wait, we decided it was time to head to Hogsmeade, we could try for Gringotts later. The heat was starting to jump up quite high (with a forecasted high of 86!!!). A fellow guest just in some idle chit-chat had given us word that Universal had something similar to the DAS pass at Disney, so that piqued my interest and before we head into the King's Cross Station, we stopped at guest relations to ask about that. Perhaps had I done my research ahead of time, I might have had a better result, but the team member upon hearing my daughter's situation and my mom's situation stated that the only accommodation they could offer us were wheelchairs. I'm not going to complain about this, really, other than to just express disappointment that Disney won on this aspect obviously in terms of accommodation to situations like ours.

We enjoyed the Hogwarts Express, and the line wasn't terrible at that point but it was over half hour.




It's really hard for me to find positives from this point forward. Hogsmeade was absolutely PACKED. There was no hope in getting on Hagrid's with the current wait (although that wasn't a surprise), and only some of our group would want that anyway. Both my mom, my daughter, and even my wife were starting to get RAPIDLY drained of energy in the heat. We decided we would make our way over to HP and the Forbidden Journey. Two challenges confronted us there. First, they have the test seat out front-- it at the very least was not going to be a comfortable ride for my mom and my wife, so they decided they didn't want to go through that. Second, my older daughter, her syndrome was really having an impact at that point and she didnt feel she could handle the ride at that time. Lastly, although not a challenge, my niece was too short for that ride, so my brother and sister-in-law decided to take her on the adjacent Hippogriff rollercoaster. My mom, wife, and older daughter were solely interested in finding someplace cool to rest, so they would go seek that out in Hogsmeade while me and my younger daughter would ride Forbidden Journey. I'll throw in an irk here about having to pay a few bucks for a locker, that I had to struggle to fit my crap in... whatever.

This was no slam dunk. I've described throughout this trip report that younger daughter has a pretty low tolerance level for thrill rides. When she was asking what this ride was all about, I obviously wanted her to ride and experience-- not having experienced it myself, but having some limited knowledge about it from prior internet research I described that we would be moving but that it would be a bunch of screens in front of us, a little bit like Soarin' (which she likes, or at least tolerates). Looking up the ride technology further while we were in line, I got a little bit nervous once I got a better understanding about how much it moves you around, but I stayed mum on further details and kept it to myself, hoping for the best. Halfway through the queue (which wasn't terrible, 40 minute wait maybe?) we got to a sign that warned guests that are pregnant, have heart issues, etc, and the sign included the word DROPS which daughter is NOT a fan of. She started asking more questions, I tried to reassure her, but a few minutes later she said she had to go to the bathroom... this is what happens when she gets nervous. So, we left the line and sought out a bathroom. Which, was not close, and had a long wait. Fortunately, she is old enough to go into the ladies room herself, but I didn't feel great about it. But, that was fine, she came out and we talked about the ride some more. I asked her if I could show her a YouTube video of the ride, which she agreed to, and that apparently made her feel a bit better about it (maybe because you can't perceive how much you are moving around in a video, but I think it at least made her feel better about the DROPS part) and we got to enjoy the nice long line again, which was now longer.

In line, I was texting/updating my wife, and they apparently were having very little luck cooling down. It was approaching 90. Universal (at least not Hogsmeade) really doesn't have any INTERIOR breaks from the heat that are air conditioned, at least not that we found. It was just making things worse for the 3 of them. They had decided to take the Hogwarts Express back to Diagon Alley which at least to our perception had been less crowded. That Hogwarts Express line was a) extremely long, I think over an hour, and b) not air conditioned. It didn't help them.

Anyway, younger daughter and I approached the ride vehicles for Forbidden Journey and I crossed my fingers that she wouldn't back out. She didn't, but as the ride started to jostle us around a pretty good amount, due to the restraints I couldn't see her expression and I went through the entire ride assuming she was freaking out. We got to the end, and THANK GOD she actually enjoyed the ride!!!!!! PHEW (Okay, I guess there was one more positive about this day). It certainly took us awhile-- it was now 2pm and SOME of us had gone on a grand total of one ride, others none. You can count Hogwarts Express if you like.

My brother's family meanwhile had found enough time after Hippogriff to get onto Forbidden Journey not that long after us, so that got that in as well. I returned to the lockers for the ride (I had ultimately needed two to fit my stuff) and was again irked to find that due to the amount of time, I was being asked to pay a few more bucks. Again, at this point, whatever. I hate you, give me my stuff. We met up with brother's family and it seemed as though the heat was getting to them as well and my niece was a bit cranky also, so they sought out an Owl for her. My daughter and I did walk briefly through Honeydukes-- again, I get that these shops are supposed to feel... intimate... but it just doesn't work on a crowded day. I also MUST complain about these godforsaken WASTES of interaxtive wands we spent $60+ each on. Around this time my daughter and I tried some more of the interactive stations-- there was no rhyme or reason as to why they didn't work in many, many circumstances. At one point I took the wand from my daughter, tried myself, followed the instructions to the T, and nothing. I was... let's say, not happy.

We briefly flirted with getting into a "relatively" short Hagrid's line that was reporting about an hour, but I think we all knew where this day was headed next. We needed to try to meet up with the other 3, so we got in line for Hogwarts Express as well. We waited at least an hour. Inside the queue, my cell service was extremely limited so I couldnt even update, or get updates from, my wife. It turns out they had left Diagon Alley simply in an effort to find ANY venue that could give them indoor air conditioning. They were given very limited assistance at a burger joint outside but near Diagon about how to try to get into queue for a table (they guided her to the app, and my wife wasnt dealing with the Universal app at all). So, they ultimately bailed on that as well and just sat on a bench waiting for us.

Finally, it was after 3pm. We bailed. Completely. Time to go back to our Disney resort.

Thus, the "Thousand Dollar Wand Ceremony"


It's unfortunate that we had such a poor experience. I think that if it wasn't 86 degrees we might have been able to get a second wind at some point. It just wasn't happening and we had to chalk it up to a loss. Will we ever go back? I don't know, it's hard to imagine, it would need to be the right circumstance. We, in truth, just felt that Universal was much less accommodating than Disney which didn't help.

We salvaged the rest of the day for our 4 by getting in a quick dip at the quiet pool at CBR, followed by a last-minute dinner reservation at Steakhouse 71 at the Contemporary. Dinner was really enjoyable! You just gotta make whatever lemonade you can..



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Great Breakfast, Goodbye Caribbean, Hello Polynesian, and Hello to Brother Mark!