Lions and Tigers and Wookies... Oh My!

[Dug]

On Thursday, June 3, Dugette and I jump to hyperspace, traveling to a galaxy far, far away.

Nestled in the heart of the Orlando nebula, Star Wars Weekends beckoned, like the haunting cry of a Krayt dragon, compelling our presence.

A long time ago, last January to be precise, we snapped up a bargain too hard to refuse, like finding a droid that speaks Bocce. We had decided that due to our epic week-long journey to Disney World, the additional cost of annual passes was not too much of a burden to bear, and thus would we celebrate our fifth anniversary, with the Year of Disney. We would explore new worlds, new Disney events, throughout the year, and at the top of that list for me was Star Wars Weekends.

My first trip to Disney World was last September, but my love for Star Wars has been eternal. Return of the Jedi is the second movie I remember seeing in the theater, and it has held a special place in my heart ever since.

My wife, Dugette, is not as much a fan of Star Wars, but on this trip, she would get to go to Disney World, and I would get to see Star Wars, so what could be better?

How long will be there? Where will we stay? Will our ADRs outnumber the number of representatives in the Galactic Senate? Will our plans take more twists and turns than the Millennium Falcon flying through an asteroid field?

Learn all this more... in our next episode.

 

[LuvEeyore]

I'm on board for the pretrip report.

If Return of the Jedi was the second film you saw in a theater, you are a young thing!! I was in 4th grade when Star Wars came out. What do I remember of the 4th grade, my 4th grade teacher went to school with Mark Hamil. This poste does date me.

I at the same time am young at heart since I love all things Disney!!

 

[MiaBella05]

joining in

 

[praisehisname]

I'm in!

 

[donnajean17]

Like a good Jedi... I'm in...!

 

[Dug]

So the general scoop is that during our January trip (see my signature for a link), we booked bounceback offers for the rest of our Year of Disney. The general plan for this trip was to arrive the evening of Thursday, June 3 and depart the evening of Monday, June 7. We booked a king room at the French Quarter. We were staying at Riverside during our January trip; I had been keener on staying at French Quarter, but there wasn’t availability, since we booked the trip late. No such problem here, however. We were booking well in advance.

Star Wars Weekends would be going on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Studios, so our only plans were to enjoy as much Star Wars fun as we could muster. (Well, as I could muster. Dugette would tolerate Star Wars in exchange for Disney magic.) Everything else would be a bonus.

As we looked at the schedules for those dates, we discovered the Magic Kingdom would have extra magic hours till 2 a.m. on both Friday and Sunday night. We had great fun staying out till 2 a.m. at MK on our last trip, so that would be great fun. Depending on how much time it took to do all the Star Wars activities, we might be able to get to some other parks while there, too. Monday morning, in particular, might be good for something like Epcot. And if we got to Animal Kingdom, cool. If not, cool. We like the Safaris a ton, Everest a lot, and Dinosaur as well. Other things in the park are ok, too, but those are the big three for us. But it wasn’t a must-do.

The trick with planning any of the details on something like this is that Disney doesn’t release the details of Star Wars Weekends schedules until Star Wars Weekends starts. We could make some educated guesses, but that would be all they would be.

Before we could get to any of that, however, there would be the problem that faces any galactic traveler: dealing with the scoundrels necessary to secure passage through hyperspace to the destination of your choice. In other words, the airlines.

Stay tuned for that topsy turvy adventure!

 

[Dug]

So, if there is one industry that epitomizes the dark side, it’s probably the airline industry. Trying to purchase airline tickets sometimes feels like trying to negotiate with the Hutts. You rarely get what you want, and you feel kind of icky afterwards.

We had been watching airfares for our Star Wars Weekends trips with great interest. Every now and then we’d check in to get an idea on prices. If we could get air from the Twin Cities to Orlando for about $200 or so each, that would be acceptable.

There are a few ways to get from here to there. Delta offers the best direct flights at the best times of day. Sun Country offers direct flights as well, but often at odd or unacceptable times. Air Tran and Southwest are other relatively inexpensive options, though both require connecting flights. Our favorite of all of them are a pair of Delta flights that depart from Minneapolis at 7 p.m. or so and return around 6 p.m. or so. That allows us to work pretty much a full day on our departure and have a good amount of time in the parks on our return. Plus, we get our frequent flyer miles. But just to be frugal, we usually check Yahoo Travel and Kayak.com to make sure we’re getting the best deal out there. Kayak in particular has some good options for seeing what trends are in airfare to make sure you’re buying at the right moment.

And that, my friends, is what makes the airline industry so evil. I worked at an airline call center for a couple years, so I’m very familiar with how their pricing works.

In a simple world, flights from one destination to another would all be the same price. The trouble is that it’s very expensive to fly a plane. If you fly your planes empty, or even half-empty or even a bit empty, you lose money. Thus, the goal is to fill your planes up. If every ticket cost the same, there would be no incentive to purchase tickets early. And airlines wouldn’t know whether they’d lose money on a flight until right before departure. So, it behooves them to offer lower prices farther out, to encourage people to purchase tickets early, so they can capture that revenue early on and know how a flight is selling. When it’s not selling fast enough, either on that flight or on flights in general, then they can discount the price to encourage purchase. However, they can’t do that for the whole flight, or else they’d lose money. So, they only have a certain number of seats to sell at the lowest price, another certain number of seats at the next lowest price, etc., etc. And what makes this so delightful, is that based on how the flight is selling, they’ll change around how many seats are available at a moment’s notice. This allows them to maximize revenue.

It also makes the process of purchasing tickets more difficult than the Kessel Run.

Well, we finally got to the point, around March or so, that we were ready to purchase our tickets. The fare was at the right price for the right flights. We’d fly down Thursday on the 7 p.m. Delta flight and return on the 6 p.m. Delta flight on Monday. That would give us full days during all three days of that Star Wars Weekend.

You don’t need to be a Jedi to foresee that those prices on those flights decided not to play nice.

After we had checked the fares one day, we discussed them over a couple days, did some comparisons, etc. And lo and behold, when we were ready to get our credit cards out, those prices on those flights were gone.

In fact, if our memory served, our flights disappeared while Dugette was checking with her boss one last time to get approval for the trip. By the time she called me back, no dice.

I got on the horn with Delta and tried to talk them into helping us out. From my memory, the prices had been jumping around for several days, from $200 to $250 and back, and I had had the flights we wanted on the screen at $199, but when I pressed the confirm button to purchase them, the prices jumped up again.

This was not magical. This was something Watto would pull.

I had no luck with customer service. I wouldn’t say they laughed in my face, like Jabba, but it came close. Speaking to a customer service representative didn’t help either.

After debating and worrying that it would only get worse, we chose a different itinerary that was $210 instead of $199, but that had a flight change in Atlanta on the way back, not ideal.

This was not the end of the story, not by a longshot.

A little known fact is that with Delta, you can cancel your flights for any reason within 24 hours, if you’ve booked it at delta.com. That means if a better price or flight schedule comes out at any point within that window, (not exactly 24 hours, really just by midnight the day after you purchase the tickets) you’re golden.

And sure enough, the following morning, our ideal flights were available for $210. So before heading to work, we did a quick cancel and rebook, using two separate browsers, crossing our fingers the flights wouldn’t disappear when we pressed confirm.

And that still wasn’t the end. Because three hours later, our flights showed up again at $199. So again, we canceled and rebooked, and all was well with the world.

As frustrating as Delta can be, that policy is awesome. And it really saved our butts a month later. Dugette had been saving up some extra cash with the idea that maybe if a good airfare came out, we could take an extra trip down there, stay at Pop, leave on Friday, come back Sunday, and have just a real quick trip. Sure enough, we eventually found a trip like that for $240, the first weekend of Star Wars Weekends. We had been hoping that a Flower and Garden weekend might be available, even though it seemed kind of crazy to fly down just to see topiaries (since neither of us have a green thumb). But that was never available. So when Dugette offered to pay for a trip where I’d get to see more of Star Wars, I didn’t argue much.

Besides, we might be able to knock out a few of the Star Wars events, like the Hyperspace Hoopla, that weekend, which would make our trip two weeks later a bit less stressful (I know, it sounds insane, right?).

It would mean a lot of travel. I was going out of town for a semi-work-related trip one weekend, and Memorial Day weekend we were planning to meet my brother in South Dakota. It would be four weekends in a row out of town. Ufda. But, we went ahead and booked the trip anyway.

But a day and a half later, while I was on the phone with somebody, I had a horrifying realization that the semi-work-related trip was not the weekend I had thought it was: it was the same weekend as the one where we had just purchased flights for the first Star Wars Weekend! The blood vessels in my brain started throbbing with terror, as I thought we were outside of the Delta cancellation window. I called up Delta, told them about my horrid realization, and the person I talked to cancelled the flight, no problem, no fee.

I was so thankful, and I’ll give them credit, that was great customer service. So maybe, like Darth Vader, there is still good in them.

So only one Star Wars Weekends trip to go to now, but we’d make it a good one. Because after all, we had ADRs. And they would be good ones.

Where would we eat? Would we get to eat at Le Cellier? And what the heck is in Blue Milk anyhow?

 

[praisehisname]

Oh wow, my heart was pounding reading about getting your flights! I'm glad you were able to get a good price for your original weekend, and sorry you had to cancel the extra weekend.

 

[Greta]

Joining in and looking forward to hearing more....

 

[Dug]

There is more to eat in Walt Disney than at the Mos Eisley Casino, and the fare is of a bit higher quality than at Dex’s Diner.

On our last trip, Dugette got sick, probably with a norovirus. She wasn’t able to make our Le Cellier reservation (though I soldiered on), and she wasn’t able to particularly enjoy our Ohana or Biergarten reservations. We also had to cancel our Raglan Road reservation because of Brett Favre. Details abound in our trip report. (link available below)

Before we had even left Disney World last January, we had booked a Le Cellier reservation for this trip. We managed to snag one for 8:50 p.m. on the Sunday night of our trip.

After we got back from WDW, we soon booked other replacement dining reservations. Friday we would go to Ohana at 9:05 p.m. (if we ate there long enough, and were able to secure a window seat, we could even watch Wishes from there). Saturday, Raglan Road at 8:30 p.m. (Part of the reason we cancelled our last Raglan Road was because we had booked it for a Sunday, and while there, we discovered they don’t have live music on Sundays.) Finally, Biergarten at noon on Monday.

As for eating at the Studios during Star Wars Weekends, we were somewhat intrigued by the Brown Derby, for the Cobb salad and grapefruit cake, so we booked that Saturday at 11:45 p.m.

All those plans had the potential to be scrambled when Disney announced Summer Nightastic.

The opening night for Summer Nightastic was to be the Sunday, June 6, the weekend we were there. How’s that for a vexing conundrum? Le Cellier or the Main Street Electrical Parade and new fireworks show? You won’t be shocked when I tell you that we checked if we could move our Le Cellier reservation and found we couldn’t.

We had harbored a secret hunger to attend a Wishes dessert party, so I started calling to inquire if seating would be available for that Sunday. I know, cancelling a Le Cellier is crazy, right? Not surprisingly, the dessert party was full-booked for Sunday. I checked Saturday and even Friday, too. Saturday was out, but Friday had an opening. That would mean cancelling Ohana, though, and Dugette was really looking forward to that meal. I checked if Ohana was available at any other point on our trip: no. So no dessert party. I has a sad. :<

Around this time, the window opened for us to book dining for our November Food & Wine trip. We snagged a Le Cellier reservation there, so if all else failed, we could wait with disappointment till November.

We had had in the back of our mind that if we got a good airfare, we might squeeze in another trip. So perhaps we could go some time in the summer and get to see Summer Nightastic. We both agreed that if we were able to do so, we would love to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, just for a couple nights.

We looked and looked for airfare, but it was just so darned pricy.

A couple weeks ago, Dugette had a somewhat crazy idea. What if we stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge this trip instead, since we probably couldn’t afford another trip with the air being so expensive? We started doing Disney math and discovered that with passholder discounts, if we stayed at Pop Century the first night, and then at savannah-view rooms at Animal Kingdom Lodge the following three nights, it would only cost an extra $200 total to upgrade from French Quarter. It seemed a bit crazy, but a pretty good bang for our buck, so we made the switch! We had become experienced resort hoppers on our last trip (Poly first night, Wilderness Lodge the second, Riverside the rest), so staying at Pop for the first night seems fine. We don’t get in till 11 p.m. that night anyhow, so it seems crazy to spend the extra for AKL for that first night.

We also had on our dining wishlist, eating at Jiko and Sanaa, and Dugette loves Boma. Sooooo… we switched around dining, too!

Ohana would stay, we couldn’t skip that. But Raglan Road? Expendable! Out it was, for Jiko at 9:30 p.m. Saturday night. Biergarten? Sorry, oompah band! Replaced with Sanaa at 1 p.m. Monday (our Magical Express would be at about 3 p.m. or so). And Boma, we squeezed in as a breakfast Sunday at 7:30 a.m.


But hark, what’s this Dugette discovered? On Friday, a 1:30 p.m. reservation for Le Cellier? Snag it! That could be a back-up plan if we really wanted to go to Le Cellier, but still attend Summer Nightastic opening day. I had mixed feelings on that, though, as it would really cut into our Star Wars Weekend touring, the point of our trip.

Ah, but our plans were not done changing yet!

About a week ago, we received a passholder email stating that there would be a Summer Nightastic preview Saturday night, where passholders could pick up some free glasses to enhance the fireworks. Parade at 9 AND 11, with fireworks at 10.

So, Jiko got moved back to 5:30. The glasses could be picked up between 4 and 8, so we’d leave the studios around 3:15 or so, head to the Magic Kingdom to pick up the glasses in the rose garden around 4, then head back to Animal Kingdom Lodge to clean up and get ready for Jiko. After dinner, we’d head back to the Magic Kingdom. Since there were two parades, we wouldn’t have to rush: we could just see the fireworks at 10, then the parade at 11 (then tour MK till 2 a.m.!).

But what’s that, you say? I called two days ago to get straight all our dinner reservations and happened to ask about Wishes Dessert Party availability, and they just so happened to have an opening at 9:15 p.m. on Saturday? Sold! Perhaps a lighter meal at Jiko would be required, but we love sharing meals, so that would be no trouble at all.

So now we still have a couple reservations to cancel, Le Cellier on Friday (how can we give up a Le Cellier? Ack!) and the extra Jiko at 9:30 p.m. on Satuday. We already cancelled Biergarten and Raglan Road.

So that’s all our dining and lodging tales… for now, at least!

Lastly, I hope to get in an update to summarize a plan of attack for this Star Wars Weekend. S-Foils, lock into attack position!

P.S. Star Wars Weekend question: At the autograph sessions, do they give you something you can have signed if you like, like a photo? I’ve been looking for something to get signed, but I can’t find anything majestic enough. Ideas?!

 

[Dugette]

Just to clarify Dug's ADR explanations, Brown Derby is at 11:45am (not PM). Also, we originally had it at 1:30pm, but moved it up when we moved Jiko up. Also, we moved Jiko from 5:30pm back to 5:55pm, so we'd have enough time to pick up the glasses, get back, and get cleaned up for dinner. We have/had so crazy many ADRs for this trip!

We leave tomorrow!

 

[Dug]

I swear if this actually is a spot of impetigo in the corner of my mouth, I'm totally turning to the dark side and unleashing the Death Star on my face.

 

[karebear23]

Have fun you 2! Looking forward to your report! Enjoyed your last one . DD and I are going to see summernightastic & the main street electrical parade on the 9th! Can't wait!!

 

[Dugette]

95% packed! The dog's stuff is packed up to go to "camp" in the morning. The cat is concerned...she never approves of us leaving. But Dug's friend will stop by to feed her while we're gone. Dug has managed to watch 4 of the Star Wars movies in the last few days. I borrowed binoculars from my dad and step-mom to enhance our balcony viewing at AKL. Dug was able to get a refill of the impetigo medicine that worked, just in case he has it again (we know, what are the odds? )(Hopefully, it's not that again!) I got some new summer clothes, as it's going to be in the 90's! I also picked up some nifty little misting fans, so hopefully those will help. We've been on a high dosage of orange juice and Airborne in the last few days, in an attempt to not get sick this time. Hope it works.

As happened last trip, the last week has been dotted with random Disney moments for me. A few:

An SUV (possibly the same one I saw before the last trip?) passed my bus on the way home from work last week. It had a decal on the back showing a family of 6 with mouse ears and Mickey shirts.

When everyone else was dressed for work, I passed a guy in the skyway the other day wearing a Mickey shirt.

I overheard a co-worker saying that her (adult) daughter wants to go to Disney World.

Apparently there was a show about Disney food on TV tonight (we DVRed it...no time to watch).

There were some other things too, but I can't remember now.

There are so many cool things we're looking forward to on this trip! Staying at AKL, all the ADRs, all the snacks, all the rides, all the desserts, all the Summer Nightastic stuff, etc. Can't wait!

Just have to work a full day tomorrow, then head to the airport!

Thanks for following along this far...we'll keep you posted on the TR when we return!

Time to sleep!

 

[LuvEeyore]

Looking forward to hearing more soon

 

[Goofy442]

Have a wonderful time!! We love the AKV! When you are there try to stop by and try out the night vision glasses to see the animals.

 

[Dug]

Have a wonderful time!! We love the AKV! When you are there try to stop by and try out the night vision glasses to see the animals.

We used the night vision goggles when we stopped by Jambo House on our last trip. They were fun! Maybe we can try those again on Saturday night after we get back from Summer Nightastic!

 

[Dug]

We are only a few short hours away for our departure from hangar bay 1 at the Minneapolis/St Paul spaceport. Hopefully we won’t have to fly in a rustbucket like the Millennium Falcon, although that would probably get us there faster. I’ve heard it’s made the Orlando run in less than 1 parsec.

Hopefully there will be a good movie on the plane. If not, that’s what my iPhone is for. We’ll get in at 11, and from our experience, the Magical Express line shouldn’t be too long. Because we’re getting there late, we can’t check our bags through. We need to pick them up at the carousel. No big deal. Soon, we’ll be on our way to Pop Century. I expect we’ll get there around midnight. We asked for a king room near the Generation Gap bridge, because we didn’t have a chance to see that when we stayed there in September. If we’re really awake, we might wander around a bit to see some of the fun things outside at Pop, but my guess is we’ll be pretty zonked.

The first bus to the Studios is at 7, and we plan to be on it, so we’ll need to get out of our rooms by 6:15 or so, as we’ll need to get our luggage transferred to Animal Kingdom Lodge.

When we arrive at the Studios, we’ll be making a bee line for the Fastpass lines for autographs. My understanding is that people will be getting there at insane o’clock, also known as 5 a.m., for the Billy Dee Williams line. That and the Ray Park line will surely be the busiest. Who wouldn’t want to meet Lando Calrissian or Darth Maul? Still, we’ll see if there’s a chance of getting an autograph fastpass for either of those two. I’m not expecting much. Otherwise, we’ll be trying for Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka from the Clone Wars) and Dave Filoni (supervising director of the Clone Wars). We have three days, so we’ll still have other chances. The only real way to guarantee autographs is taking a taxi, and I’m not sure I’m desperate enough for that.

I’m not much of a merchandise person. If we get a chance, the passholder T-shirt looked neat, but an hour wait to buy a T-shirt seems kinda nuts, even for a huge Star Wars fan like me. We’ll see.

It’s early magic hours, so we’ll be ready for the Toy Story Mania march at park open. We’re looking forward to trying the new game. Apparently if you blow up the lava balloons, the volcano explodes with high-value balloons to pop. Sounds fun. We’ll assuredly do the “grab a fastpass and get in line” dance. After that, we’ll swing over to the lineup for Darth Vader, which apparently gets quite busy later. Hopefully it will still be relatively short after Toy Story Mania.

Based on the weekend one schedule, there are two big shows of the day. Behind the Force, at 11 a.m. and 3:35 p.m., and the Star Wars Celebrity Talk Show, at 1:15 p.m. There’s also the parade at 11:40. Again, we have three days to do these events, and we’re going to have to play it by ear, as we’ll have no idea when we might get autograph fastpasses. We’re having lunch at the Brown Derby on Saturday, so we only have Friday or Sunday to do the parade. We’ll also need to camp out a bit beforehand to get a good spot.

Flexibility is the name of the game. I’d like to get pictures with Star Wars characters and just enjoy the atmosphere. And we’ll of course fit in rides and attractions as time allows. Rock N’Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, for sure.

We’ll have to grab lunch at some point. I’m thinking Backlot Express, which we haven’t tried before, and I’ve heard is good. I know we want to get sandwiches at Starring Rolls at some point as well. I still haven’t had the heart to cancel our Le Cellier at 1:30 p.m. yet. On the chance we get no autograph sessions, we could in theory go there for lunch. If not, some lucky soul might get to walk-up and get service on Friday around 1:30.

At some point in the afternoon, we’ll head out and go over to Animal Kingdom Lodge to get checked in and have some time to enjoy our savannah view and maybe take a nap, as it will be a long night. There’s a chance we might sneak down to Mara for some zebra domes, too.

We have dinner reservations at Ohana at 9 or so. We’re going to try to get a window seat or at least a window view, so we can see Wishes. Dugette is really looking forward to this meal, as she was sick the last time we were there, so couldn’t enjoy it or eat much.

After dinner, we’ll hop the monorail to Magic Kingdom, for extra magic hours, until 2 a.m.! We had such a fun time with this on our last trip. The park was totally empty at the end. I’m expecting it will be somewhat busier since it is June, but I think it will still be much lighter than normal. We’ll just pick our favorite rides, use Lines on my iPhone to check wait times, and enjoy the evening atmosphere.

Then back to the Animal Kingdom to crash! If we’re lucky, we’ll get 4.5 to 5 hours of sleep.

Saturday it will be a similar story, with a few twists. The Studios open at 9, so first bus should be at 8, and again, we should be on it. We’ll still try to get autograph sessions of folks we missed, though again, I’m not optimistic for this. A priority is to see the stormtrooper show on top of the entrance gates. Boba Fett should be there as well, I hear. And then it will be off to the races to Toy Story Mania, character photos and attractions, as time allows.

We have Brown Derby reservations at 11:45 a.m. We’ll split a Cobb Salad and Grapefruit Cake.

Then more fun with Star Wars until 3 or so, when we’ll head over to the Magic Kingdom to pick up our free passholder glasses for the Summer Nightastic preview that night, which can be picked up in the rose garden from 4-8. Then back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to freshen up for dinner at Jiko at 5:55 p.m. We’re going to split the filet over mac and cheese and probably have a flatbread appetizer and the pistachio crème brulee for dessert. We don’t want to fill up, as after that we head over to the Magic Kingdom for a “Wishes” dessert party at 9:10 p.m. Lots of delightful little treats as we watch the new Summer Nightastic fireworks (at 10 p.m.) from the Tomorrowland Terrace. We may be able to see the 9 p.m. Main Street Electrical Parade from there, but after the fireworks, we’ll probably try to get a good spot to see it up close, if we can, as it runs again at 11. Then back to AKL. Hopefully we can still use the night vision goggles, as that will probably be our only chance to use those on this trip.

Sleep sleep time.

Sunday morning, we’ll be up for breakfast at Boma at 7:30 a.m. We love Boma for dinner and have heard their breakfast is good, too. We won’t make the Studios for park open that day. I’m tempted for us to head over to Animal Kingdom, where we could probably make park open just to do our big three circle: pick up fast passes for Everest, do the Safari, then Dinosaur, and then finish with using our FP on Everest. Not only do we enjoy those rides, but that would turn this into a four parks in one day adventure, which we really enjoyed doing on our last trip.

After that, we’d head over to the Studios for our last bit of Star Wars Weekends fun, getting in any shows we missed or the parade and more fun with characters.


Depending on how things are going, we might head back to Animal Kingdom Lodge for a nap and relaxation in the afternoon.

At some point, we’d head to Epcot. We have dinner reservations around 9 p.m. for Le Cellier, which we do intend to use! I’d like to stop in Mexico beforehand to check out Le Cava del Tequila.

After what will surely be a delicious dinner, we’ll finish our day at the Magic Kingdom, where it will again be open until 2 a.m. We don’t think we’ll be there in time for the fireworks, though we may see the parade again. I don’t think we’d make a point to stand there to watch it, but it would be fun to glimpse as we ride hop.

Again, we’ll get back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge quite late.

The next morning, we’re thinking of trying to be at Epcot for park open at 9 a.m. so we can do Soarin’ and Test Track and maybe a couple other things. Then we’d head back to Animal Kingdom Lodge, as we have Sanaa reservations at 1 a.m. That means we’ll probably need to check out before heading to Epcot. We’ll take a look around Kidani Village while we’re there. Then we’ll be back at Jambo House for our Magical Express to the airport for our 6 p.m. flight home. I’m all for sneaking down to Mara quick to grab some zebra domes for the ride home.

So that’s our plan. It will be a very busy trip, and I fully expect we’ll be exhausted afterwards. But we’ll have some great meals, stay in a magical place, and have great fun. A Disney-Star Wars adventure!

I have a GOOD feeling about this!

 

[LuvEeyore]

Have fun and keep up posted!!

 

[Dugette]

Hi, all! We're back and had a good trip, but are very, very tired!

Just a sneak peak: I seriously considered naming the TR "We Ate All the Food and Broke All the Rides (and Who Needs Sleep?)", but that name is a bit long. So, it'll probably be "Star Wars Nightastically Delicious!" I'll let you know when it's started.

Sleepy time!