No, we're going to Monkey Joe's...a June 2021 TR (UPDATE 7-28)

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Hi everyone! Miles came through surgery with flying colors and is doing so well. I couldn’t be happier or more relieved!

So glad to hear that!!!!

Our first stop was the Wilderness Explorer’s station so the kids could get sworn in and receive their booklets. Let me just go ahead and tell you, this was the highlight of the day for them. I’m so glad we chose to focus on that this day, because we had a blast doing it. If you’ve been wanting to try it and you really know your family would enjoy it, but you’re not sure it’s worth spending time doing that when there are rides to be ridden? I highly recommend doing it. Do it!

The Wilderness Explorer's is really fun to do. It is hard to do ALL of it in one day. Which my girls wanted to do. And i think it is a great thing with younger kids for sure.

We absolutely loved it! We drew Dumbo, as you can see. We heard they had done baby Yoda and Tuk Tuk from Raya and the Last Dragon earlier in the day, and Ashlyn was a little disappointed in getting Dumbo instead, but overall we were really happy. We would definitely do this again!

I wish they said what you would be drawing ahead of time. It is a long journey to get out there just to find out you don't want to draw that character...

He scowled at me then immediately looked past me and screamed (I do mean screamed) at a lady that she had to wear her mask or leave the line. I literally startled backward a bit, it was so surprising. It wasn’t a moment later another CM approached and told him he could go, and he began crying and left. Obviously, his behavior had nothing to do with either me or the lady in front of me. It was just shocking and sad, because I’m sure whatever he had gone through must have been extremely stressful.

That CM def was having other issues....

Glad your Animal Kingdom day worked out so well. It really is all about setting the expectation of what you want the days to look like!

 

[nascargirl]

Love this trip report. I am glad your son had no issues with his fever in the beginning and that his surgery was successful.

 

[kclark9830]

Soarin' Around the World: Epcot part 2

Welcome back everyone! When I left off we had just finished the BatB singalong in the France pavilion.

It was pretty hot this day, and we were feeling puny. We decided to make our way back toward FW, taking in all the topiaries as we went. I am so disappointed in me for not taking pictures! Boo Katie! Boo!

My favorites were the Winnie the Pooh characters in the UK pavilion, and we also enjoyed the Muppets.

As we walked, Miles fell asleep in his stroller.
Ashlyn and I stopped for PP pics behind SE.






We decided to ride SE next, as it didn’t have a wait. Micheal stayed out with Miles, since he was sleeping. He wanted to call his mom because his g'pa was in the hospital. (His g'pa actually passed away the week after we got home.)

So while he called, we rode. Ashlyn really took it in this year. Even though we’ve ridden it bunches, it was like she was finally old enough to sort of understand it this time.

When we came off the ride, Micheal was still on the phone but he pointed for us to look around the corner. We spotted these guys!






Micheal said Mickey and Minnie had also been out, but since Miles was sleeping he hadn’t gotten any pictures.

At this point we headed toward the buses for a break at the resort, with the intent of coming back later that night.

Funny enough, we met up with my family who was just arriving as we were exiting! I’m so glad we did, too, because my dad showed us his ankles which looked TERRIBLE.

You see, they had arrived in FL a few days early just as we had. They had gone to the beach, though, to meet up with my dad’s brother who lives in S FL. My dad had gotten sun poisoning. He had large boils on his ankles.

We strongly urged him to go to the urgent care where we had taken Miles, or at the least to get an ECV scooter.

He said he’d think about it, and we left them to get back to the resort.

Back at the resort, we stopped at the front desk. Our very thoughtful travel agent had sent us a gift for Emma’s birthday, and we needed to pick it up.



It was absolutely gorgeous . And it tasted good, too .

While there, we noticed a pin board out. Miles had woken up at this point, so both kids did a little pin trading.

We spent the afternoon doing the same as all the other days – swimming and lounging. My parents did call and let us know they had decided to head to the urgent care, where the doctor gave my dad steroid shots and I believe an antibiotic. This helped tremendously.

We finally headed back to Epcot around 7:30 with a 10PM closing. We met my sister and her kids in the Land pavilion, where we ate at Sunshine Seasons.

Unpopular opinion here. I haven’t seen any negative reviews of this place, but we have eaten here 3 times and every time has been a bad experience. Our food on this visit was not good. Micheal and I agreed we will not be eating here again.

After we ate, we hopped in line for Soarin'. My sister and her kids were with us. The posted wait was 50 min, and it ended up taking us around 65 min.

That was a rough wait with two little boys, but at least it was inside.

We were seated in B2. So close!

I love, love, love this ride. It is in my top 3.
Miles and his cousin Timmy were SO CUTE on this ride. They were just in awe of it, which was adorable.

When we finished, my sister took her kids to WS to ride FEA and Gran Fiesta Tour.
We headed to the Seas to ride Nemo and Friends. There was no wait here so we wound through the queue and swam with the fishes.

My dad texted us to say they had come back to the park and were walking around WS, but at this point we were pretty tired and after our long wait for Soarin' it was getting close to park closing. We decided to bow out and get to the buses before the masses.

That turned out to be a good decision because we had a very short wait for a bus .

I really wanted to do the Spike Scavenger Hunt and check out the butterfly garden, and we hadn’t done either of those. I also had a list of F&G food items I’d wanted to try. Didn’t get to any of those, either. In hindsight, I really wish we had planned more time at Epcot. I thought I’d be OK with how we’d planned our days, and not having PH tickets, especially because on our last trip we spent A LOT of time at my favorite park. But in the end, I wanted more Epcot time.

At least I’m left wanting more, though, right? Better than getting too much and being sick of it! LOL

Next up: Hollywood Studios day!

 

[kclark9830]

So glad to hear that!!!!


The Wilderness Explorer's is really fun to do. It is hard to do ALL of it in one day. Which my girls wanted to do. And i think it is a great thing with younger kids for sure.


I wish they said what you would be drawing ahead of time. It is a long journey to get out there just to find out you don't want to draw that character...


That CM def was having other issues....

Glad your Animal Kingdom day worked out so well. It really is all about setting the expectation of what you want the days to look like!

That is a great idea about knowing ahead of time what you'll be drawing. That would be awesome! Though. I guess it might cause issues with some classes being more popular than others .

 

[kclark9830]

haha are you me? Saaaaaaaaaaaame.

 

[kclark9830]

Ah no way lol! I can barely handle taking a work call while walking through a park; I need to be in the room to do it! But good on her, I bet her kids never made it back to school and she was coming off 15 months of working at home while they ran around!

I know, right?!

 

[kclark9830]

I really enjoyed reading your trip report. I am sorry to hear about the loss of your daughter Emma. It is wonderful the way you are honoring memory during your trip.

Thank you so much. Glad you're here!

Love this trip report. I am glad your son had no issues with his fever in the beginning and that his surgery was successful.

Thank you! It is definitely a relief!!!

 

[CruellaNY]

My dad had gotten sun poisoning. He had large boils on his ankles.

Ugh that's terrible! I had it as a teen all over my chest It was horrible looking and extremely painful. Glad he went and got meds!

It was absolutely gorgeous . And it tasted good, too .

❤

Unpopular opinion here. I haven’t seen any negative reviews of this place, but we have eaten here 3 times and every time has been a bad experience. Our food on this visit was not good. Micheal and I agreed we will not be eating here again.

Nope I agree with and share your unpopular opinion. We have eaten there for breakfast a few times over the years and it was fine, but lunch/dinner is always a nope. The menu doesn't thrill us usually and even when we do find something that sounds good it's always disappointing. If we do QS in Epcot we stick to WS!

At least I’m left wanting more, though, right? Better than getting too much and being sick of it! LOL

Yes 100%

 

[GreatBiscuit]

I was hoping to find a couple of TR's that mentioned the Swan/Dolphin. My wife is a teacher and I work for the school district doing web/radio/TV production. I have seen the educator discounts listed on several websites, but we have never tried them out. I'm glad to hear you loved the Dolphin as it is near the top of the list for our next Disney excursion, though a date has yet to be determined. (I once planned a trip for over a decade, so it can be said that I like to plan early.) The American Eagle is another spot I have yet to try. I am glad the food was decent as I'm pretty sure we will wind up there at some point.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

I feel like the way EPCOT is laid out it is easy to miss stuff.

 

[kclark9830]

Ugh that's terrible! I had it as a teen all over my chest It was horrible looking and extremely painful. Glad he went and got meds!

❤

Nope I agree with and share your unpopular opinion. We have eaten there for breakfast a few times over the years and it was fine, but lunch/dinner is always a nope. The menu doesn't thrill us usually and even when we do find something that sounds good it's always disappointing. If we do QS in Epcot we stick to WS!

Yes 100%

Yes, I was so relieved when he went!

 

[kclark9830]

I was hoping to find a couple of TR's that mentioned the Swan/Dolphin. My wife is a teacher and I work for the school district doing web/radio/TV production. I have seen the educator discounts listed on several websites, but we have never tried them out. I'm glad to hear you loved the Dolphin as it is near the top of the list for our next Disney excursion, though a date has yet to be determined. (I once planned a trip for over a decade, so it can be said that I like to plan early.) The American Eagle is another spot I have yet to try. I am glad the food was decent as I'm pretty sure we will wind up there at some point.

We really did love the Dolphin! I am bummed as it appears more and more that they're losing their Disney privileges like early entry, etc. That may affect our decision in the future, but we definitely enjoyed it there.

I feel like the way EPCOT is laid out it is easy to miss stuff.

That is certainly true!

 

[kclark9830]

Early Morning Jitters: Hollywood Studios part 1

Hi everyone! I’m just sitting over here, feeling sad that I’m not going to Disney for my birthday, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas…. Seriously though, I am a little sad. I’m not 100% sure when our next trip will be, but at least I can relive our trip and live vicariously through you all. I guess.

Today I will tell you about our Hollywood Studios day!!! I set my alarm for, I don’t know, like maybe 6:45? I don’t really know for sure because, as I knew I would, I was awake at like 6AM. That’s pretty normal for me. I try to sleep in, but??? Anyway, as you’ve probably already figured out, I was trying for a Rise of the Resistance boarding group.

At 6:58 I logged into the MDE app. I also opened the time.gov site to watch the countdown. As it got to the last 6-7 seconds I clicked over to the MDE app and counted down in my head. I hit the join button just as fast as I possibly could. If you read my PTR at all you may remember that I didn’t have any pressing interest in getting a boarding group for RotR. If we got one, great. But if not, it would not make us cry or anything.

Well, despite that, my heart was beating like a race horse. Silly jitters. I did end up with BG 5 .

I woke up Ashlyn because I was excited. She mumbled a, “Oh good,” and was back to sleep .

Oh well. I also texted my sister and parents so they could know they needed to be at the park in the morning. They like late starts, in general. I knew they needed the push.

My crew did crawl out of bed momentarily. We planned to be there for open, which way back in June meant an hour before opening. We didn’t quite make that, but we were at the bus stop right at 8AM. There was hardly any line, and we didn’t wait long for a bus. Don’t get too happy for us now, though, because we made up for that later in the day.

Through the turnstiles we went, easy peesy. Our first stop? With our Toy Story loving boy, it was obviously Toy Story land.



Slinky had quite the line, so we went straight to Alien Swirling Saucers. It was a walk on, and loads of fun. I actually really enjoy this ride. Again, I like simple things, and while I can’t ride the Teacups, I can ride this.

Next, it was TSMM, which was a walk on still. Miles later declared this was his most favorite ride of the trip. When they’ve mixed Toy Story and video games, well, it’s no surprise for a little boy.




We grabbed a quick picture of the Alien, then we headed to Galaxy’s Edge. Our boarding group had been called, but we had an issue to work out. We had a group of nine for our boarding group, but Micheal had been left off. I had done at least enough research before hand to know this happens and it’s an easy fix, so we had to find the people under the blue umbrella.

Well, that was a little easier said than done. GE is very detailed and overwhelming, y’all, and we got a bit turned around in there. I should have been able to figure it out, seriously. I’m going to blame the heat. I got a little testy, I admit.

We did finally find our way out to the other entrance of GE, where the blue umbrella was easy to spot. We found a guest relations CM and she easily added Micheal to the boarding group.

Next, I called my family to find out where they were. They had just arrived and met us a few minutes later at the Muppets fountain.

My mom was tired from a late night at Epcot so she’d stayed at the hotel, but the rest of us headed off to join the Resistance.

We did have a tiny wait, like maybe 10 min total where we were stopped. But it was like no time, and we were herded into the ride.
I’ll be honest, it was a bit too fast. There was so much going on and no time to absorb it. I liked the Rey hologram, that was cool. And the storm troopers, too.

When we were inside waiting for our…interrogation room???...the CM wanted to measure Miles and make sure he was tall enough. She called him over for interrogation and spoke with him sternly (but still kindly, she did a GREAT job of being in role but not scaring a 4 year old) about not trying anything sneaky. It was super cute.

Less cute was when she told us to stand on the gray (or silver??? I can’t remember which was which) circle and I told Miles to stand on the silver/gray (whichever one she didn’t say). She yelled at me that it was NOT silver, but gray (or whatever. You get the idea.) I back talked but can’t remember what I said. It was fun, even for an old stick in the mud like me.






We did enjoy the ride. It was new and fresh. Not really being big SW fans, I feel like I still like lots of other rides better. But I can definitely see the appeal. Miles calls it the robot ride because of the Storm Troopers.

Outside the ride we spotted a PP photographer so we stopped for some fun PP pictures. These ended up being my favorite pictures from the whole trip.









So, I will leave you here for now. We had a mostly great first half of the morning at HS, sans the confusion about direction in Galaxy’s Edge . And we had lots more fun to come .

 

[MickeyReeds]

Following along! We were there around the same time as you. I love how you honored your daughter's birthday with such a relaxed day at Animal Kingdom!

 

[kclark9830]

Following along! We were there around the same time as you. I love how you honored your daughter's birthday with such a relaxed day at Animal Kingdom!

 

[kclark9830]

Hollywood Studios part 2

Hi all! When I left you we had just finished Rise and then taken PP pics.

With that done, we debated what to do next. We kind of wanted to take Miles to see the Muppets show because he loves Muppet Babies on Disney+, but the general consensus was MMRR. We joined the crowd and headed that way.

The wait said 55 minutes. I think we waited closer to 45. It was a hot one, y’all.

But, once on the ride we really enjoyed it! It was bright and fun, and I particularly liked the part in Daisy’s ballet studio. We did ride The Great Movie ride in the past, and we enjoyed it, but I like what they’ve done with this one.





After the ride, we placed a mobile order for Backlot Express, for later. Then we headed to see the Mickey Vacation short. We thought it was fitting since we’d just ridden the ride.
Here we had another odd situation where a CM was sternly lecturing a child about wearing their mask. We were outside but still technically in the queue area. The CM had full rights to do what she did, it was just odd because it was definitely a full on lecture and the kid was around 10. Just weird at WDW.

Anyway, we only had to wait a few minutes to be let into the theater, and the kids loved the short. These aren’t my favorite, by far. But there was air conditioning!

Once that was done, my dad headed out to meet my mom back at the hotel. They planned to come back to HS later.

We decided to head to ToT. On our way to Sunset BLVD we were stopped by a character cavalcade. I keep saying Miles didn’t care about characters, but I forgot this cavalcade! He was very excited to see Woody, Buzz, and Sully from Monster's Inc.

Once it had passed, we continued our track to Tower of Terror. Micheal was excited to be riding because we had kind of assumed we wouldn’t ride it this trip. We weren’t sure if we’d be with family at this particular point, and as Ashlyn won’t ride ToT, and neither Micheal nor I want to ride it alone, so we just didn’t know.

As it went, my sister won’t ride it, but her daughter Alice loves it. So Micheal, Alice, and I rode together while my sister took the other kids to do the Lightning McQueen show. I’m really glad they finally put something back there to occupy little kids.



I think we waited around 30 min in line. Now, I will ride ToT, but it scares the bejeezees out of me. I HAVE to hold onto the seat handles. Well, I realized too late I had been seated in a seat next to the plexiglass. That meant I couldn’t use that handle. My niece was on the other side of me, using the other handle.
I had this extreme chicken moment where I just wanted to get off .

Luckily, on this particular ride the drops were pretty minor.

Micheal and Alice were disappointed, but I was so happy, lol!



After the ride we met up with the others. They had liked the Cars show. It was time for our mobile order at Backlot Express so we made our way there, picked up our food, and found a table in the outdoor area. With the shade and the fans running, it was cool enough.

Our food was good, and soon enough we were finished and feeling pretty tired. We did make one more stop before heading to the buses.

This picture cracks me up every time I look at it!





That's better!

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly our last stop. We slipped into a few shops on our way out. Ashlyn and Miles got more stuff (of course).

As we neared the park exit we saw a pin board at the Crossroads booth thingy. The kids did some pin trading, and the very kind CM pointed us to the photo center across the way, where she said they had a giant pin board.

Away we went. It really was a giant board! The kids did some more trading. While we were in there, a family came in carrying a stuffed Tuk Tuk and said they’d found it on the steps outside.

Well of course it was the very thing Ashlyn had JUST bought and had been carrying. How on earth did she drop it and not know it? I don’t know, but we were very grateful to the family who returned it!

At last we headed to the buses, where we waited right at one very long hour. We actually decided to stay back at the hotel the rest of the evening. It was around 3pm at this point.

We skipped several attractions at HS, but we didn’t really mind. The R&R was worth it, and we counted it a successful day. We had one park day left, and we would be heading back to Magic Kingdom .

When we got back to the resort there was a surprise. The arcade was open! Micheal and the kids were excited. I hate arcades but I humored them .



Later that night we browsed the gift shop at Movies. Micheal bought several gifts for coworkers, and this was when I first set my eye on my castle puzzle. With that, I’ll leave you with this. Ashlyn also got a puzzle, which we just finished.



And can I brag on Ashlyn for just a sec? She loves science and in fact placed in the top 13% in the country (for her age group) in science this year, in national testing at school. So, there’s a science camp in our area this coming week. I had heard about it a while back and looked into it, but it was too pricey.

Well, last week I saw they were accepting nominations for a scholarship. I nominated Ashlyn, and she won the scholarship! I’m so excited for her, and she’s excited to spend the week at science camp.

 

[cassidy57]

I am really enjoying your trip report. What wonderful news about Ashlyn winning the scholarship to go to science camp. I bet that will be so much fun for her.

 

[cajunfan]

Enjoyed reading about your HS day!
And CONGRATULATIONS to Ashlyn for the scholarship! I hope she has a magical time at science camp.

 

[Steppesister]

Subbing in to slowly read.

 

[EvilVillainess]

Congratulations on the scholarship for Ashlyn to Science Camp. That is a fantastic accomplishment. I am.really enjoying your trip report.