3,298 miles, 10 breweries, and 1 Mega Meet - a July '16 Trip Report *New 6/5/17 - Link to new TR!*

TheMaxRebo

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jan 12, 2008
Part 1 - Kick-off

"To all who come to this happy place, welcome!"

Well, at least I hope you will consider this trip report a happy place! This trip was a unique one to us for a number of reasons and also turned out to be one of our best trips ever - and I am excited to share it will all of you (well, assuming I have some readers at least, otherwise I am excited to share it with, well, myself!)

This was our family vacation for the year - and oh look I happen to have a picture of the family here so those of you new to my trip reports know what we look like (apologies in advance for our Northern paleness):

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But this trip was also for another reason - we were braving Florida in July in order to attend the DIS Unplugged 10th Anniversary Mega Meet (thus the "and 1 Mega Meet" part of the trip title). See, picture so it did happen:

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This trip was also different for us as we decided to drive down (thus the "3,298 miles" part of the trip title - we were coming from New York). This was partly to save money but also partly because of the challenges we had with getting all of us and our stuff (including 3 car seats) through airport security last October when we flew out to California.

We figured driving straight through or even with a quick stop over with three young children would be a challenge, so we decided to break things up a bit and make several stops along the way both down and back up. Then I figured, if we were going to make stops, might as well make them strategically around one of my passions other Disney and see what craft breweries we could visit (and thus the "10 breweries" part of the trip title).

I'll get into a bit more detail (though I do want to keep the focus of this report on the Disney part) to the trip and where we stopped, but to give you a a preview, this is the plan we laid out for our travels ...and we followed this pretty closely:

03_Map%20of%20road%20trip%20new.jpg

The details for the trip were:
Dates: July 14th to August 2nd (the Walt Disney World portion was July 22-29)
Location: Various, but For Walt Disney World we were using our timeshare points to stay at Wyndham Bonnet Creek
Who: ... well, check out the next post

So hope you will follow-along and please do join in with comments. Also, as mentioned I will try to spend most of the report on the Disney portions but I will cover the rest of the trip a bit ... if there are specific items you'd like more information on or want me to cover in more detail, please let me know!
 
Part 2: Contents

Introductions:
Part 1: Kick-off ... post #1
Part 2: Contents ... post #2
Part 3: Introductions ... post #3

Travel to Disney:
Part 4: Leaving the nest and heading to PA ... post #35
Part 5: Heading to NC and a stop at the Air and Space Museum ... post #36
Part 6: Reaching Durham, NC and hitting up the first brewery and dinner with friends ... post #58
Part 7: Monuts and Museum of Life & Science - Part I ... post #59
Part 8: Museum of Life & Science - Part II, Ponysaurus, and Bull City Burger and Brew ... post #60
Part 9: Traveling to Savannah, GA and Moon River Brewing ... post #90
Part 10: In Savannah and Vic's on the River for dinner ... post #91
Part 11: We make it to Florida! ... post #112
Part 12: Beach fun and The Whale's Rib ... post #113
Part 13: Beer Time ... post #126
Part 14: Emma's Birthday! ... post #127

Disney Day 1: Disney Springs and the Polynesian:
Part 15: Arriving at Disney and checking out Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar ... post #146
Part 16: Lunch at Morimoto Asia ... post #147
Part 17: Checking into the DIS MegaMeet and our hotel ... post #148
Park 18: Trader Sam's - inside and out ... post #177
Part 19: DISmeet - with Fireworks! ... post #178

Disney Day 2: Disney's Hollywood Studios:
Part 20: Triple Dose of Toy Story ... post #192
Part 21: A Storm Trooper, Doc, Sofia, and Jake ... post #192
Part 22: A Frozen Sing-along and a Citizen's Brigade ... post #209
Part 23: A Sci-Fi Kinda Lunch ... post #210
Part 24: A Red Carpet kinda meet ... post #224
Part 25: Star Tours and (watching) Trials of the Temple ... post #225
Part 26: Tower of Terror IN SUMMER!!!! ... post #226
Part 27: More Star Tours and dinner with a show ... post #252
Part 28: Star Wars Dessert Party ... post #265
Part 29: Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular ... post #266

Disney Day 3: Monorail Resorts and Magic Kingdom:
Part 30: Breakfast at Kona ... post #283
Part 31: Mega Meet Scavenger Hunt ... post #284
Part 32: Ride the Rails ... post #297
Part 33: Running Away to Join the Circus ... post #298
Part 34: Heading to the Hootenanny ... post #313
Part 35: Chowing Down and Enjoying the Show ... post #314
Part 36: Straw - Berry - Short - Cake ... post #315
Part 37: Checking out Tomorrowland ... post #330
Part 38: This is Your Birthday Song! ... post #331
Part 39: For the Last Time in Forever .... post #332

Disney Day 4: Magic Kingdom and the Podcast Taping at Disney Springs
Part 40: A Magic Kingdom quickie morning ... post #349
Part 41: It's Podcast Taping Time! ... post #350
Part 42: More of the Podcast Taping - and DIS meets ... post #366
Part 43: Some Adventurer's Club Stories at Jock's ... post #369
Part 44: A long wait to get back to the Magic Kingdom ... post #371

Part 45: A meal that exceeds expectations ... post #389
Part 46: Into the mines! ... post #390


Disney Day 5: Animal Kingdom
Part 47: Tusker House Breakfast ... post #406

Part 48: A Miscast Safari Driver ... post #407
Part 49: Will Olivia re-conquer Expedition Everest? ... post #415
Part 50: We all get wet! ... post #416
Part 51: Checking out the Nomad Lounge .... post #424
Post 52: A Lion King Festival ... post #425
Post 53: Sunset Safari ... post #435
Post 54: At Night, Animal Kingdom is Alive with Magic! ... post #436


*** Intermission - Trip Video!!! *** ... post #444

Disney Day 6: EPCOT
Part 55: An early arrival at EPCOT ... post #459
Part 56: Akershus breakfast ... post #460
Part 57: Frozen Ever After ... with no wait! ... post #461
Part 58: Meeting Anna and Elsa ... post #462
Part 59: Donald's Boat Ride ... post #479
Part 60: The Seas with Nemo ... and Bruce ... post #480
Part 61: French Food ... post #494
Part 62: A Grand and Miraculous Spaceship ... post #495
Part 63: Frozen Ever After-er and Snow White M&G ... post #509
Part 64: It truly is an American Adventure ... post #510
Part 65: A Spice of Illuminations ... post #522
Part 66: One more time around the park ... post #523

Disney Day 7: Magic Kingdom
Part 67: Do we finally see the Welcome Show? ... post #539
Part 68: Lost Boys and Lost Souls ... post #540
Part 69: Playing with Pooh and does Peter ride the Mine Train? ... post #547
Part 70: A Tavern with no Beer? ... post #548
Part 71: A couple of spins on the Barnstormer ... post #549
Part 72: Under the Sea and out into Space ... post #550
Part 73: Lunch with the Skippers ... post #569
Part 74: Drawn to a watering hole ... post #570
Part 75: Com'on let's be a Choo Choo ... post #587
Part 76: Play time, then a Festival of Fantasy ... post #588
Part 77: More Festival of Fantasy ... post #589
Part 78: Some MK rides ... post #601
Part 79: Put our magic to the test! ... post #602
Part 80: We dine! ... post #603
Part 81: Try the gray stuff! ... post #604


Disney Day 8: EPCOT
Part 82: Jumping with Joy! ... post #612
Part 83: Hidden Mickey Mother-load ... post #613
Part 84: Sunshine Seasons ... post #614
Part 85: Getting our La Cava on ... post #627
Part 86: So, how's the pizza? ... post #628
Part 87: Last bit of Disney ... post #629


Travel From Disney:
Part 88: Getting to Athens and Copper Creek ... post #643
Part 89: Play time ... post #644

Part 90: Terrapin Brewing ... post #645
Part 91: Trapezze Pub ... post #646
Part 92: Oscar Blues ... post #656
Part 93: The Funkatorium ... post #657
Part 94: Dinner at Cootie Brown's ... post #658
part 95: Woodstock Garden Cafe and getting home ... post #669


Recaps:
Part 96: Takeaways from the drive there and back ... post #685
Part 97: Takeaways from our time at Walt Disney World ... post #686
Part 98: Parade of GIFs ... post 687
 
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Part 3: Introductions

So after reading the first post you may be asking yourself "Self, this seems like an absolutely fantastical trip report that I totally want to follow along with ... but who are these fun looking people?"

Well, if that was you, then this is the update for you!

I will start of by allowing myself to introduce, um, myself ... I am Phil and the Disney leader of the family. I remember going to Walt Disney World every few years as a kid combined with visiting extended family that lived in Florida. Also went a few times as I got to be an adult and discovered the joys of the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival and also Pleasure Island, specifically the Adventurer's Club (RIP). Over the past few years I started watching the DIS Unplugged Podcast and really enjoyed it and chatting with members of that little community and have also enjoyed some of the other podcasts - I enjoy reading up on the history of Walt Disney and the parks and how the attractions work and Imagineering and all that so Connecting with Walt has become one of my favorites. We weren't necessarily planning a trip to Walt Disney World this year - but when the 10th anniversary Mega Meet was announced, that was really all the excuse we needed to get the ball rolling. Here's what I look like (I'm the one on the right):

Phil%202.jpg

My significantly better half is Judi and she had visited Walt Disney World a few times as a kid but never really got into it until a dragged her into it, er, I mean, encouraged her. She is a wonderful mom to our three kids, is Zumba 4 Life, loves to bake - as well as a nice glass of wine. She also puts up with all my Disney and Beer love, so points for that. Here is what she looks like (as you can see she enjoys beverages beyond wine as well):

Judi%202.jpg

My eldest daughter is Olivia and she is my partner in crime and always up for and adventure or too. She has a great mind for problem solving (guess that is to be expected as the child of two engineers) and makes me most proud because she is a wonderful big sister. She also likes to see more drama in things than actually exists - which makes me think she is 7 going on 14. She still loves the princesses and is still pretty Frozen crazy - though she has also really gotten to love riding roller coasters and had a blast riding Expedition Everest this trip - and here she is in line for one of her many rides:

Olivia%203.jpg

Next is Peter, the only boy of the family and he is an absolute sweetheart. He can also drive us crazy at time (thus the nickname Pistol Pete) but for the most part he is a really fun kid to be around. He also loves music and to sing - and picks up tunes pretty quickly. He loves anything that moves (his goal in life is to drive all sorts of construction vehicles) and would be happy just riding the monorails all day. His favorite characters are Buzz and Anna. He got in a habit of putting on a really goofy grim for many pictures this trip - so here is one to get you started on that:

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The youngest is Emma and she is already a Disney veteran having gone on her first trip to Walt Disney World when she was all of 1 month old. She would turn 2 during this trip so there was also that to celebrate. She is an absolute goofball and loves to dance. She can have some meltdowns (I mean, who can't?) but for the most part she is a really sweet girl. She loves to eat as well. Not sure exactly who her favorite character is, but she does seem to like the princesses but also Mickey and Minnie. Here she is just being cute and with some food on her shirt/hands - so, pretty typical.

Emma%202.jpg

In most TR the next update will be travel day - but that was more like travel week for us so I will probably take a couple of updates. We start with getting packed and heading to Judi's parents house as they would be watching our dogs for us - and then we head south for a stop near Washington D.C. and then on to Durham, NC.

TTFN
 
You're not talking to yourself anymore! I'm following! Can't wait to hear about all the shenanigans of your trip. :upsidedow
 


I'm here!! So glad you've started!

Great intro! Even though I already know you guys, it's still fun to hear about everyone's current interests :) I am loving Peter's little grin!
 
Yeah Phil! I love reading your TR's, and since this turned out to be one of your "best trips ever", then I'm even more stoked on this one. Yahoo!!! :hippie:
 


Great start! I'm here early, too, which means I might actually keep up with it!
 
I'm here to follow along in the festivities Phil! Can't wait to hear all about it!
 
I don't think you needed to worry about talking to yourself!

Excited to hear more about this trip and the new things you did!
 

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