Another Year of APs and a Surprise Cruise! Combo PTRs/TRs updated 6/16 Labor Day Parts 4&5, the end!

[amalone1013]

Me too! I've never found one that I thought would look good on me because they just seem so big.

I was just internet browsing, because I was kind of hoping they would have new DCL or Castaway Cay spirit jerseys on our cruise (the CC one is short sleeved) and I'm finding this, not sure about that!

You picked the best two IMO. Wilderness is by far our favorite. You feel away from everything but you are in the middle of everything. AKL is the same feeling, just unfortunately you are not in the middle of anything

Someday. I'm actually really excited right now to at least take my ILs to AKL just for breakfast so they can see it.

Awesome view. We ate here but had a crappy table right at the entrance. I really wanted to sit upstains

I love being able to creep on everyone

Completely agree. And I am so in the Zach camp on this one. I love dumplings but the pork ones were just standard issue. They just opened an all dumpling restaurant by our house that I am dying to try. Just waiting on them to work some kinks out before we try it. I may turn into a dumpling after that.

Zack would be in heaven!

Oh my favorite! The water parade is my very first Disney memory from when I was 5 years old and we could see it from our room at the Contemporary. Still warms my heart.

I'm really hoping timing works out that we can go to the Poly beach for HEA and the water parade. I know that's something my ILs haven't seen. Hopefully taking uber vs DME will help!

I tried a lot of hex codes to match mine too The only one I couldn’t get close with was the teal.

I got too impatient eventually What a pain! The problem is, while there's not really that many less color choices... they are all really weird shades!

I cannot believe your trip is almost here. Everything sounds divine. A little Disney time, a little cruise time, a little space time. And food. Lot of food. My favorite subject. Sounds perfect.

I'm so excited. This trip has been a long time in the making!

 

[amalone1013]

Soooooo Crystal Palace may get cut. Not only do we not want to be too rushed, but also there is all the end of Illuminations merchandise coming out in a few days, so after we drop our stuff at the Swan I think we will go through Epcot to stop there, then monorail to Magic Kingdom.

Hmmm, maybe depending on the timing I can talk Zack into Tonga Toast at Poly QS...

 

[amalone1013]

A Mysterious Labor Day Trip?
A Mini TR
Part Four

We headed back to Magic Kingdom and got there around 4pm for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party! We had talked about going on our honeymoon but hadn't fit it in, and then talked about it for our anniversary trip that was two weeks after that but hadn't fit it in, so how could we pass up this opportunity?

With our timing we were able to get our wristbands for the party and head down the bypass to get our candy bags. We were hungry by this time, so we had a mission...

But then were distracted by Edna:

We had to send a photo to Zack's mom because she works in the schools and has a kid that calls her Edna Mode

But hey, Edna really was kind of related to our mission:

The Super Stretchy Burger
Inspired by Mrs. Incredible. Bacon Cheeseburger topped with garlic ranch and mozzerella sticks (and bacon)

Now I'm looking at this thinking, that was kind of a crappy name But it was really good! I mean, a burger with cheese sticks on it, sign me up! It took me back to the good old days of college, where we ate at places like Fat Shack where you could get sandwiches with chicken fingers/cheese sticks/mac and cheese, or DP Dough where my favorite calzone had chicken fingers, cheese, and ranch dressing in it. Ah, college The only thing with this burger is it would have been better if the cheese sticks had been hotter when we got it.

I think we mobile ordered this, which was our first experience with that. How handy! Now my only issue is I must fight with my frugal self, because I collect discounted Disney gift cards to pay for our trips but can't use them with mobile order

Also this was our first time in Cosmic Ray's minus stopping in for cookies during the Christmas party the year before, so this was our first time encountering Cosmic Ray... I felt like I was back at Chuck E Cheese It didn't help that there were only a couple other tables of people in there, which is how I remember my Chuck E Cheese being the last time I was there, when I was 10-12 for some younger cousin's birthday.

That guy looks super happy to be in my photo. Doesn't he know I'm trying to make him famous?

I'm thinking I had FPs for Jungle Cruise and uh, two other rides before the party started. Maybe Peter Pan? And we stopped by Big Top Souvenirs to get some party merch - we buy an ornament on every vacation so we decided on the MNSSHP ear hat one for this trip, and then I couldn't resist the Hocus Pocus AP bag.

Anyways, the first party thing we did was line up before the party technically began to meet a character... and Zack had a Peter Pan Float while we waited in line. He really enjoyed but unfortunately it seems I failed to document it. This is bad not because you can't see it, because you've all seen a million photos and maybe even tried it yourself, but because I have failed as a trip reporter! *shamed*

After waiting wayyyy too long...

I love it, they are so cute! We don't do a ton of characters overall, and this ended up being almost twice as long as I was expecting it to be when planning.

I think next we probably rode the teacups since they were doing a special 'overlay' for the party - really a fog machine. And then took a wonderfully blurry selfie on the People Mover.

If i make it smaller we look less blurry...

And then we were off to Space Mountain... in the dark!

I have no words.

And while in line, we ran into some friends.

Baymax!

Ah, and @chunkymonkey and Steve

We took a spin defending the galaxy together, and then Zack and I headed off to watch the parade. We grabbed a Muenster Smash Burger to take with us using mobile order #spoiled. Muenster Smash Burger served on a black bun with Muenster cheese, tots, and Sriracha aïoli - it wasn't bad, but we preferred the Stretchy burger.

Apparently I took no pictures of the parade But we agreed it is our new favorite Disney parade except maybe Paint the Night.

Then we headed to the hub to find a fireworks spot. I was excited for the show as I had enjoyed what we'd seen from BLT/California Grill the previous year, more so than I had expected. So excited... no pictures. On the way there, we stopped for the snack that had made Zack's list:

Hitchhiking Ghost Dessert $5.99
Doom Buggy-inspired Cream Puff with them! It’s filled with cookies and cream mousse and topped witch a chocolate piece featuring the Hitchhiking Ghosts

Blech. Not very good, and they all looked pretty sad vs the promotional photo.

After we headed for Pirates for their special Halloween Party shtick. This was our first time seeing the new Red Head scene so of course it was documented.

And we found a new animatronic!

Then we headed for Haunted Mansion, and on the way there we had possibly our best character interaction ever. It had actually slipped my mind that I wanted to meet these guys so I'm so glad we stumbled upon them!

Obviously you don't smile with gravediggers.

And obviously I am bad at making a serious face...

They know you're smiling!

Then we continued on to Haunted Mansion. I love the effects they give it for the party. And the characters were hilarious. We spent some time watching them after we rode.

We also stopped for some magic shots

And finally made our way back to the hub for the last Hocus Pocus show of the night, which was right at park close.

I really enjoyed the show, I thought it was great. I am an old Hocus Pocus fan and the characters were so spot on in their personalities! Zack was a bit lost because he hadn't seen it before, or not in many years. We watched it after the trip. We got here maybe 15 or 20 til midnight and were able to stand along the railing of one of the walkways up to the castle, so we could see right over everyone.

One more stop as we closed down our first MNSSHP

We had a great time and actually enjoyed the Halloween Party way more than the Christmas Party we had attended the previous year. We also brought home quite a bit of candy

And thus concludes part four!



Hex Color Note: CA18BE
I gotta start keeping track of these somehow!

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[amalone1013]

A Mysterious Labor Day Trip?
A Mini TR
Bonus Waterpark Pictures and Review

Ok, I found some more waterpark pictures to thrown in here. Not sure how I forgot them when writing about those days...

Ok, then I looked again and I guess it's just a couple

And I completely forgot that we met Goofy at Blizzard Beach!

As I went to hug him all I could think about was I still had a wet suit on, and it was obviously getting my coverup wet, and all the little wet children hugging this character...

Stitch was out at Typhoon Lagoon the following day. We saw him go for his break and didn't feel like waiting around. Plus I think I was still traumatized by the idea of all the wet people hugging the characters and couldn't face a full bodied fuzzy one


Reviews

Blizzard Beach: lots of fun. Also lots of shade/shaded pathways so no burning feet There were also little sprayers on the paths to keep them wet/cool - we need those at home! Another thing that is neat in our opinion, is that there was all of the theming so you aren't just in a park with a bunch of structures/open stairs like some waterparks. Our waterpark at home uses the terrain for a lot of the slides, so you kill yourself walking up and down hills all day but it looks cool. And from the elevated areas you get some neat views of around WDW, like you can on some rides like Everest etc. We hit all the slides (except I passed on Summit Plummet and let Zack cover that one for us I find nothing enjoyable about slides that give you wedgies). Our favorites were the Runoff Rapids (though only two were open at the time) and Downhill Double Dipper slides. The DD slides were just straight shot enclosed tube racing slides, but were fun as they had little platforms that would drop and release you both at the same time, and a bell would ring for whoever was off first. It was very slow to load though and in the afternoon the wait was 45min+ even though the waterparks weren't very busy overall. The other slides were fun too, Teamboat Springs was a cute tame family raft ride and we got paired with a mom and toddler. The chairlift line could get long (like 30min). I like lazy rivers and this one was cute, but only 2.5ft deep so I kept scraping my knees on the bottom

Typhoon Lagoon: also really fun. Less shade overall, but they had the pathway sprayers. Also all theming instead of waterslide structures, but not really any vantage points like BB had. Our favorite slides here were the water coasters, Crush n Gusher (I'd heard the name CnG before but didn't realize until going it covers 3 different similar slides that all have their own names, one or two could be ridden alone or in pairs if I remember correctly). Again the park wasn't busy and these loaded quickly so waits were never more than 30min, and more like 5-10min. Miss Adventure Falls was more exciting than TB Springs, but the line was long all day. It also broke down several times (including while we were in line, but we waited it out). And they had to stop the conveyor a few times because people are dumb and don't listen. The rafts load at the bottom of the slide and you ride a converyor to the top... Let's just say that after what we witnessed while waiting, I wasn't terribly shocked when someone got their arm stuck in the conveyor a few months later. It's not a dangerous ride at all, just... follow the rules like not standing in the raft or sticking your arms out The other thing I'll say is that while a fun raft ride, I read a lot of hype about MAF when it first opened, and the animatronic it has, so I guess I expected more themeing on the ride?

We skipped the body slides here but hit all the tube slides. There's a trio of them where two are single person and one is a family tube. One single person was a nice tame slide, one was a fun exciting one that we did several times. The other thing that made it fun was watching people come out.. the water level in the pool at the end was higher than it should have been and in the end of the slide, so people would hit that and either dump over at the end of the slide or just... get stuck (and then usually tip over trying to move or get out) Then there was the family one... extremely slow to load, long line. While we were waiting and watching, Zack kept saying, I think it just comes right down there! That's it! And I was like, no there must be more... but there wasn't. And maybe it was just that day, but the water level was pretty low, and the slide has ridges to simulate rapids, and we just... slid over them, you felt every single one with your butt They bill this as an intensity level between the two single tube rides, but we would disagree. Last thing, this lazy river was more like 3ft, 3.5ft which made a huge difference to me. Also, I was bummed that they closed the shark reef for MAF; I didn't realize that until we had decided to take this trip.

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[kastoney]

A Mysterious Labor Day Trip?
A Mini TR
Part Four

I'd totally forgot you were doing a trip report and thought this was your PTR thread. So Surprise find for me!

The Super Stretchy Burger
Inspired by Mrs. Incredible. Bacon Cheeseburger topped with garlic ranch and mozzerella sticks (and bacon)

Now I'm looking at this thinking, that was kind of a crappy name But it was really good!

The name is weird, but I must say that sounds really, really good. Like I must have mozzarella sticks and ranch today good.

felt like I was back at Chuck E Cheese It didn't help that there were only a couple other tables of people in there, which is how I remember my Chuck E Cheese being the last time I was there, when I was 10-12 for some younger cousin's birthday.

I totally get the Chuck E Cheese vibe but every time we've had to go for birthday parties there were like a million people in there. All standing way to close to me. Stay away, stay far away!!!!

That guy looks super happy to be in my photo. Doesn't he know I'm trying to make him famous?

I think I may like the picture of him better than the chuck e cheese guy. Now if only he was an animatronic and came to life. I can only imagine what he would say.

Ah, and @chunkymonkey and Steve

Awesome you all got to meet!

This picture is everything. Clearly he was having none of your smile.

 

[amalone1013]

A Mysterious Labor Day Trip?
A Mini TR
Part Five

Last day of the trip

But first, breakfast! We were off to Kona cafe, which was our one reservation we didn't make it to for our honeymoon. I'm thinking we pushed our reservation time back a bit because of our late night at MNSSHP. First things first:

Mimosa Flight $14 - Your Choice of Three Tropical Juices: Pineapple, Cranberry, Pink Grapefruit, or Liliko'i

Hmm... I know I did Liliko'i and Pineapple... I'm pretty sure orange juice was an option at the time. I couldn't tell you know which I liked best, just that they were yummy

I couldn't go here and not get Tonga Toast.

For me it lived up to they hype. I adore sweet breakfast foods. No strawberry compote for me though, thanks!

For @Raeven

Yummmmm.

I have no photo of Zack's food. I'm thinking he got the regular breakfast that was eggs, potatoes, bacon. Or pancakes. Or an omelet.

And while we were at breakfast I bought our VB tickets via UCT. Because Universal requires no planning.

Then we were off to Volcano Bay! We moved it to this day during our planning because this was Tuesday, and we figured this would be our best shot with VB. Since it was still new and it was Labor Day weekend, we expected it to be busy. We also thought it would be busy because of Universal's Express Pass pricing... they price it based on expected demand, and they wanted $100pp for the unlimited pass There was no way I was paying another $200 here. We were just going to tough it out and try out their virtual line system.

So VB is kind of weird, you can't just park there you have to park in the garages and bus over, so that was where we had to be dropped off by our uber. It was almost 11:30am by the time we got there.

The end! No more pictures so nothing else must have happened

Actually we got in, and then decided to take care of upgrading our tickets to Seasonal APs as it made the most sense - it was the same cost to buy VB tickets, tickets for our trip in a couple weeks, and HHN tickets/EPs, as it was to buy Seasonal APs and then get an AP discount on the HHN stuff. So why not? And we have done an additional 2 days there this year, so I feel validated Plus we got a couple restaurant discounts last September (usually seasonal APs don't get discounts).

We also got our Tapu Tapu wristbands for the virtual queues, and set them up so we could pay with them like magicbands. They were also used to open our locker, and you could use them to take photos at spots around the park. My favorite thing is there were little interactive spots around the park, where you could tap your band and it would spray people in the lazy river. We really didn't see anyone using them; they seemed pretty unknown at the time and some were kind of hidden in the landscaping but I'd read about them online. People were always very confused as to why sprayers or sprinklers were going off There were also some of these in the pool and those ones people had found.

First thing here, the Volcano is pretty awesome. Overall the themeing is pretty great. The only things here vs Disney for that was, one you had all of the water slide supports and multi story staircases like you typically would anywhere, and two it was weird to be up on those stairs waiting... and you're looking at the strip mall across the two land street from VB and hearing the cars go by.

The only attractions we actually needed to tap in for for the virtual line were the body plunge slides, the drop slides (ones where the slide was 6ft above the pool), and the aqua coaster. I really tried to talk Zack into a plunge slide but couldn't do it We did enjoy watching people in the one, the tube is clear and runs down the side of the wave pool. There is also a regular pool on the other side of the tube. It's hard to explain so I borrowed a photo from OI:

It was pretty fun to watch people shoot through there!

So we skipped the plunge and drop slides. Everything else was a tube slide or mats. There were 4 single/double tube slides and 4 5-6 person slides. All were lots of fun and more exciting/thrilling than Disney's slides. I also liked their mat slides more than the ones Disney had at Blizzard Beach.

We rode Krakatau, the aqua coaster... once. This started as the longest line of the day, but I think dropped below the drop slides if I remember right. We used the virtual line which was nice. I think we waited almost 20min after coming back. These were 4 people rafts and they put you on a scale to weigh the group (they did this on a few tube rides too). Then they tell you where to sit. I understand the reasoning, but it was also weird as Zack and I got paired with another guy, and they sat us me-empty-other guy-Zack. Honestly we were not impressed with this and did not bother to ride again. We much preferred the Crush n Gusher slides or the aqua coaster at our local waterpark.

Last, there are two rivers. A lazy river which was very calm and relaxing and enjoyable. And Teawa, the Fearless River. AKA lazy river on steroids! This one has a much faster current, rapids, and waves, and you must wear a Universal provided life jacket. It was tons of fun!

We stopped mid afternoon and split some nachos from one of the QS options. While we were waiting for our food, a manager came up and told the employees they could close up early (4/5pm maybe?). We were really surprised because the park was open until 8pm! We chatted with them and also with some employees up at the front at the towel rentals before leaving and all told us that the ENTIRE WEEKEND was completely dead for VB. Never would have expected that. I don't think Uni did either, the way they had EPs priced. After we re rode some favorites and took another spin around the river, we changed and grabbed an uber back to Pop. Where we changed again and headed to Epcot for our final night.

We hit a few food booths for dinner:

Beef Brisket Poutine $8.99 - French Fries with Beef Brisket, Beer Cheese Sauce and Poutine Gravy topped with Crispy Onions
Creamy Spinach and Artichoke Dip $5 - with Pulled Chicken, Toasted Blue Diamond Almonds and Parmesan Cheese served with Nut Thins® Crackers

I wasn't impressed by the poutine but Zack enjoyed it, and we both thought the dip was really good but could use more crackers

Braised Beef Stroganoff $5.25 - with Tiny Egg Noodles, Wild Mushroom and Boursin Garlic with Fine Herbs Cheese Sauce

And this was yummy again, similar to 2017's.

Then we grabbed a spot near Norway to watch Illuminations.

It was an EMH night, and Zack wanted to try and catch Frozen after the show so we did that with 50,000 of our closest best friends... We probably waited 30min. We got stuck in the Let It Go scene for several minutes, and Elsa made this face at us the entire time:

Then we made our way to the front of the park.

But of course we must ride Spaceship Earth.

Aaaaaaaand then I talked Zack into going to Ample Hill's so we killed ourselves getting back through the park and over there before their 11pm close. This photo is from 10:56pm so we were successful but barely!

And then sadly we went back to Pop and packed our things for what was some ungodly hour DME pickup. And had a terrible time at TSA at MCO. Zack was very unimpressed that we had to dump all the candy out in a dirty bin. And this may have been the trip where we were the last people through one station before they closed it, and a TSA agent was yelling in Zack's face to take off his belt, and there were zero bins for us and we couldn't even get a word in to ask because he was just repeatedly yelling about taking the belt off MCO TSA is always a magical ending to our trips...

Review

We had a ton of fun at VB. Going off the internet, VB is 27 acres vs BB at 66 acres and TL at 56 acres. VB felt a little smaller than Disney's, but I never would have guessed half the size. I felt like they had a lot to do but the space didn't feel overly cramped, and you could always see multiple attractions at a time to pique your interest. Disney's stuff was more spread out so it felt like the crowd moved together a bit. And then we were surprised to learn that our local waterpark is 67 acres (we knew it was big) and has ~50 attractions vs the ~20 that VB/BB/TL each have. We would not hesitate to visit any of these waterparks in the future, or to do another trip like this one. Though we did joke that half the day at BB and half at TL could be perfect to hit all of our favorites

So how would we rank the waterparks?

Honorary 1st Place: Waterworld (we're biased, but if you're in the Denver area and like waterparks, I'd consider it! It has hybrid dark ride water slides!)
1st: Volcano Bay
2nd: Typhoon Lagoon
3rd: Blizzard Beach

Though they all have their unique features which makes it difficult to choose!

And there you have it! Thanks for reading!

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[amalone1013]

I'd totally forgot you were doing a trip report and thought this was your PTR thread. So Surprise find for me!

More like, I decided to be lazy and do it all in one thread... but now of course it's stuck in the PTR forum cause no one moves things any more

Like I must have mozzarella sticks and ranch today good.

Ranch is my preferred dipping sauce for most things, so ranch and mozzarella sticks ON a burger??

I think I may like the picture of him better than the chuck e cheese guy. Now if only he was an animatronic and came to life. I can only imagine what he would say.