I did it MMMMYYYYYY WAAAAYYYY....but was it right? - Our May/June 2023 Trip

BridgetR3

BridgetR3

Dreaming of Home
Joined
Jan 8, 2011
Welcome!! I am excited to start a TR for our most recent trip to celebrate DS's 21st birthday! He actually turned 21 the week before our trip but being a school teacher, I am not allowed to take off during the last week of school per my contract so we had to wait until I could leave.

On our trip we have .......

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Me - Middle school math teacher
* Favorite Park - Epcot
* Hates rollercoasters but I'll try anything once, even Guardians which I tried last year and well it didn't go so well......

DH - He works REALLY hard to feed our addiction to Disney.
* Favorite Ride - Guardians of the Galaxy
* He is a very picky eater so we have to pick restaurants very carefully.

Also on the trip were .....

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DS1(in the gray shirt) - The birthday boy, from here on out known as T
* Favorite Ride - Toy Story Midway Mania
* He's an old soul in a young body and loves the nostalgia of Disney.

DS2 ( in the red shirt) - My thrill junkie, known as A
* Favorite Rides - the faster the better, loves Guardians
* He is the reason we do not ever make rope drop.

Disclaimer - My peeps do NOT like taking pictures so my TR is going to be story and pics of Disney stuff ....oh and food, lots of food because these boys don't stop for anyone.

On this trip, we never once made it to rope drop because we stopped getting up early a LONG TIME ago. We also never bought Genie+ or any ILL. So was it the right decision or did we mess up? Stick around and find out!

Trip Report Links

Day 1
A Boat! I've Seen a Boat! There's my blue boat! - Travel Day
Lines before the lines to get into the lines at Disney World - Day 1 am
It's outta this world! Huk-Huk - Day 1
They are the best of friends. They are the worst of enemies. - Day 1
Up next - The Backside of Water - Day 1
It is illegal to pass by the castle without taking a picture of it. - Day 1
I can't miss dinner. It's my favorite part of the day! - Day 1

Day 2
Day 2 - Hollywood Studios start
This isn't going to work...
 
Last edited:
Okay! I am gonna stick around 😉 Three sons here- we have never made rope drop- maybe if rope drop was at 1am....
We have always been park closers...
Interested in how you do without Genie Plus. Tickets aren't cheap and I think I object just based on principle. $20 Genie plus adds $100 a day for a family of five.
 
Counting Stars said:
Okay! I am gonna stick around 😉 Three sons here- we have never made rope drop- maybe if rope drop was at 1am....
We have always been park closers...
Interested in how you do without Genie Plus. Tickets aren't cheap and I think I object just based on principle. $20 Genie plus adds $100 a day for a family of five.
Click to expand...
Thanks for joining us! This was our first trip to not buy Genie Plus at all or even a lightning lane. I totally agree about the principle of it all. It is not that we could not afford it but rather that we choose not to buy it. Spoiler alert - Some days were better than others.
 
A Boat! I've seen a boat! There's my blue boat! - Travel Day

Usually, we take two half days to make our trek to Disney. We start after work on the first day and then finish up the second morning and spend half of a day in the parks. However, DH had to work super late so we decided to try to make it all in one day (it's about 12 hours from home). Actually there is no we were going to try. We had actually booked our pre-Disney hotel before we even left for the trip and it was the Holiday Inn in Disney Springs because I had lots of points and it would be free so it was "Make it to Disney or bust...."

We left around 8 a.m. on Friday, May 26. We come from near the Texas/Louisiana border so we have a LOT of ground to cover. We stopped for lunch in Gulfport at a Zaxby's. We don't have Zaxby's at home so we stop there whenever we can while travelling. I love their salads!

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The traffic around Mobile was absolutely awful! While in Mobile, before going through the tunnel, I switched lanes in hopes of moving a little faster as it seemed that no matter what line I would get in, it would stop. When we switched lanes, I told the boys, "Look, we were behind that blue boat. Let's see if we beat him out of traffic." We did get through Mobile before the blue boat but he passed us right after Daphne. It took us almost 2 hours just to get through Alabama which meant we would not be stopping at Buc-ees, our favorite stop on the trip down to Disney but we did promise the boys that we would stop on the way back.

As we crossed into Florida, one of the boys called out, "A boat!! Look at the blue boat!" I didn't see it at first but sure enough, there was a blue boat on a trailer in the west bound shoulder just sitting there. We all laughed a bit at the sight of another blue boat. Surely we beat that one to Disney.

First though, we needed a new sticker for our Sunpass as we had gotten a new car right before our trip and we forgot the sticker in the other one at home. We stopped at the Florida welcome rest area to use the restroom and grab a sticker for sunpass but they had the transponders there so I decided to grab one of those. The only problem was that they were in a vending machine and each time I tapped my debit card to the machine, it would charge my card $20 for a $16 transponder but then tell me that I could not have the transponder because I didn't have enough money. I stupidly did this twice before going to a human in the welcome center. The first man I spoke with sent me to another desk to speak with a lady. She told me that there was nothing she could do and that I should call the 1-800 number on the machine. By this time, I was frustrated and ready to get back on the road. DH came to see what was taking so long and when I told him, he took out $20 and purchased a transponder from the vending machine with cash so $56 for a $16 transponder. Not a good way to start our trip......

We travelled on throughout the evening and stopped at a Wendy's in Chipley for a really yucky dinner. I didn't even take pictures of it...sorry.....it was gross. You aren't missing out, I promise. Our last stop before the turn south on I-75 was at the Busy Bee. We got there around 10:15 p.m. so we were already running WAY WAY behind schedule. It was quite chilly while we were at the Busy Bee and I was beginning to wonder if Disney was as cool as it was here.

Finally around 12:30 a.m. we arrived at the Holiday Inn. I honestly wish we had not booked it pretrip as I would not have made it that far if I had had a choice to stop somewhere else along the way but I was so glad to be at Disney finally!! As we were unloading our things at the hotel, it was again very chilly with a pretty strong wind so I took some time to check the weather for the week and noticed that it would not be our usual hot June temps on this trip.

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After that, we quickly took showers and went to sleep, ready for a full day in the parks the next day!
 




Lines before the lines to get into the lines at Disney World....Day 1 AM

After coming in after midnight, you would think that I would have slept in but nope, my internal alarm clock woke up at 6:30 a.m. and I was freaking out that I was going to be late for work until I remembered that we were at Disney. I stayed in bed hoping to go back to sleep and did for a little while.

By about 9:30 a.m. everyone was up and ready to head over to Disney. Before leaving though, I figured I would make use of our balcony just to see what kind of view we had.

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We had a really pretty view of the pool. Too bad we were ready for Disney and wouldn't be using it. We loaded our few things and headed over to Riviera. In no time at all, we were home.

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The weather was gorgeous and we were so ready to be in the parks but first, we needed to either buy a magic band or get a ticket card for T as his magic bands from previous trips were missing. We stopped by the little boutique and looked at the magic bands but there wasn't one that he really liked so we headed to the front desk. My only complaint about anything at all at Riviera is that the boutique/store is just too small. Anyways, the CM at the front desk was very helpful and not only did she give him a card but she gave him a birthday button and DH and I an anniversary button as our anniversary was also during our trip.

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With that taken care of, we were off to the parks! As we were walking up to our bus stop, we noticed the magic kingdom bus was already there so we hopped on and it left! I hope the buses are like that for the rest of the trip!

In no time we were at Magic Kingdom and ready to enter the park. We are long time annual passholders but had allowed our passes to lapse during the covid years and so just recently when Disney opened up sales again, we became annual passholders again. In the past (pre-covid), I remember our annual passes being automatically linked to our magic bands and we just entered the park as usual since we are not Florida residents. However, when I tried to enter the parks on this day, it turned blue and the cast member told me that I had to exchange my voucher for a real annual pass in order to enter. I asked to make sure and he stated again that I had to visit guest relations.

Unfortunately guest relations was FULL......like 6 rows of people standing around FULL......some of these people were also exchanging vouchers but most of them were just there for other things. We were in for quite a wait.


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Up next, finally entering the park and our first ride of the day!! Any guesses?
 
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