~Practically Perfect In Every Way~ 8/18-8/28 at The Polynesian!

[disneylove16]

THE TRIP THAT WAS PRACTICALLY
PERFECT IN EVERY WAY
An August 18-28 Trip Report

​

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my 2nd trip report! Our last trip was 1 year ago almost to the day. Last year's trip was our Disneymoon, and this years trip was to celebrate 1 year of marriage, and 8 years of being a couple (I was enough of a control freak to plan our wedding date on the same day we started dating). This years trip was very different from our last trip. We were way less commando, and almost downright lazy, which I blame on the resort. More on that later. Let's begin, shall we?

Who: DH (35) and me (34)
What: A 9 day trip, staying out our dream resort!
Where: The Polynesian
When: August 18-28
Why: To celebrate 1 year of marriage, and 8 years of putting up with each other
I'll include an intro in case you didn't read my last TR, and if you have, feel free to skip ahead!

Me:

Yes, I did take a selfie in the resort's bathroom. Don't judge. These pictures make me laugh too, because my hair was blow dried and flat ironed before traveling. That's Florida humidity for ya!
Disney freak, goofball, and super planner. I still have some social anxiety, but am getting better at managing it. I'm proud to say I was able to come off all medications by making quite a few lifestlye changes.
I'm from NY, currently living in CA. My grandparents lived in FL, and my brother and I would go visit them for the summers growing up, with annual passes, so we visited WDW countless times. I've been back to visit as an adult in my 20's a few times, and once with DH 6 years ago. I've stayed at GF (as a young child), Poly (as a young child), Contemporary (as a young child), Coronado Springs, All Star Sports, and offsite. WDW is such a sentimental place for me. It's my happy place, and my favorite place on earth.

Age: 34
Favorite ride: Pirates of the Caribbean, and now Flight of Passage
Favorite park: Epcot
Favorite characters: Stitch, Pua, Harris, Hubert & Hamish (I count them as 1), and Figment
Favorite Restaurant: Raglan Road

DH:

He is car-obsessed, laid back, pretty much has me make all the plans, and he goes with the flow. This is a blessing and a curse. Our 1st trip together 7 years ago was DH's first trip ever to WDW. He fell in love with it. I swear every trip he becomes more and more Disney-obsessed (which I am ever grateful for). He is also my happy place, my home.

Age: 35
Favorite rides: Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Expedition Everest
Favorite park: Epcot
Favorite characters: Goofy, Gerald (finding Dory) and Hei-Hei
Favorite Restaurant: Coral Reef

Last up, our fur-baby aka sweet potato aka sugar bear aka bubba (I pretty much call her everything but her name)
Although she does not visit WDW with us, I'm including her in my TR because she's family. Since we don't have any children, she is our baby. I am ridiculously attached to her, and have a really hard time leaving her. My in-laws doggie sat for us, but it does put a stress on our vacations. She has a lot of health problems, including pancreatitis. She hasn't had an attack (thank God) for over a year though, so I was hoping she stayed healthy for our trip. She is beyond spoiled.:

From our PTR:
We are rope-drop, commando-type visitors. We get a lot done in the first hour of our day. We don't usually take breaks during the day (I know, I know.) Although, since we'll be staying at The Poly this trip, I think we are going to try and take afternoon breaks this trip. We try to stay to close, but that rarely happens. We are both early birds rather than night owls, but we try to squeeze as much Disney as possible out of our time there. We both love thrill rides, and love to eat. I love to try new things, while DH is more of a burgers and steak guy. He rarely drinks at home, but loves getting beers to "relax" at WDW. I also don't eat beef or pork, so that will reflect in the food that I order. We will probably be snacking a lot this trip, since we've been eating mostly clean the last 6 months. I have a list of Disney foods I'm craving!

*We pretty much did the complete opposite of our usual WDW touring style. I meticulously planned every day to the finest detail, and completely derailed more and more as our trip went on. You see, I forgot to take into consideration just how lovely The Polynesian is. We found ourselves wanting to stay at the resort as much as possible, and not always wanting to go to the parks.
2 VERY big difference at WDW this year vs last year: The heat and the crowds. The heat was so much more bearable this year. We couldn't figure out if it's because we were in better shape, if it was because we actually got some rain this trip (last year it only rained twice for a few minutes), or if it was truly cooler out. However, the crowds were so much heavier this year. Every park, every day. And I use every online planning tool to pick which parks to visit each day.
We ended up ditching quite a bit of our plans to lounge at the resort. This was our planned Itinerary vs what we actually did:

Friday, August 18th
Travel day
We will be taking an overnight flight this trip, which we did 7 years ago. We take off at 7 pm Friday night, and get into MCO Saturday morning at 5 am. We will most likely eat dinner during our layover, and sleep on the flight to MCO. We ended up not being hungry, and neither of us could sleep. So we arrived exhausted and out of it. Also, flying overnight was a horrible idea for us. Some people can hack it. Not us. Neither of us were able to shake the "weird feeling" for most of the trip. DH says it feels like being hungover. I just feel tired and a little delirious. Regardless, we had an amazing trip.

Saturday, 8/19
Arrival Day
We plan on lounging at the resort, and going to Disney Springs
Breakfast: Captain Cook's
Lunch: Earl of Sandwich, Daily Poutine, Amorette's Patisserie

Sunday, 8/20
Magic Kingdom
*Disney Early Morning Magic
Lunch: Columbia Harbour House
Dinner: Be Our Guest


Monday, 8/21
Epcot
Lunch: Spice Road Table
Dinner- Coral Reef
*We ended up booking a last minute ADR for SRT for lunch, and sooo glad we did!

Tuesday, 8/22
Rest/ DHS
We kind of sort of did HS. We did 1 ride and hit Starbucks, that was it.
Breakfast: Kona Island *this became a staple for my coffee this trip
Lunch: Oasis Bar & Grill
Abracadabar, Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie
Dinner- Cape May Cafe
After Dinner: Trader Sam's and Captain Cook's

Wednesday, 8/23
AK
Lunch: Satu'li Canteen
Pongu Pongu
Dinner- Tusker House

Thursday, 8/24
Rest/ DS
Breakfast: Kona Island
Lunch: Dluxe Burger
Sprinkles, Morimoto Street Food, Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar
Dinner- Raglan Road
*We went to AK after dinner

Friday, 8/25
Epcot
Breakfast: Kona Island
Lunch- Via Napoli
Dinner- Room Service (I ordered the Twilight Feast, more on that later)

Saturday, 8/26
MK (maybe)
Breakfast: Kona Island
Lunch: Oasis Bar & Grill
Dinner- Morimoto Asia
After dinner: Aristcrepes, BB Wolf's Sausage Co, Goofy's Candy Co
We will be meeting up with my DB, DSIL, DC, and ok I don't know the acronym for dear cousin's husband? for dinner
*My brother and his family ended up coming to our resort early in the day. We swam, lounged by the pool, and were downright lazy. DH and I made a night of it at DS after dinner.

Sunday, 8/27
AK
Dinner- Boma
DS. Again.
Breakfast: Kona Island
Bongo's Cuban Cafe, Candy Cauldran
Lunch: Art Smith's Homecoming
Dinner: Room Service. Again.
Pineapple Lanai
*We ended up continuing our lazy streak and did nothing. We lounged at the resort, and went to DS. We also cancelled our ADR and got room service.

Monday, 8/28
Travel home super early

​

*WARNING* As usual, my TR's are VERY photo-heavy. I came back with over 3k photos. But, reading others' trip reports was one of my favorite things to do to pass time waiting for our trip. And I loved looking at the photos. So I'm returning the favor 10 fold. I took pictures of of anything we ate (much to DH's dismay). I also apologize in advance for photos of us being selfies. I didn't purchase memory maker, and I'm not keen on asking people to take photos for me. We did have some very nice people offer, so there are some "normal" photos of us, but we did take a good amount of selfies. After the Photobucket fiasco screwing my last TR up, I've since discovered Imgur. I spent the last week uploading all my trip photos so that I can just copy and paste along during my trip updates.

Well, I think that's it for the introductions! I hope you'll join along for this journey, and I thank you for reading along!

 

[disneylove16]

Day 1: TRAVEL DAY/ DS
​

DH worked a half day on our travel day, and I took the day off. I love getting pampered before vacation, and getting into relaxation mode. I spent the morning packing, hit the gym one last time (and took advantage of the hydromassage chairs, naturally), and got my nails done. DH and I both got home around 12, finished up our final packing, showered, and got ready to go. Our flight out was on Friday, 8/18 at 6:50 pm. The airport is about an hour away, so we left the house around 4:30 pm. The entire morning I felt so out of it, like my head was in a cloud. My workout helped a little, but I think I was just in disbelief. Does anyone else go through this? We spend almost a year (for some, even more than that) planning a trip, looking forward to it, obsessing over it, and then the day that seems so far away finally comes. And it's like your brain isn't ready for it? No? Just me? Alright then...
DH's cousin dropped us off at Fresno airport around 5:15 pm. I started getting my first full fledged panic attack after saying goodbye to my dog and getting in the car. By the time we got to the airport, I was in bad shape. I had some medication with me, but was desparate not to take it. I used some aromatherapy inhalers I had purchased for the trip, that are meant to help with anxiety. We bought some snacks and found our gate. The woman that checked us in saw our yellow DME luggage tags and commented how lucky we were, which was nice, and one of the security screeners commented on my shirt, how Disney is her happy place too. We really do have the nicest Airport staff.
DH called his mom while we were waiting to board, to ease my mind about my Sugar Bear being ok.

(In case you don't recall from my first TR, or if you are new to reading my TR's, DH has RBF. He looks angry, he's not, I promise.)

My puppers was ok, and we boarded the plane

Our quick flight to LA was uneventful. We planned on getting dinner at the airport, but since we had to wait for a gate to open up for our plane, we ended up only having a 40 minute layover. Which is nothing at LAX. We had to take a bus from our terminal to a different terminal, and go find our gate. We passed a few food vendors, but weren't all that hungry. So we skipped dinner.
Waiting to board our flight:

We didn't sleep, although I look like I just rolled out of bed! Our flight departed LAX at 9:10 pm, and arrived to MCO just shy of 5 am. The plan was to sleep on the plane, but it just didn't happen. I want to say that were were too excited to sleep, but that wasn't it. DH slept on and off. I was tired, and wanted to sleep, I just couldn't. I have restless leg syndrome very once in a while, and it decided it wanted to join me on the plane.

It was still dark when we arrived, which gave the fauxnorail a different feel. But we were excited nontheless

DH was hungry, and I needed coffee pronto, so we stopped at Dunkin Donuts.

DH got some kind of egg sandwich on a bagel, and I got an iced coffee.
I took some photos while I waited for DH to finish eating.
(Imgur uploads the photos out of order, so I'm not sure if this one is from the area we were at, or if I snapped it somewhere else along the way:

Before I knew it, we were walking (DH was walking, I was skipping) up to DME

The guy on the right ended up being our bus driver, and and laughed about how hyper (excited) I was.

There was only 2 other people on our bus, going to Port Orleans, so the bus was empty, and quiet. The bus driver also said he forgot the DVD to play on the bus, so it was a much different feel. We were still stoked.

Magic bands on and ready

I tried to get some photos of the WDW sign, but it was just too dark. I didn't even know we were driving under it til it was too late. I did catch one of The Poly entrance sign, but we were moving too fast, so it's a blur. We did stop long enough for me to catch the security gate

I was caught between the excitement of being there, and wanting to just take it in, and wanting to take photos of everything, which is why some are so blurry.

 

[disneylove16]

I promise the photos get better. A lot of these are blurry. We checked in, and of course our room was not ready yet. I didn't request any specific buildings or rooms, just a balcony. The lovely cast member that checked us in gave us our lei necklaces, and informed us we could leave our carryons with bell services if we wanted to hit the parks before our room was ready. We headed to Captian Cook's because I was starting to get hungry.

I got some Mickey Waffles (Yum) and DH was still full from his egg sandwich.

The sun was rising, and I was able to start seeing the outside seating for Captain Cook's through the windows, which meant I could see the rest of the resort!

 

[disneylove16]

 

[disneylove16]

I am not that sentimental of a person. I definitely don't happy cry. But when I walked through the resort, and out those back doors, and saw just how beautiful our home for the next 9 days was, I cried. I ugly cried. When I saw the castle, I was pretty much a sobbing mess. DH laughed at me, but I could tell how happy he was too. This was our dream resort, and the anticipation of our trip just hit me. The resort is just absolutely breathtaking. I loved everything about it. The attention to detail, the relaxing music, and that smellllll of the lobby

We have the ability to take pictures, record video and audio, why has no one invented the technology to capture smells? (I know it's possible to buy the machine and cartridges that Disney uses to create the scents, and plan on asking for it for Christmas, but still.) Wouldn't it be amazing to have a little device with you that you could just fill with Disney smells? I think so.

I already look sunburnt. Nope, just red from crying.

We went back inside to relax in the lobby a bit and come up with a game plan.

Up next:

 

[buzzrelly]

Joining in! I'm loving all your pics of The Poly We will be back in a couple months and I can't wait!

You guys looked great after flying all night! I'd look far worse

Can't wait to read more!

 

[buzzrelly]

Double post…sorry

 

[suse66]

Awesome start to your report! I love the Poly too, such a beautiful resort! Can't wait to read more!

 

[disneylove16]

Joining in! I'm loving all your pics of The Poly We will be back in a couple months and I can't wait!

You guys looked great after flying all night! I'd look far worse

Can't wait to read more!

Thank you! It's such a beautiful resort, isn't it? Your trip will be here before you know it! I hope it's magical!

Awesome start to your report! I love the Poly too, such a beautiful resort! Can't wait to read more![/QUOTE

Thank you so much!

 

[disneylove16]

After lounging a bit in the lobby, we decided we'd head to DS.

We had a huge list of food we wanted to try, and most of it was at DS. So we planned on eating as much as we could since we wouldn't be doing any rides that day. We headed to the bus stop to catch a bus to DS

DH made fun of me for taking a photo of the soda machines, but I think they're pretty

 

[Eddie512]

Love your pictures of the Poly and how you expressed all the "feels" for those of us that are huge fans. We stayed there in July (my 2nd trip as an adult) and I felt the same feels, lol. I had been wanting to stay there since 1982, hand to God!! I visited with my folks and was probably a whiny brat about not staying there, because they said something like "you can stay here when you can pay for it". I made it happen many years later and it was very emotional for me as well looking forward to reading more!!

 

[disneylove16]

I don't know what the deal was with Wolfgang Puck, the app said it was open, but we couldn't figure out how to get to the entrance. I was hoping to get something from WPE

Showing off my Sanuks I purchased last trip

I so wish The Edison was open in time for our trip. Oh well, next time

 

[disneylove16]

Love your pictures of the Poly and how you expressed all the "feels" for those of us that are huge fans. We stayed there in July (my 2nd trip as an adult) and I felt the same feels, lol. I had been wanting to stay there since 1982, hand to God!! I visited with my folks and was probably a whiny brat about not staying there, because they said something like "you can stay here when you can pay for it". I made it happen many years later and it was very emotional for me as well looking forward to reading more!!

Thanks! And yes, there is just something so special about the resort. I know everyone has their favorite, with their own "feels", and this was it for me. Everything about the resort is just so inviting. I loved it I'm so glad you were able to stay there!!

 

[disneylove16]

I realize these photos are completely out of order, again, Imgur. I'm trying to at least bunch them together.

 

[disneylove16]

We stopped for lunch at Earl of Sandwich. I absolutely love their sandwiches. I craved the holiday sandwich since I tried it last trip, and it was just as delicious this time around.

I got the turkey holiday sandwich, and DH got the full montagu.

It was nice to not have any ADR's planned for the day. We didn't feel rushed at all, and we explored DS at such a leisurely pace.

I have such a hard time catching window displays. I'm sure there's a camera setting to help with the glare, but I obviously didn't use it.

I was soooo excited to see merchandise for smaller characters. (Hubert, Hamish, and Harris, Ratatouille and Luigi to name a few) Now I wish they'd make some more merchanise for Princess and The Frog characters (like Ramon and Louise), and maybe represent some older movies that they don't have merchandise for, like Oliver & Company or Fox and The Hound.

I also LOVE the Merida merch. I love the Merida costume, and Moana costume for kids. I expected to see Moana since it's still a newer movie, but was really impressed to see Merida.

I have to give my 2 cents about the Halloween decor/merch/party. We went in August. Which is still summer. It just seems so weird how early they are starting Halloween this year. I get that for some people that's the only time they can go, and maybe they're happy to celebrate Halloween early, so it doesn't bother me, but it's just weird.

I purchased a few soaps from Basin, and if you are Disney-smell obsessed like me, there's a Moana themed soap, called Voyager and also a soap called Enchanted Castle, that both have that Disney smell. I love them.

We sat outside of Amorette's, waiting for them to open at 11. While we were waiting, DH got a text that our room was ready! We waited to get our snacks, and planned on heading back to the resort. I read online that the best way to deal with jet lag, and with taking an overnight flight, is to force yourself to stay up when you arrive, don't nap, and then go to bed super early, like 3 or 4 pm. So that was our plan.

 

[disneylove16]

I had wanted to try some desserts from Amorette's since last trip, and was determined to finally try some!

We got 2 Mickey Mousse's, and a Coffee Time Petit cake to take back to the room for later.

Then, we headed to Daily Poutine (I told you we ate a lot!). DH has been dying to try it since they opened. I wasn't going to get anything, but for some reason had the urge to try the French Poutine (mushroom sauce and gruyere). DH got the original. I had no idea how gigantic the servings were going to be. I mean, ridiculously gigantic. They look small in photos, but they are definitely meal sized, not a small snack.

DH liked his, he said he wished he was hungrier to enjoy it more. He liked mine more than his. I felt like mine was "meh". Again, maybe if I was hungrier I would've enjoyed it more.

 

[disneylove16]

We made our way back to the resort to find our room. When we got back, we checked in with Bell Services to get our carryons, and also pickup our grocery delivery from Garden Grocer. A cast member grabbed a cart to bring it to our room. Just a heads up, they are fast. I literally had to run to keep catching up to him. DH has longer legs, so was able to keep up a little better, but barely. I was trying to snap photos as I ran, but I didn't want to get left behind, and I was excited to see our room!

Our building was:

And we got the most perfect room. Our view was amazing, and we got a balcony. We were so close to the pools, to the lobby (I know it's called The Grand Ceremonial House, but that's a lot to type. So, please let me call it the lobby), and to the bus stop. It was a short walk to TTC as well. And I can't express how nice our view was. It was half plants, half pool. And so relaxing.

BTW, I had no idea that the rooms don't have a microwave. They don't.

See? Amazing View!

I took a shower, and when I came out, DH was already making himself comfortable. BTW, that's his I've told him to smile 100 times and now he's making a goofy face smile.

 

[disneylove16]

After DH showered, we dug into our desserts from Amorette's.

The Mickey Mousse's were amazing. We both loved them. The coffee one wasn't that good. I didn't get much coffee taste, just a lot of chocolate. DH didn't like it either.
Wall-E was on TV, so we watched that while getting ready for bed (keep in mind this was at like 2 pm!)

It was so hard to sleep, because of the excitement, and because of how early it was. (And we just ate like 5 lbs worth of sugar). Thankfully, the room curtains keep the light out well, and the room was very quiet. It was amazing how close we were to the pool, and we didn't hear anything. We finally fell asleep around 3 pm, but we'd sleep for an hour or so, and wake up, then go back to sleep. We did that all night until about midnight, then we were out. I'm not sure if it helped the jet lag, but we definitely woke up feeling refreshed, and had a lot of stamina the first few days.

Next up: Magic Kingdom

 

[burly]

loving the trip report!!

 

[disneylove16]

loving the trip report!!

Thank you!