She's A Disney Adult and Feeling Artsy, a February 2020 Trip Report (Updated 6/15)

We got to the bus stop at 5:51, a bus came at 5:59, did a driver swap, and left at 6:04, arriving back to WL at 6:14, which was pretty good bus luck for Epcot.
The Epcot bus stop for WL is our least favorite bus stop. It seems as if we always wait a long time for a bus. At least the ride back to the resort isn't too long.
After reading the card we realized it was from our friend in housekeeping making sure our trip was going well and to let her know if we needed anything.
That must have been fun, especially for the kids. :)
It is always fun to check out the resort merchandise too. I didn’t buy anything this time but I did look.
The Mercantile is our favorite gift shop. They seem to have a lot of cute clothes, too. :)
I was either in bed or folding laundry. We did a load almost every day. I really love having the in room laundry.
There is something very normal and relaxing about doing laundry on vacation. :)
 
We got really lucky that they happened to be having this event while we were there, and that we were able to get tickets.

Our first stop once we got in the park was Dinoland, where Jon bought $30 of Carnival tickets.


Everyone had fun playing, and the kids got some more stuffed animals.

Is it just me, or does the CM not look like Stan Lee???
 
That tour of Soarin' sounds pretty cool.

Your tour guide used to be active here on the boards I think! I follow her on Instagram now and her job sounds like so much fun.
Oh wow, that's awesome. She did a great job, and was just the perfect Cast Member for the role. You could tell she was definitely a Disney fan. We'd love to follow her stuff too.

Another fun day! That filet does look good. We've never eaten there - maybe next time. If there is a next time..... your relaxing evening hanging out at WL sounds wonderful. It's such a beautiful resort it's nice you were able to take some time to just enjoy your surroundings. I'll be watching to see how you spend your free day!
The filet from Teppan Edo is my favorite meal of the year most years. I just love it. We are looking forward to it in January, and hopeing for a return to somewhere closer to normal. It doean't look good for our June anniversary dinner at the Grand Californian, but we'll go when we can.

It was nice to spend some extra time at the resort We love it so much but often are elsewhere for the entire day and a good part of the night...

The Epcot bus stop for WL is our least favorite bus stop. It seems as if we always wait a long time for a bus. At least the ride back to the resort isn't too long.
Yeah, it just feels like such a long walk out to it, then there's never a bus there, and then often it is either full or has to do a driver change or both. We like avoiding it when we can, by taking the monorail towards MK, but that isn't quick either. Oh well, it is an ok problem to have.

That must have been fun, especially for the kids. :)
They loved the balloons, since we never spend the money on them in the parks. You can see they carried them around the resort that evening.

The Mercantile is our favorite gift shop. They seem to have a lot of cute clothes, too. :)
Ours too, and not just because we are really biased towards WL. It is really good sized and has something new each time we go.

There is something very normal and relaxing about doing laundry on vacation. :)
It is even neater being able to do it in the room. We didn't like hauling stuff down to the laundry room, but getting to do it in the room is super nice. We actually bring home clean clothes.

Is it just me, or does the CM not look like Stan Lee???
Absolutely! It was very noticeable in person. He was a nice guy though, and into his job...
 
On Thursday I didn't set an alarm because there was nothing I had to get up for, but I still woke up a little after 5:00. I waited until almost 6 to get up, then showered and snuck out for the morning. I got some inner courtyard pics with the wind blowing the flags.



Then I made my way over to the Boulder Ridge Lobby.



It was nice to have a quiet morning with nothing planned.

I walked all the way to cabin 26, then past the pool to Roaring Fork and got to the boat dock before 7.



I saw the first geyser and watched the sunrise from there while posting pictures and watching boats come and go.


I got to see them take one of the big ferry boats across from the service area.


Melissa texted me that Marshall was up, so I headed back to the room. We hung out together for a while, then Melissa got up just before 9 and started cooking breakfast.


We decided to make our own breakfast burritos and had brought tortillas from home. We bought eggs at the mercantile along with cheese and salsa. We also had bacon and then Paul went down to Roarin Fork for Potatoes and Sausage. The burritos turned out fantastic.

It was a great breakfast, and enhancing them with potatoes from Roaring Fork worked well, and we still got the smell of bacon cooking in the room, which got Jon and Brandy up. We had a nice breakfast together, and talked about future trip planning. They liked the idea of a Beach Club split, but weren't sure when their next trip would be.

We finally got ready and headed down to the boat dock at 11:25. We decided that there was more we wanted to do at MK, and we had snagged some fast passes for things we hadn't done yet. The Fair Winds, one of the mid sized pirate cruise boats, arrived just a minute after we did, and wasn't very crowded for our trip to MK.



We got in the park at 11:47, and then got popcorn refills.



The park was already pretty busy but we did a little shopping on Main Street.



We saw that they had just put out some of their new Ink and Paint collection stuff.


We didn't have a ton of time though so we just browsed a bit and then headed to Small World.




When we got there the wait time was 40 minutes, so the fastpass was nice to have.


After Small World we had a little time to kill before our Haunted Mansion fast passes, so we checked out the Moment Mori store. We just haven't been here much, and we stayed long enough to find some doom buggies and a ghost in a jar to bring home. Marshall tried to summon some spirits as well.


He had a ball dancing in the store and for the crowd outside there weren't many people inside the store which was nice.

At 1:25 the Haunted Mansion wait showed 60 min, so the fastpass was nice to have there too. We were all surprised that it was our first time riding it of the trip.

We even convinced the kids to go on it.



We all enjoyed it, but the ride stopped just as we got off. Melissa was at the back of the group and didn't make it to the exit ramp, so she had to wait.

Our next stop was ice cream, which had quite a long line but was worth the wait.


We wound up eating it on a bench outside Tomorrowland Terrace.


Paul and I shared a Peanut Butter and Hot Fudge Sundae, it was so good. I don't know how I convinced him to try it instead of his favorite brownie sundae but I think the peanut butter was better. Both of the kids got cones too which they both thoroughly enjoyed.

I would disagree, you can't beat a brownie and ice cream, so perhaps next time we will buy four ice creams...

I like the way you think.

After icecream we decided we were done with the crowds so we headed to the Emporium on Main Street for some retail therapy before heading out of the park.


We picked up some of the new Ink and Paint things that we saw on the way in, and they turned out to be some of our favorite souvenirs of the trip. Allie's backpack was only like $25, which was a great deal by Disney standards, and it was a nice one.


I got a new sweatshirt and we picked up some super duper cute paint brush pens. Mine is on my desk at work and it's one of my favorite souveniers.

We left the park at 2:50, headed back to WL.


Check out our afternoon fun in the next update.
 


I can't wait to read about your afternoon fun.

Have you all discussed when you might go back? I know so much is up in the air, and I know your decision making would be much more difficult than mine because I don't have littles to consider anymore. Just curious. I want to go now, but won't even if they were open. I need to get my other knee replaced, which is currently on schedule for October (was supposed to be 4/20, but got postponed and because of my job and my surgeon only doing full replacements on the third Monday of each month, October was the first available). So who knows when I will be back. I miss it a great deal!

I really like the Paint and Ink collection. It is one of the most creative and fun collections they have some out with in the last few years.
 
I can't wait to read about your afternoon fun.

Have you all discussed when you might go back? I know so much is up in the air, and I know your decision making would be much more difficult than mine because I don't have littles to consider anymore. Just curious. I want to go now, but won't even if they were open. I need to get my other knee replaced, which is currently on schedule for October (was supposed to be 4/20, but got postponed and because of my job and my surgeon only doing full replacements on the third Monday of each month, October was the first available). So who knows when I will be back. I miss it a great deal!

I really like the Paint and Ink collection. It is one of the most creative and fun collections they have some out with in the last few years.
We have our DVC reservation for January 28 - February 5, 2021. We had already decided to not go in September this year, since we went in February. We certainly hope everything will be closer to normal by January, and are looking forward to going. We are open to whatever changes or adjustments are necessary, even if that means limited (or even no) park access, and decreased dining capacity making ADRs harder to get. We will just wait and see and go with it.

If our reservation were sooner it would be a tougher call, but in general we are of the opinion that if it is open we would go. We have canceled other family vacations to keep the kids isolated and practice appropriate social distancing, which is very hard for Marshall who is very social and doesn't understand personal space. We have all talked about ways that Disney may be different, but we all still want to go once we get the chance.

Good luck with the knee replacement. My Mom (Grandma Nancy), has had both of hers done. The extra delays have to be tough, but hopefully when you are ready for Disney World it will be in good shape for you.
 
would disagree, you can't beat a brownie and ice cream, so perhaps next time we will buy four ice creams...
My favorite is a brownie sundae. :)
He had a ball dancing in the store and for the crowd outside there weren't many people inside the store which was nice.
I love seeing kids enjoying themselves with simple activities. Was there music to go along with his dance? :)
We have our DVC reservation for January 28 - February 5, 2021.
Thanks to Disney extending the annual pass renewal date, we will be able to take our annual winter trip without having to renew our AP's. It will definitely be a stay at the WL, even if we have to pay rack rate.
 


My favorite is a brownie sundae. :)
Ahh yes, I will take the combination of a brownie and ice cream whenever I can. I like to do it at Trail's End too.

I love seeing kids enjoying themselves with simple activities. Was there music to go along with his dance? :)
No, he was providing the whole show on his own Perhaps he was channeling spirits...

Thanks to Disney extending the annual pass renewal date, we will be able to take our annual winter trip without having to renew our AP's. It will definitely be a stay at the WL, even if we have to pay rack rate.
That's neat that the pass extension will work for you. We don't think our passes will reach the next trip for us, since they are set to expire in September, and we expect the parks to reopen before too super long. We may take the refund for the closed portion and put it towards our next set of passes.

Getting to return to WL should be wonderful. We really can't wait, and are looking forward to being there even more than being in the parks. We are still planning to try for a BC / WL split, but we won't know if we can get that all late June.
 
For a real life update, we finished our quarantine bathroom remodel project. We completely re-did our only bathroom ourselves, including replacing the tub and tiling the shower and floor.
Since we were inspired by the rain showers at Copper Creek, we added our own too, which turned out nicely.

Here’s the before pic:
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Here is some of the work in progress:
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And our final product:
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We even topped it off with a Disney touch:
p3897153576-4.jpg
 

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Your new bathroom looks great. I love the tile that you used around the tub.

How long were you without a bathroom? We had one of our two bathrooms remodeled and it was down for about two months.
 
Your new bathroom looks great. I love the tile that you used around the tub.

How long were you without a bathroom? We had one of our two bathrooms remodeled and it was down for about two months.
We were without the tub and shower for two weeks, and without the toilet for only three days. Fortunately we had our trailer in the driveway so we had that bathroom to use. That was one advantage of doing it ourselves, we were able to put in the extra time to get it done and minimize down time. We couldn’t have afforded to pay someone to work past midnight for a couple of weekends. :)
 
Awesome bathroom renovation. Beautiful tiles and love the way you guys write your trip reports. I have a 13 month old we took him last December for a trip but we don't know when we'll be able to take him back glad we took him Christmas his next trip will probably be he'll remember haha
 
Love the way your bathroom came out!Great job!
Thanks, we are super happy with how it turned out.

Wow - what a difference. It all goes well together. Love the flooring and the Disney touch!
We were fortunate that we got to go shopping and pick out tile before everything got shut down, and we were able to order the tile for curbside pickup.
We knew we wanted something Disney in there, and the Small World poster just seemed perfect.

Great pictures, thank you for sharing! I'm curious about how extensive the changed will be with the re-opening now.
Thanks, we enjoy taking and sharing them. We too are curious about the potential changes, and what the overall theme park business will be like. We expect that demand will still be high, and may even exceed capacity, but enough people may be scared away for a while to balance things out. Time will tell. We will be happy just to get a resort stay, so anything else will be a bonus.
 
Awesome bathroom renovation. Beautiful tiles and love the way you guys write your trip reports. I have a 13 month old we took him last December for a trip but we don't know when we'll be able to take him back glad we took him Christmas his next trip will probably be he'll remember haha
Thanks! It was our first time doing this stuff, and learning how to do the tile took some patience, but we are happy with how it turned out.

It is neat that you got to take your child with them young. We enjoyed doing that with Marshall. Every time is different, and they experience more and more as they get older and start to have an opinion about what they do. We really noticed that with Allie and the difference between going at 3 and 4 years old. She grew way more of an opinion about what she wanted to do in that year... Hopefully he won't have to wait too long, and you guys can have fun planning the next trip.
 
Thanks! It was our first time doing this stuff, and learning how to do the tile took some patience, but we are happy with how it turned out.

It is neat that you got to take your child with them young. We enjoyed doing that with Marshall. Every time is different, and they experience more and more as they get older and start to have an opinion about what they do. We really noticed that with Allie and the difference between going at 3 and 4 years old. She grew way more of an opinion about what she wanted to do in that year... Hopefully he won't have to wait too long, and you guys can have fun planning the next trip.
Yeah hopefully it won't be too long. I am in love with going at Christmas. Went two Decembers before the baby and did almost nil rides but the ambiance was something else.
 
I love the way your bathroom turned out! So many of my friend are doing "quarantine remodels" but unfortunately I just can't do it myself...I am one of those who can post "Pinterest fail" every time I try something. So, I really admire people who have a vision and can see that vision through with some hard work :worship: Hopefully we can all return to a Disney park soon!
 
Yeah hopefully it won't be too long. I am in love with going at Christmas. Went two Decembers before the baby and did almost nil rides but the ambiance was something else.
That is on our bucket list. We really want to stay at WL at Christmas sometime. We would be totally fine with few rides and soaking in the ambiance of the resorts.

I love the way your bathroom turned out! So many of my friend are doing "quarantine remodels" but unfortunately I just can't do it myself...I am one of those who can post "Pinterest fail" every time I try something. So, I really admire people who have a vision and can see that vision through with some hard work :worship: Hopefully we can all return to a Disney park soon!
Aww, some stuff isn’t that hard, it is a matter of doing and re-doing it after the initial fails. We had been planning this bathroom for a long time though, and were on the fence about doing the tile work. In the end we are glad we did it, but we have a new respect for anyone who does tile work frequently. Then something simple like the paint on the door refusing to cooperate jumps in to keep it interesting.
We can’t wait to get back to Disney, and are following the developments this week closely to see what the reopening plans will be.
 

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