*** The Official August 2018 Thread*** - let's have some fun....

So haven't updated in a few days because we have been so busy. But here goes:

Thursday we moved from AOA to our room at AKL in a Club level. I made sure to checkout of AOA before leaving and it took like 20 minutes a few people were trying to checkout but they had only 2 people working registration and 2 people working online check in. Anyway we finally left but I already got a room not ready text so we went up the lounge.

My little son wanted to go swimming at around 12:30 so I dropped him off there. Couldn't drag him out until about 6 for Dinner. Our room was finally ready about 2:45. I got my request for a bunk and a queen we have an amazing view of the Savannah but we aren't that far from the elevators.

Friday was our DHS day so we woke up at 5:30 in the morning and I drove us to the park got there 6:45 we walked right in and to the Toy story land area if the park after taking a picture in the front. Unfortunately SDD was not working and that would be the theme of the day. I had a FP for it in the afternoon so I wasn't really worried about it we hopped on TSM with a 5 minute wait and then Aliens with a 20 minute wait (so glad we weren't very fond of the ride itself and I can't see waiting the 55 minutes I had seen throughout the day). We decided to leave the park to go back to the lounge for breakfast just as we were leaving about after 8 SDD started working but with a long wait time. We ducked to the Star wars Launch bay which gives a look of Galaxy's edge and the new Star wars hotel looks great still avoiding it lol.

We took a bus back to the resort and wow the walk to the new bus loop is brutal. No shade what so ever. It's close to 5 to 10 minute walk depending on the person. After breakfast we headed back to DHS and the walk didn't seem as bad but we knew where we going at that point.

We started our FP rides at Star Tours, we ducked into Muppets, headed into our FP for The Frozen sing along. So fyi all morning and afternoon I was checking the SDD since I had been hearing about break downs and issues of people getting FP to comeback later or next day. So as I was checking either TSM or SDD were down intermittently through the morning to afternoon and while we were in the 12:30 frozen SDD was down. I was like to my daughter aww man not looking good for our 1:25 FP. We came out of frozen at about 1 and I looked and our FP was moved up for SDD to 1:10 and it was up and running again so we ran over there.

We got into FP line and it was fairly quick. The Standby was a 90 min wait. My daughter and little son (my other son doesn't do rides) and I got into a Slinky car. We were right at the beginning of the ride and we came to a screeching halt. The ride broke while were on it. We had to wait a few minutes (in the hot sun at that) but they eventually let our car go through. The person sitting with my daughter told us she was on line earlier and was given a FP to return and it was crazy that it broke down when they returned. They cleared out all the cars so we had to wait to leave. They had shut down the ride when we got out except for some people still in the FP line. The ride was down for at least an hour after that.

We had a 4pm ressie for H&V tried to ride some things after SDD ended up getting there early which was good because we beat the rush ate and drove back to AKL. Took a much needed nap and then headed back to our 9p fantasmic reservation that came with dinner by bus. Still love this show after so many years.

So a very busy and eventful few days. Today is our last full day which is our AK day. Then back to the AKL to swim, pack and relax until check out tomorrow for our flight home...
 
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The last 2 days we've been enjoying club level at Beach Club. We've simply been swimming in stormalong bay, enjoying the lounge and wandering into the World Showcase. Today we walked in at park opening, rode Soarin' with no wait, then came back to lounge to enjoy breakfast. Had a nice late lunch at ESPN. Weather has been great! Hot, but no rain and I'm loving the option to walk in at night to Epcot when it's cooler. We did the world showcase from 6:30-8:30pm. I've been Illuminations the last two nights in a row- love this light show!
 


Wow, lots of catching up to do on the Dis. I just got back from my 5 day trip to WDW and had an amazing time!! We got to AoA around 9:30am on Tuesday 8/14 and our room was ready for us! They even offered to move us to a closer room!
The weather was pretty good for us. There was rain predicted on Tuesday and Thursday, but it only rained for about 45 minutes while we were at Disney Springs on Tuesday, but we just ducked into Uniqlo and enjoyed walking around there. There was some lightening on Thursday night but no rain for us! It wasn't too hot or humid most days, like I was expecting it to be in August. There were little bits of a few minutes here and there where it felt too warm, but we just went inside and watched a show. The one exception was yesterday. We went to HS and it was unbearably hot. We had checked out of our resort already, otherwise we definitely would have headed back for a resort day.
The crowds were really nice! We did MK on Wednesday when they had PM EMH until 1am, which I knew would draw more crowds, but even that day wasn't awful! We had fp+ and were able to get 4 more fp's throughout the day. We only had to wait in a couple of lines. Splash and Space had 100+ minute waits when I checked the app but we had fp's we had gotten a few days before. Definitely keep refreshing the app! We were also able to get saucers fp for Saturday right before riding it! We did stand by for SDD, but only waited an hour! Definitely worth it. We only waited 40 for FEE and that was the longest line we waited in all week!
The buses were usually always there for us! We waited about 40 minutes for a bus to HS yesterday and the TV kept moving up by 3 or 4 minutes, but other than that we never waited more than 2 or 3 minutes for a bus from AoA and I don't think we waited more than 15 on the way back from a park and that was only because we missed one due to crowds but they usually sent one to us right away! We got really lucky!
We got to meet some characters, ate some great food (the macaron in France is my favorite!!), and had a really relaxing trip! I miss it already!
All of the Food and Wine booths seem to be up, which got me excited for my F&W trip later this year!
I hope you're all having good trips and to those who haven't left yet, have fun!! WDW is truly the most magical place on earth!
 
Today we walked into Epcot at 9am opening, rode Soarin and then finished up some shopping at Mouse Gears. Then we walked back to Beach Club and had breakfast in the lounge. Next we swam at Stormalong Bay, went into Japan store for an hour in the afternoon for final shopping there, then back to resort to relax and have appetizers in lounge. We really used the club amenities/snacks today- didn't need to buy a meal at all, but did go for ice cream around 8pm after wandering back into Epcot for a third time to see O Canada show and buy some tea in the UK shop. We had ice cream sundaes from Beaches and Cream- love the No Way Jose! DD's played in the arcade for a bit too. Quite the lightning and rain storm this evening. We watched some of the lightning show from our balcony.The last 3 days at Beach Club have been so relaxing! Tomorrow morning we are going to get up and walk around the Boardwalk, swim in SAB and hang out in lounge after checking out- we go home tomorrow. Magical Express picks us up at 1:30pm. Sad to be going home, but it will be 14 days since we left home and we miss our dog, so it's nice to be going home. It is nice that we're booked for a bounceback for next year at PORS- makes it easier to leave. I think that next year we will try to add on a night at Contemporary to do the Hallowe'en Party / and maybe 2-3 nights at Beach Club. @ashnicole I'm glad to hear you had a nice trip. We were in Disney Springs at the same time as you on Tuesday when the rain came and we ducked into Uniclo too- it was an expensive rain storm for me as my teen girls found lots of things to buy, lol. We love that store.
 


Yesterday we had a great day at HS. We arrived around 6:20am and were let in at 6:30am. We went straight to Jedi Training sign ups - Got our 10:20am spot. As soon as we were done, they opened the park.

We went straight to Slinky Dog and waited about 10 minutes to ride. Same with Aliens. We took some pictures, but TSMM had a 50 minute wait so we opted to skip it. We left TSL at 7:05am and headed to the Tower of Terror with not much of a wait. My DS (5) loved his first ride! We grabbed two mickey pretzels for breakfast on our way to do a few character meets. Met Pluto, BB8 and Chewbacca all before we needed to be back for Jedi Training at 9:50am.

It was awesome my two boys got to do Jedi Training together. (My oldest is 12, so it will be his last time.) We rode Star Tours after (5 minute wait), and my youngest DS was picked as the rebel spy on his first ride! Star Wars characters just loved him yesterday. Captain Phasma interacted with him at March of the First Order.

We had lunch at Sci Fi. We enjoyed the food, except the service was slow - we were there like an hour and 45 minutes - and my food came out wrong. But they did give me an ice cream sundae to make up for it, which I thought was sweet. Overall, I would go back again.

After lunch we used our FPs for Star Tours and Tower of Terror, before we went back to the pool for a break. My DH's ankle was bothering him so he opted to stay at AoA, while I went back to HS around 6pm by with the kids. As soon as we were pulling into HS, a huge storm blew in. Looked like a sandstorm out there. It rained for the rest of the night, but mostly sprinkled. I was glad, because the crowds left.

We went to meet Star Lord and Groot. My youngest DS loved Groot. His smile in the pics was adorable. We decided to do the Frozen Sing a Long to try to wait out the rain. Then we rode Star Tours and ToT both with no wait, even though they said 20 minutes. I had scored a 4th FP for TSMM, but did not really even need it since it was only a 15 minute wait. We decided to call it night after that and head back.

Today we leave Disney and go to Universal. Hope everyone had safe trips to and from!
 
OurLaughingPlace said:
@ashnicole I'm glad to hear you had a nice trip. We were in Disney Springs at the same time as you on Tuesday when the rain came and we ducked into Uniclo too- it was an expensive rain storm for me as my teen girls found lots of things to buy, lol. We love that store.
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Small world! I absolutely love uniqlo! Unfortunately I couldn’t buy much from there this trip because my sister and I each only brought carry ons (big mistake for a lover of all WDW merch!!) so we didn’t have room, but I am definitely going to buy more stuff online!
Having future plans definitely makes leaving easier!
It sounds like you’ve had a good trip! CL at Beach Club sounds wonderful!
 
I just got back home to California last night around 10:45pm and I had an early math class this morning :crazy2: I am sooooo tired today!!

But I had another amazing trip and excited to say that we joined DVC!!! I didn’t plan to take the tour let alone join right then and there. Now we’re already starting to plan our next trip since we have the passes and the points. :laughing: :cheer2:
 
DisneyObsessed87 said:
Yesterday we had a great day at HS. We arrived around 6:20am and were let in at 6:30am. We went straight to Jedi Training sign ups - Got our 10:20am spot. As soon as we were done, they opened the park.

We went straight to Slinky Dog and waited about 10 minutes to ride. Same with Aliens. We took some pictures, but TSMM had a 50 minute wait so we opted to skip it. We left TSL at 7:05am and headed to the Tower of Terror with not much of a wait. My DS (5) loved his first ride! We grabbed two mickey pretzels for breakfast on our way to do a few character meets. Met Pluto, BB8 and Chewbacca all before we needed to be back for Jedi Training at 9:50am.

It was awesome my two boys got to do Jedi Training together. (My oldest is 12, so it will be his last time.) We rode Star Tours after (5 minute wait), and my youngest DS was picked as the rebel spy on his first ride! Star Wars characters just loved him yesterday. Captain Phasma interacted with him at March of the First Order.

We had lunch at Sci Fi. We enjoyed the food, except the service was slow - we were there like an hour and 45 minutes - and my food came out wrong. But they did give me an ice cream sundae to make up for it, which I thought was sweet. Overall, I would go back again.

After lunch we used our FPs for Star Tours and Tower of Terror, before we went back to the pool for a break. My DH's ankle was bothering him so he opted to stay at AoA, while I went back to HS around 6pm by with the kids. As soon as we were pulling into HS, a huge storm blew in. Looked like a sandstorm out there. It rained for the rest of the night, but mostly sprinkled. I was glad, because the crowds left.

We went to meet Star Lord and Groot. My youngest DS loved Groot. His smile in the pics was adorable. We decided to do the Frozen Sing a Long to try to wait out the rain. Then we rode Star Tours and ToT both with no wait, even though they said 20 minutes. I had scored a 4th FP for TSMM, but did not really even need it since it was only a 15 minute wait. We decided to call it night after that and head back.

Today we leave Disney and go to Universal. Hope everyone had safe trips to and from!
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Wow sounds like a really great day!! And a double wow to your 5 year old loving ToT! He must have a very adventurous spirit!
Have fun at Universal!

Leesha.Monster said:
But I had another amazing trip and excited to say that we joined DVC!
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Congratulations! how exciting!!
 
Wow. I am amazed at those of you who posted during your trip. I felt like I was in a whirlwind the whole time and definitely did not have my stuff together enough to post! Home now, but here are some highlights with some lessons I learned:
Day 1: surprised the kids (and screwed up the video!) and rushed to airport early am. Another surprise for the kids when my parents were there to go with us. Smooth flight and a looong wait for ME. Luckily one of our rooms at CR CL was ready when we got there so we could dump our stuff and head to AK for afternoon fast pass. Lesson 1: I shouldn’t have planned to do a park on travel day, at least not with set fastpasses. It was stressful and everyone was cranky by the end. Lesson 2: club level at CR is ANAZING. We could easily make breakfast and dinner from the lounge offerings. We did dining plan, which I will not do again. Ended up trying to burn credits on the last day. No one needs that many Mickey Rice Krispie treats! Lol.

Day 2: early breakfast at chef mickeys and then Epcot all day. It was HOT but so much fun. My daughter was in princess heaven and my son loved Soarin and Test Track. Akershus lunch and scheduled coral reef dinner but we ended up canceling and eating back in the hotel lounge after some pool time. Lesson learned: build in more down time at the resort. The heat was too much for my parents to go all day, and everyone else got cranky.

Day 3: Hollywood studios. Breakfast at Hollywood and vine, where we were the first family of the day and got a picture with all of the characters together and a certificate! Great Disney Magic moment and we had another one later when my husband and son were getting on rock and roller coaster and two women pushed my son out of the way and cut into their row. They were mad but just got in the back row and rode. When they got through, a cast member said “I saw what happened - want to ride again?” And put them in the front row! We had dinner at 50s prime time and we were served our uneaten Brussels sprouts as dessert (complete with whipped cream)! We had reserved viewing for fantastmic because we bought the club level fastpasses and that was fun except for a CM who tried to not let us in and said “there’s no such thing as paying for fastpasses.” It all worked out though.

Day 4: magic kingdom - finally! Another lesson: i should have done Mk first. My kids didn’t feel like we were really at Disney until they were here. We did CRT and my daughter was again in princess heaven. My mom loves Small World and remembers it from the worlds fair, so we had a great family moment doing that. Lots of rides and meet and greets until the heat got to us (maybe we’re wimps but it was blazing!) and we retreated back to the lounge. We walked back to Mk for Happily Ever After - what a great and easy walk!

Day 5: MK and AK. We did breakfast at crystal palace, and my parents recreated a photo they took in front of it in the 1970s. After some rides we park hopped to AK for our Pandora Fps. Lesson: don’t park hop with seniors and little kids. I could have saved money on the tickets and not exhausted everyone. We headed back for one more lounge dinner and then got a Mears shuttle to Cabana Bay. The shuttle van was awesome and held all 7 of us and our luggage and came with car seats and boosters for the kids. Checking in at Cabana Bay was sad because it reminded us that we weren’t at CR anymore! I still miss it lol.

Day 6: we decided to splurge on the vip experience for universal and islands of adventure. It was the greatest day ever. We did so much and had so much fun, even when it poured. I don’t know if we can ever afford to do it again, but I would in a second!

Day 7: Volcano Bay. My son loves water parks but the rest of us are eh about it. This one is impressive though. We rented a cabana and lounged all day, which was a wonderful break from the commando style touring we did the rest of the week.

Day 8: got up at 4am and headed to the airport. Definitely the worst day, lol. My son asked if we could get a fastpass for baggage claim. I was like, “rude awakening buddy, we’re not a Disney anymore!”

Overall: A wonderful trip with many lessons learned for next time to make that one even better. Thanks for being part of the planning process for me and wishing lots of fun and good weather to those there now or heading there soon!
 
@Eeyore1220 that seems like a great trip with many lessons learned. We did the DP once also while doing CL and left with so many rice crispie treats it was ridiculous. We never did the DP again. When it is that hot we just don't eat that much. We did Disney with my parents and kids about 10 years ago and learned many lessons you learned. My the end of that trip my parents would meet us midday.
We too just got back and we were probably there when you were there. The first part of the trip the weather was much better than the end. We were in the CR CL also for the last 5 days of our 2 week trip but on the Tower floor. The food was unbelievable - they definitely upped their game. We were told both the Atrium and Tower have the same food. We swam several days at the CR - it was definitely better taking the breaks from the parks. The pool felt wonderful. Glad you had a nice trip - we did too.
 
Mika02 said:
What a day.. Today is our Epcot day my little son has been begging to hit Soarin for a few days now so he will be happy. Not too many plans for today a few rides and snacks. A Mid day pool break A Cucumber margarita for me in Mexico. :rainbow:
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OMG, I did a little drinking around the world on Sunday evening. Best drink by FAR! The cucumber margarita. I need to find a recipe to make it at home.
 
We havent been to Disney in 5 years. What do you mean about not getting Main Street to yourself? Do they not allow the photos in front of the castle before the breakfast anymore? That would be our whole reason for scheduling CP breakfast.

Tomh said:
You won't get Main Street to yourself anymore on the way into a PPO Breakfast at Crystal Palace. Those days are gone. However, I still love getting breakfast there. The food is good, it is fun to get pictures with the characters, and walking out of breakfast into the park just as it is opening is an amazing way to start the day!

We've never done 'Ohana for breakfast, but we LOVE supper there!

We had the Rivers of Light dining package at Tusker House last year, because I really wanted to be sure to see Rivers of Light, and didn't want to use my FP+ for it. Sadly, Rivers of Light was not all that I had hoped it would be. It isn't bad, but it isn't good either lol. Lots of pretty show elements just kind of crammed together in a non cohesive way that fails, at least in my opinion, to tell any kind of story. However, Tusker House was a pleasant surprise. I was concerned that everything would be too spicy for me. It was close hahaha, but just barely in the realm of what I can tolerate and enjoy as far as spice goes, and it was quite tasty. We enjoyed that meal enough to want to eat there again this year, though we will likely skip the ROL package, and just dine at Tusker House.
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Kim in PA said:
We havent been to Disney in 5 years. What do you mean about not getting Main Street to yourself? Do they not allow the photos in front of the castle before the breakfast anymore? That would be our whole reason for scheduling CP breakfast.
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They let everybody on Main Street early now.
 
Kim in PA said:
We havent been to Disney in 5 years. What do you mean about not getting Main Street to yourself? Do they not allow the photos in front of the castle before the breakfast anymore? That would be our whole reason for scheduling CP breakfast.
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A few years ago they changed the opening procedure. You no longer wait for rope drop by the train (with the character show), the show was moved to the castle. So, Main St is now open up to the castle/ hub to anyone arriving before the actual park opening (usually 45 minutes to 1 hour before park opening, sometimes more or less). That's where guests are held until actual park opening. With a PPO reservation you'll be allowed past the rope to continue on to your breakfast, but you're not going to have a crowd-free Main Street anymore.
My 2015 PPO castle photos are much less crowded than my 2018 ones.
 
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