Keith and Della's WDW 2016 Short Trip

[KeithS]

Day Two – 4 September 2016
Our first morning at the resort and we had our alarm set for 7:30am. While getting ready for our first day, we watched the Italian GP on the TV in our room before heading to breakfast.  It was already hot and humid outside as we headed to the food court.  Once breakfast was over, we headed for a day out at Disney Springs.
 
Wow – talk about changes – and changes for the better, Disney Springs is much improved from the Downtown Disney of the past.  It is still basically a shopping area, but there are many new shops and some big brand places too.  I thought we would spend a few hours there and head back to the resort in the afternoon like the old days – instead, we were there until after 9pm and for me (a non-shopper) I was never bored so that is saying something.  And we still have more shops there to visit.
 
While there are more brand name shops there now, quite a few of them have Disney-themed merchandise but we must mention the excellent Uniqlo which had an outstanding selection of t-shirts and other Disney products at low prices.
 
On arrival at Disney Springs, we got off the bus at the new entrance – unlike before when there was a west side and east side bus area, there is now only one drop off – a new one about mid-way along the shopping area. It is a great entrance and puts you in the middle of the newly built section which features early Spanish-style architecture and is built around “the springs” – waterways that cut through the complex.  It looks amazing and I hope they eventually refresh the older area of the site into this style (the end where World of Disney sits is basically unchanged so far although some work is commencing).
 
I won’t go into detail for each store as that would take too long, however I was entertained all day by both the shops and the entertainment in the area. We stopped for lunch at The Earl of Sandwich followed by Ghirardelli Chocolates which is our tradition but there are many new restaurants there that I want to check out too.  Maybe later in the week…I definitely want to see Jock Lindsey’s Hangar Bar from Indiana Jones.
 
Probably the most bizarre shop we went to was the Coke store – it was weird just seeing Coca Cola merchandise and it didn’t make us buy any.  The World of Disney Store was great and there are a number of other Disney Stores in the area now as well with different merchandise. We bought quite a few things on day one!  Tsum Tsums are taking off here and yes, we bought a bunch. In fact, after day one, Della has already accumulated 16 fluffies…
 
Around 6pm, a big storm came over the area, but we kept on shopping! We had to get ponchos (and the bloke who served us gave a kids ones – argh we didn’t even notice until we got back to the hotel).  By about 9pm, we decided to head back as we hadn’t had dinner yet.  We headed to the bus and caught it back to the resort.  Dinner was in the food court at 10pm – our meal pattern is way out of sync because we forget to eat and lose track of time! Tomorrow we are heading to the Magic Kingdom and catching up with our friends Brian and Patti.

[calisota]

Can you expand a bit on what you mean by not being bored even though you are not a shopper. I am definitely a "seek and capture" type of shopper rather than a browser and unless I have a specific target I tend top get bored just wandering around shops, and also a little uncomfortable and guilty not actually buying anything. It would take a lot for the area to keep me there for that long.


Greg

[KeithS]

Hi Greg. I am a seek and capture shopper too but when I am with wifey, I have had to learn to adapt. We went into every shop there and I found something in each to hold my attention. I am sure if I went by myself I would have done exactly as you said-gone straight for what I was after and headed back to the resort.

[Mel]

Love the report so far   I have friends posting that the weather has improved over there today, a little less humid.  We arrive in Florida on Saturday

[calisota]

but when I am with wifey, 

Do you call her that to her face? Brave man if you do. :lol:
Greg

[KeithS]

That is awesome Mel. The weather yesterday was fantastic! We were at Animal Kingdom all day. You will love the new Tree of Life projection show, just amazing.

I am running behind with posting journals but will get another day posted soon, having too much fun (didn't get to bed this morning until 2am then up again today at 7am!)

Also, you should get the Photopass Memory Maker as it is brilliant. Your photopass pictures appear almost instantly in the MyDisneyExerience app and some of them include cute little videos. We have also noticed the photopass photographers are now trigger happy so you get lots of photos of each encounter. Memory maker is highly recommended - about $170 for your entire party (digital photos only).

[KeithS]

Day Three – 5 September 2016
Today was always going to be a fun day with us catching up with our friends Brian and Patti. But first up was a quick trip to the food court this morning for breakfast. We have to state again that we love The Art of Animation resort. It continues to provide proper plates and cutlery which was a trial when it opened three years ago but appears permanent now. It just adds that little bit extra over the plastic knife and forks and paper plates at other resorts.
 
It was warm and sunny this morning and after breakfast, we headed out on the bus to Magic Kingdom, however rather than entering the park, we caught the monorail over to the Contemporary Hotel to meet our friends. We were there a little early so we checked out the shops until they contacted us and we met outside Chef Mickey’s.
 
We had a good chat then went to Contempo Café for lunch. Della had the tuna pita, and I had the turkey sandwich. They were booking into the Bay Lake Tower beside the Contemporary but their room wasn’t ready show so we decided to walk up to the Magic Kingdom.  Since we’ve been here, we’ve seen a lot more security at all sites from the resort, to Disney Springs, but the security at Magic Kingdom was the most we’d seen, with armed police everywhere at the entrance and K-9 units too. We passed through the bag check okay and none of our group had to go through the metal detectors.
 
We entered the park and slowly made our way towards our first Fastpass – Enchanted Tales with Belle. As we walked towards the attraction, the sky turned very dark, so we headed to the store near Dumbo to purchase new ponchos. Once fitted out, we went to see Belle in the attraction. Fortunately I didn’t get picked to perform this time (I did in 2013) and so I was able to watch the show from the audience.
 
Afterwards, it was raining outside so we headed over to Mickey’s Philharmagic. It is probably time for this attraction to get a digital upgrade as we all thought it was getting blurry, but it is still a lot of fun!  The rain had eased by the time we came out and we had a look at some of the Fantasyland shops before heading over to ride Haunted Mansion.  It was virtually a walk on.  They’ve done some more digital upgrades – specifically to the final scene when you ride with the ghosts – in our case, a ghost was sitting on top of our doombuggy and reached down to pull off both of our heads!!! Cool stuff.
 
Moving on from Haunted Mansion, we used our Fastpass+ for Peter Pan.  In all our visits to WDW, we had never ridden Peter Pan, as it had been too busy; but now with Fastpass+ it was easy to get on with virtually no wait.
 
With rain beginning to fall again, we cut through some shops and arcades to Pirates of the Caribbean and had a ride through of that.  We then decided to stay indoors and headed to Main Street to shop one whole side through the Emporium.  By the time we had done that, the rain had gone again and we were heading to the Seven Dwarves Mine Train for our first ever ride on that.  It is a good little coaster however you will definitely want to Fastpass+ it as it is quite short so not worth a two hour standby!
 
From there, we headed into Tomorrowland for a ride around on the Peoplemover – I’m glad it still exists here as it is a walk-on and always good to sit above the crowds and relax a while.
 
Dinner was next on the list and so we went to the Village Haus back in Fantasyland before we started moving towards the exit via the other (more expensive) side of Main Street.  Della attacked the Pandora shop before we all left the park to walk back to the Contemporary Hotel.  Once there, our friends Brian and Patti checked into the DVC apartment in the Bay Lake tower and we went up to their room to check out the view which was amazing.  We then went to the Top of the World Bar on the roof of the tower to watch the Magic Kingdom castle light show, followed by the Wishes fireworks.  It was a great experience to see it from a different angle and the music from the show was played through speakers so it was fun.
 
After the fireworks, we decided to head back to our resort so we said goodbye to Brian and Patti and walked back to the Contemporary from where we took the monorail circle back around to Magic Kingdom and caught the bus to our resort – it was a big fun day! Tomorrow is Disney’s Animal Kingdom and the DVC 25^th Anniversary party!

[KeithS]

Day Four – 6 September 2016
Our plan this morning was to head off to Animal Kingdom for the day as we had a Disney Vacation Club 25^th Anniversary event party to go to tonight with our friends at that park. We didn’t know what was involved in that, but it sounded like it might turn out to be okay.  First thing of course is to head down to breakfast and we followed that this morning by walking around our resort taking photos to compare when we get home as the plants have grown in nicely now since when we were here immediately after opening.
 
After the walk around, we caught the bus to Animal Kingdom and met up with Brian and Patti at the Flame Tree BBQ for lunch. Della and I both had a nice BBQ smoked turkey sandwich which was delicious.
 
Finishing lunch, we rushed to the next showing of Finding Nemo the Musical.  We really like this show as it is a live stage show that is unique to Animal Kingdom. The performances are terrific and the music is great with colourful fish marionettes and costumes controlled by the actors who are singing the parts.  That alone is worth admission to the park.
 
We had fast passes to Everest next, so we headed over there – it was pretty obvious that the park was quiet though as the standby was only 10 minutes too.  After riding Everest, we started moving towards the Maharajah trail but stopped a while outside the monkey house as they were active swinging in their ropes.  We then headed on up the trail to see what Animals were out – there were a lot on the trail, but the tigers were hiding.
 
After the trail, we moved over to the new section of the park where they built the Lion King theatre after the old one was shut for Pandora.  The new section blends in well to the African theatre – in fact, this whole park has amazing theming except for Dinoland which still looks a little cheap.  We went and watched the Festival of the Lion King which is still energetic but exactly the same as the original version – I thought they might have added elements from Hong Kong like the moving floor but they hadn’t.
 
After the show, we all stopped for a frozen lemonade as it was very hot.  The weather today was great – reduced humidity and no rain, but very hot.  After our short break, we headed up to catch the train to the conservation station and had a look at the exhibits there.  We also heard a talk about a red-tailed hawk that a cast member had on her wrist and you could tell this cast member loved her job through her enthusiasm for the subject.  We then met Rafiki and got some photos with him before catching the train back to the main park.
 
Next up was the Gorilla Falls Trail which was fun as they had two young gorillas with their parents and they were playing around and very active and made us laugh.  It was now time to head to our dinner reservation at Tusker House which is now a sit down buffet restaurant and unknown to us, they had just made it a character dining experience too!  The food was terrific – it is similar to Boma at Animal Kingdom lodge and even Della loved it!  The characters were Mickey, Goofy, Donald and Daisy in their safari outfits.
 
After dinner, we checked in to the DVC party and got wrist bands for tonight’s event. The park closed early, but the DVC event was scheduled to go to midnight – woohoo!  After getting the wrist bands, we went to the Discovery Trading Company shop which is AK’s version of the Emporium – this shop is much bigger now having been expanded in the last twelve months to twice the size it used to be.  While we were in there, Della and Patti went looking at jewellery while Brian and I checked out the toys LOL.  But then we heard the music outside as the Tree of Life began its nightly light show so we headed out to watch that and it was amazing! They project some of the animals on the tree coming to life in short stories.  It was truly amazing to see and we loved watching it.  After every short story, the entire crowd clapped. The stories are relayed all the time, so you can watch whenever you like.
 
After watching the cycle of shows, we headed to Island Mercantile (because you have to see every shop!) before we went to a Mickey and Minnie Meet and Greet.  Animal Kingdom is the only place in WDW where you can get a photo of Mickey and Minnie together – everywhere else in the resort they are solo.
 
After that, we went to our first DVC special event for the night – a Lion King meet and greet in the Lion King theatre.  We had to wait a little while but spoke to one of Brian’s friends who worked there who said it is worth the wait. When we were admitted to the theatre, we were able to get photos with the Pumba float with Timon and Rafiki and the stilt walkers from the show – it was a unique experience and I can’t wait to show you the photos.
 
Next we headed to the Up meet and greet where we met Dug, Russell and Carl which was awesome too. We were given free tokens to play the Dinoland games but we didn’t win anything.  So we headed down to Everest and there was virtually no one in this section of the park (maybe DVC members don’t like thrill rides?) so Brian and I decided to do the ride at night time.  There were only six of us on it!  Once we got off, we found our wives and said we were going to do the ride again from the front seat, so we ran around again and got front row for the next run which was awesome in the dark.
 
We caught up with Della and Patti who in the meantime had gotten themselves free Mickey ice-creams (there were lots of free drinks, snacks and ice creams on the night at stations set up around the park).
 
Leaving Everest, we ran into a Goofy meet and greet so we grabbed photos with him to, as well as with a photopass guy taking photos with Everest in the background.  Finally it hit midnight, so after a final pass through the shops, we headed out of the park, caught the tram to the car park, and Brian and Patti drove us back to our hotel.  They came up to visit our room and chatted for a while before heading home around 1am.  It was a fun night and the DVC party was great (thanks to Brian and Patti for bringing us as their guests!)

[calisota]

I've always thought that Animal Kingdom had the best theming of any park. Must have been great to see it with such a small crowd.


Greg

[KeithS]

It was a pretty amazing night. 

I'm a bit behind with the entries - having too much fun here, sorry!  Will update soonish with the next few entries.

[DisneyKaren]

Day Two – 4 September 2016
Dinner was in the food court at 10pm – our meal pattern is way out of sync because we forget to eat and lose track of time! Tomorrow we are heading to the Magic Kingdom and catching up with our friends Brian and Patti.

So glad to hear it's not just me who forgets to eat and has meals at random times because I've no clue what time of day it is!  Thanks for sharing your trip, if I can't be there, so great to read someone else's travel stories.
Karen

[KeithS]

Thanks Karen. We always lose track of time, it just disappears too quickly. I'll get my next update online shortly!

[KeithS]

Day Five – 7 September 2016
Off to Epcot today but before that, we had a quick breakfast followed by a trip to our resort store to buy a Hank fluffy for Della that she had seen earlier in the week.  That done, we headed out on the bus to Epcot.
 
On arrival, we grabbed a Photopass picture in front of Spaceship Earth before heading over to Soarin’ for our fastpass.  We enjoyed the new ride, however we were on the far right and the image there was quite distorted – especially the Eiffel Tower which was considerably bent (more on that later).
 
From there, we headed to Mission Space and Della wanted to do the Green (less intense) side, so I joined her in that.  It is still quite effective – more so than I would have thought having only ridden the more intense version in the past.
 
After that, we did a shop in Mouse Gear to get out of the heat for a while – Epcot is always a hot park, and today it was particularly warm!
 
We had a lunch reservation at Coral Reef Restaurant, so we headed there next. The food is good and the atmosphere with the fish swimming past was great. Della had the sirloin and I had chicken (no fish for us with all of them staring at us!)
 
After lunch, we went into the Living Seas with Nemo which is a good Omnimover ride through the aquarium with Nemo and his buddies joining in.  I love it.
 
After Nemo, we headed towards the centre of the park to the big pin store and bought some pins before starting a lap of World Showcase.  It was still very hot and we took it slow, stopping in shops along the way.  The new Frozen ride was a 60 minute standby so we bypassed it and as we got to Italy, our friends contacted us to say they had arrived in the park.
 
We continued our walk around quickly and met them at the Port of Entry store at the entrance to World Showcase.  We then walked around to Norway again and did the Anna and Elsa meet and greet which was only a short – 15 minute wait. That was a lot of fun too and Brian was able to give us some background on the Imagineering of the meet and greet area.
 
The Frozen ride itself was busy, so we headed on over to Test Track.  Patti sat it out, but Brian, Della and I headed to single rider and got straight to the front of the queue and immediately onto the ride – bet single rider ever!  We were so quick, we surprised Patti by how fast we were back with her.
 
Next up, we headed over to The Living Seas With Nemo and Friends and rode it again before heading into Turtle Talk with Crush.  We really liked Turtle Talk as Crush was very funny and there were a lot of new elements now that it has been updated to include Finding Dory elements.
 
Next up, we were back on Soarin’, and this time we were dead centre which resulted in a much better presentation - everything was exactly as it should be, so if you want to see this film, the middle set of seats is where you want to be. We like the new film, but I think they went a little too hard with the CGI elements.  I love how they kept the original theme music but modified it for different countries.  I hope at some point in the future they alternate between the old and new film.
 
Coming out of Soarin, we decided we’d have to bite the bullet and line up in standby line for Frozen, so we headed back to Norway and got in the 60 minute queue.  I have to say the queue is very entertaining, including entering Oaken’s sauna and seeing Oaken himself cleaning the sauna window and doing funny things.  In the end the wait was only 30 minutes (we think they are posting higher times at certain rides to adjust guest behaviours). The ride itself is quite entertaining – they use some new technologies on the animatronic actors, and the Let it Go moment is quite spectacular.
 
When we got out, it was 8:45pm, so we grabbed hot dogs before getting a spot beside the lake to view Illuminations.  Illuminations is still entertaining and has one of the best theme park soundtracks of all time.  After the fireworks, we did a few more photopass locations as we made our way to the exit and the bus home.

[KeithS]

Day Six – 8 September 2016
Today is Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party day! So after breakfast we headed over to the Magic Kingdom. As soon as we arrived, the Move It, Shake It street party was on, so we followed it up Main Street to the Hub to watch it.  At the same time, we texted our friends who were already in the park and they came to meet us where we were standing.  The street party is similar to the old Celebrate a Street Party, but smaller – it looks like they re-skinned some of the floats, but it wasn’t quite as good as the old one.  The floats have TV screens on them and you can tweet photos which show up on the screen.
 
After the party, we went to Cosmic Ray’s for a drink and chat before heading to Tomorrowland Speedway (WDW’s Autopia). We then went for a game on Buzz Lightyear.  After that, Brian and Patti had to leave as they were checking out of their DVC room and had to go home to wash and get ready for work on Friday.
 
That left Della and I to go to Peter Pan where we had another Fastpass waiting and we got on the ride very quickly. As we were at the right end of the park, we went to The Little Mermaid ride and had a fun ride on that too.
 
We were hungry now and thought we’d go to Gaston’s tavern, but we wanted more than a snack so headed to Main Street for a hot dog at Casey’s Corner.  The parade was next so we grabbed a spot on Main Street as soon as we’d finished eating and waited for the parade.  The new WDW parade is really good – it started in 2013 but after we were here last, so we hadn’t seen it.  It is a great parade, and the steam-punk Maleficent float is a work of art!
 
When the parade finished, we did some Main Street shopping before dumping stuff in a locker.  It was now 4pm so we could check in for the MNSSHP. We got our wrist bands and maps, then we were directed down the back-overflow walk way (the first time I’ve been down there) and we collected our Trick or Treat bags. 
 
As it was still some time until the party began, we headed to the Jungle Cruise and had a funny skipper, although as always, the audio was hard to hear at the rear of the boat.  When we got off, we grabbed a Dole Whip and sat down for a while in the heat.
 
It was very hot, so we headed over the hub (which had thee street party on again) to sit in Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café in Tomorrowland.  This time, the animatronic Sonny Eclipse was playing his show tunes and that made us laugh listening to him. While we were sitting there, the cast members came around handing out small cups of strawberry slushy for free and they were great.
 
After our break, we headed to the Big Top Souvenirs to get the MNSSHP merchandise – pins and t-shirts.  When we came out, we saw the seven dwarfs in a photo meet and greet with a giant queue. We joined it for a little while, but it was just too long so we gave it up as we’d lose two hours of our night.
 
We did see that Lotso was out and we joined his queue for a photo. Lotso is one of Della’s favourite characters and we’d never seen him before, so that was a great opportunity.  Once we got his signature, we went on a candy station crawl to the Haunted Mansion before riding it. The Bride was on the HM lawn as we went past and was heckling the crowd. All the cast had amazing ghost makeup on as well. After the ride, we grabbed a photo pass picture with the horseless carriage.
 
Disney’s free strawberry slushy did its job as we went back to Cosmics Ray’s to buy two more to cool off again – it was still hot after sun down.  With our slushies in hand, we headed out to the hub (the new hub I should add – it has been greatly expanded and is much better for viewing fireworks) and found a spot to stake out.  We only waited about 15 minutes for Celebrate the Magic, which was immediately followed by the Hallowishes fireworks which are brilliant.
 
We hung around the hub for the Hocus Pocus castle villain show which is really good as it included some more unusual villains such as Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog, and Oogie Boogie who I’ve never seen on stage before.  The show was good and featured great special effects.
 
As soon as it was over, we found a spot to watch the Boo to You Parade.  Everyone around us sat down except for two tools in the front row who stood.  People around them asked them to sit, but both refused.  We were okay as we could still see somewhat, but others were blocked.  We have found this trip that the general behaviour of guests as deteriorated since our last visit which is disappointing. We’ve also found service standards are nowhere near as good as WDW used to be…I remember when WDW used to be the standard, but things aren’t quite right there at the moment.
 
Anyhow – Boo to You is still a fun parade, but it feels a little old now – when we first saw it, it was new and innovative, but now it seems a little dated when compared to Halloween parades in Tokyo.  Maybe it is time to replace it (sacrilegious I know!)
 
After the parade, we headed for our locker, got some more photos, and headed to the bus – good thing too, as we caught the last Art of Animation bus of the evening before they start running muti-resort buses to clean up the remaining guests!  In general, it was a good night, but we both said we probably wouldn’t do MNSSHP again unless it changed significantly – it was pretty much the same as 10 years ago, with bigger crowds, and more expense!

[KeithS]

Hey Mel, did you get in last night. I am in Magic Kingdom right now and it is HOT! Have fun at MNSSHP tonight!