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Post by DrMinnie on Apr 10, 2023 20:35:22 GMT -5
Hi! We were also at WDW over most of Holy Week. We flew down on Sunday and flew back on Friday. It was our longest trip since our 10 year anniversary trip, and it was amazing.
People: Me, DH, DS, and DD.
Hotel: Riviera (I love everything about it. My spouse isn’t as keen on the food…)
About the hotel. If you’re getting a standard view room, I think you need to request to be on the side of the hotel closer to the Skyliner. I don’t recall which side this is. It’s also a good idea to request a higher room. We were on the 2nd floor on the side by the busses, which was not ideal. We could see the Epcot fireworks, at least the high ones, partially blocked. But it wasn’t nice hanging out on the balcony. This was unfortunate.
We only ate at Primo Piatto once. I really enjoy eating there, but my spouse isn’t a fan. Part of the problem is it was impossible for me to modify the food when I was mobile ordering it. I hate standing in line to order too. I love mobile order. I asked them to remake his burger so it wouldn’t have the mayo on it. If I could order the chicken sandwich plain, he’d be happy with that. Well, happy enough. He doesn’t like the bbq sauce Disney has. haha. I don’t think I’m the only one here with a picky spouse!
We did eat at Topolino’s for dinner and for breakfast. Dinner is still not an amazing option for the kids. Other restaurants have more options that my kids want to eat. My meal was delicious though. And the bread is popular. We also did the character breakfast. That is almost a must do, but this time was a little off. Last time we went, we were able to order my kid extra sausage, which he adores. This time they were very strict that you pick one entree and 2 sides for the kids. You can still get eggs as a side. But no more. And there was no way to pay more to get more food. I heard another server telling a table that they’ll be adding ala cart items “soon”. It was definitely fun to have the characters back at the tables again.
That is really all the downer things. The rest of trip went great.
I bought genie+ before getting on the plane and then I spent money to get Wi-Fi on the plane, so by the time we got to HS we had fastpasses for slinky dog, TS mania, and the millennium falcon. Just enough park time before dinner at Topolinos.
Monday we went to Animal Kingdom for rope drop, and then we park hopped back to HS. At Animal Kingdom we rode Avatar, safari, and Everest. We took the train over to the rafiki’s animal planet and wandered around a bit. For lunch we ate at the yak and yeti QS, which was surprisingly very good. I had the salad with chicken. If that had been all I ate, I think I would want 2, but my boys both got 2 things and so I got to try some of that.
We probably stayed at AK longer than we meant to, because we were hoping to check out the pool. Instead we had a short break and then park hopped over to HS again. We had made reservations to ride slinky dog, Toy Story mania, M&M RR, and ROTR. We also had scored a reservation for the TS bbq restaurant! It was really good. The salads were delicious! I actually had them bring more salad out because I enjoyed it that much. The biscuits were tasty, I did try one. The meat was all good, certainly better than average for Disney. DD said the “slinky dog Mac & cheese” was the best. If we can manage it, we will eat here again. It was enjoyed by everyone.
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Post by DrMinnie on Apr 10, 2023 20:59:35 GMT -5
Oh! Also on Monday, since it was the extended evening hours for Epcot, and I had read from broganmc’s trip report that you could ride the guardians ride, we joined the VQ so we could ride it! Well, I joined for everyone because that was how the buttons worked out, but my kids aren’t going to make it to extended evening hours for a few years yet! So I sent my spouse to go check it out because if anyone of us would like it, he would. And he did. Leaving Riviera at about 8:30, he got to Epcot with enough time to find a spot on the bridge to watch the fireworks. We are not old - school Epcot fans, neither of us had been as kids. So there’s a lot we don’t “get” about the Epcot Forever fireworks. However, the fireworks part is soooo much better than the harmonious was. And DH LOVED guardians. He refused to tell us about what happened in it. (And I was wrong, I checked my pictures. We DID check out the pool Monday. It’s really nice! The water slide is so much fun too. ) We had planned to go to MK on Tuesday ages ago because that was the opening of TRON. By the time they announced things like soft openings, I don’t think it was possible for me to more park reservations around, so we just stuck with it. We couldn’t get a boarding group, which was just as well because that line was so long! And in the sun! So we just got the LL. We had to do rider swap, I hope for the last time! DD should grow the last 2 1/2 inches by our next trip  . We must have just missed the bus to MK in the morning, but we ALWAYS rope drop mine train. We should have bailed, we hadn’t gotten inside the queue by 9:15! Oh well. We rode Jungle Cruise, BTMR, and barnstormer. We might have done something else too. For lunch we went to Liberty tree tavern. We’ve eaten there a few times, but every time they’ve stuck us in the saloon, so this time we actually ate in restaurant we made our reservation in! My spouse really likes the food there, and the kids are happy with it. They’ve made a change to the salad, and now it’s one that my spouse is less excited to eat, but I thought was delicious! I think I had 2 plates of salad by myself. It was so hot, eating salad always taste better when its that hot. (They added fancy lettuce that some people find bitter) We spent some time walking through some of the gift shops. We were hoping to find a HM pillow as we’re getting a new couch. That wasn’t to be. But I did get a pair of the mickey coach sunglasses! They’re so fun! It’s one of the last pairs and apparently they were never going to be in stores so I was never going to be able to try them on except at Disney. I’m very happy with them. We then park hopped to Epcot where we went to the DVC lounge for the first time. It’s neat, but I don’t think it’ll be a must do. I’m not sure it’ll help with the need to be out of the sun do to the roof choice…. We were able to ride soarin, and we had dinner in the Mexico pavilion. I think we all enjoyed that meal quite a bit. DD was very concerned about the volcano, they sat us over by the water so we were very close to the volcano. DS spent most of the meal waving to people on the boats! We got the kids back to the room and I went out to watch the Epcot fireworks by myself. I didn’t do anything else, just stood around waiting…. |
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Post by DrMinnie on Apr 10, 2023 21:20:07 GMT -5
Wednesday was our day to start at Epcot. DH was fast with his fingers on the phone and we managed to get a boarding group AND a LL for guardians. Then we decided we’d go straight to frozen and he got us a fast pass for ratatouille. This was a bit of a mistake, we should have went straight to ratatouille because a. That was running, b. You were not stopped at ropes that wouldn’t drop till later. THEN! Frozen wasn’t even open. They had no ETA on when it would be open. But there was shade, and if we didn’t ride it DD was going to be a mess. It’s also VERY busy and so if we weren’t there ready to ride, we’d be stuck in a multi hour long wait. So we waited! The gift shop for after frozen was open, so we went in there and DD picked out the Elsa doll she had to have. We set up camp under an umbrella and waited. But then the bakery opened, so I went in and got us a chocolate cookie and school bread (and a Diet Coke for DH). We’ve never tried it before. Then I took the kids over to the Mexico pavilion to ride the boat ride, and we stood in line to see Donald too! At some point, DH texts me to say they lowered the umbrellas and his shade was perilously close to going away. Well, that would be the straw that would get us to vacate. We’re just about to leave our spot when some of the other people who were also waiting say stop! Look! They were opening the doors! It’s only like, 10:30 am. So we get to ride, and then move on to the other things on our list! Lunch was after guardians, we got to ride it almost back to back. We tried the new connections cafe thing that is so convenient right next to guardians. Everyone was happy with their choices, I had the chicken tender salad thing, which was surprisingly tasty. And plenty of food too.
We did manage to make it back to the hotel in time to have a bit of a break, but we didn’t have enough time to go swimming. The kids played on their switch and I laid down for a bit. Then we park hopped to AK where we rode the safari, Dinosaur, and avatar. We then had dinner at Tiffins (first time!) which was amazing. Then we quickly went through the main gift shops before heading out. We’re looking for an AK sweatshirt for my MIL. Unfortunately, they never have one in her size. She likes the 3XL ones and oof. There aren’t many sweatshirts made in that size. Maybe for the anniversary later this year? I need to replace my AK sweatshirt too. She accidentally bought a women’s XL sweatshirt when we went the first time. It only fit me, and it turns out I love that sweatshirt. It now has a hole where I pull the right sleeve up.
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Post by Brian5581 on Apr 11, 2023 4:34:51 GMT -5
Sounds like a very enjoyable trip. Thanks for taking the time to share.
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Post by DrMinnie on Apr 11, 2023 20:56:16 GMT -5
Thursday! It was our last full day. We tried to do it all. When we were standing around waiting for Frozen, and hadn’t yet rode, we were contemplating switching our park reservation to try again. But since we got to ride, we didn’t have to. So we kept our original plan of rope dropping HS even though we had ridden everything at this point. We took a poll, and decided we wanted to ride slinky dog, TSM, and Minnie and Mickey’s RR. We got out to the Skyliner and…. It wasn’t running. We could see that they were thinking about starting it, but the sign that we forgot to read before said it wasn’t going to be operating for at least 30 minutes. We figured we had at least 10 minutes before they’d let us board, and probably more like 20. We decided we weren’t going to wait so we went to get an Uber. Tuesday when we waited for Disney transportation put us behind and we didn’t want a repeat. So we got there, and through security, and found ourselves first in line to scan our tickets! And then DD had to use the bathroom. I was assured by the cast member that they were not going to let us through for 45 minutes (not true) and we had plenty of time to go use the facilities. (Definitively true). I haven’t talked about coffee. There’s a tshirt that says “mathematicians turn coffee into theorems” or something like that. On the later park opening days (like MK and Epcot) there’s plenty of time to get coffee from the cafe in Riviera. But on HS and AK days, there is not. We are usually far enough back that there’s plenty of time to rope drop Starbucks while my spouse runs for the line with the kids and stroller. My concern was that we’d be so far ahead of the line that I wouldn’t be able to catch up w/o being that person cutting. So I didn’t go get my coffee. This was a mistake, they didn’t start operating SD immediately upon us being allowed in and lining up. I think we waited in a few other lines before we got there. I didn’t get my coffee until after we had ridden all 3 rides! Oh well. It was still early. But we easily accomplished the must do rides and we were thinking about what to do next. I think DH took the kids to go ride star tours and I was looking at what was available. We haven’t done many of the shows yet, and the first Frozen sing along was going to start in 30 minutes. DD loved it, I thought it was hilarious. DH has different humor I guess, but he put up with it. After that we had to leave because we had our Topolino’s brunch at 1200. After brunch, (which was the speediest we’ve ever eaten there..) we went to the pool again. DD can’t swim yet. She’s so close, she just has to get out of her own head. So we took advantage of the zero entry to get her to float on her front. She just needed to see that she wasn’t going to sink, and the zero entry was perfect. By the time we were done she could “float move” which is basically swimming. It’s amazing. For dinner we went to another new thing. We tried the Hoop de doo revue. My kids and I loved the show. Unfortunately, we didn’t love the food and the service was meh. But it was fun, I’d do it again, but it’s not an “every trip” thing. The last bit of it is so loud! Since we were on that side of the world, and transportation back was going to be a pain, we wandered in to MK to see the fireworks. I’m really glad Happily ever after is back. We had terrible spots though, but DD didn’t care. She was fast asleep in the stroller. Friday was our last day, our plane left that evening. We went back to MK. We were planning to Uber, because of our experience on Tuesday. But we found out that Ubers couldn’t go to MK! I didn’t ask DH if they would go to the contemporary, but it didn’t matter. We checked the bus schedule and there was a bus coming in 5 minutes. So everything was fine and we were not super late. Plus I was already caffeinated! We rode mine train, dumbo, little mermaid, pirates, haunted mansion, TRON, and the speedway. DD hadn’t ridden the speedway yet as we haven’t done it since DS was 2. Now I”m good for probably 7 more years! We had lunch at Columbia harbor house, which was really good that day. We ended the trip with a mickey bar, and then wandered back to the bus. Back at Riviera, we found visiting characters in the lobby! I’ve heard they do that, but this was the first time we’ve seen them. Pluto, Goofy, and Donald were there. After that we made our way to the airport where we were all instantly a little bit grumpy. It’s hard to go home. Now we’re planning for our next trip. Actually, no, that trip is planned. We’re working on planning the trip following that one I hope you enjoyed! Cathy |
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Post by bubster on Apr 11, 2023 22:11:53 GMT -5
Enjoyed reading your trip report. You got so much done! Very impressed.
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Post by PirateLinda on Apr 12, 2023 6:41:45 GMT -5
I enjoyed your trip report. Glad you got to do so much!
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Post by DrMinnie on Apr 12, 2023 20:05:00 GMT -5
Sounds like a very enjoyable trip. Thanks for taking the time to share. Enjoyed reading your trip report. You got so much done! Very impressed. I enjoyed your trip report. Glad you got to do so much! Thanks! We had a great time. |
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Post by raspus on Apr 13, 2023 7:34:06 GMT -5
Great report. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for taking the time to share your trip with us.
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Post by disneyteach on Apr 14, 2023 14:35:09 GMT -5
Sounds like a fantastic trip! Thanks for sharing!
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Post by sherrih on Apr 15, 2023 9:02:03 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing!
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. We must have just missed the bus to MK in the morning, but we ALWAYS rope drop mine train. We should have bailed, we hadn’t gotten inside the queue by 9:15! Oh well. We rode Jungle Cruise, BTMR, and barnstormer. We might have done something else too. For lunch we went to Liberty tree tavern. We’ve eaten there a few times, but every time they’ve stuck us in the saloon, so this time we actually ate in restaurant we made our reservation in! My spouse really likes the food there, and the kids are happy with it. They’ve made a change to the salad, and now it’s one that my spouse is less excited to eat, but I thought was delicious! I think I had 2 plates of salad by myself. It was so hot, eating salad always taste better when its that hot. (They added fancy lettuce that some people find bitter)
