Allie's Fabulous, In-Your-Face, Surprise Graduation/Anniversary Trip of Awesomeness

Sunday, August 31st Part 1

It felt like I was asleep all of 5 min before my 2:30am alarm went off. But who cares? It was Disney Day! Jon and I got up and showered and got ready before waking up my sisters so they could get ready themselves. Once again, we made it onto the road about 20 min later than planned. We parked at the Park'n'Fly and got onto the shuttle with one other family. They were at a different terminal then us so our driver dropped them off and then on our way to our terminal, he got a call saying another family needed to be picked back up at the Park'n'Fly and taken to our same terminal. He asked if we would mind if he headed back and picked them off before dropping us all off. No big deal, we would probably still have plenty of time.

About 1/2 an hour later we were dropped off at our terminal and briskly took off for the AirTran counter to check our baggage and print our boarding passes. I about had a hernia as we approached AirTran and saw about 50+ people in line ahead of us. A huge volleyball group was all there waiting to get through the line. Crap. After about 15 min of standing in this humongo line and not moving I started to panic that we were going to miss our 6:20am flight. Luckily, just as I was about to pass out, an AirTran representative came out and pulled everyone from the volleyball group over to a separate counter which moved us up to the front of the line. As we got to a check in computer, I looked behind us to see another HUGE line that had gathered behind us which is probably what ended up prompting the employees to pull the volleyball group. I guess we had gotten there at a good time after all!
The rest of the check in and security process went smoothly and our gate was the first one past security. We had about half an hour before our boarding would start so we wandered down to Subway where Jon and I got some breakfast (almost $20 for two breakfast sandwiches and a juice! Dang you airport food!) and then we lounged at our gate for a bit and took an obligatory airport selfie.

It wasn't long before we were on the plane. It was a pretty uneventful flight. I couldn't sleep even though I was exhausted, but the rest of my group did thank goodness! We had a quick 35 min layover in Atlanta and then were on another, much more crowded flight to Orlando! We landed right on time at about 11:55am, grabbed our carry-ons, and quickly headed to the Magical Express! Our bus had just pulled up as we got in line so we were on within minutes. I don't remember what other resorts were on our bus, but Coronado Springs was the first stop so it didn't really matter much to me anyways.

The Magical Express video was not as entertaining as in 2012 since they've altered it to be much more informative with Magic Band and Fastpass+ tips and tricks, so we got antsy quickly! After what felt like the longest drive ever, we pulled into Coronado! Yay! We got into the online check-in line which was significantly longer than the regular check-in line. When it was our turn we got a very sweet, but obviously very new cast member. She didn't even have on the uniform yet that everyone else was wearing and she told us this was her first day. The check-in process took quite a long time and honestly I think we would have been better off not doing the online check-in as it didn't save us anything. At least our room was ready, though!

By the time we were done we were very hungry so we headed straight over to Pepper Market. Megan had the tacos, Gill and I had nachos, and Jon had....pizza I think? We were all very impressed with the food considering, though we probably would have eaten anything at that point! At lunch we surprised Megan and Gill with the fact that we would be skipping Downtown Disney due to construction and would instead be heading to the Magic Kingdom. They didn't seem too upset

We went to quickly check out our room and drop off our stuff. I had requested a second floor room in Casitas and instead got a first floor room in Cabanas. Not a big deal, but it was a little disappointing that neither request was met. The room was nice though a little rundown (our furniture had a lot of chips in them that were very apparent on the dark wood) but definitely a step up from Caribbean Beach. We didn't mind much though as we practically ran back out the door to catch the next Magic Kingdom bus. YAY!

Sunday, August 31st Part Two

At the bus stop we waited foooooorever for a Magic Kingdom bus. This is a theme throughout the trip. The busing to and from Coronado was just horrible. We had no problems with bus service in 2012 at Caribbean Beach so I was incredibly surprised at how awful the busing was. I'll add in some specific stories later, but whenever I say we were waiting for a bus you can safely assume that we waited 25+ minutes because I honestly don't remember ever waiting less than that. I understand the buses are supposed to run every 20 min but if that were the case then shouldn't I see a bus for each of the parks pass through in a 20 min period? We would often sit there for close to 20 min without seeing a single bus for anywhere. And because the buses weren't running often, every single bus we were on was PACKED. Even in the middle of the day. It was pretty ridiculous.

Terrible busing aside, we arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 2:50pm. I got super excited because we were just in time for the Festival of Fantasy parade. I practically pulled Jon and my sisters along to try and scout out the spot behind the castle that AnnieLovesDisney had recommended, and just as we started to circle around the back of the castle the skies opened up. Everyone else ran for cover while we stood in the torrential downpour fighting to pull out our ponchos and get them on. Gillie had forgotten her poncho in the suitcase and Megan had an epic battle with her poncho, ripping it in the process. It was probably really hilarious to watch and I'm kind of surprised I haven't been able to find any YouTube videos surfacing of this as the people standing in the alcove by Cosmic Rays were definitely watching our struggle.

With 2 (kind of 2-1/2) of us safely covered by ponchos, we ran over to People Mover to hop on. It was raining so hard that the streets were flooding and it was like running through a shallow bathtub of water. When we got our People Mover car (still no line even despite the hundreds of people huddled in the area to escape the rain) I checked my shoes and thank goodness not much had bled! There was a little bit of blue on Gaston's face, but nothing terrible especially considering that they had literally just been submerged in rain water.

After People Mover our FP+ timeslot for Space Mountain had just opened up so we made another run for it, pulled off our ponchos on our walk through the empty FP+ line, and got into a coaster with next to no wait. Love me some FP+! And I do love Space Mountain, but man can that ride make me feel like an old lady with how much I ache when I get off of there! I also forgot how long it was, I kept expecting it to be over and then I'd scream like crazy when we'd take off again.
The rain was starting to calm down a bit so I pulled up the MDE app on my phone and saw that Jungle Cruise only had a 10 min wait so we crossed through the hub over into Adventureland. By the time we got there the wait had jumped to 25 min (maybe because of the rain?) and we decided we didn't want to wait that long so we crossed over to Enchanted Tiki Room instead. This show has a soft spot in my heart even though Jon hates it and also teases about trying to sneak out the door early. After a relaxing serenading by the animatronic birds, we checked the time and saw that our FP+ window for Splash would be opening up soon so we decided to walk over and check the wait at Big Thunder in the meantime. Big Thunder posted a 20 min wait so we decided to go for it. I forget how hot that queue is though! I was definitely ready to get wet (again) to cool off after that so we hopped over to use our FP+ at my absolute favorite Magic Kingdom ride. SM did not disappoint! We got the front two rows and we all got quite drenched!

While waiting in line for Big Thunder I had switched our last FP+ of the day to Buzz since I wanted to make sure we did this one before TSMM this trip since I always feel like Buzz is such a letdown after doing TSMM. With only about an hour left in the park before we should have started to head out for our dinner reservation at Whispering Canyon, we decided to venture back over to Tomorrowland. We decided to try out Stitch to the dismay of my sisters, but Jon and I had never done it before and you have to try everything once, right? Wrong. I should have listened to all of the warnings. That attraction was the biggest waste of time....nothing even happened! Who approved this ride? When will it be replaced? Gah! I'm definitely aboard the anti-Stitch's Great Escape train now!

Next up was Buzz to try and cheer us up. Even doing it pre-TSMM this trip it still felt really meh to me. I remember loving it when I was younger but the technology is a bit outdated and you can't even really tell where you are shooting! I do like this ride but it definitely needs a refurb in a big way.

The plan was that after Buzz we'd shoot over and grab another FP+ for a picture with Tinkerbell on our way out of the park since I had my Peter Pan shirt on. It was now about 5:50pm and this should still leave us plenty of time to make it over to Wilderness Lodge for our 7pm Whispering Canyon ADR. As we passed by Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Jon convinced me that we would totally have time to catch the show quick first. I don't know if it was because I was running on next to no sleep or what, but somehow I was talked into it and trusted that the timing made sense. After waiting in line for 10 min before we were even let into the pre-show area to wait another 10-15 min, I not only knew there was no way we could watch the show but I was freaking out that we were going to be late for dinner even with skipping it. It was 6:15pm by the time we ran from the pre-show area and straight through the exit doors to head out and run over to the boat dock. I had wanted to leave the park by 6pm! That's the last time I'll let Jon be in charge of the Disney math

We hopped on a Wilderness Lodge boat that seemed to have been waiting there especially for us, and I anxiously tapped my foot as we slowly made our way over to Wilderness Lodge. We pulled up to the dock with about 4 min to make it to our reservation on time, so we went running through the grounds trying to find where Whispering Canyon was. We probably looked like chickens with our heads cut off because every single sign that listed the direction of restaurants did not list Whispering Canyon. We finally found it right up front in the lobby (uh duh!), and checked in only a couple of minutes late. They told us they were behind so it'd be a few minutes anyway. We collapsed into the big armchairs and enjoyed the atmosphere of the beautiful resort we had missed in our panic to get to the check in desk. After relaxing a few minutes, Jon and I headed over to explore the gift shop and ended up picking up a Boo doll from Monsters Inc for a friend's little boy. Not too much later our buzzer went off and we headed into Whispering Canyon.

We were taken through the big, boisterous dining area and around the corner to a quiet, nearly empty section right by the kitchen. Bummer. I was really hoping to get my sisters in on some of the crazy action. Oh well, at least maybe our server would give them a hard time. This turned out to not be the case, even with our coaster face up on the "Yes, Please Include Us!" side. She was very nice when she was at our table, but she was often nowhere to be seen and when we did see her she was usually preoccupied with a big table near us. Jon, Megan, and Gillie all ordered the All-You-Care-to-Eat platter, I had ordered the steak, and all four of us ordered the endless milkshakes. We finished our first round of milkshakes in about 5 minutes and were never offered a refill the entire rest of the time we were there (which ended up being close to two hours). The other three in my group were given one platter to share and were never asked if they wanted more of anything, which thankfully they didn't because none of us were very hungry. My steak was almost inedible with about 50% of it being entirely fat and gristle. I never got the opportunity to send it back because we didn't see our waitress again for another half an hour. Again, I was not very hungry anyways since we had eaten lunch late so I might not have said anything anyways. We finally had to grab our server as she walked by without checking on our table yet again to ask if we could get the check and our desserts to go. Our server did bring out two glasses of really bitter champagne for Jon and my anniversary which was a nice effort but way too little too late.

It was really disappointing because we could hear all the fun that was being had in the main dining room that we missed out on, both because of our table position and because our server didn't really seem to pay any attention to our table at all. I did get one of my sisters to ask for ketchup so we did get in on that a bit, however our waitress didn't really explain to her what to do, she just told her she was old enough to do it herself and kind of walked off. Gillie hadn't seen any of what was happening in the dining room so I had to fill her in before her and Jon knew to go call out for ketchup. Jon and my sisters said the things on the platter were ok but nothing special and, like I said, my steak was awful. It will probably be quite a long time before I try Whispering Canyon again, at least for dinner. Kind of a bust on our first night.
Jon tried to talk me into going back to the Magic Kingdom to get my Tinkerbell picture since the park was open until 2am that night, but we were all so exhausted that we ended up dragging ourselves over to the first bus that showed up and made the long drive to Fort Wilderness and then to Epcot, plus the transfer back over to Coronado to our room. When we got back, I pulled off my shoes to find that my feet were now a multi-colored tie die from the rain soaking through the Disney toms. Oh, well. At least the shoes survived! We picked away at our desserts (one chocolate cake, one apple strudel, and two raspberry white chocolate cheesecakes) and fell asleep pretty darn quick.

HA! Thanks guys!

It was really odd, but even odder that it kept consistently happening. Every time we were at a Coronado stop people around us were getting super agitated from the long waits. I did write to Disney about it too which is really not something I would normally do, but it was bad enough that I felt like I needed to. I hope it causes them to take another look at the dispatching for Coronado.

And yes, the rest of our meals were much better! That was really the only big downer.

We unfortunately didn't make it back to your spot when we actually did get to see the parade, but we had a great view regardless. I have that spot marked on my map for future parades though!

Monday, September 1 Part One

Even after a long, exhausting day the day before, we got up bright and early in order to make rope drop for EMH at Animal Kingdom. With the slow busing, we didn't quite make rope drop and the entrance to the park was already clear and empty by the time we got there. While Megan and Jon went through bag check, Gillie and I speed walked back towards Kilimanjaro Safaris, catching sight of a couple of kangaroos on the Discovery Trails on our way. I had thought that the other two would be able to catch up with us but that wasn't the case and we ended up waiting for them outside Kilimanjaro anyways. Even so, we walked onto the first bus that pulled up after we got there.

On our last trip in 2012, our strategy to ride Kilimanjaro first thing in the morning worked out really well and we saw a ton of animals. Today did not really follow suit; the animals weren't very active and most were hiding, but it was still a relaxing way to start out the day. We did get an awesome view of the elephant though which was super nice since he was hard to spot last time!

After the safari we headed over to Expedition Everest. This was the same strategy we had used last trip and it had worked awesome because everyone that had bee lined to EE at rope drop had finished by the time we got there and we could ride four times with no wait. This did work in our favor again this time and we rode twice with absolutely no line. We could have ridden more but we all felt like twice was enough this time (apparently I am getting old!) The only bummer about this strategy is there's not much time to take in the amazingly fabulous queue, but I suppose that's an OK problem to have!

We strolled back over to Africa to venture out into Pangani, and we spent a good amount of time watching the gorillas. They are so fascinating but man do they weird me out! They are so human like it's hard for me to not convince myself that they are really just dudes dressed up in gorilla suits. I did however like getting a glimpse of the one month old baby gorilla being carried around in mama's big hand as she crawled along.

We probably had plenty of time to do some exploring of the Discovery Trails, but Megan and Jon were getting worried about getting good seats for Festival of the Lion King so we got in line for a while there, waiting out in the hot hot HOT sun until we were finally let into the air conditioning for the 10am show. We got seated about 5 rows back in the giraffe section. The show was great and I was feeling great until they called a little toddler girl up to represent the lion section and she whispered a quiet "rooooooar" into the microphone, almost an exact replica of how Penny roars like a lion. I lost it and cried like a baby through the first half of the show, missing her like crazy! I finally calmed down and then they called all the kids up to parade around the stage playing instruments and....I lost it again! The only thing that made me feel better was reminding myself how much fun she is going to have next year when we bring her and how much more she'll appreciate it then when she's a little older.

After FOTLK, Jon and Gillie went to save us seats at the Flights of Wonder show while Megan and I went to Tamu Tamu to pick up some Dole Whips to share, plain for Megan and Gill and one with coconut rum for Jon and I. You know, to calm me down

Jon loves FOW and I go to make him happy. I'm pretty scared of birds but even I have to admit that the show is done very well. However, I wasn't super sad when it was done and we got to go over and check in for lunch at my favorite restaurant, Yak & Yeti! Megan and Gillie each got the Kobe beef burger on my recommendation and Jon and I got one Kobe beef burger and one miso salmon to share and I had a Yak Attach (yum!). Oh my gosh was that salmon was amazing! I struggle to pick a favorite between the burger and the salmon and that is really saying something because I love that burger with my whole heart! For dessert Megan and Gillie both went with the wontons and Jon and I shared again, this time splitting the wontons and the mango pie. The wontons were sooooo yummy but the mango pie won hands down for me. Jon liked it better too and he didn't even really think he was going to like it at all. It was so light and delicious, the perfect end to an awesome meal. Our server was spectacular as well and I love the decor in there. Always a winner for me! And our bill was about $100 less than our Whispering Canyon disaster the night before, just saying. I would recommend this restaurant to anyone.

After lunch we were aching from our full bellies so we decided to use our FP+ for a nice relaxing ride down the Kali River Rapids.....HA! We all got soaked and had so much fun. Such a great ride! We took a quick jaunt through the Maharajah Jungle Trek (I skipped the bird section) to dry off before using our FP+ to get into Finding Nemo. As we approached the Finding Nemo theatre, there was a big group of people arguing with the CM at the gate. From what I gathered, the group was trying to tell the CM that they had a "group fastpass" so they should all be able to get in even though some of their Magic Bands were saying they didn't have a FP+ and the CM was trying to explain to them that there was no such thing as a group fastpass and each of them individually need to have a FP+ reservation. They were blocking the entire entrance to the FP+ line so I politely said "Excuse me" to try and squeeze through and one of them whipped around and shot a snotty "You're welcome!" towards me. Ummm....ok? Thank you? Anyways, the FP+ was totally worth it as we could have gotten a seat pretty much anywhere. We chose a front row seat in the back section so we had a great view of the entire stage and of the aisle performers. I cannot stress enough how much I LOVE THIS SHOW! It is so well done and all of the actors are so talented and the set and costumes are amazing. And I could sing the songs all day long...and I sometimes do, much to Jon's dismay!

After Nemo we slowly made our way over to Dinoland where we spent some time in the gift shop and then used our last FP+ to ride Dinosaur. I asked if anyone wanted to spend some time in the Oasis or Discovery Island trail, but it was so freaking hot that the general consensus was to be done with DAK for the day. As we approached the bus stop we saw the Coronado Bus off in the distance driving away. Dangit, we had just missed it! So of course we had to wait another half an hour before the bus came. Finally back at the hotel, Jon and I relaxed in the air conditioning and gave Penny and my mom a call while Megan and Gill took turns showering. About 45 min later we were back waiting at the bus stop to head over to DHS for EMH!