Trip Report: DVC Split Stay, MNSSHP, F&W, & ToT 10-miler (Complete)

Thanks, Colonel!

You could definitely do a runDisney event by speed walking. In the first 5K that I did her in PA, I speed walked it with another agent from our company (She's in her mid-60's) and we did it in 15 min/mi. I found it to be pretty tiring--more so for me than doing run/walk, but just like running the event, surely if you trained to walk the distance at the pace you want, you'll be able to do it. The runDisney races are very much walker-friendly.

Also, the pacing "requirement" is not as hard and fast as advertised. If you do fall behind the 16 min/mile pace, the pace people warn you that you are in jeopardy of being removed from the course, but given that some people's finishing times were over the 3-hour mark, there is definitely some leeway. Also, the requirement is less stringent once you are off the main roadways and since this race is at night, they're probably more lenient still because there is less of an issue over getting the road opened back up to traffic at 1am than there would be at 8am.

***TRIP REPORT STARTS HERE***

DAY 1: Travel/ EPCOT

I started to realize about a week before we left how poorly I had scheduled our flight. We were flying out of DCA (Reagan National in DC) because we got a better rate on Jet Blue and I've enjoyed flying with them in the past. I like their snack selection and they have 26 free television channels. The only downside is that they don't do a direct flight from BWI (Baltimore) to MCO. They route you through their hub in Boston first and that's just silly. They do however have a direct flight from DCA to MCO. Well, Benn had been complaining about the early flights that I had been choosing, so I booked us on a 10am flight...on a weekday...which meant being at the airport at 8am...which meant DC rush hour...DOH! Then I realized that my parents were leaving for a cruise out of Fort Lauderdale the day before we were coming home. I had this great plan! Dad could drive us to the airport. Mom & dad could park at the airport on October 4 and we would pick up their car on October 5. Then I would pick them up from the airport and we would all save a boatload on parking! One problem. They were flying out of BWI.

Anyway, back to day 1...We left at 5am for a 2-hour drive to our 10am flight and it's a good thing we did. The early AM traffic report said that the traffic on 270S was already heavy when we were leaving, so we opted to go around the Baltimore Beltway instead. This was a mistake. I'm pretty good at getting to DCA from 270S, but I had no idea where I was going coming in from the other side of the city, so I was totally reliant on the GPS...which seemed to be involved in some sort of conspiracy to force us to stay in the mid-Atlantic region. It kept changing routes every 3-4 minutes and telling us that it had found a shorter route to avoid traffic. If you have ever been in DC rush hour, you know full well that there is no such thing as avoiding traffic. I stayed pretty cool for the first part because we were on the series of interstates that runs through the city, so while the volume of traffic was high, it was manageable. Then the GPS told me to take I-395N, which I knew was wrong, but for some stupid reason, I listened to it...and ended up having to get off of the interstate and turn around in the city! That's when I started to lose my mind a little bit. Fortunately, we had left a little over an hour for the "DC factor", so we still made it in plenty of time, but BWI is so much easier to get to. Between that and the OUTRAGEOUS $22/day to park at this dumpy little airport, our JetBlue flying days are probably over unless they can crack Southwest's discount carrier monopoly at BWI.

So of course with all of the trouble getting to the airport, security was a breeze, the snacks were delicious, free TV was awesome (mine wasn't working, but I could see Benn's and I just wanted the TV for the LiveMap channel), no turbulence at all. We did have to wait about 20 minutes to take off, but it had been raining and storming off and on, so things were just a bit backed up on the runways. Our pilot put the pedal to the metal and we landed almost on time. I sent Benn to grab our checked bags while I got the rental car and we were on our way. This time we were more judicious about choosing our compact car, so we had power windows!! (I didn't think they made cars without power windows anymore, but we managed to get one on the August trip. Normally I wouldn't care, but 11 days of rolling down the window every time you come to a toll booth is rough going in Disney ) We stopped at Publix for water. There's a really convenient one right off of 528 on Central Florida Parkway. Unfortunately it was a little bit less convenient than usual because I hopped off of 528 an exit early and hit a very busy interchange. I'll wait one more exit in the future. We bought 48 bottles of water and 3 1-gallon jugs, which we estimated retail at Disney would have cost us $129. Since we only paid $137 for the car, the real cost of the rental car was about $1/day. Score.

We finally arrived at Wilderness Lodge at around 2:30 and I was glad that I had canceled our 2:30 ADR for Whispering Canyon that day because I would have been stressing out about the timeline. We were hungry, but the delicious flatbread that we split from Roaring Fork did the trick and then we could get to EPCOT sooner. Our room was ready when we arrived, so that was very nice. We had visited Wilderness Lodge in the past, so we knew it was a beautiful resort, but experiencing it as a guest completely blew us away! I think that this resort is Disney's immersive theming at its finest. Sitting on my balcony, you could have have honestly convinced me that we were in the Pacific Northwest. We also felt very welcomed and taken care of from the first minute that we set for in the lobby. We had considered buying our DVC points here and I definitely would have been happy to own here. Even with the pool construction that was minimally invasive at most, I think that this may be my new favorite resort.

Welcome Home

Main lobby and DVC common area

Our Room

From our Balcony

After our snack at Roaring Fork (cheese flatbread, pretty darn tasty), we went to EPCOT, where we arrived early enough to squeeze in our Test Track and Maelstrom FP's before walking over to Cape May for dinner. Of course, dinner was amazing. Anytime I can get AYCE crab legs, I'm a happy camper. There's not much new to report since we had just eaten here in August. The salad and the goat cheese were just as delicious as they had been the first time. The pistachio cheesecake was still fantastic. I did hear a rumor that the crab legs were going away, but I'm not sure that that has been substantiated by a reliable source. As we continued our trip, the Cape May experience was surpassed by many other restaurants, but I love seafood, so this has pretty much become a staple for us. Plus as buffets and seafood options go at Disney, it's pretty reasonably priced for the quality and variety of dishes, so that always makes me happy.

Our Test Track Car

At Maelstrom

Sand Castle at Cape May

Main course: Crab legs, salad, shrimp, goat cheese

Dessert: Flan, Pistachio Cheesecake, Flourless Chocolate Cake

Our original plan was to meet Amy and the Colonel at International Gateway and walk down to listen to Off Kilter, but as was par for the first 7 days of our trip, it had been raining on and off all afternoon. I got a text (or maybe it was a PM) from Amy asking if we wanted to meet at Beach Club instead. The Colonel and his family had returned to their room there because of the rain and Amy and her mom had to head in that direction for their ADR anyway. Unfortunately, we made it all the way to EPCOT and found Amy faster than we could all exchange messages, so we ended up ducking into the tea shop in UK to avoid the rain until the Colonel and family could join us. We ended up missing Off Kilter, but in a way, I'm glad. We've never seen the regular show. We did see the Christmas show in Canada last year and frankly, I thought it was awful, so I think I'm just as happy not knowing what I'm missing with the regular show since we would never have been able to see it again anyway. We had a very enjoyable meet up with Amy and her mom and the Colonel and Mrs. the Colonel and family. We chatted with Amy and her mom for quite a while and learned all kinds of things about the shops in England and how they're not nearly as nice as the EPCOT version! It stands to reason I guess. What American city is as clean and traditional as the American pavilion or Liberty Square? After we split with Amy so that they could make it to their ADR on time, we walked to the concert stage with the Colonel and family to hear the Commodores. I was thinking on the way there that I had heard of the Commodores but that I didn't know any of their music. I was pleasantly surprised that I had actually heard everything that they played before. We listened to a few songs together and chatted a bit before the Colonels left to find the after hours party and we continued around the Mexican side of World Showcase.

We enjoyed IllumiNations from a distance as we were driving out of the parking lot. Back at Wilderness Lodge, we spent some time enjoying the quiet pool and I was surprised that as close as we were to MK, we couldn't even hear the explosions from Wishes at the pool. After the pool, it was back to the room for a great night's sleep.

Day 2: DHS/EPCOT

Because we had spent a lot of time at DHS in August and as they continue to close attractions there aren't a ton of things left there (especially since we don't so much do ToT or RnR), we only had 2 partial days planned here for this trip--very unusual for us because we both love DHS and are definitely able to spend time just hanging out here. I love the Citizens of Hollywood and the Animation Academy and Benn loves the Star Wars store. This time, we were excited to see all of the Frozen extras. We saw the fireworks in August and they were pretty great, so we were definitely looking forward to checking out the other offerings.

As is our usual rope drop strategy, we beelined to TSM, but we had been a little bit lazy getting going in the morning and we were quite a few people back at rope drop. Plus, I had tried to get an "Olaf on a stick" in August and failed, so I had to get one this time. (I think this is completely hilarious because if you guys have ever seen the comedian Jeff Dunham, one of his puppets is called Jose Jalapeno on a Stick and every time I say "Olaf on a Stick", I hear it in Jeff Dunham's bad Mexican accent in my head and it cracks me up.) Anyway, We arrived at TSM a little too late and the line was already out the door and woven around the exterior queue. It was totally worth it because we had a great time with photobombing Olaf.

We had a 9:20 FP, so we decided to scrap the standby line and hit Frozen Funland before everyone got off of TSM and that was a GREAT idea! We walked into an empty play area where we first built and then destroyed a snowman. The "snow" was more like shaved ice, so it was actually kind of hard to use as a building material because if you applied much pressure to it, it collapsed. But I did manage to build a little mini snowman. There were snowflake shadows projected onto the play area and I centered our snowman in one of the snowflakes. Then I went all "Godzilla Stitch" and stomped the snowman into oblivion. At 9:30, the ice skating was scheduled to open, but since we had already played in the snow, they let me start at 9:15. (Benn doesn't skate--mostly because he would need custom skates due to the width of his feet--but he did find a nice family to chat with while I enjoyed 20 minutes of skating fun.) The skating session was actually for 30 minutes, but skating is pretty tiring and with the race coming up at the end of the trip, I was pretty careful about over exerting myself throughout this trip. Plus, I had made it 20 minutes without falling---I didn't want to push my luck! I used to skate all the time when we lived in Virginia because the ice rink was only 15 minutes from our house, but that was 8 years ago. Plus, the rental skates at DHS were hockey skates and I had only ever skated in figure skates. It was a strange feeling. Still, skating at Disney was a very unique and fun experience and I'm really glad I did it. Overall, I thought this was a very fun and cute attraction. When I first heard about it, I thought it would be cheesy and crappy, but we spent about 30 minutes in Frozen Funland and we both really enjoyed it!

On our never-ending quest to find a stuffed baby Sven, we popped into Wandering Oaken's. No dice. I've seen them on ebay, but I really feel like I should be able to buy one at WDW. Oh well. It's not the end of the world. Since we were right next door, we used our TSM FP. I won with 164,000 points, but Benn's laser gun wasn't working right, so it didn't really count. It was close to an Animation Academy class start time, so I decided to go do that and Benn went to browse the shops. We drew Tinker Bell. For me that was kind of a bummer because I've gotten her before, but the teacher liked my drawing, so that was cool. That's better than your mom hanging up your artwork on the refrigerator! I met back up with Benn and we decided that we were too hungry to wait for lunch at Food & Wine, so we grabbed a chicken and ribs platter to split from Fairfax Faire, which was good, but not as good as the same platter at Flame Tree BBQ and AK.

We happened to catch a minute of the Frozen parade on our way back over to One Man's Dream. I love the movie and even though I know it by heart, I have to sit and watch it (and cry all over it) at least once per trip. We had some time to kill before our FP for the Frozen Sing-a-Long, so we hopped onto Star Tours. We got a lame story--the one with Naboo and where the giant deformed fish monster thing bites the ship and swings it around. It's probably an OK story, but we've gotten that one at least 5 times before. Next up was the Frozen Sing-a-Long and It was very cute! I expected it to be kind of cheesy, but the jokes were funny and the music was incorporated well. The only thing I didn't care for was the fact that they skipped Fixer Upper and the Reprise of For the First Time in Forever. The villagers who told the story were hugely entertaining and the 4-D finales are always great fun at these sorts of shows.

Our next plan was to hit Food & Wine, so we left DHS at around 1:00 and walked toward the boat dock. It was just starting to rain, but we were able to get on the boat. Unfortunately, the lightning was approaching, so the boat had to stop at Swan and Dolphin, so we hopped off and walked to EPCOT in the rain...only to find out that the food booths ALSO close when there is a rick of thunderstorms. So we browsed the tower gift shops for the 15 minutes that I could muster. We bought a post card to send to my parents and then we headed for the festival center thinking that we could at least get some food there. Honestly, not a single offering at Intermission Cafe appealed to me, but we did greatly enjoy the chocolate sculptures at Ghiradelli and their drinking chocolate was thick and gooey, but oh so delicious.

These are made from chocolate...

When we left the festival center, the sun was beginning to peek out again and as we approached Scotland, my #1 must try, the booths began to reopen. So my first F&W entree ever was the scallop from Scotland and it was amazing. I spent the rest of the festival trying to find something that topped it and failed miserably. Not only was the scallop fantastic, but the bed of creamy spinach that it was served on was phenomenal. Our next stop was Ireland where we selected the Lobster Shepherds Pie (not delicious--the mashed potatoes were instant and the lobster and potato flavors did not complement each other well at all) and the cheese plate (not bad, but not spectacular). Starting back around WS in the opposite direction, we encountered Poland next, to which Benn exclaimed "my people" every time we walked past this culinary representation of his heritage. We tried the Kielbasa and Potato Pierogi, but of which we liked. I was surprised because I didn't really expect to care for with one, but after the Lobster Shepherd's Pie, anything tasted good. I had heard that a Red, White, and Blue salad that sounded similar to that salad that I love at Cape May had just been added to the lineup at Liberty Inn, so we stopped in for a palate cleanser. It was pretty disappointing. Our local Wendy's chain had better salads for less money. But our trip to America was not entirely wasted. We did try the Lobster Alfredo from Hops & Barley, which was among the best lobster mac & cheese I've ever had and Benn supplemented his half with a Sam Adams Oktoberfest, which her very much enjoyed. For dessert, we split the new pumpkin spice macaroon ice cream sandwich and a pistachio ice cream from Le Artisans de Glace. The ice cream sandwich was heaven! The pistachio ice cream was good, but it doesn't hold a candle to that pistachio creme brulee at Tony's.

Scallop & Spinach:

Pierogis and Kielbasa:

Red, White, and Blue Salad:

Lobster Alfredo:

Pumpkin Spice Macaroon:

Since we had reached International Gateway again and we were full, we boated back to DHS to take a farewell ride on the Backlot Tour and retrieve the car. The tour in it's final formation was definitely a shadow of the experience that it once was, but it was still kind of sad to say goodbye. I remember being so petrified of that Catastrophe Canyon sequence as a kid and having a better understanding of this attraction as an adult has been a full circle sort of experience for me. The Backlot Tour will always have a space in my heart and I hope that the attraction that replaces it is worthy of the legacy left by its predecessor. After saying our final goodbyes to the backlot, we drive back to Wilderness Lodge. We took about a 30 minute break before heading out to the boat dock for our trip to Bay Lake Tower.

It was a MNSSHP night and since we didn't have tickets, we decided to spy on Hallowishes from Top of the World Lounge. What we didn't expect was to encounter Marty, the singing boat captain, on our way. This delightful man sang Disney attractions and movie songs to use from Wilderness Lodge to Fort Wilderness to the Contemporary, even when we got stuck in the Electrical Water Pageant crossing. He was really great--probably our favorite CM of the trip! We enjoyed Hallowishes tremendously and i left us even more excited about our own tickets for MNSSHP on Sunday night. We met Mike the bartender and he made me an awesome Chocolate Martini and brought us the house chips, hand cut potato chips loaded with bacon, tomatoes, and deliciousness. Afterwards, we boated back to VWL to recharge for Day 3!

Marty:

Mike:

Precisely!!

Unfortunately, the Olaf you see pictured didn't even make it back to Wilderness Lodge. Olafs are water resistant, but non waterproof. Being so awkwardly shaped, he didn't fit in my bag, so I didn't have the tools necessary to fully protect him from the monsoon that we walked through from the Swolphin to EPCOT after the boat abandoned us. An Olaf did make it home though. Fortunately, DHS seems to be running some sort of cloning operation and there was another smiling Olaf waiting for me when we arrived back at Studios in the evening.

DAY 3: MK

We got to take a boat to MK today, which was just about the coolest thing ever. We both love boats and getting up in the morning and not having to drive anywhere or sit on a bus was just this side of heaven for us. As would be a running theme for our trip, we missed the welcome show by about 5 minutes, but bonus--as we were arriving at 8:50, they were already dropping the rope! We made a quick stop on Main Street to mail our postcard to mom & dad. I think I will start taking postcard stamps along on vacation and making a tradition of sending post cards from the Main Street mailbox. This used to be a big part of vacation for me when I was a kid and I think I need to bring it back. The starting in Adventureland plan has really caught on with us. It's crowded in Adventureland later in the day, but first thing in the morning, it's virtually deserted.

We walked onto Jungle Cruise where we met Skipper Casey, basically the best Jungle Cruise Skipper ever. You probably don't recall from my previous reports, but we've had a run of so-so to downright poor Jungle Cruise Skippers and as their delivery is so important to this ride, it was great to get one as fresh and funny as Skipper Casey. His timing and expressions were just great. You can tell when someone loves their job and genuinely cares and that was definitely this guy!

We walked on Pirates and Big Thunder and by 9:40, we had knocked out two lands (for us) and we were on our way to Haunted Mansion. We actually had a FP for BTMR, but we didn't need it. We waited for maybe 5 minutes at HM. We were running a little bit early for 7DMT, so we did It's a Small World...and the boat got stuck. Poor Benn! We still got to 7DMT about 5 minutes early, which worked out perfectly because the FP window definitely does activate early. We were on and off in 10 minutes. I've heard and read a lot of feedback about the ride being a letdown and taking way too long to build a cheesy coaster, but I really love this ride. I mean, it may knock out the Teacups and BTMR for me for favorite ride.

Since the train was scheduled to go down for refurb, we walked to the back of storybook circus to enjoy some good old fashioned steam train transportation to Main Street, USA. We spent some time actually taking int he decorations and browsing the Halloween merchandise before splitting up for lunch. Benn wanted a hot dog from Casey's and I had my eye on a chicken waffle sandwich from Sleepy Hollow. So we gathered our food and met up at the Sleepy Hollow seating area where once again the ducks and squirrels were extremely bold in their pursuit of free handouts. After lunch we used our Peter Pan FP and then decided to hop back to WL to rest up for dinner and EEMH at MK.

This is a read duck!

We saw Marie on the way out:

With the race coming up on day 10, I not only had to be reasonably conscious about what I was eating, but I also needed to make time to do a few runs to stay up to par and adjust myself to the Florida climate (70% humidity in the upper 80's was not exactly the fall weather that I had enjoyed training in at home in PA for the previous month). I had decided before we left home that I would hold myself accountable for one run at each resort. I had intended to do all of my running at night when it would be cooler and sun-free, but Wilderness Lodge presented me with an interesting challenge. The jogging trail is near the road, but from the foliage planted around the trail, you would think that you're running through the woods. It is a very lightly traveled path and Florida is well known for its ability to support reptile life--especially of the legless variety of which I am absolutely petrified. Running that path at night would have been like climbing Mt. Everest to me, so I opted to suck it up and run in the sun. Fortunately, this was the ideal place to make this decision because the path was very well shaded. I did enjoy quite a few surprises on my run. The trail was not as reptile-laden as I feared and instead I encountered butterflies, geckos (ok technically they're reptiles, but they're so darn cute), squirrels, and even deer! That was a big surprise to me. In PA, deer are all over the place. They even wander into our town from time to time and they definitely wander out in front of our cars more frequently than any of us would like. I would have never have expected to see a deer in Florida!

My original intent was to run to Fort Wilderness, which is where the jogging trail stops, and ride the boat home, but if the boat was flowing the pattern from the previous night, that meant that we were sailing to the contemporary first which all but guaranteed that I would not be getting enough of a nap before dinner. The trail was only about 1.2 miles long, which only takes me about 11-12 minutes to run, so I grabbed a bottle of water from the general store, turned around, and headed for home. I also got some info about wagon rides and garage rides and changed the running course just a little bit so that I could get a closer look at all of the pretty ponies. When I got home, I rinsed off quick and headed to the pool for a few minutes to cool off and relax. After a short nap, it was time to get ready for Ohana!

We walked down to the boat dock and decided that we would get on whichever boat showed up first. We could either boat to Contemporary and monorail or boat to MK and boat or monorail to Poly. I can't honestly remember which one we did. I know that we arrived at Poly via monorail, but I can't remember which boat came first to get us to a monorail stop. The state of construction at Poly was shocking to me. The upper floor has been reduce to a narrow square of hallways that provides primitive access to Ohana, Kona, and the gift shop. The stairs are blocked off and only one elevator was running. Fortunately Ohana itself was beautiful, but I felt like we should have had on hard hats to walk there from the monorail! This was our first Ohana dinner ever and oh my! It was so delicious and beautiful and aromatic! I'm not a fan of the buffet or family style experiences as a rule because I find that I eat way more than I really want to at these types of places, but everything here was just so good. I would definitely do this again!

I thought we might be in trouble when the server said that she was selecting a pineapple coconut bread for us--I don't eat pineapple. It has a very strong taste to me and I don't even care for a hint of it in anything. But off course, I'll taste anything once, so I sawed off a little piece of bread and ohmygoodness it was just fantastic. I could taste the coconut, but I couldn't even pick up a hint of pineapple. Next our server brought the lettuce wraps. There were definitely some ingredients that I didn't recognize on sight, so I just took a bite and hoped for the best. WOW. Amazing. Next she brought dumplings and chicken wings. I didn't care as much for the wings, but the dumplings were great. The noodles that came next were even better. Then the skewers started! I loved the seasoning on the steak (Benn wasn't crazy about that), but I did think that the cut of meat could have been better because it was a little bit tough. Of course, there was no custom preparation and I order my steaks rare, so that may have had something to do with my assessment. The shrimp were better than the beef and pork was out of this world. It may be the best pork I have ever eaten. She brought us a dessert--I forget what it was called--some sort of gooey bread pudding kind of thing. Once again, not something I would ever order, but it was really good. I've read here and other places that Ohana is not even as great as it used to be. Either we hot a spectacular night or it used to be something truly amazing indeed. We also very much enjoyed the nice lady who walked around playing her ukulele. I love it when a meal features some entertainment as well.

We had decided during dinner to go over to Fort Wilderness for a wagon or carriage ride before going back to Magic Kingdom, so we boated over to MK to catch the Fort Wilderness boat. Our first boat driver Gabriel was fun and very informative. He told us about becoming a Disney boat pilot and how he had never even driven a boat prior to working for Disney and now he was a boat driving trainer! Benn has decided that some day when I finally convince him to move to Florida, he will be seeking employment as a Disney boat captain. The remained of our boat tour was an exercise in patience as the Wilderness Lodge boats outnumbered the Fort Wilderness boats 2 to 1 and many people were leaving MK on their way to Hoop de Doo and Mickey's Backyard BBQ. We did finally arrive at FW only to discover that my memory of the wagon ride schedule was off by about 30 minutes. We were going to try to book a carriage ride, but the carriage never came through in the 45 minutes that we were standing there waiting, so we hung out by the gate and let the mosquitos gnaw on us for a bit while we waited for the wagon. At $8 per person, the wagon ride was Disney cheap and they don't take advance reservations, so it's an easy thing to do on the spur of the moment. The driver barely interacted with us at all, but we did enjoy chatting with the other folks on board and horses Paul and Zilly gave us a great ride. We did get to go out to the edge of the fort to see an amazing view of MK. Unfortunately, we were so far out that you can barely see it on the photos, but it was beautiful in person. We also saw some more deer and got a tour of the campsites. I think this would be really fun at Christmas when people really get into decorating their campsites, but it wasn't all that exciting as a normal tour. It was worth the $8, but I wouldn't make a special trip to FW to do it again.

Afterwards, we hopped the boat back to MK where thanks to our great sense of timing, we got stuck in the Bay waiting for the Electrical Water Pageant to float away from us. We had a great view of it, but because it caused us to get stuck, we were entering MK just as the mass exodus from MSEP was flooding out of the park. Swimming up stream to get to Aloha Isle for a dole whip (root beer float for me) was not an easy task. We could see a little bit of wishes from the bench that we picked, but that wasn't our reason for coming back to MK, so no biggie that we missed it. We rode Pirates, HM, Under the Sea, Barnstomer, Dumbo, and the Tea Cups before hopping in line for 7DMT. When we got in the line, the wait time was posted as 100 minutes. 45 minutes later, we were climbing into a mine car. If you haven't done 7DMT at night, you MUST try it!! It's so much better at night!!! It's actually wicked scary and when you get to the end, you can actually see inside the cottage because the sun isn't blaring in your face. By that time it was about 12:30am, so we called it a night and rode the boat home to WL.

Awww, welcome home, Amy! I'm sorry the end has come so soon At the beginning of a trip it always seems like there's so much time to do everything and then it's over before you know it. I hope you and your mom had a wonderful trip with more sunny days than rainy ones!!

DAY 4: MK

The time had come to check out of Wilderness Lodge , but we were looking forward to checking in to BLT! I've always wanted to stay at the Contemporary, but the sticker shock was just too overwhelming for me to think that it could ever actually happen. My parents are very much into colonial architecture and the house that I grew up in could have been plucked right out of Williamsburg, VA. I think it's natural for kids to like something different style-wise from their parents, so it follows that I grew up having a fondness for contemporary '80's design because it was basically the antithesis of the way that our home was decorated. So the contemporary is styled very much like my 10-year-old self's dream home. However, coming off of Wilderness Lodge, the sleek, emotionless straight lines and smooth curves of BLT were a little bit of a let down. The theming here is very good and I do still have a soft spot for this type of design, but I fell hard for Wilderness Lodge. I hate being out in nature (because there could be dirt...or bugs...or worse), but at VWL, I could be surrounded by artificial nature without actually having to touch it. It was so warm and inviting in contrast to the stark coldness (not just design-cold--it was freezing in that building!) of BLT. Ultimately we liked BLT and would readily stay there again, but Wilderness Lodge really recaptured the magic for us that we felt at our first on-site stay at Port Orleans Riverside. Anyway, we left Wilderness Lodge to check into Bay Lake around 7:30am. Of course it's a very popular resort, so as I expected, our room was not yet ready. No biggie. We just set up our charging privileges on our Magic Bands, locked our bags in the car, and went on our merry way to MK. Here's the best part of all. Do you know how we got to MK? WE WALKED THERE! OMG!! Best resort amenity ever!

Right before we left VWL, we discovered why the dresser looked do funny--it was hiding a bed!

We took it easy this morning. We weren't really in a hurry to get to the park because we had done all of our favorites the day before, so there was nothing that was terribly pressing for us this morning. We made it to MK a few minutes after rope drop again and we decided to use the trolley to get down to the castle because we had never done that before. So courtesy of Dutch the horse, we enjoyed Main Street from a new vantage point. Next we walked through the castle to check the wait on 7DMT. It was too long, so we popped over to Mad Tea Party hoping that Alice and the White Rabbit might be taking a spin before opening their meet & greet. No such luck. The crowds were pretty minimal, so we decided to scrap out FP for BTMR since we were now steps from Tomorrowland and we easily walked on Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, and TTA.

After TTA, we had a bit of a happy surprise--I had lost track of the date and thought that Carousel of Progress was still closed for maintenance, but it was reopening day! I'm particularly fond of this show for several reasons. One, my dad is a very nostalgic person and this attraction is a favorite of his, so stopping in to pay the family always snakes me think of dad and some of our great vacation memories from when I was a kid. This was also the first attraction that Benn and I ever did together at WDW, so it's kind of extra special to us. It happens to be where we were when we learned on New Year's Eve that the park had reached capacity. And I love the song! We got a special treat this time--the theater got stuck and we got to watch 1940 twice! It actually makes me really nervous when this happens because of that poor CM who was killed a long time ago when she got stuck between the walls as they closed. *shudder* Fortunately this time it just seemed to be a technical malfunction.

It was time for Benn's most anticipated FP of our trip--the Cinderella/Rapunzel meet & greet. And no I'm not joking--he totally has a crush on Rapunzel. We grabbed a picture with Stitch and then made our way to Princess Fairytale Hall. We waited less than 5 minutes and both our Rapunzel and Cinderella were really super. We stopped for Philharmagic and since we were still a little bit early for our last FP, we did HM standby since the wait was short and we were running tight on time for our lunch ADR.

Lunch today was at Whispering Canyon, so we hopped on the boat to Wilderness Lodge...it was just like going home :big grin:. We find that as a group of two, we don't seem to get good interaction from the servers at the rowdier venues and this was no exception. Our server was excellent for a regular restaurant, but despite flipping the card to the green "jump in and play" side, our server seemed to do very little about trying to include us in the fun. It was still entertaining to watch, particularly the kids pony rides, but we definitely didn't feel a part of what was going on even though we were right in the middle of the dining room. The highlight here was absolutely the food. We shared a Tuna Melt and a Salmon BLT and they were both phenomenal. We both considered this one of our best meals of the week.

After lunch, we boated back to the Contemporary. We hadn't received a room ready text alert, but given our recent success rate with receiving these messages, we checked back at the desk to see if our room was ready and it was! The concierge apologized profusely for the text alert not being sent (no biggie--the room was ready. I was a happy camper) and directed us up to our 12th floor lake view room. I had tried to book a theme park view, but that was not available at the 7-month mark. I had read from some people's experiences that some lake views actually have a partial theme park view, so I was really hoping to get one of those rooms initially, but even though all of the "park" we could see was the bus terminal, our view was fantastic! We could see the Contemporary and Wilderness Lodge and in the distance, we could see Spaceship Earth, the hat, Mt. Everest (the one in Animal Kingdom, not the real one) and Characters in Flight! We could see all of the boats traveling around on Bay Lake and we have a great view of the monorail and the MK ferryboats. It was great!

After a short nap, it was time for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!!! We arrived at around 4:15 and went immediately to the line for Jack and Sally where we were first in line! WOOHOO! We had plans to meet up with Jessalynn27 and her new husband at the meet & greet line and we had decided to just get in line, grab a snack and hang out until party time. So after we secured our spot, I ran over to the lunching pad for pretzels and a blue raspberry slush. For the next two hours, we snacked and chatted with the new friends that we had met in line. While we were waiting, we were fortunate to finally catch the flag retreat for the first time. The people behind us managed to get their special edition SMK card before the party started, so I did the same while Benn held our spot. Jessalynn27 and her husband joined us around 6:00 and they looked so great dressed as Captain America and...oh darn I forget Mrs. Captain America's official name. We didn't have ton of time to visit because the handlers brought out Jack and Sally a full 45 minutes early!! We got our pictures, talked for a bit, and still had time to up our MNSSHP merchandise and make it to the Queen of Hearts line in time to be 3rd in line! It was a very successful party start indeed and certainly worth staking out our Jack & Sally spot. We got a picture with Alice and then moved back to Main Street to stake out a spot for the evening entertainment.

We met a very nice older lady who was at the party by herself and some grandparents who had traveled along with their family. We chatted with them and plotted the rest of our evening while we waited for Boo to You. It had rained earlier in the day and we had our fingers crossed that the headless horseman would ride and that the parade would even run. We lucked out and the next round of rain held off so that we could enjoy the parade, Halloween Celebrate the Magic, and Hallowishes. The parade was great! We especially loved the music, the grave diggers, and the villains float. Benn told me later that his vision of the Headless Horseman was much grander than what we actually saw, so that was a little disappointing because he was so looking forward to that. He talked about the Headless Horseman for weeks before the trip!

After the parade, Celebrate the Magic and Hallowishes, grabbed a snack at Cosmic Rays and reinforced why that is not our go-to eatery. It was ok, but there are so many other more satisfying options. But, it did the trick and it put us close to the Tomorrowland Trick-or-Treating area (near Tomorrowland Speedway). Next we went to the Diamond Horseshoe where the villains were expected to be hanging out at a dance party. It was basically deserted because most people were lining up for the late parade, so we had Dr. Facilier and Cruella deVil all to ourselves. I imagine that the villains were rotated in and out here all evening, but we didn't bother hanging around because the lighting wasn't very good for pictures anyway. The day glow artwork on the walls was really great.

We were planning to watch Boo to You a second time, but the rain was starting, so we ditched our spot in line (thankfully because Boo to You did not run) to start the trick-or-treating in earnest. We made it through Adventureland (I forget where this one was located) and Frontierland (near the entrance to Splash Mountain) and as we got in line at Liberty Square (under the entrance for the Liberty Square Riverboat), it started to rain for real. The bad part is that once you're on that trail, you're on it. It's a narrow passageway and the only way out is to walk forward. The very apologetic cast member handing out the candy gave us large handfuls to compensate for our time in the rain. Determined that the rain was not going to spoil our fun, we continued to Fantasyland. By this time the rain was quite heavy, so we ducked onto IASW to hopefully wait it out. No such luck. So we hit the trick-or-treating at Pinocchio's Village Haus and then made our very damp trek out to the front of the park. At he park exit, we were given even more candy, so that was cool. Now the downside of BLT's location: the only logical way to get home is to walk. Until you exit the park and loop back around to the resort monorail, you could have walked halfway home. So already damp, we trudged home...only to be greeted by the world's most robust central air conditioning system when the BLT doors slid open. BRRRRR! But, we did arrive back at our room to treat--a box of Contemporary Resort Chocolates--presumably an apology for not sending a text alert when our room was ready? Either that or maybe it was random goodwill? Either way, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I am them and enjoyed them

We had a great time at MNSSHP in spite of the rain and given reports that we heard about other parities during our stay, we seemed to have been the lucky ones. We only heard about one party that was entirely rain-free and given that we had been able to see the parade AND the headless horseman, I felt extremely fortunate. I think that I liked MVMCP slightly better last year. It seemed like there were more characters out for Christmas and I preferred the free cookies & cocoa to the trick-or-treating. Also, I think I preferred both he parade and the fireworks at Christmas. I do agree with Jack Skellington--Christmas is so much better than Halloween. Benn of course preferred MNSSHP because at least he wasn't sick for the party this time! Also, candy. I'm looking forward to actually experiencing MVMCP with him again in the future!

Cool! He was super great. I've never seen a bartender like him--fast, efficient, very friendly. He should teach bartender school or something. I'll signup every bartender in our town.

I know, right? How cute are these!? It will be like the Olaf merch. Soon there will be so many of them floating around that they won't seem special any more.

(Ok somehow I completely missed your comment earlier.) It was so great to meet you and Graham as well! We had a great time palling around with you! We just love the fridge magnets. I looked up Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom and I saw that it aires on Nick Jr. UK, so I looked to see if we have it here, but sadly, no. We do have Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, and Wallykazam, but no Ben & Holly from what I can see. Hopefully it will soon replace Spongebob Squarepants, which they air on our local Nickelodeon channel about 15 times a day. I haven't tried the Jelly Babies yet. I'm waiting until we see my brother-in-law at Thanksgiving because we'll share them with him. He'll be over the moon!

Oh no! I'm so sorry that you missed the first one! We usually would have opted for the later parade, too, but after spending the previous 3 days getting rained on, we were afraid to wait-espacially since seeing the headless horseman was such a big deal to Benn. I haven't taken the time to dive into anyone else's trip report since we've been home, but I keep seeing the updates to yours and and I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone else's adventures soon!