Hot Rainy and Busy July

July 8, 2019 - Monday

We're scheduled to check into Saratoga Springs for a few days and have selected a stay in the area close to Disney Springs. On the last possible day, I was able to order the magic band I wanted though I still needed to order a plain one for my spouse since neither of the two designs he wanted was ever available. Since we ordered so late, we are instructed to pick up our bands at the desk.

When we arrive at the resort, I receive information that our room is already ready which is good news since it is still early in the morning. We park the car and drag our luggage to our 3rd floor room in Congress Park. However, we are met with a strong, musty smell upon opening the door. My spouse calls the front desk and, within minutes, we are assigned to another room on the 4th floor. This room also has a musty smell but not as strong as the first and I figure we can't keep requesting new rooms so we unpack.

With that done, we catch a bus to the Magic Kingdom. We had three fastpasses scheduled for this day. It's time for our first one - Jungle Cruise - as we enter the park so we head over there. For some reason, we always seem to be the right hand side of the boat but, today, we are situated on the left. We have a wonderful driver!!! Of course, we have heard almost all of the gags before but he manages to deliver a couple I haven't heard, or don't remember. His delivery of all of the gags, however, was spot on and still is amusing.

We haven't had time to eat anything this morning so stop at Sunshine Tree Terrace to get something to eat. We enjoy our treats while waiting for our Peter Pan fastpass time to open up. Once it does, we head over there and scan our bands to enter the line. Oops!! I hadn't noticed before we got into the line that the ride is not running. After about ten minutes, we are told that they are experiencing technical difficulties and they will place a fastpass back onto our bands. It appears that those in the very long standby line were also receiving a fastpass as we all exited the ride.

In addition to these two rides, we also rode Under the Sea, the Peoplemover (Space Mountain was down so the lights inside were on), It's a Small World and visited Philharmagic. I don't remember the exact order of these. We did not get on Pirates or the Haunted Mansion as the lines were far too long. At one point, Peter Pan, Splash, Space Mountain and Winnie were all down at the same time.

We were able to grab a lunch reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern so we each had a nice place to cool down while we enjoyed our pot roast lunches. My spouse was going to order the "meatloaf" until he learned that the "meatloaf" does not actually contain meat but, instead is, vegetable based. Our server did tell us that the restaurant had been quite slow of late with far fewer advanced dining reservations than they normally had.

Once Peter Pan was up and running again, we were able to use the fastpass that was returned to us to ride that.

With time remaining before our 7 Dwarfs fastpass, we wandered through the shops and then found some space at the front of the park to watch the parade which we had not seen in quite some time. Once 7 Dwarfs was completed, we thought it might be best to leave the park as the skies were now looking quite threatening.

Our plan was to go to the Carriage House to pick up the magic bands we had ordered (That day, we were using bands from a prior trip) but, by time we got to Saratoga Springs, it was raining quite hard so we got off at our stop and returned to our room. With the rain continuing, we decide to stay "at home" for the evening where we snack on cheese and crackers which we had brought with us.