Short but sweet trip!

[emerzmom]

Cast:
Me: Birthday Mom
DD: Along for fun

Quick background: A good friend of mine was getting married in Tampa. Close to the last minute my DBF had a conflict and couldn’t go with me so I decided to add an extra day on and make a quick trip to WDW as a birthday gift to myself. I invited my DD along to enjoy the fun. So, with only a couple of weeks of planning (WAY out of character for our WDW trips) we were off on our very short adventure.
We had a 7am flight scheduled. It was an early day but we got off with no problems. At security there was a family ahead of us in line that had ME-DD (Downtown Disney) tags on a couple of their bags. I asked if they were going to WDW and they said it was their first trip and they had never flown before. We helped talk them through security with taking off shoes, jackets, putting things in trays. They were a little flustered but got thru okay. We wished them a happy trip and were off to our gate. We had a quick flight into Tampa and with pre-check in with the rental car we were on the road on our way to WDW by 10:30 am. The drive was quick and easy and we were driving under Mickey’s Welcome sign before noon! Woohoo! My DD said she couldn’t believe we were actually there again this year since we had a really big trip in March celebrating her birthday, college graduation, and we brought my her Grandmother with us. Bonus trip!!!
We decided to try Pop Century. Since this was totally unplanned spur of the moment trip and we were only staying one night. We have been to many resorts and All Stars was definitely our least favorite. We were not sure we would like Pop but thought it was worth a 1 night try. We actually loved it! The lobby is really big and nice, the CM’s were great, check in was super easy, and we found our room to be okay. The room was a little small but not too bad and the buildings were nice, clean, and fresh. Overall we both agreed we would stay there again.
Once we dropped our bags, gathered a couple of things, we were off to make the most of our short visit. We were so happy to find an EPCOT bus waiting by the bus stop. We hopped on and we were off to the park. We used our Magic Bands which were super easy and we were in the park! We were both starving by this time so we headed to England to have fish and chips in the pub. We back tracked into FW and headed to TT single rider line. We were shocked to see that the stand by line was only 30 minutes. For TT??? That was our first clue how truly empty EPCOT was. We literally walked thru the single rider line and onto the ride. We both like the changes but don’t care about the cue or the building your own car. We just like the fast ride at the end! We then popped over to MS orange of course. No line...at all! Again we walked straight thru and into the first cue. We both really like this ride but learned a few years ago that you can only ride it once. We rode this 3 times in a row when it was first opened. Big mistake! We were both dizzy and nauseous for hours after that. After MS we headed to Living with the Land. I LOVE this ride. I love plants and just think this ride is so cool. My WDW Dream Job would be a Master Gardner in the Land. That was another walk on then we saw that Soarin’ had a 30 minute stand by. My DD said we should take a picture of that because we had never seen that at WDW before. We were so happy that the crowd level was so low. After we left the Land we headed back toward Canada to make our trek around the world. I suggested we start in Mexico but she said that would be backwards??? I guess we always start in Canada. As we started through WS the dark clouds were really coming in. By the time we hit France it started to rain. We hung out in France for a while smelling all the lovely perfumes and stopped by the bakery. I guess I am missing something because I don’t see the big deal about that bakery but maybe it is just me. We didn’t buy anything just looked. It was still just light rain so we strolled through Morocco. They are building a new restaurant by the water. I hope to try that one day! We headed toward Japan and it started raining harder. We both love the shops in Japan and had a good time looking around. We were about to head out when it really started raining hard. We decided to hang out for a few minutes thinking/hoping it would stop soon. After a while we decided to share some sake while we waited. Finally the rain slowed down a little and we headed to Italy. I went to Italy in October and it was really fun to see some things they had including the exact same purse I purchased in Florence. We shopped around Italy still hoping for the rain to stop but it didn’t. We were really starting to get wet by this time and headed to Germany. We shopped around and finally broke down and bought ponchos. It was warm and humid and the rain was showing no signs of stopping. With ponchos on we briefly walked through China then saw no wait for the Maelstrom so we decided to ride it. My DD calls that ride “Troll Town”. She is not a big fan but it is so quirky I like it. After the ride we went to Mexico and shared a Blood Orange Margarita from the tequila bar. We both loved it. It was getting close to 5:00 and we decided to head out to the monorail to go to MK for MVMCP. We were really surprised that we got so much in at EPCOT but the crowds and the rain made it possible.
We were in MK before the official start of the party but the CM’s were already in costumes and handing out the bands for the party. We walked in and made our way to Main Street to see the castle. It is so beautiful with the Christmas lights. I just love it. It was of course still raining and there was a bigger crowd than at EPCOT but it was still not too bad. We looked through the new (? ...new to me) Art shop on Main Street. There was an artist there with some beautiful signed and numbered prints. I really wanted to buy one but they said it could not be sent for pick up and the shop was closing at 10??? So I would have to carry it around if I wanted it and in the rain that seemed crazy. I started to look into shipping but the line was long and decided it wasn’t meant to be. We walked toward Adventure Land and rode Jingle Cruise. Our “captain” was not all that great. She talked so fast and really was just going through the motions. The holiday jokes were cute but that was about it. I guess I was expecting more??? We rode PoC and BTMR. Splash was down. We were a little disappointed as we both love Splash but no worries. We walked around toward the new Fantasy Land. We had seen it in March and decided that we would skip Belle’s Tales. We rode Ariel which is cute but we had seen it in March already. The cue is really cute but really long! We walked over to the circus area and watched the Dumbo rides and then headed toward Space Mountain but decided not to ride. Too jerky on the back...that sounds old... We were hungry and decided to try the Space Traders or what ever the counter service is in that area. We had never been there before. The food was not good. That is enough of a review on that. It did have a nice view of the castle and they had a kid holiday party going on in the big room. After we ate (threw away most of the food) we went to Main Street area to watch Christmas Wishes. I am a huge fan of Wishes and love Christmas so this should be really wonderful to me but something was just lost. The fireworks were spectacular but I guess I just missed Wishes. After the fireworks we shopped around on Main Street for a while. I offered to go on more rides but we were wet, tired, and worn out. We stood at the end of Main Street, blew kisses to the castle, said good night to Mickey, and went home...to our little room at Pop. When we got back to the resort it finally stopped raining. We decided to stop in the gift shop to look around. We refrained from buying anything all day because we didn’t want to carry it around the park and we had a shopping trip to DD planned for the next morning. We also looked around the food court. Not bad. We both decided we liked Pop.
The next morning we got up and were at DD by 10:00. We had to make the most of our time because we had to be back in Tampa for the wedding rehearsal at 4:00. We did some Christmas shopping at World of Disney, the Disney Couture store (not sure of the name), the Christmas store, and looked around at a few more. We ate lunch at Wolfgang’s which was really good and a place we had never tried before. The pizza was outstanding. As we left the restaurant it started to rain. A sign it was time to go. We reluctantly walked to our car. I was about to leave and my DD asked me when would we be back. I wasn’t sure but told her that there was ALWAYS a WDW trip in our future. She agreed and it made it a little easier to leave.

Julie

[disneymom15]

Nice report, you really got alot done in a short period of time.

[faline]

Sometimes the short little tastes of Disney are wonderfully satisfying!!

[mickclub1955]

Sounds like an awesome short trip. Sorry it rained, but it seems that was only a minor complication.

[sacandjac]

Such a great trip with your DD. I know y'all will always remember it!

[vizsla]

Thanks for the report.

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

Thanks for the report, you packed a lot into that short trip