11 Days in Oct!!!

[Wolf]

Alright yall I know I'm slacking so hard right now, I've been super busy at work and home life so I haven't been back to give yall a proper report and this still won't be a good one like yall do the day by day thing, I'm gona hit the best high points I can recall and from my notes.

Okay to start out we stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter, Oh my gosh yall!!! Soooo amazing!! Absolutely my favorite resort now!! I can't believe the convenience and sooo cool layout and style of the resort, it was super tiny and very manageable size wise. We would come in really late from doing parks all day and could get to our room just in a flash! The staff was all really nice in the food court as well as the resort store and check in, I only had to deal with the concierge once and the lady was abit snippy with me but I think they were having computer issues and I can understand being abit frazzled in that instance. The food in the food court was very good, we had a fish sandwich several times, the beniegs wow....those are soo good. We never tried the pizza/cheeseburger side just because we have stayed at Pop Century enough to know how that stuff tastes for the most part. Also if you like southern food at all the collard greens they have at dinner are SSOOOOOO good!!! I've had turnip greens my whole life but had never tried collards, soo yummy! (For those non familiar with them think cabbage? but alot better)

The busses worked pretty well, it was abit annoying having to wait through alot of the other stops but I see why they do it its just 45 mins was our average time from resort bus stop till arrival in the front of the park if we didnt leave within a hour or so of park opening. It wouldnt have been a issue to us really cause we are very patient people but one time we didnt think we were going in the full route cause it was still pretty early, well 2 cups of coffee into the morning and a hour+ bus ride, my eyeballs were floating...I had to sprint to bag check where another woman wanted to have a 5 min conversation about "Mouse craps" in peoples bag...I wanted to point out to her some parents wouldn't like her using that word in front of their kids that maybe "poops" wouldn't be as caustic but alas...yall I had to tinkle so forgive me if your kid learns that word from the bag checker at Animal Kingdom. We had one guy who was a very bizare bus driver, took around 55 mins to get us from POFQ to blizard beach stop and we were so put off from his weird personality (Noone on the bus was saying anything and he was acting really defensive to people at random, it was super weird) and abrasiveness mixed with his poor navigational skills we got off there and caught the next bus to our destination. Those were really our only issues, I am so grateful for disney transportation I feel bad even complaining but I know alot of discussion has been had about POFQ and POR busses so I feel like I owe yall our input. Those things considered in 11 days we had maybe 2-3 unpleasant bus rides and with an average of 4-6 daily rides on the bus, those odds are pretty fantastic!

Ooooh Strollers and Groceries!! Yall!!! Anyone who is doing any type of several day adventure, look into this, I cannot say enough good things about this!!! We enjoyed it so much, we didnt have to leave our room early in the morning (Not that the walk would've been much but sometimes ya just dont want to) we got coffee creamer, bottled water, snacks, shampoo and conditioner (saved us space in packing and stress in tsa, plus we got good stuff not that little junk in bottles) it was crazy awesome! I can't say enough good things, they were very nice, extremely attentive and took a huge stress off of us. Them mixed with the amazing mouse-keeper we had who fixed us up with plenty of coffee made our trip amazing! We got mugs with the DDP but we got those throw away coffee cups that are insulated and have lids? We got those and took coffee with us and didnt have to lug around our mugs all day, when we came back in the afternoon we got our mugs en route to the pool.

Lets see food places we did and loved: Ohana (Always been my fav), Beach Club Breakfast and Dinner (love the characters at breakfast and the food is sooo good at Dinner) Tusker house was super amazing!! We also had Boma and the service was AMAZING, the man's name was Steve and he was a total rockstar, we loved hearing his stories about how they cook back home and stuff, super cool. I didn't love the food but thats just because I'm adventerous but have abit of a weak stomach, the spices were abit bizare for me, honestly I'd still go back for the atmosphere and service. Oooh Garden Grill!! Make a point to see this place! We had the best server of the whole trip here, he was super knowledgeable and we never wanted for anything, we got lucky, I had forgot that it was tied in with the land ride, we had abit of time to kill before our reservation so we just went on the closest thing without a wait, The Land! So we got to see it from all angles and it was a very fun experience, we love that ride anyways and have done the tour a few years ago for Mom's birthday because she is a really talented gardener/flower grower (I feel certain there is a title for that)

We also had Kona for breakfast one day and Tony's before the halloween party...I hate to say it but it'll be awhile before I try those again, the food is soo good but we had awful service at both of them. I think our Tony's server was Jack Sparrow's niece (In mannerisms not looks) she was an absolute space caddet...I didn't like it and she held us up. Like I said I'm super patient and with servers I try to be even more so, but the girl inthe section next to her ran our food, got our drinks and greeted us, while our server talked to another table the whole time. I duno, we were happy to have the food and got out as quick as we could into the halloween party. Also one day for a break we went to AoA to wander (See the Lion King area) and have lunch, I can almost certainly say that was the only time I'll make a point to go there, the landscaping is very cool but the staff had a cumulative personality of a dead fish and there was just nothing...It was brand new and there wasn't anything that made me feel like "Oh wow this is so amazing, DIsney has done it again" I just felt nothing for it, I hate to say it because I really wanted to just adore it but alas, also the food court was a huge fail to me.

Which brings me to the halloween party!!! It was more crowded than we have encountered that is true but it was better than ever!!! The merchandising was not great this year, there were two tshirt styles but people were camping out the racks till 7pm to snag shirts so we actually had a hard time finding shirts in our sizes, finally we gave up and got the normal halloween shirts um it had the year on it on a black shirt and lots of charaters in front of Haunted Mansion. We both really liked them better and it wasn't worth scrapping with adults for the other ones in our opinions. We somehow wandered into the circus meet and greet thing with Daisy, Minnie, Goofy and Donald, woah these are so neat!! I didn't even think they were open yet when we were there but we encountered two cast members who ushered us into the tent. After that we somehow wandered down a trick of treat trail and with about 5-7 stops down the path we were trying to take anyways we both ended up with almost full bags of candy! I love the halloween party because of the parade but this time I made a point to just watch things, I usually live behind my camera but this time I just rested with that and if I took any pictures I tried to just use my cell or photopass. We ended up riding stuff we never do, or normally has too much of a wait, we rode Dumbo twice, Astro Orbiter, TTA, Peter Pan and Pooh. We didn't see as many characters out during the main hours of the party but on our way out we ran into a huge villians assortment in the main hub! I finally got my picture with Jafar again, (Backstory: My first disney trip at 15 he was the only character we saw, I got my picture with him and wanted another soooo bad, well 10 years later, I got it!) He was just as creepy as ever.

What else, um, Oct was hot this year, I'm still convinced I'll never see Fantasmic again, that mob scene is just insanity...Animal Kingdom is a sauna but we rode Yeti like 9 times, I think the same with ToT, OOOooh Star Tours!! SOooooooo awesome since the new scene revamp hit! I <3 it! We went to Kasheek, Hoth, all the basic ones, we never hit Naboo which bummed me out but it happens. I still don't really understand the need for the weird photobooth thing in those tiny stores where you could put 5 more Star Wars items but *shrug* I guess someone gets it. We saw Illuminations in EPCOT one night, gets me every time...right in the heart.

Oh also! If you can ever swing it, Im not sure if this is only on Halloween party nights or every night but when we rode the Haunted Mansion the last ride of the night, they locked the doors behind us, it was very spooky, the "ghosts" actually rode with us a few doom buggies back, it really added to the spooky fun feel of everything! Huge bonus for us! I'll add more to this as I remember things but for the most part I hope yall could keep up with my subject jumping and ramblings

Thanks again Intercot for helping us plan another amazing trip!!

[Wolf]

Had to pick one paragraph as a add on cause of message limitations so I chose the negative one lol

Ugh heres a rant I nearly forgot...Food and Wine fest...I get it, its in the name...but seriously people?? You're still in Disney World...This isnt bonaroo, act decent. There are uber tiny kids there and yall are acting so stupid...It irked me and I have no kids but people were acting dumb, getting really drunk really early, not only was Epcot crowded as all get out like every day...it was insane cause we saw people acting sloppy. It was so off putting I didn't feel comfortable drinking more than one drink a night because of drunk jerks stumbling around I feel I needed to have my guard up to not get trampled. We also encountered some 20'sish kids acting completely out of hand at Soarin...it was a nightmare. They were yelling and swearing and it was just awful. Now those of yall that know me know I'm 25 so I feel like I can say this without being the older person who forgot how it was to be young, these jerks need to learn some respect. They were saying not only swear words (Which I say in my normal life but NEVER in WDW and NEVER around kids...EVER) but they were saying things that could really hurt a family with either a disabled or handicapped person with them...it was just such a headache...I know that F&WF is about wine and beer but I just wish people would act like civil humans instead of thinking they are at woodstock or something...Yeah I know I sound super old right now.

[emerzmom]

You don't sound old, you sound mature! WDW or not...just because it is a festival where alcohol is being served does not give a license to get intoxicated and be rude and disrespectful to others. I am sorry to hear that the F&W Fest has guests behaving this way.
As for your trip it sounds wonderful and your excitement was evident. POFQ is one of my favorite resorts for the exact same reason as yours. I like that it is small and the Food Court has pretty good food.
Glad you got to enjoy the MNSSHP. It sounds like it was generally a great time.
Thanks for sharing!

Julie

[Wolf]

Thank you Emerzmom!

Also I forgot to tell you guys, I dont know if it was because of Frankin Weenie but they had Jack and Sally out in DTD the night we arrived, we went down there to try to "meet" them but the place was over run, we did get to see them when we walked by but there was probably over a thousand people in line for them so we passed.

Also in Danny Elfman news, they played Dead Man's Party at MNSSHP this year, and that is probably one of my top 5 songs ever, so as a personal thanks, Disney, you made my whole trip playing that fairly often for me!

[faline]

Glad you enjoyed your trip - despit a few issues here and there!

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

You don't sound old at all, you are right. Some people cannot handle alcohol and should not drink. I'm sure a lot of parents felt the same way. Otherwise it sounds like a pretty decent trip. Thanks for the report

[NJGIRL]

We have been going to the Food and Wine since it started and I have to say I noticed about three years ago that people were actually getting sloppy drunk and acting rude. I even saw someone throw up in one of the gardens, people flicking their ashes on the ground and speaking very loud "bad" words. I don't know what the answer is. I too know it's the Food and "Wine" Festival , but I think Disney needs to somehow start controlling these drunks because IMO the weekends at EPCOT are out of hand now.

[Wolf]

Thanks yall, yeah I don't know the cure all for the drunks at F&WF I love going that time of year because its such a nice weather time but blah...its no fun being sober around alot of drunks and thats purely my choice so I'm not passing blame anywhere its just kinda aggrevating to be stepped on by someone who can't hold their booze. We had an amazing trip otherwise tho, and those idiots weren't a huge factor, we just left that park lol but yeah our trip really was amazing!

[January-2007]

Thanks so much for reporting!

[disneydeb]

Had to pick one paragraph as a add on cause of message limitations so I chose the negative one lol

Ugh heres a rant I nearly forgot...Food and Wine fest...I get it, its in the name...but seriously people?? You're still in Disney World...This isnt bonaroo, act decent. .

You know Bonaroo??? It is about 12 miles from my house!!!!

It seems like you had a great time,all in all. Thank you for the trip report!

[vizsla]

Thanks for the report.