Fun, Fatigued, and Fabulous June 2016 Trip Part 1

When: June 7-13
Where: Disney’s Old Key West, 1st floor studio in Miller’s Road section (room #1816)
Who: Me—44 (Disney vacation planner extraordinaire—really they should hire me!)
DH—46 (resident flying ace)
DD—15 (Hoop Dee Doo enthusiast)
DD Friend—15 (WDW newbie)

The good news is that we missed the tropical storm that came through the area on Monday, but the bad news—well you’ve heard about it, and we were there for all of it. :( Despite all of the tragedies, we did manage to have fun and enjoy being with each other. It is somewhat jarring to be in the “Happiest Place on Earth” when there is such unhappiness being thrust upon the city of Orlando, however.

It has been quite a while since we did what I call a “proper” WDW trip; our last few trips have been shorter visits tacked onto some other purpose (Disney cruise, one to three-day visits to my parents who wintered in Florida for the last several years). On this trip, we were just focused on all things WDW, showing our newbie as much as possible, and fully immersing ourselves in the Disney experience.

We did a couple of things differently this time around. One worked great, one not so much. First, we rented points from DVC for our OKW studio. GREAT deal!! Everything went smoothly, and I would do this again in a heartbeat. Second, I decided to forgo the hopper on our tickets. I didn’t want to spend the extra money and with AK being open until 11p, I thought it would be more of an all-day park instead of the half-day it usually is. Wrong. (I’ll get to that later.) We definitely could have used our time better if I had gotten a 6-day hopper instead of a 7-day base ticket.

Day 1: Arrival and Epcot
We had an early flight out of Denver, short wait at security, and made it to MCO about ½ hour early. We caught our ME easily and OKW was the first drop off on the route. Yeah! We stored our carry-ons and were off to EC. I love the new (to me, anyway) TV screens that tell when the next bus is expected to arrive for your destination.

We made it to EC by about 2p. First off, I noticed that the security personnel were much more thorough in their bag checks, and it took some time to get through the lines. We were starving, so after a quick ride on SE, we went to The Land to eat. Throughout the rest of the evening, we were able to do most of Future World and caught Illuminations. It’s been a long time since we watched from the FW side, but this made it really easy to hightail it over to TT right at the end of the show and ride with a short wait.

:thumbsup:Highlights of the day:
Pixar short films at JIYI, Illuminations, TT, and air conditioning

:ill:Not so shining:
Security lines, metal detectors at WDW 

Day 2: Magic Kingdom
I promised the girls that if they would get moving quickly in the morning to make it to park openings that they would be able to rest/swim every day. They did and everyone appreciated/needed the naps. (That two-hour time change is a killer in the morning!)

We did manage to get to MK a little before opening at 8a, but the bag check line was INSANELY long. I’m not kidding when I say this was one of the longest lines we waited in all week. (And this was still a day before all of the shootings took place.) I can certainly appreciate the need for security here, don’t get me wrong, but I decided to change strategies after this morning and none of use took anymore bags to the park if we could help it.

We finally got in and were rewarded with a relatively uncrowded park and short wait times. I pretty much refuse to wait in a line that’s longer than 30 minutes, and with patience, park knowledge, and smart use of FP+, I’m proud to say that we never did. PoC is always our first ride, so that’s where we headed and pretty much did everything in Frontierland, plus a few other random things. After some rides, we had breakfast at Gaston’s Tavern, and it was delicious. We had a cinnamon roll, ham/cheese pretzel, and some LeFou’s Brew. I recommend them all. As was our usual, we headed back to the resort at about noon, just when it’s getting really hot and crowded. We had planned on eating at Columbia Harbour House for lunch, but the line was out the door and stretched into Fantasyland so we decided to try it for dinner instead.

After taking in some pool time (OKW does a really nice kids’ activities program at the main pool) and a rest, we headed back to MK for the evening around 6. In addition to I wanted our newbie to see as much as possible, so we caught the late MSEP in addition to some more attractions and headed “home.” Side note--by the time we got back to CHH for dinner it was after 9p and it was closed.

:thumbsup:Highlights of the day:
Low crowds/wait times first thing in the morning and Gaston’s Tavern

:shake:Not so shining:
Long lines at security and Columbia Harbour House; having to patiently wait a few more days to ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Day 3: Animal Kingdom
It was a pretty typical day for us at AK other than the fact we came back for a late night here! We did everything multiple times, except for the Finding Nemo show and Festival of Lion King. I was really bummed about this, but the shows always seem extra hard to work around. I really liked the Harambe Market area/food “court”—that was new for us and we enjoyed our lunches.

We took our normal break midday, and then we headed back for a 7p Yak & Yeti reservation. I thought the meal was good; everyone else ordered entrees, and I just sampled off of those since I really wanted to try the fried wontons dessert (it did not disappoint!).

None of us were really interested in the Jungle Book show, so we just rode some more rides, lost and retrieved my DD’s cell phone from Primeval Whirl, and tried the nighttime KS ride. What a bust that was! Do not waste your time—we did not see anything. I will say that AK is pretty at night. The projections on the Tree of Life were beautiful, EE was cool to ride in the dark, and there was a lot of entertainment going on, but I would still consider AK a half-day park.

:thumbsup:Highlights of the day:
Saw hyenas on the a.m. safari ride for the first time, fried wonton dessert from Yak & Yeti, EE

:bang:Not so shining:
After dark Kilimanjaro Safari a complete waste of time, Rivers of Light not ready 

Day 4: Hollywood Studios
We were dragging a bit today, but we pressed on knowing that a break/rest day was coming up! We rode/saw just about everything, and the only thing of note (for me anyway) is that I rode ToT for the first time in years. I didn’t want to miss out on our newbie’s first experience on this, so I pushed down my fear and rode. By the end of the trip, I had ridden THREE times, and I decided it wasn’t as bad as I had convinced myself it was. We had a lunch reservation at the Sci-Fi, which I hadn’t been to for a long time, either. Everyone enjoyed the ambience and food very much, so I was happy with our choice.

After our pool break/naps, we headed back to DHS and went on all our favorites again. We had a bit of good fortune—I had booked a FP+ for Indiana Jones earlier in the day, but we didn’t end up using it. The show had gotten rained out, so I received an email saying that we had a free FP+ for our choice of ride. Cha-ching!!

I had planned Fantasmic for this evening, but the weather kept us guessing as to whether or not the show was going to go on as scheduled right up until 9p. Thankfully, it did run and we all enjoyed it. We did stick around until closing time at midnight but were thankful to get back in our room and go to sleep without having to worry about an alarm the next morning. I LOVE Disney-tired sleep.

:thumbsup:Highlights of the day:
RnRC (and the single rider line actually moved at a decent pace!), lunch at the Sci-Fi, the third track at TSM!!

Not so shining:
Having to tote around our rain ponchos, trying to keep everyone hydrated