The First Trip Do Over Day 2-Checking in Again and Epcot

So I woke up early...really early. 4:30am early. I knew there was no way I was going back to sleep. So I quietly laid in my bed (not to be confused with his bed) and played on my ipad until about 5:30am when I got stir crazy. I walked downstairs to see what I needed to do to check out/in today. (I was also kind of sad since our package didn't start until today I didn't have a refill cup yet and had to have in-room coffee.) I figured there would at least be someone at the front desk at 6am and I was right, there was one person who was helping someone check in, and it was taking FOR-EV-AH. Finally I got to have my turn and she said there was no way I could check in on the new room until I checked out on the old room. (Because you can't have two rooms on your magic band I guess.) So no mugs until we checked out.

So I wandered back to the room, woke up LVP, re-packed our stuff and had some more coffee. My goal was to be in our car on the way to Epcot by 8:30 so I knew we had to get a head start in order to account for having all our bags picked up and stored and then hit the front desk to check out and check back in. It all went really well and we were on our way to Epcot a little ahead of schedule (we aren't much for breakfast just FYI but I did bring a bag of bagels from home and used the toaster down at Roaring Fork a couple times.)

We strolled right in and through the gates to the roped off area to the left (towards Test Track, which we did not have a Fast Pass for.) We waited until 9am and walked quickly to Test Track. I wanted to be sure our first ride was together since I figured we would single rider later in the trip. We only waited a few minutes and we were off! We headed over to Mission Space where I did Green and he did Orange and he loved it. Off to the Land for quick ride on Listen to the Land and then FP for Soarin (my favorite.) We then hit the Character Spot for a 11am FP (I had him wear a matching Mickey shirt with me just for this one day so I wanted to be sure we had some good photos.) The Photopass is so nice (which reminds me I need to download those photos!)

We then walked over to The Seas, Imagination and then out to "America" for lunch at the Liberty Inn. I was looking forward to the crabcake but it was no longer on the menu. Burgers and fries it was along with drinks and a brownie. Not too shabby but I miss my liquid cheese. We timed it perfectly to see Voices of Liberty and the American Adventure right after lunch. Previous trip we went but it broke partway through. I was happy to get all the way through it. We continued to walk around the World Showcase to Mexico because I wanted a Margarita from La Cava...man...what a mistake.

I hadn't really thought about weekend crowds due to Food and Wine. World Showcase was a NUTHOUSE. I mean you could hardly walk. We saw people waiting in HUGE lines to buy the food samples and the line for La Cava was out the building? We bypassed that idea (and the ride as well) and hightailed it back to Future World for a quick ride on Spaceship Earth on the way out. We were back in the car and headed back to the hotel by about 2:30pm.

It kind of killed me to leave the park this early but I was reminding myself that this trip was about giving him a great time and I had done everything before. We got back to WL and had already checked in so we were able to go straight to our room and open the door with our magic bands. The room was RIGHT off the lobby. Room 4073 and it was just to the left of the door that exits near where the water comes out of the lobby, if you know where I mean. This was a neat location as far as easy to get to lobby, Roaring Fork, etc. But the view was nearly as good. Due to trees we couldn't see the pool or the lake really hardly at all. But it had a King bed so I was fine with it. I grabbed our mugs while LVP waited for our bags, and waited and waited. About an hour (poor LVP, Bell Services was keeping his beer cooler hostage.)

Finally with a couple cocktails we chilled out for a few hours, he did some walking on the trail in the front of the resort (the other trail was closed for construction.) A note about the construction. They were supposed to start on Oct. 26th but they had only put up some fences. Last we heard there was a permitting problem with the Villas to be built on the lakefront. I checked out the gift shop, pin cart and did a bit of work from the room, (a necessity).

We had ADRs for Kona at 7:45 so about 5:30 we grabbed our to-go drinks and took the boat to the Contemporary. I wanted to check out the shops and pins (there are small pin boards at each shop there.) and just look around. So we did that and I tell ya there is just something about the smell of that tower, I don't know what it is but it's been the same since I was a kid and being in there and looking up at that Mural just takes me back. Anyways...

We hopped on a very busy monorail full of MNSSHP goers and rode to the Poly. Again I wanted some time to walk around and hit the shops etc. We tried to hit up Trader Sam's but it was an hour wait so we grabbed some drinks to go from just outside of Ohana and walked around a bit.

We checked in to Kona and were seated pretty much right away. It's usually one of my favorites. The waiter came by, I ordered some more drinks etc. I then inquired about the meal plan allowing a salad/soup instead of dessert. He said that wasn't allowed. I explained that I thought it was, he brought a manager back who said no, their "computer" wouldn't allow it. I was kind of frustrated. I'm just not a dessert person and was looking forward to the swap (this would be a reoccurring theme.) No dice. I ended up with the Tuna (which by the way is no longer served with the Maki Roll, it comes with about 3 pieces of tempura veggies) and LVP had the steak. My tuna was ok, LVP's steak was WAY overcooked but we were hungry, tired (and I was still a little peeved.) In fact after that all went down we had horrible service. I don't know if he assumed he wouldn't get a good tip bc of the salad thing but that sure wouldn't have been the case. In the end a disappointing meal.

We planned on watching Hallowishes from the beach at Poly (I mistakenly thought it was at 9:30) so we snagged a swing about 9:10 and then I looked and it said 10pm. I didn't really feel like hanging out that long so we grabbed a boat to the MK and then another boat to the WL from there. While on the MK-WL leg I realized it would be an awesome way to see Hallowishes but we were still too early. So we just stayed on the boat for another round trip journey! It worked out perfectly and we were right in front of the MK for the fireworks which were of course great.

We made our way back to our new room right off the lobby and tucked in for the night!

Up Next-Day Three-The Studios and Eating with the Fishes!