"October Surprise" Trip Report - Day 5

“October Surprise” (or ICOT25 Celebration) Trip Report – Day 5

Trip Dates: October 11 – October 18
Resort: All Star Music
Transportation: Southwest Airlines, then Mears Connect to resort.

The Plan:

Saturday, October 15^th: Day 2 of INTERCOT 25 with AK being the ‘park of the day.’ This is the night of the ‘Ticketed Event’ from 4pm – 6pm, at Planet Hollywood, so a relatively short park day. I haven’t done a lot at/in Disney Springs, so this should give ample opportunity for exploration.

Change in schedule for Expedition Everest meet and ride. Bumped to 10:30am, which gives a little more time to get ready after the long evening on Friday. Yes, the Yeti is still down (as if it will ever be ‘up’ again! LOL) I ride this at least once on every trip, but it still gets me. I am not a big coaster person, but Disney coasters are ‘must dos’ whenever possible. This group of people are so much fun to enjoy these rides with! It is so much different going ‘solo’ all the time.

Trying to figure out what I want to do next, I stop at Flame Tree Barbecue to grab a cup of ice water to stay hydrated. When I had walked by the Finding Nemo show, I noticed that the line wasn’t very long, so I backtracked and hopped in the queue. Got to the entrance just as the CMs came around saying that the 11:30 show was cancelled. Oh well, I guess it will have to wait until my next stop in the park Tuesday before I head home.

Next on the agenda was the It’s Tough to be a Bug show. It’s still early to get there, but on my way I run into a group (not name dropping, just in case I miss someone or get names wrong!!) heading for a bite at Flame Tree, so I join them. There was a bit of a line to order, so we did mobile orders figuring it might be quicker. WRONG!!! We all ordered at the same time – within a minute of each other. Three were called for their orders, but the other three of us were still waiting….and waiting…and waiting. Finally we went back to the front to find out what was going on. Only then did they get the orders up.

After our time as ‘honorary bugs,’ it was time to head over to Festival of the Lion King. It was the first time I got to see the full show again. Love the show, hate the benches we sit on!! It was a great show. Seeing the Tumble Monkeys and the ‘bird’ in flight back in the show was worth every minute on the benches!

Caught a ride with Caroline, Jen, Jeff and Ian over to Disney Springs to get ready for the Planet Hollywood event. Why have I not come to previous ‘events?’ “The world may never know.”

WOW! My second time in Disney Springs on this trip when I think I had only been in Disney Springs twice on all the trips I have made since it was ‘revamped’ from the Pleasure Island days. It is definitely a gook looking area, but I am just not a big shopper and definitely not for the ‘high end’ shops they put in there.

Nice venue for the event and many more people than had been in the parks. Met quite a few more people that I had had chats with on the boards. So nice to be able to put faces with names. And yes, everyone is/was as friendly in person as they are online…if not more so! I don’t know how many were ‘newbies’ like me, but you would never have known we weren’t all old friends for years. Well, I guess in a sense we all are.

Hung around Disney Springs for a short while after the event broke up, but it was a relatively early night getting back to the resort…before midnight! LOL

Tomorrow: Last ‘official’ day of the INTERCOT 25^th Celebration. EPCOT is the park of the day.

Stay tuned for more daily reports…

The Lion King show is quite nice - especially now that they have put the tumble monkeys and the aerial pieces back into the show!!

The Intercot party was lots of fun - really enjoyed catching up with all the folks who were there!!