Disney trip May 13th – 17th, 2018
Sunday 5/13 (Happy Mother’s Day)
Samantha and I were up and at ‘em at about 5am to get ready for the airport. My brother drove us out to Logan where we waited for our 8 am flight. I finally told her we were flying first class and she couldn’t have cared less until she found out we had the front row with a little more leg room.
We arrived in Orlando and took the Disney Magical Express to our hotel (POFQ) where we walked around, had lunch and waited for our room to be ready. We got to our room and waited for the luggage, which came within 30 minutes, so that she could change into something more appropriate for the Florida heat.
We then took the bus to Hollywood Studios and waited in an hour-long line for Toy Story Midway Mania, which was wonderful as usual and I won. We were then going to do the Mermaid Show but decided to get some dinner instead. We tried the Sci-Fi but it was a half hour wait and we were meeting her cousin Alicia, who was in Orlando for training for a new job, so we just ate at the ABC Commissary, not bad but not great either.
We met Alicia and she rode the Tower of Terror with Samantha, using my Fast Pass as I wasn’t going to ride it. They then went and did the single rider line at Rock ‘n Roller Coaster. We did a little window shopping at the some of the stores before heading to Fantasmic. Alicia did not join us as she had an early class the next morning and had to return to her lodgings.
Fantasmic was wonderful, of course. We then headed back to the FQ for the night as we were getting up early for Extra Magic Morning Hours at Animal Kingdom.
Monday, May 14th
We arrived at Animal Kingdom for extra magic morning hours at about 7:45 am so we wouldn’t have to wait in a 3 to 4-hour line for the Banshee ride, I would probably wait an hour to an hour and a half for this ride but 4 hours would be way too long.
We then did the Maharaja Jungle trek and saw the new tiger cubs who are just too cute. They kept trying to lick my niece through the glass wall. We then did the Pangani forest trek to see the animals there, some which were hiding because by now it was raining. It was raining most of the time we were there.
We had fast passes for Kilimanjaro Safari’s but when Samantha found out there was a petting zoo at Planet Watch we ended up going there. Told her we had 45 minutes total before we would be out of hour fast pass time so she went directly to pat the goats. I sat inside and waited, because it was raining again. The Safari ride was great even though we had around a 10-minute wait while on the road because an animal was blocking the roadway/
We saw just about every animal out and enjoying the rain. We saw the cheetah, the male lion and both female lions out as well as the Zebra’s whom I haven’t seen in quite a few trips.
Our next fast pass was for the Na’vi river ride but it was more than an hour away and we had nothing else planned so we got in line. I would never wait more than 15 or 20 minutes for this ride as I don’t think it’s worth it.
From there we went back to the FQ for Samantha to take a shower and change as she was feeling gritty and dirty. We headed back to Hollywood Studios for our dinner at the 50’s Prime Time Caf which was at 4:40 and had a wonderful meal with a CM who was from Brockton, MA not that far from Boston. He was happy to hear someone who drops their R’s when they speak. Samantha had the fried chicken dinner and I had the Chicken Caesar Salad and enjoyed every bite I could eat. Samantha had apple crisp for desert while I had no desert.
We left the restaurant and headed into the park to ride some rides and see some shows. I rode Star Tours without Samantha as this show makes her nauseous and I don’t think I have seen any of those scenes before.
We then headed over to the Muppet’s show and walked right into the theater. Wonderful time as usual. From there we walked over to the Mermaid show and waited at the back of the theater for about 5 minutes. By this time, we were both tired from 2 early wake ups and walking around the parks for two days. We went back to FQ and grabbed a few snacks for later, Samantha got cheese curls and I got a banana and an orange, plus some water and iced teas.
Tuesday, May 15th
Today we were up early again as we were doing the Gardens of the World tour at Epcot and were meeting the guide at 8:45am. The tour was wonderful and the Horticulturalist showed us just about all of the topiaries, what they were made of and how long some of them took to grow. Some of them take a couple days and some take years to make.
My niece learned a lot of interesting things that she can incorporate into her career (landscape architecture). The tour lasted 3 hours with two short breaks. The last break we got a plastic straw filled with fresh honey and she showed us some of the pictures of the topiaries being prepared/created.
The tour ended at about 12 noon and Samantha and I went for lunch at the Electric Umbrella, I had a burger and she had chicken nuggets. From there we went to our first fast pass at Soarin’. This is the first time I’ve seen the updated version and I really enjoyed it. From there we went to our next fast pass at Spaceship Earth and was in the longest fast pass line I have ever seen. It was outside the switchbacks and heading back into Epcot. We enjoyed our ride and then headed back to the hotel. Samantha wanted to change again.
From there we headed over to Magic Kingdom to hit some of the rides we don’t have fast passes for and for dinner at the Plaza. We ended up going to see Tiki birds because everything was at least an hour wait and we were close to our 430 reservations. We could see the rain coming in and while we were seeing the show outside in the queue it started to DOWNPOUR and the wind was blowing like crazy. When we came out of the show it was still raining but had slowed down.
We headed over to the restaurant and checked in a little earlier where we both had the Plaza Club. While there a little boy saw my t-shirt, which was all the Disney dogs and across the top it says Who needs Diamonds…. And across the bottom it says When there are dogs? His mother was trying desperately to sneak a picture of the t-shirt by pretending to take a selfie. Why she just didn’t ask to take a picture I can’t understand.
After the meal we started wandering around and rode the Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. We tried for a few more rides but the lines were really long and Samantha wanted to see the fireworks so we headed toward Main Street.
The crowds were really large and with my back problem I really need someplace where I can sit so we headed over toward the Plaza restaurant and I was sitting on the little brick wall alongside the Tomorrowland Terrace place where the Desert part is. She went to find someplace else to stand/sit. Of course, within 20 minutes of her leaving it starts to rain, it’s about 10 minutes before the fireworks and then it starts to pour and guess where my umbrella is, that’s right in her back pack. So, I ended up standing under the overhang at the ladies just across from the plaza. I wanted to kill her. We then headed out to get some rest before our last full day.
Wednesday May 16th
Today we went back to Magic Kingdom but not without stopping for our first breakfast of the week, as we were eating fruit and granola bars until today. She wanted a Mickey waffle and I got a kid’s breakfast platter before getting the bus at about 9am.
We headed over to Tomorrow and her first fast pass for Space Mountain but it wasn’t up and running yet. We then decided to ride the TTA and headed over to Carousel of Progress afterwards. From there we hit the Buzz Lightyear ride and then Space Mountain was up and running so while she went into another extremely long fast pass line (took her a good 35 minutes both times as she used my fast pass because I won’t ride space mountain). While she was doing this, I took another ride on the TTA and then just sat and enjoyed watching the sights walk by. When that was done we went and stood in line for Winnie the Pooh and then walked back over to try the Great Goofini (Barnstormer ride) which had a wait of 35 minutes so instead we took the train over to Frontierland and walked up to our fast pass for Peter Pan. After Peter we went to eat at Pinocchio’s she ordered a 10-piece chicken nugget meal and I ate a couple as I wanted to make sure to save room for our dinner at the Hoop Dee Doo.
Next up was our fast pass for the Seven Dwarf’s mine and then waited in a short line for the Little Mermaid ride before heading over for the 20-minute wait at the Great Goofini which is cute but I wouldn’t wait for it again. By this time all the waits were enormous so we decided to shop our way down Main St. and head over to the Hoop Dee Doo. We bought our souvenirs and used my Annual Pass for 20% off and then headed for the ferry/friendship boat over to Fort Wilderness.
We rode by some of the new cabins and they look to have a small plunge pool as I could see metal handbars that you normally see at the pool stairs.
We really enjoyed our dinner and got quite a few laughs from the Pioneer Hall Players before I gave up the ghost and went back to the hotel and she went back to MK for a few more rides. She rode a couple of the mountains again before heading back to the hotel. She woke me up when she got in and we did most of our packing before heading to bed by 12.
Thursday, May 17th
Time to head home. I got up at 7am and got ready to go, woke her up and we finished all our packing. We checked our bags at the hotels airline check in desk and went back to the Sassagoula float works for our breakfast, which was the same as yesterday.
Our Magical Express bus picked us up at 8:40 and when I pulled my phone our I noticed that our flight had changed from 12noon to 1:11 which was not great but we can deal. We got to the airport and our flight was now at 11:22 still ok until the next time I checked our flight was at 1:48. Finally they let us know that the flight had been delayed coming out of Boston to replace some equipment and that the plane had landed and after they took care of emptying, cleaning and reloading the plane we should be off by about 2pm.
The incoming Boston flight landed and we watched while it sat about 30 feet from the gate because the crews could not go out to help direct it into the gate and hook up the gangway because there was lightning in the area, and I find that completely understandable. Once the plane was finally able to be boarded we were quite thrilled and figured we should be moving by about 245 or 3pm and we were the pilot told us we were 7th in line to take off.
We taxied out to the runway where we sat until after 4pm because they were not letting any planes take the north flight plan because of the bad weather. We got into Boston at about 630 and took a taxi home which cost me $$$ because of rush hour. (we live in a small section of Boston called Charlestown)
We are glad to be home but she wants to go back in January, but since I’m already going back in October, I don’t think that’s going to happen, but we’ll see.
Cathy
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