80 miles in 8 days

Just got back. We did a lot in 8 days. One of those things was walking.

First 5 days were in Disney–

Day 1 - Sleep deprivation for fun and profit We got off to an early start. 2:30am wake up. 5:30am airline departure. We were supposed to arrive at 8:10, but we were collecting bags by 7:30, then checked in eating breakfast at the Boardwalk deli by 9 after a very quick Lyft ride from MCO. The whole family was still kind of stunned by the early wake up so we didn’t have an aggressive touring plan. We did Remmy at 9:30am. That’s a fun ride. Nicely done. Strolled the countries collecting kidcot stickers. I forgot that most of the stores were closed before 11am, so it was kind of basic. Started noticing the Ratatouille scavenger hunt.

Had lunch at Mexico’s San Angel Inn. I’ve always wanted to eat there. The ambiance is great. The food was good enough I suppose, but the price was steep for what we got, even for Disney. Not a great value. It did help that we got there at 11:30. It was getting noticeably crowded by the time we left. I imagine all of the diners would be elbow to elbow by 1pm.

Made group #130 @ the 1pm Virtual Queue check in for GoG. I plugged that into the lines app and it said 8:30pm! That wasn’t right. Disney predicted 5:00pm. By the time we completed test track and mission space, it was down to 4:30pm. After Spaceship Earth and Soarin, it was down to 4pm. It was an hour wait oncer checked it. Great ride. Exited into the first of many daily afternoon showers. Got a lot of milage from our cheapo ponchos that DW brought. Had two sets. The old would get hung up in the closet to try each night. The air return vent is in there, so it was a good spot for drying things. Had a wet walk to dinner at Via Napoli. Still my favorite Epcot dining. Great value comparatively, pizza is always a family pleaser, even when everyone is operating on minimal sleep, and the left overs are easy to deal with.

We were in our room by 7:30 exhausted. Our standard room at Boardwalk was a 3rd floor w/ nice court yard view balcony close to the elevator. No complaints. Wife needs to ice foot. Turns out that my plan might have been too aggressive

Day 2 - AK the perfect rope drop. DS10 is grumpy & DW has a swollen ankle & can’t walk. They say “go without us” so DS12 and I run for the park. Left room at 6:25, got the bus at 6:30, at the gate at 7, as we walk up, a new new gate opens and we lucked into the front of the line. Never nailed a rope drop like that before. We were walked to the pandora bridge at 7:20, maybe 30 people back from the sign holders. So many good things happen when you get to walk on for the first attraction, because it carries over. So after an FoP walk on, we got a Navi River walk on. Then we got a Kilimanjaro walk on, then we had time to get some badges for our 2014 Wilderness explorer books before catching the first train to conservation station for the animation experience. One walk on after another. I call DW and she tells me that she’s going to go to the urgent care so we come back to wish her well and pick up DS10 who is finally moving. Made it back to AK in time for 12pm Yak and Yeti reservation with a bunch of “just barely caught that bus” luck filled action. Had never been to Y&Y before. Decent dining experience except for DS10 who found his burger was too salty, but whatever, he’s still not feeling great after the first day sleep disruption. “Feathered Friends in Flight” got him out of his funk a bit. That show is always a winner with my family. Finished off the Wilderness Explorer books. Cast members always gave an “Oh Wow” when they saw how old they were. Enjoyed the Kite show for a 5 minute break. That’s all it is really. Hit Finding Nemo for the 3pm show to escape the heat. Stopped at Everest for a lulls in the crowd. That ride seems to fluctuate between 5 minute waits at 25 minute waits pretty quickly. Lines at Kali River were too long so we passed. Had a good afternoon, but noticed that things were getting a lot more crowded than expected. Turns out it was the English on summer holiday may have thrown off the touring plan crown calendar. Cancelled Tiffin’s reservation for 6pm because DW can’t make it. Got in line for FoP at 5:30PM but bailed after 20 minutes because the stand by line was not moving at all.

DW was back from Urgent care. She found a spot that had free transportation and took our insurance.
DW got a cortisone shot and needed to stay off her feet for a few days. The hotel gave her a comp wheel chair which was very kind of them. We returned to the hotel and wheeled her to the pool for a lighter dinner. The “power bowl w/ chicken” was surprisingly good.

Day 3 - Wheel chair genie stacking - Thought I’d try Genie+ at the magic Kingdom, I made a low crowd level stacking plan months ago and the park was definitely in a medium crown level pattern. That threw me off. I also made my plan figuring I wouldn’t get to make my second selection until 11, forgetting that because the park open changed to 8:30, the second selection was available at 10:30.

Anyway, here is how it went:
7:00am - Peter Pan for 11am (Arrived at 11:40, Saved 60 minutes)
11:00am - Jungle Cruise was booked later than I wanted so I took Haunted mansion for 11:55pm (Arrived 11:55, Saved 40 minutes and escaped heat )
11:55pm - Splash Mountain for 2:30pm ( Saved 40 minutes & escaped much heat )
1:55pm - Big Thunder was booked too late, so I took PoC for 3:00pm ( Saved 10 minutes maybe )
3:00pm - Space Mountain for 7PM (Arrived 7pm, Saved 10 minutes, maybe )
5:00pm - Buzz light year for 6:30PM (Arrived 6:45; Saved 30 minutes )
6:45pm - Laugh Floor 7:30pm (Didn’t get anything that the wheel chair didn’t offer )
8:30pm - Booked Big Thunder on the way out of the park for 10:30pm, rains returned & got a free LL for tomorrow

Definitely got more in with Genie plus. Maybe saved about 2.5 hours over all and avoided some punishing heat. Felt like I left some value on the table. JC and BTMR were my two big misses, but I don’t really love those rides, so I’m OK with the misses. Kids missed BTMR, but we got a lot in. I really only try to fit in JC to inflict the dad jokes on my family. First time ever for Country Bears and Hall of Pressies on this trip. They helped beat the afternoon heat.

I dined at Jungle Canteen in 2019 and had one of the best theme park meals. Went back this year and had a mixed bag. The hanger steak was not good. I found it tough and I’m an avid chewer. DS12 had the kids meal steak and it was much better. Waiter said they don’t do the jokes any more. But the apps and deserts and other entrees were good.

Wife was grumpy about the wheel chair but she was happy to be in the parks again. We brought the chair into about 1/2 the queue’s and she limped the other half. I could write a lot about the wheel chair experience but I’ll just say that I feel like there are more people on motor scooters every time I go to Disney. Wall-E was prescient. Disney should make the people pass a simple driving test before they are allowed to use powered scooters in the park.

– I’ll get more pictures and days posted later.

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Hope DW feels better soon! Our loved ones can’t always seem to keep up with us theme park junkies!

That’s really a shame! People can eat anywhere at home, they do TS at WDW for the atmosphere and fun!

I had a similar experience at AbracadaBar a while back. They use to do presentations for their specialty cocktails. Now, they just chuck a drink at you and move on

My mom is almost 80 and one of these people. I loathe taking her anywhere where she has to do long walks because we have to get one of these. She habitually knocks down people - including me!!

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Our waiter did a lot of jokes when we were there two weeks ago!

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:laughing:

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I kind of thought I saw some of the other waiters doing jokes. He did do a couple after I asked about it with reasonably decent timing. AbracadaBar could use a little more magic. It’s no Trader Sam’s grog grotto.

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In July our waiter did a fair amount of jokes. I will say it is relatively waiter dependent on how the jokes are flowing. Wrong waiter on the wrong day and you don’t get many. Get the aspiring comedian and you get a bunch…

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Sorry to hear about your wife having to be in a wheel chair, that could definitely put a damper on things. Looking forward to following along.

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The wheel chair wasn’t really too bad. We made pretty good speed with the chair, it folded up to a space smaller than most strollers when we needed to store it. Added benefit, DS10 would never have agreed to a stroller, but when he was low energy, he would sit on DW’s lap and I’d push them both. It was sort of an adult stroller. Just needed to be careful going down hills.

Day 4 - First time to Batuu - The plan was to rope drop the Railroad, go to Tot and RR while the lines were short and stack Toy Story Land LL for the late afternoon and Millennium Falcon for the evening. At 7am I looked at SDD at it was 3pm and I wanted a little later. I refreshed and got 8:30am (?!?). That was too far off script so I refreshed again and got 4:30. That worked with my 3:20 reservation for Sci Fi Drive in.

I did this while waiting in line at the boardwalk Deli. I really like their food, but some days they can get really disorganized. Took 15 minutes to get a bagel to go at opening. You are killing my rope drop, people!!! Deep breaths. By the time we were back to the room and everyone was out the door, it was almost 7:40, which was on the late side for the canal boat. Usually DW would suggest not taking the HS footpath, but score one for the chair. We were on our way. Got there in less than 15 minutes. I always wanted to do that walk and the wheel chair made it possible.

We got through security at the back of the rope drop pack and went to MMRR and things seemed a little off. Line wasn’t moving right. We finally made it to the cartoon room but when the train exploded, we were escorted out of the building with an additional anytime LL instead of entering the ride. We popped over to ToT and RR and enjoyed those. Coming back, MMRR was back up and I couldn’t decide if I should go to Olaf first or do MMRR. I chose MMRR to reduce the walking a bit and used the LL I got earlier that day. Whole family really enjoyed it.

I had a 10:50 reservation for TV diner and wanted to get in two more attractions. Tried to slip in Olaf but the line was like 25 minutes. After some discussions with tears not bickering, we stuck it out through the line. In hindsight I should have done this first because it has a 10am line peak DW was disappointed that there was no photo pass or autographs at this stop. While in line, there were no great stacking options so I book MFSR for 12:00, or so I thought. We got out of Olaf with 15 minutes until the dining reservation. Family was tired and hungry so I burned the free LL from day 3 on Star Tours, which was kind of a waste, but it seemed like the thing to do. Aunt Carole made sure we kept our elbows off the table during lunch. Rushed over to MFSR after lunch only to find out that the LL was at 2pm, not 12pm. I screwed up again.

HS gets hot in the afternoon so we decided to head to the resort pool via Sky liner. It was fun, but it there were some problems with the chair we had been using. It was an HS courtesy chair which was identified at the HS gate. Many things happened in the next hour. It all worked out in the end without costing anything but time & sweat. We ended up back at the hotel with an Epcot chair and jumped in the pool. I canceled the MFSR LL and I was eventually able to stack up TSMM & Saucers at 5PM along with MFSR for 7:25pm.

So we went back to the park via Skyliner. Watched the ominous clouds roll in. The questions was broached. What happens if it starts to rain? Do we get stranded at Caribbean beach? Anyway, we made it to the park and into SciFi drive in before the deluge. SDD LL gets converted to anytime. I felt like I was losing control of the LL situation for a bit. We all enjoyed are burgers and movies and it all worked out. We were 18 minutes late for the reservation, so we ended up with a 6 person table instead of a “Car” table, but that was kind of nice because we could see each other.

We did TSMM while it rained. We road Saucers while it cleared up. We were able to hop on SDD shortly after it re-opened with the anytime LL. Explored Batuu before it started raining again and hit our Oga’s reservation at 6:20. Oga’s was in some ways unique with the drinks and snacks and decor. Yet, like most other bars, people are more important than scenery. For the first 20 minutes, we shared a table with some dour millennials. Second 1/2 we were with another couple with kids. It made a difference.

We left and went straight to MFSR after the bathrooms. Fortunately we were accompanied by a single rider who knew what he was doing and had a sense of humor about the fact that I let the kids pilot the ship. I think we got a negative score. Probably should have given the kids a primer in advance.

Next we did ROTR. I had low expectations after watching the last few movies, but I was impressed. The big scenes are really big. The action is tense. The indoor/outdoor set pieces were really enhanced by the unreal salmon & yellow sunset that was coming through the departing rain clouds. Gave it some seriously “OMG what is happening?” moments. I’ve only ridden this once but I recommend sunset as a ride time. The wait time was posted 70 minutes but only took 35.

It was 8:15. DS12 and I were up for binge riding ToT and RR until the park closed but DW and DS10 wanted to go home, and it worked out nice because we got to watch Epcot fireworks for the last stretch on the sky liner instead of fighting crowds with a wheel chair as we left the park.

Anyway, the day was sort of touch and go for a bit, but it all worked out. We hit all the stuff we wanted to hit and we were in the pool for the hottest parts of the day instead of frying on the HS pavement like an egg.

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That sounds amazing.

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Been there! (multiple eateries on the way to RD!)

I know breakfast / QS grab & go are always busy in the morning, but it’s like no one working has any sense of urgency. They know we are all trying to rush out of these places! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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It was grey and raining when we went in, but the outdoor scenes for the ride had a backdrop that sort of looked like this:
image

When we entered the first outdoor area, I’m sure I had a slack mouth dropped jaw expression on my face while I tried to figure out what kind of projection system could do that as the cast members rushed us to the ship.

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