DoUwannaBldAsnowmans Adults Only Trip Report January 5-8

[MayorTimTam]

My mother visited us from California for the holidays, and we were fortunate enough to convince her to stay home and watch our children for four days while DH and I took an adults only trip to our favorite place!

DAY ONE - Monday

After waking up at 3am and driving from Tallahassee, we arrived at Pop Century before 8am. The first thing we noticed was that the resort was still decorated for Christmas, and had Christmas music playing. We were elated to see the large tree in the lobby. We had done online check-in, and were relieved that our room was ready. Our requests had been granted, and we found ourselves in the 60’s section, ground floor, with a lake view. We always request this section, as it is close to the pool, food court, and the bridge to Art of Animation. The first thing I do is check page 71 of the bible for a note from a fellow liner. I have found 2 notes on previous trips, but none this time.

Before we came on this trip I had made loose plans for us. I had booked our FPP for each day, and intended on making rope drop to manage our time efficiently. Todays plan was to be at Hollywood Studios for rope drop, but that was not to be. DH had not slept at all the previous night, and demanded a nap before doing anything. So he went to bed and I headed out to Downtown Disney on the bus for some shopping. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Slightly cloudy and warm. I shared the bus with only three other people, and after a short, pleasant ride I found myself at DTD at 9:15am.

Apparently the majority of Downtown Disney opens at 10am, so I had 45 minutes to kill. I got a white chocolate mocha from Starbucks, and headed over to guest relations. I used gift cards I had received for Christmas to pay off our annual passes. This took a little while, and when I was finished it was 10am. I headed over to World Of Disney to purchase the Faces Disney Dooney crossbody purse I had had my eye on back in September. The purse was sold out across property, so I had to purchase a cheap purse for the parks. I also customized a new Olaf case for my phone. I then rode the bus back to Pop Century, and arrived in our room at noon.

DH and I decided to forego Hollywood Studios that day and hopped on a bus over to Magic Kingdom to begin our monorail crawl. We decided to start at the Polynesian, and took the boat over to the resort. We went to the lobby and got our leis, then headed to the Tambu Longe. I got a Lapu Lapu, which was delicious!

After a couple of drinks we rode the monorail over to the Grand Floridian to meet the infamous bartender Tammy at Mizners Lounge. I had a salted Caramel Martini. After that DH and I got a couple of beers to go and walked down to the pool area to enjoy them. We had a lovely time chatting and sipping our beers.

We rode the monorail over to The Contemporary and visited The Wave. We were the only people at the bar, and had a wonderful time chatting with the bartender. Here I ordered the Blueberry Acai Martini with a glow cube. It must have been the glow cube flavor that made this the absolute most delicious drink I had on the entire trip! I highly recommend it, and will definitely order this again next time! Again, we ordered drinks in plastic cups and wandered outside to enjoy them.

We rode the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom and found the castle lit up in beautiful icicle lights. Pictures don’t do it any justice, and it is a sight to behold in person! DH and I were pretty tipsy by this point, and hungry because we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We went to Casey’s Corner and ordered hot dogs. Mine was loaded with barbeque pulled pork and coleslaw, and DH’s was smothered in chili and cheese. They were absolutely wonderful, but our hunger and buzz could have been a factor! After eating we went to Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor. There was no wait, and it was DH’s first time experiencing this attraction. Afterwards we watched Celebrate The Magic and Wishes from the bridge. We then went to Mickey’s Philharmagic. Again, this was DH’s first time. I brought a red gem and surprised a little girl next to us with it when the show was over. Her mother was more perplexed than she was and actually asked me if they throw gems out at you. Oy.

After this DH and I rode BTMRR with no wait. This ride is so much fun and a completely different experience in the dark. We enjoyed the second Main Street Electrical Parade and then left the park and rode the bus back to Pop Century. It was almost midnight and we were hungry again. We ordered a Sausage, mushroom, pepper, and onion pizza from the food court and took it to our room to enjoy before bed. We passed out and slept like babies!

Stay tuned for day two!

[SallyEppcot]

Sounds like a great first day! I’m gkad you’re having fun.

[Sally_Carrera]

This is so fun to read – especially because DH and I are doing our first adults-only trip next weekend!!!

[FlyerFan1973]

Relaxing pace so far. Sounds like this is going to be a fun trip!

[quote=“DoUwannaBldAsnowman, post:1, topic:8950”]
I used gift cards I had received for Christmas to pay off our annual passes[/quote]

Did you pay for the passes at Downtown Disney? If so, were you able to pay for yours and your husbands at the same time and pick them up at Downtown Disney, even though he wasn’t there?

FWIW, I paid for last year’s Annual Pass with a Disney Vacation account that I loaded with Disney gift cards. I liked spending the time before my trip dealing with the gift cards, rather than during the trip.

[MayorTimTam]

We already had annual passes, but because we are FL residents they split up the payments onto a monthly plan, so I just paid off the remaining balance. But back in May when I got the passes I did indeed purchase them at DTD without DH there.They said he was supposed to be there with ID but they sold them to me anyway.

[LoveBug53]

What a great first day!! Love all the pictures! Thanks for taking the time to share this with us and can’t wait for Day 2!!

[snelvis]

Dreaming of doing this with my DH. Have a great time !!!

[MayorTimTam]

DAY 2 - Tuesday

Today’s plan was to be at Epcot at RD, and spend the whole day there. Again, that didn’t happen. We had scheduled a 6:45am wakeup call, but when the phone rang we promptly hung it up, grumbled a little, rolled over, and went back to sleep. We finally got up of our own accord around 9am. I changed all of our FPP to later in the day. We decided to hit DTD again to buy a sweatshirt, because while the weather was gorgeous during the day, it was slightly cool after dark, and I had not planned accordingly. As we reached the bus stop, the DTD bus was pulling away, so we had to wait for the next one. We watched 2-3 busses come and go for every other park until finally, 30 minutes later, another DTD bus finally arrived. Unlike yesterday we went to Typhoon Lagoon first, then almost an hour after leaving our room we arrived at the Marketplace. We were hungry and decided to try Earl of Sandwich to see what all the hype was about. DH ordered the Philly, and I ordered the Club. Words cannot effectively describe how amazing this sandwich was. It’s also worth noting that they are very efficient at managing all the people. DH and I were very impressed with the whole experience. They also accepted our Annual Pass card, and we received a 10% discount.

Full and happy, we left EoS and headed over to World of Disney. This is my absolute favorite store on property. It is the largest store, and they have it separated into different sections inside, so you can somewhat easily find what you are looking for. DH and I spent a good while browsing, but we ended up only buying my sweatshirt. Again, the annual pass discount card gave us 10% off. These discounts really add up over the course of a trip. We made our way down to SplitsVille and sat at the outdoor bar to enjoy some beer. The atmosphere here is fun, and the food looks good. We saw several people get the loaded nachos, and wished we weren’t so full from our sandwiches.

We got another beer to go and left SplitsVille. We didn’t feel like walking back to the bus, so we went to the boat dock and decided to go to whatever resort the first boat took us to. This turned out to be Old Key West, and we had the entire boat to ourselves! I wish I could remember the skippers name, because he was absolutely awesome! He chatted with us the whole way. He told us funny stories about things he has witnessed in his time at Disney. Also, at one point we passed a few people playing golf. There was a man getting ready to putt the ball, so I started yelling “put it in the hole”. DH joined in by yelling “fore!”, and the driver started honking his horn while smiling and waving. The golfers didn’t seem impressed, but we had a good time! We also encountered a man on the trail, running like he was being chased by the cops, so the driver got on the speaker system and asked the man if he wanted to race. The man gave a thumbs up and started pushing harder! DH and I were yelling “run, Forest, run!” When we got to the bridge the man pumped his arms up in victory and we all cheered at him. The driver honked again and we continued our journey. It was hands down the best experience we’ve ever had on any Disney transportation. Once we arrived safely at Old Key West we got a beer from the outdoor bar at Olivia’s Café and sat on a bench overlooking the river, and would you believe the runner came jogging towards us! We giggled and finished our beers, then we hopped on a bus to Epcot.

We arrived at Epcot after 2pm, and the lines at the bag check were insane. I took DH around to the secret bag check on the other side, where there was nobody else, and we were in. He was flabbergasted by my knowledge and we made fun of all the people waiting in line. Once we made it into the park, we noticed the crowds seemed extremely low. Our first FPP was 10 minutes away, so we decided to ride The Seas with Nemo and friends. It was a walk on, and we both really enjoyed it. We spent a few minutes checking out the tanks afterwards, then made our way over to Figment to use our first FPP. We really didn’t need it, as there was barely a line here either. We enjoyed this ride as well. Afterwards we had 40 minutes to kill before our next FPP, so we decided to see if the line at Test Track was decent. We made our way across Future World, and (surprise, surprise) Test Track was down, with no estimate for when it would be running again. We were disappointed, since we have never experienced it before, but we moved on. Mission Space orange had a posted wait time of 40 minutes, so we got in line. We ended up only waiting 25 minutes. We have both ridden this before and knew what to expect, so we were surprised when we both felt woozy afterwards. I got a dull, pounding headache, but it wasn’t too bad. Our next FPP was for Spaceship Earth, another first for both of us. Neither one of us were particularly blown away by this ride, and we likely won’t do it again. Our next FPP was for Soarin’. Standby was 70 minutes, and we were happy to bypass that wait. We were both excited to ride this one, and it didn’t disappoint. The lift from the ground was exhilarating, and the smells were wonderful. The only thing we didn’t like was how abruptly they cut from one scene to the next. We enjoyed all the rides, and decided to head down to World showcase next.

We were slightly hungry, so we went to Yorkshire County Fish shop in the UK and shared an order of fish and chips. It was delicious. The fish was hot and covered with a very crispy batter, fried to golden brown perfection. As we ate several birds were begging for food, sauntering around under our table with no fear. It made me pretty nervous as I felt like they were going to nip at my feet or something, but we made it out of there without incident. We then walked to France and went into the bakery. DH got a vanilla éclair and I got an elephant ear. It’s not really called an elephant ear, but that’s what I call it. It’s a large, flaky pastry dipped in chocolate. We sat on the short wall surrounding the fountain in France and enjoyed our sweet treats.

DH has been wanting to check out the ESPN club, so we exited at International Gateway and hopped on the boat to the Boardwalk. It was a beautiful sight to behold. We sat at the bar in the ESPN club and had a few beers. There are TV’s everywhere in that place. It would be cool to hang out there during a game sometime. There was really nothing worth watching on TV, but my favorite part of this place was the bathroom. You could watch TV right from the stall!

When we left ESPN club the weather had cooled significantly, so it was time for my new sweatshirt (which we had been carrying around in a shopping bag all day). We walked back over to Epcot, as it was much closer than we had expected it to be. It was about 7:30pm, and we wanted to find somewhere to sit down and grab a bite to eat, and to watch Illuminations. I should mention that this is the first time we came to Disney with no ADR’s whatsoever. We had found that on previous trips we often felt rushed and stressed trying to make it to restaurants on time, so we decided to wing it for this whole trip. We started around World Showcase and happened upon Spice Road Table in Morocco. They had a patio with outdoor seating right on the water, and this was exactly what we were looking for. I asked if they had room for us on the patio, and we were seated immediately, right next to the railing on the water. We couldn’t have asked for a better view!

When our server came over we informed her we would be staying until Illuminations, and intended to order appetizers to share. Her face fell immediately and we had terrible service from then on out. She took forever to bring our drinks, we had to ask other servers for refills, and she barely acknowledged us for the remainder of our time there. I was very disappointed by this, but our food was fantastic! We started with mussels and calamari. We dug right in and I didn’t think to take a picture of these before they were gone. Next we shared a Greek salad and spicy garlic shrimp.

We finished our food and heard the announcement that Illuminations was 15 minutes away. We ordered the baklava sampler for dessert. It is three different types of baklava, though I’m not sure what exactly they were. The menu didn’t specify, and we didn’t dare ask the server. But they were all very tasty. Illuminations was spectacular. This was only our second time seeing it, and it was much better than we remembered it being last time. After the show was over the server brought our check, which was just under $60. Everything was delicious, and though this is not a restaurant we ever would have made an ADR for, we both agreed that it is worth visiting again for the food, despite the incompetent server.

We let the park empty out a bit, then held hands and took a very leisurely stroll back towards the bus area. When we arrived at the busses, the line to Pop Century was WAY long. As we were waiting, a long, stretchy double bus came and loaded up from the Art of Animation line, and they had maybe 10 people waiting for the next bus, so we hopped over to that line. There were at least 5 bus loads worth of people in the Pop line. The next bus arrived after less than 5 minutes, and we rode back on an almost empty bus to AoA. After a quick stroll over the bridge we were back in our room in no time. That was such a fantastic day!

[LoveBug53]

Another great day! Love following along! Looking forward to hearing more!