My trip report from earlier this month

Day 1…Flew in in via Southworst on Sunday May 5th (2 hour delay) hopped on Mears bus & checked in to Pop (Pfd room) around 4:30 - we were hoping to swim before going to DS for dinner, but because of the delay we dropped our luggage in the room and bussed over to DS - had an awesome dinner at Chef Art’s - moonshine mash drinks are as outstanding as the food there. Walked around and got cookies for dessert at Summer House
Day 2…up & early for rope drop at MK, typical 7Dwarves down, rode Space, then Peter Pan, Big Thunder & Haunted -missed out on VQ for Tron so bought it (but it was down most of the morning, so they refunded us) started stacking Genie for HS evening park - walked over to Steakhouse71 for lunch- had the awesome burger & wife had prime rib sandwich and that many, many layer choc cake for dessert, we were worried we already peaked with eating -never rode the monorail before so headed over to EP and then walked back to Skyliner to get back to POP-the time it took, it wasn’t a good plan but we got to go on the monorail - took an hour nap and off to HS - paid for Rides, Genie plussed Tower, Smuggler’s, Micky’s, Toy Story, & Slinky(at 8:30 in the dark- that ride is something special at night)Popcorn & Ice Cream bars for dinner. Finished with Fantasmic with awful seats in the back left due to us getting there late - actually the seats aren’t that awful, it tis the people constantly getting up and moving in front of you distracting from the show. Anyway, great day one!
Day 2…Rope Drop at AK -straight back to Flight & then Safari, Everest & Dino - grabbed a cookie sandwich which was really good. Watched Tough To Be A Bug since it was going away and had Cheeseburger pods at Satuli (they were good, but not as good as I had heard) - back to resort for 1 hour nap -we did not get Genie this day so we did the lesser lines/thrill at EP in the evening except for paying for Guardians (Spaceship Earth, Soarin, Nemo, Living w/Land, 3 Cabelleros) and had some awesome Pizza at Via Napoli and just strolled around the world taking it all in and watched the show from Germany - nice views and little crowd - another great day!
Day 3…Rope drop(kind of) at HS - Skyliner was packed, so we made it 10 mins before early park admission and managed to only wait 20 mins for Rise, waited another 20 mins for Tower, got Mickey blueberry waffles at Hollywood Scoops - very good breakfast! Rode Star Tours twice - got the same new scene - no Grogu :frowning: waited 25 mins for Tour Story and then went back to resort by noon - got to take a 20 min dip in a very crowded pool and then another hour nap. Back to MK at night and we had Genie so we stacked (Jungle, Pirates, Big Thunder, Haunted & Space) Had Columbia House seafood for dinner - very good stuff - wife loved her lobster roll - watched the fireworks from behind the castle then waited 15 mins and got on 7 Dwarves. Then went shopping on Main and had the buttered popcorn w/M&Ms, Twix and drizzled chocolate -such an underrated treat - another fun day
Day 4…Skyliner day! At least we wish it could’ve been all day and night. Rope drop at HS(another 45 min wait/ride on Skyliner) but made it so we only had to wait 30 mins for Slinky, then waited 10 mins for Tower and left and went to EP to eat some of the festival food which was very good - back to POP by 2:00 another nap and then back to HS for early 5:00 dinner at Brown Derby - another great meal- Wife had the Cobb Salad & I had the Salmon -paid LL to ride Rise one last time and Star Tours - we got Grogu this time :slight_smile: before leaving the park and back to EP again for after hours party. 7:30 arrival and happy they handed out bands for the party at the Skyliner/back entrance. Went and rode Soarin’ right away because there was only a 15 min wait - explored the park and specifically Moana for a bit and headed toward Remy when the 9:00 show started - of course when we get there it is down. By the time we wait a little & walk back, the party starts and we grab popcorn and Mickey Bars. Then its straight to the Guardians -rode it back to back w/10 min wait - over to Test Track for 5 min wait - they back to Remy as it was back up - 10 min wait & rode back to back but all kinds of hesitations in the ride - one specific time it stopped was when the champagne bottle was about to be uncorked and we sat there for at least a minute in anticipation, so that was pretty cool. Grabbed maple popcorn on the way back rode Guardians one last time and we were done -really missed the Skyliner as we had to take the bus back at 1:00AM and it stopped at 2 other resorts before we got dropped off.
Last day…breakfast platter at resort and checkout and a 6 1/2 hour delay with Southworst, easily the only bad part of the trip. I hope I didn’t miss anything with it being almost 3 weeks ago, But, I thought I owed this forum a report with all the awesome, friendly folks on here and the great advice too! Have a magical day everyone!

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Forgot to add things that I observed/learned/would prefer a change. This was our 9th trip to the world and the 2nd time staying at POP, but with a preferred room. That extra $20 or so for a room, so close to busses/skyliner/dining is worth its weight in gold. It makes buying the mug worth it with a 2-3 min walk for refills. Not to mention after long days & nights in the park, having so much less walking time back to your room makes an immense difference. In my opinion, POP is the best resort for what you pay and all the access you have, and it sure seemed like the word is out with how packed it was there. Transportation - I think the Skyliner should be started earlier, esp with Art of Animation there too- waiting 20+ in the morning is too much, but the castmembers still did great. It is what it is and I don’t know how much downtime is needed for that. It may have to be that way for the transfer at Caribbean Beach, because there was no wait there at all, miraculously. But those afterhours events should allow for Skyliner use as well, or at least increase the busses running. But for that to be my main complaint/suggestion shows what a really good time we had. We never had to wait more than 2 mins for a bus for the entire trip except for the afterhours event, even the castmember at the event begged for us all to tell Disney to get more busses and open the Skyliner for After Hours. A couple more personal opinions(and to stir things up), maybe because I have ridden it numerous times, but Pirates no longer does it for me. No different than Pooh or Little Mermaid which are actually better in my opinion (I guess because that was supposedly the last ride Walt worked on it will always be overrated in my opinion) And Ratatouille wasn’t all that…I remember a pasta sauce smell that seems to have disappeared and the bread smell is all that is left. But it kept stopping and going, so maybe the flow messed it up for us. Thats all folks!

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