This trip report may only be useful for those considering going to an Orlando Informer Meetup in the future, but hopefully it will at least be entertaining for others as well. I’ve been considering going to the meet up for years now but hadn’t read many accounts, and obviously I trust Liners the most, so want to contribute my experience as I go. I’ve done live and semi-live trip reports for Disney in the past year and don’t know exactly how this one will go, but will at least try and post regularly throughout the weekend and the evening.
This trip will just be a long weekend one, and our only park tickets are for the meetup both nights. I got the tickets as a birthday gift for my DSis who turned 30 during Covid and didn’t get to do anything big to celebrate.
She drove down from Charlotte here to Charleston this evening and we will hit the road in the morning to drive down. Should arrive early afternoon and are staying off property at a nearby Marriott. Tentative plan is to go over to Wilderness Lodge for dinner and drinks at Geyser Point before the Lightning game at 8. Not sure if we will go somewhere to watch that or just hang at the hotel.
Other than UOR this weekend, we also plan to head over to DS one morning, spend some time at the pool and CityWalk and hopefully also check out the character warehouse. Will be driving back home Sunday.
Really looking forward to getting to spend some quality time in UOR since my last visit in September and it was just hitting the highlights of both parks in one day as part of a Disney trip.
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Thanks for doing this! It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for the last 3 years, but it got postponed. I am planning a whole trip around it in the future. I’m actually more interested in the queues for food than anything else! Have fun!
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Got on the road around 8:30 this morning and stopping for lunch. Making good time and should be arriving around 3. Think we will pop over to the character warehouse before WL assuming there isn’t a virtual queue.
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Yay! A friend and I are doing one of the nights in December so eagerly looking for details!
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Okay wow. 3pm on a Thursday and there’s a 1.5-2 hour wait to get into the Character Warehouse. That’s gonna be a pass. We may swing by Sunday morning at opening on the way out of town, but if it doesn’t happen, oh well.
I went ahead and made a Whispering Canyon reservation to avoid issues parking at WL. Reservation was for 6:45 but the parking attendant went ahead and let us park. Modified and cancelled the reservation, walked around a bit and now we are at Geyser Point enjoying a drink. Not sure if we will hang here til dinner or go somewhere else.
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Decided to just have a drink at GP. They were doing some kind of maintenance in a retaining pond next to it so there was a loud machine noise that killed the relaxing atmosphere a bit. We decided to come over to DS. Joined the Gideon’s VQ (2.5 hours) and grabbed a beer at the outdoor bar at Raglan (it’s not an Orlando trip without a Smithwicks at Raglan or Rose and Crown). We will wander and probably grab dinner at a QS somewhere.
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Taking a drink to go is the best part of being able to go massless outside. Beer to go as we walked around DS. Decided on the Paddlefish rooftop bar for dinner to split some appetizers. Unfortunately they were out of the lobster corn dogs. 
We got the Gideon’s text just as we sat down (1.5 hour wait) so responded to request a late arrival.
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Since they didn’t have any lobster corn dogs we went with the the crab fries and the beef skewers.
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Still no problem to text when you get the Gideon’s return notification that you’ll be there soon. We arrived ~40 min after the first text. I loaded up on my favorites - cookies and cream - and also got one of the monthly specials which is a white chocolate salted caramel macadamia nut.
Now that we have our treats, heading back to the hotel to check in and watch some playoff hockey!
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Game last night went into OT so decided to sleep in today. Instead of going back to DS, we’ve headed over to Citywalk to explore and get some food before heading into the meetup.
Looks like rain this afternoon/evening so gonna swap our plan and focus on UOR first instead of IOA since there’s more indoor attractions.
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Evidently it’s national doughnut day, so an obvious first stop:
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I’m so excited for this report!!
I’m sorry about the expected rain though. 
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We’ve got jackets and ponchos so we will persevere 
Luckily, as of now the worst of it should be done before the exclusive meetup hours get going. But if I have to sit in Hogs Head for a while with a beer and a butterbeer…oh no. 
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You got my favorite! The voodoo doll. I love that guy lol.
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We browsed the Universal Store for a while and then stopped over at Margaritaville for a margarita flight.
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Explored the Legacy store a bit - cool to see some movie and old ride props. Last stop before heading to check in is lunch. Lots of lines so we did a mobile order for table delivery at Bread Box to enjoy the AC a bit.
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The voodoo donut is my absolute fave! I hope it was as tasty for you as I remember it being for me.
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It was great. Perfect mix of donut, chocolate topping and raspberry (?) jelly.
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