Hello Everyone! I am one of those lurkers who follows this forum very often and never posts a comment, or hearts a thread. I very much appreciate this forum and all of the live trip reports! And now I will return back to lurking.
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Not necessarily a lurker, but more active in chat. This post was so fast and furious (and needless to say much better than the similarly named Universal attraction) that it was hard to chime in. But I did enjoy reading it each day. So thank you for posting so much fun stuff about your trip. I am a former AP holder ( gave it up during covid) and this was the post I needed to get me excited for my return to the world in September.
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Also changed my profile photo…only BGK gets to be a cat 
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Did you get your AP reinstated? for your upcoming trip…
@ltlangrel and @Meech thanks so much for your kind words and for coming out of lurkdom to share them 
I always love following a good trip report when I can’t be in the world - it makes me feel close to Home. I’m glad you enjoyed my trip!
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I didn’t try to get AP- I know I could have tried, but the reports of waiting 30 days put me off since I’m Only doing 3 days at Disney (4 days at Universal). I am hoping the APs will be available soon. Planning to buy when officially available or upgrade my tickets, if happens befor my trip. I’m planning on runDisney in Jan/March so I do want it back, but I don’t necessarily need it for September.
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I shipped mine from the Beach Club Marketplace, but you can ship Disney merchandise from pretty much every gift shop in WDW. They ask for your original receipt, so make sure to hang on to that.
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Good tip on the receipt, thanks
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Hey, whatever blows yer hair back
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I’ve liked a post here or there but have enjoyed following along! I’ve only been catching up before bed or before kids get up on most days but don’t want to be classified completely as a lurker. Hopefully this qualifies!
I’ve really enjoyed living vicariously through this post. A Covid layoff cancelled our December couple trip and I’m not sure When we will get a chance to go - but whenever that happens, it will definitely be my 40th birthday do over! (which was covid + Houston freeze without power or water and an unexpected elderly houseguest. I deserve a serious do-over). I love that you did that for everyone in your family.
I also now want 10 days of Disney. What a great escape!
So sorry about all of the rain. It’s been raining here almost constantly, minus a brief heat wave, and the only upside has been the cooler weather (70s and low 80s) which is usually unheard of for summer here. So at least you weren’t baking in the sun? But even wet at Disney at some point can become borderline miserable.
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Top Ten: Day 9: MK
-10. Sleeping in. This was a great trip. But it was also a long trip. And even I was ready for a bit of a sleep-in by day 9. We all had this on our list for a highlight of today. Everyone else really enjoyed the slow and easy mornings we scheduled in, and I finally enjoyed this one myself. I had awakened by 8 am and I really thought I might get my act together early enough to head to MK for some solo time. But dang that time just slipped away and before I knew it we were just going to be on time to head over for our SC reservation. Although rope dropping certainly serves its purpose, and although Disney At Dawn is a really spectacular thing, there is something nice about lolling about in the morning too, recapping the activities from the day before and thinking ahead to what lies before you. If you can manage to do this once or twice on your own trips, I definitely advise. Especially if you have teenagers
-9. Skipper Canteen. I thought I enjoyed my visit here in April, but I’d really been given the shaft. I didn’t get any cheese bread, and I didn’t get the spicy rim. This lunch was my chance to rectify all of that. Plus, we got to sit in one of the other rooms (I was in the big open room the first time) which was neat. I was sure to point out the highlights of the restaurant. That got some groans and rolled eyes, but hey it had to be done! The spicy rim on the Punchline Punch makes it an entirely different beverage, and much much better! And the cheese bread bites were something I could actually make a meal of; I had to restrain myself to let others have some (they left the green sauce to me - they don’t know what they are missing!!!). Most everyone got some version of the chicken; I sampled it and found it just okay and definitely not the best chicken of the trip. I had the hardy har char pork and rice which was magnificent and full of flavor. There were plenty of bad jokes to go around, too, which was nice because we didn’t manage to hit JC on this go because of lines or weather. This place gave us a little flavor of what we had missed. I think we’ll hit this one again in the future!
-8. Bus magic at the end of the night. The forecast for the day was such that I had no desire to be clomping back through the parking lots at the end of the night. So we bussed over and back. We lingered some after fireworks but not for a super long time, and I expected a lengthy wait before we were on a bus home. But, as we approached the depot there was our OKW bus just waiting for us, and not anywhere near to full. We enjoyed a comfortable and quick ride home, most of us seated, which was a welcome surprise as we were BEAT. I really much preferred having a car this trip; while the buses served their purpose when we needed them, we preferred the swift, quiet, comfortable rides in our own vehicle whenever we were able.
-7. Peoplemover. This was a moving experience. Yes that’s punny, but it wasn’t completely meant to be. You know how they say you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone? Peoplemover was one of those things for me. I was so excited to finally ride it again! My only regret was that we didn’t get to ride it more. It’s a special kind of goodness that I hope never goes away.
-6. Haunted Mansion: now with Stretching Room! HM is my absolute top favorite ride in WDW. It is neither sophisticated nor technologically advanced, but the history here and the classic nature of this ride makes it one that is always on my must do list. I got to ride a few times in April, but there’s something about just rushing through the stretching room without the chilling challenge of finding a way out of a chamber with no windows and no doors that fails to set it up in just the right way. I loved having the chance to move into the dead center of the room again, and try to decide if the room was really stretching or if it was my imagination. Hearing the Ghost Host’s voice made me so happy!! My daughter and I got a great posed ride pic as I was able to tell her where it was located; the boys… well, we think they might have become the 1000 and 1001 happy haunts as their doom buggy pic… was empty. 
How very haunting!
-5. POTC. Another favorite of mine, always a must do. We had a yahoo in the row behind us who rode partway with his video light on. I finally turned around and politely asked if he wouldn’t mind turning it off, and he was very apologetic. Aside from that we had a perfect ride, and stopped in the perfect spot to get good pics of the prisoners and of Jack Sparrow with the loot. When we were in line for this one, I remarked how none of my favorites were originally associated with any IP. I don’t mind when things have to change, but I did find it interesting that I prefer original stuff to stuff created after to bring IP to the parks. I wonder where others fall. Maybe @Jeff_AZ could do a poll about it.
-4. Gaston. I don’t care where you find him, interactions with Gaston are always among the best character interaction anywhere. He hams it up just fine in his own personal cavalcade. I saw @kerrilux_625778 report that her daughter realized she is in love with him after he told her so. So very Gaston! I was so happy that we timed our hub snacks in a way that coincided with this, and I absolutely totally 100% thought of @NoBellePrizeWinner when it did.
-3. Popcorn on popcorn on popcorn (and some Mickey bars)! This was the first day we really kind of went wild with the snacking. That popcorn bucket got a workout, let me tell you! I swear we filled it 6 times! And when we weren’t having popcorn, we were grabbing Mickey bars (sandwiches are my favorite version). I guess you could say it took us some time to get on our snack game, or maybe we started panic snacking as we neared the end of the trip. Either way, we got our fill this day. Great. Now I’m hungry.
-2. Fireworks from the #MKSacredSpaces. I could NOT believe our luck. People really just don’t notice this spot and/or don’t think it’s meant for guests to use! DD17 decided she had to have some Sleepy Hollow. Well she decided this, mind you, at 9pm - while we were in Tomorrowland… with fireworks set for 9:15 and the hub already full. We hustled around the long way through Fantasyland as that was really the path of least resistance, and I will admit I was getting kind of bitchy as I was trying to make sure we got a spot for fireworks. Then the rain started. And I was like - how the HELL are we going to do this?! I wanted it to be so special, and it was turning out to be a disaster. And as we rounded the corner at Lib Square to head toward Sleepy Hollow, it dawned on me: #MKSacredSpaces for the win! Nobody there, so we sent the kids in to snap up the table before anyone else did. We grabbed the food at Sleepy Hollow and joined them in time to move the table under the stairway (the rain was pretty heavy by then). And we sat. And we ate. And nobody was around us. And we had a wonderful (albeit not straight on for projection) view of the castle and of the fireworks. And I found myself thanking DD for being so insistent on SH for eats because otherwise? We’d have missed that magical experience. Lesson: when it’s not going the way you want, it might be because there’s something better that’s coming your way. Go with the flow. Let the magic happen.
-1. The rain held off almost to the very end! We headed into today with very low expectations. We altered our plans so that our outdoor stuff was first and the rest was indoors. We set up the caveat that if anyone was sick of slogging through it they were free to go - together or singularly. Nobody was being held to anything because it was going to be NASTY out. And it wasn’t. We had ponchos on briefly around 2pm, and then they got put away until fireworks. It was a lovely day, actually! What a wonderful, pleasant – no, magical – change of course! It was the perfect last day in the parks for our wonderful trip 
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Glad to have a reputation for something at least!
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For anyone else needing an excuse to buy DVC, I just ran this calculation to see if I had bought points instead of renting for my 2021 trip if I would have come out ahead. Now, I couldn’t have done this, because I thought I was going in 2020, not 2021 …
… But if I had known in advance and had bought a contract just to bank 1 year’s points into 2021 and use a 2BR villa at BCV before selling it right after my trip, my overall hotel cost would have come out at $152 per night. For a 2BR Villa. At Beach Club. 
And for those thinking, “that’s just a fluke of the pandemic!” I tried for a random 2-year period in Q4 2013 - Q4 2015, and if someone had done the same thing then, they would have made $3600 and the cost per night would have been a gain of $516.
Past performance is not a guarantee of future results LOL 
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all that 
really, i’m just replying now to thank you for sharing your trip. it was a treat to follow along, and i appreciated your thoughts and photos every step of the way! until next time… too soon to ask when?
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P.S. I didn’t account for financing cost / lost income from investing. If you do that, it wipes out any savings in the 2019 - 2021 scenario. The 2013-2015 scenario could still be profitable though.
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Great trip report, beautiful family. Thanks so much for sharing! Here’s hoping you hit 2,000!
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Lurker here (hopefully no longer haha). I’ve really enjoyed your trip report! I’m planning a trip for August 2022 and this forum has provided me with so much information and so many ideas; I appreciate it greatly! You also all seem really nice and welcoming. Looking forward to spending more time here and getting to know you all better 
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Fellow New Englander as well (MA)
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Welcome!! And thanks for following!
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I bought AKL in 2006 at $95/pt so i should calculate at some point how much I’ve saved in 15 years. I’m pretty certain we broke even at least 5 years ago. And i still have 36 years left on the contract
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Okay. Where is this MKSacredSpaces? I have searched through other threads trying to find the location and come up empty. 