To trip report or not to trip report

By this point, the park had just closed for day guests, and the weather delay had pretty much cleared a lot of them out, so even the inside queues were emptying quickly.

We headed to Kong and then Spider-Man, and our apologies to whoever sat on those seats after us, because our bottoms were still pretty damp at that point! :sweat_smile:

Then the twins stayed with DM while the other 4 of us did Hulk. First time for anyone of us and we got the front row! Screaming good time. So much fun, but I really thought my head might explode at a couple points!

We headed back to Suess Trolley. I had heard there were 2 different routes, and for the party, they were running the “mega route” which takes you through both routes without getting off, so that was an easy way to check off both!

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The unlimited free food and drink had now started and the cut across to USF had opened, so we grabbed drinks from a table and switched parks.

We headed for Finnegans next.


And then to the Frying Dutchman.

Then we headed back to HP Land for another ride on Gringotts. This time, we paused a bit more in the queue to take it all in. (If we hadn’t had Covid concerns, I wouldn’t have minded waiting in any of the 3 HP queues! So much I could have looked at for longer!)

We thought this sign at Gringotts was interesting and something to be aware of if applicable:

Then we hopped the Hogwarts Express back to Hogsmeade to see if we could still catch the queue for anything there before they closed.

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Will you get wet riding Ripsaw Falls? Yes.
Will you get wet riding Bilge-Rat Barges? Also yes. Actually, very yes. “I drove my convertible through the car wash with the top down” wet.

Told ya…lol but I love Popeye, it’s a good ride.

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They didn’t let us do both sides of High in the Sky the night before…lucky!

Hubby told me to pop my ears and that really helped on Hulk and RRR for me. I black out on them from the g-forces and my vasovagal response or vertigo or something. But maybe that works for heads exploding too. Give it a try?

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The most challenging part of planning for the OI Meetup was understanding what was available when and working around that. And since the parks closed to day guests at different times on Fri (7pm) and Sat (8pm), most of it wasn’t even the same between days.

I’ve included screenshots of the details that were sent out 2 weeks in advance here:

These do vary from Meetup to Meetup, so research for the latest, but here are some of the data points we had to keep in mind. (I had to write out a chart to try to keep it straight and still struggled!)

Most shows and 2 rides (Woody Woodpecker and Bilge-Rat Barges) were not available during the Meetup so needed to be done before official park close. And the daytime showtimes still hadn’t been updated when we headed out for our vacation that I could find so that was last minute info to wrangle.

Other than Bonus Bites, the unlimited free food/drink service started one hour after parks closed (which is when Bonus Bites closed, but they did run out of some/most items at some locations before that from what I heard). Then the restaurants close one hour before the end of the meetup, but food carts are open right until the end. But some did run out of select items before that.

And it was a bit unclear what counted as a food cart. I think Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour was open right until the end, but it always had a pretty good sized line, so we made the tough call to skip it. Also some places that only served beverages, even if they were in a building rather than anything remotely cart-like, stayed open.

Also, certain rides had to stop running at midnight both nights due to noise ordinances, which means they had to close the queues early enough for them to clear. The rest mostly ran up until the end, but the queues were closed in time for them to clear by the end of the event, so there was some ambiguity there to deal with.

And some things had special hours. Like the Mummy queue was completely closed for the first hour after park close (per the email, but not noted on the map).

And the cut across between parks was not open until an hour after park close. We were allowed to exit and re-enter the other park during open park hours, but not sure about that hour gap in between.

It was just A LOT to try to factor in and keep in my head (along with all my inside/outside/seat config data points)!

If you come fairly regularly and are mainly using this as a chance to ride with short waits, this is probably less of a concern, but did us not having been in a number of years, it made it challenging to try to cover a broad array of things.

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I’ll certainly keep it in mind next time!

I have a 24/7 chronic mild-to-moderate baseline headache anyway, so exploding isn’t that much of a leap for me already. I was perhaps clinging to a small sliver of hope that Hulk would somehow dislodge whatever the underlying issue for that is, but no such luck! :sweat_smile:

Yes, and I am so very grateful for the advice! :heart: Despite my careful parroting of the info, I think DH was still thinking more like Splash or Kali. Totally a good time though!

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Oh no way, it’s like someone dunked you in the River fully clothed.

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Our party was split and/or on the fence whether we wanted to try to squeeze in Forbidden Journey or Hagrids before the midnight cutoff. When we rode Gringotts, we knew that probably eliminated Hagrids, and we were right, that queue was closed when we went by at 11:25pm, but we were able to do Forbidden Journey.

FJ tends to mess with both DH and DD20 even with Dramamine, so she had skipped it the night before so really wanted to do it. DH has done it the night before, so he went to play with the wands while we rode.

Then a few people went off to Honeydukes on a quest for chocolate frogs before we all met up at the 3 Broomsticks.



The pumpkin juice was fine, but we all preferred the butter beer.

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I have very regular headaches that sometimes become blinding. About once or twice a month they are debilitating. I think mine are a combo from a neck/shoulder ligament or tendon injury from doing a half Ironman that never fully healed causing a lot of neck tension and a constant knot under my right ear and allergy congestion. I think the right conditions, a little dehydration or heat sickness kick it off full blast but I do wake up with a light headache everyday that coffee alone usually cures since it’s a pain killer. I’ve found a combo of Tylenol and aleve, Frozen peas on the head, heating pad or heated neck massager on my neck, propped up on my back in bed with the lights out followed by a nap is really the only help. I’ll do yin yoga stretches too but they usually don’t help once in that state.

Mine definitely has a positional component to it. It starts lowest in the morning and very gradually increases the longer I stay upright. An afternoon lie-down takes it back down a half-notch or so. Tylenol takes the edge off, but that’s the only medicine of the dozen or two I’ve tried (Rx and OTC) that makes any difference. So extended release Tylenol it is!

I’m pretty much done throwing random treatments at it unless someone can actually figure out what’s causing it. Trying to ignore it helps me deal with it, and I can’t do that if I’m trying random long shot treatment ideas and trying to monitor for changes.

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As I mentioned, keeping up with the attraction availability times was pretty challenging. One of the attractions we hadn’t caught with a short wait during the day or when it wasn’t closed for weather or during its limited after hour times (Fri 8:30-11:30 and Sat 9:30-12:30) was Raptor Encounter.

I shooed the family out of 3 Broomsticks at 12:15am and we were the last group they let in the queue. And there was enough of a gap from the previous party my family had no idea what to expect. :joy:

Family, meet Blue!

Then we worked our way back for one final ride on the Hogwarts Express, casting a few more spells on the way…,


It was a final scamper to MIB and ET before they closed…

And then we were the final customers at Duff’s for squishies and buzz cola.

So. Far. Back. To. The. Car. :sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

Rolled into the room just before 2:30am.

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Love it! Fantastic report.

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Strategically placed resort day! :sleeping:

Felt glorious to sleep in, shower, and…NOT PUT ON SUNSCREEN! :laughing:

11:15am brunch reservations…



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Irish Coffee with some caramel drizzle :heart_eyes:

She likes a little cappuccino with her sugar… :laughing:

The music started at noon…

And then unexpectedly, the banjo player joined the Irish dancer in a duel!

Video of the finale here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EpRFaaRO8PzvLwl5N_w3bkQi2YzRg3wO/view?usp=drivesdk

We had one of the best tables in the house!

Note: Some Disney Springs restaurants let you make reservations more than 60+10 days out, and some are on Open Table. IIRC, I had to call since we had >6, and they set it up in Open Table. I have no idea if any of that impacted what table we got. I intentionally started our brunch prior to the music so if needed, I could bolt if my headache wasn’t playing nice with the noise level. It was manageable and we all enjoyed it, but I probably couldn’t have tolerated it easily for the whole meal.

Their non-Disney website has more info about entertainment and such, but didn’t quite answer all my questions so I called them in April and they told me this:
Brunch Sat 11-3 and Sun 10-3; Music 12-3:45pm

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Then there was lounging and napping (and the omnipresent laundry while I tried to catch up here).

Which brings us to this. Because 2020.1 :laughing: #notacondiment

Anyone cringing again??? :joy:

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Just sent DM the link to this trip report. Hope I haven’t said anything too negative about her! :joy:

:heart: you, Mom! So glad to have you on this trip with us!

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I read the whole report and NO negative comments!!! It was nice to see everyone there and helping w/ the wheel chair :wink:

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It’s mainly been DS16. But he’s an athlete so it’s at least a useful workout for him! But he’s taken it on with pretty much zero complaint.

I think it’s been a wash on the wheelchair slowing us down because of the times they’ve scooted us ahead.

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Well, and she was awesome to stay behind one day to keep an eye on the one recovering from food poisoning too; amazingly kind!!! Good grandma move :kissing_heart:

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For the table:




DD20:




DS16: (:no_entry_sign: :sushi: :sweat_smile:)



No, we didn’t ask what a chili bomb is. I would have been all over whatever it is though…

DS11s:


Eel, shrimp, and a whole lot of salmon. Server “They’ll eat eel?!? I’m impressed!” :laughing:. And yes, I carry fun chops.

DM:


DH:






DH said if you like uni, it was pretty amazing and worth every penny.

Mine :heart_eyes:


I did not upgrade to the A5. With all that other stuff going on, I’m not sure the difference could be that discernible.

2 locations. Sand Lake location on Turkey Lake Road is closer to Disney.

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Not gonna lie, my tummy did a little flip when I saw the sushi again. :joy:

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