Friday, 10/18
I slept terribly, not falling asleep until almost 2am, which ended up being a bit of a trend. I live alone and with a fan on, so it just ended up being a mixture of too quiet, where I could hear every little noise, and also far too loud thanks to snoring and sharing a small camper living room space with three adults on air mattresses! I was up around 4:45 to get ready for the day, luckily with the excitement of HS to get me going. One of the things I loved about FW at this time of year was all of the decorations around the campground. This is a terrible picture, but was one of the campsites I passed on the way to the bathroom at 5am all decorated for Halloween to give you an idea!
I should mention that while I had a 3-day park hopper, everyone else in the group has AP and also have another family trip planned the week of Thanksgiving. This was the root of any “conflict” for the week since I wanted to do as much as possible and go RD to close, while the rest of the group was more inclined to take things slowly and leave the parks early/not get there early enough to truly RD. So, our plan for HS was to leave at 5:20 to arrive at 5:45. We ran a little late, but were driving over instead of using the buses, so that at least meant we didn’t have to worry about the bus schedule. We were parking around 5:50am (no one at the parking gates to check if we were resort guests at that time) and were in the first row of cars, but at the end of the row. We got up to the gates and through security quickly. They scanned one member in our party to confirm we were resort guests and then the rest of us scanned into the actual park at 6am.
Hollywood Blvd was pretty clear and there weren’t a ton of people milling about. I was worried that since we had missed the actual RD, we should adjust our plan. TP said SDD was a 45 min wait already, which made me nervous! But we decided to stick with it and head to TSL first. We got to the entrance of TSL at 6:06 and grabbed a group picture in front of the sign. At 6:07 we were in line for SDD and had just a 10-minute wait, so glad I didn’t pay too much attention to the TP expected wait that early in the morning. We headed over to A$S and just had to wait for the current ride group to finish before boarding. By 6:30 we were in line for TSMM with a 5-minute wait. Off the ride and theoretically done with TSL by 6:45 in the morning! And didn’t have to arrive well before RD to make it happen!
By this time, Mike’s family was starting to understand why he and I had pushed them to get up early and take advantage of the EEMH. This was another trend of the trip. Mike and I are big Disney blog readers and generally are in the know about strategies and what is going on thanks to websites like this (although he isn’t yet a TP member!). His family thought we were a little crazy, but so often our research paid off and by the end I was giving his aunts pointers for getting FP for their own trips later this year.
Mike’s aunts had arrived at the park a few minutes after us and were still waiting in line for TSMM at this point, so Mike and I decided to ride again (plus he thought he could beat my score). Slightly longer line this time but we were done with the ride at 7:03 (and I retained my title of highest score) and heading down Sunset Blvd. We hit RnRC with a 3 min wait and ToT with a 9-minute wait and were done with that by 7:40. Back across the park for the real star of the show…Batuu!
We had Oga’s reservations at 8:55, so needed to hop straight into the MF line to make sure we were done in time to get to those reservations. Planned to explore more after. We were in line at 7:50 and had a 43 min wait (60 min posted). Only 6 of us were riding, and I took a gunner spot. The ride was a ton of fun, although I accidentally pushed a button at the beginning because it was flashing and put it on auto-aim, which I wish I hadn’t just to make it a little more difficult and engaging. There were a ton of buttons to hit during the ride, both for the purpose of points, and just to pretend like I was part of the crew! Mike and his dad did a generally good job piloting us, so not terribly rough and overall, I think it was worth that 45 min wait range. It was cool to be in the Falcon, even as someone who loves the Force Awakens and generally thinks the first 6 are overly campy.
We were off just in time to get over to Oga’s at 8:50am. They were accepting walk ups as well as the reservations, but we did have to wait a couple of minutes to go in. They warned all the guests that 90% of it is standing room, but we were lucky enough to get one of the booths. We had 7 people in a 9-person booth and the hostess told us to all squeeze to one side because others would be joining us which felt a bit awkward. When no one else had come in 5 minutes or so we stretched out. The waitress came over and got our drink orders. We tried 3 alcoholic drinks and several of the non-alcoholic ones as well as the breakfast food items. My drink, the Bespin Fizz was delicious and fun with the dry ice vibration and smoke. Mike had the Fuzzy Tauntaun and the whole group tried a sip to experience the numbing foam. Was weird but fun! The Mustafarian Lava Roll was basically a cinnamon roll and was a good accompaniment with alcohol considering it was 9am. Generally, service is a bit slow, so even though there is a 3 drink max in the 45 min time slot, you’d really have to be telling your waiter/waitress up front that you wanted to try that many to have a shot at pacing it well. We did have a couple join us at our booth while we were waiting for checks, but since we were leaving in just a few minutes it wasn’t a huge inconvenience. Upon exiting Oga’s we spent a bit exploring the Outpost and picked up a Ronto Roaster wrap to try (fancy hotdog on a pita bun, but tasty and fun).
We were heading out a bit before 10:15, so decided to slide into the 10:30 Frozen sing a long, since it was a favorite of Mike’s mom, and I had never seen it.
We decided this was all our must-do items at HS for today, so walked back out of the park and were on the boat to HS at 11:25am. We had finished up all the rides (except ST) by 8:50am, so could easily have done it all before the RD crowds arrived if not for our Oga’s reservations and wanting to walk around GE a bit. The EEMH are such a nice perk and getting more than an hour makes a huge difference in what you can accomplish. I will be sad to see those go away!
We took the boat and got off at YC/BC at 11:37 and walked over to the IG. We would have taken the Skyliner, but it wasn’t starting until 1pm this day. Walking may have been faster, but it was nice to be off our feet for a little bit, and I did convince the group to get off one stop early at least.
Next up was Epcot! We walked through the IG and stumbled upon M&G for Mickey, Minnie and Goofy. The lines were all pretty short, so we waited to meet Mickey and got some fantastic pictures. I don’t know what it is about the non-face characters, but since they can’t talk, I always feel like I also have to make hand motions instead of speaking to them as well which is silly.
I had originally made our FP reservations for HS, but we didn’t realize we were going to be able to accomplish everything so early, so I switched them over to Epcot. Was able to get a FP for Soarin for us at 12:55, so we took our time walking through F&W and getting some lunch on our way up there. We hit the Cider tent (Beer Flight and Charcuterie board), Canada (Cheese and Bacon Soup), Refreshment Port (Duck Confit Poutine), Wine and Dine Studio (Butternut Squash Ravioli), Cheese Studio (Maple Bourbon Cheesecake), Coastal Eats (Shrimp/Scallop Dip, Lump Crab Cake and Bass Tostada) and Active Eats (Salmon). We each kept a fork and got to sample everyone else’s purchases which worked well, although 7 people is a little bit much to share across. Everything I tried was great, but I think my personal favorite was the soup. Luckily it was only about 80 degrees and cloudy today, so hot soup wasn’t quite as much of a burden.
We had a 13 min wait for Soarin with the FP (didn’t wait for B1) before hitting up more of the F&W booths. We did Flavors from Fire (Steakhouse Burger and Smoked Corn Beef), Shimmering Sips (Tropical Mimosa) and Thailand (Shrimp and Cold Noodle Salad). The mimosa was the only thing I personally enjoyed from this bunch, but the rest of the group found everything tasty. The Cold Noodle Salad was a bit polarizing as some, like me, found the texture and temperature of the noodle dish off putting. Mike was a big fan though.
The margaritas from La Cava were favorites of ours when we drank around the world for my birthday in May, so that was our next stop. Mike’s sister, Mike and I stayed to wait in line while the rest of his family continued to Germany to sit and rest there. The line has always been long there when I’ve gone, but always worth it. I went with the Passion Fruit Margarita this time and it didn’t disappoint. We continued around the WS to meet the rest of the group in Germany. I had wanted to try the Apple Strudel there, but the line was very long so I skipped it. In general, it wasn’t too busy (Friday afternoon), and most booths had very reasonable lines, if any, at the registers. I did notice a trend that several of the booths with registers on both sides would have lines on one side and not the other, so its worth doublechecking as you go! I got the Hanson Mmmhops beer at Fife and Drum at the America Pavilion, to cheers to my first concert as well as Pao de Queijo from the Brazil booth. Mike got a Grey Goose slush at France, but we were all a little full on food for a bit. We continued to the UK to check out the 4:30 British Invasion show, which is a favorite.
While waiting for it to start I grabbed a Smithwick’s from Rose and Crown, since it is a beer that is impossible for me to pass up when available on draft. We sat on the curb in the garden waiting for the show to start and talked about what we should do next. Our plan had been to stay at Epcot for Epcot Forever, but since the “real adults” in the group never left to take the nap they had originally planned on, they were going to call it a day after the show. I said I would stay out solo, but I wasn’t ready to throw away all those park hours by going back to the resort yet. Mike and his sister decided to stay out too. We knew we wanted to spend the majority of Saturday at MK, and the morning at AK, so we figured we would head over to AK tonight as well to knock out some of the things the whole group wasn’t interested in.
So, while waiting for British Invasion, I turned to MDE to get us some FP. This is when the magic happened. It’s Tough to Be a Bug was down…so I quickly grabbed 5 FP (for me, Mike, his sister and his parents) that converted to anytime. And then I did that 5 more times. And then also got FoP for the three of us (me, Mike and his sister) at the 5:01 drop. We also never used our 3rd FP of the day, so I grabbed one for Dinosaur for the three of us. It was about to be an epic night in AK.
We walked up to the buses and got one to AK pretty quickly. We were walking in at 5:30pm and used our Dino FP with a 10 min wait. Next up was the FoP FP at 6:20 with a 22 min wait including a preshow that lasted longer than normal, must have been some delay in the process. We were off just before 7 and it had started to mist a bit. We walked from FoP all the way through Africa looking for something to grab for dinner, and everything was either closed or just not sounding like it was what we wanted. Ended up all the way around the park at Restarauntosaurus where we got chicken nuggets. It actually hit the spot perfectly and we got to take advantage of the free fountain drink refills for a bit. By 7:40 we were at EE and using our first anytime FP at 7:40. Everest is tied for my favorite coaster with Space, and it was also cool to ride and look over and see RoL going on. After the first ride, we decided to hop into the SR line and were able to ride 3 more times, each with less than a 5 min wait. We had planned to check out RoL for the later show, but at this point the mist had turned into a drizzle and we didn’t want to sit in the rain, so we decided to call it a night around 8:15. We went back up to the front and I stopped at Guest Relations, since we still had 5 more anytime FP left. They were able to transfer all of them (5 each for 5 people) to be good for Saturday at either AK or MK. Hopped on the bus and got over to FW. The internal bus for FW took forever, so was back in the room around 9:30. Showers felt incredible after almost 15 hours in the parks and on our feet, and it was shortly afterwards we all hit the hay, aiming to be at AK at 8am tomorrow.
29,861 steps
13.2 miles
15 attractions
3 FP used
Thanks for report. I always enjoy reading.
