Trip Report - 10 days, 4 lightsabers, and too many Mickey Bars to count

It’s basically - imagine a circle surrounded by four rings, with the outside two on a lower level. The innermost ring is a walkway, the second ring is a row of tables, then there’s a low wall, the third ring is more tables, and the fourth ring is another walkway. So the outside two rings look down into Living with the Land and you can see it all as you rotate, whereas the inner two rings have much less view and you mostly just see the low wall.

We really loved Beach Club! We also rented points, and it was great. When we go again it will be a toss-up between the Poly, which just looks so beautiful, and Beach Club - Stormalong Bay was great, I loved being able to walk along the boardwalk and go to Boardwalk Bakery or Ample Hills, and you can’t beat being able to walk to Epcot and HS.

We are trying to rent points but were told it’s even hard at 11m out. We rented points for Poly. I loved it, you can hop over to GF, Contemporary or MK super easily, the food is good, it SMELLS amazing… plus, you have separated bathroom space which is hard to beat! (we used the shower only room as my DD’s baby cave, it fit the pack n play perfectly!)

Loving your trip report! Makes me feel like I’m there :slight_smile:

Day 4 – Rest/Disney Springs

Finally, a morning where we didn’t have to set an alarm! The boys slept until the gloriously late hour of 6:30am. At this point in the trip I was still trying to conserve QS credits so we lounged around, ate some food in our room (we’d brought a few things, and gotten an Amazon Prime Now order on our first day), and then headed out to supplement that with some snacks and explore the resort.

First, though, we had to help a friend. I’d made a friend on another posting board and we’d been messaging back and forth through all the planning – she gave me a heads-up when Millennium Falcon FPPs became available, and again when MMRR ones went up – and I’d offered to help her family try to get boarding groups, so at 7:59am my husband and I were logged into her account and poised to try out the skills we’d been working on. Several of the most tense seconds of my life later, I got the notification that they’d been added to BG11! It was a huge rush to finally be able to get all the way through the process and see the results, and gave me a little bit of comfort for my own try the next day.

Sitting outside in the morning sun, drinking tea and eating a croissant, was a really luxurious vacation-y feeling, even if I was wearing a sweatshirt. The kids were anxious to go in the pool but it was, like, 8:30am, so they had a while to wait. We wandered the grounds a little bit, looked out over the (empty) savannah, played the game where you throw the beanbags through the hole, and finally out of desperation decided to walk over to Kidani and check out the pool there. The boys were very taken with the Kidani pool, and by that point it was 9:30, so we figured by the time we walked back to Jambo, got changed, and walked BACK to Kidani it would be after 10 and the pool would be open, which it was. Pretty chilly, especially when you weren’t in the sun, but I Facetimed my parents and my mom had to call my dad in from shoveling the 20cm snow they’d gotten, which put things into perspective.

We spent the next few hours going between the pool and the hot tub – the splash pad was so shaded it really wasn’t an option given the chill. We split a Mickey pretzel with cheese from the Uzima Springs pool bar, and then split a second one when the kids liked it more than we’d expected.

Around 2 (Mickey pretzels count as lunch, right?) we headed back to the room to clean up, get dressed, and catch a bus to Disney Springs. W fell asleep on the bus (this kid and buses!) so we walked around for a few minutes, stopped at Amorette’s for a fancy dessert, a wine slush, and a Mickey brownie for B, before letting him pick where we went next – obviously, he picked the Star Wars store.

I carried W around the store trying unsuccessfully to wake him up while B was irresistibly drawn to the Build Your Own Lightsaber station – he put together some crazy contraption. Once we got outside we realized that W was probably going to be devastated if he didn’t also get a lightsaber (he’s VERY into a “I want the same as my brother” stage) so we managed to rouse him and headed back in to make a second one.

From there we wandered a bit, ducked into the World of Disney where I shockingly wasn’t able to find anything I wanted to buy, the Lego store (W asked if he could spend all his money on a Lego Millennium Falcon but I talked him down to a $15 Speeder set), the Marvel store (+1 Captain America shield and an Iron Man action figure – we really gave them too much budget), and then headed over to Raglan Road to check in for our reservation. We were about 15 minutes early but asked to sit in the main room so they said it might be a bit of a wait, and it was – it was almost 6:30 before our thing buzzed, but we had a great table with a clear view of the stage. The kids LOVED the show, they were fully engrossed, which meant that yet again they didn’t eat a bite of their dinners, which for me is the upside of the dining plan – I feel less like I’m paying a lot of money to throw food directly from the kitchen into the garbage (I know I’m still paying money, probably more money, it just feels different because I’m not at that moment handing over money). Our meals were really good (slow cooked pork and a burger) and the whole evening was super fun – I’d definitely go back.

When we got back to the hotel I took the kids back to wrestle their limp bodies into jammies while my husband went to the front desk, because the fastpasses hadn’t been switched and we wanted to follow up. The upshot was that they couldn’t actually do it at the hotel, we’d have to ask at Hollywood Studios, but at some point during the conversation the cast member gave us three more multi-park anytime fastpasses good for the next week, bringing our total to six (we’d gotten some way before our trip for a dining reservation snafu) in addition to all the HS-specific ones we had.

The next day was scheduled to be a big one – our own HS day, hopefully BGs for Rise, FPPs for Millennium Falcon, hopefully our first ride on Slinky Dog, and the Star Wars dessert party to celebrate W’s fourth birthday. It was the day I was most excited about, and I went to bed a little nervous, hoping it would live up to my hopes.

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Day 5 – Hollywood Studios

I had been so excited about this day. The boys had been getting increasingly into Star Wars lately, and I’d been pretty obsessed with the opening of Galaxy’s Edge, following along with Rise and the boarding groups developments, practicing boarding groups, etc. Plus W’s birthday is mid-March and when I gave him the option of a party or a family thing he picked family thing, so we’d booked the Star Wars dessert party (although when I booked it I didn’t realize the Star Wars fireworks were so late!), and we had reservations at Droid Depot and Oga’s Cantina, plus a bunch of anytimes from the whole HS IT meltdown thing. I had high high hopes for this day. But first we had to get there.

I’d seen crowds at the HS bus stop on the previous days so I wanted to be there before 7 – luckily I woke up at 5am stressing about boarding groups (I seriously had so much anxiety over boarding groups, I was almost getting physically ill. My sweet friend who I’d helped the day before had her whole family set to help us in return, which helped, but I was very very stressed about it) so it was pretty easy to get all set to go, wake up the kids, and head down. We caught the first bus over, I remembered to stay to the right, and we headed towards Jedi training signup, looking longingly at the Trolley Car Café – I badly wanted a chai latte but not badly enough to wait in that line. I’d heard that it had gotten a lot easier to sign up for Jedi training so I was surprised when we got there to find a line, but it moved pretty consistently, as the clock moved towards 8. At 7:55 we were a few people back and I was starting to wonder how they’d handle boarding groups – would they stop asking us questions for 90 seconds while we stared anxiously at the ticking second hand? We cut it right to the wire – it was 7:57 when we started talking to the cast members, just after 7:59 when we got the receipt showing we’d signed him up, pushed the stroller out of that little alcove, and asked to kids to give us “literally one minute”.

7:59:55, I started counting to 5, opened up the app, when the time clicked to 8 it was find out more, my status, join boarding group, unselect the one person not with us, continue, BOARDING GROUP FOUR! I was so thrilled but the comedown from the adrenaline was pretty severe – I was honestly short of breath, my hands were shaking, my whole body was freezing, it was unreal. I need to get a handle on that.

We had thought about heading into TSL and going on a ride “before lines got crazy” – when we got to the entrance they hadn’t actually opened it yet, and the website said TSMM lines were 5 minutes, but by the time they opened Toy Story Land and we got through it said it was 45 minutes so we decided to just continue on to Galaxy’s Edge. We got almost down to Alien Swirling Sauces when a cast member was announcing that the entrance to SW:GE wasn’t open that way (why put somebody that far down? Put them at the front of TSL!) so we doubled back and by the time we got over to Galaxy’s Edge our group had been called.

When we found Rise I was initially worried, because there was a big crowd of people around the entrance, but they were all just waiting for their groups to be called so we worked our way through them, talked to the Rider Swap people, and then my husband and W headed off for a Ronto Wrap while B and I headed in. Another ride with an incredibly long walk through the queue! But the actual ride was a walk-on and before long we were stepping into the experience which, I thought, was incredible. So many different aspects! So immersive! The cast members were so in character! The only problem, it turned out, was that it was too immersive for B, and I didn’t realize it. When we walked into the room with all the Stormtroopers he said quietly to me “Are they going to shoot us?” and I kind of laughed and assured him that they wouldn’t, but I didn’t realize how serious he was, and then they (tiny spoiler alert) spend the rest of the ride shooting at us, and he thought they were actually shooting, and as soon as we got off the ride he said “That was SO SCARY! I’m not doing that again!” and I had to explain that none of it was real, and in retrospect I feel really bad for not assuring him BEFORE we got on that it was all pretend.

Anyway, even knowing it wasn’t real there was no way he was getting back on, so while my husband went on I took the boys to wander the very crowded marketplace, check out the Millennium Falcon where W was very very excited to tell me he’d earlier seen some Stormtroopers patrolling, and order a ronto wrap of my own (plus a Surly Sarlacc, which was delicious, because sure, it was 9am, but when my credit comes with a drink I’m drinking a drink!), and then we just hung out by the roaster eating until my husband rejoined us.

At that point we split up – he and W headed to use their FPP for Alien Swirling Saucers while B and I went to use ours on Star Tours. I’d been excited about doing this with him because last year he did it with his dad and it was his favourite ride, and he’d talked about it all year, but ugh, it made me so motion sick! That probably wasn’t helped by the Surly Sarlacc I’d downed quickly before getting on the ride.

We then had to hurry back across the park to the Droid Depot – my husband and W had gotten there just before we got on Star Tours so they’d gone through the line and were waiting for us to join them to start building, so we were able to roll in and get to work right away. The conveyor belt with all the pieces going by is so cool, the whole experience was super fun for the kids (and the adults!). The kids both chose R2 units (although W was disappointed to not be able to build a “CPPO”), to my relief, because I foresaw them getting super frustrated with the heads falling off the BBs. The activity went really quickly and before we knew it the droids were activated and we were across the way, driving them around in the little play area.

And just as quickly I was back in the store buying backpacks, because I lack impulse control and they looked so cute with their little heads poking out. We played droids for a little bit, I went back into the store a third time to buy a Droid Depot hat because for the first time on our trip it was starting to really get warm, and then we headed off (with much moaning from B, who just wanted to play with the droid – note for future planners, add some play time into your plan!) for our Millennium Falcon FPP.

Millennium Falcon was – fine. We got paired with either a mother/son or two friends pair, they were the pilots, my husband and B were the “shooting team”, and W and I were the “fixing team”. I can see how the ride would be more fun if you were the pilots. It made me pretty motion sick again, plus W was really scared, so I was sort of pressing buttons, sort of assuring him that it was ok, sort of trying not to throw up, I probably didn’t get to really appreciate it all. It didn’t help that one of our pilots was very bad, and also kept screaming – like, fully loudly shrieking, which was pretty unpleasant in a small capsule and didn’t help how scared my baby was or my headache. We left, husband and B pretty enthused, W and I vowing that we would never go on that again, which handily solved our “we have FPPs for two people to ride MFSR” problem.

From there B wanted to go drive his droid some more so we did that for a few minutes before going to check into Oga’s. There was a lineup to get in, B was whiny, and I seriously considered just checking in and then saying we didn’t want to wait to avoid the no-show charge but they said it would be about 10 minutes, Kylo Ren descended from his ship so the boys were watching that, and we really wanted to check it out, so we waited it out and went in. We were given space at the low bar, the grumpy kids refused to order anything, so we had a quick look around, ordered two drinks to go (I got the Jedi Mind Trick, which I really liked – it wasn’t too sweet, nice and refreshing, can’t remember what my husband got) and we headed back out.

Next we headed into Toy Story Land to use some anytimes on Toy Story Midway Mania and, as W called it, “Alien Sausage”, and then mobile-ordered some lunch from Woody’s – thank God for grilled cheese sandwiches, something my kids will almost certainly eat! (and, I suspect, a lot of other kids – a woman walking by asked me where I’d gotten it in a tone of near-desperation).

From there it was time to head over to check in for Jedi training. My husband took B while W and I staked out spots way too early, and ended up watching the last half of the previous group. After a while the next group of younglings came marching towards us, led by B in Jedi robes, holding the sign! He’s generally not interested in volunteering for things or being the centre of attention so this was exciting to see. The show began, B fought Kylo Ren, it was all very adorable. When we reunited with B he was so proud of himself. My husband asked what he’d been thinking as he faced him and he said “I was thinking he was going to kill me!” We need to work on establishing real vs. imagination.

It was getting really hot, and we had hopes that if we put W on a bus he might fall asleep and be more likely to stay up to the fireworks, so we proposed heading back to the hotel for a pool break and the kids were all over it (this also meant that we could drop the droids off, because they took up a lot of room in the stroller). We /just/ missed a bus, though, and didn’t want to wait, so we decided to finally pull a trigger and call a Minnie Van – we’d thought about it a few times previously but had been put off by the price, but we didn’t want to spend an hour in transit.

No naps but some pool time and some cooling down, and we got back to the park around 5. The first order of business was talking to a Guest Experience person about the two sets of Slinky Dog anytimes – we explained the situation and he happily added two more FPPs for the other half of the family! We headed off to Slinky Dog, with the boys super excited – we hadn’t done it on our last visit, and as the dominating feature of TSL it’s hard to overlook.

Slinky Dog is SO FUN! The boys just shrieked and giggled through the whole thing. It’s so cute and thrilling, and not super short – just totally delightful. From there we did TSMM and AS2 with anytimes, and then it was about 7 so we headed over to check in for the Star Wars Dessert party.

The space was easily identifiable, with a sign and a few staff members standing around. We approached the counter, and the ladies gave each other a meaningful look, and then one of them said to me “How are your kids with Stormtroopers – would they be scared of them? What about lightsabers, would they be willing to hold them?” I said yes, they absolutely would, and they told us we would be their Family of the Day – they gave us a certificate and said that when it was time to walk over to the fireworks spot they’d come find the boys, lend them some lightsabers, and they, along with the Stormtroopers, would lead the group over to the viewing area. They then gave us our lanyards and told us that we were a bit early for the dessert but that we could check out the Launch Bay, skip the line to see Darth Vader, and to check back in about 15 minutes.

We did a bit of wandering through the “museum”, took a few photos, lined up to see Chewie (I hate those photo boxes! Not a single photo of B hugging Chewie), popped in to reject Darth Vader’s pitch that we join the dark side, and then headed into the dessert party, which was…pretty deserted (you see what I did there? J) There were only a few people wandering around! Despite that, when they told us our table assignment, there was already somebody sitting there, so they just gave us a different number, we dumped our stuff, and hit the buffet. The kids took a few minutes to really understand that we were telling them that they could try whatever they wanted, they didn’t have to just pick one thing, so they grabbed a few things – some pretty domes, a delicious looking cupcake, B tried the everything bread pudding, and I took W to check out the frozen Nutella – the cast member manning the dry ice also pulled out two Mickey bars for them. We got them settled at the table and then my husband and I took a pass through the savoury section, since we hadn’t had dinner – there were actually less options than I’d expected, it was more along the lines of “crudites at an Italian wedding” (marinated mozzarella balls, prosciutto, etc) but it was pretty good, and not having too much of it left more stomach space for dessert. Some personal favourites – the chocolate peanut butter cupcake, the raspberry mousse domes, and the flash frozen Nutella balls with raspberry sauce.

The room continued to be very very empty – at the fireworks, somebody told us that somehow their system had screwed up so they’d only sold, like, 40 tickets instead of their usual 300, which I could totally believe. This meant that my boys got a LOT of attention from the Stormtroopers – seemed like they were stopping by to chat with them every few minutes. W, my character hating little buddy, warmed up to them and was chatting their ear off. His three year old babble is sometimes hard for non-family to understand, and they’re limited to their pre-recorded sayings, so there was a lot of “Affirmative, citizen!” but he seemed to be loving it.

Around 8:15 a cast member came by to bring the boys lightsabers, and then introduced them to the group as the leaders of the parade, and we headed outside, met up with the Stormtroopers (who walk fast! I ended up having to pick up W so he could keep up) and headed over to the fireworks viewing area, which was a great space, a big open area lined by a concrete curb, raised up from where everybody else was standing. The minimal tickets sold meant that basically everybody was able to sit on the curb with nobody in front of us. W cuddled up in my lap – a bad sign, considering that we were already an hour past his bedtime – and they announced the Animation show. It was fine – actually more impressive than I’d expected, given that this was basically the third tier fireworks show – but once it was done I realized there was still 20 minutes until the actual show, which was a little frustrating for the kids especially, who were starting to get tired and grumpy. Time ticked by – getting closer, almost there – W fell asleep in my lap at about 8:56 and no amount of talking to him or tickling him was going to wake him back up. SO CLOSE! We had promised him that if this happened we’d video the fireworks for him to watch later, so we did that, and B really enjoyed the show.

After that, I realized that it was evening EMH. Despite building a lightsaber the day before at Disney Springs B was desperate for one of the non-retractable kind that they’d lent him, and we couldn’t deny that they were cooler than the one he had already, so in the spirit of “It’s your money” we set out to buy one. The giftshop at the Launch Bay had already closed, so we figured that they’d have them in Galaxy’s Edge – actually a stroke of luck, as seeing Galaxy’s Edge at night had been high on my wish list but I figured that we wouldn’t be able to. Poor B was so sleepy, kept dozing off and then waking up going “Are we going to be able to get one? Did you find one yet?” We promised him that we would get him one if at all possible, got his colour choice (and what colour he thought his brother would want), and then he fell asleep assured that we were on the case and we headed into Baatu, stopping frequently to test out the night mode on the new iPhones that @Randall had “talked” us into.

A cast member sent us in the direction of Dok Ondar’s where, sure enough, they were available, so we grabbed a red and a green and took the long way out, taking more photos but hurrying a bit to try to get out before 10pm hit, the place officially closed down, and everybody else was trying to catch the bus as well.

Ultimately this was basically a perfect day, it lived up to and exceeded every one of my hopes. All the planning paid off, and we got Disney Magic at it’s best!

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Sounds like and awesome day at HS and GE!

Sounds like a perfect day!

This is such a fun trip report. Thank you for posting!

I’m really enjoying your trip report; seems like you all had a great trip!

Thanks, everybody, for reading! Writing has slowed down considerably now that I’m trying to do my job from home with B and W wanting my full attention, but the next day is almost done - hopefully tomorrow. It feels insane to think that this was only a few weeks ago, life has changed so much!

What a fun trip report… sounds like a perfect day at DHS!

It feels really weird to be writing this now, and weirder to think that two weeks ago we were at Disney and now I haven’t left my house in five days other than walks around the block. But….carrying on, I guess, is all we can do? It’s nice to relive a trip that suddenly feels like it happened months or years ago.

Also, apologies for the lack of photos in this - when I realized I hadn’t taken any of the boys with their uncles I was really kicking myself!

Day 6 – Rest/Magic Kingdom

Backstory part one: My husband is nominally British – in that he was born in England, and his father, stepmother, and two younger brothers live there. He’s been in Canada since he was 10, and we see his family…I guess I’d say occasionally? His parents every year, but it’s been a few years since we’ve seen his brothers because since W was born his parents come to us instead of us going to them.

Backstory part two: One of my husband’s brothers, S (or “Kip Sabian”), is a wrestler (WWE style, not Olympic style). He’s done it for a long time, he was on the amateur wrestling circuit in England, and then last year got signed to a new American wrestling league, AEW, and he moved to Florida. The other brother, B, had been wanting to visit, and when he realized that we would also be in Florida he planned his trip to coincide with ours. So today, we were going to see the Uncles! W had never met them, and B not since he was about 20 months old.

We followed the usual rest day protocols, “sleeping in” until 6:30, having a leisurely lounge around the room getting ready, and then heading down to the Mara for some snack credit breakfasts (the Mara counts a side of bacon as a snack! Exciting development for my self proclaimed “Bacon Boy”, W). Discovered a ping pong table, so we played that for a while, and then around 9:30 went back up to the room to start getting pool-ready.

We were just about ready when we got a text from S that they’d arrived, so we headed down to the lounge to meet up with them, and there was a lot of hugging, and a lot of shyness from the kids that almost immediately turned nonstop chitchat (W bonded HARD with Uncle B, and spent most of the visit going “And also, did you know that I have a droid? And ALSO, did you know that I have a lightsaber? And ALSO did you know that B fought Kylo Ren?”) We also met S’s new girlfriend, and she seemed lovely. The group of us headed to the pool, staked out some chairs, and spent some time lounging, catching up, and watching the boys show off their “skills” for their uncles.

After a while we ran out of swimming steam so we all got changed and grabbed some lunch from the Mara. We mobile ordered for convenience but it took forever – honestly, more than half an hour. At one point my husband went in to see what was going on and there was literally not a single person in line or waiting for food, but somehow our order still took a few minutes after that – it was weird. Anyway, we ate lunch and then the uncles headed out, planning to show Uncle B his first American mall, but we planned to get together again on Thursday at the Magic Kingdom.

Which was where we were heading now! We had a good afternoon lined up – FPPs for Buzz Lightyear, 7DMT, and Peter Pan, and then dinner at Storybook Dining at Artist Point.

Grabbed a bus, headed over to MK, and realized, as we walked in, that the parade would be starting in just a few minutes, so we staked out a spot for that. It was finally really genuinely warm, and the kids wanted popsicles, so my husband went on a hunt. He returned ten minutes later unsuccessful – turns out popsicles (not Mickey Bars) are hard to come by at the Magic Kingdom, something that I suddenly remembered from our previous trip when W did a flip over the velvet ropes waiting to meet Mickey, cut his lip open, and wanted a popsicle. So they were a bit grumpy, but we got Mickey bars for the adults, and suddenly “I don’t want Mickey bars!” turned into “Can I have another bite of your Mickey bar?” and they ate a significant portion of ours.

Then my husband noticed that there was chocolate smeared all over my white shirt – Mickey bars are good but the chocolate breaks off so easily! So I was a total mess. The parade was a few minutes from starting, so I figured I could head across the street to the shops, grab a new shirt, and be back in time to see the latter half. I headed out to do that, tried on a few shirts as I could hear the parade starting, picked one, paid for it, put it on, and headed back out to rejoin my family before realizing – I couldn’t get to them. The side street that I thought would remain open was where the parade exited, and I was trapped across the street. I was so disappointed – I really wanted to experience that with them! But I stood across the street mostly watching them watch the parade. Snow White stopped to talk to them! The dragon blew fire right in front of them! They were loving it. I think more than anything else, even the fireworks, the parade is the most Disney thing for me. I also think I said this in my recap of day one.

After the parade we were getting realllllly close to our FPP closing for Buzz, and since we had those anytimes I didn’t want to go into the grace period, so we raced over there to find an enormous line at the FPP entrance. Absolutely enormous. We got in, and when we finally made it up to the front I explained to the cast member the situation, and she said “It’s ok, just tap in” and I said “Ok, but if we tap in won’t it use our anytimes?” and she said “Yes, it will, but you can just go to guest experience and explain and they’ll add them back in.” That wasn’t my ideal outcome, as I didn’t want to wait in the guest experience line, but…whatever. We tapped in, rode Buzz, got out, went over to Guest Experience. At this point I saw the message that 7DMT was down (possibly explaining why all the other lines seemed so long, cough Buzz cough) and that FPP was now an anytime. Spent 15 minutes in line waiting there – I’m not a patient person and I hate having my plans changed or thrown off, and I was starting to fume as they walked people through getting paper FPPs, etc (I’m fully aware this is their job, I wasn’t mad at them, I was mad at all the DUMB people asking DUMB questions and being SLOW – I said I wasn’t patient! Customer service is not my calling) but I finally got to the front and got that sorted.

Then we had to figure out what we were going to do instead of 7DMT! Unfortunately, nothing really appealed to anybody. W was on board for the jungle cruise, but I was also starting to get worried that our last FPP time (4:50-5:50) wasn’t leaving us a lot of time to ride, get to the boats, get across to Wilderness Lodge, and find the restaurant before our 6pm reservation. We settled on Barnstormer, although it really really REALLY pained me to use a 7DMT FPP on Barnstormer. We headed over that way, passing a place that sold popsicles – Don’t worry, kids, we’ll come back! – and rode Barnstormer. My kids’ reaction – “That was IT? It was so short! And so bumpy!” You’re not wrong, buddies.

Now we’re in a rush. We head back towards Peter Pan – the line at the popsicle cart is suddenly huge, “We’ll get something else! Come on!” and tap into Peter Pan. The kids are hot and thirsty and hungry and whiny. I decide I’ll get out of line and go find them something to eat so when they get off the ride I’ll be waiting with a drink and snack, they can hop in the stroller and enjoy that, and we can head towards the front gates.

So I got out of line. I didn’t know how long I’d have, so I was reluctant to head all the way back to the popsicle cart – looking around, I spotted Storybook Treats and headed over there, ordering a Peter Pan float and a lime Dole Whip. I get them. It’s hot. They start to melt. As the ice cream in the float melts into the cup, it overflows onto my hands. I head back to the front of Peter Pan, realize I don’t know where the exit is. It’s just after 5 and I’m starting to get worried. I realize that with my hands full of ice cream, I can’t text my husband to find out where he is. I set the cups down on a trash can and text – they’re on the ride. I put my phone away and go to pick my treats back up and only the float is there – WTF? I look around and realize the Dole Whip has slid off the trash can and is in a rapidly melting puddle on the ground. I move away from the sticky mess marring the Magic Kingdom’s pristine streets so nobody connects me with the puddle. There is sprite all over my hands. I don’t know where my family is going to turn up. The kids think that carbonated drinks are “spicy” and they’re probably going to hate the thing I have to give them.

Sigh. I got a little overwhelmed and meltdowny. But anyway, somehow my husband turned up, we put the kids in the stroller, and started speedwalking towards the front of the park, with me half-jogging alongside the stroller spoon-feeding the kids ice cream like baby birds. Miraculously, they actually really like the lime dole whip. This seems to have appeased them and my blood pressure starts returning to normal.

We get to the boats, and hop in line. It loads, it loads, we’re the next family, the captain holds up his hand. We’re holding our breath – “How many people?” “Four.” “Ok, we can fit four more, come on.” HOORAY! We’re on a boat and headed for Wilderness Lodge, it’s only 5:30, we’re going to make it! My blood pressure comes back down to whatever it usually is.

It’s a nice boat ride over to Wilderness Lodge. B wanted to know if there are alligators in the lake – the captain says “Nope! Well, I saw one a few months ago, but I reported it right away.” So…yes. B decided when he grows up he is going to be an alligator catcher for Disney World.

Wilderness Lodge is so pretty! All the big trees with the hanging moss, the river with the big rocks, the grand soaring lobby – so so lovely. We check in and about five minutes later are paged, and shown to our table. Our waiter explains how the menu works, and the appetizers show up. I pass all the shrimp over to my husband but compensate by eating all the mushroom soup – I love mushroom soup and this is a good one, although lukewarm. The kids don’t eat their appetizers, as such, but they do have a lot of fun playing with them, and W is eating the honey butter with a….scoop, I guess, that little plastic spreader thing it comes with.

Before long Snow White shows up. B is instantly charmed and throws himself into a hug. W is not having it. Snow White perseveres, though, and spends several minutes at our table trying to warm him up – he finally consents to showing her his colouring placemat and giving her a smile and a high five, but draws the line at a hug.

Shortly after that Dopey shows up, and then Grumpy – finally a character that W’s constant “I don’t want to be in this photo!” face makes sense for! Once we had fun posing with our angriest faces, the line for the Evil Queen looked pretty short so we headed up there. She was a total delight – the faces she made were incredible! And swooping her cape out! What a star, that must be such a fun role.

Once we’d finished our photos our entrees were on the table so we went back to eat. I had ordered the gnocchi, and it was not my favourite – it felt really heavy and stodgy, to borrow a phrase from Paul Hollywood. Everything else was pretty good, though.

After that, dessert, and the Hunter’s Gift from the Queen, which, although I kind of felt like it should have come after the desserts and not at the same time, was very cool. B then wanted to go back up to the Queen to show her that he’d coloured her picture in on her placemat, so we headed back up (and for some reason these are the only Queen photos that show up, I guess I’m going to have to call Disney).

At this point it was about 7:30, and we thought we’d head back over to the Magic Kingdom to see the fireworks. Headed down to the boat dock and turns out we were faaaaarrrrr from the only people who’d had that idea. I heard the people ahead of us say “Let’s grab a boat to the Contemporary and then monorail” so we followed them to the other line, where there was a nearly-full boat already there. The captain called to the family ahead to ask how many people he had, he said four, Captain said come aboard, he and his group started to go, and the Captain said “Woah, hold on, that’s more than four.” The guy said “Well….five. Adults. And two children.” Captain: “Children count as people.” I felt a little like a jerk, but I said “Um….we’re four….” And he waved us on board. Hooray! So we went over to the Contemporary, found our way up to the monorail, went through security, hopped on the monorail….wait a minute, why are we getting further away from the park? Who knew that the monorail only went one way and the Contemporary was the furthest stop from MK? Certainly not me! So the fireworks started while we were making the loop, we watched them out the window, and then decided not to bother going in, just watched the show from outside before heading to the bus. Kind of annoying, but probably for the best – we wouldn’t have been able to get any distance up Main Street anyway, I’m sure, so it’s not like we were going to catch the projections. Once more, both kids fell asleep on me on the bus – personal hygiene was really taking a beating on this trip, but other than the difficulties of wrestling a sleeping child into pyjamas, bedtime was a snap!

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You are hilarious! I love your writing style!

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Day 7 – Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom day! Between being so close, a 9am opening, and no PPO breakfast, it was nice to have another morning where we didn’t have to set an alarm and be at the bus by 7. It was also set to be a nice hot day and the boys were very excited to get to wear what W calls “pank tops” – they’re both obsessed.

We knew that AK had the least to do in terms of rides for the kids – last year we were done around midafternoon – so we stopped to pick up a couple of Lion King scavenger hunt maps, to give them a challenge. What we didn’t anticipate is that they’d want to start IMMEDIATELY, and we had a few other things on the schedule first. Like….rope dropping Russel and Dug, the stars of my ‘tied for first’ favourite Disney movie and my favourite meet from last year. They were, as usual, adorable. W was, as usual, NOT HAVING IT.

After that we grabbed some photos in front of the Tree of Life, some Wilderness Explorer books, some Starbucks (WOO!), and some popsicles (fruit ones! Fruit ones are ok at 9am on vacation!) before heading over to our first FPP, another ride on the Kilimanjaro Safaris.

The FPP lineup for this was amazingly long (but not as long as the standby line, which said 180 minutes!) but moved pretty quickly, and there was minimal whining (the problem with good planning is that the kids start to see a 15 minute wait as an impossibly long line) before we were on a safari truck and headed into the park. This was another great safari, even better than the last one – we got really up close to a lot of animals, giraffes especially – one was so close to the truck I feel like we could have petted it. The cheetahs were elusive but the lions were out and about, even moving!

From there we did the Gorilla Falls exploration trail, working on some more Wilderness Explorer badges. We have a membership to a good zoo so the kids were only medium-interested in the animals (whereas I could watch the gorillas forever!) and they really really really just wanted to go to Harambe and do the scavenger hunt, so we headed over there, only to realize we had NO IDEA what we were even looking for.

Luckily a woman saw us looking totally baffled and gave us some hints about what, exactly, we were trying to find (small statues, generally placed up high) and we set out on a hunt. This was a hit! B loved running ahead and trying to see the statues, W was just excited to be on a quest – it was really fun for all of us. The whole loop took maybe an hour, it let us really stop and look around the area, and it was a nice mission for the kids, B especially, who loves to have a goal.

Next up, we had some FPPs to use – FOP for my husband, and Navi for the rest of us. We swung by FOP, set up the rider swap for me to go next, and then I took the boys over to Navi, stopping for a photopass. We took our time heading over, stopping for a photopass, did Navi, and came out just in time to see some cool musician guys playing on the…instruments? Drums? Setup outside of Navi, so we stopped to watch them, and then my husband texted that he was done, which had shocked me – I’d been prepared for it to take him an hour. So he came to meet us, I placed them a mobile order at Sa’tuli, and then I headed into FOP myself. I’d heard from so many people that this ride was totally incredible but on the other hand, I’d been getting pretty motion sick from rides on this trip, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The line moved pretty quickly – we were about to go into the linkup room or whatever it’s called when the woman ahead of me, finally listening to the announcement that had been playing, said “Wait, fear of heights? I’m afraid of heights! I’m not doing this.” Her partner was flabbergasted – I asked him after and they’d waited two hours in line – but she stepped out. So we went into the room and got linked up with our avatars, climbed aboard our “banshees”, and I lasted about 20 seconds before I had to close my eyes. For the next minute or so I’d venture a peek when things felt like they’d stabilized but even that was way too much for me and I spent 85% of the ride with my eyes squeezed shut, grateful for the cold air blowing in my face because it might have been the only thing preventing me from throwing up.

So, lesson learned. No more simulator rides for me.

Met back up with the family and polished off the remains of the grilled chicken bowl, pointed out to my husband that the drink he was refusing to let the kids taste was actually theirs and he hadn’t picked up the alcoholic one, and chatted with a nice couple sitting at the next table for a few minutes before we got back out into the world. The kids had been agitating to buy something so we stopped into the Pandora giftshop, making sure they did not catch sight of the banshees, and tried, semi-successfully, to talk them out of buying more swords – B added a blue light-up dagger to his arsenal but W chose a tube of little Avatar animal figurines.

We wandered around Pandora a little bit more, and then headed out to use our last FPP for Festival of the Lion King. The girl ahead of us in line entertained W by blowing bubbles for him while B practiced his swordwork, endangering everybody in a 6 foot radius but ultimately only bonking himself in the head. The Festival of the Lion King was reliably awesome, although the tumble monkeys feel like they’re placed too early in the show, as they’re the standout – everything after that feels like a bit of a letdown, especially for kids.

Then we headed over to another meet I was excited about, Chip and Dale in Dinosaur costumes. This one was a bit strange – there was a couple ahead of us who had a set if Dino Chip and Dale stuffed toys, and were loaded up with cameras and video equipment. Dale stole the toys, but when it came time for their actual meet they stood to the side filming and taking pictures of Chip and Dale but not actually interacting with them in any way. For several minutes. It was pretty weird, and Chip and Dale didn’t seem to really know how to react. I don’t know if it threw them off or what, but they felt pretty subdued with us, it was kind of a ‘get in, get photos, get out’ meet.

We then walked past Daisy and B asked if he could meet her too, to show her his sword, so we got in that line – by this point W flatly refused to meet any more characters, so he just hung out in the stroller.

Then we crossed the park to do the Up bird show – it was a little brutal, “jokes”-wise, but the birds were neat – and then back across the park for our dinner reservation at Restaurantosaurus Burgers and Sundaes. I’m not a huge burger fan but these were pretty good, and the sundaes were ridiculously huge – definitely a great use of a quick service credit!

By this point it was getting dark, and I’d wanted to see Pandora after dark, so we headed over there, stopping to watch some projections at the Tree of Life. Pandora was cool but felt like a bit of a letdown after Baatu after dark, so we did a quick walk-through and then headed for the bus.

My touring plan was a total loss this day – I’d thrown out the whole Rafiki planet watch plan pretty early on but I’d also wanted to see the Nemo show, walk the Maharajah Falls trail, and do the dance party, and we didn’t get to any of it! Going back through the day I don’t really know what we actually DID – it doesn’t seem like enough to fill a day – but it was hot and sunny, and it was nice to be able to be a bit leisurely and not rush from place to place checking rides off a list. I do wish we’d seen the Nemo show, we missed it last year too, but I also don’t think the kids would have been into a 40 minute show, so it’s probably for the best.

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Day 8 – Rest/Epcot

Another morning where we didn’t have to rush – we were starting to get spoiled! The plan for this day originally had been a relaxed morning at the pool, then heading to Epcot in the late afternoon for some World Showcase, and dinner at Biergarten. The previous day we had suggested to the kids that maybe we could head to Epcot in the morning for some rides, having seen how much W, in particular, had loved Figment, Living with the Land, and Nemo, then back to the hotel at midday for pool and then World Showcase. They hadn’t shown a ton of interest, so we figure it was off, until about 8:30 when we said “Let’s head down for breakfast” and B said “Wait, I thought we were going on rides?” So we had a quick scramble to pack a backpack, and headed to the bus.

When we walked in the first thing we saw was Goofy doing a meet, and B wanted to meet him, so we lined up for that while my husband hung out with W in the stroller a little ways away. After meeting Goofy he saw Pluto meeting nearby and wanted to do that too, but the line was a little longer and W was getting a little antsy so we told him we’d do it a bit later and headed over to do Living with the Land – the competition to find Hidden Mickeys was getting pretty intense and there was a lot of “I saw that one first!” “But I saw that one LAST TIME!”

Then we stopped in to watch Awesome Planet – it was pretty, but I don’t think I’d do it again, especially with young kids, the part in the middle about how we’re destroying the planet was a little much for them.

This was the first day of the Flower and Garden festival so we then went into the butterfly house. W was medium-interested but got bored quickly but B was fascinated by the butterflies, and desperate for one to land on him, so my husband took W to find more popcorn and ride Figment while B and I stayed, trying to stay still enough to coax a butterfly onto his hand. I was really surprised at his determination here, and how patient he was.

Once he’d had enough we headed out to meet up with the others, who had gotten popcorn and were just running around. W wanted to go on Figment but B flatly refused, so then W changed his mind, and they decided to go shopping. We browsed the gift shop outside Figment but while W wanted to buy EVERYTHING B didn’t find anything that suited him, so he and I headed to Mouse Gears, where I realized I had underestimated how badly people wanted to buy Flower and Garden merch – the store was PACKED. The lines ran the full length of the store. Unfortunately for me, B found a hat he was desperate for, and he said he was willing to wait in the line, so we did – it wasn’t as bad as it seemed like it would be, and at the front he also found some truly disgusting looking rainbow sprinkle Mickey rice Krispie treats and grabbed one for himself and one for his brother (at this point we were losing the ‘use the snack credit’ battle, we needed to use something like 14 a day, so this was welcome). We reunited again with my husband and W where we discovered that W had picked out a cake pop for B at their Starbucks stop – like the sugar-fueled Gift of the Magi!

We were headed back to the bus but the Pluto line was pretty short, so first we made a stop there, and then a second stop at a Spaceship Earth photopass photographer who, when we asked for magic shots, really gave us everything he had – we got Figment! We got the Orange Bird! We got balloons! We got a kaleidoscope of butterflies! (apparently what a flock of butterflies is called. Or else he was messing with us)

From there it was finally pool time, so we spent the next couple of hours in the pool and the hot tub. I had wanted to go back to Epcot around 3 but we spent so much more time than planned at Epcot in the morning and they were having so much fun that it was closer to 5:30 when we finally got back on the bus where W, promptly and unsurprisingly, fell asleep – turns out buses are basically Ambien for that kid. With minimal time we prioritized Les Halles, where I forced myself to use my French skills (I spent six months last year doing full time, eight hours a day five days a week language training) to order a beignet, a macaron, a giant chocolate chip cookie, and the roule lard et fromage. The cast member didn’t switch to English and I got what I wanted, so I consider it a win.

There really wasn’t time for the leisurely wander through the countries that I was hoping for, so we headed over to the shop in Japan, because we knew the kids would love to wander through it. Waking W up was difficult but the presence of so many of his favourite things – Mario! Sonic! Pokemon! – got him up and going, just in time to leave and check into Biergarten.

This had been one of our favourite dinner experiences last year, but this year, while it was still pretty good, I didn’t love it. I think a few things contribute to that – the family we were sitting with were friendly but….something. I don’t even know, they were perfectly nice – a husband, wife, and two teenage girls who spent a lot of the meal buried in their phones – but we just didn’t seem to have much in common to talk about. The food didn’t seem as good as last year, and while last year we were sitting right at the front and the kids could dance and still be close to us this year they would have had to go down a level and so they refused. It was still pretty fun, but having done it twice I think I’d be happy to skip it on our next trip – I preferred Raglan Road for my ‘dinner and a show’ experience.

The kids had not gotten to buy anything on our first trip into the store in Japan because we’d run out of time, so we of course had to go back there (after I made a quick frantic trip back into Biergarten to retrieve my purse!) so that they could buy some things that they could have also bought in our local Toys R Us – a Beyblade and some Pokeballs for B and some Sonic figurines for W. I was feeling kind of down about not getting enough time in the World Showcase and feeling like I was missing out on things I’d wanted to do, so we stopped for a photopass in Morocco and then went over to get some ice cream at Artisan des Glaces, but the line was enormous so, glumly, we decided to just head for the bus.

On the way, though, we walked past the Pineapple Promenade, and I realized they had the Dole Whip with rum that we’d forgotten to get at Animal Kingdom, so we stopped for one of those and one regular, and that really raised my spirits. Never underestimate the magical powers of ice cream and alcohol.

W had wanted a hat like B’s, and his birthday was coming up so I suggested that B could buy him one as his birthday present to his brother, so we then stopped back into Mouse Gear, also picking up a “pank top” for my husband (he wanted one to taunt Uncle S, who we were supposed to see the next day and who is as obsessed with them as my kids) and, just to round out the family look, two for the boys.

After that it was FINALLY time for the bus – we got there just as the fireworks started, and the boys were mad that we hadn’t waited to see them – I felt guilty but I honestly hadn’t thought we’d be out so late! They were too tired to be too upset, though, and before long they were asleep on the bus.

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Day 9 – Magic Kingdom

Up early for another day at the Magic Kingdom!

We had another 8am Be Our Guest reservation, so we were at the bus stop by 7am to catch the first bus over, all decked out in our matching Disney tank tops and excited for a fun day. We had six anytime FPPs that we’d been saving for this day, in addition to the FPPs I’d booked, so we expected this day to be pretty easy. The only disappointment was the news that Haunted Mansion was down indefinitely – we had gone on it the year before and both boys had been TERRIFIED, but B was keen to try it again, so he was a little bummed (but, I think, mostly relieved) to hear that that wouldn’t be an option.

I was in full-out rationing of QS meals at this point so we split two kids orders at BOG, knowing we had a lot of snack credits we could use if we got hungry before our 10:30 Crystal Palace reservation. We were finished about 8:40 and headed out to get in line for Mine Train.

Our previous MK day had also been Early Morning Magic, so we’d gotten in a lineup just around the corner from the Mine Train entrance, and been let in right at 9. On this day, though, there was no lineup, they let us right into the queue – I figured they were going to let us go all the way up to the front and hold us there, so we walked, and walked, and walked, and got to the front, and boarded the train, and we were off! I was pretty excited, figuring we were going to get TWO walk-on rides, so when we got off we ran around, raced through the queue, and went on another trip through the mine (at one point I overheard W telling B “On this ride the dwarfs go deep, deep underground and then they READ SNOW WHITE’S MIND!”) We got off, we looked around, there was still nobody in the park, we raced out the exit and jumped back in line riiiiight before the rope drop crowds descended – three rides in a row! The boys were beside themselves. When we got off we all agreed that even if the wait time hadn’t gone up to 120 minutes that was enough for the time being, and we headed over to the Jungle Cruise.

This was one of very very few rides we rode standby on this trip, and we waited about 20 minutes – not too bad. The kids think Jungle Cruise is amazing because they’re not 100% sure whether or not the animals are real. My husband and I like the bad jokes and, really, it just looks cool! Also it’s a nice chance to relax.

After that we got in line for Aladdin’s Magic Carpets, making sure to avoid the spitting camel. Uncle B and Uncle S were stuck in Denver (Uncle S had had a match there) so we took a photo to send him to make him jealous of all the tank tops, and then rode Aladdin, marveling at the fact that Aloha Isle had a lineup 10 minutes before it even opened – it was already a hot day.

There was one last thing on the list before we headed back towards Main Street for Crystal Palace – our Pirates FPP. I was a little worried about this one, the boys, W especially, had found it scary last time, but this time I went with a “distract him” technique at the beginning (the only scary part, really), keeping his attention focused on the sides of the boat with less stuff happening, and everybody seemed to enjoy it. Obviously, we had to stop to add to our weaponry collection (current count – four lightsabres, two knight-style swords, two pirate swords, and a Pandoran dagger – we were definitely going to get flagged for questioning at customs) before racing over to Crystal Palace.

This was another meal we’d loved last year, and this year we loved it just as much. I have a real fondness for Pooh and his friends, especially Eeyore, B is basically a real life Tigger, and Piglet even got a hug out of W! And the food is good – a mimosa, potato barrels, and puffed French toast are basically all I need to be happy.

Also our waitress was super sweet and when she noticed W’s Happy Birthday button she brought him a card signed by Pooh and his friends and a cupcake, which made his day.

On our first MK day we’d had a FPP to meet Tinkerbell, at W’s request, but then I asked if he was actually going to talk to her and he said no, he wanted to meet her just to look at her but he didn’t want to talk or be in a picture, so I cancelled it, and he was super disappointed, so I’d booked another one, which we did next. And, true to his word, he refused to talk to her – I did make him be in the photo. Another of those terrible camera boxes missed every hug B gave her, as did my husband, who was taking photos with my phone! Sigh.

We then used our last booked FPP of the day on another spin through Buzz Lightyear – my husband and I had won one game each and this was to be the tiebreaker but my gun was broken so I only scored 7000 – I’m not great but I’m definitely better than that! My husband scored almost 300,000 so he definitely would have beaten me, but I’ll never admit that to him.

Then it was back to Mine Train to ride it as many times as our bodies or our anytime FPPs would allow! Which turned out to be two – there’s only so much a human being can take in one day. It was early afternoon, it was hot, and we were all feeling vaguely jostled and sick, so we decided to scrap the rest of the plans for the afternoon and head back to the pool until it was time to head out for Ohana. Tough luck, Tom Sawyer’s Island, another year when we don’t get to visit you - we’re going swimming!

We swam through the afternoon then got changed, hopped a bus to the Magic Kingdom, and right onto a boat to the Polynesian, coming in past the overwater bungalows – they’re so beautiful but I imagine the boats blowing their horns every 20 minutes all day would get a little annoying! Checked into Ohana and before long, they started bringing out food. I love the noodles and the dumplings SO MUCH! I’m not a huge fan of meat in general – I eat it but it’s never my favourite thing – and even though the meat here is pretty good I could skip it and be happy with just the noodles and the dumplings. W, though, loved the beef. B ordered chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese and ate virtually none of either of them.

They announced they were having the coconut races – they hadn’t done this when we’d been there the previous year, so this was a neat surprise. I tried to talk B into participating but he wasn’t having it, then W said he wanted to do it so B said he would do it, then W said he was NOT doing it, but we convinced B to stay in by appealing to his competitive nature (in retrospect, a mistake – these were not actually races, but he was trying to weave through the crowd with his coconut like he was Wayne Gretzky). While I was waiting for him to complete the loop I heard somebody say my name, and it was my internet planning friend! We’d never met in person, just communicated through messenger, so this was very cool – we chatted for a few minutes, met each other’s groups, etc, before heading back to our table to gobble down the bread pudding.

Once dinner was finished we wanted to see the fireworks, but didn’t want to make the mistake we’d made the other day of trying to actually get back to MK, so we headed down to the beach – this had the added bonus of giving B somewhere to do some wind sprints, the kid never stops running. The logistics of getting back to AKL via Disney transport were too daunting so just as the show started we ordered a Minnie Van, hoping it would arrive just as the show finished. It did, but I had underestimated how long it would take us to walk back up to the hotel and through the lobby with the crowds of people, so the driver was a little irritated with us, and I felt bad.

Once we got back to the room and got the kids tucked into their beds we realized how much packing we still had to do – the next day was our last day, but also we had a full day planned at HS, so we needed to be completely ready to go by 7am – so we had a bit of a whirlwind packing time, stuffing swords in wherever we could fit them, debating how much we really needed to take home BOTH puddle jumpers we’d brought, finding a place to dump all our extra snacks so other visitors could benefit from them, etc – it was about 11 when we got to bed, sad that our trip was almost over but excited for one more Hollywood Studios day, plus another visit with the uncles, still to come.

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Day 10 – Hollywood Studios, and travel home

Our last day! A sad thing to wake up to, but at least we were going to pack a lot of fun into the day first.

My husband had been in contact with his brothers, in an attempt to explain to them how boarding groups worked, and how they needed to be IN THE PARK before 8am. Despite knowing they badly wanted to ride Rise, and despite them seeming to understand, the last message we had from them was “Great, we should be there around 9:30, see you then!” So….that wasn’t going to work.

We had brought last year’s magic bands, following a packing tip we’d seen to have extras in case any got lost, to simplify changing them around, etc, so since B was definitely not going back on Rise and I didn’t want to mess around with rider swap again, we figured we’d get there by 8, get the four of us into a boarding group, and then Uncle B, Uncle S, my husband, and Uncle S’s girlfriend could use our spare magic bands to ride. It’s a plan!

You may also remember the story I told on day one about the stroller rental company – a reminder that what we’d settled on was they’d put us in the 7-7:30 timeslot but try to make us the first stop.

So we headed downstairs to leave our stuff with bell services and decided to ask if they’d be willing to hold the stroller for pickup. They asked us the name of the company, we told them, and they said ok. So…great! We headed out to the bus stop.

While waiting at the bus stop, I texted the stroller company to let them know that the stroller was at bell services. They replied that that would certainly be a problem, bell services was going to treat the stroller as abandoned property., and that “we agreed on a 2pm-3pm pickup time”. I reminded them that no we certainly had not, and sent them a screenshot of the conversation, but they continued to insist that that conversation had happened earlier and I had, after that, agreed with the driver to the 2pm slot, but that they could try and send a driver over “in the next hour”. This was INFURIATING to me, because it was not at all what had happened, and the person was being really rude about it to boot. We ultimately decided that my husband would stay back to drop off the stroller and then Uber over, I’d take the boys to HS on the bus and get the three of us boarding groups, and we’d go from there, but ugh, I was so frustrated. Lesson learned about not going with a stroller rental company with airport dropoff.

So B, W, and I got on a packed bus, got into the park, rented a Disney stroller, and headed over to sign up for Jedi training – B had loved it so much the first day he wanted to do it again. At 7:55 my husband got dropped off in the parking lot and at 8 he was in security – so close! Once again we signed up for Jedi training at 7:58 and then I took a pause to try to get a BG. I slow-played it a little bit because I wasn’t sure when everybody would show up, and got 47 – not bad! A few minutes later my husband tracked us down and we set off for Toy Story Land. First order of business – food. We stopped at Joffrey’s for a coffee, a chai latte, and a giant donut, and then I did a mobile order at Woody’s and got us a breakfast bowl and a smoked turkey sandwich, so we sat and enjoyed that for a bit and watched the crowds go by. The Uncles had also made an MDE account, so I tried to book/modify them some FPPs for things I thought they’d enjoy – I was able to get TSMM and Tower of Terror.

We had some anytime FPPs for this day as well – a few that were good for any Tier 2 ride, one for two people that was good for Millennium Falcon, and one good for two people that was good for Slinky. Problem – both boys wanted to ride Slinky, neither wanted to do Millennium Falcon. So we swung by a Guest Experience booth, explained the situation, and the cast member, again, was happy to modify the Slinky anytime to be for four people! While I was there I figured why not swing for the fences, briefly explained the stroller dropoff/Boarding Group situation, and asked if there was any way he could add my husband to the BG – he said no problem and did that too! So we were starting the day off right, bellies full of potato barrels and headed off to everybody’s favourite ride, Slinky Dog Dash.

It was just as fun as last time – W was turning out to be a little daredevil, holding his hands up in the air and giggling like a maniac. After we finished we took another spin on Alien Sausage (W sincerely believed this was what it was called and now it’s all we’ll call it forever) and TSMM, noticing the popsicle stick wall at the exit and getting some photos there, before getting a text from the Uncles that they’d arrived.

We had 10:30 reservations at Topolino’s so we headed to meet them, figuring we’d say hi for a few minutes and then head to the Skyliner, meeting up with them later. We found them at the front, explained the situation, passed out the extra magic bands, took a few photos, and then they headed into the park and we dropped off the stroller and headed for the gates. Except while my husband was returning the stroller I noticed B was crying. “What’s wrong, buddy?” “I want to stay with theeeeemmmmm!” So my husband and I had a quick discussion balancing my desire to try out this new, apparently delicious, restaurant and use all our Table Service credits with the desire to make the kids happy and spend time with family we rarely see), I bumped the Topolino reservation (thanks, Background of Magic, for teaching me the old Bump’n’Run!), and we ran to meet up with the others to go spend some time in Baatu.

We wandered the marketplace, marveled at the Millennium Falcon, and traded some “we’ll take your photo if you’ll take ours!” favours with another couple, and then Boarding Group 47 got called so everybody else headed off to do that while the boys and I headed off on a mission.

On the bus the previous day W had seen another kid with a Sorcerer Mickey plush, and fallen deeply in love, and I’d told him that I was sure they’d have one at Hollywood Studios, thinking about Fantasmic and the Sorcerer Mickey meet, and he’d been asking when he was going to get his “Wizard Mickey” all morning, so we were off to find that. I stopped at the Guest Experience umbrella just outside Galaxy’s Edge to ask, and after some thought and some phone calls the lady suggested that my best bet would be a shop down at the end of Sunset Blvd, so we headed over there. Got to the shop, did a browse, didn’t find it, so we asked somebody there who headed in the back to check stock at other stores while I tried to wrangle the kids, who were irresistibly drawn to every breakable thing in the store. After several long minutes the cast member reappeared and told me that they sold them in……drumroll please……the shop in the Muppet Courtyard, all the way on the other side of the park and approximately 50 steps from where we’d started. So it was back into the stroller, back across the park. On the way there I got a text from my husband that they’d gotten as far as interrogation and then the ride had broken down and they’d been evacuated, so he was coming to meet me.

So we got across the park, we found the store, we found the Sorcerer Mickey, a heavenly chorus of angels sang, W pursed his lips, and said “I don’t want that.” ………ok, fine. His eyes then settled on a plush Kermit the Frog. He had recently watched Muppets Most Wanted, and was really really into “the Bad Kermit” (the kid is drawn to villains), so he wanted a Bad Kermit, but wanted to make sure it was actually the bad Kermit. So I flagged down a cast member and asked “Is this a good Kermit (frantically shaking my head no behind her) or a bad Kermit (frantically nodding)?” She looked a little confused but said “Um…that is a Bad Kermit, definitely.” So I handed it to W, who inspected it, and said “Actually, I want a Good Kermit.” Ok, fine. The “Bad Kermits” were on the bottom shelf, so this top shelf must be “Good Kermits”, here you go, let’s pay and get out of here!

Postscript to this story: he has now decided that we were tricked, it’s a bad Kermit in disguise as good Kermit with green makeup over his distinguishing mole, he’s TERRIFIED of it, Kermit has been banished to the laundry room, and W has slept with a light on since we got home.

The Uncles were in Toy Story Land getting some food, so figuring that I hadn’t gotten to go to Topolino I would try to check some of the other things I’d wanted to do off my list, we headed back to Baatu to try Kat Saka’s popcorn and some blue and green milk. The popcorn was fine, but I wouldn’t have it again, but I liked both of the milks, with opinions varying amongst the rest of my family – we all preferred blue (except B who liked the two mixed the best) but opinions on green ranged from my “it’s pretty good” to my husband’s “Blech!”

We wandered a little more, B spent the last of his money on a Stormtrooper helmet, we saw the little Kylo Ren show, and then decided we’d better grab some lunch before the Jedi Training check-in. We mobile-ordered from the ABC Commissary but once again, it took FOREVER, and hadn’t arrived by the time B and I had to go to Jedi training, so we made do with granola bars for the time being.

B learned the Jedi training rules, the parents learned the Jedi training rules, and then we marched in the little Jedi parade over to the show area, where everybody else was waiting – the Uncles were very excited to get to see the show, and there was a lot of “This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen”. W chattered away nonstop to Uncle B, telling him everything that was about to happen. This time B got to fight Darth Vader, and he defeated him handily.

I had lined up some FPPs to overlap so that my husband, B, and the Uncles could all ride Star Tours at the same time, but B just wanted to go back to the hotel and get some final pool time out of the day, so we decided to do one more thing together, and then the only thing that didn’t have a huge line was Muppets 3D. Uncle S had been a huge Muppets fan, so fine, we went to do that – I have a soft spot for it, and was glad we fit it in.

We then said goodbye to the Uncles – it was so great to get to spend a little time with them! We still had one more thing on our to-do list. All week we’d been promising the kids that we’d be riding the Skyliner, and then when we hadn’t gone to Topolino’s we hadn’t, so we figured we’d do a quick round trip before going back to the hotel. It was so fun! What a great way to travel, I’d definitely consider a Skyliner resort next time. Mid-air we called an Uber – how did it take us this long to realize Uber Family was an option that had car seats? We could have saved ourselves some Minnie Van money! Back to the resort for the last time, grabbed the bag with all the swimmies in it, and hit the pool one final time.


(this is my favourite picture of the trip - W’s face! SO UNIMPRESSED!)

B had a bit of a meltdown when it was time to get out of the pool – he didn’t understand why we weren’t going back to our room to change, and when I told him it wasn’t our room anymore and we were going to the airport he started to cry because he didn’t want to go home, poor little guy. We used the last of our QS credits in the Mara (I ate so many Mara falafels over the week!), and then the rest of our snack credits for Mickey Bars, and a bunch of bags of candy to take home – I know they’re objectively not a good use of snack credits, but honestly, the sour Mickey heads are delicious and they make the kids happy. We retrieved our bags, had one last light sabre battle, and were on the Magical Express just after 5.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful – W, as usual, fell asleep on the bus and we had to carry him through the airport which, on top of all the luggage, was a trick. We had some light sabre battles in the departures lounge. The woman behind me in Starbucks was having a loud Facetime conversation with her family in which she told them that she was “feeling better” and that she’d taken her Tamiflu that morning, which – COME ON! W woke up at some point before boarding, B was asleep before the plane had even taken off, W lasted about an hour before he conked out too, there was no COVID-19 screening of any kind at the airport, getting two sleeping kids, four wheeled suitcases, two carry-ons, and two lightsabres through the airport and out to the car was a task of Herculean proportions, and we were home and settled into bed by about 2am.

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What a fun trip! Thank you for sharing.

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This was fantastic! Thank you for the trip report!

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