Trip Report and Thanks

Walt Disney World
1

Day Before

This trip starts the day before at after-school pick up with DD6 limping around. She had sprained her ankle on the playground and it was swollen. We iced, elevated and rested and crossed our fingers. Frantically posted to the TP Forum….

Day 1 Travel Day

…And still swollen. With help from the forum we decided to rent a stroller from Kingdom Strollers. Ended up keeping DD6 home from school to avoid further injury. We picked up DH from work and headed to the airport. Easy check in. On time flight. We did not tag our luggage since our arrival was around 7pm and I wanted our suitcase for bedtime. Got on the Magical Express right away but we didn’t leave for 10 minutes and AKL was the 4th stop. So about 45min-1 hour to AKL arriving a little after 8.

Hotel

We never got the text for our assigned room until we had checked in to the Magical Express. We had requested a room on the Kudu trail with the main hope to get a partial view. Got one on Ostrich facing the Savannah so we got that partial view! Saw lots of animals and DD6 loved this experience. We were two “buildings” out which felt like a long walk. In retrospect I’m guessing the folks on Kudu have a really long trek to the end of the rooms. The big surprise was that we got a bunk bed instead of 2 queens. We hadn’t asked for it and I immediately suppressed a panic attack. Of course DD6 requested to sleep on the top. We let her and totally regretted it. She tosses around a lot and the rails make so much noise (they have latches for bed making). Everytime she ran into the rail the banging noise would wake us. It was a one and done. She was assigned the lower bed the rest of the trip. One of the our favorite things was being able to sit on the balcony for breakfast and the evenings drinking wine after DD6 went to sleep. FYI, AKL is having some renovations going on right now. We did get woken early one day when there some sort of mechanical issue with their machines.

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We did order Prime Now for our groceries. It got there. It wasn’t smooth. I think Bell services misplaced them for a while. Prime Now customer service has no way to contact the driver BTW. Go figure. I would not recommend ordering alcohol through Prime based on our experience. Just buy there at the resort. We did. It was good.

More later…

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Yay, another report!

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I should clarify! Trip report is for May 10-15. Just got back and am enjoying the quiet.

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Love a trip report! Looking forward to reading more. Great pics!!

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We planned to hang on the balcony at night after the kids are asleep as well. Are you suggesting buying a bottle of wine at the hotel to keep in the fridge (If yes, do we need an opener?) Or did you get a glass of wine from the lounge and bring it up? I currently have an Amazon Prime Now order ready to go with wine in it, but would love your recommendation since you’ve done it.

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We got a screw cap red wine from Zawadi that was really good and about $20 (which I’m sure was a mark up) and a white later on that was also great. We kept them in our room. Wine fits fine in the fridge :grin:

I’ve heard Prime won’t deliver alcohol to Bell Services - you have to meet them and show ID or they take everything back. The problem was there appeared to be a delay from when Prime informed us the delivery driver was there and when he was gone and Bell Services didn’t have our groceries. Eventually they were found (no idea where - maybe Kidani?). I didn’t have our room number to give when I placed the order - so that could have been part of the problem.

Also from the time we had made our list on Prime to the time we actually placed the order a LOT of things weren’t available anymore. So make sure you double check right before placing it.

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Zawadi is the marketplace at Jambo BTW. Great gift shop.

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Great info, thank you!

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Oh another lesson - CM’s totally know people wait for B1 at Soarin’.

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Sorry for how long all of this is. I feel like I needed to contribute all the information in my brain about this trip out to the world. I also just really really want to the thank this forum and all the other WDW resources out there for making this such as amazing trip. Thanks guys!

Day 6

Slept in, swam a bit, packed and got on the tragical express home.

Final thoughts

-My DD6 has absolutely no idea how lucky she was. She would occasionally complain about 10 min waits and there were times I wanted to drop her off at a stand by line and come back in an hour to see how she was doing….not really but you know.

-My DH finally understands why I spent so many hours studying about WDW. There’s no way he’d ever agree to returning had he not had the experience we had. Though, our chances of an amusement park family trip have plummeted post vertigo exasperation. We’ll have to plan carefully going forward.

-Mobile ordering was helpful at times but not world altering

-radar weather apps are awesome

-Our TP were helpful for planning the layout of things and having a good sense of the parks. They were really helpful in all the planning stages. But once we started grabbing FP’s they didn’t become all that important. I highly highly recommend having one and doing that work though. It set the framework for everything else.

-MK isn’t that big. You really can criss cross without it seeming crazy

-Epcot is a monster. Don’t criss cross.

-AK is ok. It’s big but we didn’t notice it as much.

-Modify. Knowing and being able to do this was world altering. I would generally be able to have our next ride planned by the time we got on the ride we had just tapped in to. DH would watch DD6 while I was on the phone. And when DD6 and I were alone, she knew mom was working on something important. It never really took longer than 5 minutes and it save us hours.

-bring your external charger just in case

-yes, memory maker is worth it.

-we walked at least 6 miles every day regardless of park

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Thanks for the thorough report!

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Nice work! Glad you had a great time. Which weather radar app do you like?

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Really enjoyed this report - the level of detail was perfect. I laughed out loud at your comment about your daughter not realizing how lucky she was and leaving her in a stand by line for awhile :slight_smile: And I am the same way with strangers in a line - sometimes they just don’t get you are trying to help them but I can’t help myself when I overhear their cluelessness. My husband is always saying, “DNE!” (Do not engage!)

You should be really proud of yourself - what a trip!

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Great update! We are doing this exact thing in a couple of weeks. I love your photo comments :rofl: Can’t wait to see how my husband poses next to the characters.

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@koi1217 When you were grabbing KRR Fast Passes during the rain and they were converting to any time, can you do that an unlimited amount of times? Do the any time Fast passes not “count” toward you already having a rolling fast pass?

Also, when you go to use a FP that you have for a specific ride, when they scan your band, does it automatically take the correct FP? How does it know to take a 7DMT FP and not an any time? Or does that even matter?

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That’s awesome!

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TY so much for Sharing - loved reading your report and the pictures ~

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As many times as you can get that particular FPP.

They do not count against your allotment of 3 FPP.

Be sure you don’t go during the grace period of your normal FPP. Some people have reported this caused the anytime to be used.

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@staceyrose55 I used dark sky but just the browser version since it’s free as opposed to the app.

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@sbbradshaw Thanks so much! I really just wanted to pay it forward.