13 Nights! A Pokemon Go Extravaganza (Now Complete)

DisneyRegulars

DIS Veteran
Joined
Oct 20, 2011
Alternate Thread Title: You know you're a DVC member when Pokemon Go playing is at the top of your Disney vacation list of things to do. But I thought this title was a bit too long to fit, so I went with the shortened version. Anyways....On with the report....

It's official! It's 8:00pm on Christmas Day and we are making our way to Disney. After missing the Southwest opening of Christmas flights, and not being willing to pay $1800 for plane tickets we were originally going to be, once again, driving to Disney. However, a few months later on a whim I started searching all airports within a 6 hour radius of us and found us round trip tickets on Frontier Airlines for $638 total for all three of us including one checked bag. So that's where we are headed now, down to Philly to catch a flight on an airline that gets less than 1 star TripAdvisor rating. Wish us luck!

This trip is going to be our longest ever! 13 nights! We are so psyched. We have 6 nights to ourselves in studios (yup, it takes me a while to learn), five nights with a family friend and his daughter in a 2-bedroom, and 1 more night on our own. Here's our resort layout and the cast of this trip.

The Resorts:
BLT - Studio, Theme Park View, 1 night only (Yes, I said we would never stay here again, especially in a studio, but it's not the first time I've made extreme claims and then changed my mind) We have our fingers crossed that our cheapskate airline will get us in on time so we can watch Wishes from the room.
AKV - Value Studio - 5 Nights!! (Wait, didn't I just get done writing a trip report about how much we hated studios? And now we are staying in the smallest one for 5 nights? I must have lost my mind?)
SSR - 2 Bedroom Standard - 7 Nights

That's 13 nights total, our longest trip ever. I'm just now realizing it's going to take me years to write this trip report.

The Cast:
This is us in Vermont this summer after a BMX race:
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Me: Exhausted college professor in much need of a vacation. I love llamas, taxidermied furry creatures, and horrid reality TV. Yes, it's true, I just can't get enough of Teen Mom. I justify this obsession because their kids are the same age as mine, so we've kind of been in this parenting journey together. When I'm not preparing for work I can be found playing with my beastly child, laying lazily on the couch watching TV, or more recently trying to complete a 4000 piece jigsaw puzzle that has been out since last April. To be fair it's a map of the world and 80% of the earth's surface is covered by water, so I've been working on the blue parts for about 6 months now.

Grizzly:Husband. Pretty awesome bear. Took on the job of feeding the family this past semester so that I could survive. We only had popcorn for dinner a few nights, so I think he did a good job. Grizzly likes ghosts and we recently went on our first real ghost hunt and had a blast.

Tigger aka Beastly or Mongrel: Almost 7 year old boy. He's in first grade this year. I started writing these reports when he was 2! Completely and utterly obsessed with Pokemon. I cannot stress this enough. In fact, go back and reread that sentence two sentences ago because it's important.

Uncle B: My husband's best friend from childhood will be joining us for 5 nights of our SSR stay. Uncle B has been separated from his wife for over a year now, and this is his first Disney trip with his little girl as well as his first solo vacation with his little girl. I get along great with Uncle B.

Monster Child: Uncle B's four year old little lady. Probably not actually a monster, but I call my own kid beastly, so monster child seems to fit. Last time I saw monster she was quite shy and didn't want much to do with me. Hopefully she'll warm up after a day or so. Grizzly is worried that monster will throw lots of tantrums because last time he visited Uncle B she had a major meltdown over a tv being turned on. I'm not too concerned. I think he has totally blocked out all the memories of our own child throwing tantrums over minor things. It's what kids do. I can guarantee there will be tantrums. Let's just hope they are from the 4 year old and not from my beast.


This is our very first trip without a stroller. In fact last trip we couldn't fit our beloved stroller in the car home so we left it at the Tree House Villas bus stop. To combat the lack of stroller, we have been secretly training Tigger to walk long distances by playing Pokemon Go. You should see how far this kid can walk to hatch an egg. It was not unusual for us to go on 2 hour pokewalks on weeknights or spend an entire afternoon pokemon hunting when the weather was warmer. All our secret walking training may have backfired on us though because Tigger is obsessed with Pokemon Go. OBSESSED! We've been telling Tigger about all the Pokemon in the parks down at Disney and he is super excited to go hunting down there. We are hoping for two things:
1. The Pokemon hunting will keep him walking without complaining.
2. We can figure out how to Pokemon hunt in the parks without getting in people's way. I can already envision Tigger suddenly stopping to catch a dratini and getting run over by a scooter.

Due to the busy time of year we planned the first week to be up to the parks at rope drop, ride rides until it got busy, then have a late lunch before heading back to the hotel to relax. One the restaurant docket are:
1. 50's Prime Time Cafe
2. The new Jungle Cruise Cantina Place
3. Tepan Edo
4. Via Napoli
5. Sanaa (New Year's Eve -- Tigger to Simba's Clubhouse so us adults can rejuvinate and have one relaxing meal together.)

We don't usually do sit down meals. Tigger is kind of terrible at restaurants and the whole situation just ends up more stressful for us than it should be. We'll see how this plan shapes up.

So please, follow along with us on our 13 day extravaganza as we survive a week in studios, a budget airline, a Tigger that is obsessed with Pokemon Go, and friends that may or may not have a child that throws an extraordinary amount of tantrums.
 
Today we lazily got up and made our final approach to Philly. We had Pricelined a room on the way, and ended up with a Holiday Inn Express for $77 about 65 miles north of Philly. When we checked in the front desk manager must have said at least ten times "In the spirit of the season". His expression was getting pretty old, but at least one of the times included "In the spirit of the season we have upgraded your room to a king suite." Nice! What a great way to start the trip.

We timed our hotel departure so that we would arrive at our reserved parking spot at the very start of our two hour arrival window. It was a good thing we reserved a spot because we got the very last spot in the lot. While the shuttle driver was approaching Grizzly and I both realized we had no change to give him as a tip. We tried to do our best to prevent him from helping with our bags, but he was much too speedy for us and before we knew it he had handled all our luggage. Sigh. We had only two bills with us, a $20 and a $50. He got the $20, and we learned a lesson to make sure to make change before heading to the airport.

This was our first time with Frontier, so after reading the millions of complaints online I felt adequately prepared to fly with them successfully. I measured all our personal items and check through bags before we left so there were no surprises, and we were third in line at the bag drop. By the time the bag drop opened, around 1:20 for a 3:00pm departure, the entire wing of the airport was completely filled. I was sure glad we got there early and weren't at the end of that line.
Everyone in this picture is waiting for Frontier bag check:
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Tigger and I passed the hour or so wait by Pokémon hunting. Something we would do a lot of this trip.

The Frontier planes were clean, and the seats were rock hard, but the plane took off on time, and got us to MCO a few minutes early, so our huge gamble payed off.

While on the plane Tigger paused for a second from watching his Pokémon shows to look out the window. He looks out the window then says:
Tigger: Mom! Those look like clouds!
Me: They are clouds.
Tigger: (Incredulously)How did we get above the clouds?
Me: That's where planes fly.
Tigger: (confused look of shock and awe)

Now this kid has flown at least ten times. I'm not sure why he's never noticed the clouds before, but it was pretty funny.

We were on a Magical Express by 6:30, and walked in to our amazing park view room just shy of 8:00pm. Space mountain looked so impressive out of our 11 floor window.

View from the room, just incredible:
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It seems like for once our perfectly laid plans actually worked out. We watched holiday Wishes from our balcony and tucked Tigger into bed. It was the perfect end to a long day of travel and exactly how I had hoped it would go.

Wishes View:
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I must say I'm becoming quite the view convert. I loved the theme park view and the ability to watch fireworks from our balcony. It was great! Two years ago you would never hear me raving about a view. Ever! Oh my god, am I getting old? Maybe I'm just reaching DVC middle age?

So up next are our five days before our friends arrive. The plan is to do rope drop and then hide from the crowds in the afternoons. Will we make it to rope drop? Tomorrow we are headed to Hollywood Studios so that Grizzly can ride Rockin Roller coaster with Tigger. Something he has been patiently waiting to do since our disastrous attempt last Christmas. Will this time go better?
 
I interrupt this trip report to....VENT! Oh My Goodness! Monster Child is so well named. It's almost like some sort of karma is attacking me for naming her that, but holy baloney I cannot take anymore whining, and worse than the whining is the crying that almost inevitably follows any whine. Grizzly has had it too. As an example of our joint frustration and future reporting to come, we were all just walking to the pool for a nice afternoon swim. We get halfway there and Monster Child whines "where's my swimm-i-i-i-i-i-ng haaaaaaat" (This reads 'where's my swimming hat?', but in the whiniest voice possible.) Uncle B stops, and Grizzly and I march on, both throw up our hands and scream "OH NO! MY SWIMMING HAT!" while wildly waving our arms. Meanwhile Monster Child is back behind us having breakdown #1575 for the day. If we weren't so intensely frustrated it would have been comical that we both reached our breaking point at the exact same moment. I feel like I could start a whole new blog titled "Why is Monster Child Crying?" and could fill pages and pages. Here's the list for today alone:
1. Wants to sit in the stroller that needs to be carried down and put in the car trunk.
2. The waitress at Tusker House poured juice in her glass. (This was pretty much the end of the freakin world)
3. Doesn't want to go to the bathroom after announcing that she has to pee.
4. Uncle B took her milk away after warning her that he would take the milk away if she put a carrot in the milk. She put a carrot in the milk! And that's the story of how we ruined everyone else's lunch in Pizzafari.
5. The aforementioned swimming hat incident.
6. Well no six yet that I can remember, but the night is young, I'm sure there will be more.

Last night I actually said to Grizzly, "I really want to go to Downtown, but I don't want to miss the train wreck that is bed time." It's like driving by a car accident and just having to turn and look.

Please give me the strength to endure the next two days. I can only be patient for so long before I say something I shouldn't say. Wish me luck! I'm feeling a little bit better after this vent.

(Disclaimer: I have never once claimed my own kid is an angel (he's not), but Monster takes things to a whole new level. She actually said the word "wah" while crying. She a manipulative little faker and I've had enough.)
 
So let me ask you to breathe. The child is coping with divorce, being away from her mom, being with strangers, wanting attention from the non- custodial dad AND being at WDW. I realize she's being a pill - and she's adding stress - but she's also, what, 6. Her dad is probably afraid to discipline her, and then he'll be the bad dad and she'll "hate him." Maybe you or Grizzly could do something with her where you can use the Beast as a good example - someone who overcame. Challenges, fear, "I cant's". I know you came here to vent - so HUGGGGSSSS- but also maybe you need to parent Grizzly's friend as much as the beast.
 


So let me ask you to breathe. The child is coping with divorce, being away from her mom, being with strangers, wanting attention from the non- custodial dad AND being at WDW. I realize she's being a pill - and she's adding stress - but she's also, what, 6. Her dad is probably afraid to discipline her, and then he'll be the bad dad and she'll "hate him." Maybe you or Grizzly could do something with her where you can use the Beast as a good example - someone who overcame. Challenges, fear, "I cant's". I know you came here to vent - so HUGGGGSSSS- but also maybe you need to parent Grizzly's friend as much as the beast.


Understood. Great advice. Funnily enough Dad is actually the custodial parent, and it's been well over a year, but I get it, it's tough, whatever the situation is. Thanks for the grounding.

I got out and went to see La La Land on my own. I'm feeling refreshed and ready to face tomorrow as a friendly host.
 
Well given that it is now Saturday I hope the rest of your trip went well!
 
Great start to your report! Traveling with anyone other than my immediate family has rarely gone well...looking forward to hearing more! Hopefully, Monster Child's attitude improves!
 


Back to Day 1: Waking up at BLT sleeping at AKV

We decided not to set an alarm this morning. This was essentially ruling out rope drop, but we were fine with that. The DVC owner in me is really showing itself this trip. First day and already no rope drop? What is happening to us?

I'm not sure if I mentioned it in the intro, but Santa brought Tigger a new phone for Christmas. That's right, you read that correctly, our seven year old has his own iPhone. Now before you get too judgey judgey let me explain a little. We as a family play a ton of Pokémon Go. A ton! My college campus is a Pokémon Go heaven and we live only five minutes away from campus. Tigger loves Pokémon, and Grizzly loves Pokémon, and I unashamedly also have a bizarre obsession with trying to catch them all. So we have spent countless hours walking around with 2 out of 3 of us playing Pokémon Go, and the third just tagging along. When we upgraded my phone just before Christmas Sprint was running a deal where they were giving away iPhone SEs for free if you added a new line. It was just what we needed! So Santa brought Tigger a phone, which really is just a Pokémon Go, Super MARIO Run, Netflix watching device. Not much different than any tablet. We managed to lock it down so well that the other day in Epcot when we tried to play Phineas and Ferb I couldn't even figure out how to unlock it to download the required ap. The best thing we bought was also a ridiculously expensive case which has proven it's worth as Tigger has thrown, dropped, and flung his phone to the ground at least five times. My goodness this kid is clumsy!

So enough about our spoiled brat who now has his own Pokémon Go device. We were up and we were going to go to Hollywood Studios to ride Rockin Roller Coaster. But first we dropped our bags at Bell Services so they could be transferred to Animal Kingdom for us. We then went to eat in the Contemporary. While there we got the magical room ready text at 8:30am!!! We scurried back to Bay Lake and begged bell services for our bags back, then took an Uber over to Animal Kingdom lodge. I was excited to drop off our bags because this meant I wouldn't have to carry my laptop with me in the parks all day. With our bags safely secured in our new home after a minor $10.50 uber ride, I quickly used the bathroom only to come out to find both boys frantically fighting a Pokémon Gym. Little Tigger was in heaven with this room location. Our value studio had a pool view.

We made it to HS around 11:00, soon after we arrived, while we were still on the main entrance road, a bunch of scary music started playing and a small set of storm troopers marched down the street. These guys TERRIFIED Tigger. I watched the troopers as Tigger cowered behind his Dad. Hmmmm.... I thought we were well passed the days of Tigger being wussy, but I guess not. We headed towards Star Tours with Fast Passes but while in line Tigger informed us he was NOT riding. He's ridden this ride since he was 3, but I guess now it's too scary. I took the chicken exit with Tigger while Grizzly road. Next up was Muppets. This one was successful, and Tigger exclaimed more than once "They're real! They're real!" When Swedems roamed the theater and when the Chef started shooting the walls. His grasp of real versus fantasy isn't quite there yet, and many times this trip he has asked me "Is it real mom?"

We headed towards Rockin Roller Coaster and while in our short FP line Tigger "suddenly felt ill". Man this kid can act. He had us convinced he was going to throw up at any second. Needless to say he did not ride Rockin Roller Coaster. He chickened out. It wasn't until the next day at another mild ride that we realized he confuses feeling sick with feeling nervous.Grizzly still hasn't gotten to ride Rockin Roller Coaster with Tigger. Someday Grizzly, someday...

Our strategy this trip was to avoid some crowds and relax by eating some table service meals. First up was 50's Prime Time Cafe. Except our reservation was at 2:15 and we had about sixty minutes to kill before we could eat. We were all starving. I eventually found a nice quiet bench outside the muppets exit and begged Grizzly to find me a snack. He came back a while later with popcorn. Yum! We arrived slightly less than famished to 50's. We enjoyed our meal here, Tigger however proclaimed his macaroni and cheese too cheesy, and ate only his corn. I stopped worrying long ago about what he eats, especially on vacation. I was pleased he ate some corn.

When we had completed our first 3 fast passes I went to My Disney Experience to check the fourth fast pass situation. I had zero expectations, so you can understand my excitement when I found us fast passes for Toy Story Mania starting at 2:40. We headed there after lunch and were glad we had found a ride Tigger was actually willing to ride.

After Toy Story Mania Grizzly and Tigger and I split up. Grizzly took an uber over to a rental car place at the Kissimmee airport and then stopped to get a few sundries at a store. Meanwhile Tigger and I took a bus back to our hotel. Here we started our afternoon tradition of me watching 1-2 house related shows on HGTV and Tigger playing Super Mario Run or organizing his pokemon he caught that morning.

Once Grizzly returned we waffled over what we should do. I was exhausted and kind of wanted to just relax and be lazy at the hotel, but Grizzly announced that he had "made an executive decision" (which really means "I have made a really bad decision") and that we were going to drive over to Disney Springs. At 6:30 at night, on one of the busiest days of the year. So we drove over to Disney Springs, found all the parking garages completely full, followed the immense amount of traffic to the surface lot, drove around the surface lot for 20 minutes before completely abandoning the plan and driving home. Even if we had found a place to park the walk to get to Disney Springs form the surface lot was just too daunting for us to handle. So Grizzly's "executive decision" ended up being a forced 60 minute drive to nowhere. I was not pleased! We dined on ramen for dinner and had Tigger in bed by 9:00pm.

Grizzly and I sat on the balcony for a bit enjoying a beer and discussing how we were going to get Tigger to stop swinging his arms the next day. We both were leaning heavily towards the chop them off option, as he had nearly whacked people with his arms multiple times today. Once relaxed, we started the unnecessarily elaborate process of going to bed. First up was a shower. Before I climbed in I hunted for conditioner of which there was none. However we did have two bottles of body lotion. So Grizzly ran down to the front desk for me to fetch some. Next up was crawling into bed. I had managed to lose my earplugs in the move. There is no sleeping next to a CPAP machine without earplugs. I sent Grizzly down to the gift shop and he came back empty handed, grabbed his car keys and ran out to the store. He's definitely my knight in shining armor, even if he does make poor Disney planning decisions. It was nearly midnight by the time we got to bed. Our alarm was set for 6:00am. Ugh! We wanted to take advantage of Extra Magic Hours in the Magic Kingdom.
 
Nice that your AKV room was ready so early!
When my kids were little, they took turns being scared of Illuminations fireworks...
It stinks that your Downtown Disney trip was just a long car ride, but how could you have known?? Beer on your balcony in WDW - not a bad way to salvage an evening!
Looking forward to more!
 
WEDNESDAY

Day 2: Magic Kingdom

At 6:00am my phone alarm goes off. I get out of bed, shut it off. No-one in the room moves. I crawl back in bed. The darn thing goes off 7 minutes later because in my deliriously tired state I had hit snooze. Still no one moves. I shut it off a second time and crawl back in bed. Beastly child sleeps all the way until 9:00am!!!! This never happens. His internal alarm is almost always set to 6:30am. We make our way out of bed and start getting ready for our day. All was going well until the beast child freaks out about the sunblock I want to put on him. He wouldn't let me near him with the Coppertone Sport because it wasn't 'tear free'. I grew intensely frustrated trying to convince my terrified 6 year old that it didn't matter if it was tear free because I was only putting it on his ARMS!!! Where there were no eyes! I would be using a different sunblock for his face. I was pretty much at my breaking point and we had only been up for 15 minutes. This was not going to be a good day. I'm fairly certain I stormed off and told him he had to sunblock himself in a dramatic fury stomping 3 steps away to the bathroom mirror to put on my own sunblock. After about 20 minutes we settled on me helping him apply the Banana Boat sunblock to his arms. Life would be so much easier if we weren't both so stubborn.

We managed to make it onto a bus to the MK at 10:00am and arrived at the park at 10:22am. We then faced an enormous security bag check line. It looked horrific, but I timed it, and we made it into the park by 10:33, so really the terrible security line only added 11 minutes. We were in the FP line for Thunder Mountain by 10:51. So 51 minutes hotel to Thunder, not bad.

Today our meal was a 2:00pm Skippers Jungle Cruise Cantina or something along those lines. We knew we would never make it until then without food so we stopped for waffles at our favorite Sleepy Hollow food nook. Tigger requested ice cream, so we found him a Mickey Bar to eat:

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We kept ourselves busy in the Magic Kingdom finding plenty to do between our FP reservations and filler attractions. At one point we were in line for the carousel and I observed a lovely interaction between a cast member and a dad. Here's how things went down:

Random Self Entitled Dad: (Parks stroller in the middle of the walk way where you can't park strollers, in particular it's blocking the carousel's emergency exit path)
Cast Member: Nicely tells the dad that he cannot leave his stroller there as it is a hazard.
Random Self Entitled Dad: Walks over to cast member, leans in close, and whispers something to her, and then walks off.
Cast Member: Pauses a few seconds, turns red, and ANGRILLY storms over to the stroller, yanks it viciously, and then pushes it all the way over to the very furthest stroller parking visible.

I wanted to applaud this CM. There was no way this man was ever going to find his stroller and he deserved every minute of his pain. I can only imagine the snide remark he must of made to the cast member to make her so angry. If only I could have been there when he went to return to his stroller and found it missing.

Tigger was equally chickeny today as the day before. For example, we watched Philharmagic, and he took his glasses off and prefered to watch the blurry screen rather than have things occasionally jump out at him. He was also very confused about Donald at the end of the show and was wondering if Donald had been real the whole time. This puzzled him quite a bit, and you could see his wheels turning.

Today we had our late lunch at the Jungle Cruise Skipper Cantina restaurant. This place was pretty fancy. A lot fancier than I was expecting. We ended up with what must be the coolest table in the place. It was one of those round tables with a round booth so that you have your own little nook. Inside the nook it was table to ceiling butterflies. We passed the time while waiting for our food by playing I spy and 20 questions with the butterflies. When it was Tigger's turn to be the butterfly chooser we would ask him silly questions which would get him all riled, like "Does it have four wings?" (They all had 4 wings!) or "Did it used to be in a cocoon?" It was the perfect relaxing lunch. I had the lamb, it was delicious. We ordered Tigger white rice and butter and they charged us $8 for a side of rice. Needless to say, this is not the place to stop if you are on a budget!

Here we are waiting for our food to come:
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After lunch we headed back to our hotel and arrived by 4:00pm. I took a few minutes to watch an episode of Property Brothers while Grizzly had the audacity to fall asleep. Grrrr....This meant I was on swimming duty. I don't really like swimming unless the air and pool are both 90+ degrees, and since it was 5:00pm, and starting to get dark, in winter, it was definitely not anywhere near 90 degrees outside. So Tigger and I went swimming. It was FREEZING! Tigger is pretty into this game where he tries to push you under water. He's old enough now that I can take him and throw him (not very far because I'm really not that strong) and he doesn't cry, so we had lots of fun frolicking around the pool trying to 'drown' eachother. Grizzly woke up and joined us at the pool during which time I made my escape. First to the hottub to defrost, and then to Disney Springs to look for a phone case for my new phone.

I bussed over to Disney Springs hoping to find a phone case, and left Grizzly behind with Tigger to feed him and get him in bed. Usually I don't mind heading places by myself, but this trip I just felt very alone. The second I left I immediately wanted to return. I got to DS and headed to the store with all the phone cases and didn't find the one I was looking for (the flamingo wearing mickey ears) so I sadly headed back to the buses. My job on this trip was to investigate the drone show to see if it was worth watching, but I just couldn't bear to even try. I was so sad and just wanted to be home with my beasts. The buses, sensing my need to be home, immediately ceased arriving. Yup, not a single AKV bus for 41 minutes. Sigh. I was first in line and by the time the bus came the crowd behind me was enormous. I did not feel the least bit guilty as I took a seat. I even texted Grizzly that unless someone very old and very pregnant came all the way to the back of the bus and stared me down I was going to be sitting on this bus. I must have been very tired! I'm usually all about the seat sharing. While waiting for the bus I was able to catch glimpses of the drone show. My texts from this evening regarding the show really did not do the show justice, so I'm glad I didn't listen to my first impressions. My messages to Grizzly said: "I can see about ten lights from here. It's like a marching band doing patterns in a field except with drones, set to really boring Christmas music."

Today I also got to enjoy one of my first days with my apple watch. Man this thing was demanding. It seemed like every 5 minutes it was commanding me to do something. Usually breath. What the heck? I was breathing just fine thank you, but now that you've told me to breath, at specific time intervals even, I'm pretty sure that either I don't know how to breath right or I'm dying. Stupid watch! Still haven't taken the time to figure out how to shut that one off. Every once in a while on this vacation I would have us all stop and breath because my watch told us to. Tigger found this kind of funny. Apparently not being able to follow an apple watch breathing pattern is a common problem in my family.


Up next we concur Epcot and enjoy our last few days before the little hellion arrives. It's actually slightly difficult to write the early part of this trip report because nothing went wrong. We just had an amazing time together as a family. These first few days were pretty much perfect.
 
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Nice that your AKV room was ready so early!
When my kids were little, they took turns being scared of Illuminations fireworks...
It stinks that your Downtown Disney trip was just a long car ride, but how could you have known?? Beer on your balcony in WDW - not a bad way to salvage an evening!
Looking forward to more!

Beer on the balcony! Yes, our favorite way to end each evening as Tigger went to bed way earlier than us. Tigger is getting more and more wussy each trip. I secretly don't mind though because it means we'll get more years out of Disney because he won't be itching for the thrill rides of other parks.
 
Beer on the balcony! Yes, our favorite way to end each evening as Tigger went to bed way earlier than us. Tigger is getting more and more wussy each trip. I secretly don't mind though because it means we'll get more years out of Disney because he won't be itching for the thrill rides of other parks.
DD went through the same phase - from about 6 until 8. Even after 8 the adventure spirit was good for thrill rides but would have nothing to do with animatronics.
 
We sat at the same table at Skipper's Cantina, but minus the kids. DH and I really liked it, picky kids ate at Harbor House then joined us for dessert.
$8 for a side of rice?? Even for Disney, that's crazy!

I too need high temps in order to swim. You're a good sport!
 
Day 3: Epcot

I'm running out of time to finish this report before I head to Disney again. Actually, that's not true. I've already been to Disney again, and I didn't even report about it. :( It will be the forgotten trip. However, I do have a new trip coming up very very shortly. This next trip will lead us to Shanghai Disney, Hong Kong Disney and Tokyo Disney and it's less than 3 weeks away!!! So I have to get this done so I can properly trip report our Asia adventure.

So back to the trip report at hand. It's currently the week between Christmas and New Years and we are enjoying a relaxing week in a value studio before switching to a two bedroom when our friends arrive for the last 7 days.

Today we once again failed to make it to rope drop. Instead we woke up at 8:23. I remember because I felt the need to write down that detail in my phone because I shouted across the room "Hey Siri, what time is it?" and she actually answered me. We were on the bus to Epcot by 9:26 where we passed our time Pokemon hunting until our first FP at 10:10 for Spaceship Earth. Can I just say how much I love FP+? I LOVE IT!!!! It has made our vacations so much more relaxing, and 3 rides is just about my perfect amount of park time now.

We tried out the new Soarin this day and of course it terrified Tigger. Grrrr. The transitions in the new one all seemed to involve something that would make him jump, such as a giant bird swooping in. Nothing actually scary, but to my super wuss child scary enough that he 'never wants to ride Soarin again ever.' A thought that stuck with him for the remainder of the trip, and several months later when we returned as well. Sigh...what am I going to do with this child?

We tried out some of the exhibits in Innoventions this day. In particular we spent about an hour playing Power City, where you have to use an incredibly lousy virtual shuffle puck to push "power" to different parts of the city. Tigger loved it.

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We had lunch at Tepan Edo as well. Tigger LOVED this place. He even ate the chicken and discovered he likes soy sauce. His favorite part was the chef singing 'just keep swimming' with the shrimps. I knew Tigger liked this place when we asked him what he felt like eating a few days later and he said "That place where the guy cooks the food and sings." Success! We may have found a new Disney tradition for us.

Speaking of traditions we started a new one this trip that I stole from someone else on these boards. We all went into the Japan store, and we were each required to pick out one snack to try. Here's what we chose:

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The Hi-Chews were delicious and had an exquistely chewy texture. The long string of chalk like fruit flavored candies were yummy too, and most similar to smarties. The Hot squid took me about 4 days to work up the courage to try. And well....It was horrendous. Ridiculously fishy (I'm not sure what I was expecting), but totally inedible. Grizzly and Uncle B wouldn't even try it, it smelled that bad!

We left Epcot via the International Gateway to go have some ice cream from Ample Hills. Of course the second we sat down with our yummy deliciousness it started to rain. We stuck it out and Tigger thought it was pretty funny to be eating ice cream outside in the rain.

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Exhausted, we didn't want to walk all the way back through Epcot to catch a bus, so we hopped on a bus to Animal Kingdom from Boardwalk, figuring we would catch a quick ride to AKV from there. We were the only people on the bus, and somehow the bus driver came to find out that we didn't even want to go to Animal Kingdom, so he dropped us off directly at Animal Kingdom Jambo House because he said it was the last run of his night. Lucky us! This was our first, and probably last direct resort to resort transportation via disney bus. You never know when you'll get a little dash of pixie dust.

Up Next a day at Magic Kingdom and more things for Tigger to be afraid of. Can you guess what? Here's a hint, it wasn't a ride...
 
Day 3 - Back to Magic Kingdom and Epcot for Dinner

Today we got another late start. We just didn't see the appeal of rushing out the door at the crack of dawn to wait in line for rides that Tigger barely seems to care about or that he's terrified of. So we got up at 8:20am, and took our time, including watching some cartoons. This vacation was actually a vacation! Full of laziness and relaxing. It felt great! The only thing I wanted to do this trip was on the to do list for today, I wanted to see "Great Moments in History" by the Muppets in the Magic Kingdom. We managed to catch two of the shows during this trip and they were both AMAZING. Especially if you love the Muppets. Even the theme song is great "Great moments in history, but just the American parts!" Sam the Eagle is just amazing and shows up in various locations depending on the show you happen to catch. If you are a Muppet fan I highly recommend these shows.

Before leaving the Magic Kingdom today we rode Barnstormer, Dumbo and the TTA. All of which did not scare Tigger. See, evidence that Tigger is not scared of everything:

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However our last stop for the day, the talking Mickey, was nearly a disaster. Figures! So I was super psyched to take Tigger to see the talking Mickey because a few years ago we talked about the characters. After seeing Mickey in Epcot and then a few minutes later seeing him in the Magic Kingdom Tigger asked me if Mickey was real. In good parenting fashion, and not wanting the magic to die quite yet, I asked him what he thought and he said "I think there is one real Mickey and then a bunch of people in costumes." I was so thrilled with this thought process. Yes! I thought. The magic is not dead yet! And I quickly added, "and you never know which one you are meeting," and he wholeheartedly agreed with this. So I thought for sure when we met the talking Mickey that to him that would be "the real Mickey," and I was super excited to see him have this 'magical experience.' Well if magical experiences are mostly about your kid cowering in the corner then we had a great one! We didn't mention the talking to Tigger at all, the first he got to experience it was waiting in line. We were the last people in our little room, so as Tigger watched the other families in front of us interact with Mickey he went from surprised, to thinking it was funny, to shy and timid, to terrified all within maybe 3 minutes. When we were next in line he suddenly "felt really sick and neeeeeeded a bathroom." This was exactly what happened at Rockin Roller Coaster a few days before, so instead of being worried that he actually needed a bathroom, I just assured him that he didn't actually have to interact with Mickey at all. I showed him how he just needed to walk right across the way to the other side of the room and hide. I promised him he didn't need to talk or be near Mickey at all. He suddenly felt better. When it was our turn, I walked him across the room where he could safely watch from a distance as Grizzly and I said hi to Mickey and got our pictures taken. I don't think I've ever seen Tigger so scared. I didn't even try to convince him to be in our picture because I knew that he would have NONE of it. Poor guy.

We went back to our room to relax before heading over to Epcot for a most disappointing dinner at Via Napoli. So here is my review of Via Napoli. If you love Via Napoli, you should probably just skip this next part:

The Good: You can feed an entire family at a sit down restaurant fairly cheaply. Unfortunately, this is about the only thing going for this restaurant.

The Bad: The food! This was our second time at this restaurant, and during the first visit our pizza was very soggy and floppy in the middle, almost as though it needed to be cooked longer. We thought it was just a fluke, but when we ordered our pepperoni pizza this time it arrived exactly the same way. The entire center of the pizza was just super soggy. As though the crust was too thin to support all the sauce on it. It was so soggy that you really couldn't even pick it up in any way. It had to be eaten with a fork and knife. Just really disappointing. Despite the affordable price, we wouldn't eat here again because the pizza is just 'that bad'.

While waiting for our mediocre pizza Grizzly and I ordered a flight of beers to share. This was also VERY disappointing. The flight came and each beer was barely two sips. There were three beers and they couldn't possibly have amounted to even half a pint, yet the charge for the flight was $15!!! It was outrageous! They weren't even tasty either. So we paid $15 for a few sips of bad beer and $30 for a soggy pizza. We left sad.

Here is our $15 beer flight BEFORE we even had any sips. I almost wanted to ask them if they had maybe forgotten to put the actual beer in the glasses:
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Also while there Tigger needed the bathroom. The walk to the bathroom had to have been the most terrifying walk I've ever taken to a bathroom. Typically walks to bathrooms don't even make my list of scary things. Imagine trying to get a boy who can't stop swinging his arms to navigate through aisles that are barely wide enough for a single person, yet teaming with waiters carrying a variety of precariously balanced items on giant trays. It was pretty much my worst nightmare of a walk. I think I may have actually walked Tigger in front of me while holding his arms fiercely down at his sides. Somehow we made it to the bathroom and back, but it was not an enjoyable experience and I'm glad I didn't send Grizzly because I don't think he would have actually fit in the tiny walkways between the tables.

It was also during this meal that Tigger invented this bizarre game involving his Pokemon figures that was impossible to win unless you were Tigger. Here we see Charmander facing off against Pikachu, forks and knives are involved, it was all very serious and confusing:

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It was one of those games where you really have no idea what's going on, but your kid isn't running around screaming, so you just do the best you can while secretly wishing your food would arrive faster. Grizzly, however, doesn't take well to games of this nature, and was getting increasingly frustrated because he didn't understand the rules, and I was getting frustrated at him for not just shouting out Pokemon attacks and going with the flow. He of course wanted to win. I was thinking more along the lines of "if you ruin this game I am going to kill you and walk away from the table if I have to play Eye Spy one more time. Anything is better than eye spy, so for the love of god just shout out pokemon attacks and let Tigger do whatever the heck he wants with the score." Hmmm....now that I think about it, maybe it's our own fault the pizza was soggy. Maybe they read my mind and just decided that cooking the pizza was an optional part of the process. As you can see from the picture above, Tigger continued playing the game even after the pizza arrived because it was THAT inedible. We mostly ate the pepperonis off the pizza, that's why the pizza tray appears mostly empty. It's not because it was delicious!

Summary of Via Napoli Review: Don't go, but if you do go, go pee before you go, and don't order the beer flight if you actually want some beer.

Up next, our park free New Years Eve day. How will Tigger react when we tell him he's going to the kids club for the evening? (I'm thinking you can guess how this one will go down.)
 
Day 4: New Years Eve

This trip we bought 10 Day Park Hopper Tickets with the intent to upgrade them to Annual Gold Passes after the blackout dates surrounding Christmas and New Years. With the way the tickets worked out, we needed to take a no park day, so we decided New Years Eve was going to be the day. We spent our morning relaxing and then headed out for some mini golf. We played both sides of Winter Summerland golf course. I think some of the cool parts of the course were lost on Tigger who seems to have this amazing ability to never be looking at the right place at the right time. It's as though he has some internal sensor that drives him to look away from cool mini-golf features. We had fun, but I felt like I spent a lot of time trying to get Tigger to notice the nifty parts of the courses.

After golfing we headed to downtown to do some Pokemon hunting and food finding. It was this trip that I discovered the bao tacos at Morimoto Street Food. The service at the street food counter is horrifically slow, it took 15 minutes to serve me, and I was second in line, but the food was delicious and totally worth the wait in the end. After lunching we visited the Lego store and Grizzly and I took turns shopping while Tigger created and raced Lego cars. We were searching high and low for a new wall calendar, but it seems 2017 was not the year to own a wall calendar from Disney and despite our best efforts none were to be found. The 2016 one was fantastic, and was made of retro attraction and park posters, so I we were hoping to find something similar, but it was not to be.

On the way back to our hotel I decided to tell Tigger that tonight we would be dropping him off at Simba's Playhouse so Dad and I could go out to eat. Oh my goodness the tears. Tears all the way back to the hotel (glad we had our own car!) and continued tears in the room. Once the tears settled down, then came the pleading. We endured hours of him begging to come to dinner with us. Enough begging and pleading that any rational parent would have just let their kid go to dinner with them, but not heartless me. Nope. I was determined to send him to Simba's Clubhouse, and I was going to have a nice quiet dinner at Sanaa with my Grizzly, where we would not play even a single game of eye spy, nor shout Pokemon attacks at one another. It was going to be glorious. So come dinner time we walked begging and pleading Tigger down to the Clubhouse. He thankfully didn't actually cry when we dropped him off because even heartless me probably couldn't have withstood that, but we dropped him off and ran before any tears could be shed. And you know what? When we went to pick the little bugger up he DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO LEAVE!!! He was mad that we were there so early, and to top it off he asked to go back the next night too!

After picking up the mongrel we spent the remainder of our New Years Eve playing in the arcade. The game of choice was this incredibly violent game where you drove around tanks and shot each other to earn points. It was a multiplayer game, and somehow Tigger had these bizarrely (if not slightly disturbing) tank driving skills and managed to beat Grizzly and I almost every time. We capped off our New Years Eve with some Mickey Bars from the Mara, and headed back to our room to watch Mariah Carey's disastrous performance before the ball dropped in Times Square. Overall we had a nice calm enjoyable New Years Eve if you subtract the 3 hours or so of Tigger's panic over the club house visit.


Tomorrow we would be checking out of our tiny little studio in exchange for a 2 bedroom over at SSR. We would have one more full day of freedom before the aforementioned monster child arrived. Stay tuned as we move closer to the impending doom that is monster child's arrival.
 

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