I promised a recap on my recent trip, so here we go...
This was a very short trip, but I had an absolute blast. Everything went nearly perfectly (outside of Disney buses). This was our itinerary:
Sunday, September 9
8 AM-Flight from Cleveland to Orlando
10:20 AM-Arrive
12:20 PM-Lunch at Sanaa
4:00 PM-MNSSHP
Monday, September 10
9 AM-Hollywood Studios
Whenever we’ve done what we wanted and it got too hot-Back to Resort
5:40 PM- Dinner at ?
Tuesday, September 11
7:25-DME to airport
So we were there essentially for two days and for two purposes: the Halloween party and to see Toy Story Land. Everything went great with our flight down and DME to Art of Animation. Our room was not ready (as expected) so we stashed our luggage and took an Uber to our lunch reservation at Sanaa. My niece and nephew had never been, but they had a great time. The bread service was a big hit and they loved their desserts:
After lunch we returned and our room was ready. We took a short nap and prepared for MNSSHP. We all had Haunted Mansion themed shirts on in lieu of costumes. We had a bit of a wait for a bus, but we were in MK by 4:15 and headed back to Frontierland. I won’t go for a blow by blow, but we did every attraction open during the party working from Frontierland over to Tomorrowland. It was amazing. Our longest wait of the night was 30 minutes for Space Mountain. That was because there was a storm that passed through and shut down a few attractions for about an hour so the ones that were open got some increased traffic. Here were a couple of my highlights:
The Peter Pan Float was amazing. Maybe my new favorite. I hope that it sticks around for good. My niece and sister opted for the Maleficent Cone. I was so happy we were able to get our picture with Tigger, Pooh and Eeyore. We got in line just before Hallowishes so we viewed it from the line. Not the best vantage point, but we're not really fireworks people so it wasn't bad. We had planned to do the second parade and final Sanderson Sisters show, but it was such a long day for everyone that we decided to leave (since we knew it would be after midnight when we got back to the room as it was). Another early wake up was calling.
I'll spare the details on the next morning. We had a pretty uneventful trip to HS and were back in Toy Story Land at 8:51 and in line for Slinky Dog Dash. We were only 60+1 for FP+ so we had Toy Story Mania booked as SDD was unavailable. Although we knew we should have arrived earlier to have a shorter wait, we needed the sleep and only ended up waiting a little under an hour anyway. I enjoyed SDD much more than I expected. Very smooth, faster and taller than I expected, and the kids loved it. Definitely superior to 7DMT from the comparable ride perspective.
Afterward we had time for breakfast at Woody's Lunch Box. We all shared a Turkey and Egg sandwich, one each of the pop tarts, and the kids got some of the little cheese snacks. I was impressed with the sandwich and tarts. It's nothing special, but the food is very passable for a theme park quick service.
We then had our FP+ at Toy Story Mania, followed by Star Tours and Rock n Roller Coaster. My niece still isn't tall enough for RnRC so we traded bands and my nephew went twice once each with me and my sister and my sister took my niece to ToT during the first ride. One ride was enough on ToT for my niece so we just waited in the AC during the second RnRC ride. We'd hit up all the rides and a couple shows by 1 PM and decided to head back to the resort so the kids could swim and we could see if we could find one of our favorites to eat. We made one last stop to see Donald on the way out:
It was hotter than the surface of the sun waiting for the bus at HS's new temporary bus stops. Concrete enclosed by walls is not a good idea. I felt like I was melting.
We were fortunate to find an ADR for Boma when we got back to the room. We got to relax and the kids got to go swimming beforehand and that was very much needed. Dinner was fantastic. I'm pretty sure I could eat exclusively at the AK park and resort restaurants during a trip and be very happy. We made a trip to Disney Springs to pick up some caramel apples to bring back for family members and our trip was basically over.
I'll give a few more impressions on the trip and thoughts moving forward tomorrow. Thanks for reading.