August 2022: A Summer Girls Trip to Disney: Day 4, Part 2

Day 4: Part 2

Once we’d caught up on some sleep, we made a plan for the rest of the day and then got ready and headed back to Epcot for some more fooding and beveraging (who needs wine?!)

When we got to Epcot, we headed for the Test Track side of the park. I think we might have caught the Jammitors as we headed there. It’s been almost 2 months so…getting foggy… We decided to take a look at the single rider line for Test Track and since it wasn’t visible, we decided to go for it. It ended up being almost a walk on!

After Test Track, it was time to get our eating on and, most importantly since it was her last day, help Jessie complete the cheese challenge!

We started at the Mac and Eats booth. Jessie got the Cowboy Mac (yeeha!) and I got the traditional. I only have a picture of the traditional. Jessie’s was the winner here. Mine was good, but was oddly spicy, so that was weird.

Next we divided and conquered and picked up food from 3 nearby locations, before meeting to enjoy all of it in the air conditioned seating area of the Odyssey building, which is currently home to the Brew-wing “booth”. This strategy worked really well, allowing us to enjoy the food despite how hot it was outside, and get off our feet, which were pretty well done by this point. We’d Disneyed hard!

So what foods and beverages did we get? We got the Smoked Corn Beef (because beef, potatoes and cheese!) from the Flavors from Fire Booth, the Fry Flight, I got the cider flight from Brew-wing and Jessie got the Salty Dog cocktail from the Fry basket. We enjoyed everything we got. Of the ciders, I liked the strawberry lemonade and guava ones the best. Delightful.

 
We then started making our way clockwise around World Showcase. Our next food stop appears to have been Italy, where we got the gnocchi with vodka sauce and the panna cotta. The panna cotta was VERY soft, and, frankly, flavorless. The gnocchi was surprisingly delicious.

 
Next up was Japan where I got the fuji apple sake. I think Jessie got the lemon cocktail, but I’m not 100% sure on that one. The sake was really refreshing.

Then it was on to Greece where we got the griddled cheese. Delicious.

By now we were in desperate need of a food break, so we took in the Beauty and the Beast sing-along in France, which started just after we got there. This was cute, and good air conditioning.

After some good childhood music, it was evident that a storm was brewing so we made our way to the entrance to World Showcase. Jessie got her cheese challenge complete prize and Shimmering Sips and I got the Aulani Sunrise and macadamia passion fruit cheesecake from Hawaii. We met at a table in between the two booths to scarf our desserts and to take pictures of the storm clouds. I think Jessie caught the lightning in her photos too.

 
We then got the heck out of Epcot, because holy lightning. Also, holy full tummies.

Thankfully we got on a bus quickly and were back at French Quarter before the sky opened up. We were given a warning to move quickly by CMs as we exited the lobby to head for our room. I don’t think the sky ever did open up the way the clouds and lightning suggested it would, but we definitely followed directions!

Once the storm threat had lessened Jessie decided to head to the Magic Kingdom to ride Splash Mountain. My feet and energy were done, so I stayed behind and pretty quickly fell asleep. Jessie did get on Splash, albeit with a longer wait than she’d anticipated. Because I’m old (and maybe because I’d been drinking) I woke up to go to the bathroom about the time she made it back to the room so we chatted about her evening and the trip as a whole for a bit before calling it a night for real.

August 2022: A Summer Girls Trip to Disney: Day 4, Part 1

Day 4: Saturday August 20, 2022

The alarms went off in the 5 o’clock hour. We quickly got ready and headed out the door, quite proud of ourselves for continuing our bus stop 90 minutes ahead of opening habit, on less than 4 hours of sleep.

A bus showed up pretty quickly and we were off to Hollywood Studios. Either the Skyliner got a slow start or our driver put the pedal to the metal, because somehow even though we were dragging, and walkers and Skyliners have a total advantage over bussers here, we once again managed to be at the start of a tapstyle line. We had to wait awhile, but we passed the time chatting with a really pleasant CM from England.

Eventually we were given the all clear and we tapped into the park. At Sunset, Jessie and I divided to conquer, with her headed for ToT and me headed for Slinky Dog.

When I reached Toy Story Land, I found…exceptionally low crowds. So I did some picture taking while making my way to Slinky. It was a beautiful morning.

Despite my picture taking, I got a pretty good spot in the Slinky Dog line. And then the CMs starting warning us that the ride may or may not have a delayed opening. Oh yeah…there does seem to be a distinct lack of ride testing happening. They seemed to be recommending we stick around, so I did, with the intent to bail if Jessie was off ToT before they started running any trains.

That’s exactly what happened. They still hadn’t started testing when Jessie texted that she was off ToT, so I scooted out of line and met up with her at Runaway Railway, which turned out to be a walk-on. Umm…where are the people?

After Runaway Railway, which I enjoyed more than I did last summer, we headed for Toy Story Land. Slinky Dog was still down, so we continued on with our original plan to ride Toy Story Mania. The line was short, probably less than 15 minutes. While in line, I looked at MDE, remembering a comment Jessie had made about having not been to Oga’s while we were waiting at the tapstyles chatting with that CM. Low and behold, there was a 10:00 am Oga’s reservation available. I showed Jessie and then booked it! SCORE! Then we got ready for Midway Mania!

 
As we exited Midway Mania it was obvious that Slinky Dog was JUST getting up and running. We headed straight there and got in line. It ended up being about a 25 minute wait, but we got on!

While in line for Slinky Dog, I had mobile ordered a second breakfast, so we headed for Woody’s Lunchbox. It was a bit tricky to figure out where I was supposed to go, since mobile order pickup and standard pickup were at the same place, but I got it eventually and got my raspberry lunchbox tart. This was surprisingly good, and also nice and portable to eat as we walked toward Galaxy’s Edge.

We had just about perfect timing, so we headed for the single rider line at Smuggler’s Run. We marveled at the efficiency of the CM who was sorting people out, and were on the ride pretty quickly. I got to ride with the family that was yelling at each other about how they were failing at the mission, so it was a pretty entertaining ride.

I was off the ride first, but I only had to wait a few minutes before Jessie emerged. Then we headed straight for Oga’s, where I checked in on the app, and we got the text that they were ready for us just a couple minutes later. We headed in and were actually brought to the bar, not the tucked away corner where Nick and I were stuck in February!

We each just got one drink, but we thoroughly enjoyed our time here. I had the outer rim, Jessie had the other margarita-like drink on the menu. Both of us enjoyed our drinks. The bar tender was FANTASTIC. She had incredible skill at carrying on a spontaneous conversation while staying in character. Overall enjoyable experience!

After Oga’s, we headed for Star Tours. We had also mobile ordered lunch while waiting in line for Slinky and it wasn’t quite time for that yet. Star Tours ended up being just about the right wait time to kill time before lunch. We both were a bit surprised to find this one actually had a pretty legitimate line, but we got to skip part of it when they needed a party of 2, and most of the wait was in air conditioning. We got sent to the back row after being questioned about motion sickness, and definitely found the back of the bus to be a wilder ride than other locations in the simulator. We both were pretty sure we had not had this particular scene before too, so that was good.

From Star Tours it was back to Toy Story Land. As we entered the land, I hit the “I’m here” button, and almost instantly got the order ready notification, so we headed straight to the mobile order pickup window for our totchos and cups of ice water. Jessie found a table where we had to stand but at least we didn’t have to figure out how to eat Totchos while walking! And there was some shade. A miracle in this part of the park! The totchos were delicious! And I thoroughly appreciated being able to order mine with no sour cream!

Once we’d finished this meal’s addition to the meat and potatoes tour of Disney World, we headed for the park exit, very proud of how much we had accomplished this morning on so little sleep! We agreed as we were headed for the buses that everyone who’d gone to the party the night before must have chosen Hollywood Studios for today because while the first couple hours of the morning had had very light crowds, that was definitely no longer the case!

We didn’t have to wait very long for a bus and pretty soon we were back at French Quarter, where we both took naps.

August 2022: A Summer Girls Trip to Disney: Day 3, Part 2

Day 3, Part 2

Once the bus was rolling, it was a relatively short ride back to French Quarter. I headed back to the room. Jessie had gotten back a little before me and had changed into her swimsuit already. I changed and we headed for the pool.

It was not the easiest to find chairs, but we did eventually and then we hot lava walked to the edge of the pool. That cement was BRUTAL There was no graceful way to enter the pool anywhere near the chairs we had snagged, but we made it into the pool before we completely singed our feet.

I was really pleasantly surprised by how much space there was in this pool in the middle of the day in August. I was also kinda pleasantly surprised by how refreshing it actually was. Maybe I was really overheated?

After sufficient time in the pool, we headed back to the room and got ready for the evening and decided what to do about food. In the end we decided to eat right at the resort before heading to the Magic Kingdom. And then we were ready for a Halloween in August evening!

First stop though was the food court. I think Jessie got the gumbo again. I got the french dip sandwich. I didn’t take pictures. Oops? Mine was really flavorful, but there were unadvertised onions mixed in with the beef. Why?!

Once we’d finished eating, it was off to the bus stop. We waited a bit, but then we were off to the Kingdom of Magic. We did a bit of picture taking on our way into the park, which we used the regular entrance to get into, bypassing the really long event entrance line.

As we entered, the parade was approaching the train station, and there was empty front row space along the walkway. So, we watched the parade.

 
Then it was off to Tomorrowland for a spin on Buzz Lightyear. It was actually up and running. Woah. I think we waited about 15 minutes. Pretty freaking good for 4 pm. Is it me or do those lasers not aim very well these days?

After attempting to save the empire, we picked up our party wristbands, treat bags, and our first treat of the night near the entrance to Tomorrowland. Let’s Boo this! Also…is handing out a full sized bag of M&Ms when it’s like 100* really the brightest idea, Disney? (Spoiler alert…the M&Ms survived and were delicious).

Since it wasn’t raining and wait times were pretty low, we headed for Frontierland. Time to ride the poor man’s Slinky Dog! It was a pretty short wait for good old Big Thunder.

Next stop was Pirates so that we could hopefully see the difference between pre-party and party time Pirates. The wait here was also short.

After Pirates, we paid a visit to Aloha Isle. I got the pineapple upside down cake with the pineapple swirl dole whip and Jessie got the Tropical Serenade float. Good stuff!

We then worked our way toward Fantasyland. Small World was basically a walk on so we took a spin on the happiest/longest cruise in Disney. The backups at the end were once again extensive. Has anyone noticed how bored these clowns look watching the boats back up?

Next up was Philharmagic. We actually had to wait a few minutes for this one…in the extended indoor queue. But it was still a very short wait. This really is the best 3-D show in Disney.

As we exited the theater, I noticed people slowing down, and it seemed awfully windy. As I reached a point where I could actually see outside, it was evident that it was POURING. We detoured into the exit store, along with basically everyone. We looked around a bit and then found a patch of real estate under cover just outside the store. We stood there, trying to figure out a game plan, watching the water rise and watching the same people ride the carousel over and over. This storm stayed extreme enough to not move for about an hour.

 
Eventually the rain started to lighten up. The water on the ground was about ankle deep, so we switched socks and sneakers for the flip flops that we had stashed in our park bags (and worked hard to stuff our sneakers into our park bags!), donned ponchos and started roaming a bit. We walked through Tomorrowland and then headed toward Adventureland, stopping for poncho pictures, because Disney in August!

Time for a sweet(ish) treat! We stopped at Sunshine Tree Terrace and got the Jack-o-Lantern float. This was citrus swirl with orange fanta and I think graham cracker crumbs on top. It was HUGE. We split it. The citrus swirl is not my favorite. The fanta definitely helped it, but this float was a bit much.

From here it was off to Pirates. We got there just as the party officially started, so we assumed we would see the party “overlay”. We waited about half an hour, but considering how many attractions were still closed by the weather, that wasn’t so bad.

Well, we rode the ride and found…no live actors. Actually we did…but they weren’t acting… They were kind of hiding. At the end of the ride a kid was asking the CM where the live actors were. She said they were on a delayed start due to the weather. Would have been nice if the small army of cast members out front had said something about that!

It was time to get back to party mode. The wait time looked ok, so we headed for Town Square Theater to meet Mickey. Have to have at least one picture that’s proof we were at the party! The wait was pretty reasonable. The CM assisting Mickey was incredibly blah, but…we got pictures…more story to follow on that situation!

After meeting Mickey, we decided it was safe to change back into sneakers. It was kind of a relief to free up some space in that park bag again! Then it was off to Space Mountain, by way of a photo op near the Tomorrowland entrance.

 
Space Mountain ended up being about a 30 minute wait. Boy there were a LOT of DAS users tonight! Space Mountain at the Halloween party is completely in the dark. I generally don’t ride Space Mountain because the star effects make me dizzy, and that ride is so rough. So I figured it’d be fine in terms of the dizzy factor with the lights turned out.

I was right. I still don’t like this one, but at least I wasn’t dizzy after. We’ll skip showing the picture…talk about a bad angle!

When we got off of Space Mountain, we pulled our treat bags out and hit a couple of Trick or Treat stops on our way to Haunted Mansion. We got in line here…and waited and waited…and waited. And then we finally bailed. The wait was WAY longer than posted and we were NOT missing the fireworks.

As we headed more toward Liberty Square it became evident that the parade had been delayed. NO frontline CM’s knew what impact this would have on the entertainment for the rest of the night. Awesome. Finally, I found one of the higher-ups with a million radios. He was able to tell us that as long as it didn’t rain torrentially, fireworks would happen, and the 2nd parade should run as scheduled, again, if it didn’t rain. Phew. Always find the dude with the radios!

So we headed for the hub and took advantage of all of the crowds being on one side of it for the parade to find a decent section of curb for the fireworks. Jessie went and got herself the party brownie, and got one of the last ones. It wasn’t even 10:00 yet. Poor planning Disney? She said the brownie wasn’t anything special.

The fireworks started on time and were very good. We both enjoyed them and this is where the party really started turning around for us.

As soon as the fireworks ended, we headed for Liberty Square where we found a bench along the parade route. We sat and chatted and waited for the parade. Both of us agreed that the rain can really throw things off for this party. But the biggest thing standing out for us was the lack of communication. We know Disney tracks us constantly. We know they have the ability to send push notifications through apps and make announcements. WHY was there NO communication about delays? A very small amount of communication would have made a MAJOR difference. We both really felt for the front line CMs, because they were also receiving no communication and fielding nonstop questions from party goers. So…that’s my party soapbox. Disney needs to communicate.

Miraculously, we were able to watch the parade from our bench. Didn’t make for the best pictures, but it made some tired feet happy. This parade was great. Loved it. And we saw the Headless Horseman ride. A true victory given the weather we started the evening with.

As the parade moved past us we made a quick escape back to Haunted Mansion. We had a very short wait, just enough time to see the actor in the graveyard. Totally made Jessie’s night. And I agree, it was great!

After Haunted Mansion, we headed for the exit, taking just a couple pictures along the way.

As we exited the park, they handed us our 50th anniversary MNSSHP prints. We headed for the bus stop, where we didn’t have to wait as long as it initially looked like for a bus, and eventually we were back at the resort. I think we both were asleep shortly after 1:00, with alarms set for pretty early the next morning.