The Very Late Spring Break Trip Report

[Meteora]

Hi everyone! Things have been so crazy since we got back that I haven't had a chance to do our trip report, but here we go.

We went to the World from March 27th to April 4th--yes, the dreaded "week before Easter." The cast was me (25), Mom and Dad, DSister (22) and, later on in the trip, DSister's DBF (22). As some of you know, my dad had a run-in with cancer this year, so we were happy to celebrate his recovery. We also tried to take it easy in the interest of him not getting too worn down.

For the first two nights we stayed at the Swan, which was lovely as we remembered. Following that we stayed at our timeshare at Vistana Villages.

We got in late Saturday night, and ordered room service. We were so impressed by the set-up! Our food came with a table, tablecloth, cloth napkins, four glasses of ice water, four table settings, and little bottles of condiments. We enjoyed the food and set-up so much that we ordered more room service the next day! The next morning we got up bright and early to be at DHS for opening to go on TSM. DSis and I went last year, but passed up our FPs for TSM in favor of prime seats for Fantasmic, which is DSis's absolute favorite. So the whole family was very excited to try the ride for the first time. We arrived at about 8:35 am. The park opened early, at 8:45. We used the techniques from this board to work our way over and hop on the stand-by line with no wait. Following that my sister ran over to FP TOT and RnRC (she's the only one who goes.) We did GMR and Little Mermaid, then DSis used her FPs while the rest of the fam got breakfast at Starring Rolls and then experienced One Man's Dream, which we all loved. Around this time it looked like the heavens were going to open up, and dad was a bit tired, so we boat-ed it back to the Swan, pretty much just in time--it started pouring soon after, with massive thunderstorms. Our plans to go to Epcot for Illuminations that night were starting to look a little precarious...

ETA: I'm going to post the other days as replies in this thread, because it seems easiest to follow. Hope that's okay!

[faline]

Despite the rain, you're off to a good start! You got quite a lot done in a very short amount of time!

[Meteora]

...but luckily, by 6 pm, it was just drizzling. We got out the umbrellas and headed over to Kouzzina for our dinner ressy. The food was quite good, but it wasn't one of our favorites. After dinner, dad and mom went back to the hotel and DSis and I packed the umbrellas and boated over to Epcot to see Illuminations. Luckily, the rain held off, and we enjoyed the show despite an extremely rude young adolescent boy next to me who informed us, five minutes before the show (we had been waiting in our spot for about forty minutes) that I "ha[d] to move because he didn't have enough room." I calmly told him that I could move, but that I certainly did not HAVE to--it would be a favor, and as such, he might want to think about asking more nicely. He ignored me; I chose not to move. The park was surprisingly empty, probably due to the heavy rain all day. After Illuminations we headed over to the monorail to hit EMH at the MK, which were from midnight to 3 am. Turns out, we didn't even need the EMH--we got almost everything we wanted to done by 12:15 (Splash twice, Winnie the Pooh, Snow White, POTC, Buzz, TTA, BTMRR, at which point it started to rain again and we were exhausted. We headed back to the Swan and, thanks to a mix-up on our part about where to find the buses, got a private bus lift from a very kind driver. Gotta love that Disney service! This was to be our last park day until Wednesday--the next few days were just relaxing.

[Meteora]

Despite the rain, you're off to a good start! You got quite a lot done in a very short amount of time!

Thanks for reading! We knew we'd have limited time, and we knew the parks would be CROWDED, so we tried to time-manage as best we could without exhausting anyone or losing the "smell the roses" aspects of the vacation. The boards are always great for help with planning to get the most out of your park hours.

[faline]

Good for you - standing your ground against the rude boy! It's amazing how folks can arrive at the last moment and decide where everyone else should be so they can a prime spot!

What a long, but fun day!

[yjgirl32]

Great report- thanks for sharing. Can't wait to read more.

[Meteora]

Hello again! So Monday morning, following our very late Sunday night at MK, I dragged myself out of bed to have breakfast with my mom at the Garden Grove. The experience was mixed. We didn't have reservations, but the wait was only about 20 minutes. After we were seated, a waitress came over and asked if we wanted coffee or orange juice. Mom asked for coffee; I took the OJ. The waitress poured the drinks, then told us we could pick from the buffet or the menu, but that if we chose the buffet the drinks she had just poured were included, whereas if we ordered off the menu, they were 7 dollars each. Needless to say, we were a tad perturbed--we had planned to order off the menu, but we didn't really want to pay 7 dollars each for a cup of coffee and a glass of OJ. In the end, we stuck to our guns, ordered off the menu, and got the waitress to lower the price of the drinks, since neither of us had refills. However, while the food was very good, it was clear that the waitress wished we had picked the buffet. She was scarce to be seen for most of the meal and we had to ask another server to ask ours to bring the check at the end. Her manner was very distracted and short.

After breakfast we went upstairs, woke my sister up, and did a late check-out. Our next venture into Disney property was Tuesday night for dinner at Boma, which was fun but not quite as tasty as we remembered. We'd definitely go back, but maybe not on our very next trip. However, we enjoyed watching the animals before the meal (this is the night sister's DBF arrived, and as his flight was a bit late, we had to wait a bit to eat), as well as having glasses of African wine and beer at the wine bar.

[Meteora]

On to our next Disney Day, Wednesday. This was our first day as a fivesome, since the boyfriend had arrived. We got up nice and early to get to Epcot right around rope-drop. Our first stop was at guest relations to exchange my GAD voucher for FPs. I was the only one in my family to volunteer, since my dad had been sick and my sister wasn't really interested, and we had decided as a family that Epcot was the best park for FPs for us. The CM who gave us the FPs laughed and said, "You'll need them today!" We just nodded knowingly. With that in mind, we did the non-FP rides first--Nemo and Spaceship Earth, and walked onto both. Next, we headed to Soarin', then Living with the Land. It seemed a bit silly to use FPs for LwtL when it only had a 20 minute wait, but...we did. After finishing the Land we went to Test Track, which my mom sat out. We considered getting regular FPs to go again later, but even the lines for FPs were ridiculously long! Instead, we headed over to the World Showcase, as my dad was experiencing some random need to see the movie in Canada. The rest of us indulged him. After the movie I picked up a Kimmunicator to play the KP World Showcase adventure, and we headed to France. After playing we found a table and had some pastries and grey goose slushies. Everything was AMAZING. My dad still talks about his Napolean from the Patisserie. We can't wait to go again next trip. After France, we headed to the US of A, where we saw the fife and drum corps and the Voices of Liberty. My dad had wanted to see the American Adventure, but after sitting and waiting for about 45 minutes, found he was too sleepy. He and mom took the boat back, while sister, BF and I walked over to Norway and did the Maelstrom (wow, the regular line was longer than I'd ever seen it!) before meeting up with the parents and leaving the park. The plan--designed by my dad--was to come back later to see the British Invasion and then monorail over to the MK for the evening.

[pdrlkr]

Thanks for the Report! :smickey:

[Meteora]

Once again, I am late in posting. Oh, well. Moving right along. Wednesday evening, after a nice nap, we headed back into Epcot, arriving around 6 pm. We headed to the Land and had dinner at Sunshine Seasons--between the five of us we had the salmon, rotisserie chicken, the turkey sandwich, the veggie sandwich, and a cup of cheddar/broccoli soup. Everything was delicious, and even thought it was 6 pm during the week before Easter, the eating area was practically empty. It was lovely and relaxing to sit there and eat. After dinner we headed over to Soarin' to use our third "Donald" FP, and this time got to sit in the first row, which was a special treat. We then headed to the UK pavilion and snagged seats on the sidewalk to watch the British Invasion. It was a lot of fun to hear the band and watch people dance around the courtyard with their children and spouses, but my sister, the avid Beatles fan, was disappointed that they play so few Beatles songs now. After the show we walked very leisurely back toward the monorail, stopping to look at a few of the topiaries and at the upside-down waterfall outside Imagination, which we all love. Checked with dad and he was feeling great, so we headed on over to the MK. When we arrived we went through bag check, etc, then went straight to Pirates. The line was 5 minutes, so we all rode--on the way, we bumped into a school friend of DSis and her boyfriend, so he joined us. After that, we split up--DSis wanted boyfriend to go on a few specific rides, and DDad wanted to do Philharmagic, which is his favorite. For whatever reason, even though there was no line to get in, we waited about half an hour for the doors to the theater to open--probably the longest wait we'd had for anything so far! But as I said, it's dads favorite. After the show, we wandered over to the Carousel, and I saw that the line was barely existent--on a whim, I asked my mom if she wanted to ride. To my surprise, she did! And...so did dad! So the three of us had a lovely carousel ride. My dad got some soft serve ice cream, which he ate two bites of and then handed off to me, and we wandered over to find a spot for the fireworks. By then DSis had reappeared, just in time to finish the ice cream that I couldn't manage another bite of. When the fireworks actually started we realized there were trees blocking us, so we scooted over toward Tomorrowland and managed to catch most of them. Following the fireworks, the craziness started. Thousands of people started trying to make their way back up Main Street to exit. It was just unreal. We were literally pushed along by the crowd, trying to stay together. And the crowd just barely moved, despite all the pushing. It was like a huge bottleneck--there just wasn't enough room on Main Street for all the people trying to leave. Then, out of nowhere, some CMs appeared and opened the backstage area to lead people out that way. This made a huge difference, and we were able to walk right through to the exit. Kudos to Disney and the CMs for fixing what was a very unpleasant situation. And thus concluded our second Disney night.

[faline]

The exodus after the fireworks can get pretty scary! It's even worse when you don't plan to leave the park and you're trying to walk against the flow of people!

Other than the post-fireworks experience, it sounds like it was a really fun day!

[Checkers]

:mickey:Enjoying your TR. We have been in the situation while trying to leave the MK after the fireworks. Can get a bit scary if you are with little children. We have found it better to just let the crowd thin out and then leave.

Sounds like you all had a great time!

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

Sounds like you'd had a great trip (at least so far)! I agree, MK after the fireworks can be pretty crazy. We also get out of the way and hang around until the crowds disperse ... also makes the bus trip better ;)

[Meteora]

Thanks for reading, everyone! The post-fireworks craziness was definitely our most difficult Disney moment, but--hey. We're in Disney. We just laughed it off later and were pleased with the fact that they CMs actually noticed and did something to improve the situation.

Our final Disney day was Thursday. The parents decided to sit it out and recover from the day before, so it was just the three of us. We headed to AK and, since we weren't planning on doing many rides, didn't bother to get there for RD. I think maybe we got there between 9:30 and 10 am. We went straight to Everest and DSis rode twice using the single riders line--it took between 25 minutes and half an hour total. After that we headed to Dinosaur to get FPs for DSis and boyfriend (I don't like dinosaurs!), then hopped into the Nemo line, which routed us straight into the theater. DSis and I LOVE the Nemo show, so we got there earlyish and then just sat and relaxed. After the show we went back to use the FPs, then headed over to Asia and Flights of Wonder. We were pleasantly surprised to see they had changed the show since the last time we had seen it. We finished out the day with a walk through the Maharajah Trek followed by Mickey bars. At this point it was super crowded and super hot, so we decided to call it a morning and head out, stopping to see some of the animals in the Oasis on the way. We loved that there were ducklings seemingly everywhere we went in Florida! It must have been duckling season.

The plan was to rest, eat some lunch/dinner, and then go to DHS much later to see Fantasmic which, if you recall from earlier, is my DSis' favorite thing in all of Disney.

[BluewaterBrad]

:thumbsup::mickey:

[Mickeydream]

Enjoying your report. Thanks for sharing. I also am a big fan of Fantasmic. :mickey:

[Meteora]

Okay, after much delay, the time has come to conclude this report.
Thursday afternoon, after we left the AK, we picked up some take-out from Pizzeria Uno, which acted as a late lunch/early dinner. By 5ish we were headed back to DHS. My sister really wanted boyfriend to be able to do Star Tours, but I was skeptical, expecting a long line. To our surprise, the lines were really quite short. We had a ten minute wait for Star Tours, then decided to go on TGMR, which was a walk-on, so that boyfriend could see it. Next, we headed over to Muppet Vision. We see this every trip, but I must admit, on our last trip I had been exhausted and hot and maybe...just closed my eyes for a few minutes during the movie. ;) So it was nice to actually see it this time. After that, my sister got a craving for soft-serve ice cream, so we wandered around trying to find some. We were unsuccessful, but she eventually settled for some regular ice cream from one of stands on Sunset Boulevard. Now, my sister takes Fantasmic very, very seriously. She likes to have her pick of seats, and if that means getting in line very early, that's what she will do. And so we did. Since the earlier show was still going on, we sat on the edge of the road in the line and made ourselves comfy. About an hour later, we were seated in the Mickey section and ready for the show to start, my sister practically bouncing in excitement. So we watched; my sister and I cried at the end (always). Boyfriend loved it. And so ended our last park day.

[faline]

Fantasmic is a great way to end your trip!

[KylesMom]

Nicely detailed report! Sounds like you had a wonderful mix of good food, great company and an overall enjoyable trip, even though some of your days were quite crowded. It's great that your Dad was able to have such a good time, too.

Thanks for sharing your "Very Late Spring Break" experience!:mickey: