Walt Disney World Buddy Trip 2016, Part 1

By Nick 

Last year, I went to Walt Disney World for the first weekend of what would turn out to be the last year for Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios with my friends Joe and Josh. We had such a great time, we discussed going again this year. 

A few months passed when we all decided to do it! Star Wars! Woooooo.

And then, literally just 3 days after we finalized our plans, Disney announced that they were discontinuing this event for various reasons.

I won't lie, we were not thrilled with that decision, but we all agreed we would have a great time regardless.  And we did...


Part 1
Tuesday, May 10th  

We took the earliest flight out of Philadelphia, arriving around 9-930, and took Magical Express to Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge, Kidani, which is where we stayed last year. I’d wanted to switch it up, even if it was just slightly, and get a room at Jambo House, but I was told the 1 bedrooms there only have one bathroom!


When we checked in, we learned our room was ready!

We dropped off our bags and headed to Epcot, where the weather was absolutely perfect.

It was just about 11am, so we headed straight back to World Showcase and started hitting some of the Flower and Garden Festival food booths. 

By the time we made it around the Showcase, it was HOT. Before shooting over to Future World to use our FastPasses for Test Track, we stopped at the shops at the entrance/exit to WS.

That is where I discovered moonshine. MOONSHINE. Yes, we bought a bottle. Er, jar.

TT was down, so we headed to Universe of Energy to escape the heat and nap enjoy the attraction.

Afterwards we headed into Innoventions and checked out the really entertaining new-ish exhibit Colortopia. I highly recommend spending some time here, it’s an excellent and entertaining way to escape the heat.

We used our Fastpasses for Spaceship Earth and the character spot before heading back to the room.

We took a quick swim and tried the moonshine out before getting ready for dinner at Boma.

It had been a really long day, so we turned in early.

Throwback Thursday: Walt Disney World-May 2009 - Part 6

By Nick 

Part Five of this Walt Disney World trip report from May of 2009 that I wrote for the DVC News Forums can be found here.  Any commentary I make will be in italics.

Who: My wife, Barbie, my friends Todd and Meghan, and their baby, our Godson, Flynn who was 16 months old, and me.


Saturday, May 23rd & Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Saturday:

I looked out our room window (at Port Orleans French Quarter) at about 730am, and saw this blue stuff in the sky, where the previous 5 mornings, I'd only seen gray.

And, get this, sunshine!

Meghan had an early class (she was down for work). Because we'd had a late evening, Todd and Flynn slept in.

Barbie and I were at Epcot for rope drop. We took it slow, got pics of the topiaries around future world and did a little pin trading. Right at the main entrance, there were topiaries of Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, and the Grumpy was happy, which made me grumpy!





It started to sprinkle a bit, so we got our pics with Donald and Goofy at the meet n' greet across from Innoventions.



The rain passed very quickly, and blue skies returned for a short while.
We got Todd and Meghan (paper) FastPasses for Soarin', then walked as far into WS as we could, taking pics of the gardens.

About 1030AM we got a call from Todd and Meghan that they were on their way to meet us.
We headed up front to meet them, then headed to the Land to eat at Sunshine Seasons.





Then Todd and Meghan rode Soarin' while we watched Flynn. We rode The Seas with Nemo, and watched Turtle Talk.

We then headed over to Club Cool, and next, to the butterfly garden. Todd and Barbie then got FPs for Mission Space (MS), which Meghan and I had no interest in. We all rode Spaceship Earth, then returned to MS for Todd and Barbie to ride.





Megan and I played the interactive space mission game at the exit of the ride. Very fun, never realized it was there.

We then went to a play area that Barbie and I had noticed earlier in the day, for Flynn to play in.

Walked around WS till our 5PM Tokyo Dining reservations.



I had a few rolls, Barbie had the vegetable tempura.

After dinner, we stepped outside to see some very ominous clouds, and then heard the thunder.
So we left the park and got back around 630PM, just as the storm broke. Packed and watched Cars on the Disney Channel.


Sunday:

Up around 730AM. Meghan had a class, and I didn't want to disturb Todd and the baby,
so Barbie an I took a walk over to Port Orleans Riverside, and returned about 930AM.



Meghan got back around 10.
We packed up the SUV, and drove over to Downtown Disney, where we had lunch at T-Rex. We were seated in the "ice room".



I'd heard bad things about the place, noisy, lousy food, and the like. Yes, the ice room was a little headache inducing after an hour, but it was fun, and the food was good. I had the chicken sandwich, Barbie the lasagna. The lasagna was better than I've had at some Italian restaurants.

After lunch, it was off to the airport.

Uneventful flight. Got home around 8PM.

All in all, despite the rain, it was a good trip. It was amazing to see Flynn's reactions to things.
Even if he doesn't remember anything, I have plenty of photos to remind him.

 Thank you for going back to 2009 with us. Next Thursday, we return to another trip in 2009!

The Disney Exchange- Episode 15 Show Notes: Epcot's Flower & Garden Festival

By Nick

Podcast: Play in new window | Download 

-Main Topic- Epcot's Flower & Garden Festival

-The Disney Exchange is Lisa Green, David Hodges, and me, Nicholas Maglio

-Lisa kicks us off with a piece of gossip or rumor of a Jungle Cruise themed restaurant to go in Adventureland and we speculate as to where it would go, and all 3 of us Disney podcasters can't come up with the name of the Tortuga Tavern which was formerly called El Pirata Y El Perico Restaurante.

-Lisa discusses Cinderella and the "tiny waist" controversy. We very briefly talk about Frozen Fever, the new animated short playing before Cinderella.

-We get into our main topic, Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival, which was suggested by listener Paul.  Festival dates this year are March 4th - May 17th.

-Dave shares his experience over the weekend of March 21st and 22nd heat, crowds, and going the wrong way in Epcot, which to Dave is towards Mexico and not Canada.

-This years topiaries are bigger and better!

 Photo: David Hodges

-Be sure to hit the Butterfly Garden and maybe get a free applesauce!

Photo: Dave

-I ask Dave many questions about the food kiosks, in particular what the differences in the kiosks are between Flower and Garden and Food and Wine. I go on to ask for food suggestions, and share my list of must haves, mainly consisting of beer.

 Photo: Dave

-Lisa is not a fan of the realistic faces on the topiaries.

-Dave decided against reinacting the iconic scene pictured below with his 5'11" 14 year old son.

-Dave discusses the English Garden Tea Tour in the United Kingdom Pavilion, which is done several times a day, and is free!

-We talk about musical groups playing this year and the Festival center, located at the former Wonders of Life Pavilion in Future World. Make sure to get a guide and passport.

 Photo: Dave

-Lisa almost gives Dave his walking papers.

-We inevitably get back to talking about food, and Dave's young, unsophisticated palate. Dave shares his and his families food booth hits and misses.

 Food Photos: Dave

-Don't miss the Butterfly Garden and then stop into Club Cool for a Beverly! (Please note; the Beverly statement is sarcasm. Beverly tastes like what I imagine ear-wax would taste like.)

-Dave has trouble finding it, but eventually locates the Wheel of Distiny:
 Best Disney ride for Thrill Seekers.

Thank you for listening to The Disney Exchange, the Podcast of Wisdom!
We can be found at:
TheDisneyExchange.com
twitter.com/disneyexchange
https://www.facebook.com/thedisneyexchange

If you'd like to drop us an email: info@thedisneyexchange 

Worldess Wednesday: Disney Flowers and Gardens

Photos by Barbie 

One Day in Disney

By: Barbie

Some of you may remember me asking you in a past post which WDW park you would go to if you only had a day. Well, we were on a family cruise and one of the excursions offered was a day at Disney. When I saw that, I told Nick that was the excursion that we were going to go on!

Our bus ride from Port Canaveral lasted about an hour. Our tour guide, Yasmin, was extremely knowledgeable and interesting to listen to about Cape Canaveral as well as Orlando. She really made the trip fly. So which park did we chose?

Epcot. We were so excited. We chose Epcot because it was so close to the Flower and Garden Show and we were hoping to get to see some of the amazing plantings and topiaries. Here is the view from the monorail.

My first stop was Guest Relations, to pick up my Birthday button!

Then, out of nowhere, we heard our names being called out. Our friend's sister and her family from home were down there at the same time and we didn't even know it! We chatted and then parted ways.

Our next stop was to check out pins at the Disney Vacation Club Stand, and to do the "Welcome Home" dance with the ladies there. I wish we had remembered to write their names down, they were so much fun!

After doing our dance, we were off to keep our lunch reservations at Le Cellier with friends, Laurie and Angelo.

 

Then we took a leisurely stroll around the park to see all the topiaries.

By the time we got all the way around, we were ready for something dessert, so we headed to the Refreshment Port and got a croissant doughnut. It was amazing. We had a hard time sharing the thing! Many crazy pictures ensued.

We stopped by the Land Pavilion to visit a Cast Member friend, Claire.

We had our photos taken with Minnie and Pluto.

Both were shocked when I pushed Nick out of the way so that I could get my picture alone with them! We had a great laugh over that one! Pluto almost pulled his ears out! Minnie blushed!

 

So here are the final photos of the park before we had to get the monorail back to the TTC. We had a great day, saw many people, ate lots of great food and made more great memories. I wish it would have been longer. We thought we were getting to the bus early, but we were the last ones on! With half an hour to go! Who knew we were the party couple?