Our Hurricane Matthew Weekend : Part 2

By Nick

Part 1 can be found here: http://disneymusings.blogspot.com/2016/10/our-hurricane-matthew-weekend-part-1.html

Friday 10/7/16, Hurricane Matthew

I slept rather fitfully, waking several times during the night to look outside. I really didn't see much.
Finally, around 7 am,  I went for a walk around our floor.

One thing about staying at Pop Century, as we were in an inside facing room, it seemed to be sheltered from the wind to some extent, so when I first went out, it didn't seem that there was much more than a strong breeze blowing. As I walked around however, I did feel some heavier gusts. Still, it was nowhere near the magnitude I'd expected from the news reports the previous evening. And it was not even raining very hard.

Barbie and I had our cereal while watching the news. Matthew's eye had remained offshore, so while the damage was not minor, especially to coastal towns, it was not as severe as had originally been predicted.

I started seeing more and more people walking around so decided to head over to Everything Pop for a coffee. They were serving breakfast! I grabbed my hot beverage, and a couple of tie dye cheesecakes, and headed back to the room.

Barbie and I had our snacks and decided to take a walk over to Art of Animation to see if anything was happening there. Interestingly, they had a much more limited menu. I talked to a Cast Member who said they had run out of food! And their shop, wasn't open!

We walked back to Pop, got back in our PJs and had our salads, expecting to just spend the rest of the afternoon in. We were contacted by Jill and Zach who had decided to come over to hang out with us, and wound up getting a ride from a Cast Member on a golf cart!

Zach broke out UNO, and we spent awhile playing.

Around 2:30- 3, I got a text from a CM friend, Marilyn, letting me know that Disney Springs would be opening at 4 pm! Shortly thereafter, I received a message from the Pop front desk, also sharing this information. I will say, Disney and Pop did a really good job updating us via messages throughout the whole experience.

Zach called us an Uber and we headed over to the main building to wait. Within just a few minutes we were on our way to Disney Springs, arriving at 3:45. We talked to a really great CM who was a New Jersey local, in fact from the town adjacent to where Barbie works. A few minutes before 4, he took us down to the entrance and admitted us. We were literally among the only people in all of DS! It was pretty amazing to get our first look at the just recently opened Town Center section almost completely empty.

We took a walk around, and as we were looking at the D-Luxe Burger menu, a CM came out and invited us to go on in, they were the only restaurant actually fully open at that point!

The 4 of us split 2 different burgers, fries and milkshakes. I'll have a full review in the future, but will say this, we thoroughly enjoyed it!

We headed over to Jock Lindsey's and were lucky enough to snag a table, because within 15 minutes of our arrival, the place was standing room only, with a long line out front!

Service was a bit slow, but this was understandable, because, as it was explained to us by our server, the CMs that were in were not necessarily servers from the particular establishment, and they were very understaffed. Throw in the fact that DS was literally the only game in town, so to speak, and you have a recipe for huge crowds!

We spent a couple of hours eating, drinking, crowd watching and playing Uno before heading out into the masses! We walked through several shops before deciding to head back, as it was going to be an early start the next day, as Disney had announced they would be opening it's parks at 8 am.
 

We had missed a day and a half at the parks, but we had experienced something that relatively few people have, a Hurricane at Walt Disney World, and only the 4th time that the parks had been closed in it's 45 year history!

Our Hurricane Matthew Weekend : Part 1

By Nick

There were several reasons we chose to go to Walt Disney World for a short visit October 6th through October 10th.

The number one reason was that my Disney Exchange Podcast co-host Lisa was going to be at WDW until October 8th. We talked our fellow co-host Dave, who lives relatively close, to come down for an official Disney Exchange Podcast meetup on the 7th!

We promoted said meetup for several weeks on the show as well as all over our social media accounts.

It was going to be epic! We would get plenty of photos of us all together, and hopefully meet a few of our listeners!

And then came Hurricane Matthew.

I started to watch the weather obsessively on October 2nd. By the 4th, I was on the fence as to if we should reschedule. My wife's cousin Jill and her husband Zach were also going to WDW during the same dates, and Lisa was there with her family. I really wanted to go and see my friends and family! Barbie and I decided to just keep an eye on things and not panic.

By the night before our flight, which was due to fly out at 7:05am on Thursday the 6th, Matthew had shifted to a course that looked like it would be making landfall on the eastern coast of Florida.

 From The Miami Herald, 10/5

Disney cancelled several events, and even evacuated people camping at Fort Wilderness, but the parks were still due to be open. Airlines were cancelling flights starting Thursday afternoon. Dave was sending me updates from Florida. To say I didn't sleep well would be a huge understatement. I kept checking to see if our flight was still on time.

Thursday 10/6

Our airport shuttle picked us up promptly at 4 am, we were checked in and at our gate at 5:30am, and our Southwest flight left right on time. On the way down, to commemorate Matthew, all adults were treated to Hurricane cocktails, which were delicious!

We were also treated to some very interesting clouds!

We landed on time, and just a few moments before our family, who were flying in from New England. We met up at the airport!

They got on their Magical Express bus for Caribbean Beach while we headed to Pop Century.

We got our first real glimpse of the effect of the Hurricane at WDW when we walked into the Pop lobby. It was a bit insane. People were either trying to check out early, or their flights had been cancelled and they were trying to book an extra day or two.

After 30 minutes we checked in and headed for our room. As soon as we put our bags down I saw I had several Facebook notifications. Several of them saying that Walt Disney World parks were closing at 5:00pm and that they would be closed all day Friday the 7th! I checked Disney's website and they had not updated with this info at that point.

We headed out to catch a bus to Epcot, and on the way spoke with a groundskeeping Cast Member, and he verified the closures.

On the way to the park, I contacted Lisa who had made us and her family advanced dining reservations at Shula's Steak House located in the Dolphin Resort at 7:30. Our new plan was to meet at Epcot, head to the Dolphin at 5:00pm, have a few drinks before dinner, and take a cab or Uber back to our respective resorts.

These plans were thrown out when we went to Guest Relations to pick up Barbie's Annual Pass. The Cast Members informed us that there would not be any transportation available in the evening as the Governor had declared a state of emergency.

I contacted Lisa again and gave her this updated information.

Jill and Zach arrived, and the 4 of us headed back to World Showcase to get in as much park time as we could. It was a little after noon, but the crowds were not very heavy due to on and off again showers, as well as the general situation.

We headed off to the Patagonia booth to get my perennial favorite dish, the beef skewers with chimichurri sauce. We had just gotten in line when I heard someone ask if I was Nick from The Disney Exchange! Jennifer is a fan of our show, and a frequent contributor on our sister/brother podcast, Geekin' on WDW. Thank you for saying hello Jennifer, you made me feel like a celebrity!

After a couple more stops, we met up with a long time Facebook friend Diane and her husband Andrew, and had a nice time chatting at the Canada Pavilion. One minute the weather was beautiful, and then within moments it started to pour.

We said goodbye to Diane and Andrew and headed into the Craft Beer building where we shared a couple of flights and snacks, before heading over towards the Seas to meet Lisa and her family.

On the way we stopped into Club Cool, and a very odd thing happened. 2 people I know (Jill and Zach) liked Beverly. I mean they commented on how good it was to Barbie and me, without any provocation. Really. Beverly.

We met up with Lisa (thanks again for the Komodo Dragon figure and tee shirt, buddy!) and her family and walked back towards World Showcase with the intention of riding Frozen Ever After.
The park was mostly empty, so there would be no long wait, right?
Uh, no. 105 minutes. So THAT'S where everyone was!

We moved on to the American Pavilion and grabbed a beer at the Hops and Barley stand before parting ways.

Following Zach's suggestion, we went into the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Japan to get some snacks for the storm, and he treated me to a saki. Thanks Zach!

By then it was 4:15, and we had 4:50 FastPasses for Soarin.' When we got there, Zach approached the Cast Member at the FastPass entrance and asked if we could go in early, and she said yes!

Ah, Soarin' Around the World...it's good. I'll talk more about that in another post.

By the time we exited it was 4:50 or so. We were getting hungry and I noticed very few people at Sunshine Seasons. It looked like they hadn't started cleaning up yet, so I suggested we go there. This turned out to be very fortuitous. There were several pre-made salads and sandwiches, as well as cereal and milk, so we grabbed breakfast, lunch and dinner food for the next day, and had dinner then and there as well.

Heading out there was still a lot of people getting buses, so we had to wait a couple of rounds, but we met a really wonderful couple and time seemed to fly by as we chatted with them.

When we got back to the resort we really appreciated having picked up our food from the Land, as the line for the pre-packaged meal Disney was offering was over 2 hours long. The meal, which, if I can recall correctly from what I was told, contained a sandwich, chips, and dessert, was $12.99. I don't remember the drink or if there were snacks included.

I bought a bottle of Captain Morgan's Long Island Iced Tea at the shop and we headed back to the room to watch the weather. The news and media made it sound very dire indeed, and we prepared to be in for the entire next day!

Next up- Hurricane Day!

All Star and Pop Century Resorts in Walt Disney World

By Nick

Through the years, my wife Barbie and I have stayed at several of the Value Resorts in Walt Disney World, starting with Pop Century for the first time in 2007, and several times after that.

Each of the resort's buildings is themed to the centuries, starting in the 1950s, and continuing through the 1990s, and each features large icons appropriate to that time period.

The main building is called Classic Hall, and it's here that you'll find Check In as well as Everything Pop, the gift shop and food court.
The food at Everything Pop is really good, and every time we've stayed there, we've made sure to have at least one dinner there.

Classic Hall has several really great showcases that have really great memorabilia from the various decades represented. You could spend a good amount of time just perusing these.

All of our experiences at Pop have been positive. The rooms are small, but as there is just 2 of us, that really isn't an issue. We've also never had a problem with noise, but we've only stayed during slower times of year.

We stayed one night in at All Star Movies, and that was also a good experience.
The movie theme begins as soon as you enter the lobby with a Hollywood mural behind check in, and "Hall of Fame" displays throughout.

The World Premier Food Court located just off the main lobby.

The food court has a movie marquee theme, with different "theaters" having a variety of food options.

 We chose our lunch selections from the Majestic menu, and, no lie, the food was great!

Barbie had the Hot Italian Sandwich with the cucumber salad, and I had a meatball sub.

The shop, Donald's Double Feature, also located off the main lobby.

We stayed in the The Mighty Ducks section, which is located on the far end of the resort property. The map makes it look much further away than it really is!

The area is decorated with a hockey theme. If you aren't familiar, Mickey Ducks is a 1992 Walt Disney Pictures movie about a hockey team, which actually led to a real-life version of the Mighty Ducks, a National Hockey League expansion franchise!

The Duck Pond Pool is themed to an ice hockey rink.

The room was small, but clean. There isn't much themeing besides the poster.

Like Pop, we had been warned that the resort could be very noisy, and the walls are thin. We didn't experience any issues, but that could have been because we were very near an end room, and again, it was a slower time of year.

Another section is themed around 101 Dalmations.

Don't miss a cute photo op with the TV loving Lucky the pup.

 

The main pool is located in the Fantasia section, and is appropriately themed with Sorcerer Mickey.

 A photo op with Daisy and Donald is tucked away back in here.

Behind Fantasia, is the Love Bug area.

 

Last but not least, the Toy Story section.

As you head towards Andy's bedroom door, stop for a photo with RC Car.

Then enter Andy's room!

It's a very cute resort, and it's great for a family on a budget, but we would spend a little extra and choose Pop Century over the All Stars.

Our favorite value, however, is Art of Animation, please stop back for a look at that resort in a future post, and to hear more on Pop and All Stars, please listen to Episode 20 of The Disney Exchange.