HI. We are back from Disney and I want a do-over, LOL.
The weather was actually worse than I anticipated. Forecast was showing us a few days where the upper temps in the afternoon were high 50s/60s, so I thought that’s shorts weather for the boys, I’ll be fine in the warmer stuff I brought with me. Nope. Weather was AWFUL the ENTIRE trip. Even on the days where it did get into the 50s, the wind was still so cold it was like being punched in the face with ice crystals. It was not. enjoyable. at. all.
I had to buy an extra long sleeve shirt at Epcot on day 1 and I had to wear that under every single outfit you saw me in the rest of the week for layering. I had bought 2 pairs of fleece lined leggings for the trip – one black and one “nude” so I could wear them under my outfits with shorts. I ended up wearing BOTH pairs every single day. They are the only thing that kept me sane. It also rained. A lot.
Basically – Sunday, which was our resort day, was decent. Still had to wear jackets, boots, etc but could sit outside.
Monday – cold. Shivering. Got decent around 3-5 if you stood in a patch of sun and then back to cold as the sun went down.
Tuesday – This was literally the only day that didn’t have that horrible cold wind cutting through everything, But it rained a good part of the day.
Wednesday – Freezing cold. All day.
Thursday – Freezing cold. All day. With misting rain all afternoon/evening.
Friday – Sunny for once. But still cold. In the afternoon it was passable if you stood in the sun and the wind wasn’t blowing.
So yeah that sucked. It felt like the cold and dealing with the cold took up 50% of my brain space and I couldn’t really think about or enjoy anything else. It’s hard to eat festival food on a garbage can when it’s 40 degrees and raining.
Anyway. We did try to have fun, but this is officially the worst Disney trip we’ve ever had. But let’s go over it all.
Thursday evening we went to pickup Kevin. I told him if he’d come over to my house and help me move a few things we’d go get the biggest mozzarella stick in the world.
Chase had him go do a few things around his house (check on the plants, find the cat, etc) while I sneakily packed his bag and put it in the back of the car.
We packed the car Friday night after he went to bed. Saturday morning I woke him up at 5am and said it was time to go get the mozzarella stick.
He was very confused why it was dark outside. At first I told him it was because the curtains in his room were closed. Then we got downstairs and he could clearly see it was dark and I showed him the time and said it was actually 5 in the evening, he’d slept all day and it was dark again, LOL.
Loaded him in the car, set him up with the ipad and movies and he was quiet pretty much the entire drive, absorbed in his movies.
At one rest stop he did ask Chase where we were going. Chase just stick with the mozzarella stick storyline.
We got to Orlando around 8pm-ish? We had a stay that night at a Marriott (hooray for marriott points)
Told him it took us too long to get here so we had to stay here overnight before getting the mozzarella stick. Got Shake Shack delivered for dinner since the hotel didn’t have much to choose from. Thankfully we didn’t take him in the lobby… it was full of Disney stuff LOL. (Also the Marriott seemed to have given our room away? My reservation disappeared from the app, wasn’t there anymore when I went to pull it up as we got there. Check in guy said he could see it, asked if we were there with friends and did we know a Mr Dumas? LOL nope. He had to go into the back to talk to his manager but we did get our room pretty quickly. Strange.)
Next morning he questioned why I put sunscreen on his face. I said it was to keep him youthful LOL.
Left the Marriott to head to Boardwalk. I could kick myself, I thought I was recording when we drove under the Disney sign but apparently I STOPPED recording instead of started. I said “Look Kevin look what we are driving under!” and he looked and said “HUH? I didn’t know we were at Disney World!” and then he got really giggly because he figured it all out.
The one day I was able to wear shorts.
We explored the resort a bit while they got our room ready. Then Kevin got his second surprise – his mom walked in through the front doors! He had no idea she was coming too and he was doubly surprised LOL.
Our room was ready so we dumped all of our stuff. We had a great view of the skyliner and the Epcot fireworks.
Too bad it was too cold to ever enjoy this balcony.
We headed to Disney Springs while the weather was still decent.
Lunch at Raglan Road. Chase and I split the fish and chips and also got the tomato soup which was REALLY good. And also the potato boxty because we always gotta do that.
A little shopping. Kevin as usual was way out of shape and struggling to walk the first couple of days. Didn’t help that everything was wet from rain so he couldn’t sit just anywhere.
Back to the resort, unpacked, napped and then headed to dinner at Trattoria Al Forno:
This was prob my fav meal of the week. I had the lasagna and it was great. The boys had pizza which they didn’t like quite as much.
Then we went to abracadabar for drinks.
Unfortunately it was too packed to sit inside so we were outside. I got the Conjurita.
But the weather was still fine, chilly but do-able. So it was nice to sit outside and watch the performances on the boardwalk. Kevin really enjoyed the hula hooping act.
SO glad I threw my Taylor Swift jacket in at the last minute, I would’ve had to buy some expensive thing at disney springs or epcot to stay warm otherwise. We did have to buy gloves for everybody on Monday.
Epcot fireworks from the room.
Day 2 (or technically day 1) was Epcot!
Wore my Scarlet Witch outfit.
Walked over to Epcot and immediately got in line for Ratatouille.
The FARTs art photo ops were fun.
I have so many pics from the first couple of days of Kevin sitting anywhere and everywhere. He was too worn out to walk around the shops. Gotta get this boy some regular exercise.
Found Alice!
So let’s pause and review all of the FARTs booth eats we tried:
1. Color Craze Latte + Donut – we got this for Kevin but they were out of the donuts. So it was just in a regular cup without the donut and m&ms. He really liked it though and I tried it and liked it too.
2. Deconstructed BLT – I think this was my fav, we got it twice.
3. Deconstructed Key Lime Pie – this was good too, but Kevin ate most of it while Chase and I were eating our second deconstructed BLT LOL
4. Rainbow Cake topped with Freeze Dried Skittles – this was fine. Kevin loved it.
5. Carne Asada – this was good.
6. Natilla de Maiz – this was also really good!
7. General Tso’s Chicken Shumai Dumplings – this was also good, probably #3 of top 3.
8. Creme de Brie en Petit Pain – this was disappointing. It tasted like the cheese sauce from Panera’s Mac and Cheese in a slightly stale, room-temp bread bowl. Two bites was enough.
9. Almond Frangipane Cake – this was ok.
10. Beef Wellington Inspired Croissant – this was really good, probably #2 after the BLT.
I wish we could have eaten more, but trying to balance umbrellas and gloves while eating at standing booths was just too difficult.
I did achieve a personal goal – meeting Figment!!
Kevin loving the skittles cake (skittles is his fav)
Bummed never got to see Rainbow Connection on Spaceship Earth, but since we were at Boardwalk we were not near the front of the park often esp at night!
I bought a Lightning Lane for me and Susan to do Guardians. I LOVED it!!
We got Everybody Wants to Rule the World and we were singing along to it the entire time.
This might be my fav pic from the trip:
Shiki Sai in Japan for dinner:
It was ok. Not much different from what we can get at home so we probably won’t be back.
It was super cold out by that point so we all ran shivering back to Boardwalk for the evening.
Day 2 – DHS!
This was the only decent weather day. It did rain, and was still chilly, but it was the only day without the biting cold wind.
The boys wore their new droid outfits and I just wore Leia – with my long sleeve black shirt underneath and BOTH pairs of fleece lined leggings.
Rode the skyliner over to Riviera for breakfast.
I had the Lemon Blueberry pancakes, Kevin had mickey waffles.
Then off to Hollywood. Did Mickey and Minnie first. This was the only day with decently low wait times.
Then went to meet Darth Vader since we’ve never met him before.
This was fun.
Got Kevin the stormtrooper popcorn bucket and discovered this was a great way to keep him from moaning and groaning about his feet and legs aching and wanting to sit all the time, because he was focused on the popcorn. I did carry a washcloth that day to wipe down places for him to sit. And then it got forgotten on Sunset Blvd. I’ve carried that green washcloth in our park bag for years! And now no more washcloth to wipe down places for Kevin to sit.
We did Rise and Smuggler’s Run, and I left our umbrellas on Smuggler’s Run and they had to go back in and find them for us LOL
This photopass photographer was hilarious and posed us like this. We decided Susan was Darth Vader because her coat. LOL
My droid boys.
We got so much interaction in these outfits today too. Chewie came over to me and Kevin and spent a minute with us. Kylo Ren called us up for a photo with him (that’s on Susan’s phone, I’ll have to get that from her). The stormtroopers and Imp Officer made some comments – the officer said “I guess people are just dressing like criminals now!” LOL And Vi waved at us from afar. The only character we didn’t see was Rey.
Susan and Kevin got to pilot on Smuggler’s Run.
We had lunch at Docking Bay and it was really good! We’ve avoided it for years because Chase didn’t think it looked good but we all really liked it.
Also Disney I’m begging you for the 10th year in a row please add a “download all” option for photopass! It took me forever to download everything.
We went and rode Slinky and Toy Story Midway Mania.
Then Susan and I did Tower because the boys are chicken.
Headed back to the resort to change – we had a late dinner at Beaches and Cream, I’d tried to plan it so we could do Fantasmic and then go to Beach Club for dinner but it didn’t work.
Dinner fit, plus my Taylor coat, and I froze in this. Back to the fleece lined leggings for the rest of the week.
Beaches and Cream was good. The grilled cheese and tomato soup weren’t as good as I remember them being but the fries were still fire. Kevin got this giant strawberry thing for dessert LOL.
Day 3 – Magic Kingdom
I think this was the coldest day. Overcast, biting winds. We had to buy Kevin another sweatshirt to keep warm.
I tried to do a variation of my Padme Lake dress outfit – my plan had been to wear my new cardigan with my halter top and pink shorts (with the leggings) but it was just too cold for the halter top. So I put my lake dress spirit jersey on under it – plus my Epcot shirt still – fleece lined leggings under my jeans and my boots. Plus my Taylor Jacket. And it was still cold.
Had breakfast at Carousel Coffee at our resort where Kevin immediately spilled his entire latte.
Drove to MK. Got the preferred parking. Monorailed over. Immediately went and got the cheeseburger and pizza eggrolls LOL
Then straight to Pirates for Kevin.
I told our group to look and smile at the camera before the drop LOL
Randomly ran into Big Al:
Despite the bad weather crowds this day were kinda nuts.
We waited nearly an hour for Haunted Mansion.
We did get stopped three times during the cemetery scene and I got some great long exposure shots.
We then waited a VERY long time for the Pooh and Tigger meet and greet but it was worth it because they LOVED Chase’s outfit.
Then we had a snack at Gaston’s – the creme brulee croissant, the cinnamon roll and the ham and gruyere tart. The tart was SO GOOD? I hadn’t expected that, i gave Kevin the rest of my portion of the croissant in exchanged for his portion of the tart so I could have more LOL
We rode Little Mermaid with another absurdly long wait for a cold January wednesday:
We decided to head out because we were all SO COLD and had to change for dinner, Planned to just leisurely shop a bit to warm up as we headed out but got stopped by the parade so we watched that from the castle walkways. Kind of a great spot to watch from!
We went back to the Boardwalk, got warmed up and changed for dinner at Steakhouse 71.
I was… incredibly disappointed. Last time we ate here, they had this wild mushroom sauce and I was obsessed with it. I googled around before we made reservations to make sure they still had it and found people in forums saying they did. Well they DON’T. Food was still good but I was crushed and our server was just kinda… meh about everything.
Afterwards we got on the monorail and rode around to the Polynesian to go to Trader Sam’s.
They told us an hour to an hour and a half wait which we expected. Went upstairs and got a Lapu Lapu and hung out.
At an hour and a half Chase went to go see what was up. There were still 3 parties in front of us and we were told people inside just weren’t leaving. Seems like it might be time to institute a time limit like at Oga’s, Disney?
We gave it another half hour and left, texted to cancel our wait. Bummer.
And of course got a text our table was ready once we were on the monorail.
At least I got some pics of my dress in the poly lobby. Even if I was wearing stupid leggings under it to try to keep warm.
It was one thing if it was the 3 of us but felt like we made Susan sit around for 2 hours for nothing on her last night there.
Day 4 – DHS/Epcot!
Wore my new Amidala bound. I had been planning to save this for dinner one night but decided to just wear this all Thursday. Again, with my long sleeve Epcot shirt and 2 pairs of leggings underneath LOL
Susan left this morning so it was just the 3 of us. We had breakfast at Grand Floridian Cafe:
Also had to go park in some remote parking lot and walk in the cold, that was fun.
But Grand Floridian Cafe was so good! We loved the food and our server. I had the club, Kevin had Mickey waffles. I don’t remember what Chase had.
Got on the skyliner and popped over to DHS for a minute:
Why? Had another surprise for Kevin:
Hannah was there!! We got to hang out with them for a few minutes and take some pics together.
Then we stopped in the Star Tours gift store because I wanted this Star Wars hip bag I saw to wear with my outfit today.
Then off to Epcot for the rest of the day.
I loved the prompt for this shot, the photopass photographer told us “Look at the funniest person on your group”
Kevin got Mickey really excited talking about Kingdom Hearts. I promised him I’d photoshop a keyblade into his photos.
The Broadway costume exhibit was great!
It rained/misted pretty much the entire afternoon/evening.
We rode Maelstrom I mean Frozen Ever After.
We look so excited LMAO (I hate that ride, it tends to be too rough and give me a migraine but thankfully it did not this time)
That morning Chase had bought a hat in the boardwalk gift store to try to keep his ears warm. Then in Canada he found another one he liked better and switched to that, so I took over the first one since it was black and gold and matched my outfit anyway?
Originally we had planned to eat at Rose and Crown that night, but we realized they had pared the menu WAY down? Like where did the welsh pub burger go? Only 2 appetizers?? And since we already did Raglan Road earlier in the week, we canceled it and just kept eating at booths and then left Epcot early, went back to the resort, got a pizza and (at last) the giant mozzarella stick and ate in the room, warm and dry for the first time all day.
The giant mozzarella stick was like legit fire. I didn’t expect it to be so good.
Day 5 – DHS, last day 🙁
So Wednesday we tried to see if we could extend our stay by a day because the weather Saturday – when we were driving home – was supposed to be nice FINALLY. But alas. NOTHING was available except like a 1K per night room at Animal Kingdom. And they kept saying we’d have to buy a new one day ticket instead of tacking onto our existing tickets? We’ve tacked onto existing tickets before so i dunno if they changed something but either way it wasn’t happening 🙁
Friday was Muppets day!!
We had breakfast from Boardwalk Deli at our resort and then hopped on the boat, then the skyliner, to DHS.
Kevin was Gonzo. With a Camilla bag.
Of course we headed straight for Muppets Vision 3d.
And I had to take some pics around PizzeRizzo in my Rizzo outfit.
We also did all share a pizza there just for posterity.
My fav pic of the whole trip:
It was funny, most people immediately “got” Fozzie and Gonzo and then would look at me and be like… and you are…?
My boys both getting to be pilots this time on Smuggler’s Run:
We HAD to wait in this long ass line because Kevin LOVES a Goofy movie and we’ve never seen Max before!
Then we met Donald and Daisy and they were obsessed with Kevin’s chicken bag:
Did a little shopping, had some ice cream which, that afternoon, if you found a sunny spot that blocked you from the wind, it was warm enough to actually take your jacket off and enjoy the ice cream.
Also did Star Tours and Mickey and Minnie again.
And just to kill time til our dinner reservation, we met Olaf:
Disney what is this atrocious lighting in this photo op?
Dinner was at Brown Derby:
Was AGAIN disappointed they took the short rib off the menu?? What gives disney?
Got the cobb salad and the potato soup, it was good. Kevin had some kind of vegetarian shepherds pie that he ate every last bit of, and Chase got the lamb shank which was good.
Since we’d had an early reservation at Brown Derby we were either going to wait around for Fantasmic which I nixed early on because that was going to COOOOLD or go back to Magic Kingdom since we only did a half day there and hardly got to do anything, including Tron. But we decided instead to go back to the resort, change and go to Disney Springs for the rest of the night.
Kevin got this ridiculous thing while Chase and I shared poutine. We were all freezing by that point so we headed back to the hotel to pack.
Homeward Bound:
Didn’t set an alarm, just got up, finished packing and headed out. Grabbed breakfast, I slept in the car for a while, then drove for a while, Kevin watched movies the whole time. Got a late lunch. Got back into town around 9. Dropped Kevin off – minus most of his clothes because they are mixed in with our stuff, I’ve got to go through and separate out everything.
Here’s the FARTs prints we got.
I also got the cold weather Epcot shirt I wore everyday LOL. Two winter hats. More ponchos. A snoopy shirt. Some mickey lounge pants. Chase got a Norway shirt, some legos. I can’t remember what else.
Anyway like I said at the start, I feel like I didn’t really get a proper disney trip. We had some money set aside to use on the trip, and we ended up not spending it. We may turn around and dump it into another shorter trip later this year. At the moment airfare is not working in our favor to do that though – I’m reminded why we don’t fly because the cheapest we can find that’s not an OVERNIGHT FLIGHT is $400 per person. Ridic.
So who knows. I dunno. I’m just mostly feeling sad about the whole thing. There were highlights for sure. Kevin being surprised. Susan surprising Kevin. Hannah surprising Kevin. Wearing what we could of our little outfits even though we had to layer under them like a 5 year old Halloween. Some of the food. Character interactions. I just needed a couple of warm-ish days for it to feel like a true disney vacation and we didn’t get that.
Anyway I guess I have to switch my brain over to dragoncon plans now and start swatching. Ugh! I hate swatching but gotta do it especially if Joann is gonna die D: