Sean and Mommy's Sept 2017 WDW trip...aka "Best trip ever!" COMPLETE!

I apologize for spamming you with comments... :flower3: maybe I will hold off on catching all the way up so I am less of a creeper.

I ran at least 5 miles every morning, in addition to all the walking we did.
:faint: shooooooot (said in my best Tow-Mater voice)

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As we drove up to the Beach Club that morning our favorite song was playing on the radio and we both said “this is the best trip ever!”
YAY! What song?

(after taking a giant sniff of that wonderful vacation-y lobby smell we love so much)
:cloud9:

It was once again super hot, which obviously meant I needed a Shoffferhoffffer:
I love the accurate spelling there Amber! haha

On the way we picked up our Halloween popcorn bucket at the stand outside of The Land. Sean opted for cheese popcorn. Another excellent decision on his part.
I have still yet to try this. I finally caved and bought a refillable bucket in April so I will need to stop by for a flavored popcorn refill :thumbsup2

It was approximately 1.7 miles from the elevator but we didn’t even care, it was such a great room:
No joke! How does Disney specialize in impossibly long hallways?

This was the start of our seriously awesome table assignment mojo for this trip. And the weather was gorgeous. We got so lucky! Like we kept saying...this is the best trip ever! :D
:banana: what a view!

Sean got the Kids’ Fish and Chips and an Orange Fanta:...and I got the regular order of Fish and Chips and a Strongbow Cider in a souvenir glass. We both loved our food—the fish was cooked just right and wasn't greasy, and the chips were the wonderful salty carby goodness we’d remembered:
That looks AMAZING. Salty carby goodness for real. Yum!!!

I honestly have no idea what this was (all that's on the online menu is a trifle and that doesn't look like a trifle to me?). I don't really remember him eating much of it, but it was still nice that they gave it to him:

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:confused3 murder your own cupcake, judging by the little well of blood next to the cupcake?

Going through a divorce so first I lost the 30 lbs and then I lost the other 200 lbs
:laughing: I'm so sorry to hear of this but glad you are able to joke about it. Thinking of you. :hug:

I would do a solo trip again in a heartbeat.
Any chance you are free the first weekend of May? We have a big dismeet hatching and it would be fantastic to have you there too!! I will tag you on the thread. It would be amazing if you could come!
 
You are hitting all of our favorite places so far - BC, BoatHouse, Sanaa...

I have taken each of my three boys on a mom and me trip around ages 7-8. They love being able to make all the vacation decisions and I love the bonding time with them! Looking forward to reading the rest!
 
I apologize for spamming you with comments... :flower3: maybe I will hold off on catching all the way up so I am less of a creeper.


:faint: shooooooot (said in my best Tow-Mater voice)

giphy.gif



YAY! What song?


:cloud9:


I love the accurate spelling there Amber! haha


I have still yet to try this. I finally caved and bought a refillable bucket in April so I will need to stop by for a flavored popcorn refill :thumbsup2


No joke! How does Disney specialize in impossibly long hallways?


:banana: what a view!


That looks AMAZING. Salty carby goodness for real. Yum!!!


:confused3 murder your own cupcake, judging by the little well of blood next to the cupcake?


:laughing: I'm so sorry to hear of this but glad you are able to joke about it. Thinking of you. :hug:


Any chance you are free the first weekend of May? We have a big dismeet hatching and it would be fantastic to have you there too!! I will tag you on the thread. It would be amazing if you could come!

OMG I don't even know how to reply to all of your comments to my comments...it would be like Inception and make absolutely no sense and just leave everyone confused! :laughing::laughing:

I will just say yay, so glad you are here and reading along! Also murder your own cupcake for the win, LOL! I have no idea how Disney can make such long hallways, I swear it was like a maze. Thank goodness I had all those alcohol calories to keep me fueled up for the walk! And thanks for thinking of me. I am doing OK at this point :blush: Wish I could make the dismeet but I sadly have no $$$ for Disney at the moment :sad:

Oh! Song was "Something Just Like This" (Chainsmokers and Coldplay). Sean and I were rocking out :thumbsup2
 
You are hitting all of our favorite places so far - BC, BoatHouse, Sanaa...

I have taken each of my three boys on a mom and me trip around ages 7-8. They love being able to make all the vacation decisions and I love the bonding time with them! Looking forward to reading the rest!

That is so awesome! It really is the perfect age IMO. They're big enough to keep up (and stay up later for evening stuff) but still want to do the fun kid stuff too!
 


That is so awesome! It really is the perfect age IMO. They're big enough to keep up (and stay up later for evening stuff) but still want to do the fun kid stuff too!
This is so true. My twins are just about nine and touring is so easy now. We are doing a mama and the three kids in just thirteen days and I’m looking forward to staying up late.

So glad to be reading this report! I’ve started running too! Registering for the Princess Half in February with my dd, 14. Running my first 10k here at home September 30. Really looking forward to that trip in February with dd, just her and me.
 
Our plan for this day was to ride Flight of Passage standby and then use our remaining FastPasses in AK, with an early lunch at Yak & Yeti somewhere in the middle. Even getting to the park early and taking advantage of EMH we still had to wait almost an hour to ride Flight of Passage. Seeing as how the posted wait time was 90 minutes, that didn’t seem too bad. The ride was, as everyone knows by now, completely amazing. Sean really wanted to ride it again but I knew that wasn’t going to happen on this trip, unfortunately. We both loved it though! We also thought Pandora was very cool:

pandora-jpg.337701

I am scheming to try to figure out a way to ride FOP twice during my upcoming solo trip. Hopefully I can score a FP+ then ride again right at closing time. We shall see.

I like that tee shirt, it looks very soft and comfortable. I like drapey tees like that and I never see many at WDW...:confused3

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Jumbo Lump Crab and Avocado-Tarragon Remoulade

Oh, that looks fantastic, right up my alley. I have a long to-do list for that restaurant, so many great sounding items on the menu.

This was pretty much a perfect evening. We were on a bus back to the Beach Club not long after we finished dinner and arrived back to the resort before 9:00 p.m., where I proceeded to drink more wine on the balcony. This is something at which I am rather skilled :rolleyes1

I like your style lady!
 
Day Four-Tuesday, September 19, 2017 (Part One)

The plan today was to rope drop MK at 9:00 a.m., do as many rides as we could before our breakfast ADR, use our FastPasses, and then watch the 2:00 p.m. Festival of Fantasy Parade before heading back to the resort for some pool/down time. We got to MK for the cute opening show in front of the castle and then booked it over to Fantasy Land once the CMs started letting people through. We rode Peter Pan with a 10-minute wait, then rode Haunted Mansion and the carousel. By that point it was time for our 9:55 a.m. ADR at Cinderella’s Royal Table!

Now let me just pause for a moment here. I have three boys. We know nothing about princesses. Nobody has ever expressed any interest in eating in the castle. But I knew that if I could convince anyone, it would be Sean. This took some doing and I went back and forth on whether to even make this ADR, but in the end my girly side won out. Sean was still a bit reluctant though, and said he would only pose with Cinderella and not any of the other princesses. Fine, whatever. :rolleyes2 I wanted to eat in the damn castle so I booked us breakfast and crossed my fingers.

I should also mention that Sean has a thing about taking pictures, and if he feels like anyone is being at all critical of how he is smiling or whatever he immediately flips out and usually starts crying. So this had the potential to be a serious (and expensive) disaster, especially when he started getting upset waiting in line for Cinderella. I somehow managed to distract him with the new autograph book we had, and picking out the right color Sharpie, and miracle of miracles we managed to pull off a decent picture with Cindy:

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We had already been called for our table so we proceeded up the stairs and, once again, scored an awesome table for two. This time we were by one of the windows overlooking Fantasy Land. This was exactly what I'd been hoping for! Say it with me…this is the best trip ever! :D

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The princesses all came around while we were waiting for our food to arrive. I don’t know if it was Disney magic or what, but I got a great picture of Sean with each of them:

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I texted these to my friend @floreksa at one point and was like “ARE YOU SEEING THIS RIGHT NOW???” and she was like “what the hell did you bribe him with?!” :laughing:

Once all the princess activity was over we actually managed to have breakfast. There was the plate of pastries, which I didn’t touch. I think Sean ate a blueberry Mickey muffin and tried a couple of the others—he didn’t really love any of them. I ate a couple of the strawberries.

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For breakfast Sean had the kids’ plate with Mickey waffles, scrambled eggs, and bacon, and I believe orange juice. This was perfect for him and he ate everything.

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I went with the “Healthy Choice” breakfast:

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Hard-poached Egg on a bed of Arugula, tossed with Quinoa, Avocado, Roasted Vegetables, and spritzed with Meyer Lemon Oil and White Balsamic Vinegar

This was actually pretty good but I really am not a breakfast eater and, let’s be honest, I wasn’t in this for the food to begin with. The “roasted vegetables” are just red onion, which I didn’t really want. I picked out the arugula and tomatoes and that was about it, but it was a decent light option.

Cinderella’s Royal Table was a total success for us! We both thought the castle was cool, Sean really enjoyed the character interaction, and he loved the sword he got to take as a souvenir. The food wasn’t anything special but we were paying for the experience as you know you are, and I felt like it was worth the cost. The photos of him with the princesses are priceless IMO! As we walked out of the castle Sean said “that was fun!” Totally worth it :goodvibes
 


This is so true. My twins are just about nine and touring is so easy now. We are doing a mama and the three kids in just thirteen days and I’m looking forward to staying up late.

So glad to be reading this report! I’ve started running too! Registering for the Princess Half in February with my dd, 14. Running my first 10k here at home September 30. Really looking forward to that trip in February with dd, just her and me.

That is awesome! I'd love to do a Disney run some day. What a fun trip that will be with your daughter!
 
I am scheming to try to figure out a way to ride FOP twice during my upcoming solo trip. Hopefully I can score a FP+ then ride again right at closing time. We shall see.

I like that tee shirt, it looks very soft and comfortable. I like drapey tees like that and I never see many at WDW...:confused3



Oh, that looks fantastic, right up my alley. I have a long to-do list for that restaurant, so many great sounding items on the menu.



I like your style lady!

Thanks! Oh, and I got most of our shirts for this trip at Tee Public. Tons of Disney designs and lots of different style options! :-)
 
Day Four-Tuesday, September 19, 2017 (Part Two)

We spent a few more hours at MK riding Dumbo, the tea cups, Space Mountain (Sean’s fave), SDMT, and BTMRR. We of course took our traditional Space Mountain selfie:

space selfie.JPG

Sean also got a Fanta Blue Raspberry slushie from the Lunching Pad:

slush.JPG

We ultimately decided to skip the parade because it was once again super hot and we wanted to be back in our beloved Stormalong Bay! We took the bus back to the Beach Club and were poolside by 3:30 p.m., where my weather app very correctly informed me that it was “hot as balls.” :rotfl:


hot.PNG

It was International Talk Like a Pirate day so Sean fittingly put on his POTC shirt and we headed over to Epcot around 5:45 p.m. for our dinner at one of our very favorites…Via Napoli!

potc.JPG

To absolutely no one's surprise, I started with a delightful bottle of prosecco:


vn drink.JPG

We absolutely love the pizza at Via Napoli. After the Sanaa bread service, this is second on our must-do list when it comes to WDW food! Sean went with a cheese pizza:

vn sean.JPG

I made up my own, with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, tomatoes, and basil:

vn me.JPG

Here I am polishing off my bottle of prosecco. This was obviously a proud moment. I’m thinking of submitting this picture with my application for Mother of the Year:

vn me 2.JPG

As usual, we loved our dinner at Via Napoli. I think it’s the best pizza on property, hands down, and we always enjoy eating there even though it can be a bit on the noisy side. Our table location and service weren’t particularly memorable (ahem…prosecco) but were perfectly fine.

It was EMH at Epcot that night so we wandered around a bit and just enjoyed the great weather and the nighttime atmosphere in World Showcase. Some nice person took a picture of us together—you can actually see our cute Halloween popcorn bucket in this shot if you look close enough:

epcot potc.JPG

We headed back to the Beach Club around 10:30 p.m. Sean enjoyed some of his popcorn in bed, while I enjoyed another glass of wine on the balcony. On our way back from Epcot I had, in a prosecco-fueled craving for something sweet, grabbed some sort of cupcake at the Beach Club Marketplace. I believe this was a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting, the latter being the only part I actually ate, again while sitting on the balcony. Here is the only evidence of this having actually transpired:

cupcake.JPG

That poor cupcake. That photo seriously makes me laugh :laughing:

Yet another awesome Disney day in the books! The next day we were headed to Hollywood Studios for lunch, and then had big plans for the evening which we totally abandoned. Stay tuned to see what we ended up doing!
 
I am absolutely loving your reviews! Your son is adorable! We've stayed at the Beach Club twice and loved it. The location cannot be beat when staying at the Epcot resorts. Looking forward to what's next!
 
I'm here, better late than never! So far your trip seems just perfect :goodvibes

I wasn’t starving so I ordered the Seasonal Soup which was a tomato soup with paneer.
I've had this and loved it! It's been a few years, glad it's still on the menu.


. On the way I grabbed an Ace Pineapple Hard Cider
Love this!

The ride was, as everyone knows by now, completely amazing. Sean really wanted to ride it again but I knew that wasn’t going to happen on this trip, unfortunately.
Our kids rode for the first time last August, Steve and I had been on a couple times already. I only had one FP for it and Ricky ended up absolutely loving it (I wasn't surprised) and asked to ride again during our trip. That was 3 months after Pandora opened and no way was it happening. I felt bad, so just made 3 FOP FP's on our next trip :thumbsup2

And the fries…OMG, they were absolutely delicious.
Mmmm, I love the Boathouse fries! I've only eaten there once with a friend as I can't convince Steve to try it for some reason, but those fries stand out as perfection.

Now let me just pause for a moment here. I have three boys. We know nothing about princesses. Nobody has ever expressed any interest in eating in the castle. But I knew that if I could convince anyone, it would be Sean. This took some doing and I went back and forth on whether to even make this ADR, but in the end my girly side won out. Sean was still a bit reluctant though, and said he would only pose with Cinderella and not any of the other princesses. Fine, whatever. :rolleyes2 I wanted to eat in the damn castle so I booked us breakfast and crossed my fingers.
As another boy mom I'm so happy this worked out for you! When my boys were little we did Akershus twice an they enjoyed it as they were really too young to say they didn't want to meet Princesses. I missed the boat on CRT and we got to the point where they said absolutely not, so I had to guilt them into doing it for me a few years back. It wasn't horrible by any means and I'm glad we did it but yes, it's not easy doing the girl stuff when you're the only girl princess:

once again, scored an awesome table for two. This time we were by one of the windows overlooking Fantasy Land.
We had a similar view at CRT :)

“hot as balls.” :rotfl:
:rotfl2: I say this ALL the time, glad your weather app feels the same as I do when it comes to describing the temp!
 
You truly are having the best trip ever!!!! Love your food and view at the Boathouse. We're likely eating there next month and I hope to get a nice outside table. We made the mistake of eating inside last time and it just wasn't the same. Heck I only drank a beer instead of a whole bottle of wine :drinking1

Oh you have me so jonesing for some Via Napoli pizza right about now. They used to have a pizza place not too far from our house that the same restaurant group owned but sadly it closed last year. I'll have to wait until August to get some more!
 
Day Four-Tuesday, September 19, 2017 (Part Two)

We spent a few more hours at MK riding Dumbo, the tea cups, Space Mountain (Sean’s fave), SDMT, and BTMRR. We of course took our traditional Space Mountain selfie:

View attachment 338258

Sean also got a Fanta Blue Raspberry slushie from the Lunching Pad:

View attachment 338259

We ultimately decided to skip the parade because it was once again super hot and we wanted to be back in our beloved Stormalong Bay! We took the bus back to the Beach Club and were poolside by 3:30 p.m., where my weather app very correctly informed me that it was “hot as balls.” :rotfl:


View attachment 338260

It was International Talk Like a Pirate day so Sean fittingly put on his POTC shirt and we headed over to Epcot around 5:45 p.m. for our dinner at one of our very favorites…Via Napoli!

View attachment 338261

To absolutely no one's surprise, I started with a delightful bottle of prosecco:


View attachment 338262

We absolutely love the pizza at Via Napoli. After the Sanaa bread service, this is second on our must-do list when it comes to WDW food! Sean went with a cheese pizza:

View attachment 338263

I made up my own, with artichoke hearts, mushrooms, tomatoes, and basil:

View attachment 338264

Here I am polishing off my bottle of prosecco. This was obviously a proud moment. I’m thinking of submitting this picture with my application for Mother of the Year:

View attachment 338265

As usual, we loved our dinner at Via Napoli. I think it’s the best pizza on property, hands down, and we always enjoy eating there even though it can be a bit on the noisy side. Our table location and service weren’t particularly memorable (ahem…prosecco) but were perfectly fine.

It was EMH at Epcot that night so we wandered around a bit and just enjoyed the great weather and the nighttime atmosphere in World Showcase. Some nice person took a picture of us together—you can actually see our cute Halloween popcorn bucket in this shot if you look close enough:

View attachment 338266

We headed back to the Beach Club around 10:30 p.m. Sean enjoyed some of his popcorn in bed, while I enjoyed another glass of wine on the balcony. On our way back from Epcot I had, in a prosecco-fueled craving for something sweet, grabbed some sort of cupcake at the Beach Club Marketplace. I believe this was a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting, the latter being the only part I actually ate, again while sitting on the balcony. Here is the only evidence of this having actually transpired:

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That poor cupcake. That photo seriously makes me laugh :laughing:

Yet another awesome Disney day in the books! The next day we were headed to Hollywood Studios for lunch, and then had big plans for the evening which we totally abandoned. Stay tuned to see what we ended up doing!
TRied to just quote the pic but gave up. What style is that Dooney and Bourke you have across your body at Epcot? Looking to get one in August.
 
I am absolutely loving your reviews! Your son is adorable! We've stayed at the Beach Club twice and loved it. The location cannot be beat when staying at the Epcot resorts. Looking forward to what's next!

Aw, thanks! And yes, the Beach Club's location can't be beat. I am totally spoiled having stayed there!
 
I'm here, better late than never! So far your trip seems just perfect :goodvibes


I've had this and loved it! It's been a few years, glad it's still on the menu.



Love this!


Our kids rode for the first time last August, Steve and I had been on a couple times already. I only had one FP for it and Ricky ended up absolutely loving it (I wasn't surprised) and asked to ride again during our trip. That was 3 months after Pandora opened and no way was it happening. I felt bad, so just made 3 FOP FP's on our next trip :thumbsup2


Mmmm, I love the Boathouse fries! I've only eaten there once with a friend as I can't convince Steve to try it for some reason, but those fries stand out as perfection.


As another boy mom I'm so happy this worked out for you! When my boys were little we did Akershus twice an they enjoyed it as they were really too young to say they didn't want to meet Princesses. I missed the boat on CRT and we got to the point where they said absolutely not, so I had to guilt them into doing it for me a few years back. It wasn't horrible by any means and I'm glad we did it but yes, it's not easy doing the girl stuff when you're the only girl princess:


We had a similar view at CRT :)


:rotfl2: I say this ALL the time, glad your weather app feels the same as I do when it comes to describing the temp!

Welcome aboard! I know you feel me on all the guy-focused stuff. For the most part it's fine, but us girls need some fun stuff occasionally, too! And that weather app cracks me up. It was very accurate that day! :laughing:
 
You truly are having the best trip ever!!!! Love your food and view at the Boathouse. We're likely eating there next month and I hope to get a nice outside table. We made the mistake of eating inside last time and it just wasn't the same. Heck I only drank a beer instead of a whole bottle of wine :drinking1

Oh you have me so jonesing for some Via Napoli pizza right about now. They used to have a pizza place not too far from our house that the same restaurant group owned but sadly it closed last year. I'll have to wait until August to get some more!

Definitely sit outside at the Boathouse, it's beautiful! I could eat Via Napoli pizza right now too, and it's 9:20 a.m. ::yes::
 
Day Five-Wednesday, September 20, 2017 (Part One)

The Beach Club is so beautiful and peaceful in the morning:

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After my run I got Sean moving and we headed down to the Beach/Yacht Club dock to catch the boat to Hollywood Studios. Ugh…poor Hollywood Studios. This used to be one of our favorite parks but there is just so much that’s now gone/closed, plus I cannot talk Sean into riding Rock n’ Roller Coaster or Tower of Terror which meant our options there were really limited. Still, the park has some of our favorite attractions so we were determined to at least spend the first part of the day there.

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We did TSMM standby and then used our FP+ for Star Tours, then went to meet BB-8 at the Launch Bay. This picture cracks me up:

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We then tried to figure out what to do until our early lunch ADR at Sci-Fi. We wandered around a bit, did some pressed pennies, and ultimately went to watch Muppets 3D which took us right up to our 11:05 a.m. ADR. Yes, that was with a 9:00 a.m. park opening…we struggled to fill two hours of park time :rolleyes2

Eating at Sci-Fi was a last minute addition to our itinerary when Sean mentioned out of the blue that he wanted to go there. I was so glad I was able to snag a last minute early ADR for lunch. I am not a huge fan of the menu but I do love the ambiance, which is always fun. We were seated promptly in one of the cars and Sean ordered a vanilla milkshake:

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To eat he got the kids’ chicken strips and fries:

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I wasn’t really hungry so we also ordered some onion rings, since I felt bad about not getting an entrée:

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I ordered a beer. Try to look surprised. I got a Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA which is one of my favorite beers since it makes me think of Disney! (I’ve had it both at WDW and at Flo’s Café at California Adventure):

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I texted my friend at this point and was like “I just ordered a beer for lunch. Not WITH lunch. FOR lunch.” :drinking1

Sean enjoyed his food, though there were tons of leftovers. Those onion rings are huge!

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After lunch we went and saw the Frozen singalong which I thought was ridiculously cute and fun. Sean enjoyed it as well. We then walked around the park a little bit and grabbed a frozen lemonade and a beer before heading to our FP+ for TSMM:

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By 2:00 p.m. we were on our way back to the Beach Club via the boat shuttle, and by 3:00 p.m. we were once again poolside at Stormalong Bay for some afternoon chill time!
 

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Ugh…poor Hollywood Studios. This used to be one of our favorite parks but there is just so much that’s now gone/closed,
Yup :charac2: used to be my favorite because I LOVED the old Hollywood vibe. It still has my favorite ride (TOT) but so much is gone that I enjoyed......and I'm not a SW fan :duck:so that won't help.

After lunch we went and saw the Frozen singalong which I thought was ridiculously cute and fun
I am also NOT a Frozen fan but I do like this! I've seen it twice with like 1.5 or 2 years in between and had forgotten how cute it was.
 

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