She's Packing it All In, a June 2023 5 Night Copper Creek 1BR Trip Report (Completed 8/17)

[Wood Nymph]

We had our big event of the trip booked, a Fireworks Cruise for our anniversary night.

That explains why the VQ for Guardians didn't work out.

Finally the sky cleared up but the walk way was still pretty flooded. We were the last family standing though with all the rest of the Recreation Cast Members. One girl waded out into the water to clear the leaves off the drain so the water would clear. It was up pretty far above her ankles.

There are many places in both the parks and the resorts that form a deep lake when there is a downpour. I am surprised that Disney hasn't tried to alleviate the flooding problem.

Marshall did talk about the slurping drain for a week though, I’m not sure he would have talked about the fireworks cruise that long.

That's cute. I can see where he would enjoy the drain more than the fireworks.

magic cookie bar

my favorite

 

[rdkeim]

Well I guessed correctly that you had booked the fireworks cruise! Darn, sorry it didn't work out but you made the best of it. It's hard to get my DH to any fireworks - a fireworks cruise would be a great idea for our next trip. At least you got to eat at your favorite restaurant so your anniversary day wasn't a bust. Brunch - yum!

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

All those sweet treats look amazing!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Did you find a way to entertain yourselves while in the Remy line?

We mainly took turns with the spray fan, then played on our phones while trying to keep the kids from fighting...

Have you tried different types of shoes for Marshall, to see if there are any shoes where his feet would be more comfortable for a day with lots of walking?

We got him to wear "real" shoes for some of this trip, but it was still a lot of walking for him.

Sorry to see that you missed Guardians and that the fireworks cruise had to be cancelled.

That could have ruined someone's day, but we made the best of it.

Great double rainbow picture outside the Contemporary!

That was pretty cool.

Is there a vlog for this day too?

Ahh yes, i just got there link for it. Here it is:

That explains why the VQ for Guardians didn't work out.

Yeah, we didn't want to stay that late.

There are many places in both the parks and the resorts that form a deep lake when there is a downpour. I surprised that Disney hasn't tried to alleviate the flooding problem.

This was clearly a clogged drain, but it took a brave activities girl to wade out there and take care of it. She went above and beyond.

That's cute. I can see where he would enjoy the drain more than the fireworks.

Everyone was having fun, since the grumpy people had already left.

my favorite

It is tough to beat the Magic Cookie Bar.

Well I guessed correctly that you had booked the fireworks cruise! Darn, sorry it didn't work out but you made the best of it.

Yeah, it would have been cool, but since we've done it before it wasn't that bad,. We did something different and hung out with the boat drivers and resort activities people.

It's hard to get my DH to any fireworks - a fireworks cruise would be a great idea for our next trip. At least you got to eat at your favorite restaurant so your anniversary day wasn't a bust.

Melissa hates sitting and dealing with the post-fireworks crowd, so the cruises work perfectly. They are a little pricey, but it is a hour and a half private boat ride with a great view of the fireworks and no crowds. We love the cruises. We still had a fun day.

Brunch - yum!

Oh yes, it was going to be delicious.

All those sweet treats look amazing!

We didn't get as manu pictures as usual, but they were good. The campfire cupcake was a good solid option, but Allie still wanted to try the bee mousse thing, but that would have to wait for another day.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

For anyone who missed it, here is Allie's third Vlog video, covering the day from her perspective. Perhaps missing Guardians wasn't a big deal for her...

 

[DaisyDuck001]

That elevator scene is so funny!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

That elevator scene is so funny!

Yes! I picture someone else getting on the elevator and being really confused. It is funny to see her share her deepest thoughts.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I got up at 5:20 again, and went out to take more pictures. Melissa just couldn't understand why I would go out and do this, but I was excited to do it and really do enjoy the quiet mornings at the resort.

Eh it’s ok, I get the bed to myself for a bit.

And I sneak out pretty quietly, although I don't think much would have made anyone else in the room wake up. I walked through the lobby, down by Roaring Fork for a mug refill, and out by the Northern cabins before workimg my way down to Geyser Point for the sunrise.

Since it was the weekend, they weren't even working on the dock.

Then I went through the Boulder Ridge lobby.

And finally I went down to the transportation boat dock.

In total I walked almost two miles before going back up to the room at 7:45 to wake everyone else up.

Guys I was so excited about this breakfast/brunch. It was not hard to get me out of bed.

When I got up early and made ADRs I wound up adding this brunch as a late addition because we knew we'd have the rental car and be able to make it over to Disney Springs in the morning. Not having to allow for a bunch of transportation time, we got to get up and ready at a fairly leisurely pace.

He also knew that its one of my favorite restaurants on property and wouldn’t be mad about fitting it in.

At this point I’m sure you’ve figured out where we’re headed….

We left the room at 8:53 and went down to the parking lot, where Marshall ducked a couple more Jeeps.

Then we headed over to the Lime garage and were parked at Disney Springs by 9:15. It was super empty.

We got a great parking spot and headed down the escalator.

We pretty much had the place to ourselves, it’s pretty quiet in the morning.

It seemed the only other people there were employees, until we rounded the corner and saw the line for Gideon's. The vast majority of people at Disney Springs were in that line.

I love cookies as much as the next guy, but that is not how I would spend a WDW morning.

Granted we’ve never had one of their cookies, it could be one of those life changing things, a euphoric experience perhaps, but I don’t wait in line for much and in general it’s not going to be a cookie.

We then headed towards the brunch we had been dreaming of, walking right up at Homecomin, where we were seated immediately.

We started off with the maple bacon pecan donuts…. These are a MUST. Just do it. Come here for brunch just for these. I could eat a bucket of them.

I love donuts, and these are among my very favorites anywhere. For our main course, Allie got the Hallelujah Biscuits, Melissa got french toast, Marshall got the Kids Bacon and Eggs, and I went for the breakfast sandwich.

All of the food was great as expected.

The food was spectacular. I got to share some of Allie’s and wow, it made me say Hallelujah

I loved everything I tried, but my breakfast sandwich was my favorite, so I made the right choice. It included pimento cheese, which was a treat for my taste buds. Our waitress was great too, and she was working her last day before taking a European vacation. All in all we left stuffed and very happy.

Our waitress was adorable, I hope she had an amazing vacation.

Me too! Check out the rest of our morning at Disney Springs in the next update, right now...

 

[GrandCalifornian]

We finished our breakfast just after 10AM, which was perfect timing to go do some shopping. We cut across the bay to go straight toward the Art store and Christmas shop, but first we were lured in by T-Rex.

Marshall asked to go in and check it out, it was hard to say no to our science loving kid.

Inside we found a great bit of crossover marketing, as they had a Build a Bear Workshop with special stuffed dinosaurs. It was again hard to say no, and we agreed to let Marshall build a buddy, but we drew the line at a full outfit.

He picked out a camoflauge T-Rex who was pretty cute. He got to stuff him up and give him a heart.

This was Marshall's first Build a Bear experience, which is funny since Allie had done it a bunch of times by the time she was 7. I guess it's different being a second kid...

Very true. He named his buddy Camo and we got him a bag so he could carry him for the morning.

We then moved on to the Art store, where we got to see all sorts of neat things.

We were too early to meet Larry Dotson again, but we did find a new and different Castle print to add to our collection.

Allie got a new set of Mouse Ears as well.

I admired kind of an abstract castle, I really liked it but I don’t think you were much of a fan.

It was a little out there, and a tad more than the budget for this trip, but I can see how it was super unique and cool. We then walked across to the Christmas store, where we had another tradition to continue.

We picked out our trip Christmas ornament and had it shipped home. This is such a fun tradition and I love getting them all out at Christmas.

This year we picked out a light up ornament, and it looked really neat.

It is also nice not worrying about how we will get it home wthout breaking it. It was only $51 for the ornament, personalization, and shipping home, which was a good deal.

This year we commemorated our new puppy who joined our family after this trip. He’s a Golden Retriever named Willy.

He's another wonderful addition to the family, and definitely a highlight of the summer who made it a lot easier to return home from Disney World. He does keep us busy now though.

After the Christmas shop we did some gift shopping for our friends at work. While Melissa was in the spice store, the kids wanted to ride the carousel. Of all the rides at WDW this is the one they got excited about...

I enjoyed a minute of shopping by myself and found fun stuff at the Spice and Tea Exchange. There’s always new things to try here and we really like their Butchers Rub. I use it all the time.

Next we headed over to Tren-D and the Co-Op.

We got some dog toys for Willy at the CO-Op, then got a Loingefly backpack for our dogsitter at World of Disney.

From there, Allie wanted to go see Lululemon, so we walked through there and then over to Vera Bradley.

There’s always fun stuff to see at Vera Bradley and there was a new duffle I hadn’t seen before. I really liked it but ended up talking myself out of it.

We then headed for the parking lot at 12:22, and were in the Jeep by 12:24. Check back for our next update where we make our way over to a park.

Things are about to get wild....

 

[DaisyDuck001]

What kind of work do they do at the boat dock on weekdays, but not on weekends?

Did Marshall get an entree at Homecoming?

Looking forward to reading about your Animal Kingdom adventures.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

What kind of work do they do at the boat dock on weekdays, but not on weekends?

They are refurbishing the rental boat dock, hopefully in anticipation of the return of boat rentals to WL. This is why we had to do our fireworks cruise from the CR.

Did Marshall get an entree at Homecoming?

He did get the kids bacon and eggs, although we didn’t get a picture of it. He enjoyed it though.

Looking forward to reading about your Animal Kingdom adventures.

We had lots of fun and more great food there, and it’ll be fun to share.

 

[Wood Nymph]

It seemed the only other people there were employees, until we rounded the corner and saw the line for Gideon's. The vast majority of people at Disney Springs were in that line.

The Gideon cookie love mystifies me. No matter how good it is, it is still just a cookie.

We are going to try for an ADR at Homecomin' for our trip in September. It will be for dinner and I have a feeling it might be hard to get. We haven't dined there yet.

This year we commemorated our new puppy who joined our family after this trip. He’s a Golden Retriever named Willy.

Willy is adorable.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

One day i will go to homecomin for brunch and not dinner! That looked amazing!

 

[rdkeim]

Your brunch looks delish! We've eaten there a few times and it's always been really good. We'll have to give brunch a try. Your DS looks adorable carrying his Camo in the sack. Hitting Disney Springs in the morning is the way to go!

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

What a fun trip, sorry about the rain out for your anniversary firework cruise.

Your puppy is adorable! We also have a dog named Willie

 

[Psymonds]

loving the report and your daughter is following a similar path as my son. He started doing a YouTube channel at 13 for his roller coaster hobby and likes to do travel vlogs on his own. It's a great creative outlet!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

The Gideon cookie love mystifies me. No matter how good it is, it is still just a cookie.

I love a good cookie, but I think I really dislike long lines and waiting for something even more. I had this debate with Kathy today, since she was disappointed that we haven't tried Gideon's, but there's just too much other stuff to do, even early in the morning.

We are going to try for an ADR at Homecomin' for our trip in September. It will be for dinner and I have a feeling it might be hard to get. We haven't dined there yet.

It is a good one, any time of day. We have had trouble getting it, but at least dinner is available every day of the week, while brunch is only on weekends.

Willy is adorable.

Aww, thanks. He is a super sweet pup.

One day i will go to homecomin for brunch and not dinner! That looked amazing!

We had heard of it for a while before we got to do it for brunch, and we are really glad that we got to do it for a second time. It is excellent food.

Your brunch looks delish! We've eaten there a few times and it's always been really good. We'll have to give brunch a try. Your DS looks adorable carrying his Camo in the sack. Hitting Disney Springs in the morning is the way to go!

It was an excellent meal. We love Disney Springs, and the morning there was just perfect. It seemed odd to spend so much time there on a short trip, but we all had a ball.

What a fun trip, sorry about the rain out for your anniversary firework cruise.

It is a great trip. The rain out is ok, these things happen. We've been fortunate enough to do the cruises before, and will do them again.

Your puppy is adorable! We also have a dog named Willie

Thanks! Aww, what a fun name. We named him after a Willys Jeep, as our other dogs have car related names. (Diesel, Shelby, Ratchet, Socket, Maverick...) We have a thing going.

loving the report and your daughter is following a similar path as my son. He started doing a YouTube channel at 13 for his roller coaster hobby and likes to do travel vlogs on his own. It's a great creative outlet!

That's neat. I often look at the things that technology allows her to do and think about how much I would have loved them. It is neat to watch kids grow up with Disney and then share it with the world.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

When we left off, we were heading out from Disney Springs to make the direct trip to Animal Kingdom that was enabled by having the rental car. It was really neat not to have to connect at another resort.

After getting in the Jeep at 12:24, we drove to AK and were parked by 12:40.

I cannot imagine how long the bus would have taken us to do this transfer, it would have been an hour minimum between stopping at a resort somewhere and then transferring. We parked in a great spot with a short walk to the parking tram and got to ride one of those for the first time at Disneyworld.

Yes, it was another first for us. The trams are just like the ones at DIsneyland, but we had never ridden one at WDW. We got on at 12:45, and off at 12:49 right up front. Again I think it was less walking than the WL bus.

On the way in we picked up a stroller for Marshall and while the boys were doing that Allie and I hung out and saw Devine. She is just a super unique character and so fun to see.

Then we headed in to the big gift shop to cool off and make our plans. Allie wanted to ride Kali River Rapids, and with our late arrival the lines were all fairly long. I checked out Lightning Lane availability, and made the spontaneous choice to buy Genie + for the day. It let us book an almost immediate Lightning Lane for Kali, so we headed that direction.

Since the line for Kali is pretty miserable when it’s hot I was very much in favor.

On the way over they were just finishing up (Insert bird show name here that I don’t remember) where they have the macaws free fly across the park. Every other time we’ve seen it all the birds go back home right away but today they had several stragglers. They just hung out and were playing in the trees on the bridge to Asia. It was so cute how they were talking to each other and playing.

They actually had a Cast Member keeping an eye on them, and reporting their location as they hung out in the big trees. She made it clear to everyone that she was just watching, and they are free to go where they want. We proceeded on , and got in line for Kali at 1:38, and were on the ride by 1:50.

We got on a raft with another family that was so cute. One of the girls really didn’t want her sneakers to get wet so she took them off and put them up under her shirt but her side of the boat got soaked. I don’t think the sneakers survived. We all got pretty wet too.

They seemed way too concerned about getting wet to be on the ride. Overall they had fun though, but we did get wet. They actually asked a cast memeber where they could go to dry off after the ride, and they were told it wouldn't take long in the Florida heat. We decided to do the Tiger trail while we dried off.

We’ve missed this walk several trips in a row so it was fun to see. We also got an updated picture of Allie next to the tiger painted on the wall. When she was little it was one of the only places she’d smile for a picture.

Then we sat outside of the bird show for a minute until 2:40 when we were able to get a Lightning Lane for Kilamanjaro Safaris.

We probably didn’t need it for Safari’s but it was nice to just walk on. It was hot so lots of critters were sleeping or just staying out of the heat but we did get to see a few, and there was a new baby zebra out on the savannah.

It showed a 15 minute standby wait but it looked longer. Our total wait from when we got in lint to on the ride was only 8 minutes. The ride was fun, and more animals were active in the middle of the day than I expected.

We skipped the Gorilla Falls trail after Safaris and headed over to a gift shop for the AC instead.

We took our time shopping in there, and then made our way towards Yak and Yeti. We got in line for our reservation at 3:45, and got checked in at 3:51.

While we were waiting for dinner we booked a Lightning Lane for Navii River Journey.

I think the wheels fell off a little because we had a fairly long wait for a table. While we were waiting though Paul admired this beautiful power disconnect.

I always find neat new aspects of the Animal Kingdom theming. It is incredibly authentic. We were finally seated at 4:23. We ordered Calimari and fried green beans as appetizers, and they arrived before we got to place our drink order.

The apps were good though and at this point were pretty hungry.

They were good, and it helped fill the time until our food arrived at 5:05. Both Melissa and I went with the Korean Beef, and Allie tried the Basil Thai chicken.

Marshall chose Mac and Cheese with fruit and pudding.

I really love the Korean Beef here but I also tried Allies dish and it was very good too! It’s going to be tough to decide what to order next time.

I have been wanting to try it for some time, and it was good. I am usually torn between the Cheeseburger and Ribs, and this adds another different choice.

We both ordered our favorites for dessert. I got the mango pie which is still my favorite dessert on property.

I’ve heard rumblings that they’ve changed it, maybe they have but if they did it’s still delicious.

My Cream Cheese Wontons were great as always, and the ice cream compliments them so well.

Marshall enjoyed his pudding too.

We finally finished at 5:53 and headed for Navi.

Pandora is so pretty.

The line for Navi River was insane do you remember what the posted wait was?

I do, it ws posted at 65 minutes which we never would have done, but we got in line at 6:11 and were on the ride by 6:15. During our brief wait in line we discussed the odd Magic Band+ interaction. Melissa's did cool colors in the queue, but mine did not.

The Magic Band+ experience for us was just very odd. They seemed to light up inconsistantly and then randomly vibrate.

As someone who wears an Apple Watch, we both felt it odd to get a vibration and not have a meaningful alert. These proved to be a new Disney "enhancement" that just didn't add much for us. I am much happier with a puck from a MagicBand 2 in a holder on the band of my Apple Watch.

I agree, it just wasn’t worth the extra cost for me and the vibrations were kind of annoying. Anyway, after journeying the Navi River we headed over to the main gift shops.

Allie checked out the Munchlings, and I teasingly called them "food fellows" which kind of stuck. I don't think she even bought one, but we used the name frequently over the rest of the trip.

It was pretty funny.

On our way out of the park we got a little lesson in the circle of life, as we noticed some comotion and saw a hawk grab a duckling. Mama Duck was not happy at all.

It was so tragic, a juvenile red tail hawk had snagged a baby and flew right in front of us. Mama was carrying on pretty upset, as she should be. Poor mama duck… It was not a magical moment.

We said goodbye to the rest of the ducklings and headed out of the park.

We left the park at 6:42, got on the tram at 6:45, It left at 6:50, and we got to our stop at 6:55, then to the Jeep at 6:56. We were in the lobby at WL by 7:17, and in the room by 7:19.

It is tough to beat that kind of travel time, especially back from AK.

It was super fast and the kids were anxious to swim!

Yes, Marshall had been asking all trip to swim, and now was the time. We went down to the main pool at 7:45 and the kids loved the slide. We got splashed sitting in the pool by a pretty obnoxious kid, so we all headed over to the Boulder RIdge Cove pool. While there, we started discussing a similar repeat trip for next year.

I felt like a very cranky old lady being annoyed at the kid swimming but she practically jumped over our heads. Sigh….

No, it was pretty bad, and the parents and grandparents didn't care. On the bright side, we all liked the idea of doing this again next June. We then went back to the main pool so that Marshall could do the slide a bunch more times, while we watched from some poolside chairs.

On our way back up to the room we stopped at Roarin Fork for a snack. Allie got the bee dome cake and Marshall got the bear one.

As he grabbed the cake out of the fridge he was pretty excited and didn’t keep the container level. He demonstrated perfectly why we wear seatbelts as poor Mr. Bear sustained a pretty wicked head injury.

The lady at the register asked what happened to that bear, and offered to get us another one, but it was fine and we kept the injured one. Unfortunately we didn't really like either of these desserts. They were a weird fruity mousse that didn't taste as good as it looked.

None of us enjoyed them. I did however thoroughly enjoy this mustard and pretzels that came in our anniversary bag. Like REALLY liked it.

Like ordered more once we got home liked it... I figured we needed a bit more of a snack, so we ordered Edamamme and some chips and Brisket dip from Geyser point. I walked down to pick them up, and caught the fireworks from the 4th floor hallway on the WL side on the way.

There was also quite a crowd in front of Geyser Point, which had a nice view as well.

The snacks were perfect, and we munched on them in the room before putting the kids to bed.

It was another very full day and I took another long soak in the tub before bed.

We had packed a bunch of different stuff into one day, and were in bed by 11:00 without plans to get up super early the next day. Check back for our next update to see where we head...



Also here is Allie's Blog for the day:

 

[Wood Nymph]

On the way over they were just finishing up (Insert bird show name here that I don’t remember) where they have the macaws free fly across the park. Every other time we’ve seen it all the birds go back home right away but today they had several stragglers. They just hung out and were playing in the trees on the bridge to Asia. It was so cute how they were talking to each other and playing.

We have tried to catch the macaw release but have never timed it right. We were told that they release the macaws at a certain time every hour but they didn't do it on the day we waited for it.

It looks like buying Genie+ worked out well for the day. I would not have wanted to wait for those rides, either, especially in the afternoon heat.

It was so tragic, a juvenile red tail hawk had snagged a baby and flew right in front of us. Mama was carrying on pretty upset, as she should be. Poor mama duck… It was not a magical moment.

That must have been a little upsetting to see, especially for the kids.

On the bright side, we all liked the idea of doing this again next June. We then went back to the main pool so that Marshall could do the slide a bunch more times, while we watched from some poolside chairs.

That is probably a really good time to go swimming. There are less people there in the evening.

It must have been a good time to go to Disney if you are planning another trip.

I walked down to pick them up, and caught the fireworks from the 4th floor hallway on the WL side on the way.

The 4th, 5th and 6th floor windows are a great view. I am never shy about opening the shutters to watch the fireworks.

 

[rdkeim]

Fun day! Your kids are so lucky to grow up as Disney kids. Seems like a good decision to give in and purchase Genie+. But, I hate that it's almost become a necessity if you want to ride and not spend most of your day in lines Swimming is always a good way to end the day!