Our short trip to WDW (9/27-10/1)

[daveypoo]

We were in WDW from 9/27 through 10/1. It was a whirlwind trip and filled with lots of fun and some sadness.

We arrived at Magical Express and had to wait a while before our bus came. Once on the bus, the trip wasn’t bad at all. As I’ve said before, if you don’t need a car, ME is the best! As we were waiting for the bus, we were notified that our room was ready! We stayed at Bay Lake Tower in a studio room. We’ve stayed in a 1-Bedroom at BLT and loved it but my expectations for the studio were low since they are usually a slightly larger hotel-type room. We were pleasantly surprised!! BLT Studio’s are MUCH larger than the usual studio DVC room. Rather than the kitchenette being in a hallway, at BLT, it’s an actual separate room. It just made everything much more spacious. We settled in, unpacked and then headed to DtD…errr…Disney Springs. We had a 2pm lunch ressie at The Edison. I was quite excited to go there since it was placed on the foundation of the old Adventurers Club. I had high hope and was also hoping to see a cast member or two from The Club.

I have to say, I do love the layout of DS, but I miss Pleasure Island and feel that the closing of ALL the clubs was one of the biggest mistakes that Disney has ever done. And their reasoning was such BS since they replaced all the FUN places with either dining or drinking places, which is exactly what was there before. So we made our way to The Edison and while it looked cool inside, it wasn’t anything special. The food was good, the drinks ok, and the atmosphere was ok. But the characters I had hoped to see were no longer there. I heard that while they TRIED to make it like what The Adventurers Club was, it just wasn’t and was a failure. Overall, it was a disappointment. We then wandered around DS and popped in and out of the shops and such. And it was HOT; I thought I would spontaneously combust if I was in the sun too long! We came from 40’s-50’s to 90’s, so it was a drastic change, and I welcomed it! Since we had been up over 30 hours, we decided to head back to the hotel for a nap and then decide what to do for the evening. We only had a 3-Day Hopper, so no parks for the first day. After a nap, we just hung at the hotel for the night and turned in early since we’d be busy for the next 3 days.

On Friday, we picked up a rental car for a couple of days (we’d need it for Saturday), and then headed to Whispering Canyon Café, one of our most favorite places for breakfast! And they didn’t disappoint! We had a wonderful breakfast and plenty of entertainment. We decided to leave the car at Wilderness Lodge and take the boat to MK. We hadn’t been to WDW in a couple of years, so we were ready for some of the changes. We had FP+ for Pirates, Peter Pan and Mansion. We decided to take a break and catch Sonny Eclipse. I haven’t seen him perform in a long time since the last few times we were there, his show was closed. We also rode TTA and Carousel of Progress. I was so pleased to see a packed house at CoP! I also rode Space Mountain and was surprised the line was so short. They were doing some work on the arcade so the exist was out the back of the building and you had to cross the railroad tracks to get back to the park. Weird. After a little bit, we headed out to go to Epcot. Since it was Food & Wine, the place was hopping! We had dinner ressies at Nine Dragons and basically wandered around. We were able to do Test Track for the first time since they referbed it years ago. We also attended The American Adventure. ALWAYS love that show. We didn’t stay too late since we were both exhausted. But it was another full day!

On Saturday, we didn’t have any breakfast plans and just drove to AK for a 9am safari. Always love the tour and we got a great shot of a lion resting on a rock. I do miss Little Red though. Next we did the Na’Vi River cruise. I THOUGHT it was utilizing the existing river around the park, but boy was I wrong. It was a pretty cool dark ride and the effects were interesting. We also did Dinosaur and before we headed over to Expedition Everest. After that we were heading to MGM…errr…DHS for lunch at Sci-Fi (another place we hadn’t been in years). We didn’t stay there too long since we had an event to get to that night. One observation was way too much Star Wars in the middle of the park. Also, they are lacking in breakfast places.

Saturday night was the main reason for our trip…Adventures In Charity; The Last Hoopla! Adventurers In Charity is an annual event that gathers some of the performers from The Adventurers Club and they perform at this event, and all proceeds go to selected charities that the audience helps decide how the proceeds are divided up. We’ve been invited in past years, but our schedules never allowed for it. SGT623 said that this year was going to be the last so if we wanted to go, this was it. Deb and I decided to make it work and we did. We arrived at the location (a hotel in Orlando) and checked-in and saw the setup. They had a record crowd and we were packed in! They had a silent auction, some other items for sale, and a bar selling the best concoction ever…The Kungaloosh! We met up with some friends we haven’t seen in YEARS and caught up. We finally found our seats and waited for the show. The show was NOT a disappointment at all, but we were disappointed that we had never attended before!! Due to copyright issues, they couldn’t use EXACT names or things that were owned by Disney, but they did have Characters like Fabalonia and Veisel (with a B). They did skits and songs and talked about the charities they were working for. It was like being home again! I know I had missed The Club, but this made me realize how much I really did miss it. The Final Hoopla did bring a tear to my eye, and I felt blessed that I could be there to share this with so many other fans. I even won an item from the auction! Overall, it was glorious and I’m so glad we were able to attend.

Sunday was our last day. We were going back to DHS to ride Tower and Alien Swirling Saucers. Tower was great, as usual, and AS…umm…Alien Swirling Saucers was fun. It’s the same ride system as Mator in DCA in California. Toy Story Land was crazy though! You could barely move and the wait times were crazy! We had lunch at 50’s Prime Time (our favorite dining place in WDW) and then tooled around a bit before heading back to Epcot. Lines and FP’s weren’t bad and that was surprising. We even ran into an old friend from home there!! We rode SSE before leaving and as cool as it is, I still miss the Jeromy Irons version.

Overall, it was an awesome trip. We never got any rain while we were out (it seemed to rain while we were inside). Lines weren’t bad, but it was crowded. I hadn’t realized how much I missed WDW until we were there and then leaving. We won’t be going back in 2019, but maybe in 2020.
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When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.
--Walt Disney

[ocmsma]

Thanks for the run down of your awesome trip ... saw picutres on FB but didn't totally understand what you were there for ...now I know, sad that you didn't get to attend the other events in years past but glad you were able to attend the last Hoopla and had such an awesome time... hope we can do DL again before I am too old to enjoy it ...

ma

[darlinpeople]

Sounds like a cool event! I wish I had gotten to the Adventurer's club when it was open, I had wanted to go but the year I was there I only went to Pleasure Island during the day and still under 21 and by the time I was able to go on my own, it had closed down.