wendinator

It's now Tuesday. At lunch I popped over to Disney Springs. I'd heard that at the Joffrey's near Boathouse you could get a Mickey "printed" on top of your drink. Alas, the machine that does this artwork still wasn't working. Fail. At 5:00 I hopped in the car and drove to the TTC. Yet another parking reminder. There were more of the rare/special characters at the flag pole. It was a beautiful night. And you can never have too many castle pictures. I let my sister make me some FPs for tonight and first up was one of her least favorite rides! I made it

Moving along. Now it's Monday. Bonus day since it's MLK Jr Day! It was a chilly morning! 4°C is 39°F. Here's my parking reminder for rope drop at Animal Kingdom. The beauty of a solo trip is that you get to do whatever you want... which meant not going with the masses over to Pandora. I had a few things in mind for my AK day, but FoP wasn't one of them. I've never ridden it and probably never will. Chicken exit 4 Life! 😂 I hadn't made any fastpasses in advance, so my first stop was Kilimanjaro Safari. From there I headed to the new Up! bird show

Next up was the England Kidcot station. The officially signed spot was unmanned, but I eventually found the right place. Outside, Mary Poppins was doing a meet and greet. But they'd already closed the line by the time I spotted her. So now these random kids get to be in my trip report instead. At the very back of England I saw this awning with covered up FastPass readers. I wondered what it was for. My sister googled it and said it's for a now gone Winnie the Pooh/Tigger meet and greet. I continued on my way, across the English Channel and to France.

Before I move onto Sunday, just a few reflections on SOTMK. I'm probably not their target demographic, but I wasn't really sure what the point of it all was. It didn't seem to matter what card I held up, the story moved along just the same. And there were times where it really struggled to read my card at all no matter how I held it. In the afternoon when I was playing in Fantasyland, there were only two functional portals that it kept bouncing me back and forth between. This also meant that all the other Fantasytland players were at these same two portals as well, which made for a bit of a ba

She wasn't on the job at the time and was just chatting with a friend. I didn't want to interrupt or intrude. It was enough pixie dust for me just to spot her.

As you might have been able to guess from the photos, it was a really nice day. Making it that much nicer was the knowledge that the weather at home was pretty bad. -14°C is 7°F. Meanwhile, this is what I was enjoying. 23°C is 73°F. Not to mention these pansies smelled lovely. People Mover time! From up there you could see the construction work for Tron. Since I'd spotted the return of the cream cheese pretzel, and it just so happens to be underneath the People Mover I would have been a fool to pass it up, so I didn't! I did, ho

I'm not as crazy as my husband, so I didn't make it home in 19 hours. I'll leave you in suspense until the end! Glad to hear that the technical issues with my pictures have been solved, so we now return you to your regularly scheduled program. One thing I forgot to mention that happened on Friday (my previous post). When I went through bag check the security guy found a roll of electrical tape I had and he confiscated it. What the Fort? Did he think I was going to rewire the dolls in Small World? I checked the list of prohibited items and it made no mention of any kind of tape. It wa

Oh jeez. So now I've made it worse? I'm beginning to see why people don't do trip reports anymore...

OK... New and improved! Now with 100% more pictures! Give it a refresh and pictures should magically appear.

Yep, I see the problem. There's no quick fix... Let me contemplate my options here and see if there's a least painful option. Ugh.

Well that's interesting... The three you can see are hosted in different places than all the rest. Is everybody having trouble with the pictures? I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this, and rehosting the pictures would be a pretty big pain.

I go pretty much any time I'm at Disney. You can see my previous tea photos here:

My parents are snowbirds and spend January & February in Sarasota, so they drove over on Thursday to pick us up and go for afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian. There haven't been a lot of changes to this since the last time I went for tea. The most important thing is that the apricot jam is finally gone and they've returned to strawberry. Thank cod! This was a rather paltry amount of clotted cream but our server was happy to bring more in small ramekin. The only other thing I thought was new is that I was able to get an AP discount here. I swear the

For a bit of context, last year I bought myself an AP before the October price increase went into effect. My husband joining me on this trip was something of a last minute decision as Disney isn't really his thing, but for some strange reason he likes spending time with me. This meant that during the time he was with me, I wouldn't be going to the parks. Monday night we headed over to Disney Springs to activate the AP and get some dinner. Guest Relations was quite busy - I think we waited almost an hour for my name to be called. But once I was seen it was a speedy process to get the pass activ

I saw a plea for trip reports so I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring again. The title of this trip report was inspired by the Festival of Arts, and the fact that this won't be an exact play by play, just some highlights of my recent trip. The trip started off with the threat of nasty weather for our drive from Toronto to Kissimmee. We hit the road at 6:15 am. I don't know how we did it but somehow we managed to dodge that big blue blob and just ended up with some rain/snow around Beckley. My husband likes to drive and he'd often thought that he could do this drive in a

I bought my annual pass on Oct 11 and paid $849 (plus tax) and this morning it's showing $894. An increase of $45.

Well, I pulled the trigger today, so you can all look forward to more afternoon tea pictures in 2019! I'm sure you can't wait!

Do you think it's reasonable to assume that the price of an annual pass will go up on October 18 as well? I'm trying to decide whether to buy one now and activate it later, or whether I can wait until early next year to buy.

In the LaVergne/Smyrna area. It's slim pickins for good food there. Already have my co-workers on board to go to the Bierhaus next time though!

Thanks for this tip! I've only ever done the FP line and didn't know about that.

I was back for tea today. I'll spare you the pictures of stuff that's the same so here's a quick update of what's new since I was there in August. Not much noticeable in terms of work that was done to the room during the closure in August. My server said they did a bunch of work to the kitchen and something with the ceiling. They have new vests, though, so there's that. On the food front, there was a new sandwich. And it was in addition to the sandwiches I got last time, not instead of. So that was a nice surprise. They now give you a poached pear with gorgonzola. You can see it

Then this Japanese yodeling in German will blow your mind. I was just in the Nashville area for work all last week - thanks for the tip on the German beerhall. I checked out their web site and they have some of my favorite beers on tap and they also have schweinshaxe. Can't believe I didn't go when I had the chance. Next time! Should you find yourself looking for something to do in that same area, I hit up the Dukes of Hazzard museum. It was worth exactly what I paid for it... Admission is free. I was around for your recent ice storm. I was a bit south of Nashvil

Thanks again! I'll report back at the end of the month.

I'm sure it was a Fiend who tipped me off to the Territory Lounge. I like that place a lot too. In fact my Mom and I have been known to go there twice in the same trip. Quiet, cozy, no ADR required, good food. Can't go wrong, really!

I somehow missed this trip report when you first posted it so I'm getting caught up now. Thanks for sharing! I always appreciate how much work you put into these. I've benefitted from them tremendously over the years. I still haven't seen HEA but have plans to do so sometime in January. Do you have a favorite/suggested optimum viewing spot? I'll be by myself so should be able to wedge myself into the crowd fairly easily.