The TCD gang Pops over to WDW

[H in SC 85]

Alright! A Trip Report from the Master Trip Reporter himself! :D

[Lou... 3,118]

I can't read this. I'm way too busy.

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

1. Love the flowers but really love the roses.

2. Twin #1 - Tell her too much caffeine tastes really good.

3. I love to smell Lotso. Reminds me of Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

4. I thought the location of the Fastpass for Soarin was a bit silly. It makes everything really, really crowded.

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

I can't read this. I'm way too busy.

not too busy to post that you can't read ....

[caveat lector 181]

You got me TCD. While I do quite enjoy the Bud Light Platinum, I was trying to portray a more zen like approach to enjoying your TR.

Btw, does the inadvertent mouse butt appearance alter the PG rating on this TR?

[YENSIDCAMPER 66]

I read this before anyone else got to comment but couldn't post, so here I am on page 2. Oh well at least I am getting to read another TCD report.

Thanks for bringing us more reports!

Check out this beard on the guy trading pins with my kid, now that is facial hair. I thought George Michael was in the house.

[GOBA Mom Lynn 18]

Just what I needed after a long day of working at the polls.

A TCD trip report always entertains.

continue, please......

:heart:

[dvccamper 32]

Hooray, a new TCD report, and just in time as I have no book to read at the moment. Just finished The Hunger Games, aka "the" book to read while suffering through Fantasmic. I just hope this TR is less violent. So far, so good and I love the Lotso pillow pet. Can't let my youngest see that or we'll be booking a trip down to get one!

Looking forward to more!

[stefa70 205]

These are artichoke plants. I guess an artichoke grows something like a pineapple, but I'm not sure:

Here is 'Artichoke in Action' shot from last year. I never knew this was the way they were grown.

Nice double-fisting action from Twin #1.....a few more years and she'll be ready to party! (Not with me of course, I would NEVER condone such behavior)

Check out this beard on the guy trading pins with my kid, now that is facial hair. I thought George Michael was in the house.

Now that's a beard! Good job YC!

[Disneyzombie-Brenda 10]

Can't wait to see the Art of Animation construction snooping. Love the flower pics....and the one of big green Pooh! Now I have to get back to work!

[Marilyn 19]

As always you are the man!! Best TRs ever. I love the Sand Sculpture--we missed it on our trip.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Despite my incessant and not so subtle hints, I still can only include 10 quotes in my posts, so here we go with round 1:

Love the meteorologic tease at the end. I'm always a sucker for a big storm.

I didn't know that about you. Well, you're in luck then, because a big storm just happens to be on the way.

I'm late, but I am here!

Am I the only one who found themselves inhaling deeply to see how the roses smelled?

I think I need a vacation before I completely lose my mind. LOL

You're not late.

We are just getting started.

And yes, I think you need a vacation.

Alright! A Trip Report from the Master Trip Reporter himself! :D

Thanks, H.

Anything to make your time in the hay field pass a little faster.

I can't read this. I'm way too busy.

Of course, I understand.

You already know this story anyway . . .

We went to WDW, looked around, saw some stuff, took some photos, and came home.

Done.

Now you can go back to talking to your moose.

1. Love the flowers but really love the roses.

2. Twin #1 - Tell her too much caffeine tastes really good.

3. I love to smell Lotso. Reminds me of Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

4. I thought the location of the Fastpass for Soarin was a bit silly. It makes everything really, really crowded.

Another good list.

I agree on all of your points.

You got me TCD. While I do quite enjoy the Bud Light Platinum, I was trying to portray a more zen like approach to enjoying your TR.

Btw, does the inadvertent mouse butt appearance alter the PG rating on this TR?

I haven't tried Bud Light Platinum yet. Thanks for reminding me.

I'm pretty sure the mouse had some kind of flower pants on, so this is still PG.

I read this before anyone else got to comment but couldn't post, so here I am on page 2. Oh well at least I am getting to read another TCD report.

Thanks for bringing us more reports!

Check out this beard on the guy trading pins with my kid, now that is facial hair. I thought George Michael was in the house.

Nice work!

That is a beard.

This gives me an idea for a new thread.

Maybe on the photography section?

Show me the beard?

Think about it.

And good job on the George Michael reference.

But, for the record, I am anti-GM.

Wake me up before you go-go?

No thanks.

Just what I needed after a long day of working at the polls.

A TCD trip report always entertains.

continue, please......

:heart:

Thanks, and I will be working on continuing shortly.

Hooray, a new TCD report, and just in time as I have no book to read at the moment. Just finished The Hunger Games, aka "the" book to read while suffering through Fantasmic. I just hope this TR is less violent. So far, so good and I love the Lotso pillow pet. Can't let my youngest see that or we'll be booking a trip down to get one!

Looking forward to more!

I have been thinking about reading the Hunger Games.

I never read any of those vampire books that were popular with the kids before this latest fad.

And I only read one of those wizard books.

I feel like I need to try to get back in touch with pop culture.

Here is 'Artichoke in Action' shot from last year. I never knew this was the way they were grown.

Nice double-fisting action from Twin #1.....a few more years and she'll be ready to party! (Not with me of course, I would NEVER condone such behavior)

Ah, ha!

That's kind of what I thought I should have seen.

But there were no artichokes when we looked.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

OK, just two more comments, and then we will be able to move along . . .

Can't wait to see the Art of Animation construction snooping. Love the flower pics....and the one of big green Pooh! Now I have to get back to work!

There will be some AOA photos coming up next.

And then some more a bit later.

I've got you covered.

As always you are the man!! Best TRs ever. I love the Sand Sculpture--we missed it on our trip.

Thanks.

But not entirely true.

I'll take among the best, but not the best.

There are many other very good writers that bless this board with their work.

And, I know that there will be others yet to come.

In fact, I'm sure there are soon to be members of this site who will write terrific trip reports, and go on to live the life of a rock star.

That is, if they come out of lurkdom and join us!

TCD

[Gots2pitt.. Jeff 64]

Another TCD TR. I get to learn more things about Disney that I haven't seen or done. :)

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Another TCD TR. I get to learn more things about Disney that I haven't seen or done. :)

True.

Even after all of our visits, there are things that I have not seen or done.

We will be talking about a few of those things in this report.

TCD

[Live4FW 30]

Awesome!

Good for her!

Is she doing this program at Hollywood Studios?

We just found out last night that it will be outside of the parks in a place called "Event Group Building" which irronically is just down the street from the Fort (she is going to ask her Band Director if they can make a detour :rofl3: ). It is on Live Oak just off of Vista Blvd. in the backstage areas. They are having a clinic with a Disney composer that will help them put their music to some sort of Disney video. They do this every other year. Last year they performed at the DTD stage.

Oh, our Disney Pillow Pet collection is growing also, we now have a Tigger to go with our Stitch. Disney hit a home-run with this one.

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

True.

Even after all of our visits, there are things that I have not seen or done.

We will be talking about a few of those things in this report.

TCD

:pc:

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

We just found out last night that it will be outside of the parks in a place called "Event Group Building" which irronically is just down the street from the Fort (she is going to ask her Band Director if they can make a detour :rofl3: ). It is on Live Oak just off of Vista Blvd. in the backstage areas. They are having a clinic with a Disney composer that will help them put their music to some sort of Disney video. They do this every other year. Last year they performed at the DTD stage.

Oh, our Disney Pillow Pet collection is growing also, we now have a Tigger to go with our Stitch. Disney hit a home-run with this one.

I never heard of the Event Group Building.

When Lou took me on my behind the scenes tour last month, we saw the Disney Performing Arts Center- which is not as impressive looking as it sounds. It was kind of back stage, too.

I had no idea there were so many events for musical groups at WDW. Very smart business on their part.

Agreed on the Pillow Pets. They started out slow, but they are cranking them out now. I keep on telling the twins that they are going to get laughed out of their dorms next year if they keep getting more. They say they don't care.

:pc:

That's a lot of popcorn.

Good.

You're going to need it.

TCD

[Hotmamac aka Misty 11]

YAY!!! Looking forward to more!

[rdancemom... Pam 113]

Now you can go back to talking to your moose.

:rotfl6: :lmao1: :rotfl6:

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Let's move along now.

We took a bus from Epcot to the Pop.

And then retrieved our car from the main parking lot, and headed over to the 80's buildings.

That's where our room was.

But the 90's parking lot is closer to the 80's building that we were in.

So that's where we parked.

We had the cheapest room in this resort. Way up on the 4th floor. With a fantastic parking lot view.

This is the view from our front door:

That's the 90's parking lot down there.

And, do you see those buildings there behind the trees?

Do you know what those are?

I didn't.

But then I thought about it.

That's the Bonnet Creek resort.

I don't know much about this resort.

But this is what I do know: This is a parcel of about 70 acres that Disney was unable to aquire when it bought up all the land for Walt Disney World. Just recently, the owners of the property developed it. So, right here in the middle of the sprawling Disney World resort we have this private enclave of three hotels. There's a Wyndham, a Hilton and a Waldorf Astoria. And a whole golf course too. What I don't know is who stays there and why. I do not see advertisements for these places anywhere. I don't know where they get their customers. As far as I can tell, each of these hotels operates independently from each other. They all say that they provide transportation to the Disney parks, but I don't know where their bus stops are, and I have never noticed any buses with the names of these resorts on them. I doubt that their guests get Disney parking passes, or the ability to use Magical Express, or can participate in the EMH's at the parks. But, they have huge buildings with lots of rooms, so somebody must chose to stay here. But why?

That's all I have to say about Bonnet Creek for now. One of these days, I will have to go in there for a look around. But that is not something high on my list of priorities.

For now, we will take a look around the Pop Century Resort.

In case you're not familiar with this, this is a value resort at WDW. The original concept is that the resort would have two sections. The first section to be built was called the Classic Years section. The buildings were themed around the decades from the 1950's to the 1990's. The second section was to be called the Legendary Years section. This was going to be themed around the decades of from the 1900's to the 1940's. They actually began to build that section, and then they stopped. And things sat idle for years. Eventually, they scrapped the idea of the Legendary Years, and decided to build a distinct hotel complex on the second part of this resort. This new hotel complex is called the Art of Animation Resort. And, it is set to open next month. As in May, 2012. At least part of it is anyway. It is going to open in phases over the rest of the year.

So what this leaves us with is half of a century over here at Pop and a resort themed around Disney/Pixar movies across the lake.

I certainly think the Art of Animation theming is a lot more exciting than it would have been to theme a resort after the 1900's to 1940's. But it is weird that it leaves a resort called the Pop Century, which is only themed after half a century.

I would say that's enough discussion, let's take a look around.

I had no complaints about our room. It was in excellent condition, and we had a nice, new TV, and a fridge. The fridges are something new.

And, there was something else new in our room too.

New cable channels.

We had the NFL network, and the History Channel, and A &E and Discovery. Lots of new ones. There was no announcement or even a channel guide in our room, but the cable choices have at least doubled. I believe that this change will be coming to all of the WDW resorts, including the Fort.

As we chilled in the room, an urgent announcement scrolled across our TV.

There was a severe strorm approaching.

We decided this would be a good time to run down to the food court to get a drink.

So, that's what we did.

Here we are looking across at one of the other 80's buildings. You can see some clouds above it:

And here we are heading toward the stairs- you can see some of the AOA buildings there across the lake:

Before we headed down the stairs, I snapped this photo of the big trailer complex they have there next to the construction project:

There was a recent post on this board suggesting that this trailer complex may be relocated to an area near Fort Wilderness once this project is complete. I don't know why they have this many trailers here. I have seen much larger construction projects managed out of a couple of on-site trailers.

Now we are heading through the 70's section of the Pop Century resort.

They have some cool things to see. Like this giant Big Wheel:

And these giant Foosball players:

A lot of guests used to decorate their windows in the value resorts. We don't see that as often now, but here's one :

Here's another great 70's icon:

You can see in that last photo that the sky was getting very dark.

We moved it along.

I tried to get a photo of Goofy and his cool car without this random lady in it, but she was not going to let that happen:

We ducked in to the food court here to get our drink. The lifeguards were clearing everyone out of the main pool and getting ready for the storm to hit. So we hurried back to our room. And we made it just as the rain hit. It rained hard! For about 45 seconds. And then we had a little drizzle and that was it.

But the weather people on the news went ape! Apparently, some folks got some hail in the area, so we saw all kinds of photos of people holding ice cubes which allegedly were sent in by their viewers. And, they kept on interrupting with severe weather warnings.

After a while, the storms seemed to have passed, so I went out for a look around. It was really very minor.

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head were a little wet, but otherwise fine:

The trailer complex was still there:

Looking just to the right of the trailer complex, we can see the Cars buildings over there across the lake. I couldn't see exactly what was going on, but there were workers doing something between the buildings:

Looking a bit more to the right, we see the Finding Nemo buildings:

Notice how the stairs on the ends of the buildings are covered by big white rectangles. These are supposed to be sketch pads. And, if you look along the sides of the buildings, there are big drawings of characters from the movies on what appears to be pages from the sketch pads. Also notice that there are no outdoor walkways around these buildings. This is different from all of the other value resorts- these new rooms will have interior halls. I didn't know that .

The lake in the middle of the what was supposed to be called the Legendary and Classic years section of the resort is called Hourglass lake, and there is a bridge that crosses over the middle of it called the Generation Gap bridge. That made sense when the resort was first designed, but maybe these names will be changed.

Anyway, the bridge is blocked off on the AOA end, but you can still walk across it up to the barricades.

So I did.

Here's a look at the Little Meramaid building, which is on the other end of the resort from the Cars building. I believe two of these buildings were built before the Legendary years section of the resort was scrapped. You can see that these buildings have the outdoor walkways, but they also have the giant sketch pads covering the stairs:

Here we are looking at the Nemo building (on the left) and the Lion King building (on the right) from the bridge:

I could reach my arm around the barricade to take a couple of photos of the area on the other side of the barricade. This is the main pool area of the resort, and this is what is going to open first, in just about a month from now:

I thought it would be neat to somehow get on the other side of the barricade to take a better look around. But, to get around this barricade, I would have to stand up on the rail of the bridge, and it was definitely possible that I could fall off. I didn't want to have to deal with that, so I stayed on my side of the barricade. I figured that this was good enough, and that I would be able to get a better look next month when the first phase of the resort opens.

I just couldn't see any way to get any closer.

So I left it at that.

I headed back to our room.

It was time for us to make our evening plans.

Even though the skies appeared to be clearing, the weather people on all of the news channels were still predicting all kinds of bad things.

In fact, they said more severe storms were on the way, and this is what lead to an announcement that Typhoon Lagoon would be closed the next day.

Wow.

We decided to scrap our plan to go to Epcot.

That plan would have required a long walk out of doors to Soarin.

And, if it was raining when we got there, the Land pavilion would be packed with people.

We decided to forfeit our Fastpasses.

Instead, we decided that we would head to the MK.

After we ate our dinner.

We had narrowed our dinner choices down to two options: The twins wanted to eat at the Kona sushi bar at the Polynesian Resort. I wanted to go to the Fort for a GAG. It was two against one. But this is not a democracy. My vote counts for more. However, I do take the wishes of my constituents into consideration when I make decisions.

I said lets hop a bus to the MK, and I will make my decision when we get there. We would either take the boat to the Fort or the monorail to the Poly. I told the girls that we could discuss our choice on the way.

And that is exactly what we did next.

Where do you think we ate?

TCD

[Nicki aka Rebelstand 272]

My first trip to WDW many many moons ago was in July. It stormed/rained every afternoon for about 30minutes.

I love the pictures of the POP.

I always wanted that Mickey Phone.

I think you went to the Poly to eat.

[stefa70 205]

My vote is for a GAG, after all, you are the one footing the bill, right? (My money, my rules)

Now may I rant against the weather people for a sec (Sorry Lil Lisa)

I'm not even gonna talk about the local news/weather guys as they hardly know their ass from their elbow.

But let's talk about The Weather Channel.

IMO, the weather channel should show the weather, just as MTV should show music, right?

I can't count the number times I have cussed at Jim Cantore and any other random weather dude. It seems as if every time we have a nasty storm and/or tornado warning, I turn on the weather channel for info (right before I crawl into the closet with Mason)

and I'll be darned if there is some weather show on. Grrrr......

I think 99% of the info they give is an educated guess, at best.

Thanks for letting me vent! Usually only Trevor gets that pleasure.

I have never been to Pop, but I would like to check it out, especially the 70's section.

I can't believe you didn't get around that wall! You're not getting soft on me are you?

[Heidi-meetsTCD@TSM 5]

TCD,

I think that you ate at the Poly!

Glad to see that they are FINALLY using the buildings for the Art of Animation. The way they left those buildings to rot was just ugly. We have stayed at the Pop three times over the years. One time our room faced those buildings across the Lake. One of my sons called them the "bomb shelters"!! They were ugly and I was always surprised that Disney left them like that.

Ready for more!

Heidi

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

My first trip to WDW many many moons ago was in July. It stormed/rained every afternoon for about 30minutes.

I love the pictures of the POP.

I always wanted that Mickey Phone.

I think you went to the Poly to eat.

Yes, this was kind of like one of those short summer storms. No big deal.

But, boy the news stations made a big deal out of it.

I think my mother-in-law still has one of those phones. My kids don't remember phones with cords.

I'm not saying yet where we ate.

My vote is for a GAG, after all, you are the one footing the bill, right? (My money, my rules)

Now may I rant against the weather people for a sec (Sorry Lil Lisa)

I'm not even gonna talk about the local news/weather guys as they hardly know their ass from their elbow.

But let's talk about The Weather Channel.

IMO, the weather channel should show the weather, just as MTV should show music, right?

I can't count the number times I have cussed at Jim Cantore and any other random weather dude. It seems as if every time we have a nasty storm and/or tornado warning, I turn on the weather channel for info (right before I crawl into the closet with Mason)

and I'll be darned if there is some weather show on. Grrrr......

I think 99% of the info they give is an educated guess, at best.

Thanks for letting me vent! Usually only Trevor gets that pleasure.

I have never been to Pop, but I would like to check it out, especially the 70's section.

I can't believe you didn't get around that wall! You're not getting soft on me are you?

Stef-

No apologies needed for that weatherman rant.

I feel the exact same way.

As you know, we haven't had a lot of rain in Florida lately.

So, they went crazy with the announcements that day.

It turned out that it didn't rain again that night.

All that hype over nothing.

And, they still closed Typhoon Lagoon the next day.

Because the weathermen said that big storms would be rolling in again in the morning.

I'll bet you can guess correctly how that turned out.

TCD,

I think that you ate at the Poly!

Glad to see that they are FINALLY using the buildings for the Art of Animation. The way they left those buildings to rot was just ugly. We have stayed at the Pop three times over the years. One time our room faced those buildings across the Lake. One of my sons called them the "bomb shelters"!! They were ugly and I was always surprised that Disney left them like that.

Ready for more!

Heidi

Yes, the whole Pop half Century thing was very un-Disney-like. Things are looking good over there now. But, the final product is still going to seem odd to me.

I'm working on some more right now.

TCD