President's Day Mommy/Daughter Weekend 2021

[alwaysdisney]

Enjoying the TR. I am so desperate to get any bit of Disney and this is wonderful!

[TexasChick]

Thanks everyone. I’ll do another long post for Day 3 in a bit.

Originally Posted by Jedimom3

Loving the TR. sounds like a Great (even if wet) day at MK! looking forward to more. thanks for sharing the fun, Glad y'all got to try our ME before it's gone, and saved the rental car money!!!
DH and his folks are going in 2 weeks. Told him CHH food was at Tom Terrace. We generally get the fried fish or so, and I asked him if he'd get the lobster roll. Last time we tried it was about 5-6 years ago, and he said all he remembers is celery.

How are y'all doing in TX? My dear friend is there, with his in-laws living with them. (in laws both had covid in MO, but needed extra care, so temporarily moved to TX) They are both on oxygen. They lost power for more than a day, and it has been off and on since. They do have a generator for the O2, but it's so stressful, and they're getting no rest. And I think a boil water thing going on now too!
My son is in Spring, and he's not lost power or water yet at his apt, but has friends who have burst pipes, etc.
I feel so bad for everyone w/o power. I sure hope you and your family are doing ok.

I live in The Woodlands which is very close to your son. We didn’t lose power or water and have some friends staying with us. We also aren’t under a boil water notice thank goodness. I washed clothes today because our water supply is ok just in case things change. They’ve got most of the power back on for those who lost it in our area as well as most of the water back on. Again, thankfully we are ok and have had several friends stay with us off and on the last few days. Things should be relatively ok as of this weekend, but there’s a lot of damage from busted pipes. We’ll have to turn our water off and drain it again tonight as we’re under another hard freeze warning. The Woodlands is on a different grid (that extends to LA and AR) than the rest of Houston, so while we had issues, we didn’t have as many as the rest of TX with this particular storm. It’s a completely different scenario if a hurricane hits LA for example.

For those who don’t know, pipes here aren’t insulated like they are up north. If it gets down super cold, our pipes freeze and burst if they aren’t drained and water supply isn’t shut off. Also, the power companies sell of a lot of the power in the winter ahead of time to the northern states because we don’t use as much. That’s an issue when we all of a sudden needed the power for record breaking cold temps which is a huge problem right now. Also, our cars don’t have snow tires/4WD unless you pay extra and ask for it, we don’t have salt for roads, snow plows, etc. It’s a mess.

[TexasChick]

I was dealing with Snowmmageddon here for the last week which included kids being home from school until today, so I didn't have time to continue this report until today. :/

Day 3 (Animal Kingdom and EP)

We woke up early this day to make sure we got to AK before opening. We made the first bus!!! The posted opening time was 8am, and we were at the bus stop around 7:10am. We got to the park about 7:30am and went straight to FoP by 7:45am. We only waited 15 or 20 minutes. They didn't start loading the ride until 7:45am, so we lucked out. After we rode, the wait had ballooned to 70 minutes. We went over to "The Yeti Ride" as my daughter calls it. We rode once as a walk on and once as a 10 minutes wait immediately afterwards. I had skipped my morning coffee to get out the door quickly, and I was in desperate need of a pick-me-up. DD rode Triceratops Spin a few times by herself while I was drinking the needed coffee. Then, we headed over to Dinosaur where we waited maybe 15 minutes. DD wanted to ride EE AGAIN, so we went back over there and waited maybe 20-25 minutes for it. She didn't want to do the safari or Bug's Life because we will be back in March. I looked at my watch and realized we'd done everything we wanted, including multiple rides of some, in 2.5 hours. I looked for a lunch reservation, and The Wave popped up. We'd never been to The Wave, so we headed to the Contemporary for lunch knowing we could just take the monorail back to GF. I should point out that the bus to The Contemporary took 35 minutes to come. There was one family in front of us, and they told us they waited 45 minutes in total for the bus. Ouch! The Wave was delicious! I really enjoyed it.

We went back to the room for a break and then headed to Epcot for the evening. Once we walked in, I put us on the Walk-Up Wait List for SRT which said 90 minutes. We rode SE with only about a 15 minute wait and then were walking over to Mexico when it said our table was ready (really it was like 35 minutes). This pains me to write this, but SRT has gone way downhill. The idea of small bites and no more kid-friendly food is a real letdown. This was one of my favorite restaurants onsite when it was full TS, but it just isn't the same. My kids are relatively adventurous eaters compared to most kids, but my DD just ate the bread and hummus and one of the meatballs. Afterwards, we both left a little hungry and hit up a few food booths. The macarons in France were really good. It was raining pretty hard by this point, so we went over to Soarin' so that we could be in the Land Pavilion. This was a pretty miserable part of the trip. There was a crazy long line to get in the building, and there were some of the most obnoxious people I have ever been around at WDW in front of us (who were to be dethroned soon afterwards). They were were so loud and obnoxious and kept letting their kids run around into restricted areas, run on the chairs in the Active Planet theater, whip each other with long shoe laces and accidentally hit strangers, etc. The people in front of me who were between us and them asked my DD and I to go ahead of them because they didn't want to be around them anymore. Then, when we got downstairs they were yelling at CMs because they wanted to be in the DAS line and didn't want to wait. I think the poor 20-something CM finally said ok just to get these people to stop yelling at her. It was 2 or 3 families traveling together. The dads were drunk BTW and kept swaying. We got in line for Soarin', finally, and the line was so-so. I think it took 35 or 40 minutes to ride, but at least we were dry. Then...we got placed in a row with people from Jersey who wanted everyone to know that was where they were from. They refused to wear their masks continuously both in the area before the ride and again on the ride despite repeated attempts and reminders by CMs. They were screaming (actually screaming like in a horror film) the whole time and laughing because they thought it was funny. I don't know if the adults were maybe drunk or what, but it was extreme behavior. I have seen many an obnoxious guest, and these people took the cake for me. When we got off the ride, a CM flagged me down and asked me if the people next to me were the ones screaming and were they wearing their masks. Had they been nice pleasant people, I would have replied that I didn't know as I don't like to narc people out. The truth was that they all took their masks off for the entire ride. As someone who had Covid, this only bothered me because they can potentially infect other people even if it isn't me. It's an enclosed space indoors. Add to it the fact that they were screaming while not wearing masks, and it just wasn't right in the current landscape. I told the truth and said they were screaming and weren't wearing masks and left. DD asked me what was wrong with them, and I told her that I had no idea. We went over to Frozen which had a line wrapped around into China. That was probably a 30-35 minutes wait. After that, we were tired and went back to the room to sleep. It was a great morning followed by a frustrating night. It wasn't a total bust though because we got to ride a lot of things at EP which helped considering the crowds when we went to EP a few days later. Overall, this day started out amazing and ended just ok. However, a bad evening at Disney can be better than a good day at home when we get to go on rides.

[eandjmom]

Originally Posted by TexasChick

They refused to wear their masks continuously both in the area before the ride and again on the ride despite repeated attempts and reminders by CMs.

Ugh, this is very concerning to me! The only way I was able to convince DH that we should go on our Spring Break trip is that I had such a good experience with mask compliance on my November trip. I'm guessing/hoping they were asked to leave after this?

[TexasChick]

Originally Posted by eandjmom

Ugh, this is very concerning to me! The only way I was able to convince DH that we should go on our Spring Break trip is that I had such a good experience with mask compliance on my November trip. I'm guessing/hoping they were asked to leave after this?

I honestly don’t know. I didn’t stick around to find out. I just left because I was very frustrated by the whole things. After waiting 35-40 minutes for the ride and then to have a bad experience on it, I just wanted to leave.

I should add that mask compliance was much better everywhere else. Epcot always seems to be the dicey one because of the festivals with food and booze.

[eandjmom]

Originally Posted by TexasChick

I should add that mask compliance was much better everywhere else.

Well that is good to know! On our upcoming trip I purposely scheduled us to visit Epcot on a Monday to avoid the weekend crowds.

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience that evening

[krisephillips]

This was a pretty miserable part of the trip. There was a crazy long line to get in the building, and there were some of the most obnoxious people I have ever been around at WDW in front of us (who were to be dethroned soon afterwards). They were were so loud and obnoxious and kept letting their kids run around into restricted areas, run on the chairs in the Active Planet theater, whip each other with long shoe laces and accidentally hit strangers, etc. The people in front of me who were between us and them asked my DD and I to go ahead of them because they didn't want to be around them anymore. Then, when we got downstairs they were yelling at CMs because they wanted to be in the DAS line and didn't want to wait. I think the poor 20-something CM finally said ok just to get these people to stop yelling at her. It was 2 or 3 families traveling together. The dads were drunk BTW and kept swaying. We got in line for Soarin', finally, and the line was so-so. I think it took 35 or 40 minutes to ride, but at least we were dry. Then...we got placed in a row with people from Jersey who wanted everyone to know that was where they were from. They refused to wear their masks continuously both in the area before the ride and again on the ride despite repeated attempts and reminders by CMs. They were screaming (actually screaming like in a horror film) the whole time and laughing because they thought it was funny. I don't know if the adults were maybe drunk or what, but it was extreme behavior. I have seen many an obnoxious guest, and these people took the cake for me. When we got off the ride, a CM flagged me down and asked me if the people next to me were the ones screaming and were they wearing their masks. Had they been nice pleasant people, I would have replied that I didn't know as I don't like to narc people out. The truth was that they all took their masks off for the entire ride. As someone who had Covid, this only bothered me because they can potentially infect other people even if it isn't me. It's an enclosed space indoors. Add to it the fact that they were screaming while not wearing masks, and it just wasn't right in the current landscape. I told the truth and said they were screaming and weren't wearing masks and left. DD asked me what was wrong with them, and I told her that I had no idea. We went over to Frozen which had a line wrapped around into China. That was probably a 30-35 minutes wait. After that, we were tired and went back to the room to sleep. It was a great morning followed by a frustrating night. It wasn't a total bust though because we got to ride a lot of things at EP which helped considering the crowds when we went to EP a few days later. Overall, this day started out amazing and ended just ok. However, a bad evening at Disney can be better than a good day at home when we get to go on rides.

EPCOT for this reason has slowly become my least favorite park...the drunks. They are a guaranteed nuisance every time we visit the park. We try to avoid weekends and evenings for this reason also.

[TexasChick]

Originally Posted by krisephillips

EPCOT for this reason has slowly become my least favorite park...the drunks. They are a guaranteed nuisance every time we visit the park. We try to avoid weekends and evenings for this reason also.

I was hesitant to go on a Saturday night for this reason as well. It’s sad.

[Raspus]

Sorry about your bad experience at EPCOT. I hope those people were removed from the parks. On our upcoming trips I think we will skip EPCOT on the weekends.
Thanks for continuing your report.