October 2018 D-Cot Meet 10/12-10/21/18 – day 1

Here we are folks! Our 10 day final trip on AP’s extravaganza! @warrsm, @laprana, I know you two specifically wanted to know when these start getting posted.
And so, let the adventure begin!

Friday 10/12/18

Our flight out was scheduled for departure at 8:20 am so Lauren spent the night at our house to facilitate getting us to the airport early in the morning. It was great having a sleepover with our daughter! We of course were up too late on Thursday night but it was fun and Lauren got us to the airport in great time in the morning. Not much traffic that early in the morning! We courtesy checked both our carry-ons and in doing that got to load in early. It was very efficient loading the plane and we pushed back 5 minutes early. I chose to watch Major League on the way down since it was baseball playoff season, I forgot how funny that movie was! Kathy watched Solo, but due to the length and quick, smooth flight, she didn’t get through all of it and would have to finish it on the flight back. We landed about a half hour early!
When we paid off our room Michelle told us we were requested to stop at the front desk, which we did. We thought it was because we got the AP rate so they would need to see our passes but they never asked. They did offer us a gift card of $80 if we wanted to opt out of mousekeeping. To my surprise Kathy jumped on it! Basically that would mean they wouldn’t make up the bed or empty trash but we could still get all the towels and soap we wanted. So ok, we used shopping bags for our trash and took it down to the can like every other day. Never a problem! And we just flipped the covers up on the bed each morning. When we walked to our room we actually saw a mousekeeper and got enough towels for the 10 days and some extra soaps so we didn’t have to make a special request. They actually even checked on us a time or two throughout our trip, asking if we needed any more towels, soaps, coffees or teas. It really worked out great with just the two of us! Something I would definitely do again. Anyway, our room was ready, before noon! We truly didn’t expect that! We were in room 2420, the backside of the Jukebox building of 50’s. Oh my gosh is it super quiet on that side! We never heard anything all trip! We walked to our room to check out the refurb since they were now done with the resort and got the text with our room number on the way! Oh my gosh, I love love love the new rooms! I wound up liking the laminate floors a lot more than I thought I would, they just felt clean. There is so much space with the Murphy bed up! We had just tons of room to spread out. And so much storage! We couldn’t believe the number of cubbys and the pantry! We stored all our food in said pantry where the coffee maker and fridge are. They have so many plugs and USB ports too! More than we could use if we tried! Oh and let’s not even get into the rainshower shower head! I wanted to bring that home! We fell in love with Pop all over again like when we stayed there the first time, even better! It was like a brand new resort!

We grabbed a lunch of chicken nuggets and waffle fries, which we split because we knew we’d be partaking in Food & Wine later and headed to Epcot. I texted with Kelly and since she had gotten in last night and scored an early breakfast at Garden Grill, they were heading back to Kidani for a break. We saw and met Pluto upon entering. Then we went to the Festival Center for our AP magnets, which was very a very efficient process, and got our first F&W offering, the drinking chocolate. Oh my gosh, just like I remembered from last October, heaven in a cup! We also checked out the chocolate sculptures and got our free Ghirardelli chocolate. Man, they outdid themselves with the sculptures! We took some time to take in the details and examine them. Just amazing work! Heather and Ryan were using their FP for Figment and going on Nemo so we used our FP for Mission Space Green. We were the only two in our capsule so we just let the computer do the assignments and enjoyed the ride and visuals. We found out they were stuck on Nemo (oh no!) but finally got off and were going to use an extra FP for Living with the Land. So we took our time, walking through a/c in Mouse Gear and made our way to the exit of the Land ride. I saw them on their boat! Oh my gosh I could barely contain myself waiting for them to disembark! Epic, huge, massive, squeeze hugs ensued! Oh it was SO great to see my little sis again! I never wanted to let her go! We walked out of the Land Pavilion together and the sent us on to our Spaceship Earth FP and then met up again and got some Banana Almond Soft Serve with them. It was so refreshing in the heat! And so great to sit and talk and catch up a bit! We then started around World Showcase from Canada. We all got the filet and soup from Canada which was just delicious! Kelly let me know that she had fallen asleep for a nap and Cammie wanted to go to the pool so they were going to hang at the resort for the evening. No worries, we’d see them in the morning at Studios. We strolled and ate and talked and just had the best late afternoon/evening with Heather and Ryan! The four of us in Disney together, yep, all was right with the world, and World! We left them at Morocco with their hummus fries while we went to use our final FP for Frozen Ever After. That’s a cute ride but no way would I wait the wait times it has! Definitely a “once every few trips” for us. We met back up in America where Ryan was finishing his lobster roll. For a foot and heat break I asked if everybody would like to see American Adventure. We were all up for that, and I do believe Heather said Ryan got a little nap! We strolled the rest of the way around WS, stopping for some treats in Germany. Ryan shared some of his fresh caramel popcorn, something that tells me I must be pretty special to him knowing how much he likes it! We got a chocolate/caramel square to split. So good! We checked out Mouse Gear for a bit and got a chance to see Chip and Dale at the dance party before making our way to the entrance where we got some photopass shots together before saying goodnight as we went to the buses. We got back home to Pop where our luggage from DME was waiting. We quickly unpacked, not even close to using all the drawers, decorated our window with some Dollar Store window clings I had picked up and lights from the kids’ trip the previous month and turned in in short order. Knowing we had 10 days it was fun and nice to decorate our window! It was just a wonderful day and evening!

Steps: 22,752
Miles: 10.26