Day 2 (8/20/2011)
So we had a long day and tough night as our rooms had cleanliness issues that needed to be addressed during the overnight, which Disney did take care of. We decided to sleep in a bit late and make it down just in time for last call at Captain’s Grill. The food there was amazing, like always. Following breakfast it was off to relax at Stormalong Bay. I am a huge fan of this pool and always think it is worth the money to stay at Yacht/Beach and opt out of doing the water parks. To me, you get the same thrills while avoiding some of the crowds and wasting time going from resort to park. This year they really cracked down on pool hopping. The wristbands were always done, but you used to not need a key for everyone in the family. This year each person had to present his or her own room key before getting a wristband. Although cutting down on pool hopping, Disney has yet to develop a system that lacks loopholes and is easy on the guests of the resort.
One of my favorite parts about Stormalong Bay is the Flying Jib slide. Every year I really try to out do myself on it by achieving new personal best speeds down the slide, making large splashes upon pool re-entry, and maximum number of trips on one vacation. This year my idea was to make 50 trips down the slide. The only issue is that it’s a long walk from the actual pool to the slide steps and then there are over 40 steps to climb. Luckily this year the guards at the pool were friendly again. I’m not sure if anyone remembers my report from last year, but the demeanor and attitude of the guards was a huge negative. After about three trips they realized I go fast (doing everything correct by the rules) and would have to leave a larger gap between the person in front of me and myself
I did about 7 trips on this day figuring that 7 a day plus 8 on the last would help me achieve my goal of 50 trips. This day was originally designed to be our off property day with shopping at both Orlando Outlet malls and dinner at Ming Court. We decided to head off for the International Drive outlet center first as it was farther out and we would work our way back towards the property. I have to say that for a Sunday afternoon, the outlet center was crazy. They really need to do something about the traffic around the area and parking at the center in general. There were no parking spaces to be had and everyone was pretty much leaving cars wherever they wanted including on the grass. Thankfully we had rented the SUV so we made our own parking space up on the grass, just like everyone else was doing. We shopped and noticed the sky off in the distance. It looked like a really massive storm was going to come and we would be darting between covers just to stay dry. Somehow the storm managed to miss us and we had perfect outlet shopping weather. It ends up that the storm got WDW pretty hard.
We headed off to Ming Court for an early dinner (around 5:30/6:00). As many of you are aware, Ming Court is a tradition that dates back in my family to before I can even remember. The food was phenomenal… as always. Following dinner the plan was to visit the other outlet center but somehow our plans changed. It was EMH tonight at DHS and we got the craving for the new Star Tours 3D. We tabled the other outlet center and drove back to the resort so we could hop a friendly trip down the lagoon aboard the friendships. These are one thing that really annoy me but I still love them. Every year it seems like they travel slower and slower and they become more and more run down. Those who read last year’s trip report remember how much I complained about Friendship II giving off thick black smoke every time it left the dock. This year Friendship II was not as bad but most of the ships were now giving off that ominous black smoke and showing signs of discoloration from it on the back of the boats.
It was around 8PM when we got to DHS, which was a perfect time to get there. Star Tours was pretty much a walk on so we took a couple of fights to various destinations. Although I missed traveling to Endor, I did enjoy the new 3D effects and the varied sequence. It was also nice to see Disney pay a small tribute to the original attraction by leaving the Captain Rex droids from the simulators in the queue. They are just to the left when you enter the second room and labeled defective. All but one have been repainted, but the one that is not repainted will short circuit every now and then so you can hear it talk. After Star Tours it was over to Toy Story Midway Mania where I easily beat my entire family and took ride vehicle high with a 146,200 (my worst score this trip). After the attraction we headed over to meet with Woody and Buzz where we decided that we needed an ice cream snack. We decided to head out of DHS and bus it over to Downtown Disney.
We made it just in time for Ghirardelli’s last call at midnight. However, Diseny Transport failed to inform us that they close the bus stop at the Marketplace at midnight. All Downtown Disney buses will only service the Pleasure Island stops after 12AM. It reminded me again why I always hate taking the bus to DTD. It is the only place where they pool all 5 EPCOT resorts onto 1 bus and you will wait FOREVER for a bus. Luckily it was worth the wait as we were treated to a great driver and the newest bus in the Disney fleet at the time (5069-11). We got back to the resort after 1AM and called it a night.
We love the Jib Slide too, B-dude is addicted!
