travel dates: January 2024 (mostly MLK week)
Friday: Arrival Day/All-Star Music
Generally speaking I’m fairy happy with where we live. We can walk to stores and restaurants; there are lots of parks and hiking nearby, it’s an easy drive to get south to Atlanta or north to the mountains…but then there are the times where we need to drive south of Atlanta on a weekday, and I get a little less happy with it. And this is why we left at seven on Friday morning, trying to beat both the traffic and some storms that were in the forecast along our route. And it worked! No traffic and no weather aside from a bit of rain.
This first leg of the trip featured me and Abe (the only permanent fixtures) plus August, who had a break from his usual senior year obligations for the long MLK weekend so was able to join us for a bit (he was still a little stressed even about doing that; this was back when college application deadlines were still looming and he was feeling pretty overwhelmed…but I thought the break would do him good and managed to talk him into it). The drive was uneventful, and we made our traditional stop at the Florida Welcome Center for free orange juice. Note that Gus is wearing a jacket! (note: I am, as I type this, in the car on the way to Florida again, only this time it’s late May, and the forecast calls for 97 degree temps. So I’m feeling especially nostalgic for jacket weather in Florida):
Now, I’ve always loved the idea of resort hopping at Disney–different hotels! so fun!–but I’d never actually done it before. We stayed at three different resorts in our first three nights on this trip, and I can’t say I necessarily recommend that kind of pace…but it was still kind of fun. We settled in to a single resort for a week after the mad hopping the first few days, but poor Gus left on Monday, so he got three hotels in three nights and then a late night plane trip home.
I booked All-Star Music last minute when we decided to do the drive in one day instead of breaking it up with an overnight stop. It had been full when I first checked, but I kept looking and eventually one popped up. The reason it was so booked up was that it was cheerleading competition season, which meant the resort (and the parks, to a lesser extent) were overrun with cheerleaders. But this was mostly fine.
We arrived around 4. We had never gotten a text that our room was ready, but then the room number was there in the app when I opened it, so we were able to go right there (I got a text at about 5:30 the next morning letting me know it was ready, which was super helpful). The rooms are small, but they’ve all been redone recently with wood-look flooring instead of carpet, and a Murphy bed that converts to a table when you’re not using it, which I really love (I believe this is true of all the All-star rooms with 2 beds and all the ones at Pop Century now). It makes the rooms feel bigger and gives you much more useable space during the day.
That first evening we just hung out at the resort. We did a mobile order and picked up dinner at the food court to eat back in the room. Then Abe and I went out to explore the resort, while Gus sat around and fretted about college applications (probably. I don’t remember what he was doing).
Oh, I guess he’s still here in the first picture. I think we were going to pick up the food:
We were in the Broadway section. It was pretty at night:
Then we walked over to All-Star Sports. Abe had really wanted to stay there, but it was totally full:
This was my first time staying at an All-Star (usually we’re so fancy we stay at Pop), and I liked it. I’m a fan of over the top theming, and, while there’s not a lot of luxury here, there are clean, updated rooms and well-maintained facilities. And at a price point that it’s tough to compete with for anything as nice/convenient off property, particularly once you factor in parking and resort fees (neither of which Disney charges). It’s a whole different ballgame (as they say at All-Star Sports) when you have a larger family; these rooms only sleep 4 (plus a baby under 3 in a crib), and Disney’s very strict about that. Back when we had 5 or 6, we sometimes saved money by renting a condo nearby. The price difference isn’t nearly so stark if you can fit in a single room at a value.
Saturday: Pop Century/Skyliner
Originally our entire stay was going to be at Pop Century. Then I found out the Skyliner was going to be down for maintenance for most of our trip AND that there was a promotion involving a dining gift card, with a bigger gift card for stays at moderate and deluxe resorts. So I used all of this as an excuse to try out a moderate for the first time, which will be coming up later. But I kept this one night at Pop for a couple of reasons: the gift card promo didn’t work for stays starting on a weekend, so no matter where we were Saturday night I was going to have to make a separate reservation starting Sunday (and we couldn’t go to a park until Sunday for the same reason). And the Skyliner was going to be running on Saturday and Sunday, and I wanted to try out the Skyliner. And we love Pop!
We’ve stayed at Pop multiple times in the past, but not since the Skyliner was finished and not since the rooms were updated. Skyliner is a definite game changer here, as the crowded buses were probably my least favorite thing about Pop. We usually ended up driving to the parks most of the time in fact, at least back when Dave and I were outnumbered by small children and bus transportation was particularly hellish to deal with.
We were in the 50s section, which is well-positioned for the skyliner (the line in the mornings runs along the lake right next to the 50s buildings). The rooms are very similar to the All-Star rooms:
So Saturday was our official Skyliner/resort hopping day (it was, remember, originally supposed to be our arrival day). We had a slow morning for this reason, sleeping in and checking out of All-Star Music pretty much exactly at 11 and driving over to Pop Century. We didn’t expect to be able to get into our room at Pop that early, but when we checked at the lobby they found a room for us right away. So we hauled all our stuff in there and then took off to check out the Skyliner.
I’m not always a big fan of heights, but I did fine with the Skyliner. A little nervous anytime it stopped briefly (we never stopped for any significant length of time). Abe was a different story. This is a kid who will go on absolutely every ride at Disney World with no issues whatsoever, but the Skyliner freaked him out. I think it was anticipation plus being able to see the whole thing hanging over our heads like that. Once he builds something up in his head, he has a hard time moving past it. We got him on it with a good bit of coercion, and by the time he’d ridden it a few times he was ready to admit it wasn’t so scary after all. But by then it was time for us to move to another resort, and the Skyliner was down for maintenance anyway.
He looks okay here:
Anyway, after we picked Abe up and wrestled him onto the Skyliner (kidding), we went over to Caribbean Beach, the first stop, and spent some time wandering around and checking it out. Note: wandering around and checking things out is much nicer in January than in summer. Which lasts for nine months in Florida.
From here we walked over to the Riviera Resort, because they’re right next to each other. I’d never seen the Riviera before, and it was a little…sterile and underwhelming. But Abe and Gus played some Connect 4:
Then we got back on the Skyliner for the ride over to Epcot. This is the best leg of the Skyliner, because you actually go through a bit of the World Showcase and get some really nice views. But once we got off we realized we really didn’t have much of a plan for this day. We had a reservation for dinner at Beaches & Cream, but not for a few more hours. I always like the idea of just hanging out at a resort or the Boardwalk or wherever, soaking up the atmosphere, in theory…but in real life it was sounding a little dull.
So new plan! What if we rode every form of Disney transportation in one day?! This is something I’ve read about! Let’s do it!
So we did. First we took the boat from Epcot to Hollywood Studios. Then we hopped on a bus to Magic Kingdom (in retrospect, a bus to a resort instead probably would have been less crowded and more efficient).
Next up…monorail to the Polynesian!
I had a vague plan that we would get Dole Whips here, but I had kind of forgotten that we were going to Beaches & Cream for dinner, where ice cream is kind of the main draw. So we just sort of wandered around for a bit and then went to find another bus. Every form of transportation! We did it! It took up some time before dinner!
We took a bus back to the Beach Club and still got there a good 20 minutes before our dinner reservation. But we checked in and were seated 10 minutes early, so not bad.
I’d never been to Beaches & Cream before. It is a nice little burger/ice cream place. We got to observe someone get the Kitchen Sink and attempt to eat it. We just got regular sized ice creams ourselves. Things to note: Mickey-shaped mayonnaise!
Also, Disney can be a tough place to be if you’re vegetarian but not vegan like Gus, because they really want to just make everything “plant based” instead of having separate offerings for vegetarians who eat dairy, which means you either end up with a lot of fake cheese and mayonnaise or you have to make a lot of special requests.
Here’s also where I’ll talk about how weird it is to have a 10/turning 11 year old at Disney World. The Disney rule is that kids are only kids until they turn 10; after that they’re adults for pricing purposes, including at restaurants. We deliberately avoided buffets and other fixed priced meals on this trip largely for this reason; paying $60 for my 10 year old to eat the same chicken fingers from a buffet that he could get for $15 or whatever elsewhere seemed too ridiculous. YMMV if you have a 10 year old who eats both adventurously and…a lot. I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as him being allowed to order from the kids’ menu at other restaurants, though. Turns out that’s because there’s no way to know what to expect. At most places, he was offered a kid menu (i.e. given a choice of kid or adult menu). But there were exceptions. And I don’t know that it varied by restaurant so much as by whoever happened to be taking us to our table at that restaurant on that day. Anyway, at Beaches and Cream he was offered and accepted the kids’ menu (he could eat adult sized portions, but is a picky eater so generally is happier with kid meal offerings). Anyway, it’s weird and annoying how Disney thinks 10 year olds are adults and sometimes capriciously denies them kid menus!
Abe also doesn’t eat gluten; we’ve done the gluten free thing at Disney before, and it’s pretty much the easiest place in the universe to be gluten free. We found it even easier and more streamlined this time than in visits past; they used to have a chef come out and talk to you every single time at table service restaurants, and that’s no longer the case (this might be a negative for people with more severe allergy issues, but it made things easier and faster for us). And I can remember many LONG waits for GF stuff at quick service restaurants; this time we waited no more than a few extra minutes, and we could use mobile order for everything.
And then it was time to head back to Pop for our lone night there before finally actually getting to go ride some rides the next day! Another fun thing about January; you can see everything all lit up at night without staying out late!
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