Post-Trip Report: Aly’s Universal/Disney World Split Stay (January 2024)

[00:00:00] Welcome to Where I Long To Be, a magical Trip Report podcast.

[00:00:15] I am your host, Virginia, and I'm thrilled to report that I have another podcast review

[00:00:21] over on Apple Podcasts.

[00:00:23] This one comes from Hope Wish Believe and is titled, I Love Trip Reports. This time, Allie and Brian are being joined by their son Sully and his girlfriend Sarah for an exciting split stay between Universal Studios, staying at Endless Summer Dockside in a two bedroom, and Walt Disney World, staying in two deluxe DVC studios at Copper Creek in Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort.

[00:01:40] Allie and Brian are longtime DVC members

[00:01:42] and get down to Orlando multiple times a year.

[00:01:45] Copper Creek is just one of their four home resorts. you had a trip for anybody who did not get a chance to listen to Ally's pre-trip report. Ally was traveling with her family on January 6th through 12th down to do a couple of days at Universal and then over to Disney for the rest of the time and the exciting part of this trip at least in my opinion was in addition

[00:03:00] to her husband and son who have been a million times they were also taking her carry-on only and you forget how much of a time suck waiting for checked bags can be. So it was a good learning experience for us to remember why we do it that way. So is that also in part due to the fact that you're DVC and that sometimes you're staying

[00:04:20] in rooms that do have a washer dryer?

[00:04:23] Yes, absolutely.

[00:04:24] Even though you weren't this time. large one. It's more of a medium size. We keep all of our toiletries in there. We keep, I keep a lot of basic park clothes in there. So you know leggings, t-shirts, shorts. My husband keeps all of his clothes in there. Wow. So he'll bring like a

[00:05:40] sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and that's about it. But yeah we keep, we keep

[00:05:45] every, we keep so much in there. We actually keep a Keurig in there because We typically go four times a year. So even with four times a year and paying for it to be delivered three times, it's still cheaper than the unlimited plan for us. And I think we are saving money to a certain extent because if you're playing for baggage each way,

[00:07:01] plus it's more of a convenience thing.

[00:07:05] So you have to kind of combine the costs some sort of discount and you get a certain number of months free when you initially sign up. So it's like the first year. It's more, I would say it is a cost savings, but more than that, it's a convenience thing. Okay. Sorry. I mean, that's how I would rate it. I'll link to it in the show notes in case anybody is curious and wants to check that out. All right.

[00:08:22] So first up was an Uber or a Lyft ride you take some time to get settled because you had a room to go to?

[00:09:43] My husband and I took my notes say around two. By the time we kind of got to the hotel, got unpacked, got at, we ate lunch at the food court and they ate lunch. We met up with them. We went to Men in Black. We met up with

[00:11:02] them at Men in Black around two and Road Men in Black.

[00:12:02] Yeah, they had to take a real break after that one. Oh my goodness.

[00:12:04] So it was kind of a misstep in that one.

[00:12:08] Yikes.

[00:12:09] Yeah, they ended up going back to the hotel.

[00:12:12] Okay.

[00:12:13] And I should ask because you mentioned her name and we spent the entire pre-trip not

[00:12:17] referring to anybody by name, which sometimes happens when I interview people because they

[00:12:22] want to keep someone at the resort. They took a nap. They woke up and then they went and got something to eat So yeah, Brian and I ended up staying and we ended up going to Islands and just kind of walking through I the only ride we really rode was Kong

[00:13:43] But we kind of it just enjoyed the day and walked with just doing a few rides. She thought that was amazing. Well, that's something I'm definitely going to try to keep in mind with my sister because you're right. If they've never been before, they don't really know what they're missing. So perhaps the question to ask a newbie before they go is, what have you already heard of that you're specifically interested in seeing? And then sort of curate around that. Because if they've

[00:15:04] heard of it and they don't get to go, then maybe they would feel like they're missing out. But if Day two of Universal, you had expressed during your pre-trip that you are not that impressed by early entry at Universal specifically. And so you weren't really thinking you were going to do that. Did you end up doing early entry or did you kind of take the next morning a little easier in terms of getting over to the parks?

[00:16:20] We did not.

[00:16:22] My son and Sarah, Sully and Sarah went over.

[00:16:26] They rode Velocicoaster this time rather than trying to get on Hagrid's is a much more accessible coaster, right? Even people who don't do big coasters are potentially going to try to do Hagrid's because it doesn't go extremely high or anything like that. Whereas Velocicoaster, you kind of weed a bunch of people out who would even want to ride that just based on seeing it. They're going to go, oh my gosh, that's way too tall for me.

[00:17:41] I can't do that.

[00:17:43] And they're not even going to be trying for that.

[00:17:44] So I think if you're especially interested in Velocicoaster anyway, that's probably the They ended up riding Rip Ride Rocket and then the Minions ride and did a few things. I only went in the park to grab something from them because they didn't want to get a big locker for Rip Ride Rocket, so I just grabbed a bag and then I went right back to City Walk. Well, City Walk is nice.

[00:19:02] There's a lot of good things to take advantage of there. Yeah, yeah, really annoying. And the lounge fly fits, but you have to squish it a little bit. So like with a size clearly gets in there, but if you're worried about squishing your lounge fly, just FYI, bring a different bag to Universal. Yeah, I don't personally own any lounge flies because I feel like they're too stiff and I need something that has a little bit more flexibility.

[00:20:20] So I don't use a lounge fly, but mine is a Kipling and I absolutely love it. stuff in a locker where you're not allowed to get on the ride with your bag, the smaller lockers are free for you to use. But we got so used to walking up to rides and putting our stuff in lockers that when we saw lockers next to some other ride, we automatically went and put our stuff in it and we were like, why do we have to pay for it? And then we realized when we got up to this particular ride, it was not required to put

[00:21:43] your bag in a locker for that ride.

[00:21:44] And that's why you had to pay wouldn't recommend. It was kind of a waste of money. They went back in the park. They wanted to

[00:23:01] do a couple of rides since they had kind of cut their first day short. We went back to You got these smaller contracts at different home resorts. Did you align your use year so that you would be dealing with one use year or do they all have different use years? No, they have different use years and I love it that way. Really? Okay. I do. So my problem, two of our resorts which we bought direct were Copper Creek and Riviera.

[00:24:21] They have the same use year because that's what they do.

[00:24:24] But we bought resale and we picked different the contemporary and we talked about why you had made that decision. And really it came down to a place to meet the main characters all at one time,

[00:25:44] because Sully didn't want to wait in right, this is like crazy in here. Yeah. But they had fun. They met all the characters. She got the pictures. All right. And who is her favorite? Did she gravitate towards one of them? I don't think so. She seemed to, she liked Mickey. She liked Donald. Donald's always fun, right?

[00:27:03] You know, I was trying to convince her. I'm like, tell for the very first time. And I was wondering whether you would see tears. You thought you thought you would. Were there tears? Yes, she was very excited.

[00:28:20] You know, we woke up, I woke up this morning, got a Tron lightning lane.

[00:28:25] I tried to get virtual to push it out. I was trying to get us all in might be the best ride in Magic Kingdom. I love it. It's a must ride for me. It is for us too. We were like, this is a real banger. Like, you know, like get used to this when we got to ride this ride. So she enjoyed it though. It has such re-ride ability because, you know, you ride it during the day, you can see that

[00:31:02] maybe the stage show going on, you ride to do that because it is not fair if you're not this big. Right. And as a family of three, like normally you'd be taking up two cars anyway. So you're only adding one car into people's weight to get onto the ride. So it's not like you're like.

[00:32:21] It's such a fast loader.

[00:32:22] I, you're talking about milliseconds.

[00:32:25] So I don't think I've heard about it too much.

[00:32:27] I have no guilt about this. Oh, that's a good idea. I was like, why have I never thought of that? I know that's a good idea. That's such a fun thing. Right. What else did you get into in the Magic Kingdom? We rode Tron, and I honestly think that's the last time I'm going to ride that ride. I don't know what I it bothers me for some reason, and I can ride Velocicoaster.

[00:33:41] I have no problems on Velocicoaster for whatever reason.

[00:33:44] That one makes me feel strange.

[00:33:46] Do you think it's the bending over part of it?

[00:34:41] that first day? She really liked Tron.

[00:34:44] She thought that was a great ride.

[00:34:46] She thought that was fun and she liked the mermaid.

[00:34:48] She kind of got a glimpse of Fantasyland.

[00:34:51] She kind of went on the backside of it.

[00:34:52] She hadn't really ridden any of the rides yet.

[00:34:57] Which I think was good because I think it can be overwhelming

[00:35:00] but she just loved the Magic Kingdom.

[00:35:03] I think she just likes, she loved Disney.

[00:35:05] She loved the Magic Kingdom.

[00:35:07] She thought it was fun.

[00:36:04] Around 730, I think they ended up arriving at Epcot. Okay.

[00:36:05] All right.

[00:36:06] What was the first thing that you did in Epcot?

[00:36:09] And I imagine that you explained to Sarah what Epcot was going to be like, but I mean,

[00:36:14] it does sound weird when you explain it to somebody.

[00:36:16] Like it's edutainment.

[00:36:18] And I don't know what somebody might think about that.

[00:36:22] Most people just hear about the drinking around the I don't know how much she actually really liked it, but... So that's the first ride he took her on. And then we went on Soarin'. She had never rode Soarin' around the world, so she had no indicator of anything. She loved Soarin'. She thought that was so cool. And then...

[00:37:40] And it was still Soarin' over California, correct?

[00:37:42] It's...

[00:37:43] Yeah, it's still California.

[00:37:44] And I thought they were changing it in January, but I don't know when.

[00:37:47] Yeah.

[00:37:48] I don't know. I've heard. I've heard that that can happen. I mean, I don't know how reliable that information is, but I have heard that it does affect it, whether they've just changed it out or not.

[00:39:00] So who knows?

[00:39:01] Yeah.

[00:39:02] What was next?

[00:39:04] That point, my son ended up going to connections because he was hungry and he wanted to get There was a barge for luminous. I didn't either until I'm looking at it and I'm like, that barge is just as obtrusive. I mean, maybe not because the other one was a big circle that was going up. This one does kind of stay low, but it's still right in the middle. Okay. Interesting. All right. I don't know.

[00:40:22] I'm looking forward to eventually seeing it. I am avoiding watching a video of it because I would like to experience in person.

[00:40:26] So every time I'm watching like a YouTube video of somebody who's in the parks, It was packed. I mean up to the water was packed. So we we could really only see the overhead fireworks. So Okay Speaking of packed we have not yet Discussed what your thoughts were on the crowds that you had been seeing up to this point because I remember That when we were specifically talking about your plans and Universal you were hopeful that

[00:41:44] The crowds would not be too bad because of the marathon weekend that are causing the crowds. Hmm. I wonder if word has gotten out that that was a slower time to go and therefore it is no longer a slower time to go. I think it has. I think all the old rules for Disney have changed. I really do. I think, you know, the timeframes we used to think were the good ones.

[00:43:00] I think social media and the pandemic if you're taking like a longer trip, just because it's the same price for I think up to 10 days.

[00:44:21] And it counts for, I want to say like up to 10 people in your party.

[00:44:26] So if you're taking a big trip like that you in fact have never seen a Star Wars movie. So I want to know, since we last spoke and now, have you seen a Star Wars movie? I have not. I have not. In truth, I haven't really had time since we last spoke. I mean, it's been the holidays, so I get it.

[00:45:43] So I don't know.

[00:45:44] I will try.

[00:45:46] I'll try to Hollywood Studios. And then we made a Toy Story Mania lightning lane at that point, rode Toy Story Mania, kind of just walked around and then

[00:47:00] rode Slinky Dog. And then at that point we were hungry them because they were just kind of running around the park. It was so windy this day. It was the day that we had tornado warnings. And it was just so windy. So we had planned that morning. We were like, well, we'll head over to the Riviera at some point. And then we didn't want to get stuck

[00:48:21] on the Skyliner because it was the windiest. I've seen it there. Yeah. I got it. All right. So, what was next? We left, we went back to the resort and everybody wanted to rest. I was fine. So, Brian collects the medallions, the, I don't know, they're like coins and they have them kind of scattered throughout property.

[00:49:41] And so, I went over to Fort Wilderness because the one they have at Fort Wilderness is right

[00:49:44] in the middle of the resort and is...

[00:49:46] Have you ever been to Fort Wilderness to get there. That's a lot more convenient if you have a hoop to do reservation. Okay. Good to know. Yes. Then if it's like not that you'd have a hoop to do reservation earlier, but the boat doesn't start running till three. You would take the bus over and it's really easy. It's just you'd have to know Fort Wilderness.

[00:51:02] I ended up getting them.

[00:51:03] I ended up walking because the only reason I wasn't going to walk was because I just Right. And there are people who are just devoted, devoted to that resort. They go every year at the same time, they decorate their campground for Halloween or for Christmas. There's a certain group of people who it's just super popular with.

[00:52:21] I think we all feel that about certain resorts.

[00:52:24] For me, it's Wilderness Lodge.

[00:52:25] But yeah, if you're not familiar, it's a complicated one. stuck trying to get back to Wilderness Lodge. By the time I got back to Magic Kingdom, they had already closed the boat down. So it was bus only. We decided there we weren't going to go back to the parks that night because it was just the skies opened up and it was just raining. It wasn't the type of rain that just lasts for an hour.

[00:53:41] It was going to set in.

[00:53:43] We got last minute reservations for Whispering Canyon.

[00:53:47] That was fun.

[00:53:48] That was OK. We are just not we are just not early entry people anymore. We used to be in, you know, but we did get flight of passage, individual lightning lanes for nine thirty. We got a Navi for nine fifty.

[00:55:00] So we kind of stack those two.

[00:55:02] We got there at nine.

[00:55:03] I think got a coffee, went back, looked around Pandora.

[00:56:06] They went to dinosaur and expedition Everest and those were those lightning lanes were just immediate that day in Animal Kingdom Which was really nice

[00:56:08] Mm-hmm. How long were the weights that day? No, so the safari had like a 75 minute weight

[00:56:14] Oh, okay. I feel like it's pretty long for the story that is and genie plus well worth it in that case in my opinion. Yeah

[00:56:22] Expedition Everest. I don't remember because I didn't actually even go over there, but then at the same time, I love musical theater. And so it's like a 20 minute little condensed Broadway show to me. So I guess that's why I like it so much. I like it too. I think more people like The Lion King than Finding Nemo. It's never a challenge to get a seat at Finding Nemo.

[00:57:42] It can be a challenge to find a seat at The Lion King.

[00:57:46] So anyway. and then walked to France and got the seasonal macaron. It was like raspberry and vanilla. It was good. Okay. The regular macaron or the ice cream version? The ice cream version. Okay. I should have said that. Okay. No, I just wanted to make sure because I didn't know if they had a seasonal regular macaron.

[00:59:02] I know that they have it for the ice cream

[00:59:03] because I had that during the holidays.

[00:59:05] So it was like peppermint flavored.

[00:59:07] Yeah, it was good. wait times. I am not kidding you. Haunted Mansion was 75 minutes. Wow. For Haunted Mansion. That's crazy. Thunder Mountain was like 65 minutes. And so I was glad I had stacked a bunch of lightning lanes. So I was kind of, I stack them'll remain that way. So we watched the fireworks and then of course we had to be salmon and swim upstream, right? Because we were going back into the park and that's just the worst idea ever. I mean, I don't know why we did it. I wanted to watch the fireworks. We tried and they stopped you.

[01:01:40] So we cut through the store and you get all the way to Casey's and then they reroute you

[01:01:44] back out and you have Mountain area. Wow. Oh my goodness. Well, I'm so happy that you had the lightning lane stacked so that you could avoid some of this. Yep. So it worked out. So stack your lightning lanes for after fireworks. Don't think you don't need them because you do. We rode that. We rode pirates.

[01:03:00] And that was the line was all the way outside for pirates after fireworks are doing the jump in line right before park closure so that they get to stay in line. Maybe that's part of it? I think that is a big part of, you have two hours for after hours, which is great, but they're jumping in line at 9.59.

[01:04:21] So it's affecting the line for about 45 minutes to an hour

[01:04:25] on busy days like this.

[01:04:26] So, but it's fun. I've never done it myself, but one of these days. Really? Yeah, especially now that... I'm surprised because you seem like a challenger, you know? I think I am, but I also, you know, I don't know, just the stars have not aligned for it. And I would... I think Alex would get on board for sure because he's definitely somebody who likes a challenge

[01:05:43] and would be really into like setting he hasn't hit in a while. He loves people mover, that sort of thing. But also at the end of the day, like he really just likes sitting and absorbing the atmosphere and people watching specifically in Hollywood studios.

[01:07:01] So I can very much see if the three of us were together that Alex and I would be off with us, we never stayed at a Skyliner Resort. So he stayed at like the grand, he stayed at the boardwalk, like even though the boardwalk is, but he never needed the Skyliner because he would just walk to either one. And it was, it's so funny. I was like, how have you never ridden the Skyliner? Because even if he was there with us, we would go over and he'd say, oh no, I'm just going to go do whatever, you know? So yeah.

[01:08:23] Oh my goodness. All right. So let's talk about your Epcot day. This was your last full Disney park day. Yes. It ended up not being, but we ended up. Oh, okay.

[01:09:40] So we went to Epcot and it was great.

[01:09:43] It was empty because it was the he kept telling her it was just a touring ride. Like they weren't, he didn't, he didn't tell her it was a drop ride. So she, she got into the thing and she's going through the elevator and she's like, is this, is this what it does? And he goes, yeah, it's just a super easy ride.

[01:11:00] And then you know how they load you in. She had no idea what was going on.

[01:11:04] Like I can't know.

[01:12:20] She didn't see the things dropping or hear the people screaming.

[01:12:25] I don't know if she just didn't notice or didn't think, you know, I don't know.

[01:13:26] because we had got her for Christmas the four-day Park Hopper. But she enjoyed it so much that she wanted she ended up upgrading her ticket so that they could

[01:13:29] go back to World Showcase on Friday morning before our flight. Oh nice.

[01:13:35] Alright. Did she have a favorite country? I think she liked Japan. They both like

[01:13:40] Japan. They love Mitsukoshi and they key is if you have kids and you're doing a character breakfast, go for the family-style ones. They're so much easier than the up and down of the buffet. Right. Yeah.

[01:15:00] And the food's breakfast food.

[01:15:01] So if you're used to Disney breakfast food, I'm like, okay, so in these ballrooms is where he made them. I'm not a crook speech. And she says, that's so random. And she's kind of right. Like, what? Why was that in Florida? Like, I was like, it is. And then I told her

[01:16:20] about the John Lennon story and at the Polynesian. So yeah just something about it. It's just a vibe. So I don't know. It is. And the access to the TTC. The access to that TTC and the monorail is definitely a leg up. Yeah. Yeah. From the monorail resorts. Yep. And Captain Cook's quick service is one of my favorite quick services on property.

[01:17:46] So good.

[01:17:47] So good.

[01:17:48] Very good.

[01:17:49] Yep. When you share their bus, I'm not a get, I love, but I don't have a problem with buses. I really don't. When you have an exclusively bus resort, I think they pump more buses into it. While Animal Kingdom is buses only, you're only sharing a bus with Kadani and Jumbo. You're right there. It doesn't feel like a long ride. I feel like when you're at Animal Kingdom, since it is bus only, they're just throwing

[01:19:03] buses out there. So maybe it was middle of the day. It was. I mean, that part of it was. And maybe that's the key is this trip we weren't really doing super early mornings. And I will say, every time we were out at that bus stop, the Animal Kingdom buses, the Fort Wilderness buses, and the Magic Kingdom buses were just coming.

[01:20:21] I felt like every five minutes there was a new bus.

[01:20:23] So I can't say it wasn't all bus service.

[01:20:25] It was just for whatever reason.

[01:20:26] I don't know what it was raining. They did Figment again, they did Soarin'. I mean, there was a wait for Figment because it was Festival of the Arts. But they did all the rides

[01:21:41] and then they walked around the country.

[01:21:43] So they had a good time.

[01:21:44] We actually didn't have pre-check. So I was worried, you know, her going through the, the line for not pre-check was shorter than the pre-check line, which I know people say that, but here's the thing, pre-check, you don't have to take anything out of your bag. So I don't care if the line's slightly longer, it's so much easier.

[01:23:05] Cause I went through the regular line with her in Boston when said, you know, this isn't the pre-check line, right? I said, I know, but I'm going through with somebody that, you know, that doesn't have pre-check. They're like, oh, I don't know. Maybe it was just Boston because they're who they are. Maybe. Maybe. They're probably more like people like me who are like, good luck. See you on the side of security.

[01:24:21] I leave Charles behind every time.

[01:24:23] Oh, and the funny thing is, is like we made's what I would do. I'm still, yeah. It's a father-son trip. It's a father-son bonding trip. Go take care of this because I do not want to be standing at

[01:25:43] customs with you when we could be speeding right through on our way back.

[01:26:46] of your trip planning and everything that happened on your trip and for sharing your family's adventure.

[01:26:49] No problem. It was a blast. Thank you.

[01:26:53] Thank you, Allie, for coming on the podcast again. It is always so much fun to talk to you and I hope that this won't be the last time.

[01:26:58] If you have a trip coming up and you'd like to be a Trip Report guest, please use the link in the show notes to reach out.

[01:27:04] I'm specifically looking for people who have trips in April and beyond.