Saturday, August 10

Remember when I was up at 6:30 am on our first day of the trip? Yeah, that was a one-off. As we very much needed to do, we slept in until nearly 9:30, basking in a lazy morning until it was time to dress and head to the monorail for breakfast at The Wave. Breakfast there is a new requirement of mine on each of our trips; in addition to being a rare Disney restaurant that serves actual good coffee, the breakfast buffet is consistently excellent. After a quick ride on Monorail Teal, we were checked in and seated for our 10:50 am breakfast – brunch, really – after which we’d need to figure out what our plans were for the day.

Okay, you have to trust me that actual healthy things like fresh fruit were eaten. Not that you’d know it from this incredibly beige picture:

Ham and cheddar eggs; cheesy bacon grits; multigrain Mickey waffles and sweet potato pancakes with whipped cinnamon-pecan butter; bread pudding. (!)

Listen, this is the kind of breakfast I will only eat at WDW, when I know we’ll be walking 8+ miles a day. Otherwise, I’d probably be consumed by the guilt of having eaten this. (And The Wave is supposed to have the “healthy” breakfast buffet!) But I have no regrets. Sometimes you need a plate of delicious  beige food.

So, what next? We knew we had a super FastPass to use (courtesy of our friends at DTD Guest Relations), so we decided to head over to the Studios to use it on TSMM. We could have taken the monorail back to the Poly and gotten our rental car, but for some reason I made us wait for the bus at the Contemporary. In true Disney fashion, three Animal Kingdom and two Downtown Disney buses arrived long before the Studios bus ever did, but one arrived just before my promised cutoff of abandoning our plan and going for the car. The bus was also ice cold, something we needed after just sitting at the bus stop – it was ridiculously hot and humid outside, far worse than it had been earlier in the week.

Arrive at the Studios. Go through bag check. Say a silent prayer of thanks when our Bands mercifully work for park entry. Proceed straight to TSMM, where our super FPs worked flawlessly – it was truthfully pretty gratifying to walk right on the ride midday, although it in no way made up for the MyMagic+ pain and suffering we had experienced.

Is this thing new? I don’t remember it from last time I was in the TSMM queue.

When we exited the ride, my expert line analysis skills(TM) suggested that the wait would be far less than the advertised 65 minutes, so I asked CP if she was up for a wait in the standby line. After all, I mused, since we were a party of two, we’d probably get picked at the line merge to skip the last part of the line. We decided to go for it – if for no other reason than the queue’s chilly air conditioning.

Yeah, I misjudged. After fifteen minutes of only advancing maybe 100 steps, the walls began to close in on me. I was suddenly feeling flushed and very stuck in a tangle of people insistent on giving me no personal space. I gave CP a look that she instantly understood, and we elbowed our way backward through the line and out the front door. I needed to walk this off.

We found ourselves walking in the blazing midday sun through the mostly empty Streets of America. By the time we neared the Muppets theater, I was feeling worse, not better. Something…wasn’t right. I quickly told CP we needed to head out, and made it as far as the Indiana Jones theater before I stopped short. I had just been hit with an overwhelming wave of nausea, and for a minute I seriously worried I was going to yarf all over one of the many double-wide strollers in my way. I took some deep breaths and focused on the thought of stepping aboard an ice-cold Disney bus. That was what I needed.

Mercifully we made it to the bus stop with my breakfast still where it should be, and we only had to wait a few minutes before a bus pulled up. The bus felt as good as I hoped, and minute-by-minute I was more confident I would not, in fact, be throwing up all over a Disney bus. I could actually disembark with my dignity intact.

Back at the Polynesian, I collapsed into bed and fell asleep. I had the air conditioning in the room set roughly on “frigid,” and after a couple of hours I woke up feeling almost good as new. I really think the combination of a heavy breakfast and the oppressive heat did me in, and I was likely not sufficiently hydrated. You know what else helped me feel better? A Dole Whip, another little perk of staying at the Polynesian. Anyway, let this be a lesson to you: drink your water, get out of the sun, and try not to throw up on the bus.

Later in the afternoon, we freshened up and headed to the car: next stop, Epcot. In addition to trying out the reserved FP+ seating for IllumiNations, I had a margarita on my mind. First, however, we needed some dinner, and elected to grab some food at the quick service place in Mexico. We both had chicken tacos, which were better than expected, and sat outside in the hot sun near some drunken, homophobic frat boys. The perfect counter to homophobes is a La Cava del Tequila margarita, so we ran into the pyramid to grab one and bask in the cool darkness for a few minutes.

By this point it was time to use our first FP+ of the evening, so we wandered over to Test Track. Truthfully we probably wouldn’t have ridden it without the FP+, but I was glad we had it – the standby queue was well out the building by the time we arrived. Sadly, however, FP+ offered us something of a limited advantage, because they’ve changed the queue traffic such that FP users now have to line up to enter the design studio; then design their cars; then rejoin the queue and wait to board. It was a lengthy process, but I have to admit – we had some tipsy fun designing perhaps the most ridiculous vehicle EVER:

The opposite of a fuel-efficient vehicle.

Coming soon to a feminist monster truck rally near you.

This was my third time riding the new Test Track, but the first having designed my own vehicle. I will say that the overall redesign makes a lot more sense when you actually get to design a car, but when your car doesn’t properly sync to your ride vehicle, something gets lost in translation. This was CP’s second time riding, and she had a more visceral, angry response this time than after the first ride. I’m not sure I’ll ever get her on this one again: she truly hates the redesign.

We now had to double back to the Land pavilion to use our next FP+ at Soarin’. We ended up in a glider with a particularly raucous group of people, some of whom were mercilessly making fun of a kid for being scared. In fact, I think some of the people making fun of him were his parents. Heartwarming. We were also seated on the very end of the third row of the rightmost glider, so it wasn’t an optimal ride. That said, I always enjoy Soarin’, and for once the film wasn’t even all that dusty.

Soarin’ under some smelly feet.

Post-Soarin’ chocolate mousse cake.

Our final FP+ of the evening was reserved viewing for IllumiNations, so we arrived at the designated spot promptly at 8:30, thinking there would be a crowd. We were ushered into a roped-off area, where we were maybe the fifth and sixth people there? Truth be told it never really filled up, although I can’t say for sure whether this will remain true once FP+ goes live resort wide. In either case, I enjoyed this experience more than I thought I would: after all, it felt kind of ridiculous to use a FP+ on a fireworks show that can be well viewed all around the lagoon, but having an unobstructed, dead-on view is something I’d be happy to do every now and then. Especially if I were a first-time visitor, this could be a great use of a FP+. I  will give it that.

Here’s the view from the preferred seating area. Not bad at all.

The picture isn’t great – and I needed a wider lens – but if you’re after serious IllumiNations photographs, this would be a great use of a FP+.

After the show, we killed some time chatting with a woman on a solo trip before we headed back out to the parking lot. Once back at the Polynesian, we followed the previous evening’s routine: Wishes from the balcony; showers; sleep.

Up next: We actually make rope drop. We do some resort touring and discover where we never, ever want to stay. Also: sangria!