Happily ever after at a new resort - part 1

Not accustomed to the time change we were up early.

Really early, like 6am.

We just could not sleep any more and Tom made some coffee and we had some Krispy Kreme for breakfast and watched a little more TV. Around 9am and after nice hot showers we collected the rest of the soaps and shampoos that were on offer in the villa and packed up our stuff.

We called bell services and someone came super quickly to pick up our luggage, which we asked to have transfered to the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, a new resort for us. Luggage out of the way we put the carry-ons into the car and then headed towards Epcot to finally pick up our annual passes. I had bought them in early January to take advantage of the 13 month annual passes as they would also cover 2018’s vacation as well.

So around 10am we walked up onto the ticket booth and asked if we were in the right place to exchange our passes and the girl said that she could do that. So we handed her the confirmation number and our DVC cards and passports and she started to process our annual passes. And while she was doing so I noticed that she wrote August 23 as the expiration date.

I let her know that I had bought these Gold Passes as 13 for 12 passes and that it said so in MDE. Needless to say that it took a while to pull it up and it had already reverted to the regular pass she had printed out. She then proceeded to lecture us that the 13 for 12 had only been for renewals and that ours had always just been a regular one, which got me pretty worked up.

I had to bite my tongue a few times as she would not let up, but then told us to go and try if Guest Services could “fix” it for us.

By then I had gotten pretty angry as she had made it sound like we wanted something that we were not entitled to, while I knew I had the screenshot of the 13 for 12 on my computer

… which was in the car.

We finally gave in, picked up our stuff and walked over to guest services. The Cast Member there, Bryan looked into the matter, told us that he could see that we had bought the pass 13 for 12 and smilingly said that he would change everything for us.

My good mood returned quickly, now that next year’s vacation was taken care off as well, but it seemed to take quite long for him to get things corrected. After a while he asked if we knew that there was a new promotion and that we could actually get a Platinum Plus Pass for the price of a Gold Pass.

I quickly let him know that I would rather have the 13 for 12, it was more valuable for us and with a smile he mentioned that we still had the 13 for 12, but he had applied the new offer as well and we were now to get the Platinum Plus Pass good for 13 months and he was sorry it had taken so long, but he had added everything to MDE and the passes were now on our magic bands and so were our Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party tickets.

Now we were really happy and I asked Bryon if he could write himself a recommendation.

And smiling he said that unfortunately that was not possible, only his collegue on the other side would be able to do that. Bryan’s face was priceless when we quickly moved over to the other side and asked his fellow cast member to write a letter of praise for Bryan, which he happily did. It had taken longer than we had anticipated, but with the

third upgrade within 36 hours

and a new annual pass in hand we flew through bag check and scanned our new pass and entered Epcot. World Showcase still had not opened, so the countries on the way were super empty and we took a photo or two

before heading to the newly refurbished Mission Space, which we had a Fast Pass for. We had missed the Fast Pass for Spaceship Earth because of the annual pass issues, but we did not mind too much as we had a lot more time planned at Epcot. On the way we realized that we had forgotten to apply sun protection and I could feel my skin reacting to the Florida sun. So we walked into the first open shop and bought a can of sun protection spray, which we then applied right outside the shop. And then finally we went to our first ride. Mission Space, team orange, was awesome as always

and Tom had fun trying on a few new “ears” in the gift shop. Then we slowly walked over to “The Land” pavilion for our next fast pass ride on Soarin.

We still had some time before we could ride, so we decided to just grab a bite to eat at Sunshine Seasons. We walked in and had a look at the different offerings and finally decided on the

Spicy Fish Tacos, topped with cabbage slaw and poblano pepper aioli with potato salad and a large Diet Coke to share. It was more than enough food for both of us to hold us over until lunch and sitting there and enjoying the food was a nice distraction until our fast pass window opened.

Once we had put the trash away we walked over to Soarin’, scanned our magic bands and proceeded to our glider. We were very lucky as they had two seats left over on the middle glider, which we prefer, as the sights won’t tilt so much. A few minutes later we took our seats and off we went to soar across the world. The ride was as fun as we remembered and all too soon we landed back in the theatre and got off. We still had time until we wanted to drive over to the Grand Floridian and since wait time for Living with the land was pretty short we got in line and soon were on board one of the boats and on our way to the greenhouse.

This is such a fun little ride that just doesn’t get old and we love seeing all the plants and new things in the greenhouse. When we got off we decided to then walk back to the International Gateway walking past some more of the countries. It was getting seriously hot by then and after cooling down again inside Mousegear we made our way over to World Showcase.

It was packed and we slowly strolled along, stopping here and there to take a closer look at things. Once we had reached the American Adventure we needed a break from the heat and we needed a drink and wandered inside the Liberty Inn and since we had only shared the Tacos a few hours before we went to order some food as well. Put the annual pass to good use and got a nice discount, then picked up our food and drinks and quickly found a table and sat down. We had decided to share two burgers and had ordered the

All American Burger, a 7-oz. Angus burger, Vermont sharp cheddar, smoked bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickle on a brioche bun served with french fries and the

Barbecue Pork Sandwich, topped with Crispy Onions and served on a Kaiser roll with Apple Slices and French Fries. Both were pretty big and for an instant we regretted having ordered both, but once eating we discovered that we had been hungrier that we had expected. We sat for quite some time, people watching and nibbling on our food and around quarter to two we left the restaurant and strolled towards the exit, waved goodbye to Epcot for the day and slowly walked back to the Beach Club Villas and our car, got in and off we went.