Our Trip to Disney World

Wow, what an amazing week we had! Coming home was hard (partially because our feet hurt so bad we could barely walk) but this was probably our best vacation to date.

As some of you may know, I have been planning this trip since Christmas, and had planned out every detail for the first 4 days of our 7 day vacation. I had fast passes, dinner reservations, what clothes we would wear, what rides to go on at what time without fast passes, which parks would be busier than other's, and all of this was planned out in an excel spread sheet. I read The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2016 cover to cover and highlighted information that I found important. I'll give you a hint; I found a lot of information important. I filled my Pinterest boards full of Disney Clothing, food that looked good, tips on how to save money, and crafts to do afterwards with things from the parks. I read many different Disney blogs (both official and unofficial), consulted my fellow Disney friends, and spent a lot of time on the WDW website.

And all of this paid off so well.

Now, I'm no expert on the parks. I might seem like I am, but I'm sure there was ways we could have saved money (like not buying 13 pins but I'll get to my pin obsession in a little bit), saved time, and saved our feet from lots of pain! So here is our trip in a nut shell!

Day 1- Hollywood Studios

 

 

On our first day, we spent the morning flying from cold, snowing New Hampshire to sunny Orlando! We checked into our hotel, dropped off all of our things from traveling that we didn't need at the parks and headed right to Hollywood Studios (HS). Of course, the first thing we had to do was go and get Mike a Turkey Leg. We had fast passes (FP+) for Star Tours from 235-335, so we got our Turkey Leg, went and watched the Beauty and the Beast show (something I had really wanted to see our last trip but our HS day got rained out). Let me just say, it was magical. I was on the verge of tears the whole show.

 

Single Rider Amanda on Rockin Roller Coaster

Single Rider Mike on Rockin Roller Coaster

We went and did our Star Tours ride (probably Mike's favorite ride to date) and then had FP+ for Toystory Midway Mania. Mike won (of course. I think he cheats at this one and the buzz lightyear game too) and we explored around a little bit. We were suppose to have FP+ for Tower of Terror (ToT) but we decided that since the Rockin' Roller Coaster had a single rider line, we'd go wait in line for that one.


Now, the only grumpy people I saw at Disney all week were the two ladies behind us in line for this single person line. How it works is if there's an empty seat on the ride, they fill it with a single rider. This particular ride is 2 seats across, so if the group is an even number of people, there obviously isn't going to be space for a single rider. The ladies behind us didn't get this concept and were complaining that the wait in single rider was going to be just as long as the normal stand by line (90 minutes at that point). Now, we'd gotten in line before them so we'd been waiting maybe 5 minutes more than them, and at this point we were in line for maybe 15 minutes. Oh these women were infuriating. They kept saying that they should do a car just for the single riders. HELLO. THAT DEFEATS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF THE SINGLE RIDER LINE. Ok rant over, but they did give us some great laughs all week, and now we have our own joke about them.
 

We had reservations at the 50's Prime Time Café after this whole ordeal. It was absolutely delicious! I got crab cakes (I wasn't too hungry from traveling all day) and Mike got a sampler with Meatloaf, Pork, and Chicken. The service was fun, and it was definitely a different experience. If you're ever at HS, I'd recommend going to 50's!

 

After dinner, we went on The Great Movie Ride which was super cute and fun. We weren't sure if we were going to stay for the fireworks because we were exhausted, but we decided to stay for Fantasmic.

Hubby and I after riding ToT twice on our way out of the park

I can't even begin to explain Fantasmic to anyone who hasn't seen it. It is by far the best show I've seen Disney do. It's got boat floats, projections on water, fireworks, amazing musical score, has amazing attention to detail, and features Sorcerer Mickey from Fantasia! I could have gone every night to HS to see Fantasmic!

Once Fantasmic was done, we were done. We were exhausted from being up since 4:30 AM and traveling and cramming a whole park in only 6 hours. I knew they had a new fireworks show featuring Star Wars music, but we were just too tired. Just for laughs, I decided to look at the wait times for ToT. There was a 10 minute wait so we of course went over to it. The 10 minute wait was wrong though. We literally walked onto the ride. The cool part of ToT is that you can see the whole park when the doors open at the top, and that includes the amazing firework show happening at the same time. So not only did we get to ride one of my favorite rides, but we also got to watch fireworks from there too! It was so amazing, we got off and then got right back in "line" again (the park was about to close so there was no line)

We may have only spent a short time at Hollywood studios (the only park we only did one day of), but I can't WAIT until they open up Star Wars Land and ToyStory Land! It's going to bring this park from a 1/2 day park with 2 thrill rides to a can't miss park!
 

Day 2- Animal Kingdom

  



If you ask my husband, he will probably tell you that Animal Kingdom (AK)  is his favorite of the 4 parks at WDW. We are huge fans of going to zoo's and aquariums so AK is obviously one of our favorite places.

 

The two of us after eating lunch in front of the Tree of Life

This was our first day of getting up for rope drops. I'm just going to point this out now: if you want to do your WDW vacation right, it isn't a vacation, it's work! This day (Monday) we were up at 6:30 AM to be at AK before our Extra Magic Hours (EMH) started at 8 AM. It was an early morning, but it was so worth it! We were able to go explore the Asia and DinoLand area's and go on 2 rides before the parks were even open to the public! Because most people head right for Kilimanjaro Safari's and Expedition Everest, the lines for the rides we went on were very short, and there were no crowds of people around us! It was very peaceful and quiet which is rare for any Disney park!

We had our first FP+ at Kilimanjaro Safari's which is probably one of the best experiences Disney has done. You really feel like you're in Africa (not like I would know because I haven't actually been to Africa, but you know what I mean). Afterwards we went to Festival of the Lion King. Another great interactive show featuring the songs and characters from Lion King.

It's now about 12 PM. We've got one more FP+ and then lunch reservations. We walk all the way to the other side of the park to do Expedition Everest. We had never done this ride before, but I had an idea of what to expect. Or so I thought. I'm just going to let this picture explain it all.

Yup. That's us right in the middle with our arms up screaming our heads off! As you'll find out towards the end of this post, this is my new all time favorite ride in Disney.

We didn't like this ride at all...

Lunch at the Tusker house was pretty fantastic!!! I never thought I'd be one to eat African food unless I was in Africa, but here I was trying all this new food! It was SO good! On top of the amazing buffet of food, we got to meet Mickey, Daisy, and Donald Duck! They came right to our table in their Safari outfits for selfies and lots of laughs! It was also awesome to see one of my friends from high school who works at Tusker House!

By this point we were exhausted, so we headed out to go back to the hotel. This became tradition for the rest of the week to stop half way through the day (usually between 2-4 pm) and go take a nap (Mike) or if you were cool, you sat by the pool and got your tan on like me! This was also the day we explored Disney Springs and had fun there as well, but didn't spend a whole lot of time there (mostly because we were exhausted.). If only we knew how exhausted we'd be on day 7!

  

 

Day 3- EPCOT

 

Kisses in Italy

There are only a few things to report from our third day at WDW when we went to EPCOT (well, compared to the past 2 days worth of details).

 

We got to do Test Track which is one of our favorite rides, and of course our car was the fastest (reading at 86 MPH, but we only physically went about 62). We met Joy and Sadness from Inside out, Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy, and Belle in her beautiful blue dress. The only other thing we did that day was we (and by we I mean Mike) drank around the world. At the World Showcase, they have 11 countries, and by the end of the day, Mike would have had a drink from each one! A lot of people say you have to do a beer from each country, but we strayed from that just a little bit, and that's ok! Because sangria from Mexico was incredible!


Here's the order of countries/what he got.

UK-Bass Ale from Yorkshire

France- Red Wine from Les Halles Boulangerie-Patisserie



Morocco- Margarita Slushy Thing

Japan- Sake from Katsura Grill

United States- Shipyard Maple Bacon Stout from The Smoke House

*This was the point in the day that we went back to the hotel and relaxed. We came back around 745 PM*

Canada- La Fin Du Monde (I think) from the Popcorn Stand

Mexico- Sangria from La Cantina de San Angel

Italy- Espresso Martini from Tutto Italia Ristorante *Note Mike's favorite*

Germany- Schofferhofer Pink Grapefruit Hefeweizen from Sommerfest *Mike's second favorite, also where they gave us a free pretzel because it was the end of the night*

China- Some weird Buddha bottle of beer from the House of Good Fortune (The only thing open at this point)

Norway- Beer (I'll have to go back through my photo's to figure out exactly where/what he got here)

 

Day 4- Magic Kingdom



Magic Kingdom (MK) is my favorite park. I know it's super cliché but I can't help it! I get tears in my eyes just thinking about MK. I cried when I first saw the castle on my 18th birthday, I cried when we first saw the castle on our honeymoon 2 years ago (PS Mike's first trip!), and I really had to hold back the tears this trip too. Disney is my happy place, and MK just screams happy!

 

We were at the kingdom for the opening ceremonies at 830AM (park opened at 9) and it was the best decision ever! First of all, the opening ceremonies are absolutely amazing, but more importantly, because we had fast passes for the new Seven Dwarf Mine Train, we didn't have to rush to Fantasyland with everyone else! We took our time getting drinks at the Main Street Bakery, and we went to my favorite MK ride, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! It was our first FP+ of the day, but the line was so short, we rode it stand by first and then used our FP+.

 

We then went and road the very underwhelming Seven Dwarf Mine Train. I'm not sure what I was expecting from it, but after riding it, I can't believe people wait over two hours in line to ride it stand by! Yes it's new and so everyone wants to ride it that hasn't been to WDW since it opened in 2014, but as two adults going to WDW, we would never wait in a line that long for a 2 minute coaster (especially when Thunder Mountain had a 20-40 minute wait!).



The most Magical Place in the world!

And then, the most interesting part of our trip happened. We went on Peter Pan's Flight (again, not sure why people would wait 1-2 hours to ride this 2 minute ride, unless they have never been to Disney before) since we had never done it and had FP+ for it. As we were getting ready to get on we noticed a woman getting on about 6 ships up from us. She was being moved from a wheelchair so we were like "good for her for being able to get on the ride!" We get on, are really enjoying this ride more than I expected (but again, wouldn't do it without FP+), and just as we are getting to what I imagine is the end of the ride (since there was a pirate ship with Captain Hook and Peter Pan fighting on it) the ride stops. We here the "Please remain seated. This ride will start momentarily" message. And that message plays every minute for the next 15 minutes. All the while, we're on a downward slope in a "floating" ship, and right in between scenes/music so we hear a repeat of "you can fly" with the drums from the Indian part right behind us at full blast the whole time.

 

Now after 15 minutes, we assume that something has malfunctioned, until the lights came on the ride and Disney cast members were walking around talking to each of the boats. Someone had fallen getting off the ride, and she wasn't able to get up on her own, and for liability reasons Disney can't move them, so they had to wait for the EMT's to come. After what felt like an hour, but was probably closer to 25 minutes, the ride starts moving again and we finally get off. By the way, it was kind of cool to see a dark ride with it's lights on. So we get off the ride. They aren't letting anyone else on the ride (probably until they figure out why this person had fallen etc.) and sure enough the woman who had fallen was the one in the wheel chair. I felt so bad for her, but she was ok, she just couldn't physically get herself up. So as we were exiting, a disney cast member was handing out paper fast passes for the inconvenience. He saw that we had on our anniversary buttons and mike's birthday button, and gave us each 2 fast passes! It was a crappy situation, but it was cool to get that little extra magic.

Anyways, now that it's taken 45 minutes to tell just that one story, let's continue.

 



Meeting Experiment 626

We did a few more rides and met a few more characters before deciding to take our routine mid-day break. We hopped the monorail and rode it to the Polynesian which is now my new favorite hotel. It was absolutely breath taking, and the pool/beach area? Forget it. Our next trip I'll spend my whole trip on that little private beach where you can see the castle. After gawking over this deluxe hotel, we headed back to our value resort for naps/pool time. When we came back we did the last few rides we hadn't done (including using one of our paper fast passes for Space Mountain) before going to dinner at Be Our Guest.

Guys, I had tears in my eyes. The atmosphere was beautiful, the food was amazing, and every last detail in each room was perfect. When it was time for dessert, our waiter came over and said "we usually give our couples celebrating anniversaries a sample of The Grey Stuff, but unfortunately because it's later, we don't have any samples, so I'm going to give you guys the regular dessert Grey Stuff on the house." Again, I almost cried. The Grey stuff was literally the reason I had made the reservation. And it was delicious! But if you don't believe me, ask the dishes! We also got a lemon meringue cupcake (which they also didn't charge us for!). The magic just kept coming!

And then, this happened.
 

YUP. WE MET THE BEAST HIMSELF.


Two of my favorite men!

It was so magical, but we weren't done yet! We had EMH from 11-1AM and since we had relaxed in the afternoon, we were ready to go! The best part was that it had started to rain a little bit. Between this and the fact that only Disney Resort Guests were allowed on rides after 11, everyone cleared out of the park! I have never seen MK so dead before, not even in pictures (except the ones that Disney takes way before the park opens). We got on every ride we went on with no wait, including doing Big Thunder Mountain another 2 times. The rain didn't stop us at all! We did end up going back to the hotel around 1230 instead of 1, only because we were exhausted and our feet hurt from so much walking!

Day 5- EPCOT

Day 5 was a rough one. It was our first day with no plans. We knew we had 3 more days of park passes, but we weren't sure exactly where we'd be going. We woke up late (around 930) which was such a blessing. After being up so early everyday so far, it was nice to not worry about getting up early and just taking our time. We went and had breakfast (which of course was Mickey Waffles) and decided we'd go to EPCOT again. When we got to EPCOT, we decided we'd actually LEAVE the park, and go to the boardwalk. It was a quick little boat ride away, and was a great way to escape, even just for a little while. We had an awesome cannoli, some pizza, and just sat and watched the water and people around us. It was a nice break from the business of the week so far!

When we decided we'd had enough of just sitting around, we went back to EPCOT (this time by walking the 1/4 mile) and decided to ride Mission Space. I was so nervous. On our honeymoon I absolutely refused to do it because I was scared I would get sick or something. I was shaking getting into the ride. When the safety restraints came over my head I started to freak out a little, but didn't let it show. Once the ride started however I really liked it! *We did the easy version not the hard one*

We were pretty exhausted by this point of running around the park looking for different foods that we wanted (I think we walked the world showcase 2 times around that day) and riding different rides that we'd never been on before (like The Land, and Turtle Talk with Crush). And knowing what lie ahead for us the next two days, we figured an early night would be a good idea!



Day 6- Magic Kingdom

 

Our second to last day at WDW. I was not prepared for it. Magic Kingdom, as I said before, is my favorite park and I was so excited to get there today for multiple reasons. We had EMH from 8AM-9AM, so we slightly took our time getting to the park, but were still there at a reasonable time. We saw that the wait to meet Mickey Mouse was only 10 minutes so we jumped right at the chance to see the big cheese! We walked right in and got some great one on one time with Mickey, and the reason we love Magic Kingdom Mickey so much is that HE TALKS TO YOU. It's the most amazing thing. Don't believe me? Just look at these smiling faces! Mickey is Mike's favorite character, and I wish I could have captured the whole interaction on film because it'd be a movie I'd watch over and over. So after finishing our meet and greet with Mickey, we went right outside only to find Snow White with only a few people in line to meet her! So of course we went and met the fairest of them all! She was an absolute delight!

At this point it was a little after 9 and we were suppose to be meeting up with family friends of mine and their 10 year old daughter (who was in the wedding). When we found them, my heart just got so excited! I couldn't wait to spend my day with my "little sister" and her parents who are like a second set of parents to me! And boy did we have fun! Getting to see Disney through a child's eyes was a whole new adventure for us. Emilie hadn't been to the parks in many years so she didn't remember much of Magic Kingdom, so it was like experiencing it for the first time, and we got to be there for it all! We went on space mountain, the tea cups, Dumbo, and Splash Mountain! It was quite a fun morning/mid afternoon! We decided to all go back to our hotel to hang out by the pool for a few hours to just relax. When I say relax, I mean that I spent the time by the pool actually in the pool with Emilie and then we went and played Disney Trivia (and won of course!).



Emilie and I in front of the Castle

We headed back to the park to go and ride more rides, eat dinner, see the parade and fireworks, and just enjoy this evening together! We had just finished watching the Main Street Electrical Parade (which let me tell you, it's hard to take photo's of a parade at night with a 10 year old on your back) and decided to go ride Big Thunder Mountain. Emilie had never ridden it before so I was super excited to share in that moment with her! We got in line and I realized that the one thing I had really wanted to do (watch wishes in front of the castle on our last full night at Disney) wasn't going to happen since the fire works started at 10 and we probably would still be in line for BTM when they happened.

NOPE. NOT WHAT HAPPENED AT ALL.

As went up the first hill (indoors) and down the first hill, the fire works started shooting off. We had the perfect view of wishes and got to be thrill seekers all at the same time. As much as I wish we had gotten to see the "traditional" wishes, for this trip I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Emilie's face as she was experiencing this new roller coaster and watching fire works over Cinderella's castle was probably the most magical thing I've seen at Disney to date!

Once we got off BTM we stood and watched the rest of the fireworks, and then Emilie and I took the 2nd of our paper fast passes from Wednesday and went back on BTM! Man that girl has no fear! As we got off, we decided to call it a night a little early so that we could all go to Animal Kingdom together the next day and not be overly tired. We saw Celebrate the Magic, which was also an amazing presentation of animations cast onto the castle! I would say overall, we had the most magical day we could have had!

 

 

 

 Day 7- Animal Kingdom

 

 

Our last day had finally come. Part of me was so saddened that not only did we have to go back to reality and cold weather and work, but we also were leaving behind our friends. But we didn't let the sadness of this get in the way of us going to Animal Kingdom and having an amazing day!

 

We started off with Expedition Everest. All 5 of us went on it, and of course Emilie and I had to sit together. I didn't warn her about it going backwards and how big of a drop it was, and I'm glad I didn't! She LOVED IT. We would end up going on 2 more times that beautiful day! We ended up waiting standby for Kilimanjaro Safari's because I knew Emilie would LOVE it. The wait time said 90 minutes, but we only ended up waiting about 40 after getting to cut about half the line because our group was the perfect size to fit in on a tour that was mostly people in wheelchairs/scooters. We didn't complain! And Emilie loved it!

 

As I said, we went on Expedition Everest 3 times. The photo's on the left are our photo pass pictures from each of the trips! Our first one obviously Mike got SO excited that he blocked Emilie's face from the picture, which is why just the girls went on our second ride! We made sure we were at the front of our car that time too just to be safe and make sure that Em could be seen! I asked her before going on if she wanted to do anything funny or make a certain face and her response was "Let's just scream and have our hands up" and I think I did a pretty good job at that!

 

Our third time down however we decided to be cool and girly and make a heart with our hands (as you can see directly to the left) but don't let those smiles and the heart fool you. As soon as that picture was taken we put our arms up and screamed our heads off!

 

We weren't ready to let this day end. As we got off of our third time on Expedition Everest, we took some pictures in front of the mountain and went to find Mike and her parents. We ate a delicious African lunch (I had a sausage corn dog, but the breading was curry and now my mouth is watering and I want 12 more) and then went to go pick up a few trinkets and get ready to leave. My heart wasn't ready. I don't think any of us were ready to say goodbye to Disney or to each other. So we had this gem taken.

 

 

I know this post was long, so if you read the whole thing, wow, you must really wish you were in Disney or have a really long break at work! I mostly wrote this so that I could remember some of the amazing things from this trip for years to come, so thanks for sticking it out! We are already missing Disney and the amazing atmosphere that comes with being at the most magical place on earth! Until next time, remember that it was all started by a mouse!

 

Lots of Disney Magic,

Amanda