January
2014 Disney World Trip Report
We decided to extend our Christmas break
this year and spent a week in Disney World with our son (11) and daughter
(8). It was our first big trip to Disney
World as a family and we decided to do the whole package deal – we stayed at
the Caribbean Beach Resort Hotel, spent 6 days in the parks, and bought the
Disney Dining Plan. We had some bumps
along the way but generally speaking it was an amazing trip and I’d love to go
back!
I did a lot of research before we went and
was quite pleased with how everything worked out. We debated renting a car but were really glad
that we didn’t in the end. The bus
system was fantastic if you just embrace the fact that you will be spending a
bit of time on and waiting for the busses.
We found that they stepped up the frequency at peak times (like coming
home after the parades) and we really appreciated that. It was also nice that we didn’t have to share
busses with other Disney resorts. We
agonized over the locations of the different hotels when deciding on a resort but in
the end I don’t think it matters much if you plan to go to all of the parks…
some are going to be closer than others no matter where you go.
We were also a bit nervous about the magic
bands, and although we had an issue with the magic band customization and had
an issue reading the bands at a couple of restaurants, for the most part it
worked out brilliantly. So convenient
and easy, and we loved the linked fast passes.
When we went we were able to use our room keys to get extra fast passes,
but I’m sure they will shut that system down at some point!
Day 1:
Travelling from Vancouver
We had a long travel day on American
Airlines (yuck) and arrived into Orlando Airport at ~7pm. It was an especially challenging day because
my daughter came down with some kind of stomach flu and was REALLY sick the
entire day. Poor thing…. That flu would continue to torment each of us
throughout the trip but luckily it seemed to be a 24-hour thing.
We
opted to collect our own bags and made our way to the Disney Express busses and
everything went smoothly from there. We
had received our magic express tickets in the mail but our trip information
wasn’t linked for some reason. No
matter… we were helped onto busses in very short order and got to our resort
within ~45 minutes.
When we got to the resort we got our rooms
OK, although my room location requests had been completely ignored and we were
in Aruba… close to the main entrance and far from everything else. The resort was huge and we had to do a lot of
walking to get to the food court area but we didn’t mind all that much. The grounds were beautiful & the pool
was amazing. It would have been great
to have a full resort day, but we opted to spend most of our time in the parks
instead.
Day
2: Animal Kingdom
We got up fairly early on our first day and
went for breakfast at the hotel food court.
There were nice choices for breakfast and it wasn’t busy in the morning
if you went early. We mostly paid out
of pocket for breakfast but toward the end of the week when we extra counter
service credits we used them for breakfasts at the resorts. A note on the dining plan… we thought it was
really great to dine in nice restaurants and not have to worry about how much
we were spending on food. It was super
convenient, decent value for what we spent and there was tons of food. When I could I got take-away snacks instead
of desserts and brought them home as souvenirs.
My daughter was still feeling really sick
that morning so we had a pretty mellow day at the Animal Kingdom. Our first stop was Kilimanjaro Safaris (FP)
which we LOVED and worked out great since it didn’t involve a lot of
walking. We also went together to see
Pagani Forest Exploration, the Wildlife Express Train to Rafiki’s Planet Watch,
saw “Tough to be a Bug” and the fantastic Finding Nemo puppet show (used a FP
but didn’t need to). Later we split up
so the boys, who are more adventurous, could go on Dinosaur and Expedition
Everest (FP), and us girls went on the Triceratops Spin and the Boneyard. It
was not a very sunny day so we opted to stay away from Kali River Rapids!
It
turned out that I chose my fast passes all wrong… we didn’t need them early in
the morning and they were best used in the afternoon when the parks were
busiest. Luckily we were able to use our
Disney Ap to re-work our fast passes for the rest of the week. Loved the MyDisneyExperience ap for the maps/
line-up tracker/ reservations, etc. and
we were pleasantly surprised that the wireless in the park was good most of the
time. On the other hand my 11 YO
technology obsessed son kept telling me I wasn’t listening to him and I was
missing stuff because I was glued to my iPhone…. How’s that for a wakeup call?
We booked a lunch reservation at Tusker’s
restaurant and had a really yummy buffet dinner with Donald and his safari
friends. My daughter is quite
character/autograph obsessed so this worked out great for us and everyone
really enjoyed their dinner. The service
and atmosphere were fantastic, and the food is good (lots of variety) so I
highly recommend this place.
We left the park just before closing at ~5
and felt we had seen everything we wanted to see. By that point my daughter desperately needed
to go back to the hotel and rest so she and I had a quiet night in the room
while my husband and son explored the resort a little bit. It was quite cold but my son decided to take
a late-night swim in the small pool near our room, and the boys also spent a
bit of time at the arcade and browsing at the resort gift shop.
Day 3: Magic Kingdom (part 1)
As much as we enjoyed our day in Animal
Kingdom, there is nothing like walking into the main entrance of the Magic
Kingdom and getting that first glimpse of Cinderella’s Castle! I was giddy…. My very excitable daughter
thought it was hilarious that I was so worked up! We figured the kids would want to do very
different things at this park so we split up at the outset… I brought my
daughter straight back to Fantasyland while the boys headed to the mountain
rides. Through the week my son would
ride Space Mountain again and again, occasionally fitting in Thunder Mountain
(Splash Mtn was closed the week we were there), Buzz LIghtyear’s Astro Blaster,
Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion. We tried to arrive for rope drop (or shortly
after) every day and as a result we were able to fit in tons of rides early in
the morning before the crowds started to build. My daughter loved the Disney dark rides the
best at Magic Kingdom (Little Mermaid’s Journey, Peter Pan’s Flight, Adventures
of Winnie the Pooh, It’s a Small World), but also loved the Tea Cups, Dumbo and
Aladdin’s Flight. We really wanted her
to expand her horizons and try some of the “bigger” rides, but we decided not
to be ride bullies and let her do what she wanted to do.
While my daughter and I were using our
“Enchanted Tales with Belle” fast pass just before noon, the boys lined up to
get into “Be Our Guest” restaurant for lunch.
They only waited for ~30min, and we thought it was a really magical
place to have lunch. I was quite excited
that we were able to use counter service credits! The food was good (Try the grey stuff… it’s
delicious!), but the atmosphere is the real reason to go. We ate in the Ballroom… wow!
In the afternoon we did more rides (used
our fastpasses), saw a couple of shows, and helped my daughter collect
autographs from the characters. We had
booked a late dinner at Tony’s Tavern and had a yummy Italian meal, and
finished just in time to see the pre-fireworks show projected on the
castle. We sang along (loudly) to the
Disney music for the wishes show and were mesmerized by the fireworks. What a night!
I was very grateful at that point in time that my kids are old enough to
last a full day in the park, but we were all pretty tired by the time it was
over!
Day 4: Epcot
We had breakfast at our resort again. My husband mostly ordered full counter
service meals but I usually had oatmeal
or grabbed a bagel from the “snacks to go” area, and the kids mostly just had
cereal which kept our costs in check. My
philosophy on the Disney Dining plan was to use snack credits for anything that
cost between $4-5, and otherwise just charged the items to the room. We got so many extra drinks with our counter
service meals that we rarely had to buy them.
Whenever we were at the resort we used our resort mugs for soft drinks,
coffee & tea or water, leaving us extra drinks to use another time.
We hopped on a bus and arrived at Epcot in
lots of time for rope drop, and while we were in line we realized our son had
forgotten his magic band! The other
three of us had brought our bands and back up room keys but very little else –
no credit cards or photo ID. We had to
head to Customer Service anyway to pick up my photopass, so we went to grovel
and beg forgiveness and see if they could help us out. Turns out it was no problem at all to print
my son a day pass, but picking up my photopass without the purchasing credit
card was a bigger deal. In the end the
staff helping us out were wonderfully accommodating… a perk of staying at the
Disney resorts I think. Still, I’d
recommend that people carry ID, a credit card, and any proof of purchases that
they might need to speed things along if there are any issues.
Epcot was crazy busy on the day we
went. It turns out the week we went
wasn’t as quiet as we were hoping/expecting because it was Disney Marathon
weekend and the parks were full of athletes, especially towards the later part
of the week. We waited in more line-ups
than we would have liked, but by cranking out rides early in the morning and
using our fastpasses it wasn’t too bad.
Sadly though most of my Epcot day was spent waiting in line ups for
autographs… not my idea of fun but that’s what my daughter most wanted to
do. We did draw the line at the 3 hour
line-up to see Ana and Elsa though… sheesh.
We ended up doing Test Track and Soarin’ a
couple of times each in the morning, and my daughter really enjoyed the Finding
Nemo ride, turtle talk with crush and the aquarium in the Nemo area. In the afternoon we made our way to the World
Expo area and walked around, saw the shows at the Canada & China pavilions,
and collected a ton of signatures. I
would have loved to spend more time poking around that world pavilions…. My
husband and I will have to get back there without the kids one of these days!
My son was completely enthralled with the
gift shop in front of the China pavilion and spent most of his souvenir money
there on games & gadgets. The kids
had their own money to spend on this trip, and within reason we allowed them to
shop when they felt like it. Usually we
ended up in the shops at the end of the day if we had some time to kill before
the fireworks or our dinner reservation (or if it started raining, which
happened a few times on our trip). It
ended up working out very well, probably
because our kids are a bit older now and understand that we aren’t going to be
buying them anything extra. We also
brought a bunch of quarters and pennies and collected pressed penny souvenirs
around the park when we remembered to do so.
We made 7pm dinner reservations in the
evening at Teppan Edo and really enjoyed the food and the show table
experience. We thought the Japanese wait
staff was fantastic and they taught us a few Japanese words and phrases which
was a lot of fun. We got finished just
in time for the fireworks, and we managed to find a decent spot to watch the
show despite the crowds. It was a
beautiful display as expected.
Day 5: Magic Kingdom (part 2) and Downtown Disney
We had originally planned to go to
Universal Studios Islands of Adventure on this day, but when we calculated how
much it would cost vs. adding another day to our Disney pass it was pretty tough
to justify. I really wanted to see the
Harry Potter castle and we hope to go back one day to see it, but maybe it
makes more sense to go when the kids are older and more adventurous. In any case, it was only another $10 each to
go from a 5-day to a 6-day pass, and it was super easy to make that
change.
Our second day at the Magic Kingdom was
much like the first, although this time my husband brought my daughter to do
the Fantasyland rides and collect autographs, while I rode Space Mountain over
and over again with my son!
By this point in time we had really
discovered how to find the Disney Photographers and were asking them to take
family photos of us all day long! I wish
they had been stationed in more areas because we have a million photos in front
of the castle (and my daughter with the characters, of course), but few
elsewhere. We had signed up for the
photo pass before the trip and thought it was definitely worthwhile to have
photos of all 4 of us for a change. I
forgot to mention that my daughter wore Disney costumes every day of our trip,
and it made for great photo opportunities and lots of attention from the cast
members. Dressed as Merida from Brave,
she even got asked for her autograph at Epcot from a nice cast member! On this particular day she had her Alice in
Wonderland dress on and she had a very magical encounter with Alice beside the
Tea Cup ride!
We had lunch at the Crystal palace, did a
few more rides, and headed out of the park early so we could explore Downtown
Disney for the evening. We didn’t have a
reservation but managed to get a table at the Rainforest Café after a ~30
minute wait, and even though we have been there many times the kids loved
it. Being a “Disney Adult” my son was
really excited to order anything he wanted from the menu, and he had steak and
lobster that night… not something we would normally encourage! After we left the restaurant (so stuffed we
could barely move) we went to explore the shops. My husband and the kids spent the evening at
the Lego store while I did some secret birthday present shopping for my kids.
Day 6: Hollywood Studios
Our day at Hollywood Studios did not really
go as we hoped it would! When we woke up
in the morning my husband was feeling a bit off, but he decided to head to the
park with us anyway. He took my son on
the Tower of Terror while my daughter and I did some exploring. On the morning we were there the “Astro
Blasters” ride was unexpectedly down (since they had to cancel our fast passes
we later received open fast passes to use wherever, whenever) and there were
some cast members in that area holding a hula hoop contest. My daughter won us some fast passes for Astro
Blasters that we could use when the ride opened later! Afterwards we met a few more character and
arranged to meet up with the boys to go on “Star Tours”.
It took some convincing to get my daughter
on Star Tours but in the end she really enjoyed it. My husband, unfortunately, did not! All of the jostling and bumping around did
not agree with his upset stomach, and while he managed to make it out in one
piece he was violently ill afterwards.
That was it for him… he headed
back to the resort and the kids and I went to the Indiana Jones Stunt
Spectacular (fun) and the Muppetvision 3D (kind of lame) shows. We had a really fun lunch at Pizza Planet
(we thought it was great counter service value and really fun atmosphere…. Not
sure why it has such bad reviews!) and the kids spent some of their money at
the Pizza Planet arcade.
After lunch the kids decided that we should
take a break and go back to the resort to take a swim at the spectacular Port
Royale pool at our resort. They didn’t
have a lot of time because we had early (5:00) dinner reservations at the 50’s
Prime Time Café, but they enjoyed their swim and the pool waterslides immensely
during that time! We checked on Dad (he
spent the rest of the day in bed, when he wasn’t puking), got changed and
rushed back to the restaurant just in time for our reservations. Then we proceeded to wait for over 45 minutes
for a table! I was not in the mood at
that point for the infamously crabby wait staff and didn’t really enjoy the
experience much… the food was just OK.
After dinner the Astro Blaster ride was up
and running again, so we did that a few times (FPs) and did the Little Mermaid
Show which we really enjoyed. By then it
was time for the Fantasmic Show (FP – worth it I think) which was amazing,
though a bit scary in parts for my daughter.
Day 7: Magic Kingdom (part 3)
Our last day in the parks coincided with my
daughter’s 8th birthday so we made sure it was a very special one
for her. She wore her Birthday button
and got tons of birthday wishes from people all day. Luckily my husband was feeling a lot better
and since he wasn’t up for any big rides he went with my daughter on her rides
while I went on Space Mountain with my son again and again!
We met up for lunch at the Columbia Harbor
House (a good choice) and did a few rides together (Pirates of the Caribbean,
Peter Pan’s Flight), before splitting up again.
Since we spent so much time splitting up through the week we really
relied on our phones to keep in touch.
Luckily we had bought some portable charges before the trip that really
saved us throughout the week. If we had
been smart we would have had back up meeting plans though…. my phone died at
Epcot and I didn’t have a charger, and we really had a hard time finding each
other!
My son and I decided to join the HUGE line
up for a Dole Whip in the afternoon and boy were we glad we did! Our pineapple/pineapple float was just about
the yummiest thing I’ve ever had… I wish we had discovered it earlier in the
week! Great use of a snack credit
(Starbucks on Main Street was my second favorite use of a snack credit.)
As the afternoon wore on, my daughter and I
made our way to the Bibbiddi Bobbiddi Boutique for her princess make-over before
our dinner at Cinderella’s Castle.
Again, this was a once in a lifetime experience for my little princess
and she absolutely loved it. We got the
package with hair, make-up and nails which was just right (she brought her own
princess dress), and went to the princess shop across the street for a
mini-photo shoot afterwards. (Not
included in her package but the Disney Photographers were happy to take a few
photos anyway). Afterwards we had a
fancy dinner at Cinderella’s Castle and we enjoyed the little wishing star
rituals and meeting the princesses. Our
8:30 reservation was really late for us (all I could get booking 3 months in
advance), but as a result we watched the fireworks from inside the castle which
was pretty amazing.
Day 8: Heading Home
Our flight left at 11 so we had a bit of
time to have breakfast and pack up before catching the Magic Express to the
airport. We had three counter service
and one table service credit left, so we used them all up on breakfast at the
food court the next day. We also had 8
leftover snack credits, and I had tons of fun spending those on souvenirs for
my nieces and nephews! (Character
cookies, packs of goofy gourmet jelly beans and sour gummies, Mickey rice
krispie treats…. So many great choices)
It was an absolutely magical first trip to
Disney World and I can’t wait to go back again!
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