Disney World 2019

Breaking news: I recently went to Disney World. Meanwhile, it’s taken me so long to get all of these posts out that I can’t really even call it recent anymore, and I should probably go again soon. Oh wait, I am! February 29th can’t come soon enough :-). Honestly when I wrote that originally, February 29th was still somewhat far away. But now it’s in like five minutes so even that seems ridiculous. Whatever, I’m going to Disney on Saturday and you’re not. Unless you’re Jackie or Jen. Or one of the other millions of people who happen to be going to Disney on Saturday.

Anyway, I’ve given you a lot of information about staying on site, staying at the Yacht Club specifically, some of the other resort options, transportation, the dining plan, and the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. I haven’t really told you about my actual trip though! So here it is, the best part: Just a general description and review of our 4 and a half days at Disney World!

We got there on November 20th, had dinner at Ale and Compass, explored the Yacht Club lobby and pool area, and went to sleep.

November 21: Epcot and Hollywood Studios

For our first day, we decided to hit up the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. We were up pretty early and got a quick small breakfast at the hotel (like, really small – basically a banana and granola bar), because we wanted our appetites for the festival.

The beautiful pastries that we did not eat at the hotel. We should’ve.

Rookie mistake. The festival booths didn’t open until 11 (in my head it was 10, and my head was wrong), so we were STARVING. We ended up sharing a Mickey pretzel before the festival but whatever, not the point.

Anyway, we walked to the International Gateway entrance to Epcot from our hotel and we were there about 30 minutes before opening. They started scanning people in right around this time and we were among the first in line at the “rope” before opening. (It was an Extra Magic Hours day, so they were only scanning resort guests or those with dining reservations). Disney lets you into the park before opening to start the scanning process, but they block you off from getting to any attractions until actual opening time. So if you want to be the first on line for a ride, get there BEFORE opening not AT opening.

Anyway, at 8am on the dot they let people in, and we made our way to Frozen Ever After as quickly as possible. We were among the first people there and walked right on, and then we got off the ride with no plans to go back. This is an unpopular opinion about one of Disney’s most popular rides, but it’s really pretty lame unless you’re a small child, traveling with a small child, or a major frozen fan. We were not impressed.

Then we headed over to the Future World section of the park for some more rides before the Food and Wine Festival opened.

Since we got through Frozen so quickly, and the park still wasn’t open to the public, we were able to quickly hop on Soarin’ before the lines got too long. We also walked onto a few rides/attractions that had little to no wait: Living with the Land, and Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival. Living with the land was a really cool ride through the green house and sustainable food areas of Epcot, and Eric’s favorite was definitely the film festival. It was three short old Disney Pixar films in 3-D, pretty cool and fun.

We had fastpasses in advance for Spaceship Earth, Test Track, and Mission: Space. Spaceship Earth is a classic, cannot be missed Epcot ride. Test Track was my absolute favorite. For Mission: Space we did the Orange mission which is more intense. This should come with a disclaimer that says more intense actually means more nauseating. It. Was. Awful. And I don’t usually suffer from motion sickness. I’m interested to see what the green mission is like when I go back at the end of the week.

This lady’s hair tells you how fast we were going.

Then we headed to food and wine.

After eating our way through the countries, Eric went back to the hotel for a nap and I hopped on the Skyliner to Hollywood Studios.

Our original itinerary had Magic Kingdom and Epcot each for full days, and Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios as half days each with a POSSIBLE return to Hollywood Studios on the last morning. This was tight though, because our Magical Express was picking us up around 10:30 that last morning, and I would have definitely stressed about this. So, needless to say, I’m so glad that I had this little extra time at Hollywood Studios. I really think this is a full day park, especially now that Star Wars Land has opened, and especially if you don’t have kids (many rides have height restrictions here).

Hollywood Studios is home to my all time favorite theme park ride in the world: Tower of Terror. So, naturally, I got myself a fastpass and went straight there.

While waiting to board the best ride ever, I also got myself a fastpass for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.

However, when I got there the ride was broken down (with people on it! ahhhh), so they gave everyone a multi experience fastpass. These are amazing and can be used at any time for ALMOST any ride in the park depending on the experience you missed and some other factors. Mine was good for anything except Slinky Dog Dash and Smuggler’s Run.

So I headed straight to Toy Story Land. I ended up using the fastpass for the Alien Swirling Saucers because I had already gotten one for Toy Story Mania. However, Toy Story Mania is a much better ride. It’s fine though, I rode it next.

Alien Swirling Saucers is like an upgraded high tech teacup ride.

Then I went over to explore Galaxy’s Edge. I’m really not a Star Wars fan (read: I know literally nothing about it and I had no idea what I was looking at in this land, but apparently it’s really cool and well done). I didn’t do much here except just look around, and only for a few minutes because again, couldn’t care less about Star Wars. Also, I knew I’d be back the next day with Eric.

It was in Star Wars Land that I pulled out my phone and realized that my Tower Of Terror photo did not load onto my photo pass. I felt like I desperately needed this photo, and this is how I learned that ride pictures don’t automatically appear with Memory Maker (I am also missing Spaceship Earth for this reason). For some rides it does show up, for others you have to scan your Magic Band when you get off the ride. So, I trekked back across the park after a long exhausting day and made the guy at the photo booth go through every picture from about 2 hours before to find the one with the picture of me, the girl in the plain black tank top.

It was found, it was worth it, and I walked straight to the boat to go back to the hotel after this.

I rested a little, got showered and dressed, and headed to the amazing JIKO for a delicious dinner at the beautiful Animal Kingdom Lodge.

November 22: Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios

We started our morning at Minnie’s Beach Bash at the Beach Club for breakfast.

Then we headed to Animal Kingdom. When we booked this trip, we were already within our 60 day fastpass window, so I knew it would be close to impossible to get a fastpass for Flight of Passage, and if by some miracle I did get one it would probably be for like 8PM and I wouldn’t be able to get any other fastpasses all day after my initial three. So when booking my fastpasses, the first thing I did was look at all of the days of the trip for Flight of Passage.

Well, a miracle occurred. Someone must have canceled a split second before I checked, and I scored a 9:20 AM Flight of Passage fastpass for November 22. So, naturally I planned the rest of the trip around this fastpass and made this my Animal Kingdom day.

We decided we would rope drop Na’vi River Journey and then head to our Flight of Passage fastpass. However, we got to the park right at opening (9AM) and Na’vi already had a 75 minute wait, which is why you need to get there BEFORE opening, NOT AT OPENING. Lesson learned. We skipped Na’vi and hopped right on Flight of Passage (which already had a 120 minute wait at opening).

In case you were wondering, this end of line sign holder is nowhere near the entrance to the ride. Seriously, this was the minute the park opened.

This. Ride. Was. Epic. Seriously, if I didn’t have a soft spot for Tower of Terror this would be my new favorite ride at Disney, and I don’t even know anything about Avatar, but I’m too loyal for that. But seriously, it was so amazing. Although to be honest, I don’t think any ride in the world is worth this long of a wait without a fastpass.

After this, we explored Pandora a little bit – it’s so beautifully done. I don’t know much about Avatar but I could see how a fan would be impressed with this area.

We then headed to Dinoland for our next fastpass, Dinosaur,

and explored the area a little bit. This was probably my least favorite area of Animal Kingdom, and definitely geared towards small children.

Those people are on the standby line. Lame.

Then we continued on to Asia for our next fastpass, Expedition Everest. This is a great roller coaster, something Disney doesn’t have many of.

Then we grabbed a fastpass for Kali River Rapids because it was right there, but saw that the line was 5 minutes and there was another Flight of Passage fastpass available too! So we dropped Kali, grabbed Flight of Passage for after our scheduled lunch, and hopped on the 5 minute standby line for Kali. As we saw all of the people with ponchos and coming off wet, we realized why the line was 5 minutes long. It was barely 60 degrees and we did not want wet socks, so we hopped off the line and walked through the jungle trek instead to see some animals.

Then we headed to our amazing lunch at Tiffins,

and back to Flight of Passage for our next fastpass. At this point, we had done everything we wanted to do in Animal Kingdom except Na’vi and the Safari. We couldn’t get fastpasses at that time for either, and I don’t do lines (ask me how!), so we decided that since this was not our first or last time at Disney we’d skip them and head to Hollywood Studios. But not before getting some great pictures of the Tree of Life. And some others just for fun.

At Hollywood Studios, we did a lot of the same stuff that I had done alone the previous day. Toy Story Land, Tower of Terror, Galaxy’s Edge. We just hopped from ride to ride, fastpass to fastpass, and photographer to photographer.

We are actually in this picture, back right.

We did actually ride Smuggler’s Run this time, the new ride (new at the time – there’s now an even newer and supposedly better one) in Galaxy’s Edge. This was the only line we waited on the entire trip because they were not yet offering fastpasses for this ride. They are now, starting February 19. So the line was pretty long, but we hopped on the single riders line to hopefully save some time. It still took a while, but probably was a little bit faster, and we ended up getting to ride together anyway. To be honest, I’m not a Star Wars fan and I didn’t really get the whole concept of this ride, but I think your experience can be different every time. Two people are assigned Pilot, two Gunners, and two Engineers. Depending on who your Pilots are, your ride can change. I was in the back, as I’m sure everyone who does the single rider line is, and I didn’t really have any significant role in the ride. So I paid little attention and was less than impressed. I think other people think it’s cool though.

We also had a late afternoon reservation at Oga’s Cantina, the new bar in Galaxy’s Edge. They really basically only serve really cool drinks in a really cool setting. We were exhausted and not interested in a drink, so we just walked in to peek at the place and then left.

After exploring this park, and getting a few more Galaxy’s Edge pictures,

and this really cool picture of goofy that a cast member painted with a broom that he kept wetting in a dustpan,

we headed back to the room to shower and rest a little, and then went back to Epcot for dinner at Via Napoli. While there, we also grabbed a fastpass for Test Track. We missed the fireworks that we specifically went to Epcot to see because Test Track was broken down when we arrived, but we’re not firework people. Test Track was preferable to us.

And then BED.

November 23: Magic Kingdom Day!!

This was the day that we really put our amazing fastpass skills to the test. Yes, Disney has a lot of rides. But each individual park actually doesn’t have that many, they just have a lot collectively. Magic Kingdom is the exception. There are a TON of rides in this park for all people of all ages and interests. So we planned a full day here.

Our day started before park opening at Be Our Guest in the Beast’s Castle for breakfast. We took some castle pictures on the way to breakfast, and then ate some mediocre overpriced breakfast food in a cool setting. Then we had some time to roam around and see the park when it was virtually empty. It was pretty cool, and worth the mediocre overpriced food.

We now have three versions of this picture from the three times we’ve been to Disneyworld/land together.

After breakfast, we took some more pictures and then headed to the “rope”. You can’t access many areas of the park before opening, and only Fantasyland is free to roam (rides are all still closed until opening though). The rest is closed off until they “drop the rope” (there is no actual rope). Since we wanted to start at the other side of the park, we waited until they opened, and then headed straight to Pirates of the Caribbean right before the crowds rolled in. Then we rode Jungle Cruise, and Splash Mountain, all with no lines, before our Big Thunder Mountain fastpass. At this point, we were basically done with this side of the park before 10 am, because, skills.

We headed over to Space Mountain for our next fastpass, and then had some time to kill in Tomorrowland so we rode the People Mover and got Eric some coffee. Finally, it was time for our 7 Dwarfs Mine Train fastpass. Honestly, I don’t get the hype of this ride, but maybe I’d like it more if I was a child or with a child. Because it is a roller coaster for children. Whatever.

I honestly think the people in front of us were told they were supposed to have fun on this ride and then filmed themselves pretending that it was the best moment of their lives. This photo captures their mood for the entire ride. Including the phone in her hand. They were the highlight of my ride. I’ve never been so happy to have randos in my ride photo.

Then we grabbed a few more fastpasses before lunch – Haunted Mansion, It’s a Small World, and Under the Sea.

Seriously, I did not do this on purpose. I did not know there was a camera. This is just my regular face.

Then we headed to Crystal Palace for our very important lunch with Pooh and friends.

After lunch, we hopped on Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin with our “extra” fastpass that we got at check in, and then managed to snag a fastpass for Peter Pan’s flight. However, it wasn’t for another hour, and we decided we were done, so we canceled it and headed back to the hotel, but not before stopping to hang with Winnie the Pooh one more time.

I left Eric at the hotel and went to explore some of the other hotels on property because, “research”.

On my way back, I also decided to just hop back into Epcot and have some more snacks. Dinner was late, we had snack credits to use, and it was the final night of the food and wine festival. Oh, and Mickey was there.

While there, I also saw a sign that said “meet Winnie the Pooh in Christopher Robin’s room” and I absolutely could not pass that up.

We didn’t have dinner that night until 9 o clock, so we walked around the boardwalk area a little bit before heading to the Contemporary for our California Grill reservation. It was on this night that the blisters really began to show themselves. Not too bad considering we only had one short morning left.

We didn’t eat here, just passed by on our way to dinner at Cali Grill.

November 24: Epcot AGAIN!

Our original plan was to go to Hollywood Studios this morning since it opened at 7am, but we got enough Hollywood Studios time the last few days, so we decided to “sleep in” and just get one more character breakfast at Epcot. I did not sleep in, obviously, so I went to see a few more hotels, and then we went to Garden Grill.

We got an early reservation and we were able to get in before the crowds again, and it was perfect.

The food and characters were pretty good too.

After Garden Grill, we managed to get another fastpass for Soarin’, so we rode one last time. Then I also hopped onto Journey into the Imagination before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the Magical Express to pick us up.

That’s all for now. I can’t wait to see what next week has to offer at Walt Disney World.

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