Trip Report COMPLETED!!! 2 Brits, 2 weeks and 2 Tonnes of fun!!!

I’ve been lurking on the WDWmagic website for a while and have fell in love with all your trip reports. With a trip coming up soon me and the other half thought why not give it a go!!

So who will be in the report?
I’m Tasha (Natasha) and I’m a veterinarian from the UK and my family are Disney lovers for life. My parents are DVC members and this will be my 20th (I think??!!) visit to Disney world Florida :O

The other person you’ll mainly be seeing in this trip report is Adam. Adam is my fiancé who has caught the Disney bug also! This will be his 3rd visit to the world. Adam is a die-hard American football and New Orleans Saints fan (he says he bleeds black and gold if this means anything to anyone…). He is looking to expand his jersey collection of every NFL team and is welcome for suggestions on places to go to buy them.

This is the last holiday we go on before we become husband and wife after 11 years of being together (its about time… )! It’s also the first trip that we will have at disney world as a couple without other family members present through the whole trip. Both of us may write up parts of this report so I will be N and Adam will be A from now on.

When, Where and How long?
We will be staying in the Avanti resort on international drive for 15 nights from the 22nd September to the 7th October. We have stayed on Disney property many times previously but decided that we will use our hotel as a base this trip and save our pennies for experiences and the wedding next year. We also have a large family trip planned for the world in September 2019, staying in boardwalk villas so we’re happy to wait until then for our ‘on property’ experience.

Tickets
As we have two, two week trips planned within a year time frame we have bought annual passes for both Disney world and Universal. We love Halloween and have also purchased the frequent fear plus pass for Halloween horror nights (HHN). I think we will mostly spend our time in disney but we’re happy to be flexible and make the best of both locations!

Planning
We have been really torn this trip between allowing free time to relax and see what we fancy doing vs booking fast passes and ADR’s. The compromise has been to have fast passes planned for must do rides and parks and ‘relax days’ but we will ultimately let how we’re feeling guide the holiday. Staying off site has meant we have been unable to catch some of our most sought after fast passes e.g. slinky dog dash and FOP, but we keep checking the MDE app and are planning standby line if we need to (i really hope we dont!!). I should also mention that my mum and dad have a trip planned that overlaps ours by a couple of days at the end of the holiday so we’re planning to catch up with them as well.

 

[hanwill]

Thank you for writing a trip report. I am interested in how people tour differently than us! But really- you don't have ice cream cake??? How is the possible?

 

[Darstarr]

OP is from the UK, and flying from Manchester I assume he is a fellow 'Northerner' we call our evening meal our 'Tea' so our meals are breakfast, dinner & tea, however this is only a North thing Southerners would call their meals breakfast, lunch & dinner.

Thanks. Sometimes I feel so uncultured.

 

[KatieLVT]

Hello from one veterinarian to another! Glad to have you here! Can't wait to hear all about your trip!

And hello from a cardio vet tech!! Enjoying the trip report!

 

[mlegerto]

i looked behind me at one point and there was a guy sleeping on the floor with his head literally no further than 30cm from my butt! (Brave guy)

 

[LadyBelle]

sidenote: we found the 'lead actor' hilarious although not for the reason we were supposed to

I watched a vlog yesterday that showed some of this show and I am in agreement with you.

 

[Disneydreamer23]

Following!&

 

[Tashifer90]

Thank you for writing a trip report. I am interested in how people tour differently than us! But really- you don't have ice cream cake??? How is the possible?

That's what drew us to the forums in the first place! its so interesting to see how people can go to the same place yet have completely different holidays. A completely agrees with you, considering how cold it is usually in the UK he feels like we have the perfect climate for ice cream cake year round! The closest thing we have is something called an 'arctic roll' , however, its nothing like as good as most ice cream cakes...

pitiful....

 

[Tashifer90]

Thanks. Sometimes I feel so uncultured.

To be fair you could drive an hour from where we live and not have a clue what half the people are talking about! we british love to have different words for everything! dont get us started on what you call a dinner roll e.g. bun, bap, cob, cobbet..... picture below as an example!

 

[Tashifer90]

And hello from a cardio vet tech!! Enjoying the trip report!

Thanks Vet techs are similar to UK veterinary nurses is that right? Its always good to know us veterinary types have something other than animals to distract us and keep us busy!

 

[Tashifer90]

I watched a vlog yesterday that showed some of this show and I am in agreement with you.

I'm glad its not just us! we just found it so silly we couldnt help laughing along to whatever she said!

 

[DRD]

I'm enjoying the TR! Enjoy the Titans game over "there" this Sunday! Following along.

 

[Tashifer90]

today we were planning on having a quiet day as we had an early morning planned the next.. so what better than a full day in universal

we skipped breakfast as we thought we weren't particularly hungry when we first woke up. However, once we arrived at universal and had walked through to universal studios we were starving! After our terrible experience at richter burger we didn't relish the prospect of a quick service breakfast but on our way in the Beverly hills boulangerie caught our eye. We decided to try the breakfast croissants with bacon cheese and scrambled egg. The server at the cafe was a sweet little old lady who made us laugh and forced A to hand over his change so she could count it properly! She certainly made ordering interesting Sorry no photo of the croissants as we were too hungry but we thoroughly enjoyed them and the slice of cantaloupe melon that came as a side!

Feeling a bit more energised we had a look at the universal app for wait times and headed on over to diagon alley for gringotts with a 15 min wait time.

obligatory diagon alley selfie!

I think gringotts has to be one of my favorite rides in orlando full stop right now. For me its the perfect combo between thrills and theming. A says that from a mans perspective the ride would be fun if his seat wasn't trying to prevent him from ever having children!

We had a browse around the shops of diagon alley then headed out to try and beat our scores on MIB. they've started doing the 'pre show' again which i dont remember seeing for a couple of years (the one where they pretend your actually going on the 'universe and me' ride). I'm pretty sure our scores were less than perfect this ride around... we really need to get some tips on where the high scoring aliens are!

Our memories now 'wiped ' by agent J we headed over to the simpsons ride... now this is a ride that i used to enjoy but feel like its really starting to show some wear and tear. the whole way through the ride the screen had a dark blue hue and it was very hard to see any of the characters clearly. such a shame because we usually enjoy it!

As we were walking past the simpsons area we noticed that the 'animal actors' show was about to start. Myself and A have never watched it before so we thought why not and i can tell you... WE LOVED IT!!! being a veterinarian im obsessed with all furry creatures on a normal day but when they're being cute and showing off their skills its even better! the animals in the show were enjoying working with their trainers and it was a joy to see even when they're were being a bit naughty We felt the jokes were just the right combination between funny and corny and none of the action felt particularly stunted. I really hope they continue this show and I'm sad we didn't watch it sooner!

The day was burning onwards so we decided to get the hogwarts express over to hogsmead. We hadn't taken this particular route of the hogwarts express and i love that they have a different experience depending on which way you go.

We live approx 35mins drive from hull so it made us laugh that we could have 'nipped' over there on the train by 13:35. I wish the flight over was that short!

Once over in hogsmead we watched the acapella group for a little while and then headed onto the forbidden journey- another short wait approx 10-15mins i think...

we took a stroll around IOA and noticed that Kong had a 20 minute wait. I had been on this last year but A felt too queezy after a day on all the simulators and had sat it out. He really wanted to ride it this time so we got into the queue. Kong is an enjoyable ride but i don't think i would wait very long for it as a standby if i had the choice. A enjoyed his first time riding it.

We skipped most of the 'get soaked' rides of IOA as after feeling soggy in animal kingdom we really didn't fancy another day feeling the same way! Spiderman had a standby time of 5 mins so we couldn't resist popping in- it was a literal walk on. I don't know why but i never seem to get bored of this ride. its funny how some rides you can enjoy every year and others you don't mind if you miss a year or two.

By the time we'd wandered around the park we were starting to get hungry and the time for stay and scream was drawing near. we decided we would get some food, wait for stay and scream and then try and enjoy a few of the houses before having to head back to the hotel for an early night. I'd heard good things in other trip reports so decided to head over to bumblee mans taco truck and get the korean beef nachos.. mmm..... just thinking about them can make me hungry all over again!

We took our nachos into the lovely aircon of Moe's and A refilled our drinks whilst i got us a booth. There were plenty of nachos to share between the two of us and I feel like id be happy having this to myself as a main meal if i felt hungry enough.

We decided to stay in the area for stay and scream as after toasting ourselves for stranger things we felt like a bit of shade and a quieter waiting area might do us good. we we sat by the 7 duffs in the shade and rested our legs for around an hour... maybe a bit longer.

we were near the front of the holding area and we were one of the first that were allowed out. We were told that the early access houses would be Slaughter Sinema and the Horrors of Blumhouse. we headed straight into SS as although blumhouse has a few good scares i dont think it was as good as the other houses on offer. Again people were using there express passes when they were literally at the front of the queue with no wait?? They actually made the express pass people wait until the standby folks had walked up and down the queue length and let us all in together so we actually were in the house faster than some of the express line!

Once out of the house and suitably in the 'scary' mood we noticed on the universal app that Seeds of Extinction and Trick 'r' Treat were open so headed there. The wait time for Trick 'r' Treat was listed as 15 mins but there were next to no people around us when we first headed into the queue. There was one couple about 20m's ahead of us and it meant that we got to go into the house solo with no people ahead in the queue and no people behind this lead to our number one experience in a haunted house to date. Since we were the only people walking we got jumped at every single point in the house. With no one to lead us I went in front and immediately walked into a scare actor with a shotgun!... scared does not describe how i felt at that moment, A thinks it was hilarious

There was no one around so the TM in front of the house offered to take our photo before we walked in. We felt like VIP's in comparison to the usual busy walk through!

After the loooong walk back to the exit of the line Seed's of Extinction had a 15 min wait so we walked allll the way back. Not quite alone this walk through we had a few people ahead of us and no one behind for this house (still feeling pretty VIP at this point lol).

A loved the decoration on this bus for some reason and just 'had' to get a photo in the daylight. Seed's of extinction is pretty cool in the daylight actually. the sun allows the house to be light enough to see the costumes of the scare actors in a bit more detail but not so bright that you can see them before they jump out at you. We both got pretty wet going through the 'storm' area of the house.

TBC...

 

[Tashifer90]

Continued....
It was around 6.30pm at this point and we felt we could squeeze in one more house before calling it a day. Poltergeist was listed on the app as a 20 min wait so we thought we would try and get in before the queue was too long. BIG MISTAKE... by the time we had walked over the wait was now listed as 40 mins and judging by the people flooding into the entrance i feel like it was probably going to be longer. Feeling a little bit disappointed we decided to give it a miss and head back to get some food and an early night.

We decided to eat at Joe's crab shack on international drive after looking on trip advisor for decent seafood not too far from the hotel. Let me tell you, it did not disappoint!!! Ever since my trips to Florida as a little girl i have loves crabs legs especially the kind you guys get in america. English crab is lovely but much tougher to get into and not as widely available (seasonal unless you want it out of a tin... bleugh!). I ordered a literal bucket full of crab! A ordered the shrimp trio.

feeling my crab bib and the funny message our server put on it!

A's shrimp trio

Thrilled will my bucket of crab legs. they were soo tasty and the paprika sauce they were cooked in was divine!

After feeling like we'd eaten our weight in seafood we headed back to the hotel for an early night because......


TOMORROW WE WERE GOING TO SWIM WITH MANATEE's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Tashifer90]

I'm enjoying the TR! Enjoy the Titans game over "there" this Sunday! Following along.

Thank You! A has already got his own game day planned and is looking forward to watching an NFL game at a reasonable hour!

 

[jkl2000]

Hi, I've just started reading your trip report and I'm a little confused - I thought you were A and T and it was just you two going, so who is N? Sorry, just trying to get oriented!

 

[Tashifer90]

Hi, I've just started reading your trip report and I'm a little confused - I thought you were A and T and it was just you two going, so who is N? Sorry, just trying to get oriented!

Oops you’ve spotted a continuity issue there lol! My full name is Natasha and Tasha for short. A has obviously unconsciously swapped between the two will go back through when I get the chance and make sure they’re all the same. Hope it’s not been too confusing!

 

[KatieLVT]

Thanks Vet techs are similar to UK veterinary nurses is that right? Its always good to know us veterinary types have something other than animals to distract us and keep us busy!

Yes, vet techs are veterinary nurses. In fact, they are slowly changing the name here in the U.S. to Veterinary Nurses. I like the sound of nurse better anyway....half the people don't even know what a vet tech is. Sounds like a car mechanic or something! Haha!

 

[Longers]

What a great and fun TR - I’ve just sat in bed and read from the start to here.

My husband swam with Manatees quite a few years ago so will be interesting to see what you thought and what the experience is like now.

He loved it when he went.

Looking forward to more

 

[jkl2000]

Oops you’ve spotted a continuity issue there lol! My full name is Natasha and Tasha for short. A has obviously unconsciously swapped between the two will go back through when I get the chance and make sure they’re all the same. Hope it’s not been too confusing!

Oh, just change the post where you say you'll be T to say you'll be N. Much easier! I just thought someone else was involved for a bit.

 

[jkl2000]

I don't know anything about DVC, but if your parents are DVC members, you couldn't use their membership to stay on property? Maybe on of your parents would have had to be with you?